A step down from the entry was the open living area, with the onyx fireplace and built-in shelves and the red couches that overlooked the pool and patio through a wall of glass doors. An island counter divided the living area from the kitchen. Both rooms had the same dark-stained oak beams, the same white earthen walls, the same feeling of uncluttered space and light.
Too much light. The sun streamed through the windows with the brazen coppery light of early evening, illuminating shambles everywhere. In the kitchen, cupboard doors were gaping open, drawers yanked out. In the living room, books and tapes had been pulled off shelves and rugs and paintings hung askew from every wall. God, this isn't fair. You know this isn't fair. I can't cope with this, not here. I have to have some peace and I counted on it here and there's no way on earth I can handle this—
“Regan—”
From behind her, she heard Cole’s voice—calming, steadying—but she was already moving, away from Cole, away from Hannah.
By the time she turned the corner past the kitchen, her pace was a jog and her heart was beating fast, ripping fast, angry fast. The bleat of self-pity was worthless; she already knew she was going to handle it. Coping wasn’t a choice. Coping was never a choice. Over the past month she’d learned the rotten, stinky lesson that even if you were going bananas you had to cope. Only Regan needed to do it alone. She wanted to, had to, needed to face the total picture before she had a prayer of getting an emotional grip on her-self.
Past the kitchen was the south wing—utility rooms, pantry, laundry, storage. She saw messes and disorder, but nothing as horrible as in the living room. She whirled west into the long bedroom wing, pushing at the doors to both spare rooms, which the thief had apparently ignored. But then came her bedroom.
Her room had always been a haven of peaceful, soothing color—salmon drapes and walls and spread—simple and uncluttered except for a white cushion chair next to the white kiva fireplace. Through a blur of tears she saw the drawers yawning open, her ransacked closet, clothes strewn in unfathomable disorder.
She left it, and whipped through the connecting corner bathroom into Jake’s room. The tornado-size mess was worse than her own. Violation. She could taste the acrid, angry flavor of violation in her throat, that anyone would have done this to Gramps’s things. Her pulse thrumming with anxiety, she stumbled into the only room she had yet to see.
Her grandfather’s bedroom and the library cum gem lab were the only rooms in the north wing. Instinct, not reason, warned her to expect the worst, as if by steeling herself for the worst it wouldn’t hurt as much. And she saw the thief’s work.
One wall of the room was glass doors leading onto the courtyard. The other three dark oak walls were cupboards and bookshelves—and all empty, as though a fairy-tale ogre had scooped up all the books and references and hurled them. The red leather couch and chair where she’d spent so many hours reading with Gramps were covered with books and papers. The huge oak slab that functioned as a two-person desk was littered with microscopes and measuring and evaluation devices, equipment unique to working with gems. None of it appeared broken, but everything was strewn like a wake. The floor was a sea of debris.
The thief had clearly done most of his damage in this room... yet slowly, surely, Regan felt her pulse begin to calm.
No one had moved the wall of bookshelves that divided the library from Jake’s bedroom. There was, of course, no reason anyone should have. Only an architect might notice that the two rooms, although spacious, were hardly long enough to take the entire length of the north wing.
Jake used the hidden room as a safe when he brought gems here—and that had been often—but he also always took the jewels with him when he left. The safe held nothing of value. Not to a thief. There was nothing in it but his journals and some family records and photographs. No thief could have known it existed. No thief should have cared if he had known.
But Regan cared. It was all she had left of her family—Gramps’s personal journals, and the family records and photos of him and her mom and dad. Her heart was in that room. Everything that had been holding her together for the past six weeks was in that room. The whole reason she’d come to the desert was in that room.
And in her head—her silly, unreliable, hoot-owl crazy head—Regan had the ugly feeling, the scary feeling that she would have cracked like a broken egg if the burglar had dared discover it.
Well, he didn't, Regan Thorne.
Nothing's lost. Nothing that matters to you, nothing that you can't replace. So just get yourself back together and quit acting like a hysterical goose.
