by Meryl Sawyer
"Graduation?" Logan slowed to let a pickup loaded with sacks of apples pull out from a side road.
"It's a ceremony when the dogs are given official guide dog status and are handed over to their new owners. Pop says that seeing how happy a blind person is with a dog makes it all worth while. Pop was always there for me. He never missed a soccer game, a piano recital—anything. I let him down by not coming to at least one graduation to share his success with him."
Her heartfelt regret touched him in a way that he'd never experienced. Kelly and Pop shared a special bond of love and trust. For years he'd believed trusting someone made you weaker. Now he wondered if it didn't give you strength instead.
He had no one to trust, so it didn't matter to him. But for people like Kelly and Pop, good people with normal pasts, love and trust was essential. It made them stronger, but Logan knew without a doubt it wouldn't work for him.
"Don't be too hard on yourself," he told her. "I'm sure Pop understood. Just be certain you go to Jasper's graduation."
"Oh, I definitely plan to be in the front row," Kelly assured him. "I've made up my mind to stay here in Sedona. I could take a job back East, but this is the perfect place to raise a family."
"You're right," he said, wondering why she'd told him all this. It was more personal than anything they'd discussed.
"This is Indian Gardens," Kelly said when he slowed, approaching a cluster of buildings along the road. "The first settlers in the Sedona area lived here. They planted the apple trees and supported themselves by selling their crops."
If Logan used the word "quaint," which he never did, it would have described the gas station and country store. The red rock formation towering over what could best be called a wide spot in the road, was impressive.
"Turn here." Kelly pointed to a narrow side road. Through the golden leaves on the branches of the cotton-woods and the slender aspens, Logan noticed storm clouds snarling in the distance. He heard thunder grumbling and saw lightning stabbing at the mountains.
"Monsoon season usually ends by October," Kelly said. "This is late to be getting rain."
"How much snow does Sedona get?"
"Not a lot. Around a foot a year except high up on the mountains. Why?"
He hesitated, then said, "I've heard the best place to be during a snow storm is under a blanket in front of a roaring fire with someone special."
He almost hadn't told her this. It might reveal more about himself than he wanted her to know. The only fire he'd had experience with was the miserable fire in the pit at the camp. Too often it had been his job to chop the wood to keep the fire going so the women could cook. Later, when he joined the Cobras, there were other camps with fires.
Nothing romantic about any of those fires either.
Kelly's willingness to disclose something personal had compelled him to respond. He hadn't confessed anything too intimate, he assured himself. Be careful, cautioned an inner voice, she's damn smart.
"You've got the blanket and the special person right," she said in a tone that indicated she was teasing. "Hot cocoa or a glass of wine doesn't hurt either, and, of course, soft music on the stereo."
Too clearly he saw himself in front of a fireplace—under a blanket with Kelly, music crooning from a fancy stereo like the ones embassies had. Stereos, fireplaces. He was beginning to think in terms of 'things,' creature comforts that didn't fit into his backpack.
Okay, okay, he admitted it. He was also thinking about physical comfort and how good it felt to be with Kelly. He was on dangerous ground, quicksand, actually. It was sucking him under.
He slammed on the brakes, put the car in park, then quickly checked around them. Nothing but trees and dense underbrush. He leaned across the center console and kissed her. His mouth covered hers, his arms circled her, pulling her as close as he could with the damn console between them. He could have predicted the way her lips parted so sweetly and the low sigh of pleasure that came when his tongue brushed hers.
She pulled away, breathless. "Sh-shouldn't we get going?"
"No," he said, his lips touching hers. "I need to kiss you."
"I need you to kiss me, too."
They kissed, her tongue seeking his. Heat lanced through his groin as he thought about what she'd said. This was the first time she'd admitted how much she enjoyed making love to him. He'd known she liked it, but he'd wanted her to say it. Now that she had, he discovered her words were very arousing.
