Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  Sunnie made excuses to Mrs. James, who seemed a bit startled at both Cisco’s familiar appearance and his rude behavior. And in a minute or two the older woman was out the door and back in the truck, driving away with her husband.

  Not able to think of what best to say to Cisco at this moment, Sunnie decided against saying anything at all. Instead she went to fix them something to eat.

  Sunnie set down her fork and passed Cisco the salt. The two of them still hadn’t managed more than a few words since she’d reheated one of Mrs. James’s casseroles and they’d sat down to eat it.

  Wanting to help and feeling his unease, Sunnie tried a little casual conversation. “How’s the code breaking going?”

  He shrugged and gave her a wry smile. “It would go faster if my mind didn’t wander.”

  “Are you thinking of your father’s murder?”

  “That’s one of the things.”

  She ignored the obvious question about the other things. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you told me of your father. You said he worked hiding people for the U.S. Marshal’s Service and that he left that job abruptly. Do you think one of the criminals might’ve threatened him or his family? Maybe he was scared. And then maybe that same bad guy followed him here and murdered him.”

  “That was one of the theories when he died. But all the investigations led nowhere.”

  “But suppose the criminal was protected. The information might’ve been classified or something.”

  Cisco shook his head and pushed away his half-eaten plate of food. “No one executes a lawman and gets away with it forever, míja. There have been several people who’ve reopened investigations into the murder over the years. Including, I believe, one done by an FBI agent named Kody Long.

  “No,” he added. “I need to talk to someone who was here on the reservation at the time and was interested in the case.”

  “You should talk to Kody and Hunter, then. I mean, would you necessarily have to tell them about your relationship just to talk about the investigation?”

  Cisco actually chuckled as he got up from the table. “And just why would a complete stranger to the reservation be so interested in an old murder case? Don’t you suppose Hunter and Kody might want to know the answer to that question before they told me anything?”

  Sunnie could hear a hint of desperation coloring his words and knew the internal indecision he felt toward his brothers was building now that he’d met their mother. She wanted to reach out to him, wanted to find ways to help him settle his conflicted emotions.

  But she had plenty of her own conflicts—and most of them were now centering on the Latino bounty hunter who’d gotten under her skin.

  So when he cleared his throat and said, “Think I’ll go back to work on the code. It’s the best use of my time at the moment,” she let him walk away.

  Hours later, Cisco’s frustration was mounting. He almost had the notebook code busted. One more symbol decoded here, another couple of lines deciphered there, and the whole freakin’ code would fall into his lap.

  But every time he got right to the edge of the answers, his mind played tricks. He would hear Sunnie in the other parts of the cabin—in the kitchen doing dishes, in the front room playing the radio. And mental pictures of her edged out everything else.

  Now he could hear her in the bathroom, taking a shower, and his damned brain went off on a holiday fling into wild imaginings. At the same time, his body rushed to pump blood to his groin.

  Hell.

  If only he hadn’t seen her eyes in the throes of passion. Things would be a lot simpler if he’d never touched her, never tasted her. If he’d didn’t know about the spot on the inside of her thigh that quivered whenever he touched it, he wouldn’t still be thinking about that instead of doing the work he knew how to do.

  They were not meant for anything long-term, that much was obvious. But the two of them together in the heat of savage lovemaking…now that was the kind of glorious coupling that poets had written about over the ages.

  With any sense at all, however, he would keep his hands to himself. She seemed to be teetering on the brink of a breakdown over the kidnapping of her friend. Everything in her world was shifting at the moment, and he refused to be the catalyst for the earthquake he feared was imminent.

  He heard her enter the room behind him, but she didn’t speak. And he didn’t turn. This was not a good time for him to have to look at her beautiful face. His nerves were strung tight, his body hard and ready.

  She slipped up close and laid her hands on his shoulders. “How’s it going? Need to take a break?”

  Son of a gun. Turning her down now was going to be the hardest thing he had ever done.

  Chapter 13

  “G o to bed, míja. It looks like I’ll be here most of the night.”

  “Go to bed alone?” Sunnie punched him in the bicep, hard. “You’re turning me down?”

  “Afraid so.” Cisco could scarcely believe he was doing this.

  Trying to keep his gaze locked on the computer screen and off what he knew would be a growing annoyance in her eyes, he fought to think of something to say that wouldn’t give him away.

  “It’s been a hard day. Neither of us got much sleep last night.” Well, if that wasn’t lame, he didn’t know what was. “Uh…Look, I promised to watch out for you. Protect you. That doesn’t include jumping your bones whenever the mood strikes.”

  “But we already…”

  “Yeah, we did. And it wasn’t smart. I’m not proud of losing control like that.”

  She stood quietly behind him. He could feel her disappointment right through the hands that were finally loosening their grip on his shoulders.

  “Then can’t we wrestle? I don’t think I can sleep without some exercise. Go a few rounds with me, Cisco?”

  One round. One more touch. And it would be all over.