She heard Cole call her name, and squeezed her eyes closed. She knew she’d taken off like a bat out of hell. He probably thought she was crazy.
God, slugger. That's what I was trying to tell you. I think I am, too.
He called her name again, sounding urgent now, urgent and frantic and worried—and terribly unlike Cole. Regan started scrambling through the debris, thinking, What have I done? The man deserved medals for all she’d put him through today, and now she’d dragged him into something else.
The library door led back, full circle, to the hall and front entry. Hustling fast, she sprinted toward the living area to find him. And she did.
But because her eyes were peeled on Cole hiking toward her from the kitchen, she missed the forgotten broken pottery near the front door.
Her sandal skidded on the slippery porcelain shards—and she fell.
CHAPTER FOUR
Did he need this? Did he? Lancelot found rescue scenes a real turn-on. Lot of men out there were dying to be heroes, heavily into volunteerism and damsels in distress. Not him. God. Wake up in the morning minding your own business, not bothering anyone, asking nothing more of life than to steer clear of trouble, and what do you get?
“If you feel faint, I’m warning you to tell me.”
“Cole, I promise you I’m all right. Initially I react to things emotionally—it’s just the way I am—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to collapse on you. I’m just terribly embarrassed to be so much trouble—”
“Anyone can have an accident, so would you quit apologizing? How many times do I have to tell you? You’re not any trouble.”
A total lie. He’d lost five years of his life when he saw the blood spurting out of Regan’s hand. She hadn’t just tripped. She’d skidded and crashed. Right in the middle of the broken pottery, landing hard on her right hand and fanny, and forcing Cole to move—for the second time that day—faster than an Olympic sprinter.
Cole didn’t like moving fast. He didn’t like walking into burglarized houses. And he hated, had always hated, the sight of blood. Tossing the tweezers onto the kitchen counter, he dunked her hand under the faucet again. Finally, her palm stopped running pink. Squinting, he inspected the half dozen cuts on her slim white hand. So did she.
For that instant, a strand of blond hair swished his cheek. They were already standing hip-rubbing close—not because Cole needed the aggravation of sexual voltage but because he was still afraid her knees were going to buckle. As he’d already learned that day, Regan’s promises that she was fine were worth a Russian ruble.
“Looks clean to me. Thanks, Cole. Picking out splinters in my right hand would have been awkward to do myself.”
It looked clean to him, too, but his blood pressure still hadn’t climbed off the ceiling. Minutes before, her palm had looked like a bloody sponge; he had no idea how deeply the shards were embedded, and he’d had visions of flying her to an emergency room in Phoenix. Hell, he could probably fly her to Sacramento faster than he could drive her to any medical facility around here.
“Still hurting, princess?” he asked genially.
“No. Actually, it’s nice and numb.”
“Two of the cuts are pretty deep. Try flexing it. Gently.”
She made a girl’s fist, then again. “Good as new, doc. Feels just fine.” A jaunty smile. Direct eye contact. Lots of body language to illustrate that she was calm
and cool.
Cole considered himself a relatively skilled liar, but Regan got the Nobel Prize. And having to dig in her palm, knowing he’d been causing her pain, still had his stomach pitching acid. “Just keep your tush parked,” he murmured. “I’m not done with you yet.”
He fumbled on the red Formica counter for the first aid box. Minutes later, the pint-size Ms. Raintree had produced the kit and the pair of tweezers—and then promptly disappeared into the bathroom. She hadn’t come out since.
“I know Hannah’s sick to her stomach,” Regan said worriedly.
Doubtless. It wasn’t enough that God had thrown him one green-eyed, jinxed blonde today; he’d tossed in an extra trial. Compared to Regan, Hannah could have a Ph.D. in ditsiness. Their arrival scene had been unquestionably confusing, but certain things were obvious. The whole house had been ransacked. Ms. Raintree had been sitting on it for over a half hour. Apparently she hadn’t even considered calling the Arizona state cops or the county sheriff or whoever the local fuzz was. Why? Because, according to Regan, the sweet-faced, middle-aged Hannah was a ‘hand trembler’.
