Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  It wouldn’t hurt for him to understand more about where her heart and soul lay. She was right in the center of a growing investigation and had been a Skinwalker target at least twice. The more he learned about her, the better his chances were of figuring out why.

  Reagan squirmed again, trying to move as far away from the heat of Kody’s body as possible. This truck ride had seemed interminable so far. Another few minutes of breathing in the musky scent of the big man sitting in the driver’s seat and the windows would be fogging up.

  Maybe if she talked more, she could forget about being stuck in this tiny truck cab with a man whose presence seemed to grow larger every minute.

  “Are you too warm?” he asked as he twisted the heater control dial.

  “A little.” He was feeling the heat, too, she thought with amazement. “I’ve always liked the cold better. I’m an air-conditioning freak. I’m known at work as the sneak who’s forever cranking it down to sixty-five.”

  She lowered her window a few inches and took a deep breath. “You’re right about me spending most of my time indoors. There’s a bunch of us at my lab who prefer odd hours. Sometimes we’ll get into something interesting and just keep working around the clock. But I find I think clearer from dusk to dawn.”

  “When do you sleep?”

  “I don’t seem to need much sleep,” she said with a shrug. “Three or four hours a night is about my limit. I’ll usually try for a nap in the middle of the day.”

  Not wanting to mention how strange it seemed, she did wonder why last night at his mother’s house she had fallen asleep a little after ten and slept clear through until six. It was the first uninterrupted eight hours’ sleep Reagan could ever remember having.

  “So you don’t like any outdoor activities at all?”

  “When I was in college I learned how to swing a golf club…just to please my mother’s uncle, who believed in using a country club for business purposes. Amazingly enough, every once in a while some of the big shot dudes at NASA will organize golf days with the staff. My boss once actually told me that golf could clear your head. Open your mind to bigger possibilities.

  “He didn’t know how I play the game,” she added with what she hoped was a sly smile.

  Reagan saw the corners of Kody’s mouth twitch. “And what’s different about the way you play?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to push the curls into submission and keep them off her face. “I deduct points from my score for not breaking into a sweat and for getting through the course with as little effort as possible.”

  “I see,” Kody said in a neutral tone. “And how do you do that?”

  “It’s all in the math. Nearly everything can be done easier and quicker using mathematical formulas.”

  When he’d first found out where she worked, he’d wondered if she was a math genius. Looked like she probably was, but he didn’t know yet whether that idea intimidated him or not.

  “Ever apply those formulas to moneymaking propositions?”

  “What? You mean like gambling?” She shook her head and rusty curls went flying. “Nope. I know people who do, but it’s not my thing.”

  But she’d known immediately what he was talking about. “Then what is your thing, Reagan?”

  “I’m not sure I actually have anything but work. Not in the way you mean, anyhow.” She dug in her jacket pocket and came up with what looked like a handheld PC.

  She held it out to show him, but Kody only gave it a cursory glance. “Tech stuff. Games. Music. Movies. Blogs. That’s what I do in my spare time,” she said.

  “Sounds like a rather solitary life.” And exactly what he had most dreaded in his own world. “Don’t you ever get out with people?”

  “Not so much. Just sometimes with the guys at work.”

  “What about your family?” He hesitated. “Except I guess for your father. You’ve already said you two weren’t close but you were trying to change that. What about the rest of your relatives?”

  He noticed it was Reagan’s turn to hesitate. “My mother is alive. Back in Boston. Then there’s her aunt and uncle. I talk to them on the phone every now and then. But none of us are close. I haven’t seen them in several years.”

  “It sounds lonely.” He could not imagine anyone wanting to cut himself off from human contact. In Navajo tradition, acting like you had no family or friends was the worst possible thing to do. Some even thought it bordered on criminal.

  “Yeah, well, we geeks prefer it that way.”

  “You don’t look like a geek.” He meant that sincerely, but the words surprised him when they popped out of his mouth. “In my opinion, you walk in beauty.”

  And if he could get as close to her as his body wanted, he would prove his point. Every part of her was obviously in balance.

  But he wasn’t going to do anything even remotely like that. Not when it might botch up the investigation.

  Reagan smiled. “Thanks. But it’s the glasses. I gave them up for laser surgery a couple of years ago.

  “I’m still a geek at heart,” she added. “Just ask anybody who knows me.”

  Kody decided not to argue about it. He was right on the verge of saying what he really thought about her. And that would not be smart.

  She folded her arms over her chest and stared out the window again. “You never got around to telling me about the singing. You were doing it when the crickets surrounded us, and I think I remember you doing something similar last night with the bees. What is that all about?”

  The Three Eagles Trading Post came into view as the truck rounded the last bend in the road. “I’ll tell you about it another time. We’ve got shopping to do.”

  That is, maybe he would tell her. If he decided that she could be trusted.

  5

  T he Wolf stood alone, inspecting his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’d done it.

  Using the powerful sexual tension he’d stolen from the air surrounding the white woman and her FBI half-breed, he’d found the secret. He had actually accomplished the feat he’d been dreaming of for years. He’d become the Navajo Wolf—in broad daylight.

