sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  Grayson gazed to the northeast, toward Lookout Mountain, which was now barely visible beyond a dark mass of thunderheads. “Is that a storm?”

  “Looks like it. With any luck it’ll keep blowing due west. It won’t be fun to drive through a downpour, but it’s sort of a hazard in these parts at this time of year.”

  He nodded, fine profile outlined against the mottled sky. Even here in Jerome were faint traces of high cirrus clouds, the outriders of the storm front. Kara squinted eastward, gauging the strength of the wind and the size of the mass of clouds building some forty miles away.

  “It’s not looking too good,” she said. “Maybe we should head back now, try to — ”

  She’d been about to say, “try to outrun it,” but she didn’t get the chance, because Grayson had turned to her with one swift movement and pulled her against him, then buried her mouth under his.

  A brief second of shock, and then she let herself fall into the kiss, tasted him as he kissed her with an urgency and a thoroughness she really hadn’t expected. Not with the way he had walked so casually away from the dance, as if their bodies hadn’t been pressed up against one another for all the world to see. His hands moved through her hair, fingers strong as they moved down her neck, brushed against her collarbone.

  The air was thinner up here in Jerome. That had to be the explanation for her sudden lightheadedness, for her difficulty in drawing enough breath into her lungs. She clung to him, feeling the strength of his body, the coiled power in those muscles.

  Gently, very gently, he released his hold on her, letting her drift away just enough so he could look down into her face. She could only stare back up at him, at the green eyes with their heavy fringe of dark lashes, the high cheekbones with the smooth brown skin pulled tightly over them, the trace of dark stubble along his jaw.

  Anything she could say would be woefully inadequate. So she settled for, “Wow.”

  “You didn’t mind?”

  A shaky laugh bubbled its way up her throat. “Mind? No. That is…no, I didn’t mind at all.”

  “I’ve wanted to do that all day.” He shook his head. “No, actually, I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I first saw you.”

  “Even though you were almost dropping dead from dehydration and exposure?”

  “Even then. When I saw you bending over me, I thought you must be an angel. No one else could be that beautiful.”

  From anyone else she would have thought that was the mother of all lines, but as she watched him, saw the earnest expression on his face, she realized he spoke simply, from the heart. Something inside her seemed to turn over, and her breath caught. Could it be that finally, when she least expected it, something pure and lovely had come into her life?

  She wouldn’t call it love. It was too soon for that. But it was…something.

  The moment was too intense. She wasn’t ready for this. Better to take refuge in brittle words. “I think even Nurse Ratched would have looked beautiful to you right then if she’d been carrying a glass of water.”

  “Who’s Nurse Ratched? And you are beautiful, you know. Then, and now.”

  Heat flooded her cheeks, and she stared out into the wind, hoping the rising breeze might help to cool her blush. As she watched, she saw the clouds racing, dropping lower, the blurred darkness beneath them a sure sign of a desert downpour.

  “Okay, if you say so. But I really think we need to get going. It’s starting to look pretty grim out there.”

  He followed her gaze, appeared to take in the looming clouds to the east. “I think you’re right. It’s probably the kind of evening where you want to stay in.”

  Since she was already a little flushed, she couldn’t do much more than nod without looking straight at him and then head down the narrow, treacherous staircase. No one else seemed to be in much of a hurry, but maybe they’d come from points west and north, or maybe they were willing to stay and see if they could ride it out.

  After all, desert storms, while spectacular, were usually short-lived.

  * * *

  Lance picked up the Ruger, aimed it at the can on the rock some hundred yards away, and pressed the trigger.

  Blam!

  The can flew up into the air and fell with a metallic clank among its brethren, which now numbered an even two dozen. With no sense of satisfaction, Lance resighted, fixed his aim on the next can in the lineup, and squeezed the trigger again.

  Again the can shot skyward and then dropped to the earth. He paused for a second to wipe away the sweat from his brow, replaced the clip, and went on to the next one. Blam! And so on.

  Usually a few hours spent in target practice helped to settle his mind. Today, even though his aim was as unerring as always, he couldn’t quite achieve the zen-like state he’d hoped for. His thoughts swirled in his head, bringing with them unwanted images of Kara in some stranger’s arms. It didn’t seem to matter whether he was shooting the Ruger or the rifle or his beloved Glock — he couldn’t force his mind to more productive subjects.

  At least he was alone out here. The gym had been hectic and noisy, typical for a Saturday, and he’d packed it in after only forty-five minutes. A cold shower hadn’t helped, either, and so he’d loaded up the Jeep and headed out to one of his favorite spots above Oak Creek, along one of the trails that led up into U.S. Forest Service lands. You could shoot safely there, and most of the time the place was pretty deserted. It was cooler, too, up above the heat in Sedona proper. The sky was starting to look ugly, though. He guessed he had maybe half an hour at most before he’d have to stow everything in the Jeep so it wouldn’t get soaked.

  It was stupid for him to be this upset. For all he knew, that Mrs. Martinez had just been yanking his chain. And even if she weren’t, he didn’t have a claim on Kara. She could do whatever the hell she wanted.

  Nice try. But it wasn’t working.

