He had a decided charisma, and Ellie found herself drawn very powerfully to the man. Was it his proud posture, his broad shoulders thrown back with confidence? The look of the eagle in his eyes, which told her he missed very little? Or something else? He seemed as if he were a warrior of some kind, a fighter, or someone who enjoyed challenging life in some way. There were a lot of angles to the man—sharp edges, perhaps, she mused, as she slowly got to her feet.
As Ellie approached him, she could feel his perusal, direct, intense and assessing. A part of her wanted to throw up a wall of defense, to guard herself against his almost-violating look, but something told her she didn’t have to.
For an instant, she felt the man’s surprise, and then, on its heels, his heat and desire. Desire? None of her impressions made any sense to her. The surprise lingered in his eyes, and she wondered what he wanted from her. Perhaps he was lost and looking for directions.
“Can I help you?” Ellie asked.
Mac tried to cover his surprise. The barefoot woman walking toward him was nothing like what he had expected. She was in her late twenties, he guessed; her gold-colored skin accentuated the oval face and high cheekbones typical of Native Americans. Strands of her thick black hair were loose around her hairline, some tendrils sticking to her brow and temples, emphasizing her earthy beauty. Could this woman be the shamaness? She looked so…normal.
Her gaze was direct, inquiring, and Mac felt her confidence and strength. She walked with a sureness, a serene kind of balance that was undeniable. He allowed his hands to fall from his hips.
“Yes, I was looking for a Ms. Ellie O’Gentry.”
Ellie halted a good six feet away from him. “That’s me. Who are you?”
“I’m Mac Stanford.”
“Are you lost, Mr. Stanford?”
“Excuse me?”
Ellie watched the play of surprise and hesitation in his eyes. “Are you lost?”
His mouth pulled into a grin. “No.”
She liked his eyes. They were a mixture of green, gold and brown, reminding her of the green trees, the fertile brown earth and the gold of Father Sun. And when the corners of his mouth drew hesitantly into a brief smile, she felt an incredible blanket of warmth surround her. The feeling caught Ellie off guard.
Mac pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. He’d worn a conservative blue-and-white striped shirt and comfortable jogging shoes. “Your name was given to me by Mrs. Shelly Calhoon.”
“Oh…yes.” Ellie held his interested gaze. “You’re here regarding soul recovery and extraction?”
“Excuse me?”
It was her turn to smile. “I’m making assumptions, Mr. Stanford. Why are you here? You don’t have an appointment. At this time of day, I reserve my time for my garden.”
“I see….” Mac scrambled for a reply, because he knew she was going to ask him to make an appointment and leave. There was something fascinating about Ellie O’Gentry. She was decidedly Native American in appearance—so why was her last name O’Gentry? All of a sudden, Mac had a lot of questions that had nothing to do with his original reason for coming.
“Look,” he murmured apologetically, “I’m sorry for not calling first. But…something’s come up and your name was given to me. If I could just have about fifteen minutes of your time?”
Rubbing the last of the drying soil off her hands, Ellie asked, “Then you’re a friend of Shelly’s?”
“In a roundabout way,” Mac hedged. He watched as she leaned down to the faucet and rinsed her hands. Ellie’s movements were sure and graceful. It wasn’t often he met a woman with so much confidence. Whatever life had dealt Ellie, she’d come out stronger for it.
Ellie straightened and dried her hands on her jeans. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not who you seem to be?”
Heat nettled Mac’s cheeks, and he realized with a start that he was blushing. Unsettled, he said, “I’m looking for a psychic, somebody who can help answer a question I have.”
“I’m a shamaness, Mr. Stanford, not a psychic. There’s a difference.”
“There is?”
Ellie held on to her patience. He was genuinely surprised, and she could feel his intense need to talk with her. “A big difference. I was just going to make dinner—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinnertime—”
“No, that’s okay. Why don’t you come in for a cup of coffee and you can tell me why you’re here and what you want from me.”
