Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  Tory understood that a big part of what made a good doctor-patient relationship was respect and she decided not to push it. She’d worked long and hard to earn respect, and hoped to see it in patients’ eyes when they looked to her as their physician. She had no intention of deliberately setting herself up to be treated badly.

  Not even to help out the man in a hospital gown sitting next to her—who was right now giving off enough heat to buckle her knees and make her forget her oaths.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll split the difference with you. Twelve more hours. I’ll come in before supper tonight and check on you. If you can stand by yourself then, I’ll sign your release papers. I’ll even drive you home.”

  He grunted, and opened both eyes in order to argue.

  But Tory cut him off at the pass. “No arguments. That is my final offer. Take it or take it.”

  Ben sat for a moment, considering. “Are you off now? Will you go home and rest before you come back?” She looked exhausted and he knew that would be his chance for escape.

  She nodded. “Yes, the day shift has come in. I’ll go home in a few minutes. But you don’t have any room to negotiate. And don’t think you can sneak around me. It’s a done deal.”

  Ben steadied himself and refused to say what he was thinking. If he felt well enough, he could check himself out of here any time. He didn’t necessarily need to wait for her to come back.

  “Fine,” she said as she rose to her knees. “Now…”

  The door opened and Officer Hunter Long of the Navajo Tribal Police stuck his head inside the room. His eyebrows rose when he spotted both patient and doctor on the hard floor. But Ben noticed he made no mention of their compromising positions.

  Even though he was born half Anglo, Hunter had been raised in a traditional Dine home. And Ben knew it would’ve been rude for any traditional Navajo to acknowledge a social mistake or embarrassment.

  “May I come in, Dr. Sommer?” Hunter asked.

  “Yes, please, Officer Long. I could use your help.”

  Hunter came through the door and squatted beside Ben. “Ya’at’eeh,” he said in greeting.

  “Atsili,” Ben mumbled as an answer. “Now help me up off this damn floor.”

  Though Ben caught the laugh hiding in his twinkling blue eyes, Hunter managed to keep the smile to himself. But in two very clever moves, Hunter levered the dizzy patient back into his hospital bed. Ben gave him a grateful grunt.

  “Thank you, Officer,” Tory said. “I was afraid we might need to rent a crane to make that maneuver.”

  “Go home, Doctor,” Ben groaned from his bed. “You’ve been hovering over me for hours. Get some sleep.”

  She turned and fisted her hands on her hips. “You think I don’t know what you’re planning? Wrong.” Leaning over, she straightened and fluffed his pillow. “You are under strict doctor’s orders to stay put until I say so. I’m issuing a formal request to the tribal police right this minute. You are in no condition to drive and should be arrested if caught out on the roads today or tomorrow.”

  Okay, so he wouldn’t drive. He would have to give that up soon anyway, for entirely different reasons. No problem.

  “And,” Tory went on, “I have already hidden your clothes. Anyone who brings you a change of clothing today will not be admitted to the clinic.

  “I am going to get some sleep, Dr. Wauneka,” she continued smugly. “I strongly suggest you do the same. We will revisit our arrangement before supper this evening.”

  Tory spun around on the slick linoleum floor, nodded at Hunter and stalked out of the door.

  “Whew,” Hunter murmured in Navajo a moment later. “That’s some bilagáana woman you have there.”

  “She’s not my white woman,” Ben said with a rasp.

  “Too bad. Nice legs.”

  “Can we not talk about Dr. Sommer now? Aren’t we both still committed to the oath of the Brotherhood that demands each of us stay celibate in order to remain focused in our fight with the Skinwalkers?”

  “My older brother has already made that oath obsolete,” Hunter reminded him. “Kody is married now and yet he continues the work of the Brotherhood. What is good for one may be good for all.”

  Ben fussed and shifted in bed. “I disagree. Kody Long can be unconcerned about the possible consequences of having a weak link, but I’m not. I wouldn’t like to someday wake up and find that my loved ones have been kidnapped or hypnotized in an effort to get to me.”

