Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

“I had trouble getting around the house alone again last night,” Ben said in a quiet tone as Tory drove them toward Big Sky canyon. “The blindness is lasting for longer and longer time periods. Will you reconsider staying overnight?”

  He held his breath and waited for her answer. It had been the truth about the hours of growing darkness. But of course, he knew he could always get a cousin to come stay with him. Ben didn’t want a cousin, though. He wanted Tory.

  Checking her profile with a quick glance, he fought the heat that seeing her always caused. Still, with his first glimpse of her sunny yellow hair, the need licked at his libido and made furious desire an unwanted distraction.

  As usual.

  But, damn. Today she’d worn her blond hair swept up in some kind of clip, leaving the tender skin on the back of her long neck exposed—and too tantalizing. While the tip of her nose, pinked from all her hours in the sun with Shirley, just begged to be kissed.

  How many more times would he be capable of looking over this way and seeing her sitting there?

  Not many, he feared. His attention wavered momentarily as he quit breathing and drank in the sight of her. She just had to stop leaving him for so many long, lonely hours every day. He needed her to stay by his side.

  What’s more, he was afraid for her safety when she wasn’t nearby. His sense of a danger coming ever closer to both of them had grown acute. He’d even spoken to a couple of the other Brotherhood members about his unusual feeling of unease. Some of them had suggested that both he and Tory should never be allowed to be alone without the other or without a Brotherhood member.

  Fine by him.

  “I…” she began hesitantly. “All right. I’ll bring some clothes and overnight necessities along tomorrow when I come up. I can stay here just as well as I can down in that house by Bluebird Ridge. At least until you can get someone else on a more permanent basis.

  “I’ve been increasingly concerned about you being alone at night.” She’d added that last comment with what sounded to Ben like a soft sigh of resignation.

  He laid a gentle hand on her arm and stared at her long lashes while they blinked furiously. “Will it be such a chore to be with me for more hours every day?”

  She sucked in a tiny breath and jerked her arm away as if his touch had burned her. “No…I wouldn’t say that. It’s going to be okay.”

  What would she say if she knew the truth? The truth he had to admit to himself during the darkest parts of his time alone.

  She was his destiny. Somehow he knew that with a crazy certainty—a certainty born out of his romantic Navajo traditions. The idea had been in the back of his head since the first minute he’d seen her.

  The original lust he’d felt—still felt when he didn’t dwell on it too much—had somehow expanded and deepened. It had taken on shades, colors, even textures all its own.

  But to his mind, a long-term relationship was simply not going to happen between them. No possible way.

  So, he was bound to lose this woman—his other half—one day. In fact, he could picture himself actually sending her away on some black day in the near future. Between trying to follow his mother’s teachings and the ever-threatening cloud of the Skinwalker war, she didn’t belong with him in Dinetah for good.

  And just where would that leave him? All alone in the darkness—forever.

  Perhaps they were supposed to come together in an afterlife. To be joined for all eternity as they could not be while here in the earthly lands between the four sacred mountains.

  Ben took a huge cleansing breath and tried to shake away the too-poetic thoughts from his brain. Desperate to find some balance to keep him straight in the coming darkness, he decided he would much rather lose the romanticism, thank you very much. It would be better for him to simply go back to his original gut-twisting combo of lust and need, for however much time they had left.

  She turned the wheel to miss a pothole and cleared her throat. “Will we be away from your office through the whole afternoon today?”

  “Yes,” he managed to answer as he dragged his attention toward the front window of the SUV. “Maybe until late in the evening, if you don’t mind.”

  Laughing, she turned to him. His head swung around just in time to catch a certain depth underneath the twinkle in her eyes that he hadn’t seen before.

  “So you’re going to let me drive down to the house on Bluebird Ridge alone in the dark after I drop you off later tonight?” she quipped.

  “I was hoping you’d start staying over with me tonight and go down to your house for the things you need tomorrow.”

