With a shake of his head, he said, “I’ve never met anyone like her.” And then, wryly, he added, “Or you.”
“I’m taking that as a compliment this time, not an insult. Should I?”
“Yes.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “When I’ve got everything in order, I’ll drive back out and give you the details.”
“Fine.”
Suddenly, Wes didn’t want to leave. This country hollow, with its cloak of reds, yellows and oranges, was enticing. It reminded him of a haven he’d looked for all his life and never found. Here, Wes realized, he felt safe. Stymied, not understanding all these new emotions and awarenesses, he gave Diana an odd look. “I’ll see you later,” he said gruffly.
Diana watched Wes back around and drive away. Pensive, she gazed at the cloud of red dust kicked up in the wake of the car. Finally turning, she went back to the gate and saw her mother standing on the porch near her favorite oak rocker.
She climbed the wooden porch steps slowly and took a seat in the other rocker.
“You knew he was coming?”
Walks With Wolves nodded, her hands in her lap. “For some time now.”
Diana smiled a little. “You’re a clever old raven, Mother.”
“With reason,” she counseled. Heaving a sigh, she said more softly, “You just be careful around that young man. He’s a wounded cougar, you know. Got a deep wound in his heart. I don’t know if it can be fixed completely.”
“Or at all?” Diana guessed. She knew that when a person received a healing, if they didn’t want to get well, they would throw away the healing energy they’d been given.
“That, too, sweetheart.” Walks With Wolves chuckled. “My girls are strong, good women, though. You grew up here, in this cabin. You know about hardship, about work and sacrifice. If anyone can help that young man, it’s you.”
“Oh,” Diana said, “I don’t think so!”
“Sure. As badly damaged as his heart is, yours is that well and strong. You’re a good match for each other, eh?”
The gleam in her mother’s eyes unsettled Diana. “You’re giving me that look again.”
“Am I?” Walks With Wolves chuckled indulgently. “Well, Daughter, you’ve come to a fork in your path, too. I wonder which direction you’ll choose? Will you walk alone or walk together?”
Diana was uncomfortable when her mother talked in symbolic terms. But she knew there was no use asking her to explain herself. No, it was typically a Native American way to learn through experience. Her mother would no more give her clues about what might or could happen on this two-day mission with Wes than tell her what her life would be like. Walks With Wolves had that power, she knew. There were times Diana had seen her gift a person with some knowing of the future—and her forecasts always came true.
But Walks With Wolves never told Diana or her sister anything about their futures. She’d always shied away from that. Still, right now, Diana felt like she could use all the help she could get. Wes McDonald was a breed apart from the men she had known. And in another way, she had to admit, he reminded her of the violent past, of a nightmare marriage she wanted to forget—forever.
SHAD11003SEEING IS BELIEVING
Chapter Three
Diana thought she should be excited about the flight, but she was curiously subdued, and felt on guard—against Wes. They sat in the first-class section of the airliner. Throughout the morning, Wes had been silent. He was no longer using his cutting, sarcastic tone, and she saw turmoil in his dark blue eyes. The set of his mouth was different—not as thin or hard looking as before. That was it: there was a new softness about him, however minor. Unsure of what to say, she found herself retreating behind a wall of silence, which wasn’t her in the least.
The flight attendant, a smiling older woman, brought breakfast to them. Diana had never flown first-class and was impressed by the white china plates with gold trim and the extraordinary food set before her. The coffee was fresh, Colombia brewed, its fragrance wafting through the cabin.
Wes tinkered with his silverware and slid a quick glance at Diana. He wondered if she’d lived on the reservation all her life. Coming as she did from such a poor home with so little, he wondered if all of this was a bit overwhelming to her. Having slept very little the night before, and nakedly vulnerable from the gamut of feelings running through him, he played with the food on his plate. He wasn’t hungry. What he was suddenly starved for was information about Diana. He knew she was divorced, but how recently? Was she involved with someone? Living with someone? For one of the few times in his life, he felt like a fish out of water. Where to start with such an intimate line of questioning?
