RIDER ON FIRE

Like a bat out of hell, undercover DEA agent Sonora Jordan jumps on her motorcycle and takes off to parts unknown, escaping the deadly drug dealers who had put a price on her head. All the while, she is haunted by dreams of a man whose place in her life she is yet to discover.

When she literally comes face-to-face with the man of her dreams, it’s as if time stands still. Her long-dormant heart is finally awakened. But will she ever be truly free from the dangerous life she left behind?

WHEN YOU CALL MY NAME

She gave him the most precious gift of all—the gift of life. But something more than a blood transfusion links Wyatt Hatfield to the stranger who saved him. Something that allows her to call out to him for help in the middle of the night—without ever speaking a word.

Now it’s his turn to give. For the connection that links Wyatt to Glory Dixon is the only hope he has of saving her from danger….

Praise for the novels of Sharon Sala

“Veteran romance writer Sala lives up to her reputation with this well-crafted thriller.”

—Publishers Weekly on Remember Me

“Chilling and relentless…”

—RT Book Reviews on The Chosen

“Wear a corset because your sides will hurt from laughing! This is Sharon Sala at top form. You’re going to love this touching and memorable book.”

—New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber on Whippoorwill

“[A] rare ability to bring powerful and emotionally wrenching stories to life.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Perfect entertainment for those looking for a suspense novel with emotional intensity.”

—Publishers Weekly on Out of the Dark

“…knows just how to steep the fires of romance to the gratification of her readers.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Sharon Sala masterfully manages to get deeply into her characters.”

—RT Book Reviews

Also by SHARON SALA

THE CHOSEN

MISSING

WHIPPOORWILL

CAPSIZED

DARK WATER

OUT OF THE DARK

SNOWFALL

BUTTERFLY

REMEMBER ME

REUNION

SWEET BABY

Rider on Fire & When You Call My Name
Sharon Sala

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Rider on Fire

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

When you Call My Name

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Rider on Fire

The Oklahoma Outlaws, my state chapter of Romance Writers of America, has less than forty members, and a half dozen of those are breast cancer survivors. Devastating illnesses are never fair. They didn’t get to pick and choose the trials and tribulations that came with living their lives, but by golly those girls know how to live it regardless.

Because I am so proud to be an Outlaw, and because I love and admire those women so much for showing us what’s really important in life, I would like to dedicate this book to them.

Ladies, this is my “pink ribbon” for all of you.

To Peggy King, Jo Smith, Willie Ferguson, Julia Mozingo, Chris Rimmer and Donnell Epperson, and to all the women everywhere, including my editor, Leslie Wainger, who have been forged in the fire of cancer and lived to be inspirations for us all—

PINK FOREVER!!!

Chapter 1

The small squirrel was just ready to scold—its little mouth partially opened as it clutched the acorn close to its chest. In the right light, one could almost believe the tail had just twitched.

Franklin Blue Cat called it The Sassy One. It was one of his latest carvings and in three months would be featured, along with thirty other pieces of his work, in a prestigious art gallery in Santa Fe. He hoped he lived long enough to see it.

Franklin often thought how strange the turns his life had taken. Had anyone told him that one day he would become known the world over for his simple carvings, he would have called them crazy. He would also have called them crazy for telling him that, at the age of sixty, he would be alone and dying of cancer. He’d always imagined himself going into old age surrounded by children and grandchildren with a loving wife at his side.

He set aside the squirrel. As he did, the pain he’d been living with for some months took a sharp upward spike, making Franklin reel where he stood. He waited until the worst of it passed, then stumbled to his bedroom and collapsed on his bed.

He considered giving Adam Two Eagles a call. Adam’s father had been the clan healer. Everyone had assumed that Adam would follow in his father’s footsteps. Only, Adam had rebelled. Instead, he had taken the white man’s way and left the Kiamichi Mountains to go to college, graduated from Oklahoma State University with an MBA, and from there gone straight into the army to eventually become one of their elite—an army ranger.

Then, during the ensuing years, something had happened to Adam that caused him to quit the military, and brought him home. He’d come back to eastern Oklahoma, to his Kiowa roots, and stepped into his father’s footsteps as if he’d never been away.

Adam never talked about what had changed him, but Franklin knew it had been bad. He saw the shadows in Adam’s eyes when he thought no one was looking. However, Franklin knew something that Adam did not. Franklin knew it would pass. He’d lived long enough to know life was in a constant state of flux.

As Franklin drifted to sleep, he dreamed, all the way back to his younger days and the woman who’d stolen his heart.

Leila of the laughing eyes and long dark hair. He couldn’t remember when he hadn’t loved her. They’d made love every chance they could get—with passion, but without caution.

Sleep took him to the day he had learned that Leila’s family was moving. She’d been twenty-two to his thirty—old enough to stay behind. He’d begged her to stay, but there had been a look on her face he’d never seen before, and instead of accepting his offer of marriage, she’d been unable to meet his gaze.

His heartbeat accelerated as he relived the panic. In his mind, he could see her face through the back window of the car as her father drove away.

She was crying—his Leila of the laughing eyes was sobbing as she waved goodbye. He could see her mouth moving.

Franklin shifted on the bed. This was new. He didn’t remember her calling out. In real life, she’d done nothing but cry as they drove away. It was the way he’d remembered it for all these years. So why had the dream been different? What was it she was trying to say?

He swung his legs to the side of the bed and then stood, giving himself time to decide if he had the strength to move. Finally, he walked out of his bedroom, then through the kitchen to the back porch. The night air was sultry and still.

He stood for a few moments, absorbing the impact of the dream, waiting for understanding. At first, he felt nothing. His mind was blank, but he knew what to do. It was the same thing he always did as he began a new piece of work. All he had to do was look at the block of wood until he saw whatever it was that was waiting to come out. Only then did he begin carving.

Following his instincts, he closed his eyes, took a slow breath, then waited for the words Leila had been trying to say.

It was quiet on the mountain. Almost too quiet. Even the night birds were silent, and the coyotes seemed to have gone to ground. There was nothing to distract Franklin from watching his dream, letting it replay in his head. He stood motionless for so long that dew settled on his bare feet, while an owl, feeling no threat, passed silently behind him on its way out to hunt.

And then understanding came, and with it, shock. Franklin turned abruptly and looked back at his house, almost expecting Leila to be on the porch, but there was no one there.

He turned again, this time looking to the trees beyond his home. He’d been born on this land. His parents had died in this house, and soon so would he. But there was something he knew now that he had not known yesterday.

Leila had taken something of his when she’d left him.

His child.

