by Jeanne Rose
A watchful, almost wary expression crossed his face. “Did you see someone leave the doll?”
She noted he wasn’t trying to defend himself. “I didn’t see anything. I heard a thud when something hit my balcony doors.” At least she thought that’s what had awakened her.
“What time was that?”
She tried to remember, recalled the clock on the bookshelf. “One a.m.”
“One.” He nodded, for some reason looking oddly satisfied. “I was in my studio painting at that time.”
But she wasn’t satisfied. “So you say. But even if you have witnesses to prove otherwise, you could have sent someone else to carry out your orders.”
“I like to work on my own.”
Reluctantly, she nodded. Probably true. Somehow, as disgusting as it would be if Luke had been the one to send her the message, she would feel safer than she did now. She shuddered as she thought of some stranger stalking her.
“I’m not responsible for the coyotes, either.” He added, “Besides, if I had that skill, if I wanted to use it against you, we wouldn’t be standing here talking.” He quirked a brow. “They would’ve gotten you.”
A pleasant scene to imagine. And one that hardly alleviated the doubts she was trying to push aside. Her heart thudded in her breast as he stepped closer. His nearness engulfed her whole.
“My truck’s down the street. Let’s go.”
Nostrils filled with his unique scent – his maleness mixed with the tools of an artist – she could hardly breathe. “Go where?”
“A restaurant I know of. I’m hungry and you could probably use some dinner, too.”
Teetering on the edge of hysteria, she laughed. “Dinner?” Surely he wasn’t trying to be friendly . . . or romantic. Though thinking about the latter possibility brought tingles of anticipation. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
She was still too upset to know. “I can’t think about food now.”
“Then have a stiff drink. You could stand one.”
“It’s a bit difficult for me to skip from sorcery to drinks or food.”
“We can compromise. Cover sorcery while we eat.”
He motioned toward his truck a second time. She noticed it was sitting in front of her building. There was an urgency about him – she sensed it – but he made no move to touch her. Could she trust him or no? Time cleared her head a bit. She’d gone out to the reservation and returned unharmed.
“I came to see you, to talk,” he said, finally offering a reason for his presence. “I figured you’d come home eventually. If nothing else, might as well finish up that conversation we could have had at 4 a.m. Something unusual happened.”
Something unusual. An explanation for the phone call.
Despite herself, Mara was caught. Again.
Fascination warred with suspicion and won. A heady brew when mixed with the attraction between them. “All right. I’ll come.”
As they headed for his truck, she figured she wouldn’t have been able to settle down anyway. She would have sat around her apartment nerved up and staring at the walls as she tried to understand what had happened.
Luke might be spooky, his actions mysterious, yet he still made her feel less alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WHERE DID YOU LEARN KISI?” Luke asked as he and Mara relaxed over a plate of nachos at a traditional Mexican restaurant in an unfashionable part of town. He hated the new places with their fancy food and tourists.
“Kisi? What are you talking about?”
“I heard you shout ‘Beware’ in that language when I was walking along the arroyo.”
“I don’t know anything but English. I was only yelling.”
Though Luke wasn’t an expert himself, he recognized certain words of power, the kind that had been used in rituals he’d attended as a boy. Plus his sense of hearing was fairly acute. Yet Mara acted like she was telling the truth. He let the matter go, listening as she continued to vent her emotions, relating the disturbing details of the last twelve hours.
He took exception to her suspicion of Isabel. “My grandmother would never stoop to such tactics.”
Nor would he, at least not when he was in his usual state of mind. But his relief over knowing that he wasn’t involved in either the hide doll or coyote incidents was tempered by his concern over who was responsible.
“Isabel told me to stay out of her dreams.”
He cut in, “And what made me a suspect?”
“I refused to go to bed with you.”
He almost smiled. “Right. Like I can’t find a willing woman when I want one.”
She flushed. “Pardon my assumption. I didn’t realize you were just looking for a body and a hank of hair.”
The sarcasm was on target. He’d wanted Mara all right, nobody else, even as he wanted her now. This moment. Not that he would say as much.
Her cheeks remained pink as she stared at the menu. “Let’s order. You promised to talk about the phone call and I don’t want to stay out all night.”
Luke motioned for the waitress, who took their dinner orders and asked if they’d care for another drink.
Mara handed the woman her margarita glass. “One is enough for me or I’ll be under the table.”
Thinking he wouldn’t mind seeing that, Luke said, “Another cola.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Weirdly enough, the alcohol seems to have gotten rid of the headache I’ve had since last night.” Her glance strayed to Luke. “Can those curse dolls cause physical pain?”
Startled, he managed to state, “I’ve never had any experience with them.”
Though he’d heard such was possible. Not that Mara needed to know. Or that speaking a Kisi word of power was supposed to drive the pain away. He decided to put it out of his own mind before he started feeling edgy.
When the waitress returned with his cola, Mara remarked, “You don’t drink?”
