Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  Another flash and she remembered the danger. Something had been chasing them up the side of that mountain. Snarling fangs, yellow eyes. A big dog or maybe a wolf.

  She remembered an echo of fear. But the safety and protection she’d felt in Ben’s arms blocked everything else as he’d bent to sear a kiss across her lips.

  Whew, boy. She needed to get a grip on her emotions here. Ben was no noble savage, and it was not likely they would be chased up any cliffs.

  He was a dedicated physician who could be facing total blindness. And, by the way, she was no wilting heroine who needed rescuing, either.

  Shaking her head to disperse the last remnants of the dream, Tory took a step and straightened her spine. Right now she had to breathe in reality, put aside the nagging lust created by the dream and move into the morning light to stand beside him.

  Ben had heard Tory open the door behind him. But he didn’t want to turn until he had finished the last part of his morning ritual prayers.

  It was probably time for them to have a conversation about medicine men and Navajo traditionalism. Might be a long discussion. At least he hoped she would stick around long enough to hear him through.

  “What was that blue feathery substance you were throwing into the wind?” Her low, smooth voice was softer than ever this morning.

  He turned to answer, but she wasn’t looking at him. Instead, Tory stared out at the view across his beloved Dinetah valleys and canyons. Under the Navajo blanket that was covering her hair, her face glowed with the rosy yellow rays of the rising sun. Radiating with health and with goodwill written right into her expression, she was the most beautiful vision he had ever beheld—except for the one that lay several thousand feet below her.

  Waiting a second for his heart to start up again, Ben tried to think of a way to get around to everything he wanted to tell her.

  “Uh…I was saying traditional morning prayers. And I was spreading blue pollen…from wild larkspur. It’s sacred to the Dine. Used by medicine men in many of our ceremonies.”

  “Oh? So being a medicine man is more of a religious calling than it is being a healer?”

  He knew what she was asking and the answer she was hoping to hear. She was having trouble reconciling her Anglo medical training with traditional Navajo beliefs. Every time she looked at him, he knew she was wondering how he could possibly take part in superstitious and probably savage healing ceremonies when he also had a medical degree.

  Well, it wasn’t quite as simple as if he’d been an Anglo part-time Christian minister and full-time pediatrician. But he wanted to explain as much as he could. He knew she needed to understand.

  She had said she wanted to be able to treat her patients here on the rez with the respect of knowing their traditions. He just hoped he would be able to bridge the wide gap in knowledge between them well enough to give her a glimmer of the truth.

  “Walk with me for a few minutes,” he said instead of giving her an immediate answer. “There’s some things I want to show you.”

  He stepped off the deck, turned back and reached a hand out to help her down. The blanket slipped around her shoulders as she smiled and took his hand. Tightening her grip on the blanket with the other hand, she jumped down beside him.

  Somehow he had missed how small-boned she was. Tory wasn’t exactly tiny. Probably five foot five or six, she was of average height for a white woman. But as he held her slender fingers with his own and she walked quietly beside him, he couldn’t help but notice her slim build.

  Ben had no doubt that she had all the right curves in all the right places. Though so far she had kept them mostly hidden behind men’s jeans and work shirts or heavy white lab coats at the clinic. But the way his body had reacted to her nearness, he was positive she was all woman under those clothes.

  As he’d taken her hand, there had also been a strange shimmer of protectiveness lying in wait under his normal testosterone levels. A dash of male ego gripped his heart with tender tendrils, demanding that he watch out for her, no matter what else came between them.

  They rounded the side of the house just as a big black bird swooped low enough over their heads to lift strands of their hair by the breeze from its wings.

  “What the heck was that?” Tory asked as she swung around trying to see where it had gone.

  “A crow, or maybe a raven,” he answered. “Too big to be a common grackle.” And he didn’t much like the way the bird was behaving.

  Tory dropped his hand while she looked around. But he noticed she inched in closer to him.

  “Why would it fly at us like that?”

  “It’s spring,” he began. “So maybe that was a momma bird, warning us off its nest.”

  But Ben had never heard of a crow or a raven doing such things. Now if that had been a mockingbird, it would’ve made more sense.

  He heard a loud cackle and both he and Tory turned their faces upward to see the huge raven sitting at the pinnacle of his roof. Staring at them with nasty blue-black eyes and screaming with loud, mean shrieks, the raven appeared quite dangerous.

  Tory shivered under her blanket beside him. “That bird doesn’t look like he cares for us much. The way he keeps staring is kind of creepy.”

  Ben agreed. But he wasn’t about to tell Tory any such thing and scare her for no reason.

  “The Bird People are friends of the Dine,” he said instead with a forced smile. “We have spent thousands of years living as neighbors between the sacred mountains. I’m sure this one is just trying to protect his loved ones.”

  Tory threw him a glance with an expression on her face that said she couldn’t believe he had just spouted such nonsense. But before he was forced to step any further off the nonsense cliff, a couple of red-tailed hawks strafed the raven’s position on the roof. A squawking battle took place high above their heads and in a few seconds all three of the birds flew off in the direction of the Chuska mountains.

