by Jeanne Rose
“I don’t even have a dreaming place.”
Not to mention that he had a big problem with faith. He hadn’t sought a true dream since he’d seen something dark and frightening within himself as a teenager. When his family had moved away from the pueblo and tradition, he’d been relieved.
But all his life, strange dreams had followed. Dreams that he hadn’t always been able to remember. Dreams, as well as incidents, involving violence and destruction . . .
“Stormdancer, the woman who was here today–”
Nightmares.
“Mara Fitzgerald?” Luke tightened his jaw even as the name immediately conjured her image. “She wasn’t invited. She was just trying to hurry up my painting.”
“It was more than that. There was something else, something hidden and it bothers me.” Isabel absently rubbed the blanket-covered arm of the couch. “I sensed it. That’s why I asked her to stay, even though you seemed to dislike her. She spoke so strongly of dreams. Why? Had she heard of Kisi legends?”
“I have no idea. I know nothing about her. Today was the first time I ever set eyes on her.” Though something inside him put a lie to that statement.
“Is she part Indian, do you think?”
Another chord struck, but he said, “Her skin is as white as a sidewinder’s belly.”
“Your mother said she was very pretty.”
Yeah, she’d been pretty. And he’d been attracted even if he didn’t like her.
“Were her eyes brown?” Isabel queried.
“Blue, and I’m certain she doesn’t have one drop of Indian blood.” Wasn’t he?
Isabel sighed. “Well, another mystery. But we can’t afford the more serious kind. You are welcome in my dreaming place, Stormdancer. You are of my own blood. We can’t waste time.” Again the chills. Mahooty’s warning haunted him. He slung an arm about Isabel’s shoulders, feeling the bones through her flesh, as fragile and light as a bird’s. Her spirit was strong but she wouldn’t live forever. Though no one had better try to take her before her time.
“No one will harm you, Grandmother . . . not unless they want to answer to me.”
“Then go to Red Mesa and dreamseek, Stormdancer.” When he didn’t reply, she became agitated. “Will you do as I ask?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
Though Luke had no idea of what could happen. Embracing his grandmother, he watched her leave, then gazed out the nearest window into the black night. He might as well be looking into his own soul. A dark, mysterious hole that he’d avoided for years. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know exactly what was inside him, what terrible thing might have led him to destroy his wife and little son. He’d never been able to control his inner power. If evil was stalking the Kisi pueblo, he only prayed it wasn’t the blackness that lived within himself.
A RAY OF INSISTENT LIGHT popped Mara’s eyes open. She stared about, finding herself prone on the floor of a canyon. Again. For she had lain here before, had been wrapped in the same sheet. At least this time she was wearing a nightgown.
She scrambled to her feet, dislodging a small stone. Her heart pounded, though she tried to control the foreboding feeling that clung to her like a shroud.
The sun hung low in the sky. The surrounding mountains were blue-violet, the chamisa and other brush darkening to shades of graying green. The crimson of the canyon’s earth deepened to brick-red. She glanced about nervously.
Night was fast coming on. She didn’t want to stay in this eerie canyon when darkness completely descended. The overhanging cliffs lurked like predators, and the breeze hissed frightening whispers.
“Hello!” she shouted. “Is anyone here?”
Where was the Indian woman?
The question tore through her mind of its own volition. She moved forward, her surroundings shifting unnaturally. Gliding over rock and sand, she passed copses of pinon pine and juniper, speeding up until her breath came in spurts.
A red mesa suddenly loomed before her and she was just as suddenly atop it, looking down at her surroundings. The sun continued to sink, sending deep blue shadows creeping across the
canyon. A star winked in the indigo sky high above but its light was far too weak and faraway.
“Hello!” she shouted desperately.
And then subtle footpads behind her froze her to the spot. She whipped about, her heart racing like a speeding deer.