He took a sip. “My father was an alcoholic who died in a barroom brawl. I usually try to avoid the stuff.” The beers he’d had the night before were the first he’d had in years.
“A brawl? What a tragedy. It must have been difficult for you and your mother.”
Despite her annoyance with him a minute or two before, she sounded sincere. Luke had to concede that Mara was probably a nice person. Actually, more than nice. The longer he knew her, the more he realized she possessed a certain underlying serenity, a calm strength that proved she wasn’t crazy. In some ways, she even reminded him of his grandmother.
Though she didn’t have Isabel’s training or seventy-plus wisdom. He didn’t blame her for getting upset over the doll and the weird-acting coyotes.
The big yellow animal sounded like the same one that some people claimed was stalking the pueblo. Could it have been an illusion brought about by sorcery? Or had a beast been sent seventy miles south after specific prey?
He wouldn’t know why a witch would hunt Mara. But then he was confused about a lot of things lately . . . a white woman invading Kisi dreams, a clan elder murdered in his sleep . . . a fireball in the community center.
“You said you were going to talk about something unusual that happened,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “That you were going to explain your phone call.”
Odd that she’d brought that up the very moment he was thinking about the disaster. Again he examined the reasons he felt compelled to confide in her. Mainly intuitive. Something invisible seemed to bind them.
He told her, “There was a fire out at the pueblo last night. In the community center. The murals were destroyed.”
“Those beautiful paintings?” Her eyes widened. “What on earth happened? Arson?”
Luke remembered the shadow in his dream, lurking just beyond his reach. “I don’t think you could call sending a witch light or a fireball arson, at least not according to written law. And only some inner walls were burned.”
“Did you see the fireball?”
&n
bsp; “Someone told me about it.”
“Then you can’t be sure the fire wasn’t an accident or a product of regular human malice, not something magical.”
He grew impatient. “I don’t have a problem accepting the supernatural. Not when it concerns Kisi magic anyway. I’ve seen people call up the wind, invoke lightning.” He added, “And I’m not going to spend my time trying to convince you. You have to sort out your own beliefs.”
“I guess we should get back to the phone call, then. Exactly why did you want to contact me?”
“I had a nightmare.”
Her blue eyes remained steady.
“A nightmare about fire,” he went on. “A building was burning.”
“Some sort of premonition?”
“Worse.” He hesitated before sharing something he’d never revealed to anyone else. “I was asleep between three and four in the morning, which is when the fire started.” He went on to explain, “I never developed my powers as a stormbringer, never learned how to call up lightning or create fireballs.” Pausing again, he decided he wasn’t yet ready to admit that he feared the darkness within him, that it could be twisted and destructive. “With some people, if they find themselves in the wrong situation, if their skills are raw, they could abuse them.” She remained quiet for several seconds. “You think you caused the fire?”
“It might be possible . . . while I was sleeping. Maybe I created a fireball with my dream.”
“You fear your subconscious that much? But this situation doesn’t make sense. Why would you want to destroy your own murals?”
“Who knows? I have mixed feelings about a lot of things.”
Mara continued to act pensive as the waitress arrived with their dinners. She wasn’t eating much, only a bowl of chili and some tortillas.
He didn’t want her to think he was asking for her sympathy. “You needled me about nightmares before, so I’m telling you. I called last night to see if you were all right, to see if you were dreaming about fire, too.” More importantly, he’d wanted to reassure himself that she hadn’t been in a fire.
“How do you know I wasn’t dreaming about fire?”
“I would’ve been able to tell from the tone of your voice. We’ve shared a dream. We’re connected somehow.”
Might as well admit it.
She shook her head. “You’re better than I am at all of this. Mysticism makes my head spin.”
Obviously, she didn’t know how special she was. White or not, she had power. “You have special abilities.” And whether she liked it or not, just like him. “You can dreamwalk. Might as well get used to the idea.”
“I can dreamwalk. Dreamwalk,” she repeated, her gaze faraway. “I can go into other people’s dreams.”
Right. And at least she didn’t have to worry about abusing her abilities. As he’d sensed from the very beginning, she had little or no darkness lurking inside her.
Having gotten a few things off his chest, he turned to his food, wolfing down his carne asada, a plate of steak with a side of rice and beans. In contrast, Mara merely picked at the chili and tortillas. Wondering why she wasn’t hungry, he glanced up to see a big tear rolling down her cheek.
He hated it when women cried. “What’s the matter with you?”
More tears filled her eyes and she dabbed at them with her napkin. Damn it, he hoped it wasn’t something he’d said.
She murmured, “Maybe my fatigue is catching up with me, but I can’t help thinking about dreamwalking, that I can actually do it.” She took a shaky breath. “I didn’t realize the significance, Luke. I let someone die.”
He frowned. “No one’s dead.” Except Victor Martinez and she hadn’t even known the man.
