Knowing the Cahill clan better was having the odd side effect of new perspectives on her own family. More than that, she had bigger, better views on herself and her life, as well—her life with Reese especially. She’d thought she knew the Cahills, and knew Reese’s friendships, but here in the heart of this world, with her own deeper experiences and understandings, she saw more.
She’d gotten to know Heath and Logan pretty well when she and Reese had been a couple before; Heath was probably his best friend, and Heath and Logan were close, so she’d been absorbed into the edges of their little posse, which included Victor, Paul, and Emmett, too.
In those days, the only other woman in the group had been Heath’s first wife, Sybil. Gigi had been younger than all of them—not Evan and Natalie young, but young enough back then for Reese to get shit about being with her—and they’d all treated her like the little girl in their charge. Even Reese, when he was with his friends. In retrospect, back then, their relationship, as well and truly as they’d loved each other, had been a little bit too much about her relative innocence and his relative experience. He’d treated her like something small and precious to take care of.
At the time, she’d loved it, being nurtured and protected under his wing. But maybe it was part of why she’d had to leave, too. After her father died, Reese had started to fill his role as well—in her mind, at least, and probably in his, too—and that had been confusing and painful.
Now, though she was obviously exactly as much younger than Reese as she’d ever been, they were both older, and the years between them had shrunk somehow. What they were building together now was about a woman and a man shaping a life together, not a man taking care of a girl.
They took care of each other, carried burdens for each other. It didn’t matter who needed the care and support, because they shared it. The burdens were theirs together.
Currently, it was Reese who had to lean. He’d spent these three weeks in a hurry-up-and-wait hell of police reports and insurance adjusters. Though he’d been well prepared for most potential damage, keeping up-to-date inventory lists for the saloon and the apartment, everything had been destroyed, including his backup drives. The one thing he’d never done was use cloud storage. Jasper Ridge’s internet access was spotty in most places, except for those, like the Cahills, who could afford industrial-grade equipment. So together, they’d had to recreate lists of the Jack’s equipment and stock and the contents of the apartment, too.
He truly was starting from scratch. Gigi knew how to do it, so she stood at his side and took what he couldn’t carry.
The shower door opened while she was under the spray, rinsing shampoo from her hair, and Reese’s strong hands slid over her waist. Her eyes still closed from the soap and stream, she turned blindly into his hold and looped her arms around his neck. His erection pressed into her belly, and he groaned softly and flexed forward.
“Mornin’, beautiful,” he rumbled with a voice still sleepy and slow. His hands came up and brushed the water from her eyes.
Blinking her lashes clear, she looked up at his handsome face, his eyes as warm and blue as a favorite pair of jeans. He had a few new wrinkles since they’d come home, a crease between his eyes, and lines drawn low on his mouth—frown lines, from the stress of loss and upheaval. But he was smiling now, holding her, and he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.
Gigi sighed and fell into the kiss, letting the weight of her body rest on his, letting his arms hold her up. The shower sprayed over her shoulder and ran between their bodies in hot trails. Her eyes closed, her hands in his hair, her nipples slipping slickly against his hard chest, she shaped herself to him, lost herself in him.
A rough groan left his mouth and filled hers, and his hands took hold of her ass, gripping so she could feel the imprint of his blunt nails, and she rose onto her toes, ready for him to lift her up. Instead, he tore his mouth from hers and dropped to his knees on the tile floor, skimming his bearded face down her body all the way. Water ran over her chest and belly, dripped from her breasts, into his face, but he seemed not to notice.
With his hands clutching her ass, Reese sank his face between her thighs. A spasm shot through her as she felt his beard, his mouth, his tongue, and she slammed her hands onto his shoulders, digging in so she could keep her feet.
“Oh God,” she whispered—and the last sounds broke off into a groaning grunt as his tongue flicked over her clit.
“You like this.” The cascade of water muffled his words, and she didn’t know if he’d asked her a question or offered an observation, but it didn’t matter. Her response was the same.
