by Vonna Harper
What bothered her so much was that the only thing he’d wanted from her had been her body. Horny and without access to the women he’d had access to before his death, he’d stalked his victim, her.
“I want you to leave me alone,” she said. “What I said to Dr. Carter was the truth. I need time to myself.” Even if that meant she’d be depriving herself of her conduit to history.
She thought he might hand her proof of how little strength was in her words. If he flamed her flesh as they both knew he could, she’d melt before him, melt and surrender. Draw him into her center and scream in primitive release while his cum seared her.
But eventually sanity would return, and she’d hate him for it.
“Tell me why you want me gone,” he said as his fingers slid down her arms. Reaching her hands, he squeezed, then let her go. “Is it because of Cougar?”
“Cougar?”
“He’s too wild, a killer.”
“He’s what nature made him. I’d never blame—”
“Then what?”
They’d slipped through the entryway while talking, and in this place where the shadows never left, past and present flowed together. She still needed space around her as much as she needed her soul back and yet even if Hok’ee wasn’t here, she wouldn’t be truly alone. The Tocho had called the structure Ghost House because Anasazi ghosts remained.
“Do you feel them?” Hok’ee asked. “Maybe they’re speaking to you.”
“No.” Not yet, she almost added but didn’t because she’d need Cougar for that. “Maybe they’re not making that much of an impact because it isn’t the first time I’ve been in Anasazi ruins.”
When he didn’t respond, she tried to tell herself he was being considerate of her emotions. Then he returned to the opening and stood for several moments with his back to her. She had to clench her fingers to keep from touching him.
“They’re having to carry him,” he said. “They tried to get him to walk, but his legs keep collapsing.”
She didn’t care about Garrin. He belonged to a world she wasn’t sure she still had anything in common with.
But if not that, where did she belong? With the Tocho?
Hok’ee was one of them.
And what existed between them wasn’t enough.
“You have a right to more than I’ve given you,” she whispered, unsure where the emotion and words were coming from. “Someday, if you want, I’ll go back into your past. Maybe we’ll learn who your parents were, whether you had siblings.”
His shoulders straightened, and he stood rocklike. Studying him, her mind filled with the image of a toddler standing alone in a small Navajo hogan with a dirt floor. The boy had been crying, but his tears had dried. His small body had a stoic quality about it, as if that hadn’t been the first time he’d been abandoned.
“Maybe you don’t want to know about your family,” she managed. “Sometimes the past needs to stay dead.”
“What makes you say that?”
Oh, God, had he ever been this magnificent? Lonely strength rolled through him.
“Something I just—I’m not sure it’s real. I wasn’t touching you or Cougar, so I can’t be certain.”
“You don’t want to tell me, do you?”
Measuring the distance between them, she shook her head. “What’s going to happen now?” she asked, trying not to tremble or care. “You and the others must have talked about what you’d do if or when Ghost House was discovered, it and the other places.”
“We can’t leave. We don’t belong anywhere else.”
“But—”
“We’ll learn to adapt, Kai, to remain hidden.”
“What kind of a life would that be? Have you tried going anywhere else? You don’t know what it’d be like if you don’t—”
“I go to town sometimes, but then Cougar needs out and I have no choice but to return.”
She’d been trapped once, unable to escape a nightmare. But in time the nightmare had faded enough that she’d been able to pull her life together and go on. Some days were easier than others. She wanted to ask Hok’ee to learn from her example, but his situation was different because for as long as he lived, he’d share his existence with Cougar.
And maybe Cougar couldn’t live anywhere else.
“Just walk out of here now,” she told him when every fiber in her cried out for his arms around her—arms that turned everything into sex.
He studied her for too long. His eyes drilled into her, and she wondered if he was searching for the holes and wounds she’d worked to keep to herself. Even as she threw up her defenses, she silently thanked him for caring—or pretending he did.
“I wish it had been different between us,” she wound up saying. “If you hadn’t captured me—it didn’t occur to you that I might hate you for what you were doing.”
“Do you hate me?”
“Go, damn it, just go!”
Believing he was going to comply, she concentrated on holding herself together until she could no longer see him. Instead, he came even closer. “I’ve changed my mind. You can’t stay in here after all.”
“Can’t?”
“We call it Ghost House for a reason. With everything you’ve been through, you deserve sunlight and warmth, simplicity.”
Sunlight and warmth. How wonderful that sounded. And yet—
“Don’t do this to yourself, Kai.” Holding out his hand, he continued his scrutiny. “You’re an incredibly strong woman, stronger than I was, but it’s time to stop pushing yourself so hard.”
“Me, stronger than you?”
He gave her a rueful look. “I took the easy way out when I chose death by motorcycle.”
“It wasn’t like that. You were wrapped in knots and not thinking about—”
“Don’t.” He pulled her toward him.
“Don’t?” The interior was much cooler than outside, but his chest continued to carry the sun’s warmth.