A bare-chested Indian, hair loose to his shoulders, emerged from the semi-darkness. Though he was tall and handsome, his shadowed expression frightened her, and his dark eyes burned right through her.
“You,” he growled, the single word both recognition and accusation. “Come to me.”
She shrank back.
“Stop,” he ordered. “I’ve been waiting too long.”
Too long.
Longing.
For longing – deep, wordless yearning – battled fear. Her eyes filled with tears. Her lips parted but she could not speak. The stranger . . . yet not a stranger . . . moved toward her, his glide silent, his muscles rippling. His mouth quivered with repressed emotion.
“You,” he said again, before pulling her to him.
Pressing her tightly against his body, he raked his hands over her as if he owned her, as if he were memorizing every inch of flesh. She didn’t resist. Couldn’t. The familiar about him kept her from fighting. He grasped the back of her neck so that her face turned upward.
His grip was so powerful, she knew he could snap her neck and kill her on the spot.
Instead, he savaged her mouth.
He. Not a nameless Indian, she realized, suddenly recognizing that she embraced Lucas Naha himself.
But Luke was also something . . . someone else . . .
Her thoughts muddled as her own passion took over her consciousness, blooming into full, ripe flower. Moaning, she let her head drop back, wrapped her arms about her lover’s neck, and rocked her hips against him. Her satin-covered nipples were tight little buds carrying heat and sensations to and from her lower belly.
Her lover growled deep in his throat, throwing the sheet aside and pulling her lacy, cream-colored nightgown up to slide his hands along her naked flesh. She could feel the proof of his desire pressing hard against the material he wore about his waist, the only barrier between them.
She wanted him, desired him with all her heart and soul. She pulled back slightly so he could cup her breasts, hold the soft weight of them and flick his thumbs over her sensitive nipples.
She shuddered, panting, her knees nearly giving way.
Understanding her need, he lowered her to the ground, continuing to kiss her deeply, to caress her. Their tongues touched, their breaths blended. He parted her legs, arranged himself between them, stroked and teased her until she writhed, begging him to take her.
He understood, though she was speaking strange-sounding words she didn’t understand. A dark profile against the dream-blue sky, he answered her in the same foreign tongue, started to remove the barrier so they could become one . . .
A foreign language.
If a familiar man.
But familiar how?
She drew back slightly, raised herself to her elbows to gaze hard at her lover. At Luke Naha. Once again, she had the strong sensation that he was someone else . . . and that she was also someone else . . . someone who couldn’t remember her real name.
Impatient, he pushed her back to the ground with more guttural foreign words.
Fear suddenly laced her passion. He was so strong, so overwhelming that she stiffened. “Wait.”
He ignored her until she shoved her hands between him and put pressure on his chest. “I said wait. This is going too fast.”
Though he allowed her to halt him, fury blazed across his craggy bronzed features. Then he rose, and some of the tension drained from her . . . until he stepped back, one foot following the other, receding quickly while his image started to fade.
“Wait,” she cried again, this time desperate for a renewal of hi
s touch. But as if angered by her very reluctance, he disappeared, blending into the shadows creeping across the mesa. “Don’t leave me!”
But he had already gone.
After staring about wildly for a moment, she curled back against the earth to weep because she was confused, afraid . . . and because she was so alone.
MARA AWAKENED SOBBING, heart pounding, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her nightgown bunched up about her shoulders, she was also wet with sweat and shamelessly aroused.
Was she going mad for certain?
Struggling out of bed, she pulled down her slippery nightgown and rose on shaky legs. This dream had been even more soul-shattering than the last, with fleeting, warring thoughts and emotions – desire, fear, passion, grief.
Grief?
Mara wasn’t sure where that feeling had come from.
Though she was positive it had been Luke Naha she’d nearly made love with.
Luke Naha.
First it had been his painting and now he himself who had invaded her dreams. And she’d wanted him, ached for his body.
A dream lover.