Mac nodded and followed her around to the front door. Ellie seemed to have an unsettling ability to see right through him. Or was that just his imagination? He snorted to himself and followed her into the cool confines of the stucco home.
The living room was well lit; the floor, a warm, golden pine, was covered with a Navajo rug of gray, white and black. Above the ivory couch hung an Indian flute adorned with several long brown-and-white feathers. There were also several framed pictures of flowers and pastoral landscapes.
The ivory-colored walls made the most of the light, and Mac liked the large array of greenery displayed on both sides of the large picture window. Ellie had brought the outdoors in; she clearly loved the land.
Mac followed her across the living room and into the pale yellow kitchen. She gestured to a glass table and the bamboo chairs that surrounded it.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Mr. Stanford, and I’ll be back in a moment.” She pointed to her jeans. “I’m dirty.”
He nodded and eased one of the bamboo chairs away from the table. “Sure, go ahead.” Good, this would give him a chance to check her out further. Mac felt a little guilty about his deception, because Ellie seemed honest, straightforward and generous with her time—considering he didn’t have an appointment.
What did a shamaness do? He’d wondered that all the way over here. He didn’t have a clue and didn’t want to guess. Soul recovery and extraction? It sounded like a visit to the dentist’s office! Smiling, he walked over to the kitchen counter. There were four ceramic canisters, each painted with flowers, making the counter look as if it was in bloom, too. Small pots of cactus sat on the windowsill above the sink.
Looking around the kitchen, Mac decided that Ellie’s home didn’t look particularly out of the ordinary. Sitting down, he heard soft, Native American flute music emanating from another part of the house. Somehow, the picture he had of Ellie just didn’t jibe with what he was observing. Tapping his fingers absently on the clean glass surface of the table, Mac noticed the fresh bouquet of wildflowers, some red, some pink and others yellow. He smiled. How long had it been since he’d seen wildflowers? He decided that Ellie was the exact opposite of him: he was a man who owned the sky and loved to live in it. She was a woman of the earth, firmly planted in it, bare feet and all.
“Would you like some coffee?”
Mac jumped. Ellie had entered so quietly he hadn’t heard her. She was still in her bare feet, although now she wore a lightweight denim skirt that grazed her ankles and a fresh, white blouse. Her hair had been brushed, too, the blue-black locks caught up in a loose ponytail with a bright red scarf.
“Yes…please.”
Ellie went to the sink and began to prepare her coffeepot, an old-style one that perked on the electric stove. “So what brings you here, Mr. Stanford?” She turned to him briefly and saw that his darkly tanned face was still tense, his eyes still shadowed.
“Well, I’ve got a problem, and you were suggested as a person who might be able to help me.”
Ellie put the coffee grounds into the basket, put the lid on the pot and placed it on the stove. She got down two cups and set them on the table. Going to the refrigerator, she took out the cream. She sat down and placed the creamer between them on the table. “What problem?” she asked.
Mac cleared his throat. “I’m a little embarrassed to even talk about it, to tell you the truth.”
“Why?” Ellie folded her hands and rested her chin against them. Mac Stanford was blushing again.
His cheeks were a dull red color, and she could almost take pity on him—almost, but not quite. He was hiding something from her, and that made her wary. Still, she had to fight a powerful attraction to him. His self-confidence was like sunlight, something that she honored in any person, but his was charismatic—and dangerous—to her.
With a shrug, Mac said, “Normally, I don’t go to a psychic—”
“Excuse me, but I think we need to get our terminology straightened out before we go any further.”
Mac stared at her. “Okay.”
“I’m a shamaness, Mr. Stanford.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Yes and no. First of all, I’m a healer.” Ellie opened her long, spare hands toward him. “I’m half Eastern Cherokee and half white. I was born and raised on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina. My mother is a medicine woman for our people, and so is my sister, Diana. I inherited some of my mother’s metaphysical abilities, but they are expressed differently through me than through her or my sister.”