“Yes, fuck yes.”
He chuckled and squeezed her ass, pulling her wide. When that wasn’t enough, he shrugged a shoulder under her leg, so her knee hooked over him. Gigi flung her arm out and caught hold of the soap nook.
Now she was spread wide for him, and he let go of her ass and put his hands between her legs, one set of fingers spreading her folds open and the other plumbing her core, thrusting deep, two at a time, while his tongue continued its fervent, focused devotion to her exposed clit. Right on the button he stayed, and his fingers found her g-spot and stroked, lighting both ends of her candle. Every muscle and nerve she had quivered and flailed, and her cries and gasps and moans ricocheted off the tile walls around them.
That beautiful, familiar, pool of hot sensation massed in her belly, liquified her joints, and she arched her body as much as she could, pressing close, offering herself completely. Just as the wave found its apex and hovered there for a beat, on the very edge of the crest, Reese sucked her clit into his mouth with a sharp, ravenous pull, and Gigi’s orgasm crashed with such ferocity that she squealed and lost her legs.
He caught her before she could fall, pulling her close, bringing her body with his to the floor. As she writhed and whimpered, he leaned against the wall and drew her down, entering her with a motion so fluid she didn’t realize it until he was deep, striking that inner part of her that shoved her orgasm upward again to a new peak.
Kneeling on the shower floor, straddling him, Gigi picked up their tempo. She went hard and fast, riding that powerful bliss on the mount of his cock. Reese took her breasts in his hands, pulled on her nipples, drove her to the edge of sanity.
She opened her eyes and saw him watching her, saw his deep love and feral need, and that was enough. She surged forward and slammed her mouth over his. She felt the force of his finish moments before she came again, with an intensity that dimmed her vision.
Dropping her head to his shoulder, Gigi searched for breath. Heaving as desperately as she, Reese held her, under the cooling spray of the shower, his arms crossed over her back, his hands playing in her hair. A heavy shudder went through his body, the last rale of a powerful climax, and his cock moved in her, still hard and hot. Their moans in reaction made a harmony.
That was the only sound they made. They held each other and were speechless. They didn’t need words to say what they were feeling.
*****
Every year at the summer solstice, her people, like many Native people, especially in the West, celebrated the ritual of the Sun Dance. Since the time the federal government had shoved its way in, the Sun Dance had been controversial, and had been outlawed for a long time, through most of the twentieth century. The reasons given had to do with safety concerns, mostly, but those reasons were mostly bullshit. The real reason Native rituals had been outlawed was that the Feds got nervous when Native people congregated in large numbers.
But the Sun Dance was, in fact, pretty brutal. It was a ceremony of healing and sacrifice, marked by tests of stamina and endurance. Young men—in the time when Native people lived free, they would have been warriors—gathered in a large lodge and danced for days, forgoing food and water. Some tribes had practiced piercing as well, tying the men to the lodge’s center pole with leather thongs and hooks through their chests. That had never been part of the Shoshone practice, and had been given up by
many tribes in the modern era, but Gigi had seen it a few times. Different tribes came together for the Sun Dance, and brought their different practices to the ceremony.
The Sun Dance itself was a ritual for young men, but the whole community participated in its celebration. Circling the ceremonial lodge of the dancers, everyone came together, for music and dancing, food and drink, and fellowship.
The Sawtooth Jasper reservation was too small to support a ritual as important as the Sun Dance, but the much larger reservation in the deep southeast of the state hosted a large gathering, including Shoshone, Bannock, and Paiute tribes.
Non-Native people weren’t really welcome; the ritual was sacred to all the tribes, and they protected its meaning from people who didn’t share their ways and beliefs.
So Reese wasn’t invited to the Sun Dance. Gigi went with the Thomas family, because things with her own family were still chilly, maybe even more since she was living on the Twisted C, in the lap of luxury. Frannie didn’t see the irony in being angry at Gigi for living so easy while they struggled on the reservation, when she’d turned down the offer to live there, too. Their mom, as was her wont, had bowed out of the fight and sided with Frannie in her passive way—falling to that side because it required less of her to do so.
