Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  The vision of her husband sat up and lightly touched her face. “I’ve missed you, Lex. That’s one thing I wanted to say.”

  Lexie wondered if she shouldn’t be more afraid of seeing a ghost. But she wasn’t.

  Lexie wasn’t scared of Dan’s spirit in the least. Instead, she found herself becoming more and more furious at his memory.

  Rearing away from his touch, she scowled. “You shouldn’t have left us to run off to Iraq. What was so wrong with making enough money at home to pay off your debts? You shouldn’t have done anything so dangerous. You had a child to think of.”

  He chuckled. “Why should I have thought of him? You were doing enough of it for both of us.” Straightening and shaking his head, Dan continued, “Speaking of dangerous, you shouldn’t have come here, Lex. You’re in the wrong place.”

  “I know we’re on the wrong road, dammit. Tell me something I don’t know. Like how to get out of here.”

  “You should not have come to Dinetah at all. There’s great evil on the reservation. Go home.”

  Evil? “We don’t have a home to go to anymore. Thanks to you. And what do you mean by—”

  Her words were stopped by a sudden rumble of thunder coming from her left. She turned to look for the lightning flash, trying to judge how far away the bolt had hit. It had sounded close.

  She felt the ground move before she fully realized how much trouble they were in. A massive wall of water appeared out of the darkness and quickly covered the hood of her car before she could even catch her breath.

  Uh-oh.

  She didn’t have a moment to think. The sound hadn’t been thunder at all, but the roar of rushing water coming straight at them. Where was the water coming from?

  “Dan, help us.” She turned back, but the vision of him was gone.

  Water began seeping around the door into the passenger compartment. She had to get out of here. She had to get her baby out of here.

  Flipping open her seat belt, she gripped the door handle and tugged. The door wouldn’t budge.

  She reached for the electric window buttons and discovered the car had died. Without power, none of the windows would open.

  Dear God. No!

  The force of the rushing water began to rock the whole car. Icy cold water was already covering her feet.

  “Jack! Wake up, baby. We have to get out of the car.” She fought her way to her knees and prepared to crawl over the seat to get to Jack.

  Lexie threw herself forward, landing in a heap on the floor of the backseat. Her whole body was soaked through from dropping into the quickly rising water. Shivering, she reached for her child.

  “Mommy?”

  “Jack. Help Mommy get you out of the seat belt, honey.” It took everything she had to keep her voice calm.

  “Out?”

  “Yes, out—now.”

  Instead of helping him undo the belt, she trusted him to do it. Grabbing the door handle next to him, Lexie shoved hard. She had to find a way out of the car. The water was already creeping up to the edge of the seat and she could feel the whole vehicle being shoved sideways by the sheer force of the water’s current.

  The back door next to Jack’s seat was locked tight and refused to budge. Trust the childproof safety windows and door locks to work when you didn’t want them to.

  “Are you free?” she asked Jack as she reached for him.

  “I’m scared.” He scooted toward her.

  “Don’t be afraid. We’re going to be okay.” She hugged him close and tried to think. “This is a new game, honey. First move is getting into the front seat. Can you do it?”

  “Yes,” he said and scrambled up and over. “Do I win?”

  “Not yet, baby.” Lexie wished she was as limber as her child. “My turn.”

  Putting aside the overwhelming panic, she grabbed the seat and somersaulted over it, landing next to Jack. “You okay?”

  He mumbled an answer and she could tell he was beginning to shake. “Move away from the door, honey. I’m going to push it open so we can get out.”

  Jack inched toward the steering wheel on the driver’s side of the car, out of her way. Lexie grabbed the passenger door handle and shoved hard. Miraculously, it opened. Slightly. But when she kept on pushing, the door refused to go any farther than an inch or two.

  What were they going to do?

  Lexie felt around in the water on the floor, hoping to find something heavy enough to break the window. Of course, there was nothing like that.