Diana sensed a hesitancy coming from Wes, and it threw her off balance. She picked at her ham-and-cheese omelet, finally pushing it aside in favor of the fresh strawberries in thick cream.
“First-class makes you know what you miss when you aren’t rich,” Wes said experimentally.
Diana felt his attention, felt his nervousness. With a shrug, she said, “I’ve always been rich in other ways, so I never missed things like this. They’re nice, but not necessary.”
“Not like a hug?”
She smiled a little and met his shy glance. How terribly changed Wes was, in less than twelve hours. Diana knew the healing was responsible for it. She noted how red-rimmed and bloodshot his eyes were. He probably hadn’t slept much last night. “Money can’t buy a hug,” she whispered in agreement, suddenly emotional.
“Your mother…” Wes struggled to find the right words. Lord knew, he wasn’t good with words at any time, especially diplomatic ones. “She’s…different.”
“Maybe to you. White people aren’t used to reservations or our way of life. I don’t see it as different. I see it as normal.”
“No, I meant her.”
“The fact that when you came in, she hugged you like you were one of her children?”
He nodded and chewed on the food, not tasting it. “I felt…something. I’ve never felt it before. I don’t know what to do about it.”
With a gentle laugh, Diana put her utensils aside. She picked up the cup of fragrant coffee. “Don’t do anything. Let it happen.”
“What did happen?” He drilled her with an intense, probing look.
“You were given a healing, Wes. That’s all.”
His brows fell and his mouth compressed.
“It just happens,” Diana said quietly. “Mother doesn’t choose who is healed. She’ll tell you herself that the healing energy comes through her, not from her. The Great Spirit chooses who will be helped. My mother is a very warm, loving woman, and she hugs everyone who comes into our house. Everyone is treated the same there.”
With a slight, strained laugh, Wes said, “I felt like I’d been hit by a bolt of lightning, Diana.” He pointed toward his loafers. “I felt this—this energy, this heat, come curling up out of my toes, shoot straight up both my legs into my torso and out the top of my head. When your mother was holding me, then lifted me off the ground, my head seemed to burst open like a ripe watermelon. It wasn’t a painful sensation, just a different one. I felt this dazzling gold-and-white light throughout my head and body, and an incredible heat settle here.” He touched his chest. “It burned for almost an hour afterward, but finally that sensation went away, too.”
“Then what happened?” She saw the awe, the confusion and question in Wes’s face. His expressive blue eyes were no longer as dark as before. She had no doubt that he had received a healing—and that it was working minor miracles for him.
Wes sat back and closed his eyes. “I went back to the hotel, back to my room, and I felt so damned dizzy I had to lie down. I guess I went to sleep.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. Again he was struck by her serenity, that sense of wholeness that seemed to radiate from within her.
“When I woke up, six hours later, I felt pretty good. I got up, made the travel arrangements, checked in with my contact at Perseus and ate at a local restaurant.” He
shoved his fingers through his hair. “Last night was something else….”
Diana felt him hesitate, as if to speak further would dredge up pain. Without thinking, she reached out, her fingers falling softly against the hard curve of his darkly tanned arm. She felt the instantaneous reaction of his muscles tightening beneath her fingertips. His eyes snapped upward to hers. Drowning in his narrowed blue gaze, she felt her breath being stolen from her. She felt his desire for her, felt it through every pore, every cell of her body. And in that magical instant out of time, she came in direct contact with her desire for him. It was physical, no question, but there was more. Much more. Shaken, Diana removed her hand from his arm.
Stunned, Wes continued to stare at Diana. How badly he wanted to reach out and touch her. He wanted to touch that soft lower lip, to find out just how wonderful she felt. Then he wanted to slide his hand behind her neck and gently draw her forward until their mouths met, melded. Heat unraveled wildly through him on the heels of those thoughts. How delicious she was—a ripe strawberry for the picking. Sweet yet tart in so many ways, offering succor on so many levels to his starving senses.