Gigi’s weeks at the ranch, with Reese and the much more functional, lively Cahill family, was making her distance from her mom and sister all the wider. Maybe there just wasn’t room for forgiveness, on either side of that divide.
The Thomases were still at the ranch, too, a month after Hall’s attacks on the Jack and threats against Natalie, and his one-act play on the road outside the Twisted C. There had been no additional attacks or threats. As far as anyone knew, Hall hadn’t left the reservation since. The Warriors had never been a frequent presence in Jasper Ridge—they rejected the town and only did business on the reservation or to the west, in Boise or beyond—but still, they weren’t even riding through right now. Evan and his gang had been happy to skulk around under the cover and wreak havoc, and to make threats and pretend shows of strength when there was no danger to them, but now that there were real consequences, they were cowering on the rez.
There had been talk over several big dinners about whether the Thomases could or should go home, and whether they could all relax. Women were still being escorted by at least one man every time they left the ranch, even Honor, who worked a more-than-full-time job, and Gigi or the Thomases only went on the reservation with at least two armed men at their back. After a month of quiet, those precautions were feeling cumbersome, and a little ridiculous.
But Hall was still on the reservation, the Feds had not produced a warrant that would supersede tribal jurisdiction, and half the OVers were still in jail in Boise, unable to produce bail and unwilling to offer information that might buy their release. Nothing had happened yet to suggest the danger was over, or that it was imminent. They were all trapped in limbo.
The days of the Sun Dance were a respite. It felt like the first truly safe place beyond the Twisted C gates she’d had since they’d left Europe. And it was her first Sun Dance in more than a decade, so nostalgia rocked her with every step. The brilliant colors, the music, the perfect, pristine wonder of a fully Native world celebrating itself with abandon. Nobody at a powwow was poor or hungry. All struggles and burdens were set aside. There weren’t many times when a Native person could simply feel a lighthearted pride in their heritage; too much of that heritage had been stolen or destroyed, and the loss weighed hard. But not here, not now.
“What the hell?” Victor snarled.
They were standing in line for food. Naomi, Frank, and Natalie had staked out a place for a picnic.
Gigi had been watching Frannie, standing near a booth that sold beer and liquor, laughing loudly with a group of equally drunk friends. Somebody said something so hilarious that Frannie threw herself at him, and they both reeled together and nearly fell down.
With a sigh of sad resignation—not all burdens could be set aside, even for a powwow—Gigi turned to follow Victor’s line of sight. Before she saw what had him grousing, she noticed an unusual ripple in the ambient noise of a crowded festival, the kind of ripple that happened when a lot of people noticed something at the same time.
Then she saw it—or, rather him. “Shit. That’s Evan.”
Evan Hall was walking through the grounds, toward the lodge. He was dressed in traditional deerskin breeches, and his chest was bare. His wore feathers in his two braids.
“Is he dancing?” she asked, though the answer was obvious. Still, he was forty years old. The ritual was for young men.
“Looks like it. I have to get Natalie out of here. Shit. Shit!”
“How did he get here? The Feds have been waiting for him to clear tribal land.” And now he was on tribal land again, two hundred miles away from home. Had he curled up in somebody’s trunk? “Why is here? Is he trying to prove something?” That had to be it. If he meant to dance, he meant to prove his honor.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. We have to get out of here. And call Honor—somebody should tell somebody he’s off the rez. He’ll need to get home eventually.”
She grabbed Victor’s arm. “He won’t hurt anybody at a powwow, would he?” Gigi didn’t think Evan had ever really hurt anyone. In fights, sure. And he scared the crap out of everybody. But his violence was always directed at things, not people. He tore things up, did damage to people’s homes and livelihoods. Which was terrible enough. But he didn’t hurt people unless they were fighting him.
