The Ties That Bind (15 page)

"Hell. So he was pretty serious about her."

"Sounds like it." I heard a shrug in her tone. "Here's the really surprising part. He left money to do that. So I'm going to contact the OMI and go over there with River and we'll have Dad transported back to Farmington. He even has a funeral home designated."

"Wow." I ran a hand through my hair. "Well, good for him, taking care of that, at least." "Yeah. River and I'll have to go to Farmington to do this in an official capacity. The lawyer's scheduling with Tonya." "Honey--" She kept talking. "This kind of official thing--I'll see when

River wants to go up and then I'll call the lawyer back."

"Sweets--"

"I've never been to one of these," she continued, as if she was trying to both avoid the subject of her father but somehow deal with his death.

"Babe," I said, with a little more force.

"What?" she sounded surprised, as if she didn't know I'd been trying to talk to her.

"I'm going with you." I nudged my gym bag with my toe.

Pause. "Really? Kase, that would be so great."

"Hey," I chided her. "I'm your partner. I love you. I'm not going to let you go through this without me. My schedule's pretty clear. So whenever you and River and Tonya can get together is fine by me."

Sage didn't respond right away but I heard her breathing. Then, "Thank you. I was afraid to ask." She said it in such a way that it reminded me of a kid trying to carefully wake up a sleeping adult.

That bothered me. "Why?"

"I didn't want you to freak out about getting sucked into family drama--"

"Okay, wait. I'm part of your family. When I signed up for this ride, I knew it wasn't always going to be rose petals and hallelujah choruses all the time. I'm in this with you, as long as we ride this horse. I know you sometimes have trouble believing that, but please try." I remembered how Melissa used to avoid asking me to help her with things because she was afraid of my reaction. Sage sometimes did that, too, and I recognized it as residue from growing up with an alcoholic parent. She never knew what kind of reaction she'd get so she learned not to ask for anything and not to rely too much on anyone because alcohol always pulled the rug out from under her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That wasn't a very healthy thing to do on my part."

"You don't need to apologize." I rubbed my palm on my shorts. "You didn't do anything wrong. You just need to remember that I'm not your past and you don't ever need to be worried about talking to me. Ever." I started pacing the length of the porch, wondering what I might be trying to work out, hooking up with another woman who grew up with an addict for a parent. The thought didn't go anywhere because in the great scheme of things, it didn't matter. I felt like
me
around Sage. I saw where I ended and she began, and how we complemented rather than subsumed each other. I loved her. And right now, that's what was important.

"Sometimes--" she hesitated.

"I know. Old stuff. And a lot of that is coming up right now. But I'm here. And that's the one thing you don't ever have to worry about. Okay?" I paused in front of one of the windows.

"It's hard for me sometimes," she admitted. "I'm working on it."

My gaze shifted to the windowsill, a little concrete ledge. At first, what I saw didn't register, so I turned my attention to my sandaled feet. "I know. It's okay. I'm working on stuff, too." I glanced again at the windowsill and this time, my brain clicked into gear. Several small turquoise stones, each irregularly shaped but about the size of my pinkie fingernail, lined up in a neat row from one end of the sill to the other. Even in the heat of an early August day, a chill tainted my skin. "What do you want for dinner?" I asked, almost jumping over my bags to get to the other window. Same thing. A row of turquoise.

"I'm cooking tonight."

"Cool. You want me to put anything out?" I reached for one of the stones but stopped and drew my hand back.

"Honey, what are you doing?"

"Uh, is there a reason that a bunch of turquoise is on our front windowsills?" I crouched down so I could study the stones without coming into physical contact with them.

"I put it there."

"When?"

"Thursday."

Two days after the porch incident. Why hadn't I noticed it before now? "Do I want to know why it's out here?" But I already knew. I just wanted to hear Sage's perspective.

"How about we talk about it when I get home?"

I thought I detected a bit of strain in her tone. "Sure. I'll see you when you get here."

We signed off and hung up, leaving me to ponder the turquoise as I unlocked the door and carried my stuff inside.