Right in the middle of his revelation, exhaustion hit.

Damn this cancer.

His legs began to shake and his hands began to tremble. He walked back to the house, stumbling slightly as he stepped up on the porch, then dragged himself into the house.

What if he could find his Leila—even if she was no longer his? He wanted to see their child—no—he needed to know that a part of him would live on, even after he was gone. Tomorrow, he would call Adam Two Eagles. Adam would know what to do.

* * *

Adam Two Eagles rarely had to stretch to reach anything. At three inches over six feet tall, he usually towered over others. His features were Native American, but less defined than his father’s had been. His mother had been Navajo and the mix of Kiowa and Navajo had blended well, making Adam a very handsome man. His dark hair was thick and long, falling far below his shoulders—a far cry from the buzz cut he’d worn in the military. But that seemed so long ago that it might as well have been from another life.

This morning, he was readying himself for a trip up the Kiamichis. There were some plants he wanted for healing that grew only in the higher elevation. It would mean at least a half day’s hike up and back—nothing he hadn’t done countless times before—only today, he felt unsettled. He kept going from room to room, thinking there was something else he was supposed to do, but nothing occurred to him. Finally, he’d given up and prepared to leave.

If he hadn’t forgotten the bag he liked to carry his herbs and plants in, he would have already been gone when the phone rang. But he was digging through a closet, and ignoring the ring would have been like a doctor ignoring a call for help.

“Hello.”

“Adam! I was beginning to think you were gone.”

Adam smiled as he recognized the voice.

“Good morning, Franklin. You just caught me. How have you been?”

“The same,” Franklin said shortly, unwilling to dwell on his illness. “But that’s not why I called.”

Adam frowned. The seriousness in his old friend’s voice was unfamiliar.

“So, what’s up?” Adam asked.

“It’s complicated,” Franklin said. “Can you come over?”

“Yes, of course. When do you need me?” Adam asked.

There was a moment of hesitation, then Franklin sighed. “Now, I need you to come now.”

“I’m on my way,” Adam said, and hung up.

In less than fifteen minutes, Adam was pulling up to Franklin’s house. He parked, then killed the engine. When he looked up, Franklin had come outside and was waiting for him on the porch. He smiled and then waved Adam up before moving back into the house. Adam bolted up the steps and followed him.

A few minutes were wasted on small talk and the pouring of coffee before Adam urged Franklin to sit down. Franklin did so without arguing. Adam took a seat opposite Franklin’s chair and leaned back, waiting for the older man to begin.

“I had a dream,” Franklin said.

Adam set his coffee aside and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair.

“Tell me.”

Franklin relayed what he’d dreamed, and what he believed that it meant. When he was finished, he leaned back and crossed his arms across his chest.

“So, can you help me?” he asked.

“What do you want me to do?” Adam countered.

Franklin sighed. “I guess I want to know if I’m right, if Leila and I had a child. I want to know this before I die.”

Adam stood, then paced to the window, absently staring at the way sunlight reflected from his windshield onto a wind chime hanging from the porch. He knew what Franklin was asking. He just wasn’t convinced Franklin would get the answer he desired.

“So, will you make medicine for me?” Franklin asked.

Adam turned abruptly and asked, “Will you accept what comes, even if it’s not what you wanted?”

“Yes.”

Adam nodded shortly. “Then, yes, I’ll help you.”

Franklin sighed, then swiped a shaky hand across his face.

“What do you need from me?” he asked.

“Something that is remarkably yours alone.”

Franklin hesitated a moment, then left the room. He returned shortly carrying a carving of an owl in flight.

“This was my first owl. Would this do?”

“Are you willing to sacrifice it?”

Franklin rubbed a hand over the owl one last time, as if imprinting the perfection of the shape and the feathers in his mind, then handed it over.

Adam took it. The wood felt warm where Franklin had been holding it, adding yet another layer of reality to the piece. Then he took out his knife.

“Are you still on blood thinner?” Adam asked.

Franklin nodded.

“Then hair will have to do.”

Franklin sat down. Adam deftly separated a couple of strands of Franklin’s hair from his head and cut them off, wrapped them in his handkerchief and put them in his pocket.

“Is that all you need?” Franklin asked.

Adam nodded. “I will make medicine for you.”

Franklin’s shoulders slumped with relief. “When will we know if it worked?”

“When someone comes.”

“When? Not if, but when? How can you be so sure?”

“I know what I know,” Adam said, and it was all he would say.

For Franklin, it wasn’t enough, but it would have to do. “Then I will wait,” he said.

Adam nodded, then picked up his coffee cup and leaned back in his chair and took a sip.

Franklin picked up his cup as well, but he didn’t drink. He tightened his fingers around the mug, letting the warmth of the crockery settle within him as he watched his old friend’s son.

Adam was looking out the window, his eyes narrowing sharply as he squinted against the light. Franklin thought that Adam looked a lot like his father. Same strong face—same far-seeing expression in his eyes, but he was taller and more muscular. And he’d been beyond the Kiamichis. He’d lived a warrior’s life for the United States government.

Franklin set his coffee cup aside, folded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes.

It was good that Adam Two Eagles had come home.

* * *

Within an hour after arriving back at his home, Adam began the preparations. He drank some water before going out to ready the sweat lodge. On the way down the hillside, he got work gloves from the toolshed and a small hatchet from a shelf.

A sense of peace came over him as he worked, gathering wood and patching a small hole in the lodge. Tonight he would begin the ceremony. If Franklin and Leila had made a baby together, the Old Ones would find it.

He hurried back to the house, gathering everything he needed, then walked back to the small lodge above the creek bank.

He undressed with care, shedding his clothes a layer at a time. By the time he’d dropped his last garment, a slight breeze had come up, lifting his hair away from his face and cooling the sweat beading on his body. The first star of the evening was just visible when he looked up at the sky. He checked the fire. Ideally, there would be someone outside the lodge continuing to feed the fire, but not tonight. Tonight the fire that he’d already built would serve the purpose.

He lifted the flap and crawled in. Within seconds, he was covered in sweat. He sat down cross-legged, letting his arms and hands rest on his knees. With a slow, even rhythm he breathed in and breathed out. Then he closed his eyes and began to chant. The words were almost as old as the land on which he sat.

The hours passed and the moon that had been hanging high in the sky was more than halfway through its slow descent to the horizon. Morning was but an hour or so away.

Inside the sweat lodge, all the words had been said. All the prayers had been prayed.

Adam was ready.

He crawled out of the lodge. When he stood, the muscles in his legs tried to cramp, but he walked them out as he then moved behind the lodge and laid another stick of wood on the fire.

