The flaky biscuits were Dana’s favorite. She followed Chase’s example with melted butter and honey, then sank her teeth into the warm, sweet bread, as she thought about astral travel. The skill came naturally to her, passed down through the family lineage. She had the ability to leave her physical body and travel at will through the world, to a different galaxy or even to another dimension. It took years and years of dedicated practice to perfect astral travel. What made this attempt worrisome for her was the danger she’d be under in the process. Chase seemed to have confidence in her skill, but Dana had misgivings. If she couldn’t astral travel, which was very possible under such stressful circumstances, that would leave them wide open to discovery. And she couldn’t do it beforehand for fear of Rogan or his women being tipped off to their plan to scale his stronghold. Scaling the cliff would be damn stressful, not to mention life-threatening. Dana wasn’t sure she could focus enough to accomplish the feat, but she had to try.
“I’m worried some of Rogan’s medicine women are just as good as we are, metaphysically speaking. There might be one who sounds the alarm even if I astrally travel into the compound.” Dana knew that a person with strong clairvoyant talents or skills as a medium could detect her presence or actually see her. And that would ruin their cover and sound the alarm.
Raising his head, Chase saw the worry in Dana’s expression. He could spend a lifetime just watching her eat. The way her lips glistened, the way her eyes darkened when she became lost in thought…Groaning to himself, Chase felt helpless with Dana so near. She was so damn touchable. And he wanted her. All of her. In every conceivable, pleasurable way.
Focusing on her concerns, he cleared his throat. “It’s doubtful. Rogan has certain skills. I don’t believe he’d work with anyone, especially a woman, who is better than he is.”
“Do you think he will sense me coming?”
Chase shook his head. “Grandmother seemed to think his skills in astral detection are not that well honed. I hope she’s right.” He turned back to his scrambled eggs. Before cooking for Dana, Chase hadn’t paid much attention to food, especially since his release from that hellish South American prison. Oh, he ate, that was for sure. But now, in her gentle, soothing presence, food tasted delicious to him as never before. Dana’s energy made Chase feel so alive, more sensitive to his surroundings. She was like a rainbow in his life. His favorite times of the day were when they ate together. Dana was his dessert, even if she never realized it.
Chase was glad she didn’t know how he felt. She’d been hurt enough; he didn’t want to wound her any more than she already had been.
“When you move astrally into the compound, everyone except the guards should be asleep. You’ll cloak your energy trail to keep the possibility of detection to a minimum. In the astral, you’ll see the colors and glow of the Storm Pipe. You’ll be able to locate it pretty easily, I’d think.”
Nodding, Dana finished off her mountain of scrambled eggs. Daily ten-mile runs left her famished. “I worry a little about getting out of my body, Chase.” She got up, put her empty plate in the basin and returned to the table. Picking up her coffee, she said, “The stress, you know? I’ve never attempted astral projection under a situation like this.”
“I know,” Chase agreed, hearing the anxiety in her tone. He put his own plate in the dishwater, then picked up the coffeepot and refilled their cups. “It takes intense focus,” he agreed, sitting back down. Holding her guarded gaze, he added, “Focus and nonstop concentration. You’ve trained all your life for this moment, whether you realize it or not.”
“You’re right,” Dana admitted sourly, sipping the hot coffee. Her nerves sizzled as Chase gave her that hooded look that made her blood race and her heart pick up in beat. The man was so ruggedly good-looking, and Dana felt she could drown in his eyes. Right now, all she wanted was to melt into him and be one with him. Wrestling with her selfish desires, she managed to say, “I’ll probably do it, because I’ll be so scared for both of us that I won’t dare lose focus.”
Chase smiled lazily. The way his mouth quirked drove Dana crazy with the yearning to kiss him again. Did he want to kiss her? Had it been a onetime deal only? She hoped not, but she understood that the mission came first. And as Chase had warned her many times before, they might not survive.
“Being scared is good,” Chase assured her. He picked up the last warm biscuit, opened it and offered her half. Dana took it and smiled in thanks. When their fingertips met, Chase felt an electric current leap up his hand and into his arm. That was the kind of effect Dana had on him: electric. He was sure she felt it, too.