  “Right. I figured as much.” She moved her attention back to the road ahead. “But I thought we were just driving over to visit a patient of yours this afternoon. That teen whose grandmother came in to see you yesterday. A house call can’t possibly take more than a hour or two. Can it?”

  “I doubt it. But that isn’t all I’d hoped to do today.”

  She tilted her head in that endearing way she had and grinned. “Okay. What else have you got planned?”

  Hell. How was he ever going to manage when the time came and he would never be able to see her do that again?

  “I…we…have been invited to a Night Way Ceremony that will be taking place later this afternoon,” he told her haltingly. “It’ll no doubt run on late into the night. And I wanted you to be able to participate in a ceremony like this one. Get a feel for some of the old public Sings. They aren’t held on the Reservation much anymore.”

  In truth, he’d wanted to see one himself again, too. Maybe for the last time. Before long he would only be able to listen to the chants and have mere memories of the sights.

  “What’s a Night Way Ceremony all about?”

  “It’s a coming-of-age celebration. Kids, age eleven or so, go through this as they are entering puberty. I have both a female and a male cousin who will be celebrating tonight.”

  “Am I dressed all right for it? I mean, I didn’t expect to be going to a party.”

  He shot a glance down her body, taking in the plaid work shirt rolled up to her elbows and the soft light-blue jeans hugging curves he remembered much too fondly. “You’re fine. I’ll ask one of my aunts if you can borrow a traditional skirt if it makes you more comfortable, though.”

  “Thanks. I’m really looking forward to seeing my first ceremony and meeting more of your family. It was nice of you to think of me.” She eased on the brake and hiccupped a laugh. “Or am I just the driver who has to be there to take you home? They do know I’m coming along, don’t they?”

  “Oh, they know.” And every single female in his extended family would be taking stock of the white woman doctor. While every single male would be wanting to get closer to her.

  He sighed and leaned back in the seat. But none of them would be going home with her—and he would. Thanks in no small measure to his old friend and terrible nemesis, his destiny.

  Tory eased farther back into the shadows of the curtains in the front room of the hot aluminum trailer house. She remained quiet while she listened to Ben ask his young patient a few questions. The two males were speaking softly in English, as the teenager had looked decidedly uncomfortable speaking Navajo around the white woman doctor.

  The sight of Ben, dressed in what she’d come to think of as his hataalii outfit, gave her a sense of well-being. The deep maroon long-sleeved shirt tucked inside clean jeans made him seem intelligent and wise. The pale blue scarf around his forehead and the long hair tied back in the semblance of a bun made him look traditional and very much Native American.

  The concho belt he wore and the twin sets of turquoise-and-silver bracelets on each arm made him appear strong and—secure. That just had to be a better word to use than sexy, which was where her brain had wandered.

  The young man they had come to see looked to be about sixteen. He, too, seemed strong and intelligent. A tall, strapping kid with broad shoulders and huge feet the rest of him hadn’t grown into yet, the boy appeare
d as healthy as a horse. It made Tory wonder why they were here.

  “Your grandmother tells me you’re trying to make a choice in the direction of your life. Your life’s Way,” Ben said to the teenager. “So you want to talk about it?”

  The kid grimaced and shook his head. “She shouldn’t have called you. I’ve made the choice.”

  Ben squatted beside the boy’s chair. “There is always the possibility of new choices. Or changed thoughts on different ways to go.”

  “In a couple of days it will be too late to change my mind,” the teenager said in a haughty way. “In fact, my mind is already made up. No real need to go into it anymore. Sorry to make you come out of your way.”

  “You intend to begin taking steroids to bulk up then,” Ben said as he shook his head. “Who’s going to get them for you?”

  “It’s more than just that,” the kid said with a wave of his hand. “I’m joining a gang that will take care of me for the rest of my life. I won’t ever have to worry about going to college or even about getting a job. My posse will watch my back from now on. I won’t be needing a damned hataalii or any frigging Navajo mumbo-jumbo, either.”

