by S. M. Butler
Ivy dropped her gaze and studied his chest. She hadn’t told him everything yet. The words were still hard to say. “My mother was a Ruiz,” she said softly, her throat hurting. “Miguel is my uncle. He tried to rape me, Dane.”
Dane crushed her to him. “Oh honey. Shit.”
She sniffed. “It’s okay. Nothing happened because you and your guys showed up… but he killed my mother.”
He tilted her head back and searched her gaze. “I thought she died of a drug overdose.”
“She did, but she was smuggling drugs in her stomach. One of the packets broke. I never told you that part because I was ashamed. I felt like it was my fault.”
He brushed her hair from her face. “How could it be your fault, Ivy? You were a kid.”
This was the part that hurt. “She wanted a better life for us. She went back to her family in hopes of getting that life.”
Dane looked angry. “Yeah, and her fucking brother forced her to do something dangerous. That’s not your fault.”
“I know.” She tongued his pec and he shuddered beneath her lips. “I felt guilty for a long time, but I’m working on it.”
“You can’t be blamed for any of it, Ivy. Your father leaving, your mother smuggling drugs—none of it is your fault, do you understand? If they had been thinking of you at all, they wouldn’t have fucking done any of it.”
Warmth and belonging flowed through her like hot honey. “You’re so good to me. Good for me. I love you, Dane.”
His hands skimmed down her sides, leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake.
“I won’t leave you, Ivy. You mean too much to me. I’d take a bullet for you.”
She shuddered. “I hope it never comes to that. Something happened to me in Florida… I realized how empty my life has been without you in it. As much as you terrify me, as much as you confuse me—nothing is better than when we’re together.”
He kissed her long and hard, until she was hot and melting in his arms. And then he rolled her beneath him and entered her in one long thrust. Ivy moaned with pleasure. They began to move together, bodies and breaths mingling, heartbeats in tune, until she couldn’t hold back the tide any longer. She came in a rush, crying his name as her body splintered into a million tiny pieces.
Life was complete with this man. Unpredictable and a touch frightening, but complete.
“We’re going to make it this time,” he said after they’d recovered.
She traced a finger over the glistening muscles of his chest. “We’re still in very demanding jobs. Are you certain you’re okay with that?”
The smile he gave her made her heart ache. “I am. But I’ll leave the Navy for you, Ivy, if you want me to. I have to finish out my commitment, but I’ll leave when it’s over.”
She put a hand over his mouth. Did she want that? Sure, part of her did. But loving Dane was trusting Dane. Letting him go and knowing he’d return. Letting him be who he was and supporting him.
“No, you won’t. You’re a SEAL.”
“I don’t have to be—”
“Yes, you do. And I understand that.”
“God, I love you. So fucking much.”
She laughed. “I know. I really do know it, Dane. I’m not scared anymore.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ve got your back. Always.”
“And I’ve got yours.” She pushed her fingers through his hair. He’d cut it since she’d last seen him, but she thought even if he was bald he’d be sexy. “But there’s only one requirement.”
His brows drew together. “What’s that?”
“You have to wear those Navy whites at least once a month.”
“Honey, if you strip me out of them, I’ll wear them every day.”
Ivy laughed. “Deal.”
The End
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SEAL’s Heritage
Sharon Hamilton
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Chapter One
‡
The air was scented with a hint of sex and sleep as Danny Begay rolled from the tangle of warm sheets. He hadn’t even gotten her name this time, but she was the little friend of Carson, or had come with Carson before she got sick on the weed they’d smoked and retired to Carson’s bedroom, leaving the party in full swing.
He’d felt a little bad about the fact that Carson had gotten it on with someone else and had disappeared with her. So it had fallen to Danny to make the little waif Carson had abandoned feel better about herself and her circumstances. And now Danny felt like shit.
He was always doing that, trying to be nice. It usually wound up getting him in trouble again. Carson would be upset, and without good cause, but it made for a sticky arrangement with his smoking buddy. And this was, after all, Carson’s cabin in the woods and his bedroom, though Carson was nowhere to be found.
Danny slipped on his boxers and silently padded bare-chested and barefoot through the sliding glass door to the balcony overlooking the woods he and Carson used as their growing fields. Good of the government to make it federal lands, and with the budget crunch, not often searched for their marijuana crop. He’d have to thank Uncle Sam some day. But today, he just wanted to sober up and get rid of the pounding in his head from the sounds of imaginary drums.
He heard the singing too, issuing a high and low cadence along with the steady beat. It wasn’t helpful, since he also had a hangover. A good run or bike ride would take the edge off, but he knew what he was going to do. He was going to have another beer, and then maybe go back to bed and let old Carson catch them screwing.
