A Man Without a Haven

by Beverly Bird

“So someone’s playing games with us, sweetheart. I don’t think ghosts are so inconsistent.”

  “Mmm.”

  He could have been telling her that the moon was made of cheese, he realized. She was aware of nothing but the comforting drone of his voice and his touch. He played with her hair and kept talking.

  “Ghosts come from one time period—the one they died in. They don’t play hopscotch over several eras.” He was running out of things to say. He wasn’t good at this. She shifted against him. His voice started to feel raw, scratchy.

  “So Kokopelli didn’t shoot the arrows and—”

  “You’re not dressed,” she murmured, and in that instant everything changed.

  It was too easy, he thought with the last part of himself that was capable of fighting it. Like some mystical hand was playing games with them, putting them in positions they couldn’t easily extricate themselves from. Then she was pressing herself against him and his sanity was shattered.

  She had changed into the big T-shirt again to sleep. He could feel her nipples harden against his bare chest even through the cotton. He dragged her closer, flattening them against him, and found her hair again. She had taken down the ponytail, too. He would just run his hands through it, he thought, just one more time. He gathered rich, glorious handfuls of it, then he groaned and covered her mouth with his.

  Oh, how good he felt, she thought. His mouth worked on hers, brutal yet soft. His hands were so rough...and so gentle. His body was so ungiving...and his touch melted over her like hot wax, tangling in her hair, sliding down her back. It was like the night before, yet not like it at all. The night before they had both been frenzied, as if they were trying to grab something before sanity returned and brought them up short. This time there was a certain inevitability. She almost felt as if they were sinking into each other, slowly and sweetly, beyond care or control.

  He still tried to push her away...although one hand remained at her neck, beneath her hair and his face stayed close to hers.

  “Go do something,” he said hoarsely. “Go on. Get out of here. Go wash your face in the stream. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “Not me,” she answered softly.

  “You’re going to regret this. I’m going to make you regret it, whether I mean to or not.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You will. Later.”

  “Not now. I need...too much.”

  He was damned. He found the hem of her T-shirt and dragged it up over her head, closing his mouth on hers again.

  She was so hungry for touching. She couldn’t fight this anymore, couldn’t worry about what might happen later. He was here and she was here, and from the beginning he had made her ache with a desire that was almost unbearable. She had lived seven years without feeling any sense of hunger, had lived all her life without knowing hunger like this. She needed it, needed him, and she was neither capable nor willing to think beyond that.

  Not now. Not while his mouth was warm and wet against her neck, not when he came back to ruthlessly reclaim her own. She drank in the taste on his lips.

  He felt the need in her, in the way she quivered against him. Her mouth was too hungry, seeking his blindly. He had never wanted to hurt anyone less, and he had never needed another woman more.

  “I want you,” she said, sealing his fate. He felt as if he were going to explode.

  “I want you, too, sweetheart.” And then he took what she offered him.

  He sought her tongue with his own, even as he found the elastic of her panties and tore them roughly down over her hips. She wriggled to help him, desperate, greedy. He tried to remember that she had no recent experience at this—for all he knew, she’d been with only the man she’d married. Common sense told him to go slowly, gently, not to scare her. And she wouldn’t let him.

  She came to her knees and his hard-gentle hands moved up her legs, kneading the back of her thighs, touching her. She moved closer and closer to him until he was forced to lay back, then she settled on top of him, molding her body to his. His hands moved higher on her legs and she moaned, shifting her weight, allowing him access. She craved his caress now as much as she’d ever needed air to breathe. But when his fingers slid between her legs, even as something bright and hot leapt through her, she still wanted, needed more.

  She bit down on his lip, goading him, yes, knowing she was playing with fire and wanting to get burned. He made a harsh sound in his throat and twisted, pinning her beneath him. That was better, more...yet the ache wouldn’t let her go. Frenziedly, she ran her hands across the back of his broad shoulders. She found his thighs, not cool anymore but warm, so warm...she slid her hands up. His buttocks were clenched. So were the muscles along his back and shoulders now. She realized he was struggling hard for control.

  “Easy, sweetheart, take it easy,” he groaned. “It’s been a while for me, too.”

  She was both shocked and not surprised. But she couldn’t heed his warning.

  “Then let’s not wait anymore.”

  She wrapped her legs around him hard. She gave him no place to go, no other move to make. She felt his unmistakable hardness press against her and she gave a little satisfied cry.

  She was so ready for him, he thought, as if she had spent seven years simmering, waiting for him, waiting for this exact moment. He tried to go slowly, entering her with a steady, inexorable pressure, but he wanted her too badly and then she lifted her hips and caught him fully. He sank into her with a sensation that was almost pain. He felt her close around him tightly...welcoming him home.

  She began trembling again.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  She let him slow down then, the clench of her legs relaxing, because it was almost too much, too good. The way he filled her made her ache inside, but this time it was a good ache, warm and pervasive, like a glow. He rolled over again, taking her with him, holding her hips hard and tight against him as she straddled him. Then she was ready for more.