  He tried to ignore the bone-weariness that seeped through his veins like a melancholy song. It was clear Sunnie was loved by nearly everyone in her world. She might not realize it at the moment because she’d been blinded by some tragedy that had colored her life. But he’d seen the truth. Every Brotherhood member he’d met so far had gazed down on her like a beloved little sister. Even Mrs. James’s feelings for her seemed clear enough.

  Sunnie had known love. Lots of it. He would bet that she knew what it was to be important in someone’s life. To be cared for and worried over. Her parents had taught her about love. About caring for another human being.

  That made her different. One hundred eighty degrees different. His own mother might’ve cared about him once. Maybe. But by the time he was a teen his mother’s main concern had been his father’s whereabouts and then later how many drugs she could buy. His father hadn’t given a crap about either one of them.

  How could he ever learn how to give love if he’d never been taught? For most of his life he’d had no trouble staying numb to the advances of women who wanted more from him than he could provide. And now that he’d met someone who actually made him feel things, it was clear this time he should stay away.

  He and Sunnie might as well come from opposite sides of the emotional universe. They had no business being together for any reason at all.

  “I said I was too tied up,” he muttered between clenched teeth.

  She said nothing for a long few seconds. “Right,” she finally clipped out. “Then I’ll just go and leave you to it.”

  A second later the door to the home office slammed, and he was once again all alone—the same as he’d been for his whole freakin’ life.

  Sunnie lay down fully clothed on the wide double bed in the Plant Tender’s private room. Tory had once slept here amongst the plants and flowers and books. She had always loved the spicy scent of sage and the musky smells of medicine herbs drying. Sunnie breathed them in now.

  Tory. A lone tear slipped from the corner of her eye. She rubbed a hand across the ache in her chest. Damn, but it hurt something awful to
think of Tory with the Skinwalkers. Sunnie would gladly trade herself to them if it would mean setting her friend free.

  The moment of deep sorrow blurred her vision and left a burning sensation in her stomach. The feelings brought back all the pain and anguish she’d felt six months ago. Grief, once again fresh and deadly, crept into her mind and stole her spirit.

  Dammit. She’d worked so long and hard to fight off the sense of loss and guilt over her father’s death. The death she couldn’t have stopped but knew she had caused. She refused to give in to it again.

  Tory had been the one to bring her around physically then. But she would hate knowing that Sunnie had left with a twisted will to go on and a contorted reason to survive. Revenge. The thought of taking out the Navajo Wolf, of doing to him what was done to her father, had been all the medicine she’d needed in order to set one foot in front of the other.

  Tory had shared what she’d recently learned of the Navajo Way

  . Sunnie had known those things all her life but knew Tory had just been hoping to give her an incentive to live.

  Harmony and balance are not passive concepts, Tory had told her. They’re the struggle to hold off evil. To fight against discord at every turn.

  Sunnie had taken her friend’s words literally. She would not be passive. And she would proactively fight the evil in the only way she knew how: killing the Wolf.

  Today her friend had been taken. And tonight Sunnie had been turned away by someone she had grown to care about. That had hurt. But over the last few days of being with Cisco something inside her had drastically changed. Some new light of knowledge was now powerfully illuminating everything in her world.

  Suddenly, surprisingly, she no longer had to kill to find relief from her grief. Helping Cisco, being with him, caring about his troubles and trying to lessen his burdens had become more important than the quick shot of revenge.

  But she was going to have to find some way to make Cisco understand her reasoning. To let her be his partner in all ways. To assist in his search for the truth of what happened to his father. To help him accept his brothers and the relationships they could provide. He was a lonely man who obviously needed a family.

  For a fleeting moment Sunnie wondered if that meant she was in love. Did this need to help him, to soothe his spirit and stand beside him, mean the kind of man-woman love she had heard about all her life?

  It was certainly like nothing she had ever known, not even with her fiancé. And she was sure it could not last.

  Frustrated with not being able to do anything for the two people she cared about the most, Sunnie closed her eyes. Maybe in an hour or two she would try getting Cisco to talk to her again. Or maybe by then he would come to bed with her.

  Sighing and imagining her worries would make her toss and turn all night, Sunnie instead fell immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  A shaft of light slanting through the window blinds brought her completely awake. She’d actually slept all the way through the night. But what had happened to Cisco?

  Making her way toward the kitchen, she smelled coffee brewing. Not sure what she would find when she stepped through the doorway, the sight that met her eyes nearly took her to her knees.

  Cisco stood at the stove with his back to her. He was working there in his jeans without shoes or a shirt, and the magnificent sight of all that naked male muscle took her breath and left her heart pounding. His hair appeared to be wet from a shower, and her fingers itched with the urge to run through the damp, silky strands.

  She cleared her throat and he turned. “There you are, míja. Coffee’s ready. Can I interest you in fry bread and honey? Mrs. James left the fry bread, and I guess Tory’s the one with the sweet tooth. I found a half dozen full honey jars in a cabinet.”

  “Coffee for sure,” she managed. “Fry bread maybe.”

  Cisco smiled and her legs went all wobbly again. “Hey, I’m just heating the stuff up,” he said with a grin. “You have any complaints about the taste, take it up with the cook.”

