Just then, she swerved again and fishtailed the car’s rear end on a sandy patch. “Wow,” she blurted as she grabbed the wheel and fought the slide. “You sure this is the right way? How do your patients find you way out here?”
“Want me to drive, Doctor?” Ben said with a chuckle.
“No, thanks. My driving may be rocky but I’m not the one taking meds. At least I won’t drive us off the side of a cliff.”
She might’ve expected him to make a smart remark back to that but he kept strangely silent. Wondering whether this would be a good time to mention his eyesight, she drove around a giant sandstone boulder and came to a wide, wooded bluff. To their right, the shoulder dropped off precipitously, and far below them the twinkling lights of distant farmhouses sparkled like the stars set in the growing indigo-blue sky above.
To the left, partially hidden by trees Tory couldn’t identify, was a compound that included at least two structures that might be houses. A two-story barn with a series of fenced areas surrounding it sat well back from the other buildings.
“You can stop worrying about getting stuck on the road now. We’re home,” he told her.
She pulled in where he directed and, using the illumination from several outside electric lights placed high on poles around the property, got a closer look at the spot he called home. The biggest structure was obviously an A-frame house with floor-to-roof windows and an impressive cedar deck around the whole thing. It looked newly constructed and modern.
About twenty yards behind the house was one of the oddest-looking structures she had ever seen. “This must be your house. But what’s back there?”
“It’s a traditional eight-sided medicine hogan. My office.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Not at all,” he said with a smirk. “You’re doing it again, Tory. Stop judging until you know more about Dinetah. You may be surprised at what you learn.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled and reached for her door handle. “Wait a second for me to come around and help you out of the car.”
“No,” he said and held out his hand to stay her movement. “Turn off the car and let’s just sit here a minute or two with the headlights off. It’s better to be vigilant and safe.”
“Better than what?” she asked but turned the car off anyway.
“Just give us a few minutes of silence, okay? I’ll tell you the story some other time.”
Once more she clamped her mouth shut. Both of them sat quietly in their seats and listened to the noises of the night. Off in the distance, Tory thought she heard an owl hooting. If she tried listening hard, she was sure she could hear the winds rustling in the trees around the house.
But other than that, there were no sounds at all. It was kind of spooky, this absence of noise, for a girl who’d been raised in the city. After a few minutes, Tory was absolutely positive she could hear the sounds of the stars shining and the noise of the blood pulsing through her veins.
“All right,” Ben finally said. “It seems safe enough. Let’s go.” He flipped off his seat belt, opened his door and was outside the car before she could get her own door open.
“Wait a minute,” she called after him. “Let me give you a hand.”
Rounding the hood of the car, she ran full out to catch up, but he didn’t turn around. Without hesitating, he started up the stairs to the front deck.
It was a good thing he had to stop to put his key in the front door lock or she wouldn’t have gotten to him in time. The minute she was directly behind him, she could hear him mumbling something that sounded like a singsong chant. It made her wonder for a second if the drugs he’d taken were giving him hallucinations. But she was positive the pain meds she’d prescribed could not possibly have that kind of side effect. So why…?
He opened the door, stepped across the threshold and flipped on an overhead light. “Forgive the lonely bachelor’s mess in here. I wasn’t expecting…”
Turning around to talk to her, his head was backlit by the light above and she almost missed the grimace. But she definitely caught the twinkle in those black-coffee-colored eyes. The eyes that had been haunting her senses ever since she’d first seen them.
“A gorgeous lady doctor who saves lives with the wave of her hand?” she supplied with a little laugh and a finger waggle, hoping to fill in the blank space in his sentence.
Ben barked out a quick laugh of his own and then winced again as the sound must’ve hurt his tender head. “Yeah,” he agreed. “The same gorgeous lady doctor who needs saving from time to time. And who also causes a lot more trouble than she prevents.”
“Oh, yeah? Well…” She was trying to think of a snappy comeback to his remarks. But her words were cut short when Ben turned, took a step and tripped over the edge of an area rug.
His feet came out from under him and he reached toward a nearby easy chair to break his fall. Before she knew it, Tory’s street instincts took over and she ran in front of him, trying to keep him from landing flat on the floor. Her body managed the brunt of his weight just fine, but he was so overbalanced that it knocked them both backward to the chair.
Her knees buckled and she collapsed back into the cushions as the sexy Native American doctor landed right on top of her. She could tell by the inert and dead feel of the heavy weight of him that he was unconscious.
Not cool. There was no way she could ease a hundred and ninety pounds of dead weight off her body without taking the chance of injuring him. And there didn’t seem to be anyone around to help her out with him this time.
“Ben…Dr. Wauneka, wake up. I need your help,” she pleaded in his ear.
The sweat began to pour from her glands, and his warm breath against the wetness on her neck gave her the chills. He stirred slightly and the movement drove a whirlwind into her bloodstream.
All of a sudden her body refused to accept that the man on top of her was a patient—or a friend. All of a sudden he was simply a terribly sexy body. And her body was reacting to him in the way that came naturally between the sexes.
