These were wonderful, erotic glimpses of things she had never before experienced, to be sure. But peekaboo images simply weren’t enough.
Swallowing hard against a dry and fuzzy throat, Reagan inched a little farther away from Kody’s relaxed body. But it didn’t take much movement to discover her legs, her bare legs, were entwined around his waist in such a way that it would be impossible for her to move without disturbing him.
Terrific.
“Are you getting cold?” The sound of his voice rumbled through her and the sudden vibration made her jump.
Reagan took a chance and looked up at him. His eyes were open and he was studying her face.
She hoped like hell he hadn’t been looking anywhere else. The chills from thinking about their sexual exploits of last night had left goose bumps as big as chicken eggs on her arms and chest. And by now, her small boobs were all puckered and shriveled up, as if someone had thrown cold water over them.
How could she keep him from seeing her like this? Not possible. Sheesh.
“Uh…no. I’m good,” she answered, hoping he wouldn’t look down at her body. “How about you?”
Oh boy. The two of them couldn’t just sit here making pleasant conversation and staring into each other’s eyes forever. Sooner or later someone would have to make a move.
She got lucky. Without taking his gaze from her face, Kody tugged her shirt back down over her bare breasts and covered her chest. Then he slid out from under her as he brought them both to their feet with one slick move. He searched around for her jeans and flipped them over his shoulder in her direction, then turned his back and straightened his own clothes.
Something told her she had been more than merely lucky that it was this particular man she’d woken up next to. He was special. From the little she could remember of all they had done last night, he was really something.
Dear God. Why couldn’t she remember more?
Scrambling into her jeans, Reagan cleared her brain of doubts and leftover mushy feelings and tried to focus. Kody had been kind to her on the way over here in his truck, and she’d felt safe beside him after the run-in with the odd man at the trading post. What else?
Making a concerted effort, she vaguely remembered suddenly wanting Kody with a desperation that was as foreign as finding herself stuck on an Indian reservation. The sensual urges had grown to be an imperative that for some strange reason she couldn’t put aside. For once in her life she hadn’t acted like a reasonable and intelligent adult.
Closing her eyes and wanting to hide, she distinctly visualized the memory of jumping him. Literally.
“Looks like the storm’s long over,” Kody said.
She opened her eyes and saw him silhouetted at the doorway, looking out toward the rising sun.
“I’m a little concerned about us being caught in here if the antiquities thieves show up early to resume their dirty work,” he added without turning. “It’s dry out. You think you’re up for going back down the ladder?”
Out? “You bet,” she answered quickly.
Because she’d apparently squeaked, as if she was in trouble, Kody eased his head and shoulder around to check on her. The growing light of day illuminated his facial features as he stood at the threshold of the ancient buildings.
She took one look at the strong chin and the crease in his cheek that looked almost like a dimple—and fell in love.
Which would’ve actually been funny had last night not happened.
As it was, Reagan didn’t feel the least bit like laughing. She wanted to cry. And then she wanted to curl up in his arms and repeat all the things they’d done that she couldn’t remember.
Dammit. Being such a good person and a kind man, he would probably oblige her, too. Despite the fact that he barely knew her—or cared about her.
Holding out his hand, he grinned. “Okay then. Let’s get out of here.”
Feeling light-headed and slightly groggy, she grasped it and ducked through the doorway. But once outside in the fresh air, she dropped his hand and moved to the edge of the overhang to stand alone in the sunshine.
Reagan needed to find herself again. Somehow, when she’d climbed this cliff last night, she had lost her mind. Maybe if she could recapture her normal ability to calculate vector analyses in her head, she would also be able to remember more of what had happened—and why.
Then she should be able to judge her feelings for Kody with a clearer mind. She simply could not love a guy she’d just met. It wasn’t logical. No matter how sexy and nice he was.
Turning to climb down the ladder, Reagan found her ability to focus return as she hit the first step. And with the focus came lots of questions.
Yet with every downward rung, she became even more convinced that no matter what else might’ve occurred last night, it wouldn’t change the dead-sure fact that she had fallen madly and irretrievably in love with a man she barely knew.
Completely in love. For the very first and last time in her whole entire life. What a typically geeky thing for her to do.
Kody sneaked a glance over at Reagan, who was sitting in the passenger seat of his truck. They’d been driving on the gravel road out of the canyon for the last hour in absolute silence.
But watching her start to squirm in her seat, he figured all that was about to change.
They had not yet discussed what had happened between them last night. Kody had no idea of what to say to her. He couldn’t even decide how he felt about what had occurred.
Racking his brain, he couldn’t remember ever before having had a woman jump him. That was something a guy just wouldn’t forget all that easily.
Okay, so it had been one wonderfully gorgeous woman that he’d wanted to have sex with. But still, he didn’t do stranger sex. Or at least he had never done it before last night.
Reagan was staring out the front window of the truck and absently chewing on her thumbnail. It should’ve looked like a childish thing for a grown woman to do, but it made her appear so vulnerable and lost that his heart gave a twinge at the sight.
