by Vella Munn
He held her, rocked her, for long minutes as years of loneliness and a night without sleep combined to hold her helpless in the grip of tears. Magadan was whispering words that had to do with his understanding, but it was the sound and not the words that reached Chela. From the moment of her mother’s death, she had never had anyone to put their arms around her. She’d survived without that special brand of love and learned to function. But today, with Magadan to make her world right again, she realized how much it had cost her to carve the strength and independence that went into her being.
“Do you understand?” Magadan whispered. “Do you understand why you had to see this? Chela, darling, your father had some feelings for you.”
Darling? He had called her darling. No one had ever done that. “I understand now.”
“I hope so.” His voice held a trembling note, as if some of her emotions had spilled over to him. “But that isn’t enough. You deserve someone in your life now, not memories and faded pictures.”
Chela shook her head. She still needed Magadan’s arms around her, but she was starting to regain some self-control. Her memories of her mother were precious; her father had some feelings for her after all. The thought warmed her and gave her the courage to speak. “I didn’t trust you enough,” she managed. “I was afraid to tell you about my father. I—I sensed something good about you, but I didn’t want to risk losing you.”
“That would never happen,” he said, burying his face in her hair, still rocking her trembling body. “I’d never leave you, Chela.”
“I—I don’t know. I didn’t know enough about trusting people.”
Gently Magadan pushed her away from his chest and helped her sit erectly. “That’s what I’m here for, darling. To show you how to trust me. And to learn to trust my instincts about you. I should have told you everything from the beginning. I kept telling myself that, but I was afraid to risk it. Can you understand that?”
Could she understand experiencing the fragile birth of love and being terrified of watching its death, being a part of what might be called murder? “Yes,” she whispered, offering him her lips. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Neither do I,” he replied, covering her lips with his. “Neither do I.”
“Joe?” she managed. “Joe, I love you.”
“You called me Joe, not Magadan. Do you mean it?”
“Yes.” It was time for the final barrier to fall. “Yes, Joe.”
“I love you, Chela.”
They didn’t leave the bedroom until it was too late for either of them to go to work.
About the Author
Vella Munn claims she has only one pseudonym—“Mom.” Originally from California, Vella now resides in Oregon with her husband and two sons. She has written over fifty articles and a nonfiction book, and is a reporter for the Jacksonville Nugget.
Look for these titles by Vella Munn
Now Available:
Wild and Free
Wanderlust
The Heart’s Reward
Memory Lane
That Was Yesterday
River Rapture
Touch a Wild Heart
Suspicion and danger. Can two hearts survive?
Prairie Cry
© 2012 Vonna Harper writing as Vella Munn
When Montana game warden Hayden Conover comes across the body of a man lying next to a dead antelope, he can think of only two suspects with rap sheets long enough to lead to such a heinous crime. Al and Hoagy Metcalf.
Except they’ve broken out of jail and disappeared into the wilderness. Reluctantly he turns to Tomara Metcalf for help. He barely knows her, doesn’t trust her, but he needs her to bring her murderous relatives to justice. Once that’s done, he can put his confusing attraction to her behind him for good.
Though Tomara distanced herself from her hard-knock clan a long time ago, she’s sure of one thing. Metcalfs don’t murder. This certainty gives her the courage to help Hayden in the search for her wayward father and brother, if only so the fools can clear their names.
As the search wears on, Hayden and Tomara’s attraction becomes as deep and elemental as the wild, desolate plains. And Tomara finds herself longing to convince the unforgiving lawman that desire, hot and sudden as a prairie fire, can be as precious and healing as a desert spring.