“Metaphysical?” Mac felt like a first grader.
“Meta means ‘beyond the physical or seen world.”’ Ellie pointed to her eyes. “When something is metaphysical, it means that it’s beyond our visual capability.” A slight smile touched her mouth as she pointed to the center of her forehead. “But we all have another ‘eye’ we can see with. This third eye is called the brow chakra. Most people don’t use it. They’re only in tune with the left side of their brain, the side that uses their physical eyes to view the three-dimensional world. But the right brain, the intuitive side, has an eye, too, of sorts. It’s located here, in the center of our forehead.”
“Hold it,” Mac said, raising his hands. “You’ve lost me completely.”
“I don’t really get the feeling you want to know anyway, Mr. Stanford,” Ellie said patiently.
Mac sat back, frowning. Her directness was unsettling to him. Or, maybe more to the point, he wasn’t used to finding this typically male trait in a woman. “You’re right,” he admitted.
“So,” Ellie said, folding her hands and challenging him with her gaze, “why don’t you tell me the real reason you’re here? Are you a police detective? An undercover agent?”
CHAPTER TWO
For the third time, Mac felt heat in his cheeks. How long had it been since he’d blushed? A long time. Maybe before he and Johanna had gotten married. He pushed that painful thought aside. Mac knew he had to be honest with Ellie.
“It’s nothing like that, Ms. O’Gentry.” He frowned and then met her direct, intelligent gaze. Her eyes were a golden brown color, reminding him of sunlight dancing off the surface of water. If Mac didn’t know better, he’d think she was smiling at his predicament. At first, a bit of anger stirred in him, but then he realized it was his own fault that he’d placed himself in this embarrassing position.
“I’m a major in the air force. I fly F-15’s,” he said. “I’m also the maintenance officer for our squadron.” Almost instantly, Mac saw Ellie relax.
“That’s a good start, Major Stanford,” Ellie said. “Go on.” She smiled slightly, because she saw how terribly uncomfortable he was with her—or, more precisely, with what she symbolized. Still, she liked Stanford’s ability to be honest when he was challenged, and that was commendable.
Mac took a deep breath and dove into the story of the flying wrenches in Hangar 13. Ellie sat quietly, without interrupting, while he stumbled through a detailed explanation of the four incidents. She just wasn’t what he’d expected. Mac wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but certainly not this quiet, introspective, intelligent woman whose beauty was more than skin-deep. His gaze kept drifting from her beautiful eyes, framed with thick, black lashes, to her soft mouth. He found it difficult to concentrate on the story when he really wanted to study her instead.
So he divided his attention. He had always been good at that, and Johanna had resented it. She had always accused him of only half listening to her and had said she could sense that his mind was elsewhere. And it was true, Mac acknowledged. But he couldn’t help it—it was part of his nature, part of what made him such a good fighter pilot. His eyes might be on the instruments or on the terrain outside the cockpit canopy, but his hearing was elsewhere, and his physical body was subconsciously recording sensations, too. Mac had tried repeatedly to explain this to Johanna, but she never understood. Or perhaps she had, and just hadn’t been able to accept it.
Ellie was listening with her ears, but she had allowed her senses to blossom fully and take in the complete spectrum of Mac Stanford. She liked that fact that he talked with his hands, that he was animated about the story he was sharing with her. Still, she could see that part of his attention was diverted toward studying her face, and that his interest was on more than just a professional level. Smiling to herself, she admitted that she was just a little interested in Mac Stanford on a personal level, too.
“So,” Mac said, “that’s the story.”
Ellie nodded. “And you’re looking for an explanation for this phenomena, Major?”
“I guess I am. I really don’t know.”
“What you’re really saying is that you don’t believe it could happen in the first place. That the phenomena has to have a human culprit behind it, not a ghostly one.”
“Are you always this direct?”
Ellie grinned. “It pays to be honest, don’t you think, Major?” She saw the amusement come to his hazel eyes and his mouth curve upward briefly. When Mac Stanford smiled, she felt the sunlight of his energy surround her like a warm, soft blanket.