“You’re going to have to run that whole thing by me again,” Cole said impatiently.
“I told you—”
“Yeah, well, all hell was breaking loose a few minutes ago. Try telling me again.”
“A hand trembler is like a shaman. Hannah sees things, feels things—like psychic vibrations—”
Magic. Swell. He slathered on enough salve to smother any potential germs and then grabbed the roll of gauze. It would be easier to work if Regan’s hip weren’t riding against his upper thigh. Down, Charlie. This is not the time, place, or the woman. But moving away from Regan was not negotiable. For a few more minutes, he was determined to block her view of the vandalized living room.
“If you don’t live around here, Cole, it’s hard to understand. I think very few Navajo people would be in a hurry to call the police...simply because they’d be afraid of being accused of the crime. And for Hannah, it’s even more complicated. I’m not claiming to be an expert on the culture, but I gather it would risk her reputation to be involved in a scene like this. It’s bad karma. As a hand trembler, she’s known as a healer, someone who brings ‘good harmony’. A burglary is obviously ‘bad harmony’, like something only a skinwalker would be involved in—”
“Skinwalker?”
“Witch.”
Cole cleared his throat. Doubtless the next spin in the conversation would include tarot cards and crystal channeling. “Could we move on?” He tore off three strips of adhesive to secure the gauze, thinking how good a shot of Kentucky bourbon would taste right now. Regan swiveled to face him, which successfully tangled the adhesive and caused her small, firm breast to graze his arm. One shot wasn’t going to cut it, he thought. He needed two. Doubles. Straight, and at the soonest opportunity.
“Hannah never ignored the problem, Cole. She was just afraid to contact anyone who wouldn’t be sympathetic. I don’t know if you understood, but she did call the Navajo Tribal Police...”
How could he have understood? The older woman had been talking a mile a minute—half in her native language—at the same time he’d been trying to drag Regan to the sink.
“Only there was nothing they could do. This isn’t reservation land, so obviously it isn’t in their jurisdiction. And they told her to call the county sheriff. Only she didn’t do that, because—”
“Yeah, the skinwalker thing.” Cole didn’t need to hear any more on that subject in this century.
Regan’s hand looked a little mummified. Possibly he’d slightly overdone the gauze. Unfortunately, though, the job was done, which meant that he’d run out of excuses to keep her leash-close.
His only priority should be grabbing a phone and dialing the local authorities—and it was. Yet he hesitated, watching Regan scoop the supplies back into the first aid box, a little clumsily with her bandaged hand.
He still expected her to cave in.
He couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t.
When Regan had fallen and blood had shot out of her hand in a half dozen little geysers, Cole had fully anticipated a little justifiable hysteria. There’d been no hysteria. She’d been calm, cool and gutsy—and so damned level that he had the aggravating suspicion she’d been trying to calm him down.
He was plenty calm. It was Regan who couldn’t be. The blonde was dead on her feet. She needed another shock today like she needed a bullet. And he’d seen the look in her eyes when she first walked in and saw the burglar’s work. Once, when he was a kid, he’d been in the woods with his father and had seen a doe. The doe had been hit by an arrow and gone crashing through the woods, blind crazy with pain. Regan had looked like that. Wounded and vulnerable and hurt. She still did. Against the dark oak-stained cabinets her hair was flaxen pale, baby fine, and her face still had no more color than bone china.
Regan had her own brand of plucky courage, Cole thought. It was just a shame she didn’t have a whit of horse sense to go with it.
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t do that, Cole.”
“Do what?”
“Reach for the phone.” As if she had eyes in the back of her head, she whipped around just as he was striding for the brick red hanging wall phone. Cole heard her soft voice. He also saw her tenacious little chin. “I’ll call the police,” she promised. “But not until Hannah’s out of the bathroom and feels well enough to leave. She had nothing to do with this, and she’s upset enough. I don’t want her involved.”
