Blackwolf's Redemption (15 page)

Today was December 22. The winter solstice would happen today. Or tonight. Who knew what you called that precise instant that marked the dividing line between the shortest number of daylight hours and the longest time of darkness? All that mattered was that the winter solstice was coming, and yes, all this old stuff was rubbish…

Except, maybe it wasn’t.

Maybe it was real. Hell, of course it was real. How else could Sienna have come to him? She had been the one chosen by fate to slip through time. He had no idea why, didn’t give a damn why…

He only knew that it had happened.

Could that honor somehow now fall to him?

What could he lose by trying?

“Nothing,” he said into the silence of the room. Nothing, when he had already lost the only woman he would ever love.

He looked at his watch. It was already going on eleven. It sounded like a bad joke, but he was running out of time.

What did a man take when he hoped to travel through time? He grabbed his wallet, ran for the door, stopped, went back and scooped up the envelope confirming his ownership of Microsoft stock that had come in the day’s mail, stuffed everything into the pocket of the denim jacket he grabbed from a hook in the mudroom. He headed for the barn. The Silverado would be faster but instinct told him a horse, not a truck, was the right choice for what would surely be the most important ride of his life.

He didn’t bother saddling Cloud, simply slipped on the stallion’s bridle, then jumped on his back and leaned over the proud, arched neck.

“Go, boy,” he whispered. The horse seemed to sense his urgency. Cloud tore over the land, across a thin layer of icy snow, the frigid wind blowing in Jesse’s face.

But he’d made a mistake. Riding the stallion had seemed right, but even Cloud’s great speed had not been enough. By the time they reached the canyon, the demarcation between autumn and winter was less than two minutes away.

Jesse slid from the horse’s back and ran toward Blackwolf Mountain, looming high above him. He looked up at it; the darkness was so deep he couldn’t see the ledge. He couldn’t see anything, not the stones, not the handholds he’d need.

“Sienna,” he said, his voice rising into the silence of the night like a prayer. “Sienna, I love you, sweetheart! Sienna!”

All at once, thunder roared eerily overhead. Echoed over the mountain. Lightning, green as an emerald’s heart, sizzled through the black winter sky.

Jesse flung back his head, threw up his arms.

“The old ways can never die as long as they live in your heart,” he cried. “I was too foolish to see that until now!”

The lightning struck. He felt as if his soul were on fire.

“Sienna,” he whispered.

The lightning struck again and he fell, unconscious, to the ground.

Sienna had vowed never to return to Blackwolf Canyon.

It held too many memories that broke her heart.

She’d buried herself in work, going on digs in Mexico and in Belize. She’d explored sites no one had seen in thousands of years, unearthed pottery that now was on exhibit in the great American Museum of Natural History in New York. She’d written endless papers. She had her doctorate.

But nothing would ever fill the void in her heart.

She lived in Manhattan now, in a small apartment near the museum. And dreamed, every night, of Jesse, awakening each morning with her pillow damp with tears.

But this morning was different.

She awoke very early, and with a sense of anticipation. It made no sense. This would be a day like any other. She’d work all day, come home to an empty apartment and tumble into bed, exhausted, to dream again of all she had lost.

The only thing different was that this was the morning of the winter solstice.

“So what?” she said into the silence.

The answer came with stunning speed.

Sienna. You must be in Blackwolf Canyon at midnight tonight.

Wonderful. Now there were voices in her head.

It was crazy and she wasn’t going to do it. Hadn’t she vowed she would never go back? But the voice inside her was persistent, and finally she stopped trying to figure out if
maybe, this time, she actually was going crazy. There was only one way to find out.

She rushed to Kennedy airport, went to the American Airlines ticket counter and said she had to be in Bozeman, Montana, by evening.

There was one ticket available; it took her to Denver, where she changed planes. Once in Bozeman, she rented a Jeep, drove like a madwoman across the wild, empty land with Blackwolf Mountain on the horizon first as a speck, then a dot, then as a towering presence.

When she finally drove into the canyon, it was eleven o’clock. She put her foot down on the gas pedal until the Jeep was damned near airborne.

She had to reach the mountain, reach the ledge; she had to be there when the shortest daylight hours of the year became the longest hours of darkness even though she didn’t know why….

And, God, she wasn’t going to make it. The dashboard clock read three minutes to midnight.

“Come on,” Sienna said, her voice shaking, “come on, come on, come—”

Thunder roared overhead. She cried out; the Jeep skidded on the icy grass as the thunder roared again. There it was. The mountain, a dark, menacing hulk straight ahead.

Lightning, green lightning, slashed the sky.

Sienna stood on the brakes. Flung open the door. Her lips were moving in silent prayer. She didn’t know what it was, what she was saying, only that she wanted the green lightning to strike again, to hit her squarely as she raised her face and arms to the sky.

It struck.

Not her.

It struck all around her and she screamed as the world tilted….

“Sienna?”

Her heart stood still. That voice. That beloved voice, husky and deep and so wonderfully, magnificently familiar.

The sky lightened. The moon appeared. The stars, a billion of them, blazed down on Blackwolf Canyon….

“Sienna,” Jesse said, and when she spun around she saw him running toward her, arms open and waiting.

“Jesse? Oh, God, Jesse!”

She flew into his embrace, weeping, sobbing, tasting the salt of their commingled tears as they kissed. He held her that way for a long, long time and then, at last, she drew back and looked up into his beautiful face.

“How?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I found something my father had written. And I knew, I just knew it meant I could find you.” He lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his throat. “Never leave me again,” he said fiercely.

“Never. Never, never, never…”

He kissed her. She clung to him. Suddenly, a big, velvet muzzle intruded between them.

“Cloud,” Jesse said, and laughed. The stallion whinnied; gently, Jesse pushed him away. “I love you, Sienna,” he said softly. “I always will.”

“Until the end of time,” she whispered.

“Until the end of time,” he echoed, because as long as he had this woman in his arms, time had no end. The year, the place didn’t matter.

Jesse Blackwolf was, at long last, home.