Thunder rumbled, closer now, and they broke the kiss. Kelly grinned at him, rummaged in her purse and pulled out a Kleenex. She dabbed at her eyes like a drama queen, then said, "Normally, I wouldn't go near a mouse, but since you have one in your pocket, do you mind if I pet it?"
Before he could think of a smart comeback, she dropped the Kleenex into her lap and covered his fly with her hand then squeezed. A tremor jolted his cock, forcing him to suck in his breath and hold it. She released him and he groaned as he tried to breathe again. She gripped him again, harder this time.
"You're asking for trouble."
She unhooked the top button of his jeans. "Trouble is my middle name."
She shoved her hand into the nonexistent space between his penis and the back of the zipper. "Don't you own any underwear?"
"Sure. I had a pair, but I lost them playing strip poker."
She shook her head, a mock look of disgust on her face, but the way her pupils had dilated and the rapid rhythm of her breathing told him how aroused she really was. Slowly moving her hand up and down, she leaned forward and kissed him. Her tongue darted in and out of his mouth, the tempo matching the movement of her hand.
Man, oh, man! He could kiss her forever and ever.
He heard the rasp of the zipper and knew she'd used her other hand to unzip his jeans. She freed his fully erect shaft.
"Uhh-ooh," she whispered, "you are in trouble. I'd better help you out."
She leaned over the console and pressed her lips to the flared tip of his penis. Continuing to kiss him, her tongue swept across his engorged flesh, circling, circling, circling. He was so hard now that he was actually in pain, aching to have the intense pressure released.
Taking him deep into her mouth, she sucked hard with one hand, gripping the base of his shaft, stroking up and down. Other women had done this to him, but they hadn't made his whole body shudder with each agonizingly sweet brush of the tongue.
This was pure torture, but he wanted it to last forever. He held out a few minutes, then he knew he was going to explode. Through clenched teeth, he warned her, "Kel…ly!"
He shot upward, ramming his head against the Jeep's roof, and his whole body vibrated as release hit him like a sucker punch. He was vaguely aware of her covering him with the Kleenex, then cleaning him up. He finally opened his eyes, not recalling just when he'd squeezed them shut. Kelly was smiling at him like a cat who'd just bagged a canary.
"Thanks," he managed to say. His breath was still coming in short spurts. "I needed that."
She dropped the wad of Kleenex on the floor. "Are we having fun yet?"
"I've had all the fun I can have—for now."
She giggled, a soft, throaty sound, but something inside him went cold and still. Obviously, she had experience at this. He didn't want to think about her being with another man. That's crap, the voice of reason countered. She'd been married, totally in love with another man.
He managed—God knows how—to get his cock back where it belonged. Climaxing brought physical relief, but he hadn't returned to normal size yet. Zipping up his jeans was all the fun he could have.
She winked at him. "Next time, I want to be on top … for a change."
* * *
Kelly rolled down the window as Logan started the car. Criminy! What had gotten into her? She had never been one for oral sex even with Daniel, but she'd actually enjoyed doing it to Logan.
It must be a control issue, she decided. The other times they'd made love, he'd been on top, the one in charge. She liked the way
he'd surrendered to her even if it had been only for a few minutes.
The Jeep lurched over the dry creek bed near Luz Tallchief's home. The rain-scented breeze herded clouds against the mountains. Any minute the heavens would open and drench the red earth.
Sad, she thought, gazing at the aspens lining the dirt road. Their golden leaves were scattered across the red soil, but many shimmering leaves still quaked on the trees. Too bad, a storm would strip the branches bare.
They parked the car in the small clearing near Luz's cottage. The pickup was there near a battered Volkswagen bug held together with Bondo and bailing wire.
She stepped out of the car and stood beside Logan. "They're inside and they can see us. Luz must be a very traditional Navajo or she wouldn't have gone to do an Adant' ti chant. It's customary to let them invite us in."