With the sweat drying swiftly on his skin and his mind and body free from impurities, he reached into his pack and took out the carving, as well as the hairs he’d cut from Franklin’s head.

Some might have called it a prayer, others might have said it was a chant, but the words Adam spoke were a call to the Old Ones. The rhythm of the syllables rolled off Adam’s tongue like a song. The log he’d laid on the fire popped, sending a shower of sparks up into the air. Adam felt the prick of heat from one as it landed on his skin, but he didn’t flinch.

Still wrapped in the cloak of darkness, he lifted his arms to the heavens and began to dance. Dust and ashes rose up from the ground, coating his feet and legs as he moved in and out of the shadows around the fire. He danced and he sang until his heartbeat matched the rhythm of his feet.

The wind rose, whistling through the trees in a thin, constant wail, sucking the hair from the back of his neck and then swirling it about his face.

They were coming.

He tossed the owl and the hairs into the fire, and then lifted his hands above his head. As he did, there was what he could only describe as an absence of air. He could still breathe, but he was unable to move.

The great warriors manifested themselves within the smoke, using it to coat the shapes of what they’d once been. They came mounted on spirit horses with eyes of fire. The horses stomped and reared, inhaling showers of sparks that had been following the column of smoke and exhaling what appeared to be stars.

One warrior wore a war bonnet so long that it dragged beneath the ghost horse’s feet. Another was wrapped in the skin of a bear, with the mark of the claw painted on his chest. The third horse had a black handprint on its flank, while matching handprints of white were on the old warrior’s cheeks. The last one rode naked on a horse of pure white. The wrinkles in his face were as many as the rivers of the earth. His gray hair so long that it appeared tangled in the horse’s mane and tail, making it difficult to tell where man ended and horse began.

They spoke in unison, with the sounds getting lost in the whirlwind that brought them, and yet Adam knew what they’d said.

They would help.

As he watched, one by one, they reached into the fire and took a piece of Franklin’s essence to help them with their search. Then, as suddenly as they’d appeared, they were gone.

Adam dropped to his knees, then passed out.

Chapter 2

DEA agent Sonora Jordan was running after a drug dealer when she fell into the twilight zone. One moment she was inches away from grabbing her perp, Enrique Garcia, and the next her gun went flying as she fell flat on her face. The shot that would have hit her square in the back went flying over her head. Instead of the heat and dust of Mexico, she was in the shade of a forest and hearing the sound of moving water from somewhere up ahead.

She lifted her head, and as she did, she saw a tall, older man standing on the porch of a single-story dwelling that was surrounded by trees. His skin was brown, and his hair was long and peppered with gray. There was a wind chime hanging by his head that looked like a Native American dream catcher. The chimes were different shapes of feathers. It was so foreign to anything she knew, she couldn’t imagine why she would be hallucinating about it, and wondered if she was dead.

The man lifted his hand, and as he did, she had the strongest urge to wave back, but she couldn’t seem to move. She couldn’t see his face clearly, yet she knew that he was crying. A sad, empty feeling hit her belly and then swallowed her whole.

By the time she realized she wasn’t dead, only facedown in the dirt, the vision was gone. If that wasn’t enough humiliation, her perp was nowhere in sight.

“Oh, crap,” she muttered, then breathed easier when she saw Agent Dave Wills coming back with the perp she’d been chasing. Garcia was handcuffed and cursing at the top of his voice.

“Can it, Garcia,” Wills snapped, then saw Sonora on the ground. “Jordan! Are you all right? Are you hit?”

“No…no, I’m okay,” Sonora said as she got up, picked up her gun, then began brushing at the dust on her face and clothes.

“What happened?” he asked, as he shoved Garcia into the back of his car and slammed the door.

She didn’t know what to say. “I guess I tripped.” It was lame, but it was better than the truth.

He frowned. Sonora Jordan wasn’t the tripping kind. He reached for her shoulder, intent on brushing a streak of dirt from her face when movement caught the corner of his eye. He turned just as the other Garcia brother appeared.

“Look out!” he yelled, shoving Sonora aside as he reached for his gun.

Sonora reacted without thinking. Her gun was still in her hand and she was falling again. Only this time, she got off four shots. Two of them connected.

Juanito Garcia died before he hit the ground.

Enrique saw the whole thing from Wills’s car and began to scream, cursing Sonora and Wills and the DEA in general.

Wills waved his arm at another agent and yelled, “Get him out of here!”

As he was being driven away, Enrique looked back at Sonora, mouthing the words, “You’re dead.”

It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before, but it never failed to give her the creeps.

Wills eyed the muscle jerking in her jaw but shrugged it off. She was tough, no need getting bent out of shape on her behalf. Still, this bust hadn’t gone as they’d planned.

“They made you too early,” he said. “What happened?”

She spun, eyeing him angrily. “Oh, hell, Wills, I hate to venture a guess, but it might have been your ugly mug showing up a good ten minutes too soon. I wasn’t through making my play when you came flying around the corner.”

Wills shrugged. “But we got ’em.”

“No, we got two. Miguel Garcia is the boss man and he wasn’t here…yet.”

This time Wills frowned. “So, it’s not my fault he didn’t show. You said he would.”

“Yeah…at three-fifteen.”

“So, what time is it now?” Wills asked.

“Three-fifteen,” Sonora snapped, then strode to her car and got in, slamming the door behind her. When Wills still hadn’t moved, she leaned out the window and yelled, “You plan on buying a house down here?”

Wills glanced down at what was left of Juanito Garcia and then at the faces peering out at them from windows above the street.

“Hell, no,” he said.

Within minutes, they were gone, leaving the aftermath and cleanup to others. There was a border to cross and reports to be written before anyone slept tonight.

* * *

Sonora typed the last word in her report and then hit Print. She gathered up the pages with one eye on the clock and the other on the scowl her boss was wearing.

Gerald Mynton wasn’t any happier than she’d been about letting Miguel Garcia get away. Capturing two out of three wasn’t the kind of odds Mynton operated on. He was an all-or-nothing kind of man. Added to that, Sonora Jordan was no longer a viable agent in this case. He knew Wills was partly responsible for missing the last Garcia brother, but there was nothing they could do about it now except pick up where they left off—minus Jordan.

When he saw Sonora get up from her desk, he motioned for her to come in. She gathered up what was obviously her report and strode across the floor.

Even though he was a happily married man and totally insulted by the thought of sexual harassment among his agents, he couldn’t ignore what a beautiful woman Sonora was. She was over five feet nine inches tall and could bench-press double her weight. Her hair was long and dark and her features exotically beautiful. In all the years he’d known her, he’d only seen her smile a few times.