Struggling to curb the desires flaring white-hot through his body, Wes was silent for more than a minute. He’d never felt so much before—with such startling depth. There was just something so intrinsically simple and honest about Diana that he couldn’t help but want her. He forced his raging inner needs under tight control.
“Last night I dreamed about the past. My past,” he admitted roughly.
Diana nodded but said nothing, hearing the strain in his voice, seeing the terror mirrored in his eyes. She held her breath momentarily, knowing how important this moment was—to both of them.
Wes looked out the window, which revealed a sky filled with white strands of cloud against vivid blue. Wrestling with the words, he returned his attention to her. “I was given up for adoption when I was four years old. My mother…” He grimaced. “She was a drug addict. I remember her dropping me off at the welfare office, crying, and telling them she was a lousy mother and couldn’t raise me right.”
Diana expelled her breath. There was such torture in Wes’s eyes that she overrode her mind’s warning and reached out, touching his arm again. Unparalleled tension thrummed through him beneath her fingers. “And last night, that old memory surfaced, didn’t it?” she asked gently.
“Yes. Completely.” Wes searched her face. “How do you know?”
“I’m not a mind reader. I’ve seen Mother heal hundreds of people over the years, Wes, while I was growing up, so I know the pattern of healing after they’ve been to see her.”
“Old memories get dredged up?” he asked bitterly. Still, Diana’s warm, dry hand on his arm was like a soothing balm to his tattered emotional state.
“Yes, but they’re brought up for the person to see and feel, and then they’re released once and for all. It’s the way the body heals, Wes—the cells, tissue, bone and organs remember every trauma we’ve gone through. And until you work through it on the emotional level, that memory remains within you. Not just in your heart and mind, but in your body.” She smiled a little and, without thinking, raised her hand and barely grazed his recently shaven jaw. “You’re going through the releasing process, and that’s a good sign.”
The touch of her fingertips was evocative, stirring, arousing heat wherever it fleetingly lighted. Something good and solid was growing between them—he recognized that much. A slight, hesitant smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
“It may be good, but it hurts like hell. When I close my eyes, all I can feel are those old emotions I stuffed away decades ago. I feel like I’m that four-year-old kid again, getting left at that office, with my mother crying and apologizing.”
Her heart twinged with his pain. “It must have been terrible for you to be left standing there with a stranger, watching your mother leave.”
Wes nodded. “I kept dreaming about it all night—waking up in a sweat.” He didn’t want to admit he’d cried. How many decades had it been since he’d cried? Muttering, he said, “I stopped crying a long time ago.”
“And I’ll bet you feel like crying all the time now, right?”
Somehow it was impossible to deny Diana’s knowing. Finally, he rasped, “Yes.”
Her hand tightened briefly on his forearm. Diana felt some of the tension draining from Wes as he talked. Well, that was what he needed—a friend to talk to, someone who would listen. She wanted to be that to him—and more. “What else?” she prompted gently.
Wes forgot where they were, because it no longer mattered. His world was about feelings and emotions he thought he’d buried forever. Diana was here, at his side, touching him, holding him in her own way, and he was grateful. “I was four years old and—isn’t it funny?—I can remember it as clearly as I’m sitting here.” With a shake of his head, he went on in a quiet tone. “My mother wasn’t a bad person, Diana. She did the best she could. I realize that now. But then, as a kid, I thought she was abandoning me. Giving me away.”
“You felt she didn’t love you enough to keep you?”
“Yes. But I know different now. She just couldn’t kick her drug habit. At least she saw what it was doing to me. She loved me enough to give me to a foster family, who eventually adopted me.” He folded his scarred hands and stared down at them. “From the day she gave me up, I never saw her again. My foster mother finally told me that she had died of a drug overdose a couple of years later.”