  Tory’s head came up. Steroids and teen gangs? Remembering her discussion with the young girl at the high school, she decided to pay closer attention to what was being said. When she’d asked Ben about the athletes and drug use later on that day, he’d told her that the Brotherhood knew all about it and would be taking care of the problem. He’d said for her not to worry.

  But now this didn’t much sound like the problem was going away.

  Ben turned his head toward her and she saw a shadow ripple across his features. A stricken look burned in his eyes. Talking about the teenage secret society was obviously very hard for him.

  “Maybe you don’t yet have all the facts,” he told the boy gently. “Are you aware that it’s adults who are directing that group? It isn’t the kids in charge.”

  The boy’s chin jerked up, and Tory was sure she saw the first signs of a break in his determination. “Sure,” the kid muttered hesitantly. “Of course I knew that’s what those old guys think. But the posse is using old guys like Coach Singleton and that other medicine hotshot dude to get the drugs and money. No big problemo. We’ve got it covered.”

  “What other medicine hotshot dude?” Ben asked a little too sharply.

  The kid shrugged and averted his eyes. “Didn’t catch his name, but it doesn’t matter. They just get the drug stuff and show us how to use it. There’s this whole big ceremony involved when you join up.” The kid laughed. “Sort of beating the likes of you at your own mumbling game, hataalii.”

  “Have you been to any of these ceremonies yet?” Ben asked in a lower tone. “Talked to anyone who’s been?”

  The kid’s eyes suddenly went dark with obvious fear. “Uh, no. The guys who’ve gone don’t need to talk to us recruits anymore. They’re already in the big time.”

  Lowering his voice to a near whisper, the boy continued. “I’ve heard there’s hazing you have to live through,” he managed with a rasp. “But the drugs are supposed to give you the strength to get past it. Once you’re on the other side, you don’t need your regular clan family or your old buddies ever again.”

  “What kind of hazing? Have you heard rumors?”

  Now the kid’s demeanor suddenly seemed downright scared. His shoulders slumped and he hung his head.

  Ben stood and put a firm hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to say it, son. I know.”

  “You don’t know anything.” It was a last comeback for a kid who must be able to feel he wasn’t going to get what he wanted. The adults would win yet another battle.

  “It’s no disgrace for you to be afraid,” Ben murmured to him. “But I want you to promise me you won’t go to one of these ceremonies until I can get another hataalii up here to bring you a special talisman to protect you. Is it a deal?”

  “Why should I?” The terror was written all over the petrified teen.

  “Because you don’t want to have to face that horror without a little special protection on your side, do you?”

  The kid kept his head down, but shook it slightly.

  “Fine,” Ben said soberly. “In the meantime, I wouldn’t leave the house at night if I were you. You won’t have a chance if you come across one of them before you are protected. You know there’s no hiding from Skinwalkers.”

  12

  B en sat in the passenger seat of his SUV. Lost in thought, he stared absently out the window at the dazzling sunshine bouncing off the familiar sienna cliffs in the distance.

  The minute he and Tory had left the teen’s trailer, he’d excused himself to call the Brotherhood. He reached Hunter Long, who told him the problem of the Skinwalker cult was already known and arrangements were being made.

  He’d also said that Lucas and a few of the others would come to rescue the teenager later today. Hunter mentioned then that several men of the Brotherhood were closing in on Coach Singleton, but the man had taken off.

  The “society” would be broken up soon and most of the kids rounded up within twenty-four hours. The teenage boys would all be put through special detox with sacred Navajo plants, and any lingering brainwashing would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

  But Ben’s uneasy spirit refused to be stilled. The Skinwalkers had chosen to pick on children. On boys who hadn’t yet had their hopes and dreams dashed against the reality of life on the rez. Damn them.

  All of his life Ben had been conditioned to the Navajo Way of not seeking revenge. People were never to be hated for what they did. Those who violated basic rules of civilized behavior simply had a “dark wind” in them that needed to be controlled and removed.

