Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  The power of it overcame her, temporarily driving her blind with sensations she could scarcely believe.

  Too soon the lights exploded in her head. At the same time she heard him shattering, too, crying out with the same shocked gasp of surprise. She collapsed down against his chest and wondered how his racing heart could be standing such a strain.

  She reached for his face, wanting to let him know without words that she was still with him. But when she found tears clinging to his cheeks, her own eyes welled up.

  The majesty and power of their passion had affected him as much as it had her.

  But Tory never cried. Not even when her father had died and she’d been forced to become the parent to her brothers. And she refused to allow herself the luxury of feeling anything so deeply about Ben, either. Not now.

  Yes, she loved him. Unreasonably, because they were not meant for each other in the long haul. But she would not deal with the pain of losing him now. Perhaps later, when the nights were long, cold and lonely, she would take out her pain and face it squarely.

  This was a moment all for pleasure. So she closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around him and quietly listened as his breathing leveled out and she knew he’d fallen asleep.

  It was a small, whimpering moan that woke him. Out of force of habit, Ben opened his eyes and discovered he could actually see in the dim light before dawn.

  The minute he looked around, he knew he wasn’t home. That was when the soft, warm body next to his flexed slightly and threw an arm over his chest.

  Instantly hard again for the third or maybe that was the fourth time, he let all his senses revel in her nearness. Tory. The word itself captured his attention.

  Her musky, special scent had become familiar enough to him now that he would never get it out of his system. His fingertips might never forget the silky feeling of her skin. And his tongue…

  The taste of her, of all her secret places, would be with him always. The satiny, salty place on the underside of her breast would come back to haunt him whenever he least expected it. And the feel of the smooth spot on the inside of her thigh, trembling under his tongue’s assault, would be there every time he closed his eyes and licked his lips.

  How could he have made such a huge mistake?

  He’d had no idea it would be like this. So powerful and…unforgettable.

  He remembered thinking when they’d first met that somehow they were meant to be. But he’d chalked that up to typical Navajo romanticism. And he’d hoped that giving in to her sensual pull, even against his Brotherhood vows, would rid him of such poetic notions.

  No such easy ways out for him. But their being together like this—for always and ever—was an impossibility.

  Why the hell hadn’t this all-consuming sort of thing happened with a Dine woman? Tory was so…not Navajo.

  Ben had years ago dedicated his life to respecting his mother’s traditionalist views, despite the fact that he refused to give up being a modern physician and helping the Dine in more ways than one. He’d promised in his mother’s memory to find a way to straddle both worlds—for the good of the Navajo Nation.

  But falling in love with a bilagáana woman…His mother would never have understood. Never. He didn’t understand it himself.

  Tory moved against him once more and murmured what sounded like a sad sob. His hand automatically went to her hair, to soothe and protect.

  He wanted her again so badly right now that he found himself covered in sweat from the effort of holding back. She was so sweet—hot and sweet. Bold, wild, tender, demanding. Just the thought of hearing her laugh—and scream—was driving him crazy with the need to hear it again.

  It would be so easy. So right. To slip back inside her and let her smooth warmth take away his regrets.

  But he couldn’t do such a thing to her. It was a bad feeling knowing he still needed to use her friendship until his eyesight either returned for good—or didn’t.

  Then, either way, it was clear he would have to do without her when she left the rez to continue her career.

  That was an indisputable fact and hard enough to deal with. How could he hope to explain to such a friend why they couldn’t be more in the meantime? Not when the rightness of it was so obvious to both of them.

  No way. He would just lay here quietly, looking at her and holding her until daylight. He could do that, right?

  Maybe he could. But his senses refused.

  The pads of his fingertips began to insist on feeling her nipples pucker under their touch. His ears were demanding to hear more of her soft sighs as they came together.

  Tory lifted her lids sleepily, looked up at him and smiled. “You can see again, can’t you?”

  “Hmm.”

  Stretching herself along the length of him, she yawned. “Then would you do me a favor?”

  “Okay.”

  She slid her hand down his chest, and lower still. “Make love to me again. But this time I want you to see us. I want you to watch what you do to me.”

  And just that fast…all his vows were forgotten.

  What exactly was she supposed to say to Ben when he came back from the yard through the kitchen door? What did you say to a man who had spent the night igniting your entire body with one touch, or with one smoldering sigh?

  Did one say, “Excuse me, but please don’t touch me again because I’ll explode if you do?” Or maybe, “Can’t you just go blind again, so I won’t have to face you while you stare at me with that intense look you get?”

  Not damned likely.

  Especially not since he had left her in bed without so much as a word this morning. She had wanted more time to curl against him. More time to smooth her hands over his body, even though she was quite sure that last night had been the one and only time they would ever come together like that.

  But she’d awoken alone and then panicked. Jumping out of bed, she had grabbed an old robe and raced through the house looking for him. Was he blind again and in trouble?

