A Man Without Love

by Beverly Bird

  They stepped inside, and Shadow turned to her abruptly. Suddenly, her black eyes were as hot as her brother’s. “I hope you’re not like that,” she said bluntly. “We need someone to stay, someone good who cares, even if many of us don’t realize it.”

  Catherine felt herself flush. For the first time she found it difficult to meet Shadow’s gaze. Once Victor was behind bars, if he was convicted only of her attempted murder and not of what she had overheard, if neither the FBI nor Victor’s friends found her, then eventually she would be able to return to Boston.

  She swallowed dryly. That was a whole lot of ifs.

  “I’m not sure your brother shares your opinion,” she answered, then she flinched inwardly. She reminded herself again that Jericho Bedonie was the least of her problems.

  To put him out of her mind, she looked around the trailer. It was bleak and nearly empty, a single room with a bathroom tacked on at one side. A narrow bunk sat at that end and there was an old Formica table at the other. The table leaned precariously on a bent leg.

  “It’s not much, is it?” Shadow sighed.

  No, but it was safe. Catherine smiled, and Shadow seemed to know that her response wasn’t forced this time.

  The woman rushed on in her dauntless, efficient way. “I’ve got to go into Shiprock this afternoon. While I’m there, I’ll find someone to go look at your car.”

  Suddenly, Catherine grimaced. “My suitcases are still in the trunk.”

  Shadow chewed her lip. “Can you get by overnight? I think there’s toothpaste and stuff in the bathroom.” She went to look and came back, nodding. “It’s all still there.”

  Then her gaze slid down to Catherine’s feet, as well. Catherine was beginning to wish she had never heard of sandals.

  “Did you bring boots?”

  “I don’t even own a pair.”

  “Well, you’ll need them. What size do you wear? Seven? I can get them in Shiprock. Is there anything else you think you’ll want?”

  Catherine looked about the trailer again and almost laughed at the question. It was, for all intents and purposes, empty.

  “A coffeepot?” she asked.

  Shadow gave a sly grin. “If you’ll stay long enough to drink it, I’ll even bring you a month’s worth of coffee.”

  “If I ever get my suitcases back, I’ve got coffee.” Her favorite was french-vanilla roast, and she hadn’t thought much of her chances of finding it on an Indian reservation. “But I’ll promise anyway,” she added. It would take at least that long for the problem with Victor to be resolved. And if she didn’t finish the externship she didn’t have a career, didn’t have any way to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and go on.

  Shadow turned for the door, then looked back at her one last time. “Give it a solid chance, Lanie. That’s all I ask.”

  Catherine flinched again at the sound of the assumed name. Suddenly something rebelled in her to tell Shadow the truth, to be as forthright as she had been. It would be such a relief to share the burden, but Catherine didn’t dare. One man with the health service knew who she really was, and she had only told him to get her credentials straight. Victor was smart. That was all she could risk.

  She finally nodded noncommittally and Shadow darted out the door. Catherine moved to the window to watch her go. The trailer was starkly silent without her chatter.

  “Get a grip, Lanie,” she said aloud. “It could be worse. You could be dead.”

  Instead, she was going to have to relearn epidemiology by the seat of her pants, evidently without even a doctor to guide her. She was going to have to do it with a nurse who apparently hated everything she stood for, and somewhere in this empty land there was a tall, hard man with simmering eyes who didn’t think too much of her, either.

  But at least she had a job and a solid roof over her head.

  She heard a plopping sound and her brows knit. She went to the bed and found a puddle beside it. She groaned and looked up.

  Scratch the part about the roof. It was leaking.

  She dropped down onto the bed, and one of its slats gave way beneath her with a splintering sound. She slid down onto the floor, into the puddle, and laughed for the first time in weeks, harder and harder until she cried.

  * * *

  Jericho watched his sister’s truck turn north toward Shiprock and he fell in behind her. When she finally stopped at the hardware store, he followed her inside.

  He caught up with her at a display of coffeepots and stood next to her silently. She ignored him. She was angry. He was thirty-five years old, and his little sister’s disapproval still brought him to his knees.

  “So what’d she think of her new home sweet home?” he asked finally.

  Shadow raised a brow in direct imitation of one of his more favored expressions. “You followed me all this way to ask me that? Awfully curious, aren’t you?”

  Jericho shrugged.

  “She is your type, isn’t she? Soulful eyes and all those legs.”

  It had been the wrong thing to say. His face closed down, and for a minute she thought he would leave again without another word. But he hesitated long enough for her to judiciously change the subject.

  “Who took everything out of the trailer?” she asked. “You or Ellen?”

  Both of his brows shot up. “Good idea, but you had me busy down in Zuni.”

  “That lopsided table used to be in Uncle Ernie’s cabin up on the mountain,” she said accusingly.

  “Could be, but I haven’t been near the place in months.”

  “Honest?”

  She watched him closely. He gave a genuine grin and it transformed his hard face.

  “Honest, but I wish I had thought of it.”

  Shadow took a coffeepot and carried it to the cash register. “I’m going to do everything I can to make her feel welcome,” she warned him.

