Maggie Shayne - Badland's Bad Boy

by Maggie Shayne

  "Not if it means you're going to wander off into the desert and sit there until you die of dehydration and exposure, old friend. I'm here to tell you, I won't stand for that."

  Turtle nodded slowly. "I've had a vision, Raven Eyes," he said. "It might be that my failure to protect the land will be forgiven … if you will remain there. Watch over it. See that the possessions of our ancestors are treated with respect, and honor."

  Wes set his empty beer can aside and stared at Turtle. "Taylor wouldn't treat them any other way," he said. "You have my word on that."

  "Not enough. You must be there. Remain until she is finished with her digging into the past."

  The firelight danced on his face, making it appear red and orange rather than weathered bronze.

  "And if I do, you're not going to go on this death march of yours? I have your word on it?"

  Turtle blinked slowly. Very turtlelike. "If the time comes when I must go to await the spirits, my friend, I will come to you to say goodbye."

  "Guess I can't ask for more than that," Wes said, but he was thinking that he'd hogtie the old shaman if that were what it would take to keep him safe.

  "It's dark," Turtle told him. "You should go to her now."

  Wes nodded and got to his feet, picked up his empty beer can and tossed it into the barrel that was overflowing with them. "Gotta empty that for you next time I come over," he said. "Remind me, will you?"

  Turtle nodded again, and turned to stare solemnly into the flames.

  When Wes had gone, Turtle slung his blanket off his shoulders. It was working. The long-ago words of the eagle to Sky Dancer's great-grandmother were being fulfilled. She would marry the man chosen for her. She would marry Raven Eyes. And then Turtle would teach them the old ways, together. He'd keep the promise he'd made to her grandmother as the woman lay dying.

  There was still more to be done. So much more. He had to be sure Sky Dancer could be trusted not to violate the sacred ground, should she find it. He had to be sure the elders wouldn't sell the land to Hawthorne, in case she didn't find it. But he wouldn't take any action just yet. He had a feeling Raven Eyes and Sky Dancer must be the ones to work all of this out. To make the legend come full circle. Then prosperity would surely come to The People. And the spirits of Wolf Shadow and Little Sparrow would find one another, and peace.

  He took a hasty sip from his cup, grimaced and spit in the fire. Tea. Awful stuff! He reached for a beer from the six-pack on the ground, took a long swallow and set it aside. Then Turtle got to his feet and began to move. Slowly at first, in rhythmic steps danced for centuries. A dance of celebration. His voice rose to the skies in the tongue of his ancestors, and his pace increased as he danced in joy around the fire.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  It was dark and he hadn't returned. And part of her was afraid Wolf Shadow would show up before Wes did. And part of her hoped he would. The guilt that rinsed through her over that thought was sickening.

  Then her tent flap opened and Wes stuck his head inside, and Taylor sighed in what she sincerely hoped was relief.

  "You're back."

  "Sorry it took so long. I had to check in on a sick friend." He came closer, sat beside her.

  She smelled beer on his breath. Sick friend? Then she closed her eyes and told herself not to let Kelly and Scourge's gossip make her start doubting every word Wes said. So he'd had a beer while he'd been gone. So what?

  "Is anything wrong, Doc?"

  She looked up at him, faked a smile. "No," she lied. Then she sighed. "I don't know."

  Looking worried, Wes searched her face. "Tell me."

  Taylor drew a deep breath. "I guess … this thing is moving a little too fast for me, Wes. I have all these feelings and…"

  "And?"

  She closed her eyes. "And I barely know you." She opened her eyes and looked at him. "I really don't know anything about you. Your past, or…"

  Wes sighed, lowering his head. "My past." He said it softly, and she knew then that there was something. A chill went up her spine. Wes licked his lips and met her eyes again. "It isn't pretty, Doc. Truth is … I didn't want to tell you."

  "Why?" she whispered.

  Wes reached out, stroked her hair. "Because I'm scared to death of losing you before we find out … just what we have here. I'm afraid you'll change your mind about me the way everyone else in this town did."