  The system might need a little tweaking, and he needed to gather a bit more power in order to make it easier, but he now knew the answers.

  Smiling to himself in the mirror as he straightened the knot in his tie, the Wolf, once again in human form, laughed as he slipped into his Armani suit jacket. The discovery had been such a triumph that he barely cared whether the Snake could handle the Navajo FBI man, or for that matter, bring in the commander’s daughter.

  He had been practicing his own method of mind control. And though he hadn’t been able to get Commander Wilson to agree to defect yet, he’d managed to make headway with controlling the mind of the oil baron, Sheik Bashshar. Ha! What a joke these supposed terrorists had become. They had no idea of what real terror looked like.

  Shrugging, the Wolf figured if all else failed, he would simply control the sheik’s mind long enough to get him to wire funds into the Skinwalkers’ offshore bank account.

  The Skinwalkers might not even need the smart bilagáana daughter—or her difficult father. The two could just as easily become a couple of dead Anglos. A statistic. Nothing more.

  Like a lot of things on the reservation, the Three Eagles Trading Post was an uncomfortable mixture of old and new. Gasoline pumps had been put in a few years back, but the store still carried canned goods and clothes that looked as if they’d been sitting on the shelves for fifty years. Baskets, woven rugs and silver jewelry sat disjointedly alongside posters selling tickets for four-wheel drive Jeep tours and promoting throwaway cell phones.

  The trading post itself had been built by a English trader in the late eighteen hundreds and soon became a local center of commerce. Today, one of that man’s mixed Navajo descendants owned and ran the place.

  His name was Bahe Douglas, and Kody had always gotten along with the guy. He’d felt they had an invisible tie. Both of
them stood with one foot rooted in tradition and one foot running toward the white man’s version of the future. The People had a word for it: alni. One who walks the line between two cultures.

  “This place is fascinating,” Reagan whispered as they walked through the open doorway.

  Kody grasped her hand to keep her close until he could take stock of the customers in the store. And immediately wished he hadn’t. At first contact, a jolt ran through his palm, leaped along the skin on his arm and skidded to a landing at the base of his spine. Whoa.

  He heard Reagan gasp, so he lifted his gaze from their joined hands to her face. Catching her stunned expression, he guessed she’d felt the jolt, too.

  She broke the contact before he could, and stepped back. “What do you want me to do first?” she asked with a rasp.

  His mind filled with all kinds of inappropriate responses to her question. But he leaned closer without touching and whispered in her ear, “Just stay near and follow my lead. I want to check things out for a few minutes.”

  Reagan nodded, but she took two more steps away from him just the same.

  Kody turned his attention in another direction. He had obligations, dreams and needs, and he tried to tell himself that none of them included her.

  But apparently his body refused to accept the truth of their situation. Electric shocks of desire continued to echo through his extremities while he surreptitiously studied the rest of the people in the store.

  And when he saw the proprietor coming in their direction, Kody discovered suddenly that he had to wage a pitched battle within himself. A fight that would enable him to find enough balance to actually open his mouth and utter a sound.

  “Ya’at’eeh,” the Navajo behind the twenty-foot-long counter said as he came closer to where Kody and Reagan were standing.

  “Ya’at’eeh,” Kody replied politely.

  He had known the proprietor of Three Eagles Trading Post for the better part of his life. He thought back to their school days and remembered that Douglas had been only eight years his senior. Today, though, the man appeared to have aged twenty years since the last time Kody had been in the store.

  FBI training and traditional Navajo conditioning put Kody’s senses on alert. He shook off the lingering effects of Reagan’s touch and studied the older man as he took his outstretched hand in a Dine handshake that was a softer version of the white man’s.

  Douglas was a barrel-chested man with a round face and heavy bone structure. Typical of the Navajo-Pueblo Indian mixture prevalent on the reservation, Douglas was a half foot shorter than Kody, with a square jaw and thick eyebrows. He wore jeans and a plaid western shirt, with more jewelry than most modern men on the reservation would consider tasteful—a silver squash-blossom necklace, four or five silver-and-turquoise bracelets running up each arm and a silver concho belt buckle that must weigh half a pound. Everything was far too flashy.

  Hatless at the moment, the proprietor’s long hair seemed to have become more gray than black in the few weeks since Kody had last seen him. Douglas wore it pulled back in a braid.

  Kody didn’t want to stare, as that would be an extremely rude thing for any Navajo to do. But when he shook Douglas’s hand, he couldn’t help but notice his face had changed. Lines had appeared at the corners of his eyes and mouth that had not been visible a few months ago.

  Either the trading post owner had spent far too much time in the sun without a hat, or some kind of unusual stress had taken a terrible toll on him. Navajo skin did not sunburn, but could become dry and cracked with enough harsh sun or due to advanced age. This time of winter, Kody felt sure the sun could not be to blame.

  Douglas’s looks made Kody wonder if maybe the Skinwalkers had been stalking the locals on this part of the rez and he just hadn’t heard about it yet. He would have to tread with care when he questioned Douglas. If his old friend’s aged appearance was due to fear, it would be particularly difficult to get any information from him.