Diana closed her eyes. Her fingers automatically squeezed his arm in comfort. When she looked up at Wes again, she saw tears glimmering in his eyes and realized just how deeply he was affected. Then, just as quickly, she saw him force them back, swallowing hard against the flood of emotions.
“But you knew she loved you, didn’t you?”
Wes shook his head and placed his hand across hers. It was an instinctive gesture, one born out of need, out of… He didn’t know what label to put on his feelings for Diana. She was a safe haven in this passage through the painful past, someone who genuinely cared, listening with her heart as well as her ears. Maybe it was the shimmer of gold mixed with the tears in her velvet-brown eyes that triggered the depth of his feelings. Wes wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except that he needed her.
“No, not at that time. After my mother died, my foster parents, who had managed to stay in touch with her, told me everything. From the time I went to live with the McDonalds, they reassured me that my mother loved me. What I didn’t know was that they’d struggled to keep in contact with her as my mother moved from city to city, state to state. Sometimes they’d get phone calls from her in the middle of the night. She was calling to see how I was doing.”
“Even though she was hurting, she loved you enough to stay in touch,” Diana murmured.
“Yes.” Wes lifted his head. “That wasn’t all. The year after my mother gave me up, she hustled to save money. She had a bad drug habit, but I found out later that she’d been getting clean, because she went to a couple of halfway houses for help.” He shook his head. “Imagine my shock when I was eighteen and my adopted parents told me my mother had saved ten thousand dollars before she died. My adopted father was a stockbroker, and he invested the money for me. By the time I was eighteen, there was enough for me to do whatever I wanted.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to college for a degree in civil engineering. I could have had my pick of jobs, but I went into the army instead.”
Diana gaped. “You were in the army?” Automatically, she lifted her hand from his arm, memories of her past overriding everything else.
“Yes.” Wes’s mouth quirked. “I wanted to build bridges for the army, but they said they wanted me in Delta Force, as one of the officers.”
“Delta Force?” Her eyes widened. “That’s the antiterrorist team that goes undercover anywhere in the world to help out in military situations.”
“That’s right.” Wes saw the mixture of emotions i
n her eyes. “Remember the Aquille Lauro incident, where terrorists boarded the ship and started killing the passengers?”
“Yes.”
“I was there.” Wes sighed. “I was also on one of those helicopters President Carter sent across the desert. So many good men died on that mission. So many mistakes were made….”
Reeling, Diana sat amid her own conflicting feelings. “You were in the army,” was all she could say. No wonder she had felt the warrior around him. The violence.
“I got out two years ago and went to work for Perseus last year. I spent a decade in the army and I was disillusioned. After losing so many of my friends on that botched mission, I had a bad taste in my mouth for the military.”
Diana sat back, her arms folded tightly across her stomach. “I have a bad taste for the army, too, for different reasons,” she whispered.
Wes saw anger in her eyes—and sadness. “Tell me about it?”
With a shrug, she said, “I’d just as soon forget.”
“Healing comes with talking. Remember?” He smiled slightly for her benefit.
The warmth that came to Wes’s eyes released Diana from her world of anger, grief and confusion. His entire face changed with that smile, and it stunned her. The hardness disappeared, if momentarily. Wes was reaching out to her. She was sure he didn’t do that very often. His gesture touched her more deeply than she could ever have imagined.
“We share a common past,” she said finally. “My ex-husband was in the army.”
Wes nodded. He saw and felt her anxiety. Her fear. It was the first time in his life he’d been aware of anyone’s emotions to this degree or intensity. No longer could he deny that something had truly opened up his scarred heart. Now it was his turn to comfort her. Reaching out, he closed his hand over hers, which lay clenched in her lap.
“Can I read between the lines? He was a real bastard to you?”
Needing Wes’s touch, Diana nodded. She was surprised by his reaching out, but grateful. “Bob Parker was the consummate army officer,” she began bitterly. “He was hard on his troops and he brought that same cruelty to our home.”
Seeing Is Believing Page 4