  She fought against his grip until he finally began moving again in an opposing rhythm. An agony of wanting tangled inside her until she couldn’t bear it any longer and she cried out again, louder this time.

  He grabbed her hair, pulling her face down to his, smothering her voice with his mouth. She shuddered even more as the tension inside her built, then it exploded with an even more plummeting sensation than when she had plunged down the cliff. But he was with her this time too, absorbing her spasms, then his grip tightened on her hips again, pinning her against him as he thrust himself inside her. She felt his power over her, his strength, and it thrilled her even as it frightened her a little. He groaned and held her still a little longer, then she very slowly lowered her face to his neck.

  She felt dazed, disassociated. His voice came to her as though from a long way away.

  “Well, you didn’t rust.”

  Shadow tried to laugh, but it was just a breathy little catch in her throat. She sat up, still straddling him.

  Fascinated, Mac watched the play of moonlight on her breasts. Then she lifted her hair and let it fall again. It spilled down over her shoulders, covering her. He felt the absurd sense that it was somehow shutting him out, shutting her body and her heart away from him.

  He wanted to tell her that it would be different next time, that he wouldn’t let her take charge twice. This once she had overwhelmed him, had driven through his defenses before he could know or care. And maybe there really would be a next time—maybe there would even be a time after that. But sooner or later she would go home, and he would move on.

  The thought blindsided him.

  He stirred restlessly beneath her. He remembered the moment he had first entered her, feeling whole, complete, truly warm, for the first time in his life. A part of him wanted to keep that feeling, wanted to claim it for his own. And he knew such a thing was impossible. Even if he wanted to, even if he tried, he knew from firsthand experience that no man could claim anything forever.

  “Wh
ere will you sleep?” she asked as if reading his mind. She didn’t ask if he would go, or why he had to. She merely wanted to know how far away he would be.

  Why was that so much worse?

  “I’ll stay close enough,” he answered finally.

  She eased her weight off him. Her expression was totally unreadable. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine now.”

  She would, he thought. But would he?

  * * *

  Shadow woke before dawn. The canyon was cloaked in a filmy half light. She sat up slowly, feeling pains and twinges in parts of her body she’d forgotten she had. A fleeting grin touched her mouth, then faded abruptly.

  What had she done?

  But there was no going back, and even if she could she knew she wouldn’t do things any differently. She wouldn’t even grant herself the excuse of her terror. She had wanted him from the first night she’d spent here, and she’d taken what she’d wanted. She felt neither shame nor regret, only a shaky kind of doubt as she wondered what would happen now.

  She could stretch her vacation four more days or so. Maybe she’d fill her senses with him until that time was over. Then she’d go back to her real life and Mac would dig on, here, then somewhere else. She knew beyond a doubt that she’d never see him again afterward. There would be nothing more than this one steamy, shining time in Kokopelli’s Canyon, and her memory of it would inevitably fade as she grew older.

  She could live with that. She could. The tapestry of her life was already far richer than it had been when she had arrived here.

  She got up, found soap and shampoo, and started down to the switchback and the waterfall. Then she realized that he hadn’t stayed in his tent last night after all.

  Her steps faltered. He was in the middle of the canyon now, in his sleeping bag, sprawled on his back. His gun was near his right hand. She crept closer to him.

  Something painfully tender closed around her heart. So he had come back to protect her. He had spent the night with her, whether he would admit it to himself or not.

  In sleep, his face was neither hard nor closed. It was defenseless, open...inherently kind. His demons were gone for a while.

  She wondered what he dreamed about.

  Shadow closed her eyes against a surge of emotion. She would fight those demons for him if he’d let her. He wouldn’t, but given the chance she knew she’d battle them to the end of the earth. She had told herself that the previous night was just sex, that she was only a woman with needs somehow left too long unfulfilled. Now, as the first sun touched the rim of the canyon, she knew that it had never been that at all.

  He was her most broken dove ever and she had lost something of herself to him. She had lost her very heart...but she’d done it long before she’d touched him.

  She hugged her bare shoulders and moved away from him again silently, heading into the switchback.

  When she came back into the canyon, the sun was full and strong. The rocky floor was already beginning to shimmer in the heat and Mac was at his new dig.

  She guessed that he had washed over at the cave side of the stream. His hair was still wet, long and free. It curled as the sun tried to dry it, tickling his shoulders at the back of his neck.

  As though sensing her presence, he turned to look at her. For one awkward moment they only watched each other. Then he nodded curtly in the direction of his fire.

  “The coffee should be ready by now.”

  “Thanks.” So that was the way it was going to be, she thought. As if nothing had changed, but everything had.

  She saw that he didn’t have a cup yet, so she poured one for each of them. When she came to the dig, he saw that she didn’t carry her notebook this time. So that was the way it was going to be, he thought. As if something had changed between them, but nothing had.

  Her hair was still wet, long and sleek and free. His fingers itched for it. He wanted her as much as he had before he’d known what he was missing, and he knew it couldn’t make a difference. An inexorable sadness filled him, the kind he hadn’t let himself feel in a very long time.