I LEANED AGAINST the counter, watching Sage cook, enjoying the way she coordinated so many things at once. She stirred the chicken dilruba in her favorite cast iron frying pan then she set the wooden spoon on the ceramic holder I'd bought her. She checked the nan in the oven and glanced over at me, smiling. "See anything you like?"

"You have no idea," I teased back. "I was thinking about that first time you invited me over. You cooked tikka masala. I knew I was in serious trouble from that point on."

"Trouble?" She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. It had gotten free of the leather tie.

"In a really good way."

She laughed and stirred the dilruba again. The florid but earthy smell of Indian food filled the kitchen and I remembered that first dinner with Sage, fighting my feelings until the moment she asked me to leave, saying she couldn't be that close to me and not want more. I asked her to dance and we did, there in the living room and all the reasons I'd manufactured to justify avoiding my attraction to her crumbled in the heat between us and the warmth of her mischievous smile.

"Turquoise can be a marking stone," she said, still stirring.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. "A deterrent?"

"Maybe." Sage continued to stir, not looking at me. Her arm moved in gentle, rhythmic circles.

"It's been almost four days," I said, remembering what Ellen Tsosie had told me.

Her arm stopped moving. She raised her head and her eyes held a strange, guarded expression. "I had someone over," she stated. "To do a cleansing ceremony." She stirred a few more times, then stopped and set the spoon on the holder.

"When?"

"Wednesday afternoon. I called you but you weren't at the house."

My throat tightened. "Why didn't you call my cell?"

She didn't answer. Instead she checked the nan in the oven, spending way too much time obsessively poking at it.

"Sage," I started.

She closed the oven door and straightened, staring at the stovetop, hands on her hips. She turned, something like resolve in the set of her jaw and shoulders. "I'm not sure."

I nodded, a sinking feeling in my stomach. Old stuff, I chanted wordlessly.

"I'm sorry. I was afraid you'd think I'd gone crazy, talking about witches."

"The Navajo kind?" I clenched and unclenched my teeth.

She exhaled and dropped her gaze. "Yes. I didn't want you to laugh at me."

That hurt, somehow. "Why would you think I'd laugh about that?"

She raised her head. "Because you can be so damn rational and logical. I knew you'd tell me it was just a dog, that I was just upset about the possibility that my father was dead on the Rez." She crossed her arms, daring me to refute her.

"I--you're right about my damn rational and logical side. But I would never make fun of you or what you believe."

"Not overtly." She turned her attention back to the stove, stirring again.

"What are you trying to say?" I stopped leaning on the counter, confused and hurt at the prickle in the air between us.

"I don't think like you do." She paused, watching the dilruba. "I've seen some things that logic can't explain. I don't look for explanations, either. I just accept that there are things I don't understand, things that don't respond to science or logic or rational thought." She met my gaze then, clouds gathering in her eyes like storms over Hopi mesas. "And maybe you don't do it on purpose, but you have a certain tone you use when I talk about things like this."

I kept my mouth shut, knowing it was the best course of action in this conversation.

"It's a professor tone. Respectful, but with a patronizing edge. Like you're trying to figure out how to get me to come around to your way of seeing things." She turned the heat off under the frying pan, every movement tense. She emptied the pan's contents into a serving bowl. Steam curled into the air as she did so. She did the same with the rice.

I didn't know what to say. I went through the last few days in the tight silence that separated us, and through other memories we'd been making. "Do I really sound like that?" I asked, throat tight.

She set the empty pan on the stove and regarded me, a softer expression in her eyes. "Sometimes." She picked up the dilruba and carried it out of the kitchen. I heard her place it on the table, which I'd already set. She came back and turned the oven off. Using tongs, she placed the pieces of nan in a cloth-lined basket and took that to the table then reappeared in the doorway, waiting. I took the pitcher of iced tea out of the fridge and brought it to the table, tense. Sage sat down at the end farthest from the kitchen and I took my usual seat to her right. She served us both. I waited until she finished then poured tea into our glasses.