  She took off her shoe and began to bang it against the glass. Nothing happened except dull thuds.

  They couldn’t get out and were going to drown. Her baby was going to die. The dark purple fog of hysteria clutched at her throat.

  Starting to cry, Lexie beat against the window with her fists. Then she turned, opened the glove box and dragged out everything it contained. Maps. Gas receipts. Cheap sunglasses. But nothing that could break glass.

  Jack caught her panic and started to scream. The water covered the bottom of the seat now and gushed through the car, shoving everything toward her and pinning her to the partially open door.

  Her little boy grabbed hold of her neck with a death grip. “Out. Mommy, I want out.”

  She couldn’t get herself together enough to calm her child. They were going to die. Hugging him to her, she was lost in great gulping spasms.

  All of a sudden, Jack reared back and pointed to the door. “Daddy! Daddy, I want out now. I don’t like this game.”

  Lexie turned in the direction he was pointing just in time to see the already partially opened door wrenched wider. A dark shadow of a man bent down and pulled both her and Jack out of the car and into his arms.

  2

  D an? Was it really her dead husband’s spirit come back to save them?

  Everything was cold and dark and wet. But her body was suddenly being hugged tightly against a broad, warm chest as she and Jack were whisked upward. Away from the car. Out of the water and hopefully to safety.

  The roar of the water rang in her ears. The darkness made everything surreal. She heard Jack’s squeals of terror as she gathered him close and hung on.

  Lexie, on the other hand, was quietly holding her breath. Were they going to die? Was that why she had suddenly started seeing ghosts as her mother had before she’d taken her own life?

  This whole thing was one terrible nightmare.

  By the time Lexie took a breath, Jack had calmed down and her feet were touching solid ground. And it was abundantly clear, even in the blackness of the night, that their dark rescuer was not Dan’s ghost.

  Whoever the man was, he was taller, broader, just all around bigger than her dead husband. His warm, solid chest did a lot more than merely hint at him being a living, breathing adult male.

  The man made sure she was steady on her feet, then he lifted Jack out of her arms. “My truck is right up the road. Let’s get you two someplace warm and dry.”

  “Uh…wait a second.” Lexie didn’t want to offend someone who had just saved her life. But who the heck was this guy? Did she dare trust her child and herself with a stranger? A very big, burly stranger.

  “That was fun, Daddy. Let’s do it again!” Jack didn’t seem to share any of her qualms. But then, he thought this man was his father.

  The tall stranger had on a yellow rain slicker with a baseball cap pulled down over his forehead, keeping the still drizzling rain out of his eyes. The cap cast a shadow over his face, giving Lexie weird shivers down the back of the neck.

  Without waiting for her to utter another word, the man hefted Jack higher against his chest, took her by the elbow and began heading up the hill. At this point, she didn’t much feel like dragging her feet—her bare feet. Getting dry and warm sounded too good. But she sure as hell intended to get some answers before she got into a truck with a complete stranger, no matter what Jack thought about him.

  Before she could orient herself to the pitch-black surroundings, she was standing next
to an oversized pickup truck with one of those huge double cabs. The stranger leaned her against the bumper and let go, but kept Jack in his arms.

  “Stay here a second,” the man growled. “I’ve got blankets in the back.”

  She heard him opening doors and at the same time heard him mumbling something to Jack. In a few minutes, the guy was back beside her, placing a blanket around her shoulders.

  “Get in,” he demanded.

  “But…”

  Without warning, he lifted her off her feet with one big arm and slid her into the back passenger seat. “You and your son must sit in the back. It’s too dangerous for him to ride in front.”

  “Wait just a sec…”

  The man placed Jack next to her, then reached around her and buckled them both in. His body came within inches of her face. She caught a whiff of his scent and her body had an odd reaction. The deep woodsy smell seemed both thrilling and familiar to her somehow. Maybe the sudden jolt of recognition had more to do with an indefinable, underlying scent of masculinity. Was it simply a reminder of the way Dan had smelled that was catching her imagination? No, she couldn’t put the stranger’s scent together with Dan’s memory at all.