“You sonofabitch,” Danny said under his breath. He wasn’t angry with himself for his actions, taking advantage of a lonely, abandoned girl. He was angry with Carson for making him do it.
Carson wasn’t plagued with the conscience that clung to Danny like a ball and chain. Danny knew the ever-present shit-eating grin on his friend’s face was either from weed or from the fact that he didn’t care about anyone but himself, which seemed to be enough to make him truly happy. Or blissfully ignorant. Although Danny wished he could be so carefree, he knew it was a white boy’s luxury. A young Navajo man always had to be careful, both on the res and in the white man’s world. Everything was a big deal to him. That’s the way his Native American DNA was. Sucked, but it was.
The forest was whispering again, like it had done so many times, especially lately. Although he heard the sound, he couldn’t make out the messa
ge. He knew he’d get it eventually, but he wasn’t about to go looking for it right now.
A large hawk soared overhead in the chilly early morning air, flying in and around clouds of fog, which still lingered in the area this time of year. Its mate would be nearby, and they would call to each other, inevitably scaring a furry little creature on the forest floor into making a quick movement, a mistake for the creature, but creating breakfast for the hawks and their hawklings.
Eureka was said to have some of the worst weather in California, and though his mother had told him several times why she’d packed him up and taken him to live outside the res as a teen, he never understood why she had to pick Eureka.
But that’s where her people, the Miwok tribe, had come from. Unlike his father’s clan, the Navajo or Dine, the Miwoks were not one of the rich tribes that owned a casino. They were poor, and they didn’t live in that glorious part of California with a sunny, sandy beach, either. Their lands were redwood trees and dense forests too difficult to farm. His mother’s people had been unusually tall, unlike his father’s. They had gathered and hunted, and lived off the abundance of their land for generations. They were expert basketmakers, storing their food for relatively short winters, while planning and sticking close to home. He called them the quiet people.
The red tailed hawk turned to take a closer look at Danny’s face, or so he imagined. Their eyes met briefly before the bird corrected, nearly hitting a tree trunk, and disappeared behind the foliage.
That’s when the high-pitched singing began again, which was usually the way he woke up. The chanting told him about the history of his father’s people and the land of the Four Corners, the sacredness of their plight, and the warning against evil that would befall them if they weren’t careful. The words cradled in a nest without full sentences, conjuring thoughts of magic and special powers inherent in his land of the four statues—the Dine lands lying mostly in Arizona and New Mexico.
A chill hit the back of his neck as something whispered his name, warning him not to get lost in the forest of these strange lands, the Northern California ancestral home of his mother’s.
He heard the girl’s movement in the bed behind him, so he turned and entered back through the door, closing the slider as quietly as he could. She lay on her back, the bedcovers not covering the ample breasts he had lost himself in last night. Her face was turned to the opposite wall, and the slender line of her neck was blemished by the red marks he’d made on her flesh. He knew her smell, and the tantalizing flavors of her body parts he’d so thoroughly explored.
He slipped his shorts down over his growing erection, kneeled onto the mattress, and rubbed against her thigh. His fingers finding her bud caused her to arch up, spreading her knees to accept him. His lips were on her nipples, and then her neck, as if kissing away the evidence of his passion. As his fingers explored, parting her delicate, swollen folds, making her moan, her hair’s reddish brown highlights glistened in the early morning light; but her eyes remained closed.
She’s dreaming of someone else. She doesn’t see me.
As he mounted her and began taking her deep and hard, he knew his connection with her ended at the places his flesh touched hers.
It was still early when his cell phone rang, displaying a 928 area code and a number he didn’t recognize. He extricated himself from her arms and sat up. Picking up the device, he connected to the land he’d been dreaming about, the red earth of his people.
“Hello?”
His mother’s voice surprised him, since she lived not more than ten miles away from him in California. “Danny, sweetheart, I’m in Phoenix and have just seen with my own eyes Grandfather is taking his last walk amongst us.”
His grandfather, the keeper of the stories, which had been drowned out over the past several years, with Danny’s pot and alcohol use, was dying. His mother wanted him to come say his good-byes. Grandfather had been more than a father-in-law to his mother. He’d been her ardent supporter when the rest of Danny’s family refused to fully accept the strange woman from another clan far away.
“We have sent for the singers, though he insists there’s still time and he might pull through.”
This had happened twice before, and both times, before Danny could arrange to drive to Arizona, his grandfather recovered in what the family called a true miracle. He halfway expected the same would happen again.
“He is barely conscious, and he’s asking for you,” his mother said, as if she heard his internal musing. This had not been the case on the two prior occasions.