  Saved from sounding foolish by a couple of true friends, Ben silently thanked the Bird People for their kindness. The sight of the dangerous-looking raven had made him wonder if the Skinwalkers could’ve discovered a way to change over to their animal forms in the daylight. If so, it was another new and disturbing piece of information for the Brotherhood.

  “Wow. That was cool,” Tory said. “Did you see that fight in midair?”

  “There are many fascinating things in nature,” he told her with authority—as if he knew exactly what he was saying and wasn’t just as surprised by the raven as she had been. “Come on. Let me show you a few more.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Your garden is just wonderful.” Tory heard herself gushing on, but sounding like a kid in the candy aisle didn’t seem to be bothering her self-esteem any.

  When she and Ben had walked to the back of his house, the first thing that had caught her attention was the small but lush garden that lay between his back door and the medicine hogan. She had never seen so many colors of lusty green, and silver, and…

  “Are these all vegetables and herbs? They look so healthy. Fabulous. Just fabulous. I’m jealous of your gardening talents.”

  Kneeling in the freshly tilled earth, Tory stuck her nose right into the middle of a bush with prickly, purple-tipped leaves. One deep breath and she was hooked on the wonder of it all. Everything smelled basic and homey and—and safe.

  Ben stood over her with a smile on his face. “This isn’t a kitchen garden, Tory. No vegetables, I’m afraid.” He put a light hand on her shoulder and she felt the zing bouncing off her spine as it slid down to the very core of her femininity—at approximately the center of her womb.

  “Hataaliis are required to use specific minerals, herbs and specialty plants for the various ceremonies,” he continued. “These are a few of the herbs we can grow domestically.”

  “Hataaliis?”

  “Medicine men. I don’t do many ceremonies myself. These days each hataalii has his own specialty because the ceremonies are so long and involved. My particular
specialty is diagnosing illness. I’m called a crystal gazer.

  “It goes along well with my GP practice,” he added. “But I do treat many of the minor illnesses and injuries I see in my practice with natural remedies. It’s familiar treatment for my traditional patients and they don’t have to go all the way to a big clinic for the simple things. The remedies I use work better than most of the prescribed drug treatments anyway. Lots cheaper, too.”

  “Such as…?” She wasn’t entirely hostile to the idea of natural plants and herbs being useful in treating disease. The professor of one of her pharmacy classes had predicted more and more substances discovered in nature would be found to be better cures than the synthetic ones. And she remembered as a tiny girl that her Irish grandmother had used several natural remedies which seemed to work just fine.

  Ben squatted down beside her. “See that tall leafy plant tied to a stick and covered over by a gauze shade? That’s a special type of tobacco that grows in the mountains in Dinetah. Once the leaves are dried and then soaked to make them soft, they turn into a terrific poultice. Takes the infection right out of cuts and scrapes. And it doesn’t leave the patient more susceptible to new strains of bacteria the way using too many antibiotics can.”

  Fascinating. But she wished he didn’t have to tell her about it with his body in such close proximity to her own. She was finding it ever more difficult to concentrate—and breathe—around him.

  His masculine scent had already permeated her skin and had entered her bones. If he didn’t move away soon, his essence would be going through her veins and she would be lost.

  Tory sat back on her heels, stunned at that last crazily poetic thought. What was the matter with her? She never thought about people or situations in such fanciful terms.

  She promised herself to overcome the problem of Ben so she could think clearly again. And she would—just as soon as he backed away and stood up.

  He pointed out a few more of the plants and their uses. The curly-leafed plant that when boiled tasted like camomile and could be used for babies’ colic. The poisonous snakeweed that was great when used topically for ant or snake bites.

  Wanting to learn them all, Tory listened as intently as was possible while he remained beside her.

  Finally, when she could bear it no longer, she stood up and brushed off her hands. “Do you think I could manage to grow some of these things myself? I’m a real novice gardener.”

  Still squatting in the dirt, Ben silently glanced up at her and smiled. Two ideas came into her head in that instant. First, she suddenly recognized that he could barely see her, even from this close a distance. And second, her heart skipped a couple of beats at the warmth of his smile.

  Both ideas would bear a lot more thought. Some other time.

  “I don’t see why not, if you’re interested enough to learn how.” He stood and lightly gripped her elbow.

  She wasn’t sure if his move was designed to help her ease out of the garden patch without knocking over any of the plants. Or if he was the one that needed someone to guide him as they walked through the obstacles.

  But it didn’t much matter either way. The energy traversing her skin, coming from where his hand was touching her elbow, was so different than anyone else’s had ever been and felt so pleasurably commanding that she began to worry it might easily become a habit.

  They crossed a grassy few yards and stopped where she could get a good look at the medicine hogan. “Interesting building design.”

  “Another tradition. The hogan must be an eight-sided building, measuring exactly so many feet by so many. It could be made out of logs or sticks, I suppose. But these stuccoed cement bricks are fine as long as there is a regulation smoke hole in the roof and the front door faces east.”

  “Smoke hole?”

  “For the last few generations, it’s been okay that the hole has been filled by a stovepipe to carry the smoke away. It’s handy having a wood-burning stove in there to keep the place warm in winter and so I can boil the herbs when I need them.”