Warning: Contains a stubborn hero who’s rock hard in more ways than one! And a heroine who must decide where her heart lies—clan loyalty, or the chance for true love.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Prairie Cry:
At five minutes past nine in the evening, Montana game warden Hayden Conover banked the helicopter he was piloting, his eyes drawn to a spear of light on the Richland county plain below him. Hayden had been in the air since a little after dawn counting antelope before the opening of hunting season. Although it was dark, he was still at work, now looking for poachers. If he was closer to civilization he might have discounted the light as belonging to camping Sioux or Assiniboin Indians, but this particular rugged area was too remote. His “antennae,” honed by five years of being a game cop, kicked into high gear.
Hayden nosed down. What he saw when he switched on the spotlight forced out a grim oath. A battered Jeep of indeterminate color with its headlights on was parked perhaps ten feet from an antelope carcass. Two men were squatting, not by the slain animal, but over a form that looked suspiciously human.
The sound of the approaching helicopter startled the men. They sprang to their feet and dove for the Jeep. Seconds later the four-wheel-drive vehicle was bucking across the open country. Hayden could have given chase. He could have pulled out his bullhorn and ordered them to surrender, but he did neither of those things. For one, confronting two men who were probably armed on the Montana plains wasn’t the sort of thing an intelligent thirty-four-year old man would do if he wanted to go on living. Second, he’d seen the fleeing Jeep’s license number and committed it to memory.
Hayden lowered the helicopter gradually until he found clear spot among the rocks and sagebrush and landed. He cut the engine and stepped out of the cockpit when he was certain the Jeep wasn’t going to circle back.
He went first to the antelope. A quick look told him it had been dead for hours. Then, knowing that tonight was going to be different from any other he’d spent since leaving Los Angeles, Hayden made his way slowly to the inert form that had commanded the men’s attention. The still-whirling helicopter blades stirred the night air but did nothing to dissipate the cold sweat on the back of Hayden’s neck. Except for the dying sounds of the machine, the night was silent.
The man was, Hayden guessed, somewhere in his early forties. He was clean-cut and soft in the middle. He was wearing new boots, a flannel shirt that probably hadn’t been washed yet, jeans not yet molded to his body. One hand was clamped around a clump of grass. He’d been shot in the back.
After a minute spent squatting next to the man, Hayden returned to the helicopter. He switched the spotlight back on and pulled out his camera. Then he made contact with district headquarters. “I’ve got a body here,” he explained tersely. “I’d say whoever did it used a rifle. I’ve got a license number. I’d appreciate it if you’d get someone to run it down for me. Yeah. I’m all right. Yes. I will.”
After taking a deep breath, Hayden was able to put his emotions on ice. He’d seen death while working in L.A. He could handle it again. He got back out of the helicopter and walked around the body until he had the best angle for taking pictures. It was only an educated guess at this point, but Hayden would be willing to bet his three-year-old Bronco that the man hadn’t known what hit him. Hayden was also willing to bet that he hadn’t been dead as long as the antelope.
He’d taken his pictures and was jotting down a description of the man’s clothing when his radio squawked to life. Hayden returned to the helicopter and picked up the receiver. The first time, he’d called in, the night dispatcher was on the line. She’d been replaced by the regional supervisor. “Y
ou all right out there?” he asked on the tail of Hayden’s brief explanation of what had happened. “Are you sure you’re alone?”
“No, I’m not sure I’m alone.” Again cold pricked at the back of Hayden’s neck. “The only other vehicle I’ve seen is the Jeep that hightailed it out of here.”
“They could have left someone behind.”
“What are you trying to do, scare me?”
“I don’t need you dead, Hayden. Look, I’ve got the name of the Jeep’s registered owner. Metcalf. Al Metcalf.”
“Metcalf?”
“You know them. Old man Metcalf and his son have been running on the wrong side of the law as long as I’ve been working for the state. The old man’s been in jail God knows how many times and the kid one or two times himself. Cattle theft. Drunk and disorderly. Poaching. A lot of poaching. Maybe that’s what this all boils down to. Metcalf shot himself an antelope out of season and then did in the joker who stumbled on them.”