Her heart rate picked up speed, her breasts grew tender, and her senses went on hyperalert. Every breath he took mingled with the air coming from her own lungs. She got a whiff of hospital antiseptic mixed with a light scent of sage aftershave. But neither of them covered the more overpowering male musk that seemed to be dragging her under some kind of spell.
Oh, hell.
“Please, Ben. I can’t take the chance of hurting you.” The sexy female voice seeped through the fog in his brain.
“Then don’t leave. Come to bed with me.” The words sounded like they had come from his mouth, but could he have actually said such a thing?
Her quick intake of breath did more to bring him to his senses than anything else. The distraction of the soft body with rounded curves lying under him ceased to be all-consuming as he came to consciousness with a start.
“Excuse me?” She shoved lightly at his shoulders. “You have to help get yourself back on your feet. I could roll you off to the floor, but I’m afraid you might hit your head again.”
He shifted slightly then bent his knees. Once he felt the carpet, he levered himself off her.
“That’s a trick I’d love to see,” he said as his hand automatically went to his eyes. “Sorry. Must be the pain medication that’s making me dizzy.”
Tory jumped out of the chair and stood, bending over him. “Come on. Try to stand. I’m here to lean on.”
The smile came involuntarily. He only wished he could do more than lean on that luscious body. But he’d already managed to say something foolish. So he shut up, took her hand and stood up.
“There,” she whispered. “Still dizzy?”
“No, Doctor. I’m just great now.” He backed away from her close inspection, though his smart mouth seemed bent on self-destruction. “But we can roll on the floor if it would make you happy.”
She propped her hands on her hips. “I don’t believe the meds caused that fall at all. I think you d
idn’t see the edge of the carpet and then pretended to be out cold to save yourself some embarrassing questions.”
Not going there, pretty lady, he told her in his mind.
“Whatever you say, Doc.” He decided to make a joke and change the subject. “It was sure fun falling on you, though.”
Turning, he headed for the kitchen, flipping on lights as he went. “You hungry? I’m not sure what we’ll find in the refrigerator. But it’s bound to be better than the clinic food.”
“You sit down,” she said and pointed toward the kitchen table. “I’ll fix you something to eat before I go.”
“Go? You can’t leave tonight.”
She opened the refrigerator door and stood with her back to him. “I’ll make sure you’re safely in your own bed first. And I’ll come back in the morning to check on you if need be. But I expect that by sunrise you’ll be fine.”
“I’m fine already. That’s not the point. It’s just plain dangerous for you to be out by yourself at night.” He took a second to pull out a chair and sit down, trying to decide what else to tell her. “And you’ll never find your way back down the mountain in the dark, anyway. Stay here. Wait for daylight.”
Traditional Navajos were trained to be patient. A quiet silence in the middle of a conversation that gave the other person time for consideration and contemplation before answering was only natural among the People. But Ben had noticed that silence seemed to make most Anglos nervous. They must have some basic gene flaw in their makeup that urged them to fill up every dead space with a lot of words.
Tory spun around with a carton of eggs in her hand. “Explain to me what could be so darned dangerous about driving in the countryside at night.”
Instead of being quiet and giving Ben time to consider his answer, she let her own words pour out and fill up the silent air. “I’m sure it must have something to do with that legend you started to tell me about on the drive up here. Like the coyote tale, right?
“Well, where I’m from there is real danger on the streets at night,” she continued babbling. “Real bullets are shot from real guns. Gangbangers kill to protect turf and issue warnings to other gangs. And real people…real kids sometimes…get caught in the crossfire.”
“What city is that, Tory?”
“Where do you keep your skillets?” She asked her own question before interrupting herself with his answer. “Chicago. Southside, actually.”
He didn’t know a lot about the Chicago area. But from what he understood of the ethnicity of the Southside, the woman must have stood out like the first cactus rose in spring. “Pans are in the drawer under the stove. Do you come from a big family?”
“Uh-huh. Four brothers and a second-generation Irish mother.” She pulled out the pan she wanted and slammed the drawer shut with her toe. “In case you don’t know, that means more aunts, uncles and cousins than you could hope to count. Dozens. Hundreds maybe.”
“Are they all as fair-skinned as you?”
That question stopped her for a fraction of a second. “There’s a tiny bit of Black Irish way back in a distant generation that spills out every now and then. But not in our immediate family. Every one of us is either a blonde or a redhead and we burn within ten minutes of being in the sun.”
He chuckled at the image of how different she and her family were from him and his family. “Probably hard to find sunscreen on the rez. Do you wear a lot of hats?”
She laughed and turned on the burner under the pan. “I buy sunscreen by the caseload. Have it shipped in. And I try to remember to wear a hat when I’m in my garden.”
Glad to be on an entirely different subject, Ben knew they would eventually have to revisit the conversation about her staying put overnight. There was no way he could let her go on her own until daylight. Especially not since the coyote had seen fit to warn them of the danger.
Giving it some thought while he listened to her talk about how different having a garden was from serving midnight shift E.R. rotations at Cook County Hospital, Ben found himself wondering why the Skinwalkers would want to either frighten or do injury to an Anglo doctor with no money and no power. It didn’t seem logical.
