Reagan found she had no choice but to ask the burning questions. She had to open the subject, even if the answers were going to hurt. There didn’t seem to be any way around it.
“What does Kody have to say about all this? Will he mind working with me?”
“Kody won’t mind a bit.” The deep voice coming from behind her surprised her, but she would’ve known it anywhere. “And he has quite a lot to say about all this.”
“Kody?” She swung around in her seat. Wanting with all her heart to get up and go to him, she wasn’t sure her shaky legs would take her that far.
Fortunately, he walked to her side, watching her closely as he held out his hand. “Will you excuse us, my mothers?” he asked the older women without glancing over at them. “Can I have a few words with you…alone, Red?”
His face was a mask. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking or what he wanted to say. This was exactly the kind of thing she hated the most about not being able to understand other people.
If only he was just another mathematical equation…
She managed a nod and let him draw her out of her chair and outside to his uncle’s patio. For winter, the day was sweltering, with insects buzzing and power lawn mowers grinding away in the distance. But Reagan barely noticed a thing save that he still had hold of her hand.
“Have you figured out what’s really going on yet, love?” he asked while pulling a lawn chair around.
His eyes seemed to be brimming with an emotion she couldn’t recognize. And she was suddenly reminded of just how gorgeous he really was. Of how much she loved the way his mouth quirked up at the sides whenever he looked at her that way.
Had he asked her something? “Uh…what?”
He smiled and she felt it all the way down in her toes. Falling backward into the chair, she watched as he drew another chair up beside her.
“It took me until a couple of hours ago to really get the idea myself.” He picked up her hand and held it as though she might disappear if he didn’t grasp it tightly. “I thought it had to do with loneliness.”
“Huh?”
“You know,” he said, and waved his free hand between them. “You…me…us. I thought we were two lonely people who’d found each other. I thought we were both misfits who needed each other because we didn’t have anyone else. And I figured being alone was the reason I’ve been so irritable and useless without you.”
She blinked a couple of times. He was irritable? Him?
He chuckled. “Yeah. Hard to believe, huh?” Rolling his eyes, he continued, “Finally I got so down and depressed that the Brotherhood had to intercede.”
He quickly added, when she twisted up her mouth, “They do need your help. Don’t imagine that was a scam just to get you back to Dinetah for my sake. But I should’ve seen it for myself. I should’ve been the one who thought to—”
“Wait a sec,” she interrupted, tugging at her hand. “The Brotherhood had to make you decide you needed me? You suddenly recognized my worth because they interceded on my behalf? I’m not sure I want to hear that.”
He actually grinned as he tightened his grip again. “Typical. I’m not getting the words right. But don’t you see? That’s exactly why I thought we needed to be together. You aren’t the best orator in the bunch, either.”
With that, she managed to jerk her hand away. Folding her arms over her chest, she glared at him.
“Damn. You are so adorable. I can’t…” Kody stood and pulled her to her feet.
Gathering her in his arms, he kissed her. Kissed her as though he might not survive another minute if he didn’t. His familiar masculine scent brought her home. Back safely to the refuge she had so missed.
She almost believed. And almost cried because she so badly wanted to believe.
Kody drew his head back just far enough to gaze into her eyes. But he didn’t release her, even though she squirmed and tried to escape his embrace.
Everything was too sharp for her to stand it. And too edgy. Teetering on a precipice of potential agony.
“It isn’t a question of what the Brotherhood needs,” he said while brushing aside a curl from her cheek. “Or even of saving the Dine. And it’s especially not about two lonely people needing each other.”
Holding her breath, she wondered if she could bear hearing what he had to say. It was too intense.
“I finally realized it’s not just about sharing another person’s burdens, but about letting them take some of your own burdens. I was willing to help you with coming face-to-face with your father and with fighting the Skinwalkers, but I wasn’t ready to share any of my problems with you in return.
“Now I am, Red,” he said with a wide smile. “I’ve gotten it through my thick skull that life’s problems grow easier when they’re shared. You didn’t face the snake Skinwalker all by yourself, and neither did I. We beat him together. That’s what family and clans do for each other.
“Will you come back and help me face the rest of our life’s burdens?” he finally asked.
“Why?”
His laugh this time was full of delight and joy. “Trust a genius to break it down to the lowest denominator. Good question.
“And the answer is, Reagan Wilson, because I love you.”
His eyes were luminescent and grew damp as he waited for her to say something. But her own tears were on the verge of choking the words right out of her throat.
He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Come home with me, my darling genius. Our home. Together we’ll make our own place in the world and keep it safe from evil.
“Make a family with me,” he added with a sigh. “Because you love me, too, and want to share your life.”
The tears streamed down her face. Tears of happiness. Tears that would become a loving trail, taking them straight to their future.
“Yes,” she managed to answer through her tears.
The blessed tears of finally knowing right where she belonged.
Epilogue
O ff in an isolated corner of Dinetah, a well-dressed man eased back from his bank of computers. The sheik’s money had been safely transferred and would be invested in brand-new technology, used to bring more Navajo converts to the dark side.