“Maybe.” Somehow Hayden didn’t think it was that simple. “How long do you think it’ll take for someone to get out here?”
“Hopefully less than an hour. I’ve already talked to Jay and the state police. You hold tight. Sorry, Hayden. So much for peace and quiet.”
“Yeah.” Hayden bit down on the word.
Tomara Metcalf was getting ready to climb a telephone pole on West Sunnyside Road in Idaho Falls when the call came over the walkie-talkie. “He didn’t say who he was.” The office woman relayed the message. “All I know is, he says he’s a lawyer from Copper, Montana. He wants you to get in touch with him as soon as possible.”
Copper. History. Dead and gone. Or at least it should have been. Although her long chestnut hair was caught in a practical braid, Tomara reached for the strands that had clung to her neck all the time she was growing up. Angry at herself for the gesture, Tomara pulled her hand away and stared at the offending limb. There was a half-healed cut at the base of her thumb, compliments of the way she earned her living. It would have been little more than a scar by now if she’d had stitches taken, but Tomara couldn’t be bothered with trips to a doctor. Instead she’d slapped a tight butterfly bandage around it. The bandage was gone now, she noticed. “Do you have a number?”
The woman explained that she’d already placed it on Tomara’s desk. “He said he’d be in his office until the middle of the afternoon. I thought you should know. What is it? I didn’t know you knew anyone in Montana.”
I don’t, Tomara wanted to say. But that wasn’t true. She might have been able to put hundreds of miles between herself and the past, but she couldn’t exorcise that past. “Look, I’m coming in now,” she said, although making that particular phone call was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.
“But you’ve got two more service calls to make before lunch.”
“They’ll have to wait. This won’t take long.”
Fifteen minutes later Tomara was back in the telephone company office. Because she knew the woman’s curiosity would get the better of her, Tomara slipped in the back way, waiting until the linemen’s room was empty before picking up the receiver. She asked the operator to bill her home phone and then waited, the years sliding away into nothing while the connection was being made.
Leonard Barth, attorney-at-law. She hadn’t seen the man in six years. Tomara accepted the reality of his call with the same stoicism as she would have had had the call been from the coroner’s office. She doubted that Leonard’s office had changed since she’d packed two boxes and caught a bus out of town. He’d still be sitting at his desk, staring at Copper’s main street, watching life plod by, taking note of the changing seasons, storing up gossip to spread at the post office or in Mandy’s Saloon.
“Tomara. I didn’t think you’d get back to me this soon. Had a hell of a time running you down.”
“What is it, Leonard?” Tomara leaned against her desk, her right hip taking most of her weight. She didn’t trust herself to sit.
“You’re not going to like hearing this, but I’m afraid your dad and brother got themselves into some trouble.”
“They’re always getting into trouble. What is it this time?”
“They’re in jail.”
Touch a Wild Heart
Vella Munn
This is one border only love can cross.
Chela Reola is dedicated to helping her people any way she can. These days, that means teaching English to Hispanic migrant workers. But it wasn’t so long ago it meant working as a coyote, smuggling illegals across the border.
When she’s approached by an undercover cop asking her help to take down a cruel coyote who’s cheating illegals, she has no choice but to agree—even though she’d be working with a man with the power to arrest and deport her people.
Joe Magadan is driven by hatred of the coyote who’s exploiting the desperate and powerless immigrants, but he’s having problems building a case against the slippery Ray Kohl. But with Chela’s help, he’ll have someone on the inside. He never expected her quiet courage would get inside the barriers surrounding his closed-off heart.
Working in close quarters breaks down their emotional walls and forges a bond. But when Joe learns Chela’s deepest secret, the fallout could blow not only their carefully planned sting operation all to hell, but their fragile love.
This book has been previously published.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Touch a Wild Heart
Copyright © 2013 by Vella Munn
ISBN: 978-1-61921-195-7
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2013
www.samhainpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About the Author
Look for these titles by Vella Munn
Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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