  Hunter put a hand on his shoulder. “All of us already have family we love in Dinetah, cousin. We fight the evil ones so that our families and clans will be safe. Not so we can avoid relationships.”

  Ben thought back to the original pact the men of the Brotherhood had made. In tales and legends, the ancient Navajo warriors were said to have remained celibate and neither ate nor drank before a raiding party. In Ben’s mind, returning to tradition in every way was the only thing that could completely destroy the Skinwalkers and save the Dine from this terror.

  But he didn’t think Hunter would be up for a lecture at the moment. Waiting for a time when his head cleared sounded better, too. “Well, we should at least avoid the subject of Dr. Sommer for now. We don’t even know if she’s married or not.”

  “Not.”

  “You checked on her?”

  Hunter shrugged. “I have a need to know the people I am expected to protect. In this war, there is no easy way of recognizing a foe before it is too late. So we must quickly be able to judge who is a friend.”

  Ben clucked his tongue. “There’s over a hundred and fifty thousand Navajos living on the reservation…not to mention whites, Hopis and Mexican Americans who live in Navajoland, too,” he reminded his cousin. “Do you intend to know them all?”

  A smile came over the policeman’s face. “No. Just the pretty ones.

  “Dr. Sommer is exactly as she appears to be,” Hunter continued more soberly. “She lives alone in a house owned by the clinic over on Bluebird Ridge. She’s completed three months toward her three-year repayment duty to National Health Service. She has few friends here. No dates.”

  That was too much information about a woman who should not interest him, Ben thought. “Can we talk about what happened last night?”

  “I thought perhaps you would rather avoid the subject of what put you in this hospital bed,” Hunter suggested. Then he shook his head and lowered his voice. “You’re supposed to be the heart and the spirit of the Brotherhood, not the muscle. Yet here you are with an injury.”

  “It’s the muscle between my ears that is to blame,” Ben admitted with chagrin. He had no intention of mentioning that he’d been distracted by the beautiful blond doctor. Especially now that he’d made such a big deal about not talking about her.

  “Why were you at the wrestling match last night?”

  “I’ve been giving checkups and sports medicine advice to the Owl Springs School team,” he began. “One of the teens is the grandson of one of my patients. A few days ago he came to me and confided he’d heard a rumor that the Raven Wash team members have secretly been taking steroids. The Owl Springs boys were considering doing the same thing. They need a level playing field in sports. There are scholarships on the line, but only for winners.”

  “So you went to check out the Raven Wash team for steroid use?” Hunter questioned.

  Ben nodded. “I never imagined that high school sports teams would have anything to do with our war. In helping them, I just wanted to do something for a change that would feel normal.

  “We’ve worked so hard, trying to keep the evil ones’ existence a secret from most of the Dine,” Ben continued. “Sometimes I can even fool myself into thinking that a huge part of our world is still free from the evil.”

  Ben silently admitted to himself that such thinking was foolhardy. Just like his dream of leading a return to traditionalism was probably nothing more than a flight of fancy. In his opinion, though, going back to the old culture and original re
ligious practices would be the only solid ways of beating the current threat.

  “I know there are rumors circulating of Skinwalkers,” Ben went on. “All around Navajoland. But I never expected to find…”

  “What?”

  “The boy that attacked me last night,” he answered with a question of his own. “What happened to him?”

  Hunter stuck his thumbs in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I had to use the Taser to subdue him. But when I went to cuff him, he’d stopped breathing. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene, but seemed positive it wasn’t the stun gun that caused it. The FBI gets involved with all unnatural deaths on a federal reservation, of course. And they insisted on a full investigation and autopsy.”

  “Not your brother, the FBI agent, I take it?”

  “No, not Kody. It was Special Agent Teal Benaly. She’s new in the Gallup office.”

  “What did the family of the one who died have to say about an autopsy?” Respecting Navajo taboo, Ben did not ask or mention the name of the deceased.