“So…no one else lives here with you? No family or a significant other?” She set down two plates full of scrambled eggs and toast and started pulling open drawers, looking for forks.
“Second drawer from the sink,” he pointed out. “And no. I live alone.”
She had just given him a brilliant idea that was bound to work. “That’s a good point,” he said after taking his first bite of toast. “There isn’t anyone who can come sit with me tonight, either. You really need to stay here in case I get up from bed, get dizzy again and fall.”
Smiling, he watched her mull that over in her head. “If I ended up on the floor, I might lie there for hours and not be able to get up,” he added for good measure. “I know you wouldn’t want to worry about me all night.”
She sighed and set down her fork. “There isn’t anyone in the family who could come over? I thought all Navajos had families that were bigger than our Irish-American ones. Something about clans and traditions, isn’t it?”
“I was an only child.” He shrugged at her questioning look. “My mother died while I was off the rez at Yale med school. And my father decided he would rather live in his mansion in Santa Fe than live in Dinetah without her.
“I have plenty of cousins, of course,” he added. “You’re right about Navajo clans. But…um…none of them would be willing to drive all the way out here until daylight.”
It was a small lie. His cousins in the Brotherhood were not afraid of Skinwalkers and any of them would come if called. But the lie was worth telling if it kept her here and out of harm’s way until morning.
“All right. All right,” she said with a shake of her head and a tiny laugh. “I’ll stay. But you had better have a comfortable couch.”
“The sofa is okay.” Those should’ve been enough words. He’d won and she was staying so he should’ve shut up while he was ahead. “But I’m more than willing to share my king-size bed with you instead if you like.”
The idea had been percolating in his gut ever since he’d woken up to the feeling of her body beneath his. And it suddenly seemed to have a lot of interesting possibilities.
He held his breath while he waited for her to answer, knowing full well what she would say. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from hoping he would be wrong this time.
In fact, Brotherhood vow or not, he had never before in his life wanted so badly to be wrong.
5
S omething disturbed Tory’s sleep. Groggy from a strange dream that was even now fading from her consciousness, she rolled over on the couch and tried to decide where the sound had come from.
Had Ben called her name? Did he need help?
Looking toward the wide picture window at the soft gray light of predawn, she listened intently for any noise that might seem out of place. The first sounds she heard were birds calling in the distance. Pleasant and friendly. Tory decided she could get used to hearing that kind of noise first thing in the morning.
Then she caught a slight change in the sharpness of the birdcalls. Or maybe it was the wind, changing directions and stirring through the trees with a sound like a nearly inaudible mumble.
Sitting up, she slid her feet into the pair of Ben’s old moccasin slippers that he’d lent her last night. Then she pushed back the blanket and stood up. She’d meant to go listen at his bedroom door for any sounds of distress, but mumbling winds were a curiosity she just had to check out first.
Feeling a little chilled, she swung the multicolored blanket over her shoulders and clopped toward the front door. On the way, she used the growing daylight to admire the front room of Ben’s house. With its soaring ceiling, its stuccoed fireplace and its expensive-looking suede-and-wood furniture, his home was modern yet cozy at the same time.
Nice place for a man she was coming to like more and more. He was intelligent, w
ith a quirky sense of humor she found especially endearing, and was so damned sexy she found it hard to concentrate when they were together. That embarrassing self-revelation pulled a small sigh from her mouth.
When she reached the front door, she was surprised to see it had a frosted glass insert with some kind of scene etched right into the diffused glass. She didn’t remember that from last night. Tilting her head, she made out a tree branch with the silhouette of a couple of large birds. And the whole vista appeared to be surrounded by leaves—or maybe bushes.
Again. Very nice. The words understated elegance ran through her head. She’d never really known what that could mean before. Now she did.
Reaching for the doorknob and intending to ease open the lock, she discovered it was already unlocked. Odd. She definitely remembered flipping the bolt behind them after they came inside last night.
She held her breath and as quietly as possible pulled open the door, preparing herself for the worst. A break-in?
The air whooshed from her lungs as she took a good look at the sight that greeted her on the other side of the door. It was her dream, or almost.
Ben stood at the edge of the front deck with his back to her. He faced east, at the sun’s first tender rays of peach and yellow as they peeked over a distant mountain.
Naked from the waist up and with his ebony hair streaming down his shoulders from under a pale blue sash around his forehead, he seemed to be chanting something—or perhaps those were whispered prayers. He raised his arms and sprayed a dark blue substance into the wind. When he did that, the copper-colored skin tightened across his back as the ridges and bulges of muscles rippled with his every move.
Holy Mary, Mother of God. Tory had never been desperate to have a man touch her, take her. But seeing Ben looking so male and virile, that was all she could imagine.
Parts of last night’s dream soared back into her brain. The images came fast and furious in lightning-like flashes. Ben, with his hair just this way and with his face decorated in odd bright lines of paint, carrying her up to the top of a rock-strewn mountain.
Books by Linda Conrad Page 39