Pink Topaz

by Jennifer Greene

  And it was happening again.

  Rationally, she was aware of Cole at her side, driving the Jeep toward the town of Red Mesa. They were getting groceries. She remembered that. She wanted to stock the house with fresh food; Cole refused to let her drive alone. She remembered that, too. By eleven o’clock, the temperature had climbed past ninety. Dust rose in clouds behind the Jeep, and heat shimmered off the gravel road ahead. The heat was real. She was sure of that, too.

  But of nothing else.

  It came from nowhere. The ocean of nerves, the panic. One minute, the sky above was a huge pale bowl of blue. In the distance, she saw glimpses of scarlet Indian paintbrush and the fat red flowers of the hedgehog cactus.

  The next minute, the red rock hills and sky were shooting toward her smothering-fast. Her heart started pounding, pounding. Her pulse raced as if she’d found herself in bed with a ghost. Adrenaline pumped, heating every muscle. Anxiety blurred her vision and made her palms damp with sweat.

  She couldn’t have said her name if forced at gunpoint.

  She couldn’t have said where she was, even under a lie detector test, and been sure.

  She had a terrible sensation of losing herself, of Regan Thorne spinning through a vortex of space into nowhere until she completely disappeared. It could happen. She’d tasted that terror before.

  And like before, through sheer strength of will, she forced pictures of her grandfather into her mind. Jake, six foot two and as creased as an old boot, sipping whiskey and sneaking prime rib and ignoring every doctor who’d warned him and warned him and warned him. Jake, who deserved a beating more than grieving because he never had to have that second fatal heart attack. Jake, who’d traveled the far corners of the earth in his search for gems, who dared any danger to be a man on his own terms. Jake, who once loomed larger than life to a grieving nine-year-old girl, who’d given her an excitement for life, a belief that she could do anything she wanted and the courage to try.

  Jake. Who would doubtless take one look at her shaking hands and roar like a lion. What is this hallucinating nonsense? You're no wimp, Regan. Give yourself a good kick in the behind and straighten up.

  So Regan thought of her grandfather. And she dug her nails into her palms until she felt the sting of the cuts from yesterday. And like all the other rotten times, the crazy attack peaked... and then passed.

  She was still spooked for a few minutes, still muzzy headed. But that faded, too. The sky was again a bowl of blue. The scrub-brushed hills, the red rock mesas, the surprise of a sudden covey of color—wildflowers in the April desert—refocused clearly in her vision. Apart from a sensation of weakness, the world was normal again.

  The taste in her mouth was as sweet as relief—grateful, intense, overwhelming relief—that it was over. She’d told herself a dozen times to examine the phenomenon, to try to understand what happened to her. Impossible. Facing the open jaws of the alligator, no one lingered to study and philosophize. And afterward, it was too late. Fear had no memory. The most she could clearly recall was the shame of allowing herself to be taken under...and the relief of being all right again overwhelmed that.

  Regan shot a quick glance at Cole, wary that he might have noticed her mortifying flip-out.

  He hadn’t. The road took all his attention—hardly surprising, considering that the past ten miles had been an obstacle course in potholes and slick patches of drifting sand.

  Her mood was hardly frivolous, yet she slowly found herself smiling. Slugger had taken to the Jeep like a boy with a new toy. His hair was wildly tumbling in the open wind, his T-shirt plastered against his muscular chest, aviator shades jammed on his nose. The radio played a staticky tune. His fingers were drumming the pagan rock-and-roll beat on his right thigh.

  Live for the moment. That was the image he presented. For a long time Regan had figured he was a Peter Pan who refused to grow up, a self-styled hedonist who only played at life.

  Every minute she was around him, she was discovering just how fake that image was.

  Until that morning, she hadn’t known that his father was a policeman. On the way out of the house, climbing into the Jeep, she’d made the mistake of mentioning it.

  “Not just my dad, but my older brother, too,” Cole had admitted, and swiftly claimed that growing up around two cops had given him a permanent aversion to rules and regulations.