“I have a lot of fear to work through,” Dana admitted as she buttered her half of the biscuit. “You have a lot more training in that area than I do.” She grinned as she dripped honey on top. “My mom used to call me ‘scared little rabbit’ when I was young. She threatened to name me that.” Dana recalled the teasing that her mother had given her over her fearful reaction to many things around her.
“How old were you then?” Chase tried to imagine Dana as a child. She would have been pathetically thin, like a greyhound.
Shrugging, Dana laughed. “Five, maybe. I was afraid of my shadow at that time. I used to have such scary, violent and frightening dreams.”
“Hey, any young child is naturally going to be frightened,” Chase declared, enjoying the biscuit. “The world looks pretty big through a five-year-old’s eyes, don’t you think?” He liked the way Dana licked the honey from her long, elegant fingers. He had to place a steel clamp on his desire when he felt his body tightening.
“I suppose,” she sighed. “But the nightmares really fueled my fears.”
“What were they about?” Chase wondered if Dana’s mother had held her, rocked her and made her feel safe after some of those hideous dreams. He was sure she had. The woman had carried the Storm Pipe, after all. She must have been an exemplary mother.
“Fighting.” Dana finished off the biscuit and wiped her hands on the paper napkin. “Blood, gore, screams, dying, stuff like that.”
“What did your mom say about them?”
Picking up her coffee cup, Dana said, “That they were past-life memories that I still hadn’t disconnected from. She told me I had been a warrior in many lifetimes. My mother would hold me on her lap. She’d explain to me that over time, the past would shut off like a faucet, and the flow of memories would finally leave me alone.”
“Did they?”
“By the time I was nine, they were gone.” Shivering a little, Dana held his intense gaze. “I still find it hard to believe I was a warrior. I killed a lot of people, from what my mom told me. What I saw back in the Middle Ages was gruesome. The Crusades…I get a lump in my throat just thinking about it. I can’t even kill a fly or an ant in this lifetime. I’m glad those memories are walled off in me, because they would be too overwhelming.”
Without thinking, Chase reached out and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. Dana’s eyes grew huge with shock and then something else that started his heart thudding. He quickly released her fingers and castigated himself. Once more, Chase found himself wanting to protect Dana. She deserved protection. Maybe she wasn’t a warrior in this life, but death had followed her anyway. “I’m sure it was overwhelming.”
Feeling tense, Chase pushed his chair away from the table. He had to create space so he wouldn’t reach out and touch her again. “Do you recall other lifetimes or just those?” While desperate to get on another topic, he couldn’t help but notice the disappointment in Dana’s eyes when he’d released her hand.
“I’ve had glimpses of other lives when I meditate,” she admitted. “Peru is a place I have lived many times. And in the Far East. I’ve had lifetimes as a Chinese man and woman. I was a Chinese herbalist when I saw the British sail into our bay for the first time. Later, I went through the history books and found that event had really happened.” Her hands still tingled wildly from Chase’s touch. The contact had been so unexpected, but so wonderf
ul.
“That’s a good way to double-check those past-life movies, as I call them.” Chase pointed to his forehead. “My movies often show me snippets of my many thousands of lifetimes.”
A wry smile crept across Dana’s lips. “Same thing happens to me. It really is like a movie. Sometimes I cringe over some of the things I’ve done.”
“None of us have had stellar lifetimes,” Chase agreed. “How could we? We reincarnate in order to learn right from wrong. We commit many mistakes to learn morals and values. And it’s damn painful most of the time.”
Finishing off her coffee, Dana smiled. “Yes, but with each lifetime we accrue more knowledge through experience. Over time, that does make us a better human being. We make progress. At some point, we transcend the animal side and become more spiritually minded, more compassionate.”
“And that,” Chase said, grinning as he scraped the chair back and stood, “is when you get tests like this one. This one life has come about because of the hundreds you’ve lived before.”
Dana looked up at him, appreciating his masculine power, the hard angles of his body. “Yeah, but I’d really like to get past all this blood, gore and life-death stuff. Wouldn’t you?”