But it wasn’t her looks that made her a valuable agent. Besides her skill, there was an asset Sonora had that made her a perfect agent. She had no relatives and no boyfriends. She was as alone in this world as a person could be, which meant that her loyalties were 100 percent with the job.

Unfortunately, killing Juanito Garcia had temporarily put an end to her usefulness, and until Miguel Garcia was brought to justice, she needed to lay low. Miguel was the kind of man who dealt in revenge.

Gerald Mynton hated to be in corners, but he was in one now. If he put Sonora back to work on anything new, Garcia could dog her until he got a chance to kill her. Mynton’s only option was for her to drop out of sight until Garcia was brought in and she could live to solve another case.

He squinted thoughtfully as Sonora entered his office. Now he had to convince her that it was in her best interest to hide when he knew her instincts would be to confront and overcome.

“My report,” Sonora said as she laid the file on his desk.

He nodded. “Close the door, then please sit down.”

Sonora stood her ground with the door wide-open. “I’m not hiding.”

Mynton sighed. “Did I say you should?”

“Not yet, but you’re going to, aren’t you?”

“There’s a contract out on your life.”

Sonora’s chin jutted. “I heard.”

“So…do you have a death wish?”

“No, but—”

“Garcia won’t take what happened without payback. No matter what case I put you on, your presence could put everyone else in danger, not to mention yourself.”

Sonora’s shoulders slumped. “I hate this.”

“I’m not all that excited about it myself,” Mynton said.

Sonora nodded. She wasn’t the kind of person who let herself be down for long. If this was the way it was going to play out, then so be it.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll do as you ask,” she said.

Mynton stood up and then walked around his desk until they were standing face-to-face.

“You don’t apologize,” he said shortly. “You don’t ever apologize for doing your job and doing it well. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there anyplace special you can go?”

She thought of the hallucination she’d had in Mexico—of the house surrounded by a forest of green and the wind chime hanging on the porch. It had seemed so perfect. If only it had been real, she’d already be there.

“Not really. I’ll think of something, though.”

“Find a different mode of transportation. We don’t think Garcia is in Phoenix yet, but once here, it won’t take him long to find out where you live. I don’t want you to be there when he arrives. As for leaving Phoenix, you can be traced too easily by credit card. Also, I’d skip the airports and bus stations.”

“Well, damn it, sir, since my broom is also in the shop, what the hell else do you suggest?”

Mynton’s frown deepened. “Use your imagination.”

“This is a nightmare,” Sonora muttered. “Just do me one favor.”

“If I can,” Mynton said.

“Find Miguel Garcia,” she added.

“And you stay safe and keep in touch,” he added.

A few minutes later, she was gone.

By the time she got home, she was exhausted. However, there were plans to be made. Mynton wanted her to get lost. He didn’t know it, but she’d been lost all her life. Dumped on the doorstep of a Texas orphanage when she was only hours old, Sonora had grown up without a sense of who she was or where she was from. When she was young, she used to pretend that her mother would suddenly appear and whisk her away, but it had never happened. Life for Sonora was nothing but one kick in the teeth after another. She didn’t believe in luck, had never believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny and trusted no one. What had happened on their last case had been unexpected, but she could handle it. All she needed to do was get out of town.

Transportation was no problem. She knew exactly how she would travel. All she needed to do was call her old boyfriend, Buddy Allen, and have him bring back her Harley.

She stripped down to a bra and panties before she sat down on the side of the bed. She rubbed the back of her neck with both hands, wishing she had time for a massage, but that was too public for someone who needed to lay low.

She picked up the phone and dialed Buddy’s number. Although it had been more than six months since they’d quit seeing each other, they were still on good terms. Sonora had been gone too much to commit herself to anyone, and Buddy wanted more than a once-a-month lay. The decision to quit trying had been mutual.

Still, as she waited for Buddy to pick up, she couldn’t help but wish she had a little backup in her personal life.

Buddy answered on the third ring. “Heelloo, good lookin’.”

“Did you know it was me, or is that the way you always answer your phone?” Sonora said.

Buddy laughed. “Caller ID and yes.”

This time it was Sonora who chuckled. “Some things never change…you being one of them,” she said.

Buddy sighed. “Did you call to chastise me for being male, or can I talk you into a round of good sex for old times sake?”

“No on both counts. I called because I need my bike.”

Buddy groaned. “Aw, man…not the Harley.”

“Sorry, but I need it,” Sonora said shortly.

The smile disappeared from Buddy’s voice. “Are you in trouble?”

“Not if I get out of town quick enough.”

“Damn it, Sonora, why do you do it?”

“Do what?” she asked.

“You know what. There are a hundred careers you could have picked besides the one that you chose, and none of them would have been dangerous.”

“Can you bring it over?” she asked. “I’d come get it, but I don’t want to advertise my presence any more than necessary.”

Buddy sighed. “Hell, yes, I’ll bring the Harley, serviced, gassed up and clean. When do you need it?” he asked.

“Yesterday.”

Buddy cursed and asked, “Do you need to leave before morning?”

“No. It can wait until then, but early…please.”

“Thanks for nothing,” he muttered. “I’ll be there before 7:00 a.m. Will you make me some coffee?”

“Yes.”

“And maybe some of your biscuits and gravy?”

“No.”

He sighed. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“I’m not blaming you for anything,” she said. “Never have. Never will.”

“I know,” Buddy said, and knew that she was no longer talking about the bike. “See you in the morning.”

“Okay, Buddy, and thanks.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Buddy said, and hung up.

With that job over, Sonora walked to the closet, then grabbed her travel bag and quickly packed. She thought about where she might go and then went into the living room, found an atlas and carried it to the kitchen.

She opened the pages to the map of the U.S. and then just sat and stared. One line seemed to stand out from all the others. She fumbled in a drawer for a yellow highlighter, then popped the cap. Her fingers where shaking as she held it over the map. Something rattled behind her, like pebbles in a can. She ignored it and began to mark.

Without a thought in her head, she began drawing a line north out of Phoenix toward Flagstaff, then across the country until she came to Oklahoma. The line ended there.

She paused, frowned, then shook her head, certain she’d just lost her mind. Still, she left the atlas on the counter as she went into her bedroom.

She showered quickly, afraid that the vision would come back. Even after she crawled into bed and closed her eyes, she was reluctant to sleep. Finally, she rolled onto her side, bunched her pillow under her neck, then grabbed the extra one and hugged it to her. It was an old habit from childhood, and one she rarely indulged in anymore. The simple act made her feel childish and helpless and Sonora was neither of those.

