Blackwolf's Redemption (14 page)

He looked at her. He’d all but forgotten the papers in the folder on his desk.

“Years from now, someone is going to turn it into a resort.”

He nodded. “Sooner than that,” he said, “but not really a resort. A group of homes on big chunks of property, maybe a ski lift.”

Sienna shook her head. “The land will remain untouched until 2010. Then a developer will fill your beautiful canyon with row upon row of houses built around a golf course.”

The muscle jumped in his jaw. A week ago, he wouldn’t have cared. At least, that was what he’d told himself. Who gave a damn for ancient rituals, for the sanctity of the land? He’d wanted to rid himself of a burdensome past filled with lies about honor, duty, history.

Now that had changed. A woman, this woman, had brought him back to himself. He could no more sell the land of his fathers than he could give her up, and he smiled as he took her into his arms.

“I won’t sell this land,” he said softly. “How could I, when it brought me you?”

Hours later, an enormous white moon began rising in the black velvet sky.

Jesse stirred, rolled on his side and stroked a gold curl from Sienna’s forehead. “A full moon,” he said softly. “Will you come out on the porch and see it with me?”

She sat up. The beautiful old quilt from the sofa dropped
to her waist, revealing her breasts. He cupped one, caressed the sensitive tip, watched her eyes darken.

“The moon will be beautiful,” he said in a husky whisper, “though not as beautiful as you.”

Sienna brushed her lips over his. “Can we see it from the canyon?” She smiled. “It would be the perfect end to a perfect day.”

She was right. Still, he felt a quick sense of unease. And that was nonsense. The canyon was as much his home as this house. Hadn’t he just thought of how it had brought Sienna into his life?

“Jesse?”

He kissed her. Her mouth, her throat, her breasts. “You’ll have to pay the price when we get back.”

Her soft, sexy laughter made his body harden in anticipation.

“You drive a tough bargain, Mr. Blackwolf.”

The dark mood that had threatened to overcome him fell away. He rose to his feet, pulled on his shirt, his jeans, felt the outline of the sterling-pipestone-and-horsehair bracelet in his pocket. Smiling, he offered her his hand.

“Come on, woman,” he said in a teasing voice of command. “We’re wasting time.”

She rose in one sinuous motion. The darkness hovered over him again, but he told himself he was being an idiot, and he flashed a grin and swatted her on her naked backside.

“Hey,” she said, with mock indignation.

He tilted her chin up and dropped a light kiss on her nose.

“I’ll saddle the horses while you get dressed.”

“Perfect,” she said.

She was right. What better place to give her the bracelet than the canyon where they’d found each other?

What better place to tell her that he loved her, and wanted to make her his wife?

T
HEY
rode out slowly, the horses casting long shadows as they picked their way over the meadow.

The night was still and cool, the sky a black colander pierced by the light of a thousand stars. A fat ivory moon rose above the jagged rim of the canyon, limning the stark peaks with an almost merciless light.

It was beautiful, all of it. The moon, the stars, the canyon and Blackwolf Mountain, now looming just ahead…but Jesse’s feeling of unease was growing.

Maybe coming out here hadn’t been such a good idea.

Halfway into the canyon, he reached for the mare’s reins and brought both horses to a halt.

Sienna looked at him in surprise. “Why are we stopping?”

Why, indeed? He, of all people, didn’t believe in premonitions. Besides, he wasn’t having a premonition, he just had this uncomfortable feeling…

“Jesse? I thought we were going to ride all the way into the canyon, to Blackwolf Mountain.”

He draped Cloud’s reins over the saddle horn and slid to the ground.

“The view is perfect here,” he said, reaching up to Sienna.
“See? The stars, the moon right overhead…” He smiled as she slipped into his arms. “Besides,” he said, “it’s been too long since I kissed you.”

She laughed softly as she linked her hands behind his neck.

“Much too long,” she agreed, and lifted her face to his.

He kissed her, his mouth gentle on hers, tasting the sweetness that was hers alone, gathering her tightly to him until their bodies seemed to be one. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote sent a mournful cry into the night.

Sienna shivered.

“Baby? Are you cold?”

“No. It’s just…” She hesitated. “There’s such a sense of peace here, but there’s also—there’s something else. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just a feeling—”

“Yes. I know.” He did. He felt it, too. An indescribable sense of peace and—and something more, something that made the hair rise on the nape of his neck.

It was as if the canyon was filled with the old beliefs tonight. Nonsense, of course. Besides, he’d brought Sienna here for a reason. This was where he had found her. It seemed right that this should be where he told her how much he loved her.

“Sweetheart?”

“Mmm?”

“I have—I have something to tell you.”

She tilted her head. “Something bad?”

Great. Just great. That was one hell of a start, but then, he’d never done this before. He and Linda had just sort of ended up married; he’d never been able to remember actually proposing.