  Whatever the reason for it, a bolt of electric impulses tingled through her skin, prickling and stinging along her nerve endings. She couldn’t quite understand what was happening to her, and she was still too scared to make sense of the strangely erotic feelings.

  She pulled Jack close to her side and hung on for dear life as the man slammed her door and moved around the front of the truck.

  “Mommy.” Jack turned his face to look up at her.

  “Yes, sweetie?” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the stranger climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  “The man says he’s not my daddy, but he looks like Daddy’s picture in your wallet.”

  “No, Jack. The man is not your father. We don’t know him.” The engine came to life with a rumble so loud Lexie was sure the man in the front couldn’t overhear their conversation. She wished he would explain himself to her as he apparently had to her son.

  “Yes, we do,” Jack disagreed with a grin. “He says he’s my daddy’s brother and I should call him uncle. What’s a uncle?”

  “Uncle?” Lexie raised her voice, hoping to be heard by the silent man behind the steering wheel. “Excuse me. Are you my husband’s brother—Michael Ayze?”

  He gave her a sharp nod of his chin but never turned his eyes away from the windshield. “My mother was worried because you two were late and sent me out to find you,” he said over his shoulder. “I guess she had good reason to worry. What were you thinking, driving out on the reservation in the middle of the night?”

  Her anger came up fast and strong and completely unwarranted. After all, the man had just saved their lives. Still, what right had he to question her actions? He was only her brother-in-law, not her husband or father—or keeper. She had no intention of explaining about running low on money to such an arrogant male.

  Lexie bit her tongue to keep from telling him off. Silently counting to ten and breathing deeply, she fought to find the right words to keep from alienating her husband’s family right off the bat.

  She couldn’t find any. Still seething, she decided to keep her mouth shut and treat his last comment as it deserved to be treated. With silence.

  Happy about the strained quiet coming from his sister-in-law’s quarter, Michael knew he should never have said anything to her that was so negative and definitive. At least, not without being prepared to explain why it was wrong to drive alone on the reservation after dark. But he had no intention of trying to tell this Anglo woman about the Navajo Skinwalkers. She wouldn’t believe him anyway. Much better they both keep their words to themselves.

  His thoughts, however, now those were another story entirely. He couldn’t get the fanciful image of being her savior out of his mind. He’d saved their lives and had been her knight in shining armor, her defender against the dark forces.

  But hell. That wasn’t something a college professor ought to be thinking. Maybe he’d better get his suddenly weird imagination under better control.

  The cause of their danger tonight probably hadn’t come from Skinwalker evil. Death by drowning would’ve come simply from Alexis’s ignorance of the area. There were many different kinds of dangers on the lands between the four sacred mountains.

  The unwanted thoughts of dangerous things reminded him of how his pulse had quickened when he’d gotten his first good look at his dead brother’s wife. He’d felt the same erotic rush the last time he’d seen her, six years earlier on his brother’s wedding day. He’d been trying to forget it ever since.

  He’d defied his parents’ wishes then and had gone to the wedding to talk to Daniel. To try again to make him reconsider coming back to the reservation with his new wife. But Daniel had been more determined and independent than ever and had flat out refused.

  So Michael had met the bride and stayed only long enough for the wedding. Elegant wouldn’t have been too strong a word to describe his initial impression of Alexis back then. She’d been dressed plainly for a bride, in a sophisticated ivory sheath. But her sweep of ashblond shoulder length hair had been all the embellishment the outfit needed. That and those intelligent hazel eyes. The eyes that had drawn him in and made him forget why he’d gone in the first place.

  His original assessment then had been that she was much too good for the likes of his half-assed brother, Daniel. Tonight, even soaking wet with her hair pulled tight and dripping, she still looked somehow ethereal and out of place here in rural Dinetah. He couldn’t get the idea of her being a queenly damsel in distress out of his mind.