“You don’t understand. It happened before I came to Santa Fe.” More tears. More dabbing as she struggled to pull herself together. “I-I had a patient . . . who asked me to come into his dreams and save him from a monster. I said I couldn’t–” Her voice trailed off.
“And the monster killed him?”
“A monster . . . something inside himself. He committed suicide soon after he got out of the hospital.” Her expression was tortured. “I can dreamwalk, Luke . . . I can dreamwalk like he asked me to do, but I let him die.”
Now she couldn’t stop the soft sobs. Her shoulders shook.
Unable to remain aloof, Luke slid an arm around her, pulling her closer, forcing himself to hold his physical attraction at bay and tend to her immediate need. Her pain was sharp, deep, palpable enough for him to feel. He wanted to take away her pain, to take it on himself because he was used to it and she wasn’t.
What was he starting up with her? With himself?
He tried to be reassuring, “You didn’t know you could dreamwalk then. You can’t even control it now. There was nothing you could do.”
“I can’t be sure.”
“Yes, you can. The only reason you were able to enter my dream or my grandmother’s was because we also have dreamwalking abilities.”
At least that’s what he was going to insist. He stroked her hair away from her face, cradled her as closely as he could, considering their separate chairs. At the same time he noticed an older couple staring at them from a neighboring table. To others, it probably looked like they were having a lovers’ quarrel.
Lovers.
For Luke now knew that’s what he and Mara could be . . . at the deepest level.
It was more than sexual attraction with her.
She was more than nice. More than kind. She was intelligent, complex and feisty enough to deal with the likes of him.
It was all Luke could do not to pick her up and carry her out of the place. He wanted to be alone with her. He would need more self-control when he took her home, when he would want to come upstairs and spend the night trying to protect her from both inner pain and outside threat.
They could easily become involved.
Which was exactly what he couldn’t allow himself to do.
He might not have done any messing around with dolls or coyotes, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be far more dangerous. If he truly cared about Mara, he would have to keep his distance.
MARA DECIDED that if anyone had more than one personality, it was Luke Naha.
On one hand he could be insulting, cold, even menacing.
On the other, he could be quite civil, even caring. She’d been surprised when he’d comforted her at the restaurant, had acted genuinely sympathetic.
Touched, she’d felt bereft afterward when he’d seemed to withdraw into himself. But perhaps he was still feeling exposed after admitting his fear that he’d caused a fire. No wonder he’d never wanted to talk about his nightmares. He thought he couldn’t control them, had to be carrying a load of guilt.
Something she knew about firsthand.
So she didn’t press him for conversation on the drive home, though the usual subtle tension rode between them.
He finally broke the silence himself. “You haven’t seen any strangers around your neighborhood?”
“I haven’t lived in this area long enough to know who’s a stranger and who isn’t.”
“Noticed anybody following you, hanging around your building? An Indian?”
“Just you,” she said lightly.
He gave her a narrow sidelong glance. “You need to keep your eyes peeled. Obviously someone doesn’t like you.”
“An understatement.”
“It could be worse.” He pointed out, “You’ve gotten warnings so far, nothing real serious.”
“If you say so.” Otherwise, the coyotes would have caught her, as he’d suggested before. “What I can’t figure out is
why . . . who would have something against me?” If it wasn’t Luke himself or Isabel.
“Maybe it has something to do with your dreamwalking ability.”
She was startled. “Someone else knows about it?”
“A person with power often recognizes it in someone else.”
“Power?” She
wanted to laugh. “So far, dreamwalking hasn’t given me anything but problems.”
Plus an incredibly erotic fantasy experience with Luke, one she often longed to repeat in the flesh. As he pulled up in front of her building, his face brooding, she wondered if he was also thinking about that. He put the Jeep in park but kept the motor running.
She reached for the door handle, feeling weak and wrung out.
“Just a minute.”
Surely he wasn’t going to suggest he walk her to the entrance. She didn’t think she could deal with another one of his goodnight kisses. She’d crumple and he’d have to carry her upstairs . . .
He stared out through the night-dark windshield. “You don’t need training to use your abilities, at least in the simplest ways. You should look around, listen hard, try to be aware of everything you can. If you feel uneasy or uptight, take it seriously.”
She’d had an uneasy feeling after the doll had landed on her balcony, all right. And, today, she’d been spooked when she first noticed the coyotes following her. But she couldn’t bring herself to mention psychic abilities.
“You’re saying to pay attention to my intuition?”
“You need to watch your back.”
Was he saying he cared about her? Perhaps that was an issue if they were connected by the bond he’d spoken of.
She felt his warmth as he leaned across her to open the glove compartment. Rummaging around, he pulled out a small leather bag with a drawstring, which he handed over.
Their fingers brushed, creating electricity. But he as quickly withdrew.
She smoothed the soft leather, thinking about the way his hands had felt moving over her skin. “What’s this?”
“A medicine bag. Put it under your pillow before you go to sleep tonight.”
“Is it supposed to protect me?”
“Can’t hurt.”