  Then she’d spotted him. Outside the back door in just his jeans, facing the rising sun and chanting his prayers. She took her first breath since waking up.

  Putting on a pot of coffee, Tory tried not to think of what they had done together during the night. It was too fresh a memory and too intense.

  She had to find a way to talk to him civilly. Without begging for more times like last night. They had to work out some sort of tentative working arrangement. She had promised to help him. And she would never back down on anything she’d told him. Not him.

  He stepped back into the kitchen then, and she lost the power of speech. Fine. She wouldn’t say a word to the man she’d come to love in a way that was probably obsessive.

  Ben took a breath and smelled the coffee. His body was tight, fit, strong. He’d expected to be weakened by having sex—wasn’t that why the ancient warriors had abstained just before a battle?

  But he wasn’t weak. Far from it. He felt energized and ready for a fight.

  And that fact made him madder than hell.

  What about the Brotherhood vows of celibacy? They had been his damned idea in the first place. Maybe Kody and Hunter had been right all along. Sex didn’t seem like such a bad thing for his energy after all.

  But then he spotted Tory and all his irritation came back with a bang. Why had he let her get to him like that?

  He needed her to be his eyes. Why had he taken the chance of ruining their relationship for one night of pleasure? Stupid. Stupid.

  “You want a shower before we leave?” she asked without turning to look at him.

  Tory wasn’t sure how she could stand to see him watching her again right now.

  “I’m not going with you to the clinic today. One of the Brotherhood men will pick me up from here.”

  “Oh? Well then, can we talk about what we learned yesterday from that young girl at the high school before I have to leave for work? We haven’t had a chance—”

  “No,” he said sharply. “Do
n’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong, Tory. Remember what your mother told you.”

  She spun around to glare at him, refusing to believe her ears. To go from a night of soft sighs and whispered endearments to this?

  “Why not?” she demanded. “I asked April to find out the name of the girl’s boyfriend. Maybe we could talk to him, see if the powder really is steroids.”

  “Stay out of it.”

  Suddenly unreasonably angry, Tory’s mind filled with questions. That so-called society the girl had mentioned couldn’t possibly be connected to the Brotherhood. Could it?

  Shaken up with mixed emotions, all she could manage was, “Fine.”

  “Fine,” he snapped in return.

  But in the back of her mind, she was almost positive the two societies could not be connected. Shirley Nez seemed too honest and solid to ever be associated with something like that. And after another thought, neither could Ben.

  She took a breath and started again. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.” His voice dropped lower and grew hoarse. “I just shouldn’t have let last night happen. It can’t happen again, Tory.”

  “I know.” But she felt there was something else he wasn’t telling her. “Did I embarrass you yesterday with Principal Billie?”

  He swung his chin in her direction and stared out of gorgeous deep brown eyes that she knew were actually registering her image. “What? When?”

  “When I greeted him in Navajo.”

  Ben’s eyes softened and crinkled around the edges. “Not at all. Far from it. It was just such a surprise to hear an excellently inflected Navajo word coming out of the mouth of…someone who looks like you. It stopped me for a second.”

  He turned, looked out the window, and she saw him smiling to himself. She was profoundly grateful for the break in the tension of having him watch her so intently.

  “You are very bright, Tory,” he said without turning. “Almost too street-smart for your own good. Please be careful here in Dinetah.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” he added, and surprised her by the sudden change.

  “No. I can’t afford one on my salary at the clinic. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ll have one delivered to you at the clinic later today,” he said without answering her question. “It’ll be preprogrammed for one-touch dialing. If you ever feel afraid, or even get a little nervous feeling—use it.”

  “Will it be connected to 911? The police?”

  “No, to the Brotherhood. One of us will always be nearby and can reach you much faster than the police.”

  Okay. The world just tilted out of balance again. What in God’s name was she to do about him?

  10

  T he shadow known within the Skinwalkers as the Raven was now in his human form. Picking up the special satellite phone, he held it to his ear. “Yes?”

  “I understand yesterday’s landslide caused some chaos for the Brotherhood. Nice work.” The Raven’s boss, the Navajo Wolf, sounded pleased, but still his voice carried restrained control.

  “Enough of a distraction,” the Raven began, “to keep Dr. Wauneka out of his office for a few days at least. And I believe the white woman doctor will continue to disrupt and distract him, as well. Keep him from following up with our young recruits at the high school.”

  “Yesterday’s result is better than you know,” the Wolf told him. “So many of the enemy stayed occupied for most of the afternoon that it allowed me the time to meet with a representative of one of the pharmaceutical companies.”

  “Did he accept our research stats? Do they seem to be buying into the idea that we’ve uncovered an ancient cure for lung cancer?”

  The Wolf chuckled so low and deep it sounded like a growl of pleasure. “Of course. It’s another fine phony research job of yours, along with the help of my excellent mind control. But…”

  “Yes?” The Raven found himself holding his breath. But was not a word he liked to hear from a man as dangerously on the edge as his boss.