  “Never doubted it.”

  The total price with tax came to a little over twenty dollars. Shadow had eighteen. She looked at him pointedly, and Jericho fished three more bills out of his pocket.

  “I give her two weeks,” he said, “even with the coffeepot.”

  “She’s promised me a month.”

  “City girls don’t have the grit to keep promises.”

  Shadow sighed. “Oh, Jericho, they’re not all the same. They’re not all like Anelle. That’s like saying all sheep are white.”

  “Most of them are.”

  He carried the box to her truck for her. “Still mad at me?”

  “I won’t be if you talk to Ellen and ask her to back off.”

  “Won’t do any good if little Lanie can’t hold her own anyway. Ellen’s a kitten on a Res full of tigers. The isolation alone’ll get her.”

  Shadow sighed. She couldn’t argue that.

  She hoisted herself behind the wheel. “Tell you what. If she doesn’t make the month, I’ll give you your three bucks back.”

  “You’re on.”

  “Hope you don’t need the money.”

  She said it with more conviction than she felt. She liked Lanie McDaniel, she really did, but something in Lanie’s eyes spoke of secrets and that troubled her.

  Chapter 3

  A coyote greeted Catherine’s first dawn on the reservation with a mournful song.

  The sound insinuated itself into her dreams, turning them into familiar nightmares. She jerked awake, her throat closing over a scream. Then the bed creaked beneath her and she remembered where she was.

  She had propped the bed back up with some cinder blocks she had found outside. Now she reached down and ran her fingers over them as though to reassure herself.

  “No, Toto,” she murmured, “we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

  She padded barefoot to the window, hugging herself. The sun wasn’t quite up yet. A sliver of moon still showed on the horizon. Other than the deserted clinic trailer, no other sign of civilization was in sight.

  Catherine shuddered. She had never been this alone in her
life.

  She squared her shoulders. If she went next door now, she thought, then she should be able to get something done before Ellen arrived to scatter her concentration. She went back to the bathroom to get the clothes she had washed by hand the night before. She pulled her jeans off the shower rod and groaned. They were still damp.

  She had noticed a blow dryer beneath the sink. She plugged it in and aimed the nozzle at the denim. By the time they were dry, the sun was up.

  She stepped outside to find her sandals where she had left them on the tiny porch. She knocked the crust off them and looked around again. It was a glorious sun-swept day. The sky was the most cloudless blue she had ever seen. The mud had already baked dry in air that was thin and arid again.

  She hurried back to the bathroom to brush her teeth, then she stiffened at the sound of a car door slamming outside. She went to the window again.

  Not a car. A Land Rover. Jericho. Her stomach clenched. What was he doing here?

  He had probably brought a shotgun to drive her off, she thought bitterly. She pulled the door open and hurried across to the clinic. It didn’t matter. She had been shot at before by the best of them and she was up to anything this man might throw at her.

  She skidded to a stop in the open clinic doorway. It wasn’t just Jericho, she realized. They were both here, he and Ellen, their dark heads close together as they leaned over something on the desk. His leather jacket was tossed over the chair. He wore a blue chambray shirt, his hair hiding the collar, and his jeans were just tight enough to make her swallow dryly.

  “Hello,” she ventured.

  Jericho looked up. His gaze swept over her without emotion, then he turned back to whatever they were looking at. Neither he nor the nurse said a word.

  The smell of coffee hit Catherine hard. She finally moved inside, looking for it. She thought she felt his gaze at the back of her neck, hot and probing, but when she turned around he was still looking down at the desk.

  “May I have some coffee?” she asked with forced politeness.

  It didn’t appear as though he would answer, but then he shrugged. “Help yourself.”

  “I would, except I can’t find it.”

  He lifted a thermos that had been sitting on the desk, showing it to her without looking at her. One of them had brought it, then. It occurred to her that she would rather die of caffeine withdrawal than drink it, but Paddy had always said that pride went before a fall. Catherine crossed and took the Thermos from him.

  “Thank you,” she said deliberately.

  “There are some paper cups beneath the sink. No cream or sugar.”

  “I’ll take it black.” She got a cup and sipped as she tried to see what they were looking at. The coffee shot through her sinuses and made her sputter.

  Jericho glanced at her, less curious than satisfied. “A little too much for you? Don’t they make it that strong back in the city?”

  She gritted her teeth. “It’s fine.”

  She forced some more down to prove it, then she looked over his shoulder. “What’s that?”

  Ellen promptly pulled the paper off the desk. But Catherine had seen what it was—a map, with little red dots sprinkled over it. Pinpoints of the Mystery Disease outbreak? If so, why in the world wouldn’t they want her to see it? Were they so determined to exclude her that they would keep data from someone who could possibly help them? And what was Jericho’s role in the investigation?

  He was watching her with narrow eyes. She licked her lips. “You know, this isn’t my first rotation in epidemiology,” she told him. “I managed to get two others in med school.”

  “Good for you.”

  “No, good for you,” she snapped. “It sounds to me like you need all the expertise you can get in solving this thing.”

  “We have the expertise of every medicine man on the Res,” Ellen said.