I stared at my plate, trying to conjure my appetite. Sage's food was always amazing, but uncertainty about what she had said sat in my gut like concrete. Her fingers brushed mine, settled like feathers on my hand.

"Honey," she said, "I'm sorry I brought it up like that. I don't always think about things before I say them. As you know."

I looked at her fingers then at her face. "No, I'm glad you did. I didn't realize--" I lost the thought, not sure where I wanted it to go.

She squeezed my hand, giving me a few moments. Then, "What's your impulse right now?"

Another Sage segue. I exhaled. "What do you mean?"

"I know you'd rather be anywhere than talking about this. Where would that be?"

"No, that's not true. I don't want to be anywhere else. I just don't know what to do."

She curled her fingers around mine. "I love that about you," she said, tone gentle. "You always own your shit."

"I don't realize that I'm--"

"Acting like Professor Know-it-all?" she finished, a little smile fluttering at the corners of her mouth.

I nodded, relaxing. "I guess I need a safe word, too."

Sage smiled. "We'll work on one." She pulled my hand to her lips and kissed my knuckles before she released my fingers.

My appetite redeemed, I took a bite of dilruba and flavor exploded in my mouth. "Wow," I managed. "This is unbelievable." She'd added cinnamon, which somehow enhanced the turmeric and softened the ginger.

We ate in silence for a few minutes, me savoring every bite, stealing glances at Sage, seeking some kind of assurance.

"How do you feel about what I told you?" she asked.

I set my fork down and focused my attention on her. "I think that I probably do sound that way. I didn't realize I did, but I'm sorry I've made you feel bad." My stomach clenched.

She offered a little smile. "I know you don't do it on purpose. I'm sorry, too, for the space I'm in. I don't think what I said sounded very nice." She rested her hands in her lap and watched me, anxiety and uncertainty in her eyes. Mirrors to my own, perhaps.

"I researched some things," I said hesitantly. I waited for Sage to say something but she didn't, so I continued. "After you left on Wednesday, I spent a long time on the porch, trying to figure out what it was I saw. Trying to make myself believe that it was just a dog."

Sage remained quiet, but in her eyes I saw something. Hope?

"But nothing made sense. So I poked around in--um-- paranormal fields, trying to find a match."

"Did you?"

"Not right off. But then I got an e-mail back from Ellen and I tried a couple other angles." I stopped, uncomfortable.

"You found something." It wasn't a question but I treated it as such.

"Maybe. So I did some more research. Navajo witches and--" I stopped then looked at Sage. "Ellen said that words have power, that in Navajo--Diné--tradition," I corrected myself, "you can conjure bad things by speaking of them and so I didn't use the words for the witches when I talked to her. At first I think I was doing that out of respect for her traditions, but then I thought about it and it makes perfect sense for anyone." I gestured with my fork. "I mean, the kind of energy you put out into the world is what you get back. So it makes sense that words have energy, since it requires energy to think them and then say them..." I was rambling. "Anyway, I did a little more research and decided that I was freaking myself out so I quit. Bad ju-ju." I moved food around on my plate, waiting for Sage to say something.

Instead, she pushed back from the table and stood. I started to ask her what was up but before I could she straddled me, trapped my face in her hands, and kissed me hard and deep. My fork clinked against my plate as I dropped it. My hands found Sage's hips and her fingers dug into my hair.

She stopped and tied me up with the look in her eyes. "I love that you surprise me like this."

"You're one to talk." I ran my hands up her back.

She grinned devilishly and no further coherent thought entered my mind as she kissed me again. Her hands dropped to my breasts and I groaned against her mouth. "You like that?" she whispered.

"Uh..."

"You like this too?" She started moving slowly against me.

"Oh, my God," I managed, sliding my hands to her thighs.

"Sounds like a yes," she breathed against my ear before she nipped at my neck.

I moved my head, granting her better access and she gave my neck a thorough working over that left me weak in all the right places and soaked in my shorts.

"I think I need a bit more," she said, and she started pulling my tee off.

"Whoa, honey--the door--"

She stopped, glancing over my shoulder at the open front door. "The security door's locked." And she continued working on my tee.