  “Come on, slugger. Rules couldn’t have bothered you that much if you willingly joined the navy—”

  “That was completely different. I was nineteen, stupid, and hot to fly. The navy was a free ticket to a set of wings.”

  “Hmm.” Cole made himself sound like a selfish, manipulative user. Regan found that most interesting, particularly since Gramps had come across two distinguished medals for service in Cole’s flying record.

  But slugger had excuses for that. “For a short trek, I was a real hotshot in the sky. Three years into a four-year hitch, though, I turned into a real hotshot on the ground. Brawling, drinking, couldn’t obey orders....The navy could never get quite enough to hang me, but they had the good sense to kick me out.”

  “So what happened?” she’d asked gently.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did something personally happen to you when you were...what? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”

  For all of two seconds she’d glimpsed the fire of something dark and angry and lost in his eyes. And then Cole had shaken his head, with a familiar cynically amused expression as if he were stuck explaining the facts of life to Bambi. “What happened was that I was brawling, drinking and undependable—and I deserved to get kicked out. If you haven’t noticed, princess, respect is not exactly my middle name.”

  Regan had dropped the subject, amazed that he expected her to believe such a gigantic whopper. It was possible he had left the navy early, but hardly in disgrace. His pilot’s license was intact, his record exemplary enough to impress Jake, and she had enough personal experience to know that Cole was incapable of being careless around planes. It struck her, not for the first time, that Cole worked harder than a well driller to present himself in an undesirable light. At least to her.

  Afraid I might like you, slugger? Afraid I might dare kiss you again?

  She looked at his lean-cheeked, square-jawed face, and was badly tempted to do just that. She wondered what had happened to him in those early years. Something had. Something had put that lost, angry look in his eyes; something had scarred him, and badly enough to throw up a wall when anyone got close. The cynical, amoral, lazy-coward image was very effective. It would probably have worked for Regan, if she hadn’t discovered irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

  Regan didn’t claim to understand him—nor did she need to. She knew how he was with her. Without hesitation she’d told him the secret of her gems. Cole had already proven that there was nothing she couldn’t tell him, no honesty that would shock him, no insecurity that she couldn’t trust him with. At an emotional, instinctive level, she guessed he would guard a woman—and her secrets—with his life if he had to. Heaven knew, he was incapable of leaving a woman in trouble. How many times did she have to tell him that he was free to go, that she would be fine alone?

  Regan was tempted to kiss him—but didn’t, and wouldn’t. She would never involve a man in her private quicksand, and Cole had already been drawn in more than was right or fair. Kisses were out of the question, but to not care about him was becoming increasingly impossible. “Shepherd?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You just passed it.”

  “Passed what?” His gaze whipped to the rearview mirror, then quickly to her face. “I was looking for the town.”

  “That was it. Red Mesa.”

  The whole kit and caboodle only added up to a few buildings. A post office cum gas station. A bit of a school, well off the road. An auto parts dealer who doubled as a preacher on Sundays. There were a couple of houses, dry as dust, with paint peeling and dogs yapping and brown-skinned children racing in the
heat. And the Trading Post General Store.

  Cole jammed on the brakes, looked at her again with comically raised eyebrows and then backed up a full quarter mile to the front door of the trading post. “Hell. Nearly missed it for the traffic jam. You should have warned me how busy it was during rush hour….” As they both knew, they hadn’t passed three cars the entire drive. “I’ll bet the night lights alone dazzle the eye after dark. I’m not sure my heart can take the excitement.”

  He vaulted over the side of the Jeep and zipped around to her door, his eyes so full of the devil that Regan had to laugh. “You making fun of my small town?”

  “No way, lady. A couple days away from pollution, crack streets, sirens and exhaust fumes suit me just fine. Lead on, Ms. Thorne. I can’t wait to see the inside of this place.”

  The front screen door opened with a creaky spring, and clapped shut behind them. The store had a wooden plank floor, cramped shelves bulging to the rafters, and sold everything from cowboy hats to diapers to Indian crafts to Beaujolais. It had to. The trading post was literally the only place to market for the area surrounding Red Mesa. Cole had barely stepped inside before he’d jammed a white Stetson on his head and discovered the T-shirts. He held up a neon yellow shirt with the tacky logo I’ve Been To Red Mesa. “Guess what? They have my size.”

