Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  However, using caution was a lot smarter than being unprepared. Lexie bent and picked up a couple of the heaviest rocks from the side of the gravel driveway. Keeping a golf-ball-sized one in her hand, she stuck the other rock inside a boot, held both boots in the other hand and turned to run back to the house.

  But just then she heard something sounding like—snorting. Pretty loud snorting, too, and with a muted growl tacked on at the end. It wasn’t a noise that seemed like meowing or croaking or anything else that might mean it was coming from a critter who would be frightened of her.

  Peering off into the darkness while tightening her grip on the rock, Lexie saw an outline of some large beast moving in a wide arc around the house, away from where she stood.

  But the scary shadow wasn’t the sight that made her gasp and freeze in place.

  No. The sight that shocked her and left her holding her breath was the outline of Michael standing with his back to her as he faced the rising sun. And he was naked from the waist up. The crazy man didn’t even have sense enough to wear a shirt, and the air this morning was nearly freezing.

  She wondered what he could be doing as she watched him throw something like dark confetti into the air. Was he chanting? She’d already learned chanting meant prayers for the medicine men.

  The idea that he might be praying forced her to turn away from the sight of those phenomenally broad shoulders and tight muscles, rippling with every movement. She blinked and averted her eyes, trying to forget the sensual image of the man she’d actually begun drooling over.

  Wiping her mouth on her sleeve as she turned, she found herself facing the sight of the large creature. Only this time the thing was moving quietly through the brush in a direct line toward Michael. Was it going to attack?

  The animal moved out of the shadows of a juniper and lumbered closer. Lexie saw the beast clearly for the first time as it stopped, stood still and sniffed the air.

  A bear! Going for Michael?

  Lexie never gave it one moment’s thought. She took off toward the bear at a dead run, screaming at the top of her lungs and winding up to throw the rock.

  No chance, bear. Get away from him.

  8

  M ichael spun around when he heard the commotion behind him. What he saw nearly stopped his heart. Lexie was sprinting toward a bear.

  He quickly realized this was no ordinary bear. A damned evil Skinwalker had dared to come close to his home. But what was his crazyAnglo sister-in-law doing?

  The Skinwalker Bear would not be able to cross the Brotherhood boundary around his house that Michael had set down long ago with magic blessings. Unfortunately, Lexie didn’t know what he’d done and was going to run right past the invisible line in her zeal to chase the Bear away.

  He didn’t have time at the moment to consider whatever would possess a lone woman to go up against a full grown bear, let alone a Skinwalker Bear. All he could think of for now was what he could do to keep her safe.

  The Bear snarled and snapped his jaws as he stood up on his hind legs in a threatening stance. The otherworldly creature towered above Lexie at a height of over eight feet. Michael would never be able to stop her in time.

  Closing his eyes, he began the ancient chants that would propel the Skinwalker into leaving. He hoped it would be enough to save her.

  When he opened his eyes again, she’d stopped just short of the invisible boundary line and seemed to be in the process of throwing rocks at the evil one. Rocks? At a Skinwalker?

  It would’ve made him laugh if it hadn’t been such a deadly game. Michael continued singing every anti-Skinwalker chant he’d ever learned while he ran toward her.

  The Bear ignored Lexie’s attempts to make him leave and made angry swipes in the air as Michael came up behind her. With a deadly glare at Michael and one last ferocious roar, the evil monstrosity finally backed away from the invisible boundary and ducked into the piñon shadows.

  But there was enough half-light for both of them to see the beast’s image as it appeared to shrink down. Right before their eyes the Skinwalker turned back into a man.

  Michael’s chanting had worked. He quickly moved closer to Lexie, took her by the shoulders and held her steady—keeping her from stepping over the invisible line while he tried to make out the beast’s human form. Who was this Skinwalker in real life?

  But the man behind the Bear disappeared into deep brush before Michael could get a good look at him. Michael’s greatest concern now had to be Lexie.