  He remembered the first time he’d really noticed her. Oh, sure, she’d been in and around Jim Swenson’s shop during her college years, which was right after the time Lance had relocated to Sedona. He’d liked Jim but of course hadn’t paid any attention to Kara. Lance was many things, but a cradle robber wasn’t one of them. Besides, trailing after Jim’s college-age granddaughter would have been a little bit too much like pissing in the guy’s pool. Then she’d gone up to NAU for her last two years of undergraduate work, and appeared ready to stay on for several more years so she could get her master’s. But when Jim had his stroke, she came right back to Sedona, leaving a bad breakup with her fiancé and a half-finished post-graduate degree behind her.

  After Jim died, she took over the shop, got involved with Sedona’s UFO community. And it was when she came to one of the local MUFON meetings for the first time that Lance realized sometime in the intervening years she’d gone from a girl to a woman…and a beautiful one at that. It wasn’t just her looks, though — it was the way she carried on and made a life for herself, picked up her grandfather’s work even though it had been his passion, not hers. Took over raising her little sister after both her grandparents were gone. Lance respected that.

  It had been hard to appear uninterested, to be just another piece of the UFO network here in Sedona, when what he’d wanted more than anything was to get close to her, to be there for her so she wouldn’t have to keep going it alone. But he knew all too well the consequences of getting too close. He was on too many radar screens. So far he’d skated along, tried to appear as harmless as possible. Just a washed-up relic of a now-defunct program the army didn’t even want to claim, one that was something of a laughingstock.

  It had been real, though. It had all been real. Too real. He’d thought he could have it both ways, and she’d paid the price.

  Natalie.

  Try as hard as he could to remember the good things about being with her, what had been burned into his brain cells for all time was that last image he had of her lying sprawled out on the kitchen floor in the house they’d just rented together. Blood trailed away from
the back of her head, and those dark eyes he’d loved so much stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

  And a small piece of white paper with block letters printed on it, placed carefully on her chest.

  LEAVE IT ALONE.

  He’d tried hunting them down, had a good idea who was behind the hit. But the problem with dirty government agents was that they could hide behind a huge, faceless bureaucracy. They were quicksilver. So he’d gone along, hating in his heart, hoping one day he could get his revenge.

  In the meantime, he had to play it safe. No attachments. Present the appearance of a washed-up operative who’d thrown his lot in with the tinfoil hat–wearers. And in the meantime, disseminate as much information as he could, by means of data so heavily encrypted he knew no one could hack it. Sometimes it helped to have savants like Jeff Makowski on your side.

  And if the current casualty appeared to be his heart, well, he could live with that. Better to have the pain and know that Kara was safe.

  He could handle a lot, as long as he knew she wouldn’t get hurt.

  * * *

  The storm hit them just as they passed the turnoff for Page Springs. It pounded down, soaking right through Kara’s T-shirt, turning the road into a slick nightmare. Thank God Grayson seemed to have no trouble with the sudden change in conditions; he throttled back slightly, but the tires held as they continued down 89A, the rain a drumbeat on her helmet.

  She clung to him, eyes slitted behind her sunglasses. Hopefully he could see better than she, because right now the whole world looked like one big blurry mess.

  He turned off 89A onto Soldier Pass Road. Funny how she didn’t even have to remind him of the route. Somehow he just knew. Another turn, and they were in the neighborhood of modest but well-maintained homes that had been her world for the past two decades.

  As they turned the corner onto her street, she let go of Grayson with one arm so she could reach in her bag and fish out the remote control to the garage. Sheltering the device from the rain as best she could, she hit the button and sighed a little in relief as the door opened. The motorcycle slowed to a stop in the empty spot to the right of her Prius.

  She stowed the remote back in her purse and reached up with chilled wet fingers to undo the strap of her helmet. Underneath, her head was more or less dry, although the ends of her hair dripped with rain. The rest of her, however, was a sodden mess. Blue jeans did not improve with soaking.

  Gingerly, she climbed off the bike and watched as Grayson removed his own helmet and got up as well. Like her, he was more or less soaked from the neck down, but he didn’t seem fazed by that. He flashed her a grin and said, “Some ride, huh?”

  “It was something,” she agreed. She got the house keys out of her purse and went to unlock the door from the garage to the house. The alarm immediately went off, but she typed in the code without thinking.

  Gort came rushing toward them, panting and doing the little half-jumps that indicated he wanted a walk.

  “Not yet, kiddo,” she said, and pointed toward the window. “It’s pouring rain. Give it a half hour or so.”

  The dog let out a resigned whine and padded out of the kitchen to the living room, where he could take up his favorite spot on the Navajo rug and wait out the storm.

  “It’s always something — ” she began, but she didn’t get much farther than that, since Grayson had come up behind her and turned her around so he could kiss her once again.

  That was all well and good, but now that she was out of the wind, her jeans and T-shirt had begun to stick to her, soggy and cold and more than a little uncomfortable. She came up for air and said, “Grayson, I have got to get out of these clothes — ”

  “Good idea.”

