Chris opens a door to a tack room and enters the small space containing saddles, pads, and bags. He inspects and chooses bridles and lead ropes from the pegs on the wall.
"Hey, wait a second," I say, realizing my sudden fear of being left behind is actually happening. "Are you going for a ride?"
"I’ll ride one and lead the other."
"Whoa. Wait up. The horses are under a lot of stress," I say.
"Par for the course today," Chris says as he opens a door into the main part of the barn holding a lead rope and a hackamore.
Nathaniel places his hand on my shoulder. I turn into him, resting my forehead against his suddenly very real and very solid chest.
"Want to fill me in? Or do you just want me to be here?" Nathaniel asks.
"Both. But I have to find out what Chris is doing first before I can tell you. And I don't want to be stranded out here."
I walk through the tack room and into the barn. All the doors have been thrown wide open for the emergency squad and the investigators. The barn is a completely different place now with the sun angling in and highlighting the motes of dust hanging in the air. Regardless of the light, I avert my gaze from the broken stall where the dead man had been lying in the straw.
"Chris," Nathaniel says from over my shoulder.
Chris ties the bay horse to a rail with a lead rope.
He ignores us and returns to the tack room, then reappears a moment later holding a saddle blanket.
"Who died here? And what part does Juliana have in all this?"
"You do not get to speak my name, death bringer," Chris says without looking our way.
"Give me a freaking break, Chris. Nathaniel isn't here to harm you — or me."
"Which is why he is still standing here and not banished from my father’s house and property,” he states. “There is much happening right now. I have no time to deal with your nonsense."
"What is going on? Why was the spirit so angry?" I ask.
"He was a vengeful ah-roo pitch."
"How am I supposed to know what that is?"
Chris stops moving and turns to me, not Nathaniel. "Men will sometimes find sport in harming one another. This one took it too far. I suspect he isn't finished and is after my father. There may be much more going on that I do not know. I am going to find out."
"Right now?"
"Yes. The ancestors are urging me to move fast. The evil in the stranger's spirit caught me off guard. I will make it right."
Chris tightens the cinch strap on the saddle. The bay horse doesn't seem to mind. In fact, her ears are forward and she appears more than willing to cooperate.
"She's doing much better," I say.
"Vannah is a good animal. She will take me to my father without complaint."
Chris wraps Vannah's reins loosely around the rail and unclasps her lead rope. He leaves the barn and returns with the black horse.
I feel myself shy away as they approach.
"What is it?" Nathaniel whispers near my ear.
"The horse is still traumatized," I say.
"How do you know?"
"I feel it."
"Should you tell Chris?" Nathaniel asks.
I'm not sure what to say or think and give a half-hearted shrug. I would have sworn I heard Vannah's thoughts a few hours earlier, but as I stand near her now, there’s only silence.
"Jules thinks the horse is too traumatized by what happened earlier," Nathaniel speaks for me.
Chris leads the black gelding to the rail and loops the rope around. "She is correct. I need Mika right now. He's going to have to get over it."
"Chris, I... Err…"
"I don't have time, Juliana."
He begins the process of saddling all over again. Chris is curt but not cruel with his words. His tone is so Chris I hardly notice his abruptness much anymore. Nathaniel bristles though and I intertwine my fingers with his.
Chris continues, "I must find White Wolf before it is too late."
"Too late for what?" I ask.
"I am not certain enough to say in detail."
Chris loads a sleeping bag and his backpack on top of Mika’s empty saddle. He places his medicine bundle inside a saddlebag on Vannah before loosening her reins from the rail and leading her around. Chris ties Mika’s lead rope to a loop dangling from Vannah's saddle and mounts the bay horse. Vannah appears ready for whatever is coming.
A brave girl, I think, as I stare at her large brown eye.
Ride Mika. He likes women. He needs a calming friend. Vannah's voice is clear like summer sunlight in my mind. I cough to clear my throat, or maybe my head.
"She talks?" I say to no one but my astonished self.
I'm sure Nathaniel hears me, but not so sure about Chris.
Chris clicks his tongue and Vannah immediately begins to lumber toward the open door.
"Chris, wait."
"No time. There is betrayal on the family land. My father will need me this night."
I jog along the side of Chris and Vannah. "You're going to leave me out here?"
"Whoa, Vannah." He shifts his weight back in the saddle to stop the horse.
Chris glances at me like he is seeing me for the first time since we arrived at his father's small ranch. He blinks as if clearing dust from his eyes, or maybe adjusting to the sunlight now shining on us. He pulls something out of his pocket and tosses it to me. Quick reflexes aren’t my strong point and I miss by a mile, but Nathaniel has my back and catches Chris's truck keys.
"Drive my truck back to town."
"Really?"
"Yes. Now, I must leave."
"How do you know where to go?" I ask, unable to contain my anxieties any longer. What is he thinking? He's going to go searching all over the freaking world for a hateful ghost and an elderly shaman?