“So should I come?” he asked her. He recalled the image of her proud face and the jet-black hair, usually held with a turquoise clip at the nape of her neck. He always saw her that way in his visions, along with the squash blossom necklace and bracelets adorning her smooth, brown skin. Even with her lines and obvious signs of stress and aging, she was still statuesque, impressive, tall, even for a Miwok, not like his father’s people. He couldn’t see her as beautiful, with her crooked nose from a teenage injury. She’d been left slightly disfigured. She was his mother and a force of nature, not a beautiful woman, even though everyone else thought of her as such. She still had the power to make him weak at the knees, just as when he was a child.
“You should come, Danny. I think it’s time.”
He inhaled sharply as if she’d hit him. He wasn’t ready to step back into the world and the source of the whispers. He was hit with the vision of the costumed Gods of his people waiting in the wings, hovering all around him like a warm woven blanket, their leather adorned with beads and feathers blowing gently in the wind. He imagined their chalky faces painted in the wild colors he saw when he was tripping on mushrooms. They waited to be asked to show him the way. He’d make them wait a little longer.
His mother cleared her throat over the phone and Danny was sucked back into the here and now. He assured her he’d leave for Arizona that day.
“You have enough money for a ticket, or should I make the reservation for you?” she asked. So it was that serious after all.
“I’d prefer to drive.”
“There isn’t time, Danny. You can catch a flight from Santa Rosa and be here in four hours. I’ll have Wilson meet you at the airport.”
“Wilson? He’s back?”
“Home on leave.”
Wilson was his favorite cousin, but he was more like a brother. He was the one Danny used to get in trouble with every day as a youth. Irreverently, they made it through the maze that was their Dine upbringing, kicking and screaming and rebelling all they could. Three years ago, Wilson had abruptly called Danny from San Jose, telling him he’d gone military, joining the Navy, and was going to straighten his life out. It was the first time they’d talked since Danny and his mother had moved to Northern California and away from the res. Danny told him he was making a big mistake.
In the past, his mother had spent much of her time trying to separate them, so if she was arranging to have Wilson pick him up, he knew better than to argue with her.
The quiet pause was interrupted by the sound of rustling sheets he was sure his mother couldn’t hear.
“I’ll buy the ticket for a one o’clock flight, but you’ll have to hurry, Danny, unless you want to drive to San Francisco.”
“I’ll make it,” he said and hung up.
Chapter Two
‡
The red earth rose up to accept the touch of Danny’s plane as he landed in Phoenix. Wilson was waiting for him at the baggage level, his chiseled frame erect and his hair way shorter than Danny had ever seen it. When his cousin hugged him, Danny could tell he’d honed his body into a hard killing machine.
“Careful, Wilson, you could crack my ribs with those arms of yours. You’re a fuckin’ lethal warrior.”
Wilson chuckled as he squeezed him harder, and Danny actually thought he heard the pop of one of his vertebrae.
“Damn, Dine kind. You’re all soft and mushy. You’ve been populating Northern California
with little Navajo babies these few years, cousin?”
Danny resented Wilson’s tone and the fact that he noticed his lack of shape. Although he was still tall, and broad-shouldered, and never lost the definition in his upper physique, Danny knew he didn’t have the rock hard abs and stamina Wilson now possessed. Leave it to Wilson to point out the one thing probably no one else would see, the needle that got under his skin. “Nah. Just trying to figure it out, man.”
“Well, that’s one way,” Wilson leaned into Danny and whispered in his ear, “but I’ll tell you, Cuz, the sex is much better when you’re hard as a rock. Get my drift?”
“I’m not having sex with you, Wilson, even though I’m living in Northern California,” Danny said as he pushed his cousin so hard he toppled him into the baggage carousel, where he took a two-foot cruise with the suitcases. The string of expletives coming from Wilson’s mouth as he righted himself made a nearby mother cover the ears of her child.
They fought over Danny’s bags, just like they’d done when they were kids, fighting and competing over everything, usually making such a mess that neither of them won a damned thing. The crowd of passengers gave them a wide berth, staring without smiles.
“You seen him?” Danny asked as they traveled in Wilson’s old pickup.
“Yeah. Yesterday. He’s slipping away. We’re going straight there on orders from your mama.”
“He know it was you?”
“Nope. Not sure he’ll recognize you either, Danny. He’s in the inbetween land, talking to, well, you know how he is. I mean, he was doing that shit all the while we were growing up. Except it’s stronger now.”
“So what does he say?”
“You know, I haven’t talked the language in over four fuckin’ years. I can’t understand a fuckin’ word. You’d think I would.”