“Everything has been about me. Me taking you because I was a damn selfish bastard. Me forcing you into my world, getting you to fill in some of the blanks, endangering your life.”
“Endangering?” she parroted so she’d have something other than his body to think about.
“Garrin could have killed you.”
“You think—he was afraid of the Tocho, not me.”
“And rapidly losing his mind. Why did you do it, Kai? Instead of letting us take the risks, you walked up to an armed and dangerous man.”
She wanted to hand him an explanation, but the truth was, the only thing she remembered was her desperate determination not to let anything happen to him.
“Why?” he repeated.
His hand was gentle around hers, comforting and protective. It hadn’t been like that for her in so long. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
About to tell him he was wrong, she stood with his naked body inches away. “I couldn’t handle any more deaths.”
“More? You were willing to risk your own life in an attempt to stop that from happening again?”
He sounded so confused she wished she could explain things, but she was being surrounded by something dark and cold. For a moment she wondered if a Skinwalker had found her.
“You’re shaking, and you’re turning white,” he said.
Not waiting for a response, he lifted her in his arms and carried her outside. Still holding her, he turned so the sun warmed her back.
“Talk to me, Kai, please.”
“I—I want you to leave.”
“No, you don’t. And even if you do, I’m not going anywhere.”
Hadn’t he just promised to give her the space she needed? But if she was alone, the dark force might grow in strength. She’d felt like this before, trembled before hellish images, but she’d always found a way to outrun them.
Maybe the time of running had come to an end.
“Is this backlash for everything I put you through?” he asked. “It’s the last
thing I wanted. I just—hell, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why I did the things I did.”
“I do. You’re part predator.”
A deep sigh lifted his chest. “Yeah,” he said. “I am. But right now I’m trying like hell not to be. I just wish my body would listen.”
He wasn’t the only one incapable of separating the physical from the emotional, as witnessed by her tightening nipples, and an undeniable softening in her pussy.
“I want you to talk about what just happened to you. If you need to curse me, I hope you do. But maybe this isn’t about me.”
She couldn’t talk, not with the darkness lapping at her edges and exhaustion tearing down her defenses. She’d been strong; she had! Put the nightmare behind her. Why was it coming back now?
Leaning over, he assisted her in sitting on the ground. Then he sat cross-legged across from her, his erection bridging much of the space between them. Much as she wanted to touch him, she didn’t.
“I’m not good at this sort of thing,” he said. “Hell knows I haven’t had much experience getting people to confide in me, because I haven’t done the same in return. Then you with your sight came along, and suddenly there’s nothing I can’t keep from you. I’d like that to work both ways.”
Not long ago she’d ordered him to walk away from her. Now she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” he continued, “but I believe things came to a head for you when I asked why you risked your life the way you did. Talk to me. Why, really, were you willing to put yourself between me and a bullet?”
The darkness pushed against her. She could fight it with silence, but it would only return. “I told you. I couldn’t take any more deaths.”
“Anaba’s had that much of an impact on you?”
Although it made her dizzy to do so, she shook her head. To keep from touching him, she tucked her hands under her armpits. “My—my mother died when I was a toddler.”
He looked at her, just looked. His gaze was gentle, and if there was anything behind it, she couldn’t tell. “I—I’m sorry I brought that up,” she whispered. “You don’t know anything about your parents. At least I have pictures of my mother, the receiving blanket she knitted.”
“Her death impacted your entire life.” He rested a hand on her knee.
“I—I’m not sure.” Did he have any idea how much his touch meant? “I have no memories of her, so can I really miss something I never had? My father was an incredible parent. I never felt I was a burden in any way.”
“It was just the two of you?”
Darkness again, nibbling at her, stealing the sun’s gift of warmth. She could no longer feel Hok’ee’s hand. “Yes.”
“What is it? Kai, can you hear me?”
His voice came from someplace far away. Leaning forward, he placed both hands on her knees.
“Of course,” she whispered. “I just…”
“Just what? You were starting to get your color back. But now it’s gone again. This is about your father? Something happened to him?”
She could answer; it wasn’t as if she hadn’t done this before. “He’s dead.”
“How old was he?”
“Forty—forty-seven, why?”
When he didn’t answer, she forced herself to concentrate on him. His cock still said everything that needed to be said about sexuality, but his focus was on whatever he hoped to read in her eyes. “Too young. How did it happen?”
No! Everything between them had about him, his needs and fractured existence. She’d even seen herself as his white knight, the woman with the special talent who would recreate his past. She had no interest in opening herself up to him, none at all.
Except she just had.
“An accident.” She swallowed. “In Canyon De Chelly.”
“What kind of accident?”
She didn’t think she could speak until he pried her hands off her thighs and placed them on his knees. Along with bone and skin, she found his essence. Naked and exposed, they’d fucked like frenzied animals. In the wake of that, could answering his question be any harder?