“He’s a lot more violent than he used to be. And you weren’t here, Geej. The night he broke up the Jack. He shoved a broken bottle at Linda’s face. Came so close to stabbing her there was little bits of glass on her cheek. You want to be facing him when he goes that last inch? Do you want Nat facing him? Or my mom? Or Frannie?”
Frannie. She should get her family to leave, too. She turned and saw her sister, yukking it up with her fellow sloppy drunks. “Okay. I need to get my family, too. Can we get everybody in the truck? Three more?” They could worry about Frannie’s Honda later.
“Yeah. It’ll be a hard ride, three-and-a-half hours in the truck bed, but we can work it out.”
“Let me go talk to Frannie and find Mom and Tyson.”
“No. Stay with me. We’ll go tell my folks, and then I’ll go with you to Frannie. I don’t want you alone. You’re livin’ off the rez, too, and to Hall, that makes you a traitor.”
He wasn’t the only one who thought so. That drunk woman over there thought so, too.
“You’re not safe, Geej,” Victor underscored. “Stay with me.”
*****
By the time they had the Thomases on their way to pack up and went back, Frannie and her friends had moved on from the food booths. It took Victor and Gigi a good fifteen minutes to find her family—and all she saw was Frannie, sitting at the end of a picnic table, under the arm of a guy Gigi didn’t recognize.
With Victor at her heel, she went to her sister. “Frannie, hey.”
“Hey.” Frannie glared up at her, unimpressed. “What?”
“Where’s Mom and Tyson?”
“They didn’t come. Ty’s got a cold. Which you would know if we ever saw you.”
Her words were about a half-a-fifth slurred. There was no point in arguing with her, but Gigi couldn’t help pointing out, “I was home last week.”
Frannie ignored her. She took a bottle of whiskey out of the guy’s hand and drank straight from it.
“Fran, I need to talk to you. Evan’s here. We need to go home. You can ride with me and the Thomases.” She took her sister’s hand and pulled a little.
Frannie shook her off. “Get lost. I’m not goin’ anywhere. It’s a powwow.”
“Frannie, please!”
The guy leaned back and gave Gigi a hard look. “You asked, Fran answered. Go on, now.”
Victor pulled on her arm. “Leave her be. I don’t think Hall will go for your fam
ily. They don’t mean him trouble.”
Gigi stood where she was, mired in conflict. But why? Frannie was pushing her away. Victor was drawing her away. Everybody wanted her to go in the same direction, and nobody wanted her to be where she was. Mom and Tyson were home, as safe there as anywhere. Frannie was on her own.
“Okay. Be safe, sister.”
“Go to hell,” were her older sister’s parting words.
*****
They were back at the ranch before dark, and the Cahills, Thomases, and Reese and Gigi sat up late, waiting to hear if Hall had been arrested. The powwow lasted over a long weekend, so it could be as long as two days before Hall even tried to return to his own reservation. The Feds had a standard warrant for his arrest and could take him in when he was between reservations, but they couldn’t execute it on tribal lands unless invited. No reservation would allow such a warrant to be executed during a powwow, no matter the crime—and they likely would fight a special warrant. A powwow was sacred, and the Sun Dance even more so.
Still, they waited for word, until the night grew too old, and someone—Gigi was too tired to take note of who—suggested they turn in and take up the vigil again in the morning.
Gigi felt odd and out of sorts, like something more was wrong, something she could almost sense, just at the reaches of her consciousness. She figured it was the drama and potential danger of Evan Hall, the worry about the backlash if he should be arrested, or if he escaped it again. The confrontation with Frannie compounded things. They’d never been all that close, but it hurt, a lot, that her sister hated her. She’d forgotten that pain while she was away.
She understood where the hate, the resentment came from—Frannie felt like the family mule, the oldest, laden with all the responsibilities, while baby Gigi had been showered with love and devotion, and then had skipped out when things got really bad. And Frannie wasn’t wrong. Gigi hadn’t seen it then, and she didn’t know how to fix it now.
Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3) Page 24