  “His family lives way back up in Big Sky Canyon with no phones or electricity. Supposed to be Yellow House People. But when an agent went up there to talk to them, the place was deserted. Neighbors hadn’t seen them in weeks.”

  “Have you been suspended from the NTP?” Ben asked in a small change of subject.

  Hunter nodded. “With pay. Pending the FBI investigation.”

  “There are things about the one who died that the FBI will not understand,” Ben volunteered. “But I’ll be interested in the autopsy results because I don’t think he was on steroids or drugs of any kind.”

  “I’m sure the FBI will want to interview you,” Hunter warned. “What are you going to tell them?”

  “Not the truth.” Lies were acceptable in traditional Navajo culture if they did no harm. White lies, the white man called them. Good name.

  “What really happened, my cousin?”

  “As he came at me, I looked that teen straight in the eyes, trying to throw him off balance.” Ben didn’t much like making that admission, but this was war. “I find it hard to believe he died of either drugs or Taser.”

  “Why?”

  “There was Skinwalker evil lurking deep in those eyes. The enemy apparently has recruited a teenager to their side. Or…maybe they have found a way to turn themselves into other humans.”

  The ramifications of either possibility made Ben’s skin crawl. It was horrible enough that Skinwalkers could turn themselves into animals with supercharged powers and had been practicing mind control. But if they could also change their images into whatever or whomever they chose…

  “We need to notify the Brotherhood,” Hunter said without hesitation. He turned and strode out of the room.

  Ben closed his eyes and tried to rest. The Brotherhood needed a new plan. And he would give it some more thought.

  Just as soon as his head stopped pounding—and just as soon as he stopped seeing soft, blue-gray eyes every time he closed his eyes.

  3

  A h. Her own quiet hideaway.

  Tory had that same remarkable thought every time she unlocked her front door and stepped into the blessed peace of the rental house she had converted to her own special space.

  She should be thinking of how to find the time to run errands. Her refrigerator contents were looking pretty lame. The tribal post-office employees had been begging her to come pick up her mail. And in another day or two, her dirty laundry pile would grow too big to fit into her car’s trunk.

  Tomorrow. All those domestic chores would wait another day. Right now she needed to take a bath, close the heavy blackout drapes and catch up on all the sleep she’d lost in the past twenty-four hours.

  But the lure of the backyard drew her, the way it always did whenever she came home. Tory moved across the shiny hardwood floors of the one big room that made up her living room, dining room and kitchen.

  She didn’t stop to focus on the good mood that always settled over her in this space. Passing right by the cozy suede furniture, the fantastic built-in bookcase that covered one whole wall and the wonderful handwoven Navajo area rugs under her feet, Tory let the warm sensations soak right in. She felt tired but content as the sunny yellow paint that the hardware store clerk had called Anasazi Ochre soothed her.

  Throwing her keys and purse on the kitchen counter, she undid the locks and opened the sliding glass door that led to the ten-by-ten cedar deck. She drew a breath of the crisp spring air into her lungs and decided the exhilarating oxygen on the rez must be addictive.

  As usual, her gaze went straight to the top of the sandstone cliff that was her nearest backdoor neighbor. Tory loved her isolated yard and relished the small garden plot she’d set out for herself. But the towering red-and-gray spires of sandstone that the maps named Bluebird Ridge filled her with awe no matter how many times she saw them.

  Whistling winds, the friendly springtime winds her neighbors had mentioned, skated merrily down the sides of the cliff and wafted across the yard, crooning their happy tune. Tilting her head, she listened and smiled.

  Never once in her previous life had she stopped to notice the music in the sounds of life around her. Background noise had simply been there, in the bustling sounds of the city and the strained sounds of a houseful of kids or the halls of a busy hospital. But it had stayed just outside her consciousness.

  Since moving to the reservation, she’d discovered her body liked the quiet of a natural setting. She sat down on the bottom step of the deck to let her mind rest while she checked out her planting beds.

