by Clay, Verna
"Because I don't want him feeling beholden to me."
"He is beholden to you! You saved his life!"
"We don't know that for sure."
"Are you doubting your own heart, girl?"
Sunny sighed. "Just promise me you won't tell him."
Suzette made a disgusted sound before agreeing. "Okay. Okay. You're the only person I would make such a promise to."
As Sunny reached to push Jason's door open, she was more nervous than she had been before her first New York concert performance. So much so, that her knees and hands trembled. Closing her eyes and inhaling a long breath, she stepped inside.
Jason's bed was tilted slightly upright and monitoring machines were still attached to him. His eyes were closed and she didn't know whether to leave or stay. Her heart longed to be near him, but she didn't want to disturb his rest.
He opened his eyes.
Sunny inhaled sharply. They stared at each other, neither of them moving or looking away. Finally, Jason weakly lifted a hand off the sheet and rasped, "Sunny, love."
She took one step forward and paused, but when he repeated her name, she rushed to his bedside. Gently holding his hand she lifted it and kissed his palm. "Welcome back," she said through tears.
Jason's own eyes filled with tears when he said, "I saw them, Sunny."
"Who did you see?"
"Our children."
37: Bell Rock Motel
.
Sunny guided her car off Interstate 17 and onto Highway 179 that would bring her and Jason to the Village of Oak Creek, and then home.
The past ten days had been a whirlwind of activity. The day after Jason's awakening, Suzette had visited and suggested something outrageous. "Since you two are now inseparable and drooling over each other, why don't you get married in the hospital? Then, if you want something more elaborate with friends, you can have a ceremony later. At least here, you'll have privacy from the paparazzi and the staff would make great wedding guests. It would be an unforgettable event." She added drily, "And I'll just bet the administrator, Mrs. Wakefield, will even like the idea. I think she's a closet romantic."
Sunny interjected, "Suzette, Jason just woke up from a coma, I'm sure the last thing on his mind–"
Jason interrupted, "I agree with Suzette. We should get married here."
Sunny gaped at him.
He said, "That is unless you're having second thoughts. I know my proposal yesterday wasn't the most romantic."
Sunny leaned over to kiss Jason's cheek and whispered, "Are you sure about this? The paparazzi will eventually get wind of our marriage and make a big to-do out of it."
He turned his head until their lips barely touched. "After what I've been through, the paparazzi are the least of my cares. If you can deal with them, so can I. Can we plan a hospital wedding?"
She kissed him softly and whispered, "The sooner the better." She glanced up at Suzette and recognized her expression. Softly, she said, "Okay, I'll tell him."
Jason moved his gaze between the women. "Tell me what?"
Suzette said, "I'll be back later."
After Suzette left, Sunny settled into the chair beside Jason's bed and said, "Remember the elixir we found?"
A half hour after turning onto Highway 179, Sunny asked Jason if he felt up to stopping by Bell Rock Motel to say hello to Angelica and surprise her with news of their marriage. He said, "I'd love to see her."
Before entering the town proper Sunny turned onto the road leading to the motel. The lovely building looked as inviting as ever and she imagined the spark of happiness that would light Angelica's eyes when she learned about their unconventional wedding. She parked near the office. "I'll bring her to the car, Jason, so you don't have to use your crutches."
Sunny rushed into the office and was surprised to find a middle-aged man behind the counter. She said, "Hello, my name is Sunny Grant and I'm a friend of Angelica's. Would it be possible for you to page her? I have something very important I need to share with her."
The man smiled pleasantly. "Do you know what room she's in?"
Sunny frowned. "She's not a guest. She and her daughter and granddaughter work here."
Now the man frowned. "Ms. Grant, I've owned this motel for five years and I can assure you I've never hired anyone with the name of Angelica."
Sunny stuttered, "But-but, I just saw her a few days ago. And when I checked in several months ago, she put me in the pink room."
The owner of the motel looked concerned. "Ma'am I don't know what to say. I don't know anyone by the name of Angelica."