  Deliberately shifting his focus over to his nephew, Michael shot a look at the kid in the rearview mirror. Going by appearances alone, it seemed clear enough Jack Ayze was a Navajo child. The boy didn’t look much like Daniel had at his age, but his golden-brown eyes and angular jaw were definitely attributes of their Big Medicine Clan’s roots.

  The boy belonged with his family and his heritage. He deserved to be raised in the Dine tradition.

  All those superfluous thoughts would have to wait for now, though. Alexis and Jack needed to be safe inside his family’s home for the night.

  For the time being, keeping the two innocents alive and well was all that really mattered.

  Not wanting to dwell on seeing Dan’s ghost or on the terror of almost drowning, Lexie kept her thoughts tuned in to their rescue. After they settled in the pickup truck, Michael drove them back to the highway and about fifteen minutes farther up the side of the mountain before turning again. It was nearly impossible for her to see where they were going, but she got the distinct impression of heading up a long dirt road.

  The complete darkness of the place felt creepy. Lexie had never experienced this much isolation.

  Then the pickup drove out of the black night and into a lighted gravel area. Once they had pulled up and stopped in front of a modern house with several outbuildings, she finally began to relax.

  Belatedly, it occurred to her she’d never given much thought to what kind of housing Dan’s parents would have. She’d been so anxious to get a roof over her child’s head, she hadn’t considered what that roof might look like. That kind of oversight in planning would have to stop. What if Dan’s family had lived in a shack?

  A widow and single mother at twenty-eight, Lexie decided it was past time for her to become a responsible adult. From now on, she would plan every move out much more carefully.

  As she unfastened her and Jack’s seat belts, she saw a short, dark woman come out of the house, stand on the porch and wave excitedly at them. Lexie wanted to go slow with Dan’s family until she could formulate some kind of plan for how to deal with having new relatives she didn’t know.

  But those good intentions disappeared the instant Louise Ayze wrapped her arms around her and hugged her close. “I am so glad to finally meet you, Da
ughter. Come inside your new home.”

  Michael swung Jack up into his arms and the two of them disappeared through the front door ahead of her. Home? Had Dan’s mother said what she thought she’d said?

  “Please call me Mother, my daughter,” Louise whispered formally as she slid her arm around Lexie’s waist and led her all the way inside.

  “Oh. Well…” Lexie didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what she was feeling.

  Despite her mother-in-laws’ rather formal and stilted language, she seemed sincerely happy to have her and Jack here. But could Lexie learn to call someone mother again at this late stage? Her own mother had taken a coward’s way out, and Lexie didn’t want any reminders of her.

  The minute she crossed the threshold, though, Lexie realized she’d have no trouble at all calling this place home. Everything about the front room of the Ayzes’ home was warm and inviting. A huge fireplace blazed with a crackling, friendly sounding fire. Gorgeous native-designed rugs partially covered gleaming wood-planked floors. Sofas with cozy pillows looked so compelling she imagined herself snuggling into one for the entire night.

  Louise, a tiny woman with a straight back and a look of steely determination in her eyes, dragged Lexie through the front room and didn’t let her stop to enjoy the homey atmosphere.

  “Are you hungry?” Louise asked as they entered a big open kitchen and family room.

  “No, but thanks.”

  Jack must have thought he could use something more to eat, however, because he’d climbed into a big chair and was sitting at the table. Beside him sat two giants, both of whom were hovering over him and talking in quiet tones.

  One of the giants was Michael, Jack’s uncle, who had saved them. The other man looked just like both Jack and Michael, except for the gray hair at his temples. When Lexie walked closer, all three males turned their faces to look up at her.

  Michael introduced his father saying, “Alexis, this is my father, Charles Ayze.”

  The older man nodded. “Welcome, Daughter.”