  Were those almost visible green tips, sprouting through the soil, the flowers she’d put into the ground? According to the seed salesman, it had been much too late to plant bulbs by the time she’d settled into the house after the first of the year. But she’d set out tiny prestarted plants for an herb garden and had poked wildflower and marigold seeds into the soil just a couple of weeks ago.

  “Hello, friends,” she said to the new baby plants. “I hope you like it here in my garden.”

  It seemed natural to speak to these growing things. But was she ever glad no one else was nearby to hear the one-sided discussion.

  Her smile grew wider as she thought about her family and circle of friends back in Southside Chicago. None of them would’ve imagined Tory Sommer could possess a green thumb. But she’d discovered her own surprising love of the outdoors shortly after arriving in this very different part of the world. It seemed odd, the way the natural world had so suddenly become her sanctuary and her best friend.

  She’d been born and raised in a tiny tenement apartment, and that was where she’d thought she belonged. Becoming a waitress or a factory worker like her mother wasn’t something she would have to decide. It was what she’d been born to do, and green things were nowhere near her life.

  Then she’d discovered medicine and from that moment on, she’d been positive that it would be her one true place in the world. It had been the only thing that called her name and had become the basic makeup of her being.

  Unwinding the hose, she wondered if her newfound love of the outdoors would now compete with medicine for her attention and time. Turning a refreshing splash of well water on her incubating garden, Tory smiled at the thought of mixing healing with gardening. The two things did seem compatible.

  A second later another thought intruded, and she stopped picturing the way the spring garden would look with blooming flowers of every pastel hue. Instead of dreaming about gardens or healing children the way she’d done during many years of medical training, her thoughts turned to remembering a sensual look in a pair of penetrating eyes.

  Eyes that belonged to Dr. Ben Wauneka.

  His gaze probably made female patients swoon.

  When she’d first seen him, his dark eyes had made her think of a clear midnight sky. It was as if her great new love of the outdoors had settled on his face and had seemingly spread out across his features for her exclusive enjo
yment.

  She would’ve had to be asleep or dead not to notice.

  But had she noticed too much? It certainly had been a stronger reaction than she’d ever experienced with her ex-husband.

  Tory had been far too occupied with finishing her residency to consider what had gone wrong between her and Mike. But three years had passed, and she barely remembered why she’d thought the two of them had ever belonged together in the first place. Mike, always the salesman, had simply swept her away, she supposed.

  He’d been a slick up-and-coming stockbroker. She would be willing to bet that he’d just wanted a smart doctor wife to prove something to his clients. Or maybe to himself.

  They had been mismatched from the start. She never cared much about money, and couldn’t seem to get it in her head that Mike’s every move was ignited by greed.

  When it was over between them, she hadn’t lifted a finger to stop the no-fault divorce. Forcing money issues and settlements would’ve only dragged it out. But at the time she had wondered if losing him shouldn’t have hurt more.

  With a shrug of dismissal, she’d simply gone right back to work. Medicine interested her. Mike…not so much.

  The thoughts she’d been having about getting closer to the sexy Native American doctor were also totally out of line. Talk about two people being mismatched.

  The only possible connection the two of them could have in common was medicine. But if April had been right about Ben’s secondary practice as a native medicine man, then they were a million miles apart on that subject, too.

  Sighing, Tory bent to pluck something that looked like a weed, hoping to recognize one when she saw it.

  Perhaps her body had also not recognized the truth when she’d first seen Ben. Lust seemed a surprising sin for her to have all of a sudden.

  Nothing was familiar about it. In fact, everything in her new world seemed slightly off-kilter.

  Looking down at the puddles around her baby plants, the only thing Tory felt sure of was that from now on, wherever she went, she would have to have a garden.

  Not far away, the Raven and the Navajo Wolf stood sheltered in the shade of a clump of cottonwoods, watching as Tory rewound her hose and went inside. The day’s shadows began to shrink around them as the sun moved higher in the sky.