“Sure,” Chase said, picking up the flatware and taking it to the basin. He grabbed a cloth and began to wash the dishes. “When we’ve evolved so much that we no longer need to reincarnate into third-dimensional bodies, we’ll cease to fight, or to attract life or death matters. This is one time, Dana, that our lives are worth the cost of going after the Storm Pipe.”
Rousing herself, she watched as Chase busied himself at the sink. “I know. I just hope I can overcome my fear and perform. I don’t want to let you or Grandmother down.” She saw Chase’s questioning glance. For a moment, Dana felt as if she’d been blanketed in an invisible energy of the most wonderful kind. He had sent an energetic gift to her. Accepting the embracing warmth, which carried with it such peace, she gave him a small smile. “With your help, I know I can do it.”
“That’s the spirit,” Chase murmured. “And even if you don’t believe it, you are a warrior, Dana. It’s inside you. You may not look or feel like one, but believe me, there’s a warrior woman inside of you.” And he prayed to the Great Spirit that Dana would never have to tap into it.
But on their mission, she just might have to. Chase had real concerns. What if Dana saw someone die? What if she saw him kill one of Rogan’s women, or Rogan himself? Would her disgust with him drive her away? That thought scared him ten times more than scaling that cliff or climbing into Rogan’s compound.
“I like the idea of Grandmother having both of us go on this mission,” Dana said. “You make me feel safe, Chase.” She felt such relief to share that tidbit with him. She tried to steel herself against any negative reaction he might have to her truth. Instead, Chase turned, wiped his hands with a nearby towel and leaned back against the counter. There was such care and thoughtfulness in his expression. Usually, he kept what he was really feeling from her.
“I’m glad, Dana. Because if anyone deserves protection and care, it’s you.” And the Great Spirit knew how badly he wanted to give her those things—for the rest of their lives. Only one roadblock stood in the way of that dream: Rogan Fast Horse.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ROGAN WAS ENJOYING an early lunch in his room when there was a sharp knock at the door. He’d made it clear he wanted no interruptions. His Wednesday-morning quiet had been broken.
“Come in!” he snarled, setting the plate of eggs and bacon aside on the bedstand.
Jeanne Bright Sun appeared and gave him an apologetic look. “Rogan, I’m sorry to bother you—”
“I gave orders not to be disturbed, dammit!”
She scrunched up her brow. “I know, but a couple of people are down at the gate asking for you.”
Rogan wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Me?” He looked at his watch. It was 11:30 a.m. “They must be lost tourists. No one is looking for me.”
“Um, I don’t think they’re tourists. The woman, an Annie Smith, said she needed to talk with you. She sounded like it was urgent.”
Rogan didn’t know the name. Instantly, he went on guard. “What kind of identification did they present?”
Shrugging, Jeanne said, “The man, a Ron Connolly, said they were sent up here to the Eagle’s Nest by Joe Spearling.”
Joe he knew. But Joe understood Rogan didn’t want unexpected visitors. The trading post owner was rich and powerful, and Rogan had curried favor with him for over a decade. Sometimes he would give him a gift, some insignificant ceremonial item, and Spearling would almost swoon with joy.
Rogan gave no one his phone number, which was unlisted. So these two people, whoever they were, had had no way to contact him beyond coming up here without an appointment.
Studying Bright Sun, who was in her early forties, Rogan noticed her shifting nervously from foot to foot. Though she wore camouflage and boots, her black hair was in braids and tied off with red yarn and eagle feather fluff. “Who did they say they were?” he asked.
“The woman, Ms. Smith, said she’s a psychic. She showed us a sketch of details of a dream she had. She’d shown it to Mr. Spearling and he suggested they come up here to talk with you.”
“Damn. That’s all I need—some ditzy space cadet dreamer right now.”
“I don’t trust the man, Rogan. I felt his energy. It’s closed and he’s hiding something.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Blue Wolf happened to be at the gate when they drove up. She told me to tell you the dude looks like an FBI agent.”
