Renee Simons Special Edition (63 page)

When he'd gone into the barn, Stormwalker found Grandmother saddling her horse. She'd had enough of people for a while, she said, and needed to get back to the solitude that helped her find a balance in her life.

At her front door, she took Zan's hand. "You come visit me any time you want, Granddaughter." She nodded in her grandson's direction. "Let me know how this one is doing."

Certain that they hadn’t been followed, they left her seated in her high-backed wicker chair and continued on their way.

At the western edge of the reservation flowed a stream that overran its banks in spring and watered the wide grasslands on either side. Now it was nearly dry, another testament to the heat and infrequent rain that plagued the area in summer.

They followed the stream bed to where it disappeared into the woods marking the reservation's boundary. Zan gave Stormwalker a questioning look. He pointed ahead, then rode into the thicket as she followed directly behind. When the trees and underbrush became heavier, they dismounted and led their horses.

Finally, they broke through and entered a wide meadow carpeted in buffalo grass whose golden seed pods glistened in the sun. The last of the summer's wild flowers studded the field with faded purples and pinks.

"It's unbelievable," Zan whispered, "like a mirage."

"That's what it's called. A French explorer was so overcome by its existence he named it Le Mirage."

Zan listened to the sigh of the wind in the pines bordering the meadow, heard a bird's call and the gurgle of water. "It feels like we're the first people to visit."

"Time stands still here." He took her hand and they started across the field. "It isn't on most maps, so few people know of its existence and fewer still come here. We should have the place to ourselves."

"Not quite." She pointed to a doe and two fawns making their way through the grass.

"They've come to drink. We might even see some elk, if we're lucky."

They did see elk, as well as other smaller animals that came to drink. Further upstream a beaver dam held back some of the flow, raising the water's level. They unsaddled their horses and left them to graze while they walked down to the bank and sat on a driftwood log.

"I'm going for a swim." Stormwalker rose, took off his tee shirt and turned to Zan. "Join me?"

"Like this?" She glanced at her clothes.

"You might want to strip down to your skivvies and keep your outer clothes dry for later. It gets mighty cold after sundown and colder still if you're wet."

"You make going half naked sound so logical," she commented in a dubious tone.

He came to her and undid the top two buttons of her blouse. "There's no one here to see us, Red. Except us." His eyes held an irresistible twinkle.

"And we've already seen us."

"So how about it?"

Zan nodded. Stormwalker turned his back and chucked his jeans, giving her a moment of privacy. She shed her own shirt and denims and followed him out into the middle of the chest high pool formed by the beaver's dam.

The water cooled and soothed away the day's heat. They swam and splashed and played tag. Reluctant to indulge the emotions that had been aroused by its silky, sensuous power, they kissed and touched lightly. Finally, they floated on their backs, moving slowly with the current, watching the darkening sky fade from blue, to violet, to deepest gray.

Zan closed her eyes and rested on top of the water, pretending as in childhood that she was a leaf, light and free, drifting wherever the water took her. Something rippled the surface and she found herself looking at the snout of a long brown snake making its way up the length of her body.

She screamed in panic and thrashed about in an effort to escape. In the process, she swallowed water instead of air and sank beneath the water's surface. Unable to take a breath before submerging, she dropped like a stone. Her body weight carried her lower and her lungs compressed beneath the water's pressure. Reason told her she should have touched bottom by now, but her feet found nothing solid on which to rest.

The night she'd been shot she'd thought, "This must be what it feels like to drown." She'd reached out to her partner. He'd taken her hand, holding on to keep her from sinking too far, anchoring her with his voice and his touch until help came, refusing to let go even in the ambulance.

I was wrong, she decided. This is what it's like to drown. And this time there was nothing to hold on to. She sank further, expelling the last of her air to relieve the pressure on her eardrums.

An inner voice shattered the lethargy that gripped her. "Do something," it goaded. "Don't give in."

In the only move she could think of, she brought her knees up to her chest and kicked downward, pushing against the force tugging at her. The move slowed her descent. Another kick stopped it. The next sent her back toward the surface.

Using her arms now as well as her legs, she was able to propel herself upward, nearly colliding with Stormwalker, who was heading down through the murky, churning water. She felt his arm hook around her waist and they swam in tandem to the surface, where he held her while her body struggled to rid itself of the water depriving it of life-sustaining oxygen.

Beneath his hand, Stormwalker could feel her diaphragm spasm as she coughed again and again. Her rib cage rose and fell violently and he knew her lungs were straining inside her chest. He carried her ashore, laying her face down on the sand. Turning her head to one side, he pressed gently on her back, setting up a slow, steady rhythm that cleared her lungs, enabling her to draw breath smoothly.

Finally, he helped her sit up. As she leaned her shivering body against the log at the water's edge, he wiped the sand from her cheek with a gentle touch.

"I'll be right back."

She nodded, her gaze following him as he went for their clothes and bedrolls and slung the saddlebags over his shoulder. He returned and dried her with his shirt, vigorously rubbing her arms and legs to increase circulation. When she was warm again and the shivering had stopped, he helped her dress and draped a blanket over her shoulders.

He built a small but potent fire, and finally gave himself a moment to dress before sitting down beside her. She hadn't said a word but simply watched his every movement. He reached over and pulled her across his lap, cradling her in his arms, pressing her body toward his so she could feel the soothing rhythm of his heartbeat. He took comfort in her nearness and hoped his presence would help her in the same way.