They waited while storm clouds with leaden underbellies roiled overhead. The first droplet of rain plopped on Kelly's cheek just as Luz's granddaughter came to the door and motioned for them to come in, but she didn't look happy about it.
Kelly whispered, "Don't call Luz by her name or even Mrs. Tallchief. To say someone's name while they are present diminishes their power. You only use a name when that person is gone, and people wouldn't know who you were talking about otherwise. Even then they say 'your son' or 'your husband,' anything to avoid using a name."
As they entered the home, Kelly noticed the clothesline strung back and forth across the kitchen. Evidently, they'd hastily brought in the rabbit jerky that had been drying in the sun. From what she'd seen the previous visit, the family lived off the land as much as possible.
An older woman, dressed in the traditional Navajo way with a velvet skirt and well-worn blouse, was sitting on a rocking chair in front of the fire. The only other light was a kerosene lamp on the table near the sofa where a gray-haired man was reading a magazine, ignoring their presence. The granddaughter disappeared into another room.
Luz Tallchief had a presence about her, an aura. Even before she said one word Kelly knew why she was an ahnii, the matriarch of her clan, someone everyone respected and came to for advice.
It began to rain, a steady but soft tap, tap, tap on the roof that reminded Kelly of Navajo pot drums beating a steady tattoo. It was dark outside, charcoal-black clouds shutting off the natural light.
"I knew you would come." Luz Tallchief's voice was low, yet world-weary as if she'd seen too much of life's hardships. "You are a windwalker, a man who will always find his way home."
Logan came up to her, then squatted down on his haunches and looked directly into her eyes. Inwardly, Kelly groaned. She'd forgotten to tell him many Navajos regarded direct eye contact with strangers to be rude, even confrontational.
"I wanted to see you again."
His words were simple, sounding so sincere that no one would have known Kelly had to coerce him into coming here. Didn't he want to know who was after him, Kelly wondered. Perhaps he already knew and hadn't told her.
With Logan anything was possible.
"Your voice. Are you ill?" Luz asked, concern in her voice. Apparently, she hadn't read the article. Kelly had little to tell about Logan's Cobra activities but she did mention the incident that scarred his vocal cords.
"I had a run-in with some men who poured acid down my throat to kill me. I managed to swallow enough mud to save my voice."
The older man had tuned them out. He didn't look up from his paper, but it was all Kelly could do not to gasp, imagining Logan forcing mud down his throat.
Luz nodded, then unexpectedly smiled, revealing small, white teeth. "This is good, very good. Too many white men do not appreciate the power of the earth to heal. Some bathe in mud at those expensive places the white man calls spas, but that is all." She gestured toward the kitchen. "If you please, bring over a chair and we will talk."
Kelly wasn't sure if this included her or not. Logan took two chairs from the dinette and put them facing Luz. He held out Kelly's chair for her and she sat, careful not to make eye contact with Luz, showing her respect for the older woman.
"I wish I could remember you better," Logan began. "I don't recall much about those years. I was too young."
"It is just as well you do not."
"Why?" Kelly blurted out before she could stop herself.
Luz gazed into the fire and Kelly realized cataracts had formed across her eyes, making the pupils cloudy. How could she have possibly stayed for days in the mountains—alone—doing a chant for Logan?
A strobe of violet-white lightning lanced down from the sky and seared through the small living room, blinding Kelly for a second. An eerie silence followed … then a blast of thunder roared from the heavens with such intensity that the ground shook.
"That was a powerful lightning bolt," Logan said after the thunder died down.
"Yei, the holy ones are angry about something," Luz said, matter-of-factly. "They make thunder and lightning to punish us."
Luz's husband never looked up from his magazine. His body hadn't flinched or reacted in any way to the loud sound. Then Kelly spotted the peyote buttons in the ashtray near the lamp. Chewing the seeds from the peyote cactus caused an altered state of mind and hallucinations. He was zoned-out, in another world and didn't know they were there.