Rubbing his hands together, the Navajo Wolf tried to keep his body temperature close to the normal level. A tiny niggle of worry about the many changes going on in his human form sneaked into his mind. But he pushed it back out.
The ancient ones would not have left the secret parchments with instructions for overtaking the world by using Skinwalker methods had there been any danger of being killed by following their guidelines. All the Wolf needed now was to translate a few more pages. Pages he was sure must contain further secrets for staying healthy while continuing to change over to the evil side on a daily basis.
He never gave a single thought to the Brotherhood. Or to the half-breed and the Anglo woman who were about to join forces to find and capture him.
The Snake had lost the last battle. But the Wolf would win the war.
Darkness had begun creeping over the world in the form of terrorism and mass destruction. But the Wolf delighted in the fact that it was only a beginning to the skirmishes that must be fought in the final war between evil and good.
Such had been ordained by the ancient ones. And the Navajo Wolf was the one who would make it happen.
SIM 1418 Shadow Watch (05-2006)
Summary
Dr. Victoria Summer works on a Navajo reservation to pay off her student loans for medical school. When a young man collapses at a high school wrestling tournament she comes face to face with sexy Navajo medicine man Ben Wauneka and enters a world unlike any she's ever known before.
ISBN 1-55254-603-9
SHADOW WATCH
Copyright © 2006 by Linda Lucas Sankpill
With my greatest thanks to Catherine E. Budd, MSN, APRN, BC, ARNP who generously agreed to take the time to read through this manuscript when she is one of the busiest people I
know. Your dedication and professionalism inspire me, Cathy, and I give you my humble thanks for all your support! Any mistakes or author creative liberties remaining are strictly my own.
1
“T hat Raven Wash kid must be drunk,” someone in the crowd yelled. “He’s acting crazy. Watch out!”
Dr. Victoria Sommer jumped to her feet but couldn’t see a thing over the two old men with the tall black felt hats who were standing in the row below hers. They were doing the same thing she was—the same thing everyone in the auditorium was doing—trying to see to the gym floor below.
Confused by the sudden chaos, Tory shoved her way into the aisle, hoping to see what was going on. She’d been living and working on the Navajo Big Reservation for only three months, but already a few truths about her patients and colleagues had become perfectly clear.
She’d learned that traditional Navajos were conditioned to take all things in moderation—making them the most patient, the most quiet and sometimes the most infuriatingly late people she had ever encountered.
Save for a few medical emergency exceptions, no one rushed and no one shouted. So when a long-haired younger man knocked into her shoulder as he dashed down the aisle and disappeared into the disturbed crowd, Tory was shocked.
First shouting and now running? Something was very wrong.
Thinking this sudden excitement might be one of those rare medical exceptions, Tory decided she had better see for herself if this was a situation where a doctor could be of help. She wove her way through milling spectators, excusing herself as she headed down the bleacher steps toward the high school’s gym floor.
Only a few moments ago the Raven Wash senior wrestling team had been about to win their quarterfinal match against the Owl Springs Boarding School team. Then something had stopped the meet.
She picked up speed as the skin on the back of her neck began to prickle, giving her goose bumps and a case of the jitters. Whatever this was had to be way out of the ordinary, and quite possibly dangerous, as well.
The real reason she’d come tonight was that there were no team doctors available for most of the high schools on the reservation. Tory had thought she would check it out, and then maybe find a way to organize a volunteer group from her clinic to fill in the gaps.
It was a rather presumptuous idea for a non-Navajo newcomer, but she’d decided to give it a shot anyway. In her professional opinion, medical practitioners and the proper medical equipment needed to be standing by at all sports meets, regardless of how far out in a poor rural area they might be.
The wrestlers at tonight’s meet seemed fit enough for competition, but she hadn’t spotted any safety measures or special equipment. There should have been a portable defib machine and precautionary oxygen.
Another surge of foreboding tingled its way down to her gut. Dr. Hardeen, the chief of medical staff and founder of the Raven Wash Clinic, would not be happy if he knew she’d even attended tonight’s match. When she’d first arrived to fulfill her obligation to the National Health Service, he’d warned her in the strongest terms that it was dangerous to travel alone on the reservation at night. But the high school gym was located less than a mile from the house she was renting, and she hadn’t thought there would be any trouble.
Tory reached the gym floor just as a human ring began forming along the outer edges of the wrestling mat. As she pushed through the crowd, she saw a ranting Raven Wash senior wrestler pacing around the regulation twenty-eight-foot-diameter mat, while his opponent lay sprawled and unmoving in the middle. The crowd was keeping a discreet and quiet distance from the two teens.
The circling wrestler shouted something in Navajo and shook his fists in the direction of several other athletes. As far away from the disturbed kid as Tory was, it didn’t take a medical degree to guess that he was high on some kind of drug. She’d seen this same violent reaction plenty of times when she’d done her E.R. rotation at Cook County Hospital.