  He twisted her around so he could study her expression. “Are you okay?”

  Her face flushed while she opened and closed her mouth in an effort to speak. “Did you see…?” she sputtered. “That was…Wasn’t it?”

  “Lexie, talk to me. Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head and continued. “I thought it was going to attack you. The horrible thing wasn’t real—but it wasn’t human either. Oh, I…” Tears welled in her eyes and she began to shake.

  Michael couldn’t stand seeing her like this, especially now the danger was over. “Come here,” he said as he dragged her close and wrapped her in his embrace.

  She fell against his chest and exploded into deep sobs that wracked her body with violent shivers. Her copious tears soaked them both.

  “Go ahead,” he whispered. “Let it out. But remember, you’re safe with me. Nothing can harm you.”

  Since that hadn’t been strictly true so far, Michael chided himself. He should’ve been paying closer attention. Protecting her was his job while she was in Dinetah. But he swore nothing else would get close enough to hurt her.

  Her shaking began to subside after a few minutes. But the tiny, sad mewling noises she was making deep in her throat went on for a long time afterward. It was enough to break his heart.

  He would have done anything to save her from the Skinwalker terror she’d had to face. And now he would be forced to explain every bit of the horrible situation the Dine currently faced in the Four-Corners. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to.

  Standing there and holding her close, Michael felt her feminine warmth spreading through his own chilled body. She inched closer and took hold of his biceps, apparently seeking more stability and comfort.

  He’d give her anything she wanted. It hadn’t escaped his attention that this extraordinary woman had torn out after a bear she’d thought was going to cause him harm. Like a tough little mama hen, protecting her chicks. What a woman. She was spectacular.

  The atmosphere around them changed all of a sudden. Instead of wanting to offer her his strength, he began to feel her own tough spirit as it seeped into his body along with her warmth. And then…the idea of her strength began turning him on.

  Just remembering how brave she’d been to face the terror made him want to experience some of her special strength in a more personal way.

  He looked down at the top of her head as she snuggled into his chest, and he wanted her. No matter that any intimacy between them would be totally inappropriate.

  It was all he could do not to touch her hair, not to lift her chin and dip in for a taste. He hadn’t wanted anything so badly for as long as he could remember.

  Trying to find somewhere else to look, or to somehow manage to close his eyes to the lust, Michael found he couldn’t do anything at all. The two of them seemed to be lost in a kind of dreamworld as it spun out of control.

  He couldn’t move away from her warmth and need, and he couldn’t get as close as he wanted without upsetting the tender balance of friendship and trust they’d managed to reach.

  The clear blue morning sky and the green earth of late summer swirled around. Nothing else was in focus but her. Nothing but Lexie in his arms.

  At last she wriggled against him and raised her head to look up into his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said in a faint, wispy voice. “I never fall apart like this. I’m usually much stronger. I don’t know what got into me.”

  He shook his head but couldn’t speak. He’d want
ed to jump to her defense. She had every right to go a little nuts after everything she’d been through in the last few days. He thought she was the bravest, the strongest woman he had ever known.

  But he couldn’t get the words out.

  For a supposedly smart guy, Michael did a really dumb thing then. He raised his hand and thumbed away the leftover tears from under her eyes. But her skin felt so soft under his fingertips that he got jumbled up in the sensory impressions. His hand refused to leave her face as he cupped her jaw and stared into her slightly confused eyes.

  Never taking her gaze from his, Lexie placed her palms flat against his chest. The move seemed very much like she’d gotten dizzy and was trying to steady herself again. But the zinging and electrified sensations coming from the spots where she was touching his chest made him dizzy and had apparently fried his brain. His mind must be gone, because the next thing he did was beyond stupid.

  Fanning his fingers, he let them skim her jaw and slide down her throat. She closed those hazel eyes that had gone all golden and gooey, and a dreamy smile of pleasure took the place of confusion on her face.