Kelly realized Logan was in a typical male macho mode. He wasn't going to admit his life was in danger. "If you could tell us what really happened the day Logan disappeared, it would really help. We have reason to believe someone wants him dead."
"I have no doubt this is so." She bent down and reached under the rocker and brought out a paho. The Navajo prayer stick was made of horseweed—like Jim Cree's cane—except this thick stalk had been sanded smooth, the tip adorned with eagle feathers. "I did a chant to ward off the evil ones. Now, we will see if it worked."
"It might help if I know what happened the last day you saw me."
* * *
Chapter 25
« ^ »
Logan thought Luz seemed very nice, but her husband was weird. Obviously, he was on something. He was staring at a magazine as if he were reading, but had yet to turn a page.
"The last time I saw you was the night before you disappeared. I tucked you in, the way I always did, then read you a story."
A fond smile touched the old woman's lips, softening her stern expression. He wished he remembered her, but he didn't. His earliest memories were of playing in the dirt with the chickens at the camp.
"The next morning I could not leave my room. I must have eaten something that made me ill. I told one of the maids to take care of you."
There was a long silence, broken only by the steady drumbeat of rain on the root then Kelly asked, "Why didn't Ginger take care of Logan?"
"She loved only todilhil—whiskey. Children did not interest Ginger, not even her own."
"Did the maid let Logan go riding?" asked Kelly.
Luz shrugged as if to say: who knows? "What happened that day began the moment the senator brought you home. I had worked there when the twins were young. The senator called me and asked me to take care of the baby they were adopting."
"Were you surprised by the adoption?" Kelly asked.
Luz nodded with a wave of the gnarled stick capped by eagle feathers. "I was shocked. Ginger despised children. I raised the twins until the family went to Washington. The senator had just finished his first term when he called to tell me they were adopting. I could not imagine why he would want another child. He was interested only in his career."
Logan knew his father had been blackmailed into it. Protecting his reputation had been upper most in Haywood Stanfield's mind. But how had he persuaded Ginger to accept another child?
"Did he give any explanation?" Kelly asked.
"No. I did not want to take the job." Luz gaze shifted toward the fire, and Logan's sixth sense kicked in, telling him that she was holding back something. "The senator offered me much, much money. I agreed to work there again."
"Why did
n't you want to take the job?" Logan asked.
Luz glared at her husband as he took something out of the dish near the kerosene lamp. It looked like a black pumpkin seed. A peyote button, Logan realized. The man popped it in to his mouth and sucked, noisily on the seed that would make him high.
From military bulletins, Logan knew peyote had been approved for use in Native American church services on military bases with the consent of the commanding officer. It could not be used on ships or planes because it induced hallucinations. Peyote had religious importance and wasn't supposed to be addicting, but unless Logan missed his guess, Luz's husband used the drug too frequently to escape the real world. And put an added burden on Luz.
"I did not want to be responsible for the twins," Luz said as she turned to Logan and ignored her husband's slurping. "They were born as evil as the north wind."
"Navajos believe that all evil comes from the North," Kelly explained.
"The twins did bad things, terrible things."
"Like what?" Kelly gently prodded.
"Yes. The only animals that were safe from Tyler were the horses. He knew his father would never forgive him if anything happened to one of them. He was always sacrificing rabbits, catching them and then crippling them so he and Alyx could watch the coyotes tear them apart."
"Couldn't you stop them?" asked Kelly, her concerned frown reflecting her love for animals.
"I went to his parents, but Tyler called me a liar. Alyx protected her brother every time, telling lie after lie. I wanted to quit, but my husband was not working. We had four small children. I needed the money."
Logan watched Kelly react to Luz's pained expression and the emotion in her voice. "I can understand how difficult it must have been. Didn't Woody see what was happening?"
"He was rarely around. I went to him, and he said he would talk to the twins. Nothing changed. Things became much worse when Benson gave Tyler a rifle for his seventh birthday."