Alcohol seemed unlikely in this case, despite what had been shouted out earlier. Liquor was outlawed on the reservation, and of course, none was allowed in the gym. This particular young man had been alert and wrestling according to the rules just moments ago, so a hallucinogenic was more likely the cause.
“What’s he saying?” she asked the gray-haired woman standing on her right.
Dressed in a long-sleeved magenta blouse and a floor-length, multicolored skirt, the woman turned a sharp eye in her direction but said nothing. Tory wondered if the lady spoke any English. Another thing she’d learned since first coming to the clinic was that most people on the reservation spoke some English, but many of the elder Navajos refused to do so.
“He says he has a knife,” said a male voice on her left.
Tory turned and came face to bicep with the same long-haired man who had knocked into her in the aisle. She recognized his black long-sleeved shirt and the twin bands of silver and turquoise on his wrists.
“Do you think he does?” she asked as she raised her chin to study the tall man’s hawklike profile.
As far as she’d seen, the aggressive teenager who was making all the trouble couldn’t possibly have a weapon on him. Not secreted in his skintight uniform, and obviously not in his empty, waving fists.
The man to her left answered the question by shaking his head, causing the ends of his long, loose hair to sway and spread across his shoulders. But he kept his eyes trained ahead on the disturbing scene.
“Not likely,” he said in a low murmur. “But that doesn’t mean the kid won’t be dangerous. He’s incoherent. And so far he’s broken at least one bone in his opponent’s leg with his bare hands.”
That got Tory’s attention. She stood up on her tiptoes and peered around the woman beside her. When the crowd shifted, she got her first clear view of the whole scene and the prone body of the other wrestler. He lay facedown and still, but one of his legs was turned askew in a most unnatural position. She’d bet even money that more than two bones were fractured in that leg.
Tory needed to get a better look. “Why doesn’t someone do something?” she asked of no one in particular. “We need to get to the injured boy. I’m a doctor. I can help.” She took an unthinking step toward both teens.
A hand snaked out and gripped her by the arm, keeping her firmly in place. “I am also a doctor,” the same stranger to her left told her in a stilted but firm voice. “But it won’t help if a bystander comes to harm while trying to intervene. The tribal police have been notified and will bring the paramedics. Wait.”
“But…” She swung left, glaring up into the man’s face—and immediately forgot how to talk.
It wasn’t his obviously splendid physique, though it did seem perfect at a little over six feet with broad shoulders and muscles in all the right places. It wasn’t his chiseled cinnamon features, either, though the strong chin and prominent cheekbones were masculinity personified in Tory’s opinion.
And it wasn’t even the startling and penetrating deep brown eyes that at the moment were staring into hers. It was none of those things and all of them put together that had rendered her speechless.
With implicit strength and a megawatt sensuality that probably knocked most women off their feet, the guy was not at all what Tory had expected. Her body’s heightened awareness at the sight of him was also confusing.
Her palms were suddenly damp, and her brain turned to mush. She felt electrified and itchy, quite unlike anything in her experience. Which was ridiculous.
She’d grown up with four brothers. She’d been married and divorced. She’d gone to med school and interned in classes made up of fifty percent males. Nearly all her professors had been men.
She was thirty-three years old and a physician, for pity’s sake. Tory simply did not grow weak and trembling at the mere sight of an…admittedly…virile man.
Just then she experienced an adrenaline rush that came hard and fast and right on the heels of the more erotic hormones already racing through her veins. She had to
move. Get away. Do something.
Twisting her whole body with a sudden, jerky movement that she’d learned in martial arts class, Tory broke free of the good-looking guy’s grip and stumbled onto the wrestling mat. A collective gasp ran through the crowd. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next. Everyone including the bug-eyed high school senior, who stopped screaming and stood perfectly still. He stared menacingly at the strange white woman.
“It’s okay,” Tory told the agitated athlete in her most soothing voice. “Really. I’m a doctor.” She reached out toward the drugged kid with both hands, trying a quietly pleading gesture. “Please. Let me help.”
The young man took a hesitant step back. Tory figured he must be shocked by her incomprehensible movements. She was slightly taken aback by them herself.
But she couldn’t afford to be afraid. Now that she was this close, she could hear the moans of the athlete who lay facedown on the mat. He was alive, but she had to stop him from trying to move.
Focusing on the semiconscious kid and trying to assess the extent of his injuries, Tory disregarded her own safety and turned her back on the crazed wrestler. With no thought to the consequences, she knelt down on the mat beside the downed teen and began checking his pupils and respiration.
Dr. Ben Wauneka didn’t stop to think. If he had, he would’ve done a lot of things differently.
But he’d been having a major problem with his reactions to the spectacular blond stranger who’d claimed to be a doctor. He’d been doing just fine, right up until the moment she’d turned those soft, blue-gray eyes in his direction. Then all his thoughts had centered on them and on the full lips located tantalizingly below that perky little turned-up nose.
Books by Linda Conrad Page 35