  The Skinwalkers knew all about trafficking in fear and terror. They were masters at it.

  Reagan hung back and let Kody’s broad chest partially shield her from view while he spoke softly in Navajo to the man behind the counter. Taking in as much of the interior of the trading post as possible from where she stood, she waited while her shaky body used the time to simmer down.

  The place was crammed with artsy things on every surface. The corners were dark and shadowy, but she could see paintings, baskets and leather jackets painted with Indian designs hanging on the walls. Along the main aisle were row after row of glass jewelry cases that made her think of other gift stores she’d visited. She would’ve liked to get a better look, but didn’t want to move until Kody said it was okay.

  Reagan wasn’t normally so cautious, but that last touch of his hand had been mind-bending. It had done things inside her that moved well beyond her experience. Something foreign had rolled right through her veins, making her hypersensitive and muddled. A strong rush of adrenaline would’ve done the same kind of thing, but there had been nothing to cause such a reaction.

  Confusion was not one of Reagan’s normal states. But when she’d calmed down enough to have a clear thought, it occurred to her that maybe her hormones had somehow spun out of control. Had she eaten something funny to cause that?

  Shifting from one foot to the other, she glanced around at the other customers in the store and was glad they hadn’t appeared to notice anything odd about her behavior.

  When she and Kody had first come inside, six sets of eyes had turned to see who had entered the trading post. Now the five other customers were quiet and probably listening to the conversation between Kody and the man behind the counter. None of them were looking in her direction.

  That gave her an opportunity to check them out a little more. The young couple standing near the cash register seemed like tourists. A bleached blonde, the girl wore a halter top and sunglasses despite the fifty-degree temperatures outside. Her husband, or perhaps her boyfriend, wore denim, like every man in the store. But he also had a neatly trimmed beard and bushy hair. He looked more Italian or Latin American than Native American.

  She shifted her gaze to the two Native American women who were rummaging through a pile of pants on a sale table. One wore a colorful, old-fashioned skirt that came down to her ankles and a bright blue ski jacket made out of waterproof and breathable materials. Reagan recognized the jacket from one of the online auction sites she frequented. It was brand-new and expensive.

  The other woman with her looked to be about fifty and wore frayed denim. She had a fleece cap pulled down over her head, covering her ears, with long, dark, tangled hair falling from underneath.

  One more customer stood off in a corner, looking at paintings. He was standing in a partial shadow with his back turned to her. But Reagan could see that he was several inches taller than her five-nine, and he looked even taller due to the black felt hat he wore.

  One fat braid hung down under the hat and flopped against a brown leather motorcycle jacket. The customer seemed lithe and wiry under the coat. Even from a distance, there was something about him that made her uneasy.

  “Reagan Wilson,” Kody said, recapturing her attention. He gestured toward the man behind the counter. “This is an old friend. The post’s owner, Bahe Douglas.”

  She shook the man’s hand over the wide counter.

  “He runs the place,” Kody continued. “But he’s short staffed at the moment.”

  “You go right on over and look at the boot display, young lady,” Mr. Douglas told her. “I’ll be there to pull your size as soon as I help these other customers.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Kody led the way through the stacks of merchandise. “Take your time looking through the different styles,” he whispered when they were out of the earshot of the others. “If anyone but Douglas comes over, you can start a casual conversation. But be careful what you say. I don’t think you should mention your father.”

&nb
sp; “What’s the matter? Why not?”

  When he shook his head, the movement was almost imperceptible. “Something feels wrong.”

  Reagan’s heart jumped into her throat. “What?”

  “Just keep cool and study the boots. Douglas will be over to help you when he’s free. In the meantime, I’ll try catching the latest gossip from the old women, and see if I can pinpoint where these unusual vibes are coming from.”

  “Unusual vibes?” she croaked in the loudest stage whisper imaginable. And earned herself a glare from Kody as a response. He turned and made a point of casually strolling away. What on earth had he meant by unusual vibes? Were there some kind of usual vibes? Reagan had been getting all kinds of strange sensations.

  Or…maybe that wasn’t exactly true. Every time Kody came within two feet of where she stood, her body started to hum. Was that what he’d felt, too?

  By the time she turned around to look at the selection of ladies’ boots, Reagan was shaking her head. It was bad enough that she was a total nerd when it came to relationships with real live people. Her element was the Internet. That’s where she was comfortable.

  So what was she doing here on the Navajo reservation, seeking information from strangers that made her too nervous to think? And worse, why was she taking orders from a virile, handsome FBI agent who gave her the shakes whenever he came close?

  Talk about being out of your element. She couldn’t think of one single thing that had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours that could be classified as normal.

  Unusual, he’d said. Ha! Try freaking weird, crazy, mixed up and totally from another planet.

  Reagan took a deep breath and reminded herself that she’d come to find her father. The longer she went without hearing anything from him, the more she was convinced that something terrible had happened.

  So whatever she did or didn’t feel shouldn’t matter. She would stay. Stay on the reservation, and stay glued to Kody until they found her dad.

  “Those boots without a heel would be best for walking in this part of the country.”