  Oh, hell. That did it.

  It was beyond his ability to stop. He bent, placed tender kisses against her eyelids. But that wasn’t nearly enough for him, so he nibbled his way down her throat and to the tiny indentation at the base. He found the utmost satisfaction in exploring each inch of new, forbidden territory.

  His every sense became heightened, filled to the limit. The silkiness of her skin pleased both his fingers and his tongue beyond all measure. The way she smelled—all clean and floral—intrigued and delighted his nose. He thought she possessed her own special musk, some fragrance he couldn’t name but decided it was something he would never forget. For the first time in years, he simply gave in and allowed his nose and eyes and mouth to take in every pleasurable sensation.

  She leaned against him with feminine rounded curves and he grew hard in response. His sharp angles fit perfectly together with her woman’s body. Like they’d been made to be that way.

  As her body seemed to dissolve further into his, a moaning noise came from deep within her throat. Again, Michael couldn’t manage to help himself. He was apparently doomed to make the big mistakes.

  Lifting his head, he brushed his mouth against hers. Tentatively. He had to keep reminding himself she was the vulnerable one here. But all he wanted, all he desperately craved, was to know what she really tasted like.

  When at last she opened her heavy-lidded eyes again, it was to begin a slow, close-up inspection of his face. As if she needed some clue from him about what to do next. He wasn’t sure what expression she’d hoped to find, but in the next instant she closed the small distance between their lips and kissed him back. Much less tentatively than he had kissed her.

  There was a kind of wildness behind her kiss. Absolutely nothing about her felt tame or motherly as she pressed her body up and down against his. Her tongue searched out his tongue, tangled as she licked and nipped at his bottom lip. She kept on and on, getting him more and more aroused, until at last he growled and melded their mouths together in a hot and wild eruption of passion.

  As if of its own accord, his hand came up and cradled her breast. Ah, he thought absently, another perfect fit. He stroked her through the many layers of clothes until her nipple peaked under his attentions.

  His own body’s savage responses to her attentions finally sunk in to his numb brain and shocked him. She had blindsided him with a raging hunger he had never before experienced.

  Now with a sudden and mostly unwanted instant of clarity, he realized they had to stop. Or he would have them both undressed and be inside her before she took her next breath.

  “Lexie,” he groaned against her mouth. “We can’t. I can’t.”

  “Excuse me?” She pulled back and blinked her eyes.

  The look on her face nearly changed his mind again. Her lips were rosy and full from kissing him. Her eyes still held a dewy look and were slightly unfocused. She looked like a woman who had been thoroughly kissed, and who wanted much more.

  Well, hell. So did he. But it wasn’t going to happen.

  “We don’t have time to play games,” he said gruffly.

  “Games?” Her eyes lost that dewy look with a blink. The sensual haze was soon replaced by an angry, shooting glare.

  “We can’t let anything intimate grow between us,” he tried to explain. “It wouldn’t be right and we both know it.”

  He’d said the words without as much conviction as he’d hoped. “I’m your brother-in-law, dammit. Your child’s uncle,” he nearly cried with frustration.

  She cleared her throat. “Your mother seems to think we should get married. Something intimate would have to happen between us then, wouldn’t it?”

  “You know a wedding’s not ever going to happen,” he snapped out. “It’s an old, old tradition having nothing to do with modern life. Nor anything to do with Anglos, for that matter. My mother was just grasping at any way to keep her grandson with her.”

  As he finished his little speech, he found he couldn’t bear facing her. Lexie’s hurt expression made his chest ache. Michael turned around and furrowed his fingers through his hair in frustration.

  A strained silence developed between them. He couldn’t stand not knowing what she was feeling or why she had become so quiet. Was she hurt by what he’d said? Or mad at him? He hadn’t meant to hurt her. In fact, he’d been trying to protect her.

  He swung around—but she’d already moved away. He spotted her marching across his yard toward the pickup.