  “Put it back, you dolt.”

  “Hey, I’m running out of clean T-shirts, and this has a certain local flavor—”

  “Put it down,” she repeated, and warned him, “If you’re not going to behave, I’m sending you outside to sit in the Jeep.”

  He was capable of good behavior, which he proved when he met and shook hands with George Gray Wolf—the owner of the trading post and a longtime acquaintance of her grandfather’s. George was short and squat, with a mole on his left cheek, skin the color of aged red bricks and a braid down his back that was iron gray. George thought the yellow shirt suited Cole. George would. Regan had never met a Navajo who didn’t have a wonderfully ironic sense of humor, and she’d hoped the trading post owner would keep Cole busy.

  No such luck. Shepherd was more trouble than an underfoot puppy. He found a cart. Regan decided that he’d specifically chosen the one cart in the whole store with a crooked back wheel; it made a noisy clattery-click down every aisle. He steered the turns like Mario Andretti and ran a commentary on every entry she put on.

  “Yogurt. Two percent milk. Cottage cheese and spinach and sprouts—and more rabbit food? Geez, princess, haven’t you ever heard of chemicals and cholesterol? Where’s the cookies? Where’s the red meat?”

  He slipped steaks into the cart, then wine, making a show of furtively hiding them under the atrocious yellow shirt that he apparently intended to buy. She picked up flour, potatoes, fruit. He heaped the cart with marshmallows and Twinkies. “You just don’t have a concept of serious staples, honey. Aren’t you glad I’m here to help?”

  She was. Enormously glad. This grocery excursion had been a dreaded chore, not a choice. Regan wanted nothing more than to hole in, crash, lock her doors on life and think things through from a quiet perspective, but that couldn’t be done until she had fresh food laid in. The shopping had to be accomplished, but she’d never expected it to be fun.

  It was Cole who made it fun, and for the first time in weeks Regan heard herself laughing, really laughing. As if he sensed how desperately she needed some pressure-free time, Cole never mentioned gems or thieves or trouble, never gave her a chance to think about them.

  Even after the cart was full to bulging, he wasn’t finished shopping. At the front of the store, curious as a boy, he had to poke and peer and finger all the Indian crafts. George was a craftsman in silver. He was also a master at suckering in every chance tourist dollar. There were sterling belt buckles, turquoise jewelry, carvings and kachina dolls...also fake little totem poles and similar made-in-Japan ilk to appeal to anyone under ten with a buck. Cole was neither fussy nor discriminating. He liked it all.

  “Ah, slugger? It’s about the ice cream melting.”

  “Will you look at these? You have a dozen of these on a shelf in the living room, don’t you? Yours or your grandfather’s?”

  Behind the dusty glass of the cabinet was a cluster of tiny animal carvings—coyotes and wolves and bears—each carved in stone and adorned with some kind of decoration, like turquoise beads or feathers. “Mine,” Regan admitted. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a hopeless fascination for fetishes—”

  Cole straightened up and leveled her a stare that had a lot in common with a lovesick calf. “Darling...me, too.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Will you cut it out?”

  But the devil wasn't about to let it go. “I had no idea, sweetling, that you had any special sexual preferences. Much less than you’d be willing to talk about them in a public place, but what the hey? Tell all. Tickling? A little silk scarf blindfolding? In the buff under the stars?”

  She knew he was a ruthless teaser. She knew. Even so, she could feel color shooting up her throat as bright as a brick. And Cole’s voice was a wicked, coaxing drawl.

  “Believe me, you can tell me. I’m open-minded to anything that might turn you on. At least I’d try, honey. Anything for you.”