  And he grasped the bottom of his sodden T-shirt and pulled it over his head, revealing a stomach so hard and flat she bet she could have bounced a quarter off it. He dropped the shirt on the floor and reached toward her, taking hold of her own tee so she had no choice but to raise her arms so he could pull it off as well.

  “I have a hamper for that stuff, you know,” she said in mock-prim tones, but inwardly she could already feel the heat rising in her, the need.

  “Show me, then.”

  With a laugh she dashed away from him, running back toward her bedroom. He followed close behind and caught up with her a few paces away from the bed, his fingers feverishly working on the button of her jeans. Since everything was soaked through and clinging together, her underwear came down along with her pants, but somehow she didn’t mind. All she could think of was getting rid of Grayson’s jeans as well, removing the last obstacles to this, the inevitable end to their day.

  His pants dropped on top of hers, and then they were on the bed together, his hands moving over her body, finding the clasp to her bra so he could remove her final piece of clothing. And oh, God, the feeling of his breath hot against her chilled skin, the delicate sensation of his lips moving down from her neck to her exposed breast, his mouth warm on her nipple, sucking…

  She let out a cry and moved herself closer against him. His arousal was as hard as his muscles against her hip, and she reached down so she could take him in her fingers, move her hand up and down, listen to him moan, the sound muffled somewhat by her breast. One of his hands traced its way down past her hip bone, down across her thigh, and then in between her legs, stroking her, using the wetness of her own arousal to increase her pleasure.

  This was crazy. Some part of her knew that, but her body had taken over, was clamoring for the release it had been denied for so long. She let herself relax into his touch, pressed against him, surrendered to the heat and the delicate yet insistent pressure of his fingers. And when the climax came, she had to bite back a sob, and instead kissed his arm, his chest, anything to keep her from completely falling apart.

  He shifted so he could kiss her on the mouth, his tongue insistent, strong as the rest of him. She could tell he wanted to push into her, but she wasn’t that far gone. Not yet.

  “Wait,” she whispered, and he paused, looking at her with curious eyes.

  It had been a while, and she had to hope that condoms didn’t have a shelf life or something. But the little foil containers were still there in her nightstand drawer. She pulled one out and ripped it open.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  She didn’t bother with the conundrum of him knowing how to repair a motorcycle but not recognizing a condom when he saw it. “For protection — against pregnancy, against disease. You know.”

  “No, I don’t. How could I have a disease? I’ve never been with anyone else.”

  “That you remember.”

  His frown told her he didn’t quite know how to reply to that. Luckily his confusion seemed to be entirely mental — his erection hadn’t flagged at all. So she bent over him and rolled on the condom. Luckily he didn’t seem fazed by the procedure, and even let out a little sigh of his own as her fingers brushed against him.

  “It’s okay now?” he asked.

  “Very okay.”

  And then he was over her, face close to hers, as he pressed inside her and she rocked her hips to take him in. Oh, yes, this was what she had wanted, had hoped for since he’d held her in his arms in the street only a few hours earlier. Or maybe it had been even before that, if she wanted to admit the truth to herself.

  No time left for any examination, any doubt. It was only his body and hers, joined in a consummation that seemed ever so right, sweat and rain mingling as their disparate selves became one. He cried out as he came, a guttural, shocked sound, as if he hadn’t known what was about to happen. Maybe that was yet another thing he had forgotten. Her own climax came almost immediately afterward, a wash of red heat throughout her entire body, better than she had ever remembered. Better than it had any right to be.

  They both lay there for some time afterward, too spent to move. Finally she kissed him on the cheek and murmured, “I need to go clean up.”

  He shifted off her then and lay sprawl
ed on the bed as she got to her feet and went into the bathroom. Her legs shook a little as she staggered to the sink and splashed some cold water on her face. Even the shock of the water wasn’t enough to quite dispel the afterglow. She looked at herself in the mirror then, at the fair hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks, at the inky stain of mascara below her eyes. The Kara in the mirror didn’t appear all that different, although she did look, as her grandfather used to say, as if she’d been rode hard and put away wet.

  Well, both of those statements were equally true.

  But as she stared at herself, some of the glow began to ebb away. Oh, it had been great sex, marvelous — better than she’d ever had with Alan, if she wanted to be perfectly honest. So what was the problem? She should be ecstatic. After all, Grayson was pretty much her perfect man: fun, honest, sweet…and amazingly good-looking.

  Why, then, did she feel so guilty?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After pulling on a tank top, fresh underwear, and some yoga pants, she went back over to the bed and smiled at Grayson, who had pulled up the sheet to cover himself but who otherwise didn’t seem to have moved much.

  “Did I wear you out?” she teased.

  He appeared to consider her question seriously. “No, I don’t think so. But I think I might be hungry.”

  “Well, we can fix that. But I really need to walk Gort. It sounds as if the rain is letting up.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  For a second or two she considered it. Gort seemed to love Grayson, and she’d always wanted to share that intimacy with someone someday — to bond over the dog, to make it seem as if they were a family. But with Felicia Martinez doing her Gladys Kravitz impersonation next door, it would probably be better if Kara went on her own.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re just going to do a quickie around the block. But when I get back we can order pizza, if that sounds good to you.”