“Yes.” Mac struggled inwardly for a moment. “I guess I’m not used to such directness in a woman like yourself.”
“Really?” Ellie tilted her head, her hands resting against her chin. “What did you expect?”
Uncomfortable, Mac muttered, “I had this picture in my head of an old woman in a gypsy outfit sitting over her crystal ball.”
Ellie laughed. It was a full laugh, rich yet soft.
Mac stared at her as she leaned back in the chair, tilted her head back and allowed the wonderful laughter to escape. In that moment, surrounded by her laughter, he felt an incredible need to know her better—as a woman.
“I can surmise two things about you, Major,” Ellie said, placing her hands on the table and engaging his stare. “First, you don’t believe in what I do any more than you believe the moon is made of green cheese. Secondly, you’re a prove-it-to-me kind of man, totally stuck in his left brain. I’ll bet you dismiss any intuitive thoughts if you can’t prove, weigh or see results. Am I right?”
“I believe what my eyes see,” Mac said, a bit defensively.
“And I don’t. We’re poles apart, Major. I live in worlds that you don’t believe exist.”
“Well—” Mac cleared his throat “—I don’t think that matters in this case. I came to you asking for an explanation. It doesn’t have to be one I believe in.”
“Perhaps,” Ellie said softly.
“I’m here. I think that proves something.”
“Maybe,” she agreed.
Getting a bit frustrated, Mac said, “Tell me what you charge and I’ll pay you for the information.”
She got up, went over to the refrigerator and drew out some vegetables. Twisting to look over her shoulder, she said, “There is no charge, Major.”
“Why not?”
“If I can answer your questions without going into a shamanic-journeying state to do it, I will. I never charge in this kind of a situation.” She began tearing lettuce into small pieces over a large ceramic bowl.
“I don’t know what to make of you.”
Ellie smiled and began cutting up a carrot. “At least you’re honest. That’s a good place to start, Major.” Her ex-husband, Brian, had pretended to be interested in what she did, but it had all been a grand lie for his grand plan. All he really wanted was a companion in bed—and a housekeeper. It soon became clear that Brian didn’t believe in her world, but
Ellie had tried to make things work, hoping they could find some kind of common ground. Finally, after three years of Brian’s continuing abuse over her beliefs, she’d had to get out.
“I may not like the truth, Ms. O’Gentry, but it’s better than the alternative.”
Her smile broadened. “That is one thing we agree on completely, Major.”
“Call me Mac, will you?”
“Okay. You can call me Ellie if you want.” She sensed his defensive walls slowly dissolving, and that was good. As he sat sipping the coffee, she could see the questions in his eyes.
“I’m caught between a rock and a hard place,” Mac admitted. In a bittersweet way, he enjoyed watching Ellie prepare the salad. It reminded him of his broken marriage, of a happier time in his life. Mac missed the hominess that marriage had provided him.
But Ellie was nothing like Johanna. She wasn’t modellike as Johanna had been, but reminded Mac of a woman in a Titian painting—ample, curved and rounded in all the right places. Ellie reminded him of a true earth mother.
She placed the salad on the table between them. “Why don’t you get up and set the table, since you’re staying for dinner?”
Mildly shocked, Mac got up. He saw her eyes dancing with laughter.
“Are you stunned because you’re staying for dinner or because I’m asking you to help out?”
He smiled a little sheepishly as he moved to the cupboard that Ellie pointed to. “Both.”
“You don’t wear a wedding ring, but you behave like you’ve been married. Are you divorced?”
Struck by Ellie’s insights, Mac opened the cupboard and took down two white ceramic plates. “Are you psychic?”
Laughing, Ellie shook her head. “No, just a watcher of people in general. I saw this look of longing on your face, and noticed you had no wedding ring on your finger. I figured you were probably divorced and missing the good life that marriage provides.”
Hangar 13 Page 2