Rogan’s gut knotted. Had the FBI found him out? Did they know he’d nailed the vice president with a ceremonial pipe? Sweat popped out all over Rogan’s body. “This doesn’t make sense! A psychic with an FBI agent?”
Jeanne shrugged. “I know. It does seem strange. Do you want to see them or do you want me to send them on their way?”
“Take them to my office. And while I keep them busy, you and Blue Wolf search their car and see what you can find. If anything raises suspicion, bring it to me.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Rogan stood. “I feel bad about this. The energy is off.”
“Blue Wolf feels the same way. She doesn’t trust the guy.”
“Act like nothing’s wrong. Escort them to my office. Smile and be friendly.”
“Right away.” Jeanne turned on her heel, thudded down the wooden steps of the porch and headed for the gate.
Rogan inhaled deeply and slowly. He automatically cloaked himself in a bubble of protection, so that if this woman really was psychic, she wouldn’t be able to pierce his energy field and find out anything about him. On the other hand, he sure as hell was going to look into their auras to see who they really were.
ANNIE NEARLY GASPED when Rogan Fast Horse entered the small office. She was using the fictitious name of Smith to protect her identity. He looked very much like the man she’d seen in her upsetting dream. Alarm spread through her, though she suppressed her reaction. This was a powerful person.
The medicine man was tall and lean, in his forties, his black hair interspersed with silver, pulled back in a long ponytail that grazed his shoulders. He wore jeans, cowboy boots, a black leather belt with an oval of turquoise on the front, a white shirt with pearl buttons and a deerskin vest.
The colorful beading designs on the vest intrigued Annie, but she didn’t have time to absorb it all. Around Rogan’s neck was a dark-brown necklace. He had a long, narrow face, and his eyes were a brilliant blue, large and close together. His nose, hooked and crooked, told Annie that this man had been in a scrape or two. She could tell it had been broken at least twice.
“Welcome,” Rogan purred as he reached across his immaculately kept oak desk, hand extended to the woman first. “I’m Rogan Fast Horse, and you are…?”
Annie had been sitting beside David in the visitors chairs, and quickly got to her feet. She felt dizzied by the power around this medici
ne man. Rogan’s voice was mellow compared to the fractious energy she felt swirling around him. As she gripped his long, lean hand, Annie noticed that his nails were carefully manicured. She found his palm firm, but without calluses or any hint that he did hard work on a daily basis as a cowboy would. This was a man who liked the finer things in life. So, was he a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Did he wear cowboy duds to hide behind? And if so, who was Rogan Fast Horse?
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fast Horse,” Annie said. As she quickly released his hand, she had the maddening urge to wipe off his energy.
“Please, call me Rogan,” he insisted, giving her a slight smile.
Annie felt a swift change in the air around the medicine man as he smiled perfunctorily at David, who was using his undercover name, Ron Connolly. The medicine man’s eyes narrowed just a hint, nothing obvious. His voice was smooth and welcoming as he pumped Colby’s hand. She sensed Rogan did not trust the agent. They needed to get their information and go.
“I hear from my friends at the gate that you wanted to see me?” he asked Annie, focusing on her. “That Mr. Spearling sent you up here to find me?”
Eagerly, she sat down again, drew out the sketch and handed it across the desk. She made sure to prevent physical contact with Rogan. “Yes, I did.” She filled him in on the dream that had prompted the drawing. The moment Rogan looked at the sketch, his smile dissolved. His thick, dark brows drew into a V. As she finished her story about the vision, Annie gave him a hopeful look. “Does this mean anything to you, Rogan? Mr. Spearling said it was probably a pipe. We know nothing of pipes, so he felt you might be able to help us.”
“I see….” Rogan dropped the sketch on his desk. His heart was pounding like a sledgehammer. But a long time ago, he’d learned to keep a perfectly calm expression. If his drunken father didn’t see any reaction, he’d leave Rogan alone. The moment he revealed any feelings, his father would explode and beat him up.
Propping his fingers together, Rogan leaned back in the chair as if in thought. “It could be many things, Ms. Smith.”
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