  “Lexie?”

  “Get a move on, Brother-in-law. You’re wasting the morning. We have places to go, and you have a lot of explaining to do.”

  Lexie squirmed under her seat belt and slackened the tension for the moment by holding it out away from her neck. The stupid thing didn’t fit her right. Like most car belts, it hit her about chin level. Why couldn’t auto makers do a better job of making their belts for women?

  Probably because the car makers were men. She wasn’t terribly thrilled with men in general at the moment.

  A half an hour after they’d started out from Michael’s house, and her mood was hardly any more pleasant than before they’d left. The damned man had actually kissed her, got her juices flowing, then cut her off at the knees. A month might not be enough time for her to get over her anger.

  He’d certainly been right about one thing, though. A wedding for the two of them was never going to happen.

  She’d already made one huge mistake with her first marriage. Dan had been a charming jerk. Michael was an arrogant jerk. Marrying him would only be compounding the error.

  She folded her arms across her chest and captured the belt under her breast so she could hold it down out of her way. Michael was definitely not going to be her next husband, not for any reason. Not even to please his mother, whom Lexie had decided she really loved.

  And it would be a hot day in the Antarctic before she ever let him so much as touch her again. No intimacy for you, Brother-in-law, she swore to herself. Not even if your warm brown eyes do start begging for a kiss. It is not going to happen. I have learned my lesson.

  Lexie had come to another decision, too. Jack belonged here on the reservation. And until she was sure she didn’t belong here, she intended to stay in Dinetah and fulfill her destiny as the ghost’s Message Bearer. No matter what the message “receiver” had to say about it. She owed that much to the Dine, and to her in-laws. They were helping her in her time of need; it was the very minimum she could do for them in return.

  But first she needed to understand exactly what was going on in Dinetah. And since Michael was handy, he’d just been elected to give her all the answers.

  “Okay, Brother-in-law, time to come clean. I’m guessing the creature we saw was a Skinwalker. I want to know what the heck has been going on.”

  The minute the words were out of her mouth, Lexie had already figured it out
. Yesterday she had been the one to say they needed to band together to fight off the Skinwalkers. But that was what had already been happening, wasn’t it? The war the grandmother ghost had talked about must be a war with the Skinwalkers, raging on the reservation right this minute. And damned if Michael Ayze didn’t know all about it.

  “Yes, the Bear was a Skinwalker,” Michael affirmed in a near whisper and without taking his eyes from the road ahead. “It changed over to human form in front of you because I was saying an ancient chant designed especially by our ancestors to weaken Skinwalkers. We found the chant, along with—”

  “We who?” she interrupted. “You Navajos have some kind of secret army, don’t you?”

  He gave an almost imperceptible nod of his chin. “At times I wish we were more of an army than we really are.”

  Taking a long breath, he finally continued, “Some time ago one of my maternal aunts, known then as the Plant Tender, was the first to discover that a new Navajo Wolf had taken over the Skinwalker cult and was covertly building his own army. She gathered together a group of young medicine men, choosing for the most part those of us who belonged to her Big Medicine Clan for security purposes. Her original aim was just for us to recognize the threat.”

  “You’re all related? How many of you are there?”

  “At first it was only a handful of cousins. We called ourselves the Brotherhood. More recently, we have recruited others from different clans to join with us. As the threat of the evil ones grew, we had to grow in response.”

  The whole thing sounded like a comic book super-heroes’ story to Lexie. But the Bear this morning had been anything but funny.

  “How many Skinwalkers are in their army?” she mumbled.

  He shot her a sideways glance and shrugged a shoulder in response. “No telling. Too many.”

  “So who’s winning the war?”

  A dark look passed over Michael’s eyes. “I believe the Brotherhood has caused the evil ones enough trouble to slow them down. A while back Ben Wauneka learned the Skinwalkers were recruiting teenagers into their cult, and we put a stop to it. Now we know better what to watch out for.”