As he tried to concentrate on the potholed road ahead, Kody’s subconscious kept bringing back images from last night. Some of their time together was a big, dark blur.
But other things were as clear as a cold winter day in the desert. For instance, the way her breasts had fit exactly into the palms of his hands—as if they’d been molded to go just there. And the way her heady scent had been so familiar, as if he had known that smell all of his life.
Most of all, he remembered the way he’d felt when their bodies had joined. It had taken him a moment to recognize the feeling last night, but now it seemed perfectly clear. The two of them together made a matched set—not just single entities latched temporarily for pleasure.
Being with her had been like…sitting in front of a cozy fireplace on a cold night. Or like opening up a strange door and finding your favorite room on the other side. Or like…coming home.
For a few years as a young kid, Kody had known how good and right that could be, coming home to a place where everyone loved you and where you could always be yourself. But after he’d hit his teenage years, everything had changed. And then after his father died…
Well, the whole world had changed then.
Maybe most people wouldn’t think that any of what he’d felt for Reagan last night would be reason for a grown man to lose his mind.
But he hadn’t. Had he?
Shaking his head, Kody gritted his teeth and held his breath, waiting to see what Reagan had to say. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about her, but it might kill him if she regretted last night. They had been crazy and unthinking and they’d let their hormones run away with them. But wishing it had never happened was the last thing he ever wanted to hear from her.
“I think we’d better talk about last night,” she finally said, still staring straight ahead out the windshield.
He gulped in a breath and nodded, but he couldn’t seem to make a sound. Don’t say
it was wrong, he prayed. Having wild, savage sex with a woman you barely knew might not be perfectly okay, but what had happened between them should never be classified as wrong.
She shifted her body under the chest belt in the passenger seat so she could face him. “Don’t you think we should’ve stayed in the canyon this morning? Maybe not up on the cliff, but at least down by the tent?”
“What?”
“Well, what if my father was actually there yesterday? We could’ve hid behind a boulder or something, and if he came back, we would’ve been there to talk to him.”
Breathe. “Reagan, the people who have been working on that site are criminals….”
She shook her head and waved her hands. “Not my father. You don’t know that.”
He swallowed, noticing his throat was the driest he could ever remember it being. “Neither of us knows for sure your father was ever really there. But I do know that whoever has been working that site is doing it illegally. It would’ve been dangerous for us to be caught there when they came back.
“As soon as we hit the highway,” he continued, “I’m going to call the tribal police and the special-agent-in-charge at the FBI field office. Let the professionals handle it with a real stakeout. They’ll notify us if your father shows up.”
She folded her arms under her breasts and frowned. “The numbers are back in my head.”
Confused, he felt his mouth fall open, but tried to recover quickly. “Okay. Is that good?”
“It’s the way it’s always been,” she said with a shrug. “Except last night.”
“I see. I guess.”
“Well, I don’t,” she complained. “I don’t get it at all. It was as though someone hypnotized me…or drugged me. My mind seemed to be wiped clean…and then I got the weirdest, uh, urges.” She took a huge gulp of air. “You know?”
“Sort of. I guess.”
Reagan threw her hands up and shrugged. “Oh, well, you were so kind about the whole thing. You are a decent man, Kody Long. And I can’t thank you enough for being there to, uh, take care of me.”
Kody downshifted and put on the brake. “Hold on a minute,” he said as he turned to her and narrowed his eyes. “Let me get this straight. You think someone may have drugged you? But you’re not blaming me…you’re thanking me. For what?”
Those slender fingers of hers started waggling madly in front of her face. “Oh, typical,” she moaned as the tears filled her eyes. “I’m really bad at the ‘talking to people’ sort of thing. I wish I could just e-mail this to you instead. I’m sorry for being such a nerd.”
“Hold on. Hold on.” He took her hands and held them still. “Calm down. Everything’s okay. We just need to talk it over.”
She nodded and sniffed, but then waited for him to begin.
He held both her hands with one of his and threw the truck in neutral as he looked up and down the gravel road. No one was coming from either direction and he was fairly certain he would hear if anyone drove up on them. Where the truck had stopped was close to the main highway, but he knew the cliffs would echo any sounds and warn him in time.
Releasing one of her hands, he decided to keep hold of the other while they talked. To ground him. And remind him of touching her last night, and of all that had meant to him in the clear light of this morning.
Plus, while the two of them were touching, he could feel their connection. The closeness between them that he’d never known with anyone before now.
“Okay,” he began slowly. “You are one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. If we start at the beginning, between us we can come up with the answers. Don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” she said in a slightly stronger voice than before.
“Good. Now when did you first start feeling weird? When did you, um, lose the numbers?”
She tilted her head in thought. “Those two things happened at different times. I started feeling a little strange the first time we climbed into this truck together.” Looking up into his face, she smiled tentatively. “But I didn’t lose my mind until we climbed up the ladder to the cliff ruins.”
He knew exactly what she was talking about. The same things had happened to him at the same time.