  He was really afraid she would. His dark eyes were so vulnerable right now. She gave her head a shake. "Honesty is more important to me than any mistakes you might have made in your past, Wes." And right then, she meant it. "I'm not going to change my mind."

  "Yeah, well, don't say that with so much conviction just yet."

  "All right." She shifted a little closer to him. This need to be near him, to be touching him, was overwhelming, and new and frightening. "Then tell me. But … hold me while you do."

  Wes slipped his arm around her, and she leaned back and sideways, her head cradled on his shoulder. It felt good to be held in his strong arms. So good.

  "I've done time in prison, Taylor."

  She closed her eyes. Damn. It was true. She should have known nothing this good came without a price.

  "I've never been known as a reasonable man," he told her slowly. "And for a while, I ran with a pretty rough crowd. I must've been about seventeen when some of the boys and I were drinking and raising hell one night. We got tossed out of the bar by the owner, and he was none too gentle with us. Well, I spent that night trying to stay on my horse long enough to get home. See, the one thing I did have in my brain back then was enough sense to take the horse instead of the car when I knew I'd be drinking. But to tell the truth, it was probably less out of any sense of right and wrong than it was because I knew Garrett would kick my young butt black and blue if I did otherwise."

  She thought she heard a smile in his voice. Maybe what he had to say wouldn't be so bad. "And what happened?"

  He held her a little tighter. "The boys went back to that bar after closing. Beat the owner within an inch of his life and cleaned out the cash box. It was dark. The owner swore up and down all of us had come back that night, but I swear to you, Taylor, I wasn't with them, Course, I had no witnesses, no alibi. Got myself convicted and did two years' hard time before one of the boys finally admitted the truth. I got a new trial, and the conviction was overturned."

  She sat up a little, turned and looked into his eyes. He was telling the truth. She could see it. "That's it?"

  He nodded.

  "And you thought…" She shook her head slowly.

  "Most people around here don't believe me," he told her. "And they've known me all my life. You've only just started to get to know me. Why should you believe me when—?"

  "I believe you," she said.

  Wes stared so hard into her eyes she thought he was seeing into her soul. "Why? Taylor, you said I was gentle, honest. But I'm not. I've got a terrible temper. The whole town knows it. And I doubt there's a gentle bone in my body."

  "You're gentle with me," she said.

  He licked his lips, shook his head. "I'm different when I'm with you. I've been different since I laid eyes on you, Doc."

  "I know. I've been changing, too. It's not like me to trust someone, Wes, but … I'm finding myself … trusting you."

  He averted his face when she said that, and a niggling doubt crept up her spine. There was more he was keeping from her. She knew it right then. And maybe it had to do with that other bit of gossip Scourge had so willingly passed along. That he'd killed a man. But it couldn't be true. He was opening up to her, being honest with her. She had to let herself trust him. And pray it wouldn't be a mistake. It was time, she told herself. It was time to believe in someone again.

  "You keep saying that," he said after a moment. "About trust … about honesty being so important to you." He met her eyes. "You've been lied to in the past, haven't you, Taylor?"

  "Hasn't everyone?" She blinked
and looked away. But then she bit her lip and faced him again. He'd shared some of his secrets with her. Maybe not all of them … yet … but some. If she were going to make this work, she was going to have to do the same.

  She returned to her former position, settling back into his arms. "My parents—the McCoys—they never told me I was adopted." She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I think I was around eight or nine when the questions started occurring to me. I was so different from them. My skin and my hair. But when I asked them about it, they just changed the subject, completely avoided the issue."

  "Aw, hell, Taylor. What were they thinking?" His big hand stroked slowly down her hair. And again.

  "But I could never get past the feeling that there was this big secret being kept from me. And it seemed like everyone was in on it but me. Kids in school, teachers, parents of my friends when I visited. I could sense it, you know?"