  Sunnie grabbed a mug of coffee and slid into a chair at the kitchen table. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  He set a platter with the fry bread down in front of her place and took a seat himself. “Not much. But it doesn’t matter.” Beaming, he fairly shimmered with a kind of tension that drove her to the edge of her seat. “I cracked the code, Sunnie. I’ve even managed to translate the first few pages of the notebook.”

  “Terrific,” she said past the lump that had jumped into her throat. “Is it going to lead us to Tory?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Deciphering each word is slow going. But I do know which Skinwalker wrote it. The idiot scratched out his own name in symbols to help him remember the code.”

  Gulping a sip of the hot coffee, Sunnie tried to remain calm. “Have you notified the Brotherhood?”

  “Not yet. I was waiting to discuss it with you first.”

  It was what she’d hoped for, dreamed about. He wanted her help in making a decision. He needed her to be a part of his life.

  “Call the Brotherhood first.” Her heart actually felt a little lighter. “Knowing the Skinwalker’s name should be a tremendous help for locating Tory. You and I will have plenty of time to talk.”

  Her mind fluttered on the edge of joy. Cisco wanted her beside him and Tory was almost saved. Things were finally going in the right direction.

  “It’s probably Hunter or Kody Long I should call first. Michael might not even be taking calls. Right?”

  She nodded, knowing how hard calling his half brothers would be. “Would you rather I do it?”

  Putting his hand over hers on the table, he stopped smiling and gazed deeply into her eyes. “As much as I value your advice and opinion, I can’t let you help me like that. You and I are friends, but the Longs are your family. I’ll be leaving here one day soon and I won’t take any chances of coming between you and your loved ones.”

  What? The fluttering in her chest turned to a punch in the gut. He didn’t see their relationship the same way she did at all.

  It was a setback. A major disappointment she could’ve done without. But she refused to let him leave her devastated the way she’d been before he’d arrived.

  What had passed between them shouldn’t have been mistaken for love in the first place. Only a woman with no parents or siblings around to give her advice would’ve been stupid enough to turn it into something more. He was a good guy, one of the few she’d known. He’d paid attention to the skinny girl with a chip on her shoulder. And he was sexy as hell.

  Meeting a sensual good guy and having great sex was not grounds to start building an entire imaginary relationship. What an idiot she’d been.

  However, understanding that she had been foolish and sitting here with a smile on her face when she wished she could virtually disappear were two entirely different things. She pushed her chair back and stood up.

  “Call Hunter. I’ll go shower.”

  “But…”

  She didn’t stick around long enough to hear the rest.

  Cisco had the kitchen cleared and heard Sunnie getting out of the shower at the same time someone pulled up out in front. He had called Hunter and told him he had important news.

  Conflicted about having to once again face a man with his own eyes, a man who had had the father he’d always wanted and had been denied, Cisco wished there was some other way to do this.

  But he knew better. Sucking up his courage and throwing on his jacket, he went out alone to greet Hunter.

  The door to the white Tribal Police SUV opened as Cisco stepped off the porch. Hunter spotted him and walked over but didn’t give the usual Navajo greeting.

  “Where’s Sunnie?” Hunter asked without any pretense of civility.

  “Finishing a shower. She’ll be with us in a minute.”

  “What’s so important?”

  Cisco pulled out the notebook. “Sunnie and I found this yesterday. Out in the woods, near where the Pla
nt Tender was taken.”

  Hunter took the book and studied it for a moment. “It’s in some kind of code?”

  Cisco nodded his head. “Yeah, but I broke the code last night and translated a few of the pages.”

  “You broke the code?”

  The flash of anger surged, but Cisco fought to keep it under control. “It’s one of the things I’ve taught myself to do. Sunnie and I knew Michael Ayze would be too busy, so I gave it a shot. And I came up with something.”

  Cisco heard the door opening behind his back and felt Sunnie step to his side. “The man who owns that notebook refers to himself as the Burrowing Owl. I’m assuming that’s some kind of Skinwalker.”

  Hunter shot a glance over at Sunnie and then narrowed his eyes back on Cisco. “Finding a Skinwalker notebook in a code that only you can decipher is pretty convenient.” He hesitated, scowled and finally said, “You never told us what you were doing on the reservation. Why should I believe you? And how should I know you’re not working with the Skinwalkers against us?”

  Sunnie pulled on Cisco’s arm to get his attention. “Tell him,” she urged.

  “Yeah, tell me,” Hunter repeated.

  Dammit. No choice now but just to say it. “I came to dig into a murder that happened here on the reservation a long time ago. The killing of a man named Sam Long.”

  He could see Hunter’s shock, though the other man hid it fairly well. If Cisco hadn’t trained himself to see beyond the normal, he would’ve missed the look entirely.

  “My father,” Hunter said through gritted teeth. “Why?”

  This was it, the time for words he had dreaded. “Because he was my father, too.”

  Now the looks in those familiar eyes of Hunter’s were ones Cisco recognized all too well. Disbelief. Then a moment of realization. Then hurt. Anger.

  “My mother said she thought your eyes looked like mine. I hadn’t noticed before, but now…” Hunter’s words failed him for a second, but he recovered quickly. “How old are you? And how long have you known?”