  And what if it’s not Indian hocus-pocus? Catherine caught herself before she blurted it out. She didn’t need to antagonize them more than she already was just by being here.

  “What if its root is more organic than mystical?” she asked carefully instead. Jericho’s gaze grew sharp enough to cut her anyway. “I mean—”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Cat Eyes, I get your drift.”

  Cat Eyes? She flinched. This was getting personal. But then, she supposed it had been from the start.

  She took a deep breath, pressing on doggedly. “There’s a chance that—”

  “You’re way out of your element here. There’s a chance that maybe you shouldn’t tangle with things you don’t understand, with things that are tougher and meaner than you are.”

  Something shivered oddly inside her. She got the sudden impression that he wasn’t talking about the disease.

  Her throat went unaccountably dry, but she was saved from a response when Shadow appeared in the doorway.

  “Now, now, children,” she scolded. “Be nice.”

  “And things were just getting interesting,” Ellen mused.

  Shadow shot her a warning look. The one she sent her brother was even more scathing. “I’d hoped you’d at least play fair.”

  “You know what they say about love and war.” He took the paper from Ellen, folded it up, and slid it into his shirt pocket.

  “Yeah,” Shadow said, watching him with a knowing look. “So I do.”

  “Watch your tongue.”

  “I’ve got some stuff for Lanie in the back of my truck. Will you help me with it?”

  Catherine fully expected him to refuse. Her jaw dropped when he nodded curtly.

  They went outside. Catherine hesitated a moment, then she hurried after them. She leaned against the side of the truck to peer into its bed and her eyes widened.

  Not only had Shadow brought her suitcases, but there was a threadbare sofa, as well, a portable television and an old compact refrigerator. She pried the top off a box and found boots, curtains, a beautiful blanket like the one on Shadow’s bed and a brand new coffeepot.

  “Going a little overboard, aren’t you?” Jericho asked.

  “All’s fair,” Shadow drawled.

  Catherine was moved beyond reason. It was such a simple gesture, and not entirely altruistic—she knew Shadow wanted her to settle in and stay. But she had been struggling on her own for a good many weeks now and it was the nicest thing anyone had done for her in a very long time.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Jericho will set everything up for you. Just show him where you want it.”

  His expression turned incredulous. “You’re pushing your luck.”

  “That’s okay,” Catherine said quickly. “If you could just dump the heavy stuff inside the door, I can take care of everything else and straighten it out tonight.”

  She reached for one of her suitcases. As soon as she pulled it over the side an odor hit her, musty and fetid. She wrinkled her nose.

  “That’s the bad news.” Shadow sighed. “Your car got tumbled.”

  “Tumbled?” Catherine pulled the other one out. It smelled the same way.

  “The water rolled it over. Everything inside got soaked and it’s not going anywhere for a while. The good news is that I know a boy from up near Shiprock—Eddie Begay—who works in the garage there and he takes some jobs on the side. He said he’d go out to the wash and see if he can get it running again for you.”

  “What’d you use to twist Eddie’s arm?” Jericho asked dryly.

  Shadow gave him a withering look. “Not every arm needs to be twisted.”

  “You couldn’t prove it by me.”

  Catherine hadn’t been able to catch herself this time before the words came blurting out. Two pairs of startled black eyes came around to her. Shadow laughed, and for a wild moment Catherine actually thought Jericho would do so, as well. Something moved at the corner of his mouth as he watched her, then he yanked his gaze away and moved toward the house trailer.

  “Bring the truck over here,” he snapped. “I’m not carrying that
sofa on my back.”

  Shadow made a move toward the cab.

  “The car’s not even mine,” Catherine objected.

  “No, but you’ll need it to get around while you’re here. Your rotation is what—six weeks?”

  Catherine nodded.

  “Long enough that being stuck in these trailers will make you crazy. You’ll need to get into the city now and again to keep sane.”

  She probably would, but she didn’t dare. She had the sure sense that if she went where people were, Victor would find her.

  “In the meantime,” Shadow went on, “if you want to go through your suitcases, I’ll take whatever needs to be washed up to the Laundromat in Shiprock.”

  Catherine’s gaze snapped back to her. Shadow was watching her curiously and something uncomfortable moved in her stomach again. “I’m sorry—what?”

  “Your soggy clothes,” Shadow repeated patiently, “need to go to the Laundromat.”

  “Oh—right.”

  She kneeled and opened her suitcases. She was particularly pleased to see that her coffee had come through unscathed in its metal tin.

  The bite of Jericho’s brew still lingered on her tongue.

  * * *

  She wanted to take an inventory of the equipment and the supplies. From everything Shadow had said, she wasn’t hopeful that Dr. Kolkline had kept up on the task and she doubted if Ellen cared enough about the entrapments of Anglo medicine to keep stock. She was finally able to get to it early in the afternoon when Jericho left to take Ellen into Albuquerque. Apparently, the old Toyota was hers and it didn’t run too reliably.

  Catherine took a deep, steadying breath when they left. Finally, she could move about without his dark, measuring eyes watching her. She couldn’t actually catch him looking her way, but his gaze had weight and it rattled her.