"Great Spirit and my guides will lead me." Chris leans forward and nudges the horse with his heels.
Vannah looks at me one more time with her soulful eyes. Then she follows her order and leads them out into the yard. As soon as Chris is past the paddock, he urges the two horses forward. They trot away through the brush, past the house, and down to the river.
"What did the horse tell you?" Nathaniel says.
"Horses don't talk," I say.
"But she does to you, doesn't she?"
"Nathaniel, I could use a day off from myself."
Chapter Three: Floating and Crashing
Nathaniel
“Is this the way back to town?”
“Not really,” Juliana says.
She wanted to drive Chris’s truck even though I offered to. Considering the circumstances, maybe I should have insisted, but she’s handling the vehicle fine. We were only a few miles from the Abeyta household when she turned off the paved road. Juliana’s confidence is apparent as we four wheel it over a single lane dirt track.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Somewhere in the San Juan National Forest.”
Since she isn’t being specific, I sit back and take in the view. Juliana drives deeper into this section of the forest. We’ve long since climbed out of the valley with the tall cottonwoods and the abundant plant life. Except for a few pines, the trees grow shorter and bushier the farther we are from the river. The uneven ground alternates between being too sandy or too rocky and the ride is rough, but the scenery is peaceful and there’s no one around. No vehicles and no people are anywhere to be seen.
At last, she pulls to the side into a patch of scrubby grass and kills the engine. A timid half smile graces her lips. I interpret it as a “just go with it” kind of look. Then she’s out the door and walking toward the sunset. She stops hiking at the top of a rocky bluff. In front of our feet, shelves of rock tumble down the mountain to the valley below.
This must be the break she needed. She isn’t trying to climb or scramble over anything and she isn’t even inspecting the plants that grow here. She’s staring at the miles of forest and hills, mesa’s and buttes, and the sun moving fart
her west with every passing minute.
“How’s the new client?” she asks as she finds a somewhat level place to sit among the tuffs of grass and sandy gravel.
I lower myself down next to her.
“He’s different,” I say. “Detached from his emotions and possibly brainwashed.”
“Brainwashing should be punishable by death.” Juliana tosses a pebble over the steep incline.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily intentional. As twisted as it may be, I suspect his family is trying to help him. I think he’s confused about who he truly is versus what people have told him to be. In an extreme way.”
“That sounds sad.”
“It is. People like to form these neat little boxes around their life. They want everything to fit inside just right. Steven doesn’t fit in his family’s box. He doesn’t want to, either. I respect him for that, but he isn’t sure how to handle the feelings it creates inside himself. He’s a lit fuse and I’m not sure where or when the explosion is going to happen.” Juliana takes a deep breath. “You’re defusing right now, aren’t you?”
“Yes and no.” She tips her face to look up at me. “I’m processing too much lately. My brother, my recent injuries, and then what happened today. The whole summer keeps swirling around in my head like mud stew.”
Her eyes have so much depth that I could sit here all day and try to puzzle out what I see going on inside her. There are layers of compassion, intrigue, wonder, and fear in those emerald eyes sparkled with bits of sun. I know a fox lives inside her somewhere.
“Ready to talk about what happened? Sometimes the act of talking can help clear your mind.” I shift my gaze out across the distance to where the house should be past the wide bend in the river.
“No,” she says and shakes her head. “Maybe. I want to forget today and all the drama in my life.” She tosses another pebble over the edge. “I thought I was pregnant after the whole possession thing.”
This is news to me and I try not to let the shock of her words show on my face. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, but words are slipping by, I don’t want to interrupt. Speaking one’s troubles can be cathartic for the mind and soul.
“And I never want to spend a night in a hospital bed again. And I don’t want to talk to ghosts — ever. I want no part of it.” She pulls off a necklace of colorful beads and shoves them into her jeans pocket. She rests her cheek against my shoulder and her breath caresses the side of my neck. I wrap my arm around her shoulders.
“I’m so done,” she says.
I lean in, waiting to see if there’s anything else she wants to get off her chest.
She says, “When are you going to figure out that hanging out with a freak isn’t fun?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“Har har,” she says. “Really, Nathaniel, after today there’s no hope that my life will ever be normal.”
“Normal never appealed to me.”
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“I don’t lie.”
“Oh, right. Angels and lying don’t really blend.”
“Honor and integrity are the blight of my existence,” I say.
“Not your metaphysical woo-woo freak girlfriend and her dying brother?”
“You’re the reason I’m not more like my suicidal clients,” I say with complete honesty.
“I’m starting to think you’re crazier than I am,” she says, and I feel her smile into my neck.
“Definitely crazy about you.”
She reaches up, fingers running through my hair to grip the back of my head until she pulls me down to meet her face to face.
Juliana is a wet dream and a warm bed wrapped in tenderness with a side of sexy vixen lingering just below the surface. Her teeth graze my lower lip and then she tastes me with the tip of her tongue. Then, and only then, does she place those unbelievably soft and gorgeous lips against mine and lets me kiss her fully. It’s never tentative for long between us. It’s hard to tell who escalates things faster. Our need for one another seems equal in every way.