Somehow she slept, and woke up just after six. Time enough for a quick shower.

True to his promise, Buddy showed up right before seven.

She met him at the door with a to-go cup of coffee.

“Good morning,” she said, eyeing his tousled hair and unshaven face. “Thanks for bringing the Harley.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, then dropped the keys in her hands, handed her the helmet and took the coffee, downing a good portion of it before he spoke again. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what’s going on?”

She shrugged. “Someone wants me dead.”

“Son of a bitch,” Buddy muttered.

“Yes, he is,” Sonora said. “A real bad one. I don’t think anyone knows about you and me, but just to be on the safe side, don’t mention my name to anyone.”

“There is no more you and me,” Buddy reminded her. “And don’t worry about me. I’m not the one with the death wish.”

Sonora frowned. “I don’t have a death wish. I just do my job and do it well.” Then she kissed him on the cheek, as much as a thank-you as for old times’ sake, as well as for bringing back her bike, then pointed at the cab in the street. “I suppose that’s your ride. Don’t keep him waiting.”

She watched him get into the cab before checking the area for someone who didn’t belong. All was well. When he looked back, she waved goodbye, then quickly closed the door.

She walked through her home one last time, making sure everything was as it should be, then shouldered her bag, picked up the helmet and turned off the lights. She opened the door, hesitating briefly to scan the neighborhood once more, and saw nothing amiss. The black and shiny Harley was at the curb.

She hurried outside, opened the storage compartment and dropped her handgun inside, then lowered the lid and tied her bag down on top. When she stuck the key in the ignition, she could tell Buddy had been good for his word. Not only was the bike clean, but the gas gauge registered full. She checked to make sure her toolbox was in place, then put on the helmet and slung her leg over the bike as if she was mounting a horse.

The engine roared to life, then settled down to a soft rumble as she released the kickstand and gave it the gas. As the rumble changed to a full-throttle blast, she put it in gear and rode away without looking back.

It wasn’t until she was on the highway that she remembered the path she’d highlighted on the atlas. There was no reason for her to have chosen that direction, and a couple of times she even considered turning around and heading for Las Vegas or points farther west. But something more than instinct was guiding her trip.

Chapter 3

Miguel Garcia was in Juarez, trying to figure out how to get over the border. The Mexican police had staked out his hotel and would have already had him in custody if it hadn’t been for Jorge Diaz, one of his dealers, who’d sent his own child into the restaurant where Miguel was having breakfast to warn him.

Now he was in a dingy room over what must be the oldest cantina in the city, without his clothes, and without access to his bank. Even though he hadn’t been born to it, Miguel had been in the drug business long enough that he’d become accustomed to fine dining, elegant surroundings. Being forced to hide in a room like this was like a slap in the face—a degradation that only added to the grief of losing his brothers.

Enrique was incarcerated somewhere in the States, and Juanito was on a slab in a Tijuana morgue. He’d promised his mother on her deathbed that he would take care of Juanito. He was the baby of their family, the last of eight children, but now, because of that DEA bitch, Juanito was dead.

Before he’d gone into hiding, Miguel had made a promise at his mother’s grave that he would avenge Juanito’s death. He’d also let it be known that he would pay big money for the name and location of the agent who’d killed his brother, with the warning to leave her alone. He wanted to end her life—personally.

And so he waited. And waited. A day passed in this hell, then a second, then a third before everything changed.

* * *

The puta Miguel had just paid for a blow job was in the bathroom brushing her teeth when someone knocked on his door. He reached for his gun, grabbed the woman who was just coming out of the bathroom and put his finger to his mouth to indicate she be quiet. His grip on her arm was so painful that she stifled a screech and covered her mouth with both hands. Tears ran down her face, but she didn’t move.

Once he was satisfied that she understood what he meant, he whispered in her ear, “Ask who is there.”

She nodded, then called out as he told her.

There was a long stretch of silence, then a man spoke. “I have news for Miguel.”

Miguel recognized the voice of Jorge, the dealer who’d helped him escape. He pulled the woman away from the door, opened it enough to make sure Jorge was alone and then shoved her out.

“Get lost,” he said.

She scurried away, glad to be leaving in one piece.

“Come in,” Miguel said.

Jorge nodded quickly, looked over his shoulder, then stepped inside. He didn’t waste time or words. “You wanted the name of the agent who killed your brother.”

Miguel’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes.”

“Her name is Sonora Jordan. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.”

Miguel stifled the urge to clap his hands. This was the best news he’d had in days. “You are sure.”

“Sí, Patron.”

Miguel put a hand on Jorge’s shoulder to explain why he couldn’t pay him yet. “They are watching my home and my bank.”

Jorge nodded again. No further explanation was needed. “I know,” he said, reaching into his pocket for a roll of hundred dollar bills, which he handed to Miguel. “For you, Patron, and if you’re ready, I can get you across the border tonight.”

Miguel was not only surprised, he was shocked. He had greatly underestimated this man’s loyalty. “When this is over, you will be greatly rewarded.”

Jorge shrugged. “I expect nothing, Patron. It is my honor to help. At eleven o’clock, there will be one knock on your door. The man who comes will take you to a hacienda outside of Juarez where a private plane will be waiting. The pilot has already gotten clearance for his trip, but it does not include landing in Juarez, so the timing will be crucial. You must not be late because he will not wait. Once across the border, he will touch down briefly at a small airstrip outside of Houston. More money and a car will be waiting for you there. The man who brought it has been instructed to stay until he sees that you’re safely on the ground.”

Miguel threw his arms around Jorge. “Gracias, Jorge…gracias. I will never forget this.”

Jorge nodded and smiled. “Vaya con Dios, Patron.” And then he was gone.

Miguel glanced at his watch. It was just after nine. Within two hours, he would be gone from this place and on his way to fulfilling the promise he’d made at his mother’s grave.

As soon as Jorge reached the street, he took out his cell phone and made a call. “Tony, this is Jorge Diaz. I need you to do something for me.”

Tony Freely was one of Jorge’s mules. He traveled back and forth regularly from his ranch outside of Houston to Juarez, doing his part to make sure that the drug market continued to thrive and being nicely reimbursed for his troubles.

“Yeah, sure, Jorge. Just name it.”

“You remember the old runway where I had you pick up a load about three months back?”

“Yeah, but I thought you didn’t want to use it anymore.”

“I don’t. It’s something else,” Jorge said. “What I want you to do is go to that runway at an hour before midnight tonight and wait for a small plane to land there. A man will get off. You let him see you. Let him see your face, but don’t talk to him. Just get in your car and drive away.”