  Did that mean there was no electricity in his office? Hmm. Tory did not like the sound of that. Unsanitary, at the very least.

  “I love the colorful blanket you’ve used over the entryway. But—”

  “You’re wondering about the electricity and plumbing, aren’t you?” he interrupted. “Yes, I cheated and put them both in, but I try to make it as unobtrusive as possible for my elderly patients who don’t expect it.

  “The blanket was designed and woven by my cousin’s grandmother. Lucas Tso made these turquoise bracelets I wear. And he’s also a medicine man. But mainly he’s a world-famous silversmith and a renowned Navajo artisan.”

  Ben crooked his head like he was studying the blanket’s design for the first time. “In reality, that’s covering a wood door. Another cheat. But the door is a must for keeping in the air-conditioning during the summer.”

  “Air-conditioning?” she asked with a chuckle. “I’d guess you probably really are cheating with that one.”

  “Yeah,” he said absently. “But it sure comes in handy when I’m delivering babies. Just can’t seem to get enough of a cross breeze when things heat up that much.”

  Tory couldn’t keep the laugh from bubbling up and out of her mouth. She was afraid of sounding like a giddy teenager, laughing at every word he said.

  “You deliver babies in this remote location all by yourself? Isn’t that dangerous…and complicated?”

  His eyes twinkled but his face remained sober. “I keep careful track of my pregnant patients’ progress. If the pregnancy looks complicated or potentially dangerous, I send them to the hospital a week or two in advance of the due date and induce labor. Doesn’t happen too often, though. Most of these women are hardy. Having babies comes easy.

  “And as for performing the delivery all by myself,” he continued, “I can only wish it were that simple. Usually, there are enough female relatives and midwives in attendance and crowding the room that I can barely get a chance to check either the mother’s or the baby’s heartbeats before the whole thing is all over.”

  “But if the delivery presents a surprise complication…”

  “Then I’m attending and prepared. I haven’t lost either a mother or a child yet. Only one time have I actually had to call in a medevac helicopter to rush a baby to ICU. And that was when the mother slipped and fell off a stepladder in her kitchen when the baby was just twenty-eight weeks along. But we managed to save that stubborn little girl. She’s my patient now, too.”

  Ben pushed aside the gorgeous blanket and opened the door, allowing Tory to step inside ahead of him. A whole new world spread out before her. She’d been in every kind of doctor’s office, hospital room and clinic in existence. At least she thought so. But none of them had looked like this one.

  Within thirty seconds, after her eyes grew accustomed to the lower light level of the halogens, she had assured herself that the place was antiseptically clean. But there was no reception area. Patients stepped right into an exam room.

  Lining the walls and hanging from the ceiling were an assortment of dried plants and shelves with bottles full of strange-looking crystals. It seemed odd, but it smelled wonderful in here.

  Toward the rear of the octagonal room stood a series of carved wooden screens. She hoped they hid changing rooms and a bathroom with real plumbing where the doctor could wash his hands.

  “Where do the patients and their families wait to be seen?”

  “Usually we don’t have enough of a rush to make any patient wait for diagnosis and treatment. But the families can wait on those benches outside along the walls and under the shade of the overhang.”

  She hadn’t noticed benches. Maybe she was still lusting after the handsome doctor a little too much to see what was right in front of her eyes. Somehow her attention needed to be diverted back to reality. And soon.

  As he showed Tory around his office, Ben tried not to give her a lecture on cultural sensitivity. But he
caught her skepticism and knew she was wondering if it was really necessary to work so hard to integrate Dine culture into a medical practice.

  It definitely was necessary. Most of his patients would refuse treatment from a strictly Western medicine practitioner. They would get medical treatment from someone who understood their culture and their needs, or they would not be treated at all.

  Hoping Tory was open to learning, he knew she could be a big service at the Raven Wash Clinic if she would do a few things differently. And perhaps she would also learn enough to be able to help out here in his clinic when it became necessary.

  As his eyesight worsened, he’d hoped someone would step in, at least part-time, to help his patients.

  It was getting harder and harder to ignore and work around the haze and darkness that characterized his eye disease. Ben wondered how he could begin to approach the subject of his ever-increasing blindness.

  He had grown to like Tory, even above his body’s fruitless hormonal lusting. She was intelligent, curious and caring. And he strongly suspected she would want to make sure every patient, no matter how traditional or remote, received the treatment they required.

  Fairly sure he could get Ray Hardeen to lend her out to his clinic on a part-time basis, Ben’s only big question was whether she was flexible enough and willing to work hard enough to learn the traditions before his time completely ran out.

  Or—whether he could stick with his Brotherhood vows of celibacy long enough to teach her.

  6

  S tepping back out into the dazzling high-altitude sunshine, Tory crossed the medicine hogan’s threshold a second before Ben did. But she heard the scuffling noises behind her back and knew he had tripped again.

  Swinging around, she dropped the blanket from her shoulders and prepared herself to stop his fall this time. But instead, she found him still upright. He was hanging on to the door and its frame with both hands.