For Mara knew she would have capitulated if the man in her passion-drenched night fantasy had continued with his seduction, if he hadn’t become so angry when she’d told him to wait that he’d faded from her vision.
She mourned for a stranger . . . for the achingly familiar emotions he’d stirred in her.
What power did this man hold over her?
CHAPTER THREE
LUKE CAME OUT OF TRANCE at dawn, with the morning sun climbing the eastern mountains. Highly aroused, he took a deep breath of the clean, pinon-scented air and tried to ignore the physical discomfort pressing hard against his jeans.
Some wise man he was. Sent to search for a high vision to help his grandmother, he’d come up with a teenager’s wet dream.
The only plus was that he could now tell Isabel who had been invading her dreaming place. The elderly woman was sure to be stunned.
Luke himself felt astonishment mix with the other sensations and memories zinging through his consciousness . . .
Mara Fitzgerald writhing beneath him, her smooth skin sliding beneath his fingertips, her soft mouth opening to his ministrations . . .
But enough.
He already needed an icy cold shower.
Stiff from sitting in one position so long, he got to his feet, strode across the mesa and quickly maneuvered the steep path leading down the opposite side. Then he hurried for his house, planning to enter directly into his quarters. He didn’t want to talk to anyone until he had chilled out and gotten his head together.
AS HE’D EXPECTED, his grandmother registered open shock when he met with her later that morning in his studio.
“So it was the white woman in my dreaming place.” Isabel’s blue-veined hands gripped the arms of the couch. “I-I had an unusual feeling about her but I didn’t think this was possible.”
Luke touched her frail shoulder, trying to comfort her. “I saw her, Grandmother. She was even wearing the striped sheet you described.” And a lot less after he’d ripped it off her.
Isabel said faintly, “A white woman.”
Not that Luke cared about the race issue – he’d bedded women of various ethnic groups through the years since his wife had died, being careful to avoid emotional involvement with any of them.
“What does this mean?” she asked, voice trembling. “Only the Kisi are able to dreamwalk. Only the wise . . or very clever evil spirits . . . witches.”
Mara Fitzgerald was no witch, Luke felt certain. “I sensed no evil in her,” he said truthfully. Just fear and passion.
“Tell me the vision, every detail,” Isabel ordered.
That would take some editing. Luke sat back in his own chair. “Well . . . she appeared on Red Mesa, and she had this sheet wrapped around her.”
”And?”
“She was also wearing a nightgown.” A satiny confection which he had nearly whipped over Mara’s head. He’d seen the whole display anyway – beautiful breasts, nicely rounded hips, long shapely legs. Desire stirring again, he steeled himself. “She saw me . . . and seemed surprised.”
She’d appeared to be as stunned as he’d felt and also hauntingly familiar, like they’d met more than once before.
“Stormdancer.” Isabel’s stern tone shook him out of his musings. “Did the woman say anything?”
“Nothing I could understand.”
“She didn’t speak English?”
“No.” Now that he thought about it, “It sounded more like Kisi.”
Which he was no expert in. He had always felt lucky if he could understand the words uttered by Isabel or other elders during religious ceremonies.
“Kisi.” Isabel leaned forward, her frown deepening. “Yet you do not believe the woman is a witch? You are withholding something, Luke, I can feel it.”
He wasn’t about to go into more vivid detail with his grandmother.
“Look, I don’t know why this woman got into my dream,” he insisted, knowing he sounded defensive. “And I don’t know how.” He wasn’t even certain what had stopped them from mating. “She was just there, okay? There was nothing I could do about it.”
Isabel sat so quietly, Luke wondered if he’d offended her. He watched her relax, slowly compose her features.
Finally, she announced, “You must go fetch this woman, Luke.” He opened his mouth to object, but she went on, “I must speak to this Mara Fitzgerald. Bring her to the reservation.”
Oh, yeah. “And what if she doesn’t want to come?”
“Use whatever means you must to bring her to me.”