"I was afraid for you," he whispered against her hair. "One minute you were here, the next you were gone. It was only then I remembered the sinkhole. But I couldn't see through the water to find you. All I could do was feel my way and think, 'I've killed her'. " A shudder coursed through him.

"It isn't your fault I'm afraid of snakes," she said. Her voice had gone hoarse from the coughing that had wracked her body.

"It was my brilliant idea to come here in the first place, and my fault you were out there with no warning of the danger."

Zan raised herself and kissed him lightly on the mouth. "I loved your 'brilliant idea'. I still do." When he started to protest, she laid a finger against his lips. "You're wasting precious time."

"It isn't wasted. It's time your body needs to come back to itself."

"Aren't you thinking about the reason we came out here? I'd be terribly hurt if you weren't."

He watched her face in the firelight, remembered the beauty of her barely clothed body and how it had driven him crazy to be so close to her without repeating last night's shared passion. "Yes, I'm thinking about it, but you're hardly out of danger. You need time to recover."

Zan slipped an arm around his neck and pulled his head down. "What better time, or better way, to recover. To celebrate life?" She caressed his lips with her own, then let her mouth trail temptingly along the line of his jaw and down his neck.

Stormwalker understood what she was feeling, the exhilaration that came with the illusion of having cheated death. Men on the line often experienced the same emotion when they found themselves lucky enough to have survived a battle.

The adrenaline that her body had manufactured hadn't totally dissipated with the danger's passing. Its tell-tale signs remained in her uneven pulse and erratic heartbeat, in the unnatural glitter in her eyes that had nothing to do with the firelight reflected in them. It was evident in the nervous energy that threatened to tear her out of his arms and send her running down the beach. For want of another way to use that energy, she sought release in the oldest way known to mankind.

She watched him, waiting for his answer, but he could find no words to describe his reluctance. Instead, he silently left her and went to the saddle bags, removing food and utensils. He made coffee and set out tin plates and battered stainless steel knives and forks that had been part of his father's camping gear. They reminded him of the best times of his youth, when life had been easy and uncomplicated, when father and son had been able to sit for hours, working out the problems of the world and planning for the future.

Zan knelt beside him to lay out the food, dividing the cold chicken and the salad, adding chunks of cheese, crusty bread and slices of melon. When they finally got down to the business of eating, she had little appetite, but at his urging, ate some of the cheese and fruit and sipped the coffee, which seemed to warm her, but did nothing to combat the sudden weariness that overcame her.

Her eyelids drooped and she smiled her thanks as he took the cup. She found the blanket again, wrapped it around herself and lay down by the fire. One deep breath later she was asleep.

Satisfied, Stormwalker cleaned away the remnants of their meal. He built up the fire and lay beside her, keeping an arm around her waist so he would know when she stirred. He slept so soundly, however, that when he finally woke, he found her seated on the end of the log with her back to the fire. He sat beside her as she stared into the darkness.

"Couldn't sleep?"

She shook her head but remained silent. When he touched her cheek, it was damp with tears. He knew her well enough by now to suspect the source of those tears.

"Why are you angry?"

She left him and walked along the stream bank. He followed, detaining her with a hand on her arm, but she jerked away and kept walking until he blocked her path. She stared at him with shimmering eyes, but held her ground.

"What's bothering you?"

"Why did you turn away from me?" She stared at him for what seemed an eternity. "Were we ever meant to have more than one night together?"

"Why would you ask that?"

Suddenly she seemed shy and insecure, almost like the inexperienced teenager he sometimes felt himself to be with her. "I'm beginning to wonder about the men I've . . . cared about." She breathed deeply and then exhaled a long breath. "Whether or not they shared, share, my feelings." Her voice faltered, then came back strong. "Whether you and I were ever meant to be more than a one-night stand."

Silently, he railed against the implications of her question. Did she think him so selfish as to believe he was using her? Or imagine that one night could possibly satisfy his need for her? Or that he would settle for a casual romp when his deepest hopes for the future were bound up in a life with her?

No, he thought, she has reason to doubt and I have nothing to offer that can change that. I'd eat my .45 before I'd go back to prison and she's already lost one man she loved. I won't cause her that kind of pain again.

Feeling like a liar because of what he couldn't tell her, what she had every right to hear, he crushed her lips beneath his in the only testimony to his love he could give. Hungrily, he devoured the taste of her, drove his tongue deep into her mouth and raked the moist insides, drew her life-affirming breath into him as he pressed her hard against the need no single night with her could assuage.

A protest sounded deep inside her throat. He released her mouth to let her take in air. One hand tangled in her hair, holding her lips only a breath away as the other cupped her bottom to keep her tightly pinned against him.

"Does this tell you what you need to know?"

Zan tried to answer but found herself without enough breath to speak. He was all fire and heat and power and she felt as if she would melt. Her skin gave her no protection. Her legs had turned liquid. Her gaze fell before the twin flames that had consumed the green of his eyes, leaving only a hot, golden light that blinded like the sun at noon.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground. She had no choice but to clutch his shoulders and cling to him while he walked back to the campfire. With her body suspended along the length of his and his eyes locked on hers, she felt impaled and unable to break loose. She could feel the bones and muscles of his body move as he walked, and feel his heartbeat pound between them and his breath on her face.

Her own ragged breath filled the air as she struggled for control and failed. With a moan, she lowered her mouth to his and tasted him as he had tasted her moments before, exploring the firm, warm lips, the slick surface of his teeth, lightly touching the tip of his waiting tongue, losing herself in him and her body's reactions.