“Can you define ‘a little strange’ for me? And by saying the ‘first time in this truck,’ do you mean the night of the killer bees?”
A reddish wave worked its way up her neck. Something he’d said had embarrassed her, and that worried him. He liked seeing a flush on her skin, but he wanted to put it there deliberately…erotically…not by accident.
“Look,” she began as she tugged on the hand that he held tight. “I don’t do flirting or coy. It’s not my style, I guess you could say. Do you mind if I just tell you what I feel?”
Kody tried to rein in the grin that threatened to make him look like an idiot. That’s my girl. He found himself congratulating her in his head for being exactly what he would’ve chosen in a perfect partner.
“Not at all,” he finally managed to reply. “I’d prefer it if we could be completely honest with each other. We’re friends now, aren’t we?”
Had he really just opened his mouth and muttered that clichéd bull? Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Or maybe she’d cut him a little slack because they’d been…close.
She widened her eyes and laughed. Then held her nose with her free hand and said, “Too deep, Mr. Navajo FBI man. I may be socially inept, but even I know a load of crap when I hear it. I said I will be honest with you. I really can’t be anything else, but I’d appreciate the same courtesy in return.”
He would not be able to be completely honest with her. No matter how much he wanted to get close and tell her the truth of what he was beginning to feel for her. He’d made a vow to the Brotherhood that he would never tell any outsider the total truth of what they were doing in Navajoland. Their current mission was a huge part of his life, and keeping it a secret from her turned it into an out-and-out lie.
Of course, he’d also made a promise not to get physically close to any woman while the Brotherhood fought the Skinwalkers. And so much for that vow.
He sighed, straightened his shaky spine and bit back the words he wanted to say. He figured she would never believe any of the things that he’d been forced to accept, anyway. Not in a million years. He hadn’t, until he’d seen it with his own eyes.
Kody let go of her hand and nodded in silent agreement with her request to tell only the truth. Even the nod was a lie. One he knew he would live to regret.
“Okay then,” she said with a sharp nod of her own. “Then you might as well hear it straight from the beginning.
“I have only had one…boyfriend, I’d guess you could call it, in my whole life. I mean, I’ve had lots of dates, but only one…uh, all the way.” The words were rushed and mumbled, but he got the picture. “And I never have understood what the big deal was about the sex thing. I mean…”
She hesitated and scrunched her nose as if she smelled something nasty. Keeping the laugh that threatened to erupt tamped down in his throat, Kody put his hand to his chin and nodded in silence. He sure as hell hoped he’d managed to look wise and thoughtful instead of being on the verge of hysterical laughter.
This woman was too cute to believe. But he would never want her to think he’d been laughing at her expense.
“When I first saw you the other night,” she began again, “I…I just knew everything would be different with you.”
Well, that pronouncement took a minute to sink in. Kody swallowed and tried a smile.
“Oh. No,” she mumbled, sounding flustered again. “I never would’ve done anything about it. Don’t misunderstand. I mean, I don’t just jump men who look all yummy and sexy and everything.
“Or at least, I never would’ve done such a thing before last night.”
Reagan nearly bit her tongue off. Was she a total moron? Where were all her smarts when she really needed them? She would have to find a better way of telling this if she expected to g
et through it without breaking down.
She began again, promising herself to sound more like an adult. “I guess I’d have to say you ‘turned me on.’ That was what I meant about feeling a ‘little strange.’”
“Okay,” Kody said. “I get that. I sort of felt the same thing about you. Not sure I would’ve used those exact words, but I do understand.”
Taking her first real breath of air since she’d begun this explanation, Reagan relaxed her shoulders. “Great. Now then, about the numbers—”
“Yeah,” he interrupted. “What numbers are you talking about?”
Terrific. After she told him, he really would think she was geeky. People rarely understood about the numbers. But she had no choice except to continue. She’d already promised complete honesty.
“For most of my life, I thought everyone’s brain must work the same as mine,” she began. “I’ve always thought in numbers—equations, numerical theory, some geometry…It’s all just in there, you know?”
He shook his head. But he was paying close attention to every word. It made her feel good to think he would care that much about what she had to say.
Since he was so sympathetic, she decided to tell him more than she’d told anyone before. Perhaps Kody would understand that the only person she’d ever felt a true kinship with about the numbers was her father. Her dad had claimed to be the same way as she was, and she wanted to talk to him about it.
That was a big part of the reason she was so desperate to find him.
“I bet your dad’s a math whiz, too, huh?” Kody asked.
Whoa. She hadn’t even mentioned her father, and yet somehow Kody had read her thoughts. The idea that he could show such understanding and compassion was quite a thrill.
Then she remembered that unpleasant blank feeling from last night. And instead of being excited at the thought of Kody’s understanding, she grew wary. Something or someone had tried to control her thoughts last night, either with drugs or hypnosis. It couldn’t have been him. Could it?
Finally, she managed a nod. “Yeah. My father says his thoughts are all in calculus and geometry. I wish you could meet him. Maybe today we’ll get a line on where to find him.”
Books by Linda Conrad Page 23