  Ben fisted his hands and jammed them hard against his thighs. He was having a difficult time not hating those Skinwalker bastards. Dark wind, hell. Was this all simply about greed? Ruined lives and terrorized children—because of money?

  “Can I ask something?” Tory’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  “Ask. I may not be able to give you the answer you want, however.”

  “Do you really think a talisman of some sort will protect that boy from a hazing?” She didn’t even take a breath before the rest of her questions spilled out into the warm air between them. “And I thought you told me that the Brotherhood was looking into that society at Raven Wash High. This is the same one, right? Who is Coach Singleton? And do you have any ideas about the person in ‘medicine’ who is getting the drugs for those kids?”

  Ben sat quietly and waited as she wound down. He’d been right. The woman of his destiny was too damned bright.

  He searched his brain for half answers that might work to stop her questions for the time being. She wasn’t ready for the whole truth. Maybe she never would be.

  “Don’t worry about that teen,” he said at last. “None of the boys will be going to any more hazing ceremonies. This so-called society is nothing more than a cult. Now that we know about it, the cult will be dismantled and the boys will be deprogrammed and sent to detox. Within a few days, there won’t be a problem.

  “The harder question is how to give these kids more of a chance at a better future,” Ben added. “Poverty and little opportunity for higher education will continue to put our kids at risk for drug and gang problems.”

  Tory kept her eyes focused on the road and maintained a steady speed up the side of Badwash cliff. “I understand. It’s a shame—the kids I’ve met seem so bright. But what about the adults? What will happen to this Coach Singleton? Who is he anyway?”

  “He’s the head coach at Raven Wash High, and—”

  She interrupted him with a gasp. “Not April Henry’s fiancé? Oh, poor April. He’s bound to go to jail. I’m sure she has no idea what he’s been doing.”

  It didn’t take Tory another thirty seconds to think of her next question. “Do you or the Brotherhood have any clues about the ‘medicine dude’ that kid was talking about? Is it some
one we might know?”

  “It’s being looked into.”

  That answer slowed her down. But Ben could see it wasn’t the answer she sought. And he knew more questions were forming inside her head as she drove along the top of the hill into the brilliant sun.

  Her last question had been a good one, though. In his opinion, the best one in the bunch of her queries. Was it a medicine man? Or someone in medicine. Like a doctor or a nurse or maybe a pharmacist?

  Perhaps the Brotherhood would be able to find out as they questioned the teenagers they were rounding up. Ben decided to give it a lot more thought himself.

  “And for heaven’s sake, tell me what the heck a Skinwalker is,” Tory asked, jolting him from his thoughts. “I’ve never even heard the term, but it sure seemed to scare that poor kid. He was out of his wits with fright by the time you were done with him.”

  Ben had been biding his time waiting for that question. Trouble was, he still didn’t have an adequate answer.

  “I told you once there were some legends and concepts in Dinetah that would be difficult for you to grasp,” he began as steadily as possible. “The Skinwalker legend is a part of our culture, and has been for a thousand years or more. But it’s a very long story, and I’d rather rest a while now before I participate in the Night Way chant tonight.

  “I’ll tell you the whole legend another day,” he continued, hoping the wary tone of his voice would sound just plain weary to Tory. “Not right now, though. Do you mind?”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you would be participating in the ceremony tonight. Yes, please rest. We can talk about it another day.”

  Ben closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest, glad he’d dodged the bullet for now. But he knew she wouldn’t give it up forever. Tory had proven to be intensely tenacious when something bothered her.

  He shook his head and tried to hide the inappropriate smile he couldn’t stop. She was just too damn bright.

  Sitting on an old tree stump in the plum-colored dusk, Tory watched Ben’s family and friends from a distance and reflected on her interesting afternoon. There hadn’t been a moment since they’d arrived here on the clan’s ceremonial mesa for her to think about steroids or teenage cults. And she still couldn’t bring herself to dwell on such depressing thoughts.