Tony frowned. This didn’t sound right, but he knew better than to question Jorge.

“Sure. No problem.”

“Thank you,” Jorge said. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Tony’s frown disappeared. Money talked loud and clear to him. “Consider it done,” he said, and hung up the phone.

Jorge did the same, smiling as he disconnected. Before he was through, the Garcia brothers’ reign of power would be over and he would be the one in charge.

* * *

As promised, Miguel’s ride appeared on time. He didn’t recognize the short, fat man who came to get him, and the man didn’t offer a name. They got to the airstrip without incident. Soon the lights of Juarez were swiftly disappearing below them. Miguel was already making plans as to how to find Sonora Jordan and make her pay for the death of his brother.

In about an hour, the plane began to lose altitude and Miguel’s heartbeat accelerated. He leaned over and peered out the window to the sea of lights that was Houston.

The pilot banked suddenly to the west and began descending. Minutes later, the small plane landed, taking a couple of hard bounces before rolling to an easy stop.

Miguel saw a small hangar and a man standing beneath a single light mounted above the door. In the shadows nearby, he could see the outline of a car.

He owed Jorge big-time.

“You get out now,” the pilot said shortly.

Miguel frowned. It was the most the man had said to him since they took off. Still, he grabbed his bag and jumped out of the plane. Even as he was walking away, the plane turned around and took off the same way it had landed.

Caught in the back draft, Miguel ducked his head and closed his eyes while dust and grit swirled around him. When he opened his eyes, the plane was off the ground and the man he’d seen under the lights was gone.

The unexpected solitude and quiet made him a little uneasy, and when a chorus of coyotes suddenly tuned up from somewhere beyond the hangar, he headed for the car in a run.

Only after he was inside with the doors locked and his hand on the keys dangling from the ignition did he relax. He started the engine and checked the gauges. The car was full of gas, and two maps were on the seat beside him—one of Texas and one of Arizona. After a quick check of the briefcase in the passenger seat, he knew he would have plenty of money to do what had to be done. He backed away from the hangar and followed the dirt road until he hit blacktop. Gauging his directions by the digital compass on the rearview mirror, he turned north and drove until daylight. The first town he came to, he stopped and ate breakfast, then got a room at the local motel. It was ten minutes after nine in the morning when he crawled between the sheets. Within seconds, he was out.

* * *

Even though Sonora had started out with an indefinite direction in mind, the farther she went, the more certain she became that, whatever her future held, she would find it somewhere east.

Near the Arizona border, it started to rain. Sonora stopped and took a room at a chain motel. She tossed her bag onto the bed before heading to the restaurant on-site.

Once she finished her meal, she started back to her room on the second floor. She was halfway up the stairs when she pulled an Alice and, once again, fell down the rabbit hole.

* * *

It was raining. The kind of rain that some people called a toad strangler—a hard, pounding downpour with little to no wind. She’d never stood in the rain and not been wet before. It was an eerie sensation. And it was night again. Why did insanity keep yanking her around in the dark? It was bad enough she was hallucinating.

She didn’t have to look twice to know that she was back at the Native American man’s house. Water was running off the roof and down between her feet, following the slope of the ground. All of a sudden, lightning struck with a loud, frightening crack. She flinched, then relaxed. There was no need to panic. She wasn’t really here. This was just a dream.

She looked toward the house, then felt herself moving closer, although she knew for a fact that her feet never shifted. Now she was standing beneath the porch and looking into the window. At first, she saw nothing. Then she saw the Native American man lying on the floor near a doorway.

She gasped and started toward the door when she realized that, again, she had no power here. She was nothing but a witness. Dread hit her belly high. Why was she seeing this if she could do nothing about it?

Then, as she was watching through the window, she realized there was a light in the window that hadn’t been there before. It took a few moments before she could tell it was a reflection from a vehicle coming down the driveway behind her.

She turned, wanting to call out—willing herself to scream out “please hurry,” but as before, she was nothing but an observer.

* * *

Adam Two Eagles drove recklessly through the storm. The phone call he’d gotten a short time ago from Franklin had frightened him. Even now as he was turning up Franklin’s driveway, the knot in his gut tightened.

Franklin had sounded confused—even fatalistic. Adam didn’t think Franklin would do anything crazy, like do himself in, but he couldn’t be sure. And when he’d tried to call him back, there had been no answer.

He could have called an ambulance. The people in Broken Bow knew Franklin. They knew he had leukemia. They would send an ambulance, but if it was unwarranted—if Adam had misread the situation—it would embarrass Franklin, and that he didn’t want to do. So here he was, driving like a madman in the dark, pouring rain, just to make sure his friend was still of this earth.

As he came around the curve, he saw that the lights were still on in Franklin’s house. That was good. At least he wouldn’t be waking him up to make sure he was okay.

Lightning struck a tree about a hundred yards in front of him. Even in the rain, sparks flew. Right before the flash disappeared, Adam saw branches exploding, then flying through the air. He swerved as one flew past the hood of his truck, then sped past the site just before the tree burst into flames. It wouldn’t burn long in this downpour, but the sooner Adam got out of this rain, the better off he would feel.

He slid to a halt near the porch, jumped out in a run, vaulted up the steps and had his fist ready to knock when he realized he wasn’t alone. He let his hand drop as he slowly turned, staring down the length of the porch to the small square of light coming through the window from inside.

The porch was empty, yet he knew he was being watched. Drawn by an urge he couldn’t explain, he moved forward, and when he reached the window, stared out into the night, into the curtain of rain.

“Who’s there?” he called, and then for a reason he couldn’t explain, reached out and touched the air in front of him.

No one answered, and he felt only the rain.

Shrugging off the feeling as nothing but nerves, he turned back toward the door, and as he did, glanced through the window. Within seconds, he’d spied Franklin’s body lying on the floor.

“Oh, no,” he cried, and ran to the door.

It was locked, but not for long.

Adam kicked the door inward, then ran to his friend.

* * *

Sonora’s heart was pounding so hard she thought it would burst. Every breath she took was painful, and she felt like she was going to be sick.

The man who’d come out of the storm onto the porch was unbelievable—like some knight in shining armor she might have conjured up during her teenage years.

His skin was the color of burnished copper. His hair was long, black and plastered to his head and neck from the storm. He was tall and lean, without an ounce of fat on him—a fact made obvious by the wet clothes molded to his body. But it was his face that intrigued her. His nose was hawklike, his chin stubborn and strong. His lips were full and his eyes were dark and impossible to read.

And he was looking straight at her.