“A quad. Not that different from the one I came to Tochona on. Four fat tires capable of tackling nearly every terrain there is. Sturdy construction, a semi comfortable seat. He was alone. Near Massacre Cave Overlook. I’d—I was in Black Rock Canyon. There were—I’d been spending time there, waiting for some coyote kits to be born. Their mother let me touch them. I was so excited, I kept trying to call Dad. He didn’t answer.”
She vaguely recalled that Hok’ee had simply asked what had happened to her father. Always before when people questioned her about her father’s death, she’d told them as little as possible. Even the senior park ranger didn’t know all the details. Now, however, the floodgates wouldn’t close.
In a voice that was both emotionless and deep, she told Hok’ee how, unable to shake her unease, she’d left Black Rock Canyon and ridden her own quad to Massacre, so-called because it had been the site of a tragic battle between Navajo and Spanish horsemen.
“They call it a cave, but it’s more of a ledge. Hundreds of feet above the valley floor, with boulders the Navajo had tried to hide behind while the Spanish shot at them. Dad had gone to the top because he’d seen smoke. When—I saw signs of people having camped there, but they were gone by the time I arrived. Only Dad…”
“He was at the top?”
“No. Partway down. His quad—somehow the damn thing tipped over. He fell.”
“It was just you when you found him?”
Could Hok’ee see into her heart and mind? Was he reliving the worst day of her life with her?
“Finding him wasn’t hard. The moment I saw the tracks at the edge—it took me so long to climb down to him.”
“Take your time. I’m here for as long as you need.”
She was going to cry. For the first time since that horrid afternoon. Desperate not to let the tears begin, she pulled her hands free and tried to scoot away. But he came after her and positioned her so she was between his widespread legs, her back resting against his chest. Silent tears ran down her cheeks.
“He was still alive, barely. Broken, so broken. I—I told him I’d take care of him, but we both knew it was too late. I held him until…”
“Did the two of you talk?”
“Not much. We said we loved each other. Then—after he stopped breathing, I held him until the rescuers arrived. I—when I knew they were getting close, I climbed back up to the top.”
Hok’ee pressed his lips against the back of her head. “Because you didn’t want them to sense what had been private between you and your father, right?”
Not wanting to be smothered by more sympathy than she could handle, she’d told the rescuers that her father had been dead when she found him. He’d been the most important person in her life, parent and best friend. He was suppose to be indestructible, this man who encouraged her gift and protected her from the skeptical, and opportunists.
“It hurt so much,” she said because it was too late to keep anything back. “Dad was always so careful. He knew how to handle his quad. Maybe—maybe the campers pushed him.”
“Was there an investigation?”
Damn Hok’ee for being so perceptive! At the same time, she was grateful for the hard question. “Not much of one. Maybe, if I hadn’t lied and said he was already dead—I was—I could barely think.”
Hok’ee didn’t say anything, and she was exhausted, spent. Still crying her silent tears, she turned her head so she could see him out of the corner of her eye. His eyes glistened.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she managed.
“There’s a difference between pity and empathy. Accept what I’m giving you.”
What he’d given her was the most unbelievable sex she’d ever experienced. He’d opened her to possibilities for her psychic ability she’d never imagined. And, although she was still coming to grips with this, her sorrow over her father’s death had lifted
a little.
Still looking at him, she took his right hand and placed it over her breast. She wasn’t sure what had prompted the gesture, maybe equal parts sex and companionship. The breeze began to dry her tears.
“I mean it about the empathy,” he said. “You weren’t thinking straight when your father died or was killed. Your emotions were everything; don’t beat yourself up believing it should have been anything else.”
“I can’t help—”
“Yes, you can. There’s nothing you can do to change what happened, just as I can’t change climbing on a motorcycle and getting myself killed.”
United. In ways she’d never expected.
“I wish I’d known your dad,” he went on. “I think I would have liked him.”
“I know you would. He loved the out-of-doors. He never wanted to live in a city. Just having to visit one drove him crazy.”
“That, I understand.”
Of course, he did. In fact she now believed Hok’ee—or Ryan—would have wound up at a place like this, even if Skinwalker hadn’t been responsible.
“Kai?”
“What?”
“On top of losing your mother at an early age, your dad’s violent death was all you could handle. You didn’t have anyone you felt you could talk to, did you?”
“No.”
“Today when you thought the same might happen, you acted. You put your life in jeopardy because…”
“Because of you.”
He had a wonderful sigh, long, low, and steady. It also revealed a great deal. Now she understood why he’d put the other Tocho in charge of getting Garrin as far away from here as possible. It wasn’t because he wanted to keep Ghost House a secret; that time was coming to an end. The truth was, he wanted the two of them to be alone.
“You’re a wise man,” she told him. “Much wiser than I’d expected.”
“My acting like a predator threw you off?”
“I didn’t complain. I never would.”
“Does that mean you don’t want me to leave after all?”