  He’d personally seen the Navajo Wolf rip a man’s arm from his body for simply making a bad joke in his presence. And he’d heard of much worse things being done by the one who had promised to make them all wealthy beyond their wildest imaginings.

  “There’s something else you can do for the cause, Raven. That one plant you cited as part of the supposed studies, the Aralia racemosa…”

  “Elk Clover or Leaf Scar, we call it. What about it?”

  “I’m concerned someone will recognize the fact that we are removing all traces of that plant from its normal habitat in Navajoland.”

  “No one but a few old medicine men and Plant Tenders ever go near where it grows. And the hataaliis aren’t there to gather that particular thing. They go to those areas for other sacred plants for use in their ceremonies.”

  “Still. Someone might notice and wonder why. We cannot have anyone asking questions like that. At least not until it’s too late to do anything about it.”

  “When the drug company’s lab studies its properties, we know they will find what we want them to find,” the Raven said in as soothing a tone as possible. “That it increases interferon synthesis in infected white blood cells. They’ll have to accept the hypothesis for the rest of our formula and give us that multimillion-dollar grant for more studies.”

  The Raven stopped and took a breath. “None of the old Dine medicine men can do anything to ruin our plans.”

  The Navajo Wolf cleared his throat menacingly. “Send a few of the new young men recruits out to those remote areas to stand watch in shifts. Have them threaten or kill anyone who comes around. Make whatever they do look like witch magic so everyone else will stay away.”

  The Raven sighed quietly, but agreed. In his opinion, there were other far more important things to take care of. He’d already carved too much time out from his regular job in order to complete his Skinwalker duties, and he needed to get back to work. Another problem, finding new methods for slowing down the Brotherhood, was also becoming increasingly critical.

  And not the least in importance was making the time to study why the Skinwalker leaders had all begun to show unusual physical signs of stress after several changeovers into their animal personas. But he would keep that one to himself for a while longer.

  No, for now he would do his best to accomplish whatever the Wolf wanted. The Raven was rather fond of his life, and intended to keep breathing as long as possible.

  Exhausted after a little over half a day’s work at the clinic, Tory popped some change into the drink machine in the break room and searched the selections for something cold that also had lots of sugar and caffeine.

  She needed all the extra reserves of energy available. Which was dumb, really, considering the hundreds of days she had spent racing through twenty-hour shifts as an intern. Why should half a day’s work after a couple of days off seem so tough?

  Knowing the answer lay in the memory of how she had spent the previous sixty hours—and with whom—she downed the soda, plopped into one of the aluminum chairs and put her elbows on the card table. Half her strength had gone into trying to forget.

  The other half had been spent dealing with older Navajo patients who hadn’t wanted her help. Two had come in to the Raven Wash Clinic for help but refused to have a bilagáana woman tend them.

  Not even the seventy-year-old man who had been sliced by barbed wire and needed a total of forty-two sutures to close up the many deep cuts along his face, arms and hands had wanted to be treated by a white woman doctor.

  A Navajo nurse and Tory’s own inept attempt at a few Navajo words had finally calmed him down enough for her to get the job done. But it had taken a lot out of her.

  The whole thing might’ve been much easier if her stomach hadn’t been rolling over a nagging worry that the future looked muddy as hell. Would Ben beat his eye disease?

  A couple of things about him were plain, though. Like the fact that the two of them would never be a couple for the
long haul. And even for the short haul he’d managed to make the idea sound impossible. Would he continue to let her be his friend and help him out?

  She was still driving his SUV, and now she also had the cell phone he’d sent to the clinic. So she guessed that must mean she wasn’t out of his life forever—yet.

  Tory had gone straight to Dr. Hardeen this morning to ask for permission to work with Ben two or three days a week. Her boss said he was pleased to give her the time, and suggested a full-time leave for a month or two away from the Raven Wash Clinic.

  In fact, he had seemed a little too happy about losing his white woman doctor. It made her wonder if he might be relieved to get a break from dealing with patients who balked at her treatment. That couldn’t be easy for him to deal with every day.

  The only thing she had ever wanted out of life was to be a healer. What would she do if she had to spend the next three years on the sidelines, advising other doctors and nurses but not treating patients?

  She vowed to keep practicing more Navajo words and hoped that working with Ben would help teach her more about their ways. At least enough to get by with patients.

  As for now…she eyed the computer terminal blinking away in a dark corner of the break room. It was mainly used for research and online contact with distant specialists, and Tory figured it wouldn’t hurt anything for her to check her e-mail and see if either of the people she’d contacted yesterday from the high school had gotten back to her yet.

  Maybe one of them would be able to offer Ben more than just someone to drive him around and a tentative friendship. Maybe one of them would actually come up with a real solution.

  Ben rode shotgun in Lucas Tso’s pickup as they drove the firebreak along the top of Crystal Mesa on their way to talk to a few relatives of the boy who had died at the wrestling match.