Sonora shivered.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening.

He wasn’t part of the dream.

And it was a dream. It had to be.

When he started toward her, she screamed, or at least she thought she screamed. The sound was going off inside her head like the bells of an alarm, but the man kept coming.

All of a sudden, she fell off the porch. When she came to, she was on her hands and knees on the stairs of the motel.

“Hey, lady! Are you okay? I saw you trip and fall but I was all the way down at the end of the walkway. Couldn’t get here fast enough to do you much good.”

Sonora shuddered, then brushed at the knees of her pants and dusted off her hands as she looked up at the man standing at the head of the stairs. He was short and stocky with a bald head and a red beard. An odd combination of features for the guy, but he seemed harmless.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. I’m fine, but thanks.”

The guy nodded, then took a couple steps backward before turning around and going back down the hall to his room.

Sonora unlocked her door and went inside, hung a do-not-disturb sign on the outside of the doorknob, and then carefully locked the doors. It took even less time to undress, and moments later, she fell into bed.

The hallucination she’d just had was still in her mind, but she shrugged it off. She couldn’t be bothered with worrying about some stupid daydream with Miguel Garcia still on the loose. With those thoughts in her mind, she fell asleep.

Chapter 4

Sonora crossed the Arizona border into New Mexico just before noon the next day. Traffic was already thicker on I-40, as well as on the access roads. A digital message on a bank near the interstate gave a temperature reading of 98 degrees. With the amount of traffic and exhaust fumes heating up the pavement, Sonora could add another ten degrees of heat to that reading and know she wasn’t off by much.

She’d already made a decision that traveling in the heat of the day in this part of the country wasn’t smart. So she took the next exit off the interstate and found a motel.

Within minutes she had a room on the ground floor. She left the office and rode her bike to the parking place in front of her room. When she dismounted, she realized her hands and legs were shaking. Too much heat and not enough water, but she was about to fix that. She locked up her bike, shouldered her bag and unlocked the door to her room, gratefully inhaling the artificially cooled air inside as she entered.

She went to the bathroom to wash up, and drank a big glass of water while she was there. There was a café on the other side of the parking lot, which she planned to visit, but not in this hot biker leather. When she came out of the bathroom, she took off her pants and vest, tossed her shirt aside as well as her biker boots for some cooler clothes and tennis shoes.

She stretched and then bounced once on the bed, testing it for comfort. She scooted all the way up on the mattress, then stretched out—but only for a minute. She noticed the red LED light on the smoke detector was working and closed her eyes.

When she woke up, it was after 10:00 p.m. She groaned as she rolled over and swung her legs off the bed.

“Oh, great, I didn’t mean to sleep so long.”

She stood up and went to the window. It was pouring. She probably wouldn’t sleep tonight, but she could eat, and her belly was protesting the fact that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Grabbing a clean T-shirt and jeans from her bag, she dressed quickly and slipped her wallet in a fanny pack before she left.

Despite the rain, the smell of charcoal and cooking meat was heavy in the air. Her mouth watered as she made a dash across the parking lot and into the café.

“Ooh, honey, come in out of that rain,” the hostess said as Sonora dashed inside. “Are you by yourself?” she added.

Sonora nodded.

The hostess picked up a menu. “This way,” she said, and led the way across the floor to a booth in the back. “This okay?”

“Perfect,” Sonora said, and meant it. Being at the far end of the room with a clear view of the door was a good thing. The fact that she was close to the kitchen didn’t bother her. She wasn’t looking for ambiance, just food.

She ordered iced tea, salad and chicken alfredo, then opened a package of crackers and began nibbling on them while she waited for her food to arrive. Lightning flashed outside, momentarily lighting the parking lot. Lights flickered, then went out. A communal groan of dismay sounded throughout the seating area while cursing could be heard in the kitchen.

Sonora automatically felt for her fanny pack, making sure her wallet was in place. Before she could relax, there was the sound of falling furniture, then a woman’s shrill scream.

“Help! Help! Someone just stole my purse!”

Sonora was on her feet without thinking. She heard running footsteps coming toward her. The way she figured it, the only person running in the dark would be the perp.

She moved instinctively and heard, more than saw, him coming. What she did see was that the shadow coming toward her was well over six feet tall. Using one of her kickboxing moves, she caught the running man belly high. She heard him grunt, then heard him stagger into a table and some chairs. She spun on one foot and came back around with another kick that caught him in the chest and ended up on his chin.

He went down like a felled ox.

Lights flickered, then fully came on as power was restored.

The woman who’d been robbed was still screaming and crying.

The hostess who’d seated Sonora saw the man on the floor, then eyed the tall, dark woman she’d just put in the back of the room and pointed. “Lord have mercy, honey! Did you do that?”

“Call the cops,” Sonora said.

The man on the floor moaned and started to roll over.

Sonora put her foot in the middle of the man’s back and pushed. “Uh-uh,” she warned. “You stay right where you are, buddy, or I’ll snap your spine faster than you can blink.”

“Damn, lady. My belly hurts bad. I think you broke my ribs.” The man moaned.

Soon the squall of approaching sirens could be heard. The perp moaned again.

The police came in the door, followed by a pair of EMTs.

The hostess waved them over. “Here! He’s here!” she yelled.

Sonora quickly exited the café through the kitchen, looking wistfully at the food as she ran through. The last thing she needed was to call attention to herself, and she’d done that big time by stopping the perp. The police would have wanted to see her name and ID. Having them identify her as DEA was completely opposite to what she was trying to do—which was get lost.

She hunched her shoulders against the rain and walked out into the parking lot. Quickly she crossed the street to a pizza place on the corner.

“One more time,” she muttered as she hurried inside.

“Sit anywhere,” a waitress said as she hurried by with an order. “I’ll be right with you.”

This time, Sonora settled in at a booth near the front door and then leaned her head against the glass as she looked out into the night. She was alternating between sausage or mushroom pizza when another flash of lightning sent her back into the black hole that had become part of her mind.

* * *

The older Native American man was sitting at a table with his back to Sonora. She wanted to go around him and see what he was doing, but she found herself unable to move.

“Why am I here? What the hell do you want?” she yelled.

Either he didn’t hear her, or he was ignoring her.

The man stood up slowly, then walked away, revealing a small piece of wood and a pile of wood curls.

He was carving something, but whatever it was, it was little more than an outline in the wood. Her gaze slid from the wood to the man. He was shaking pills from a bottle into his hand. There was a strange expression on his face as he tossed them down the back of his throat and chased them with water.

He’s dying.