"Could you call my name up in your computer and see who checked me in during the month of May? I registered under the name of Sunny Jones."
The gentleman shrugged and turned his attention to his computer screen. He typed a few keystrokes and then frowned. "Your name is in here, but there's no entry for the person who checked you in. That doesn't happen often, but it does happen." He typed on his keyboard again and said, "I was on duty so I must have been the one. I don't usually forget to type in my initials."
Sunny shook her head in disbelief. Rather than argue, however, she said, "Thanks for your help," and returned to her car.
Slipping behind the wheel she turned to Jason. "It's the strangest thing. I just met the owner and he said no one named Angelica has ever worked here."
Jason squeezed his eyes shut and Sunny said with concern, "What's wrong? Are you feeling ill?"
He opened his eyes and exhaled. "Sunny, something amazing has happened." Sunny waited for him to finish.
Finally, he said, "The only thing I didn't tell you about my vision was that the elderly woman in the rocking chair looked familiar. I didn't say anything earlier because it was too fantastic, but the woman was Angelica."
Epilogue
Sitting in the rocker on the cabin's porch, Sunny watched her husband and ten year old adopted twins playing with a mutt they'd chosen from a pet rescue center a month earlier. Sighing with contentment, she rubbed her very pregnant belly and said to the little one inside, Song, you are going to love your father and brother and sister. And when you're old enough, your father and I will read Dr. Thomas Matthews' journals to you. We've read them to Leon and Noel many times and they always want to hear them again. You'll learn about Thomas and Tana and their three children, and all the animals they cared for. You'll learn about Tana's mother, Mariah, and grandmother, Frannie. And someday we'll tell you about the magic of Angelica who is really Frannie. It's an unbelievable story and I've written my own journal about it.
Jason called, "Honey, I'm taking the children to the Spirit Tree. Do you want to come?"
Sunny patted her belly. "No, I think Song and I will hang out on the porch."
"Bye, Mom," called Noel.
Leon waved. "We'll be back soon, Mom."
Jason blew her a kiss and then headed toward the trail with the children.
Sunny reached for the envelope she'd set on the table beside her tea and opened it again. Rereading the contents, she finally felt completion of a task she and Jason had begun shortly after their marriage. It had taken two years, but now her ancestry and history—as much as could be known—was complete. The researchers had scanned archives and old newspapers, census records, ships' manifests, and even traveled to Ireland in their search. Now Sunny had a better understanding of the family she had always longed for. Placing the documents back in the envelope she leaned her head against the rocker and merged the researchers' information with that of Dr. Thomas Matthews' journals.
Her sixth great-grandparents had traveled via ship from Ireland to America and settled on the east coast. However, their daughter, whose name was Angelica according to the ship's manifest, had literally dreamed of a valley surrounded by red monoliths. Her mother, knowing that the women of her lineage were gifted psychics, convinced her husband that they must travel to the red rocks.
And so they did.
Angelica, called Frannie by her family, later married the son of
an Apache medicine man and birthed one child, a daughter named Mariah. Mariah married a trapper and their daughter was Tana. Dr. Matthews' journal often mentioned how Tana was visited in dreams by her grandmother Frannie, and how she always felt the presence of loved ones who had passed on.
Sunny glanced around the cabin's porch and moved her gaze to the barn and small cabin, pines and high desert shrubbery, and whispered into the wind, "I feel you, too."
A sudden gust lifted her hair and she laughed aloud, "I know that's you, Angelica."
She returned to her ponderings. When Thomas and Tana married, he already had two children, a daughter named Amy, by his first wife, and an adopted son, Josiah. They were close in age and as they grew into adulthood, they fell in love. Dr. Matthews said their wedding was one of the happiest days of his life. He said neighbors came from miles around and even Tana's Indian family was there.
Josiah and Amy had two boys. The oldest left home at the age of twenty-one, never married, and became a doctor in San Francisco. The other remained on the family's land that had been legally registered as a homestead by Dr. Matthews so as to keep it in the family. The young man married and had two children, a son and a daughter. Sunny now believed that the second cabin had been built to house the enlarging family. Death records showed that Thomas died in 1922 from a heart attack and Tana in 1925. The cause of her death was listed as "unknown."