  “Shepherd.” Her tone had a tiny twinge of desperation. “Fetishes are objects that have magical powers. They’re woven into several of the native cultures in the Southwest. Their purpose is to help people, to give them strength against certain kinds of problems. They’re carved in the form of animals, usually animals of prey, because those critters are considered the most powerful providers on earth. So the fetishes are something like guardians—”

  “I’ll be damned,” Cole interrupted, his tone curious, even fascinated. But not by the lore. “For the first time in five years, princess, I think I finally managed to shake your cool. I’ll put five bucks on the counter you’re pink straight down to your belly button.”

  With her most repressive sigh, she grabbed the handle on the cart and winged it straight for George, and the one and only checkout line. She swung item on item onto the rolling black belt, with disgraceful, deplorable images in her head of...being tickled. By Cole. In the buff under the stars.

  Regan buried the mental fantasies—quickly—and bit her lip, suddenly having to hold back a laugh. The unprincipled renegade had undoubtedly set her up. She had the sneaking suspicion that Cole knew all along what the Navajo fetishes were, and had pounced on the subject to razz her.

  She lifted the last item on the line—a sack of potatoes—and reached for the purse strap on her shoulder.

  Only there was no purse strap. Because there was no purse. For the second time in ten minutes, embarrassed color shot to her cheeks, and she spun around to face Cole.

  His arms were there. Before she’d even turned, he grabbed her tight and wrapped his arms around her. Later it would occur to her how deliberately misleading all his antics and bad humor and laid-back play had been. All along, he’d been expecting her to keel over. All along, he’d been prepared to jump if she so much as looked at him crosswise. Bracing her weight against him, as close as lovers, he pressed her cheek to the beat of his heart. “Just take it slow, take it easy, honey. Deep breaths. Take slow, deep breaths—”

  “Cole. I’m fine.”

  “If you don’t permanently weed that phrase out of your vocabulary, I’m gonna strangle you.” The threat was delivered in a gravelly whisper. A tender whisper. The black belt stopped rolling. George made a move forward that Cole stopped with a hand gesture. When Regan tried to move, though, he reanchored her head against his chest. “I’m the one guilty of dragging this out. I thought you needed a break, but I took it too far. We’ll get you out to the car, get you home. But there’s no hurry. Wait until you stop feeling dizzy—”

  For a moment Regan couldn’t get a word in. For a long, disgraceful moment, she didn’t want to. He’d glued her to him, this man who put up walls to avoid closeness. She felt his caroming heartbeat, the tension in hi
s hard thighs against her. His hand swept the length of her spine, browsing slow, seductively possessive.

  She swallowed. And then swallowed again. “If you would listen for a minute, Cole? I’m not feeling faint. I didn’t turn around to tell you I was dizzy. I turned around to tell you that I forgot my purse. I don’t have any money.”

  His hand stilled at the small of her back. “You're okay?” But he leaned back and cocked up her chin, clearly not taking her word for it. His gaze roamed her face—which had to have more color than the red rock hills; her lips—which were not trembly but firmly compressed; and her eyes—which were not dilated or blurred but shifty. Shifting all over the store—anything to avoid looking directly at Cole. “You're okay,” he announced.

  “Of course I’m not okay. I’m mortified to death. And I know I’ve explained before that I have this slight problem with ditsiness, but this is just plain stupid. How could I have walked out the door without money?”

  A slow grin angled across his mouth. “Forget that ditsy business. It’s far more likely that the irresistible sex appeal of my magnetic personality distracted you from thinking about money.”

  “Lord, give me strength,” Regan murmured.

  Cole chuckled as he dove in his back pocket for his wallet. “Hey. If you want me to get you out of hock, you gotta be nice. And one other term to this deal, and you have to agree to this before I fork over a dime—”

  “What?”

  “No rabbit food for dinner.”

  Around nine that night, Regan was sprawled like a heathen on a rug in the living room, watching Cole lug an armful of logs to the fireplace without lifting a finger to help him.

  An hour before, Cole had served her a platter heaped high enough to feed three men. A fat, thick steak, smothered in onions and mushrooms. A baked potato the size of Idaho, buried in bacon bits and cheese and sour cream and chives. A dish of ice cream, topped with hot fudge and maraschino cherries and nuts.