Luke stared at a painting resting against the wall, a plan starting to form in his mind.
“All right. I’ll bring her, if nothing else to make sure all this trouble gets dealt with.”
Including his having to seek visions. Maybe talking to Mara Fitzgerald would help his grandmother decide how to overcome the dangers she’d been worried about.
But to get Mara here, Luke knew he would probably have to eat crow enchiladas, something he wasn’t looking forward to.
MARA SMILED AT TOM CHALAS, fighting off annoyance. Yesterday, she’d distinctly told him that he needed to make an appointment to present his artwork, but he’d just shown up unannounced and unexpected barely twenty-four hours later.
Mara knew she could better deal with the situation if she wasn’t still feeling wrung out by her newest dream.
“I have quite a few slides and photos,” Chalas was saying, “so I didn’t want to delay getting them to you.”
His fingers trembled slightly as he unzipped the portfolio. Though pushy, he was also vulnerable and obviously desperate. Mara’s annoyance faded, replaced by sympathy. Unfortunately, it was difficult to be encouraging about the pieces in the photos that Chalas spread out on the desk.
“Hmm, interesting.” Actually, rather hostile-looking with bristling spear-like points and snarling metal masks. The abstract bronze pieces definitely didn’t appeal to Mara, but even if their basic concept had, their design and execution were rather crude. What was she going to say? “Something about them reminds me of war – helmets, swords, spears.”
“War. That’s exactly the idea I was aiming for,” said Chalas enthusiastically. “There’s always been so much conflict in New Mexico, the clash of cultures.” He pushed a photo in front of her. “This is my newest piece.”
Which was a little different, if not any more expertly done. The piece was off-putting, resembled a figure loaded down with chains.
“This reminds me of . . . well, enslavement.” And gave her the creeps. But she struggled to keep an open-mind.
Chalas was trying hard. He acted pleased rather than put off. “Most of us are chained down in this world. That’s what I was trying to put across. You have an incredible eye.”
Mara attempted diplomacy. “Have you tried to get any other galleries to represent your work or sold any pieces on your own?”
From his tone, she could tell he hadn’t gotten a good response from either galleries or potential collectors. And no wonder. But her art therapy background made her believe that positive creativity dwelled in everyone.
“You might want to redefine your ideas,” she said. “Try developing the war idea into a grander statement about the horror and agony that humanity has suffered through the years, about how terrible it is to kill one another.”
Though she doubted the solution was so simple. Change had to come from within the artist himself before his work could have a more positive effect on the viewer. Chalas’s sculptures seemed to be a reminder of some terrible conflict, but didn’t speak against it.
The man grabbed the acetate sheet and scooped up the photos. “So you’re saying you won’t represent these pieces?”
“I don’t think you’re quite ready for a major gallery at this time, Mr. Chalas. But keep working–”
”Until when?” he interjected, anger edging his voice.
“I’ve been working at this for twenty years.” Anger glinted from his eyes. “Maybe I should go back to the pueblo and whip up some wind chimes, or, better, carve a few kachina ornaments for people to hang on their Christmas trees.”
“I’m sorry.”
Chalas charged out of the office, nearly colliding with Felice Paquin. “Excuse me,” she squeaked, her blue eyes wide.
Which was unlike the usually unflappable Felice, Mara thought.
Tom Chalas didn’t even bother apologizing. Intending to have a talk with her assistant, Mara rose and poked her head out to make sure the man was leaving. That’s when she caught sight of what had really flustered Felice.
Or rather, who.
Luke Naha lounged near the reception desk, a bundle of canvases beside him, his arms folded across his broad chest. His strong features passive, he stared curiously at Chalas, who glared back in passing, his expression filled with resentment . . . and perhaps hatred.
Then Luke turned his unsmiling black gaze on the women, focusing on Mara. Caught by surprise, she let her mouth drop open, then started backing away. Memories of her erotic dream this morning returning with exquisite clarity, she blushed furiously.