  “How much farther down are you going to go if you don’t find anything here?” she asked. She sat on the ground, sipping, watching him.

  It took him a moment to pull his thoughts back to his work. “Four feet. Maybe six. If I don’t hit anything by then, the midden’s probably somewhere else.”

  She nodded, hesitating. “Did you go up to the western rim yet by any chance?”

  He lifted his coffee for her inspection. “I was waiting for this. I want my senses sharp and clear.”

  “Are they?”

  “Close enough.” He rested the cup in the sand. “You coming?”

  She didn’t want to and knew she had to see for herself. “Sure.”

  They climbed up the western wall, then stood looking around. The land here was much as the opposite wall had been after the arrow attack. There was nothing amiss. Nothing different leapt out at them, nothing that wasn’t as it should have been.

  “You’re changing your mind, aren’t you?” she asked finally. She saw it in his befuddled expression, as if he was struggling hard to accept something that had no place in his world. “You’re starting to believe in the legend.”

  “Not yet,” he said finally.

  He began walking around, studying the ground. Every once in a while he would nudge something with the toe of his work boot, then he’d move on. But finally he stopped abruptly, staring hard at a boulder.

  “What?” she demanded. “What is it?”

  He motioned her over. She went to stand beside him and looked down.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “A very big rock.”

  He shot her a withering look out of the corner of his eye. She noticed for the first time that he had sun lines there of his own and she stared, fascinated.

  “What about the ground?” he persisted.

  “Uh...dirt,” she said, dragging her eyes back to it. “Same as everywhere else—” Then she broke off and hunkered down.

  “Uh-huh,” he said from above her.

  “It’s...” She started to touch it, then pulled her hand back so as not to disturb anything. The dirt was absolutely flat here. It possessed none of the ridges that marked the rest of the land, no pebbles, no debris from the trees that began a little farther up the slope.

  “What does it mean?” she asked.

  “It means someone picked up that rock and moved it, from this spot to where it is now. No wonder I didn’t see anything last night.” He squatted, got a grip on the thing, and used his thighs to push up again, straightening. Shadow felt a little shiver at his strength, but then her eyes were fast on what they found beneath it.

  “A hole?” She scowled. “I don’t get it.”

  “Unless I miss my guess, that’s about where Kokopelli was standing,” Mac said, putting the rock down again.

  “Kokopelli wasn’t standing. He was moving,” she pointed out.

  “Only at first.” He remembered that now. “Then he went still, probably while this idiot cleaned up his act and covered his tracks. Your chindi was some kind of life-size cutout figure, sweetheart, something braced upright by a stick.”

  “But why?” She was so confused she felt almost light-headed. She sat hard on the rock.

  “I don’t know,” Mac answered. “But I’m going to find out.”

  “How?”

  He looked at her oddly. Then, for the first time he truly smiled. It stole her breath away, made gooseflesh tickle over her skin. He shook his head at himself.

  “Hell if I know. But I’ll think of something.”

  He started back down the wall again. After a moment, Shadow got hold of herself and followed him. When they were back at the dig, she sipped thoughtfully at her cooling coffee.

  “It has to be someone strong,” she said. “You could barely lift that thing.”

  “The world is full of strong men. Which of them would want to try to scare
the bejesus out of two unrelated people camping in a canyon? It’s pure chance that we’re both here at the same time. I still want to think it’s just a prankster.”

  Shadow ran a hand through her loose hair. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Not if you try to make it sensible. Then even I’d have to say that I’m the only one who would have any motive.”

  He was working as he said it. Her heart hitched and she looked at him, but he was staring down into the dig and didn’t meet her eyes.

  She shook her head. He would hardly point out such a thing if it was true. Then she had a new thought. For the first time she wondered if their prankster, their tormentor, could be responsible for the shard she’d found up on the trail.

  She glanced around the canyon and let her breath out slowly. No, that didn’t seem likely, either. The only excavations in sight were Mac’s. If their prankster had dropped the shard, then where had he unearthed it from in the first place? One of Mac’s digs? There was no way he could manage that without Mac noticing. Maybe there were other digs farther down in the reaches of the canyon that she hadn’t explored yet, but it just didn’t make sense that whoever it was would carry their cache all the way back up here then ascend to the top.

  No, she thought dismally, none of this made any sense whatsoever.

  “So what do we do now?” she asked. “Even if we wanted to take it to the authorities, we don’t even have the evidence of the cutout figure this time.”

  She said we so easily, he thought, feeling something sad move inside him again. It was a word he’d rarely used in his life. He finally looked at her.

  “You’re still not going to leave, are you? Even knowing it’s something mortal?”

  She thought about it. “No. That would be like letting him win.” And, God help her, she just didn’t want to go. Not yet. Not now. It was too soon. She wanted more memories to store.

  He read all that in her face and frustration and fear and something else warred inside him, something far softer, far more yearning and far more dangerous.

  “Then I guess we’d better figure out where we’re both going to sleep tonight,” he said tightly. “Because I don’t think this nutcase is quite done with us yet.”