In 1930 Tana's widowed daughter and granddaughter decided to vacation in Ireland, but stayed when the granddaughter met her future husband. That granddaughter had been Sunny's grandmother. Sunny's mother, Naomi, after the death of her family in Ireland, came to America in the 1970s to live on the homestead she'd always heard about, but by that time all of her U.S. relatives had died and the land lost in foreclosure due to unpaid property taxes. The last owner in Sunny's family, Josiah and Amy's granddaughter, had built her dream home on the land with her husband in 1940, however, according to accounts, she became a recluse after his death during World War II. She died during the foreclosure process in the late 60s.
Before returning to Ireland, Sunny's mother met and married a man thirty years her senior and happily lived in Tucson with him until his sudden death when Sunny was a baby. After that, Naomi had stayed in Tucson and supported herself and Sunny by waitressing. Sunny wondered if her mother would have ever told her about the land they'd lost. Probably not. She'd seemed content to reveal their family's history only in legends, or maybe she'd already known the outcome of Sunny's search for family.
Sunny rubbed her belly again and sighed with happiness. Speaking to her unborn child, she said, "Song, this land, this cabin, our ancestors and our descendants, are all woven into the fabric of eternity. Our joys and sorrows are seams and rips in that fabric. Whether we abide in body or spirit we are forever linked. We carry within us the fundamental nature of the universe—love. And although the knot may slip, it will never unravel. A thousand years from now, it will remain.
Sunny smiled when she heard a familiar voice speaking to her heart. "So true, dearest, so true."
Author's Note
The third book in this trilogy, Spirit Tree of the Red Rocks (Future), has an expected release month of October, 2015. Of course the heroine will be a descendent of Sunny Sundance and Jason Grant. As for the actual plot, it's complicated because I am intertwining the past with the future…and I mean way in the future.
In this final book, more of Frannie's life with her Apache husband will be revealed.
I'm being secretive about this story because it's not something I've attempted before and I want it to be a surprise for readers. It's my first foray into an apocalyptic future, with the outcome of humanity resting on the shoulders of the hero and heroine.
Enough said.
For readers who have not read book one, Healing Woman of the Red Rocks (Past), I have included an excerpt. Also, an excerpt from the first book in another historical romance, Cry of the West: Hallie, from the Finding Home Series.
I love hearing from readers. There is a "contact me" link at my website: www.vernaclay.com
Healing Woman of the Red Rocks (Past)
3: Strange Conversation
The whiskey burned a path to Thomas' stomach and did little to erase his living nightmare. The past two months had been hell as he watched his daughter display the same symptoms that had eventually extinguished her mother's life. Today had been the worst yet when Amy complained of blurred vision, but an examination had revealed nothing other than the strange illness manifesting yet another symptom. His worry was compounded by the fact that she was so small for her age. Not being a robust child, would that hasten the illness?
Thomas pushed his shot glass across the scarred surface of the bar and said, "Another one."
The bartender who occasionally came to Thomas because of headaches asked, "Doc, you sure about that? If you need to air your head out, I'm a good listener. I guarantee I'm better than a hangover."
"Thanks, Slim, but there are some things only whiskey helps with for awhile. Pour another shot."
Slim shrugged and poured as requested.
Rather than toss the whiskey down, Thomas wrapped his hand around the glass and closed his eyes, wondering what he'd done in life to deserve the loss of his wife and now possibly his daughter. Although his early twenties before entering medical school had been somewhat on the wild side, he'd never cheated at cards, slept with another man's wife, killed anyone, or lied or cussed overmuch as far as he could remember. His father and brothers had been appalled by his behavior, but his uncle on his father's side had quipped, "He's only sowing his wild oats, Henry. It'll pass, just like it did with you."
His uncle had been right. At the age of twenty-three Thomas had lost interest in cards and fancy women when he'd entered the medical academy.