  She felt him nod, and snuggled closer. "In seventh-grade health class we were studying genetics. And according to what I was reading from the textbook and hearing from the teachers, there was no way in hell a copper-skinned, black-eyed, raven-haired baby could be produced by a blue-eyed blonde and a blue-eyed redhead." She felt a tiny twisting in her stomach. It still hurt now and then, even after all this time. "I think I suspected it before then, but to have it confirmed like that … in school … all my friends looking at me like they'd known all along. The teacher suddenly backpedaling and trying to cover. But they knew. I could see it so clearly. I ran out of the classroom in tears. Mom had to come to school and take me home. And they still didn't want to tell me the truth. I had to practically force it out of them."

  Wes shifted, pulling away from her for a moment and moving so that she reclined in the V of his legs, resting her back against his chest. His hands locked at her waist. He bent to kiss the top of her head. "It was because they loved you," he said. "They were afraid of losing something by telling you."

  "I know that now. But then … well, I was pretty devastated." She laid her hands over his, squeezed them. "I guess that's why honesty is so important to me. It has been ever since then. Maybe it gets too important sometimes. If someone lies to me … I just can't ever trust them again."

  He stiffened a little. She turned his hands over and threaded her fingers with his. "It was about that time I started to withdraw. I don't need a psychologist to explain that to me. I just didn't like being close to people anymore. I think I was subconsciously wondering what they were hiding from me, what secrets they were keeping. After all, if the people I trusted most in the world had lied to me, how could I believe there was anyone who wouldn't?"

  "So you were a loner. Just like me."

  "Yeah. But after a while I thought I could get past it, learn to trust again. I saw a therapist, for quite a long time, and eventually I opened myself up again. Let myself trust him. Told him everything I felt and thought and wanted and dreamed of."

  "And it helped?" Wes asked.

  Taylor drew a breath and sighed. "I had an affair with him." She said it quickly, to get it over with. She'd never told a soul about this. "I thought I was in love with him. And he encouraged it, talked to me about our future together, used all my dreams against me." She shook her head, closed her eyes. "Then I found out he was married."

  Wes swore softly, held her a little tighter. "I withdrew more than ever after that. Just sank inside myself, poured all the energy I used to spend on relationships into my studies, my degree and later my career. But it's never been enough. I thought it was. For so long I thought it was all I needed. Just me. No connections, not with people, not with my … my heritage. But now…" She turned in his arms, looked into his eyes. "Now I want more. And I think … I think I want it with you."

  He ran his hands up her back, under her hair, fingers sliding over her nape and sending chills down her spine. And then he kissed her. As tenderly as before.

  Taylor put her hands on his head to cling closer, and the kiss deepened. He slipped his tongue between her lips and tasted her mouth. And Taylor thought finally … finally he was making her feel the way she'd felt with Wolf Shadow. Aroused, and liquid, and shivery. She kissed him back. She touched his tongue with her own, and twisted his hair around her fingers.

  And then she lifted her head away, staring into his shining eyes.

  "I don't deserve you," he told her. "They say I have the worst temper in seven counties, Doc. You sure you want me?"

  "Are you trying to scare me away, Wes?"

  "No." His gaze roamed from her forehead to her chin and up to her eyes again. "I won't hurt you, Taylor. I couldn't."

  And in that instant his voice sounded exactly the way Wolf Shadow's had. He'd said those same words to her, in almost exactly the same way. And he'd sounded…

  "Are you ready to make love to me?" he asked her, and now his voice was softer, raspier. A whisper.

  She blinked, unsure, confused. "I … I'm not sure."

  He closed his eyes, drew a breath, then opened them again. Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead. "If you're not sure, then you're not ready." He smiled gently at her. "And that's okay by me. I'll wait forever if I have to. But I think it might be best if I headed out of this tent now."

  "Oh."

  He kissed her nose. Then her lips, lingering there, suckling upper, then lower in turn. Then he released her with a sigh, and got to his feet. "We have a lot more to talk about, Doc. There are still things about me…" He closed his eyes, shook his head. "But we have time."