The coyote howled again—or was it a coyote? The sound was too deep, too wild, too filled with loneliness. Sienna caught her breath.

“Jesse, that’s a wolf! I didn’t know there were wolves left in Montana. There will be, in my time, but not now.”

“Yeah. It’s a wolf, all right. I’ve seen him. A big guy. A male.”

“Ah,” she said, the word filled with compassion. “He must be lonely.”

Jesse nodded and raised her face to his. “He is,” he said quietly. “He needs a mate. A mate he can love, who will love him forever.”

His voice was low. Sienna’s heart began to race.

“What a lucky female she’ll be.”

He smiled. “You think?”

“I know. To have a mate like that…”

“Sienna. I’m in love with you.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t answer. His gut knotted. Why hadn’t he waited? It was too soon. She wasn’t ready. She might never be ready. Maybe what she felt for him was gratitude.

He was a fool. He was moving too fast, asking too much of a woman who was still trying to understand what had happened to her—

“Oh, Jesse…”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah. I know. Too much, too fast, too—”

“Jesse, I love you, too. I adore you!”

Jesse whooped as if he were a warrior counting coup. He’d learned the victorious cry from his father, passed it on to the men he’d led into battle—and had never imagined making such a joyous sound again. Sienna laughed as he caught her in his arms, whirled her in circles and kissed her, over and over.

When he put her on her feet, their laughter stopped. He looked deep into her eyes.

“I have something for you,” he said softly. “I know I’ve told
you I don’t believe in the old ways, but…” Moonlight lit the bracelet as he took it from his pocket. “But I believe in this.”

Sienna caught her breath. “Oh, it’s beautiful.”

“It’s old. Very old. My father gave it to my mother. His father gave it to his mother. The men of my father’s family have given it to their women for hundreds of years.” He paused. Sienna’s eyes were on his. What was she thinking? She’d said she loved him, but another woman, one to whom he’d never given this bracelet, had once used those same words…

“I know what it is,” she said softly. “It’s a totem. A token.” She reached out and put her hand on his chest. “And I am honored that you offer it to me.”

Jesse felt his throat constrict. “But?”

She gave a low, quicksilver laugh. “But, if you don’t say the rest of the words, I’m never going to forgive you!”

It was as if all the pain, all the despair in his heart gave way.

“The honor is mine,” he said as he slipped the ancient bracelet on her wrist. “Sienna. Will you marry me and be my love, forever?”

Tears glittered in her eyes. “Oh, yes. Yes, my darling, yes!”

Jesse gathered her close, bent his head and kissed her. Her lips parted under his; the taste of her filled him. He slipped his hands under her sweater, groaned as she sighed her pleasure into his mouth.

Thunder, deep and menacing, rolled across what had been a cloudless sky.

Sienna jumped. “Jesse?”

He looked up. What the hell was happening here? The moon was suddenly gone. The stars had fled. The canyon had become so dark that he couldn’t even see the horses. Through the impenetrable blackness, he heard Cloud’s terrified whinny.

“Jesse.” Sienna wrapped her arms more tightly around him. “What’s going on?”

It was a damned good question. He didn’t know, didn’t like not knowing. Something nuzzled his shoulder. Cloud, he thought with relief, and grabbed for the reins with one hand.

“Come on,” he said grimly. “Get up on Cloud and we’ll get the hell out of—”

The thunder rolled again. It sounded like a freight train aimed directly at them. Sienna screamed—and, all at once, a shaft of green lightning split the darkness.

“Jesse!”

He dropped the reins, gathered Sienna more closely against him. Something—the wind, the night—something was trying to tear her from his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he shouted. “I won’t let you go—”

It didn’t matter.

One second, the woman he loved was in his arms.

The next, she was gone.

The low buzz of voices.

A warm breeze.

Cool water on her face.

Sienna moaned. “Jesse?”

“She’s coming around,” a voice said.

“Thank goodness!” another voice added.

“Sienna? Open your eyes.”

It wasn’t easy, but she did. And moaned again. Her head ached. She was nauseous. Dizzy. And the sun, beating down on her, was a brutal force.

The sun?

Oh, God!
“Jesse,” Sienna gasped, and sat up.

“Easy.”

The voice was male—but it wasn’t Jesse’s. She blinked; faces came into focus. “Jack?”

“Take it easy,” Jack said. “Don’t try to move just yet.”

“What happened?”

“We had one of those crazy summer electrical storms,” one of the grad students said excitedly. “Lightning, you know? It hit too close and you passed out.”

“Jesse,” she said again, her voice trembling.

“There’s no Jesse here,” Jack said impatiently.

“She must have been dreaming,” the grad student said.

Sienna raised a shaking hand to her head. There was a lump behind her ear. “What—what happened?”

“We just told you,” Jack said, his tone accusatory.

“A storm,” the grad student said. “And a bolt of what looked like green lightning hit the ledge up there.”