Cole scratched the whiskers of his two-day-old beard. “Princess,” he said patiently, “what Hannah does is not my problem. What you do is not my problem. But what I'm doing in the next five seconds is calling the cops.”
“But—”
Ignoring her, Cole plucked the receiver from the hook and butted it against his shoulder. Reasoning with Regan on an issue like this was a waste of vocal cords. Not that he knew her so well, but even five years ago he’d pegged her as loyal to a fault. She’d been that way with the old man—blindly loyal and fiercely protective. It didn’t surprise him that she took up for Hannah the same way. Hell, she’d probably take up for a stranger in the street the same way.
He punched the zero button, unsure if the local area had a 911 system and unwilling to spend the time to find out. The operator would get him what he wanted, which was cops—lots of cops, reams of cops, hordes of cops—and preferably an hour ago.
Talking with Regan was like wading through a feminine mine field. Men, thank God, were different, and Cole had grown up with men on the force. There was bound to be some nice guy in uniform khaki who’d get all excited about Honor and Responsibility and Courage the instant he laid eyes on Regan.
Every time Cole laid eyes on Regan, he got excited, too—but honor didn’t enter the picture. He wondered if she’d ever been kissed by a man who wasn’t polite. He wondered how she’d react if he kissed her the way he wanted to kiss her, how that silky, fine hair would feel in his hands, what she’d look like with her clothes peeled off, what it would take to turn those vivid green eyes smoky and hot.
Only a low breed of dog would be thinking about sex when the woman could barely stand on her feet. Cole had already called himself a dog. It hadn’t particularly helped, except to remind him that Regan needed some Mounties of the real variety. He wasn’t being a total bastard, Cole assured himself. He had no intention of cutting out on her until she had some help. As long as that help arrived soon. Really soon.
An imaginary hammer was pounding in his temples. He never had headaches. His stomach was churning acid. He was not ulcer prone. The pain in his neck begged for a neck brace. Enough was enough.
Something was really unkosher here. All afternoon it had nagged him about the three good old boys trying to camp Regan at a funny farm. And all the things she’d told him that had been going on for the past six weeks didn’t set any better. It just struck Cole on the downside of amazing that she’d been a hopelessly happy
Pollyanna for twenty-seven years; until a point in time. Coincidentally. When the old man died. When, Cole mentally corrected himself, a very tough, very secretive and damned rich old man died. And now there was another fascinating coincidence...it sure seemed miraculous that his plane had been conveniently laid up at the exact same time her house was getting ripped off.
There were good reasons, Cole decided, why he’d always been attracted to slow-moving, slow-talking, never-give-him-trouble brunettes. All he had to do was look at Regan to remember every one of them. About ten minutes after the cops arrived, Cole figured he could be jogging for the cockpit of his King Air. Not far past midnight, with any luck, he’d be in bed, cuddled up cozy with a full bottle of Kentucky bourbon.
He hung up the telephone and turned to Regan. “They’ll be here in fifteen minutes, at most twenty. The cops will handle everything, princess. Trust me.”
“Are you trying to tell me, Langston, that you’re not going to do a damn thing?”
“I didn’t say we were going to ignore this, Mr. Shepherd. But I was trying to be realistic with Ms. Thorne.” The deputy perched on the edge of the red couch in the living room, facing her. From the moment he’d come into the house more than an hour before, Regan had instinctively trusted him. Burt Langston had a day’s full of desert dust on his boots, but his features were clean-cut and honest. Every time he spoke directly to her, his voice lowered to a respectful, compassionate bass.
“Like I said, Regan, you have an isolated home here that’s unoccupied for long periods of time. Any coyote’s attracted to a chicken in the open. I’d be lying through my teeth if I said you hadn’t been durned lucky somebody didn’t prey on the house before this.”
“I understand.” His blue eyes were so serious, so sincere. It had been a long, long time since Regan had met such a nice man. Behind her, Cole was circling the grouping of couches, as restless as a panther prowling the parameters of his cage in a zoo. Burt shot Cole an uneasy glance—the boys hadn’t exactly been getting along—and then reconcentrated on her.
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