He squeezed his eyes tighter and was about to swig the rotgut, when the cowboy beside him said to his companion, "Marv, it was the damndest thing I ever seen. No wonder the Indians call her Healing Woman of the Red Rocks."
His drinking companion asked, "Did she ever tell you her name?"
"No. And I never asked. She wasn't much for talk. By the time I got Billy there, he was as white as a ghost and I figured he was dead. Hell, maybe he was. Maybe she brought the young fella back from the pits o' hell—that place we'll all end up after the life we've lived. 'Course the kid died last year so I reckon he's in that place now."
Thomas relaxed his grip on his whiskey glass and continued listening to the men, both of whom appeared to be about Thomas' age, late thirties.
Marv said, "Curly, tell me again how she saved him."
Curly belched and replied, "When we finally got there Billy was laying face forward over his horse's mane 'cause ten miles back he said he couldn't sit up no more. Hell, blood was drippin' down his arm and pooling on the ground, and it was a lot of blood." Curly snorted and continued, "I told him afore he started toward that stagecoach that I'd heard tell them drivers got new rifles that was deadly accurate. But he was determined and I was foolish enough to follow him. Well, we stopped the stagecoach all right and delivered the drivers of the strongbox and the passengers of their valuables, but when we shot the box open, there weren't much in it. Anyway, after we hightailed it outta' there, I figured we was lucky sons-o-bitches, but I was wrong—almost dead wrong. Either we didn't get all the drivers' rifles or one o' them men in the coach had hidden one. We was a good distance away when I heard the first shot and Billy fell off his horse. I figured I'd be next if I didn't get low, so I dove for the ground just as a bullet buzzed past my head. I'd say it was God's grace, but sure as hell that would be stretching it. Anyway, we was close to some rocks and I pulled Billy behind 'em. Another shot landed in the dirt in front of the rocks and I fired my Colt cause the horses done run off with our rifles and the ones we stole. Everything went silent and I figured they was discussin' whether to come after us so I fired again just to let 'em know I meant business, and to my surprise, they left."
Thomas h
eard one of the men spit tobacco in the spittoon and waited for the conclusion to the story. He wasn't disappointed.
Curly swore some foul language and continued, "I figured they left 'cause the loot we'd taken was a piddle in a bucket and there was a woman and child on the coach. If not, they woulda' unhitched a couple of horses and been on us like flies on dung." Curly called, "Hey Bartender, another round."
Thomas opened his eyes and stared at the amber liquid in his glass. There was a jangle of change as the men paid for their drinks.
Curly said, "I managed to round up our horses and get Billy on his. It was then I remembered hearing an old trapper spoutin' a tale 'bout this woman who lived in the red rocks below Flagstaff. He said she could heal anyone, even animals. When he started tellin' 'bout some o' the ailments she'd healed, I thought he was talkin' out his arse, but I never forgot it. One look at Billy with a bullet in the vicinity of his heart and I knew he was a walkin' dead man. 'Course he wasn't walkin', not by a long shot. We was over in the Verde Valley which wasn't far from the red rocks as the crow flies, and I just grabbed the reins o' Billy's horse and told the kid, 'We sure as hell can't go to Fort Verde to see the doc. They'd recognize us in a heartbeat and hang us afore the sun set, so we're gonna go find that Healing Woman.'"
"What did Billy say?" asked Marv.
"He didn't say nothin', just nodded, 'cause he knew what I said was true. It took us all day and part of the night to get there. And again, I'd say providence was guiding us if it weren't such a ridiculous notion 'cause we happened onto the path of an old trapper who pointed us in the right direction. He said he'd been to see her a few times in the past five years, and she'd even healed him of gangrene."
"So, what'd she do to heal Billy?"
"Hell, I don't rightly know. It was night when we got there and the Healing Woman come outta' her cabin like she had no fear. She walked right up to us, shined her lantern on Billy layin' on his horse, and motioned for me to bring him into the barn. Frankly, she scared the sheeit outta me with them weird colored eyes. They was kinda blue, kinda purple."