“And,” Jack said, “you went down.”

Sienna stared at him. “So—so, I was unconscious?”

“Yup.”

“But—but for how long? How many days?”

Jack snorted. “Days? Minutes, just minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Something like that.”

A moan burst from Sienna’s throat. A dream? Was that what this had been? Only a dream? No. No!

“You were out long enough to miss the good news.”

“What good news?”

“Just had a text message from the university. We can take our time with this expedition. Turns out the land’s not for sale, after all.”

Sienna felt her heart lift. “It isn’t?”

“Nope. Somebody just found papers dated July ’75. Seems the guy who owned it changed his mind, turned the place into a trust that’ll stay forever wild.”

Sienna’s head was spinning. If she’d dreamed it all, why had someone just found papers making the canyon and the surrounding land forever wild?

And yet—and yet, such a thing was feasible. Lawyers and scholars were always turning up old documents.

But she couldn’t have dreamed Jesse. He had been so real. His kisses. His smile. His love.

Tears rose in her eyes. She dug in her pocket for a tissue, found none and wiped her arm across her face.

“Hey,” Jack said, “nice!”

She blinked. “What?”

“Never noticed that before.” She looked at him blankly. “The bracelet. Must be a few hundred years old. Didja get it in Bozeman?”

Sienna looked at the beautiful bracelet that encircled her wrist. Horsehair. Sterling silver. Pipestone.

“Jesse,” she whispered.

Her heart filled with joy. What had happened had been real—but it was over. She had lost Jesse, she would never lie in his arms again.

Burying her face in her hands, she began to weep.

“What?” Jack said, but she didn’t even try to answer.

After a while, they all walked away. Trauma, she heard one of them say. Stress.

Let them think what they wished. There was no possible way to explain what had happened…

Or to explain her broken heart.

Time slipped past.

It didn’t rush backward or gallop relentlessly forward. No holes swallowed Jesse up. Time just kept moving, and so did he.

He spent days searching the canyon, the mountain, every
inch of his land, looking for Sienna, even though he damned well knew he wouldn’t find her.

Something had torn her from his arms. Something more powerful than any enemy he’d ever encountered. This was an enemy he could not see, could not describe, could not touch.

Could not defeat.

The realization half-killed him.

His woman was gone. God only knew where she was, and he—he was helpless to find her.

His men treated him with caution. They thought Sienna had left him. He didn’t try to explain. How could he? He couldn’t explain it to himself.

When he ran out of places to search, he flew to San Francisco, to New York, to half a dozen universities where scholars knew all there was to know about astronomy and time and physics. When he ran out of universities, he walked the streets of dangerous neighborhoods, sat through the nonsense of séances and tarot-card readings. He was willing to try anything, everything.

It did no good.

Sienna was gone.

It was his fault.

If only he hadn’t brought her to the canyon…

He tried not to waste time on self-pity. All he wanted was to figure out what had happened, come up with a way to find his Sienna and bring her back.

Was she in her own time again? Maybe. He tore up the sale papers for his land, had his bewildered attorney draw up documents that would instead protect it forever.

Maybe she would know about it.

It was like putting a message in a bottle and tossing into a vast, uncharted sea, but it was, at least, something.

And, finally, when there was nothing else left, he buried himself in work. He sweated and toiled alongside his men, rebuilding fences, herding, branding, doing whatever he could to keep from thinking of what had been taken from him forever, what he would never find again.

Days became weeks, weeks became months. The heat of summer gave way to the chill of autumn. Winter was fast approaching. The weather, like Jesse’s heart, was cold and bitter.

Nights were the worst. You couldn’t do much on a ranch once darkness settled over it. He took to going through the old books and papers his father had collected.

Maybe, just maybe, he might discover something in them that would help him understand what had happened.

The books were full of legends. The papers were mostly notes that spoke of things Jesse no longer believed but could not so easily dismiss, not after what had happened to him and the woman he loved.

Then, one night, he stumbled across a map. It was old, older than the bracelet he’d given Sienna; it had been drawn on a piece of tanned deerskin. It took less than a minute to see what it depicted: the canyon, the ledge, the sacred stone.

A sheet of paper was clipped to it. Jesse recognized his father’s handwriting.

Jesse’s heart began to race. He sat down at his desk and read the rest. At first, the words erased any faint hope he
might have harbored. Some ancients had apparently gone through the opening between the stones to another time. None had ever come back.

But every four hundred years, his father had written, there would be a very special summer solstice. It was said that on that day, one chosen by fate could slip through the opening. The portal would remain open until the sun could no longer climb to the top of Blackwolf Mountain. Then, months later, at the moment when the shortest day became the longest night, it would close and remain closed until the four-hundred-year cycle repeated.

The moment when the shortest day became the longest night. When the shortest period of daylight became the longest period of darkness.

The winter solstice.

“The winter solstice,” Jesse said, and leaped to his feet.