  And he left, calling good-night over his shoulder as the tent flap fell behind him.

  She did want him. She was ready.

  No. No, she wasn't. Wes was right; they had time. And there was still something he hadn't told her about. It was shadowing his eyes tonight. She'd spotted the secret first when she'd told him how important honesty was to her, and again when he'd said there was more they had to talk about. She knew that look. That look of a secret hiding in a person's eyes. She'd grown up with that shadow peering out at her from the eyes of her parents. She'd seen it, sensed it there.

  "Right, and I've been suspicious of every person I've met since." She pounded her fist into the sleeping bag beneath her, turned over, closed her eyes. Told herself she was overreacting. Wes had no secrets. He wasn't hiding anything. It was her. And she was going to ruin what could be the best thing that had ever happened to her if she kept doubting him this way.

  She knew she would. She'd ruined budding friendships, even a couple of relationships with men after only a couple of dates, by being so untrusting of everyone she knew.

  She had to get past this. Maybe talk to someone. She'd always vowed never to try therapy again, after her devastating experience with it in the past. But maybe it was time she tried it again. Because she didn't want to take chances with this fragile, precious thing. She couldn't risk it.

  Maybe … maybe she could talk to Chelsea.

  Yes. That was it. She'd felt instinctively drawn to that small, auburn-haired woman. And Chelsea was studying for a degree in psychology. So maybe … maybe it would be worth trying. Before she screwed everything up with Wes.

  Wes. The man she thought she might be falling in love with.

  Chelsea refilled Taylor's cup with coffee, and returned to her seat in Jessi's kitchen. Taylor marveled again at the closeness of this Brand family. Chelsea had simply told Jessica that she needed a private place to talk, and Jessi hadn't batted an eye or asked a question. Just opened her door and let them both come in. Said Lash had taken the baby to the pediatrician for her immunizations, and that she would be out in the clinic if they needed her. And that was that.

  It must be nice to be able to count on people the way this family could count on each other, Taylor thought, with a twinge of envy. She'd never been able to convince herself anyone would be that trustworthy, there for her, no questions asked, for any little thing that might come up. It was incredible. She'd lost the ability to trust fully in her parents. Oh, they'd mended things, saw
each other often, got along well. And she loved them. But it just wasn't the same as it had been before.

  And this closeness, this intimacy, was something she craved.

  "This isn't really my area of expertise," Chelsea said, stirring her coffee and leaning back in her chair. "But I want to tell you how much it means to me that you could come to me with all this."

  Taylor lifted her brows.

  "I mean it, Taylor. No matter what happens, or doesn't happen with you and Wes, I want you to think of me as a friend. And anything you say to me isn't going any further. I promise."

  Taylor nodded. "So what is your area?" she asked, sipping the coffee, enjoying her time away from the site and wondering how soon she'd screw up this new friendship Chelsea seemed to be offering her. "I don't think you said before."

  "No, I didn't. I specialize in domestic violence. When I first came out here, I … well, I was a lot like you, actually. But it was only men I couldn't trust. Garrett included."

  Taylor blinked in surprise, stopping with her cup halfway to her mouth. "You … you'd been…?"

  "Battered?" She closed her eyes briefly. "I saw my mother die when my father took his rage too far. And then my sister was murdered by a man who'd claimed to love her. Little Ethan was her baby … his father was her killer."

  "My God." Taylor's hand snaked across the table to close around Chelsea's before she'd even realized she was moving it.

  "I'm okay now," she said. "Really. And so is Ethan. I like to think my mom and sister are, too, somewhere. Anyway, after I married Garrett, I saw a need in this area. So many small towns with so few resources. So I got involved with a domestic-violence hot line, and got some basic training in how to counsel the women who called. It wasn't long before I realized I didn't know as much about how to help them as I would have liked. Garrett encouraged me to go after this degree, if it was what I really wanted. And it was."

  Taylor shook her head slowly. "You must be an incredible woman, Chelsea Brand."