When I think about her wanting me the way I want her, I almost can’t stop myself from taking her all the way. The universe has granted me the unbelievable gift of having a girl in my arms. A girl of infinite wonder and depth who challenges me and makes me feel things I’ve never known.
My fingers trail over her spine and I savor the shiver that rolls through her body. The tiny whimper from deep in her throat makes me grip onto her tighter. The desire to have her close to me and never let go is brutally exquisite torture. Her hands explore. They tease and taunt me into needing to possess her.
I break our kiss before I can’t stop the progression of where this is headed. But unable to stop completely, I trail kisses along her neck to the milky curve of her shoulder and slowly move away from her in millimeters and with wrenching regret.
Her whimpers increase as she leans her head back to expose more skin to me.
“Woman, you’re killing me,” I groan and linger on her collarbone for a few more stolen moments.
“You’re not even alive,” she teases as her hands begin to explore new places we haven’t ventured to before. “Oh, but you are,” she adds with a new kind of excitement in her voice as her hand grazes over a very sensitive part of my anatomy.
I move back to her mouth and kiss her with a hunger that defies explanation. The idea of stopping vanishes in an instant. Before I know what’s happening, we’re lying in the sandy dirt with the hardy grass digging into our sides and engulfed by the scent of sagebrush. Juliana’s lean and soft, yet firm and muscular. Her legs are as long as a summer sunset and she wraps one over mine to flip me onto my back.
“Nathaniel, be with me?” she whispers as she nibbles my earlobe. Her heart is beating fast and hard against my chest. I feel her hand reaching for the button at the top of my waistband.
As much as I love the feeling of her stretched out on top of me, I grip her firmly and sit up so she’s nestled on my lap.
I lean her back so I can finish exploring the bare skin exposed at the collar of her shirt. I dare to let my lips move an inch lower before making my way up her neck to her jaw line and finally place my lips on hers.
“As long as you want me, I’m here for you,” I say, letting her see my truth. See my soul seeking hers with my eyes.
“I don’t want to wait anymore, Nathaniel. I’ve never wanted to be with anyone so much.”
I take her mouth with mine again and groan from the pleasure and the pure agony of what I’m about to say. After another slow and wanting kiss, I pull back and lower my head. “I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
Her voice is thick, but also shaky. She begins to slide off me. I hug her close, hands firmly on her waist so she can’t escape.
“It’s because of what I said, isn’t it? There are holes in my memory from when I was possessed. It’s terrible. I had to be sure about the pregnancy part. I’m not pregnant, but I can’t guarantee nothing happened that night after the club.”
“Juliana,” I interrupt.
She’s rubbing her forehead with the heel of her palm and hiding under a wave of her silken hair.
“I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. Whatever happened during the time you were possessed is in the past where it belongs. I love you like the ocean loves the moon. You control the tides and the currents running through my veins. You are the source behind my every movement.”
“Then I want to be with you with the sky watching us.”
“No,” I say. My own murderous knife plunges into my chest as I deny her request.
She pulls back hard enough that I have to let her go. I reach for her hand, unwilling to break the connection completely.
“I’m not rejecting you, love.”
“Feels like it,” she says.
“Urrgh,” I growl.
She tries to pull free again.
“Please, Juliana. Let me explain.”
“There are stories about giants and monsters being born after angels lie with women. It was eons ago, but even in the most ancient tales, there is always a grain of truth.”
“You think you’re going to hurt me?”
“I can’t risk it.”
“I think it’s a bunch of religious garbage.”
“I’ve never heard the stories are false.”
“I was planning on using protection,” she says as if it’s a no brainer. “I doubt they had condoms in ancient times.”
“You’re right,” I concede. “But I still don’t feel comfortable about placing you in danger.”
She shudders and finally meets my eyes. Her hand moves to my chest. “You don’t want to be with me physically until you have a real body again?”
“Unless I find out I can’t hurt you, yes.”
“What if I tell you if I’m in danger?”
“It’s not a good idea.” Her energy passes through her palm and spreads through me. It’s a part of her. A delicate beautiful piece of who she is. And she’s willing to give me her energy and much more, and I want to return this gift more than anything else, but not if it hurts her. God, how can I deny her? And who cares about going to heaven? I want a life with this vixen. Bring on the strangeness, the heartache, arguments, and endless confusion of emotions tangled with desire and longing for another soul. I need Juliana to mix up my world. I need my life back.
“What if I were like you? Do angels sleep together?”
“That line of thinking is closed. I mean it, Juliana.”
“Just curious,” she says defensively.
“You can’t become what I am. You have to be chosen. Everyone else passes to the hereafter. The other side is different from life in the physical world. The afterlife is a good place, but we won’t be together. I’m an Angel of Death, and I don’t get to cross.”
Destined to Fall (An Angel Falls Book 5) Page 4