The moment Sonora thought it, she flinched. A deep sadness came over her. “What am I supposed to do?” she cried. “Why are you haunting me?”

* * *

“Hey, lady!”

Sonora jerked.

“What?”

“I asked you…what do you want?”

Sonora blinked. Traveling from insanity to the real world was confusing, but she was getting better at it. It didn’t take her but a moment to answer.

“A medium sausage-and-mushroom pizza and a large Pepsi.”

The waitress nodded and left Sonora on her own again, only this time, Sonora focused her interests on the people at the other tables as she waited for her food to arrive.

She was both frustrated and confused by these recurring hallucinations. Talking to a shrink was a possibility and probably wise, but she wouldn’t risk it. The first time the precinct got wind of an agent in “therapy,” that agent would wind up doing desk duty until pronounced fit for duty again. Sonora didn’t want that on her record, so she was relying on instinct to get her through this. She couldn’t help but feel as if she was seeing this man for a reason. Maybe if he was real, and maybe if she found him, she’d discover for herself what this all meant.

Then the waitress came, delivered the pizza, refilled Sonora’s drink and left her to dine alone. By the time she had finished eating and paid for her meal, the rain had stopped. Reflections from the streetlights were mirrored in the puddles as she crossed the street to get to her room.

She was wide-awake and itching to be on the move. Despite an old fear of the dark, she handled it better outside. When she thought about it, which was rarely, it always made sense. She’d gotten her fear of the dark from being locked in a closet, so if she wasn’t bound by four walls, the fear never quite manifested into a full-blown panic attack. Glad to be on the move again, she packed her bag quickly, dropped her room key off at the office and mounted up. Within the hour, she was gone.

* * *

Miguel Garcia had been in Phoenix less than six hours when he’d gotten his first good lead on Sonora Jordan’s whereabouts. He had a name and an address, only it wasn’t Sonora’s address. It belonged to her ex-boyfriend, Buddy Allen.

* * *

It was just after 10:00 p.m. when Buddy pulled into the driveway of his apartment building. It was the first time he’d been home since this morning when he’d left for work. With his mind on a shower and bed, he got off the elevator, carrying a six-pack of beer and a bag of groceries. He set down the six-pack, then toed it into his apartment after he opened the door. The door locked as it swung shut. Buddy was halfway across the living room when it dawned on him that all the lights were on, but he distinctly remembered turning them off when he’d left.

The hair rose on the back of his arms. He set down the sack and the six-pack and stepped backward, intent on leaving the apartment to call the police.

Then a man walked out of the bedroom holding a gun. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, and motioned for Buddy to sit down on the sofa.

Buddy measured the distance to the door against the gun and cursed silently. The man didn’t look like the kind to be making idle threats.

“Who the hell are you?” Buddy asked.

“My name is of no importance,” he said.

“Then what are you doing here?” Buddy countered.

“Looking for a friend of yours.”

“Who?” Buddy asked.

“Sonora Jordan.”

Buddy’s stomach rolled. Suddenly, it hit him how much danger he was in. Sonora didn’t deal with lightweights, and she’d been spooked enough to leave Phoenix. There was every possibility that he might not live to see another day.

“I don’t know where she is,” Buddy said.

The man frowned. “Wrong answer,” he said, and swung the butt of his gun up under Buddy’s chin.

Buddy dropped, then didn’t move.

* * *

DEA agent Gerald Mynton was pouring his second cup of coffee of the day when the phone rang. He set down his cup and reached across the desk to answer it. “Mynton.”

“Agent Mynton, I’m Detective Broyles with Phoenix Homicide.”

“Detective, what can I do for you?” Mynton asked.

“I’m not sure, but we’re working a murder and the name of one of your agents came up.”

Mynton frowned. “Who?”

“Sonora Jordan.”

Mynton sat down in his chair with a thump. “What about her?”

“Do you know a man by the name of Robert Allen…goes by the name of Buddy?”

“Not that I—Wait! Did you say Buddy Allen?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, hell,” Mynton said.

“Then you do know him?” Broyles asked.

“Not personally, but I do know that Agent Jordan used to date a Buddy Allen. Is he the one who’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“And you say it was murder?”

“Beat all to hell and back,” Broyles said. “Died in E.R. about two hours ago.”

“And you’re looking for Agent Jordan because?”

“Mr. Allen had a message for her. It was the last thing he said before he died. He said to tell her that ‘he didn’t tell.’ Do you know what that means?”

Mynton felt sick. “Maybe. Do you have any leads?”

Broyles shuffled his notes.

“Uh…here’s what we know so far. Around two in the morning, a neighbor was coming home when she saw a stranger get out of the elevator and leave the building. She said he had blood on the front of his clothes. She got into her apartment and went to bed. But she said she couldn’t sleep because she kept hearing an intermittent thump from the apartment above her. She knew it belonged to Buddy Allen, and said it wasn’t like him to make noise of any kind, so she called the super. He went up and checked…found Mr. Allen in a pool of blood and called an ambulance. When he died, we were called in. After questioning the other occupants of the building, we’re leaning toward the theory that the man the neighbor saw might be our man.”

“Got a name?” Mynton asked.

“No, just a description.”

“Was he Latino?”

There was a long moment of silence, then Broyles spoke. “Yes, and I want to know how you know that.”

“We got word a few days ago that there was a hit out on Agent Jordan.” Mynton sighed. “God…we never thought about warning any of her friends. She’s going to be sick about this.”

“That’s all fine, but I want to know about the Latino.”

“Of course,” Mynton said. “I can’t guarantee that the man who killed Allen is the one who’s after Sonora Jordan, but just in case…you might be looking for a man named Miguel Garcia, or one of his hired goons.”

“We would like to talk to Ms. Jordan.”

“Yeah, so would I, but she’s gone,” Mynton said.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“We knew Garcia was after her. I told her to get lost for a while, but I haven’t heard anything from her since she left.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Uh…three, maybe four days, I’m not sure.”

“Do you have a cell phone number?”

“Yes, but would you allow me to get in contact with her first? She’s going to take the news about Allen hard. She’ll blame herself for his death and she’s already under a load.”

“Yes, all right,” Broyles said. “But as soon as you contact her, please have her call us.”

“Will do,” Mynton said.

He hung up the phone, then flipped through his Rolodex for Sonora’s cell phone number.

* * *

By noon, Mynton had left three messages on Sonora’s cell without receiving a call back. He was worried and frustrated by his inability to reach her, but he knew that, if she was okay, she would eventually return his call. It was fifteen minutes to one when he left the office for a lunch meeting.

* * *

After riding all night and stopping for a few hours at a motel, it was close to sunset when Sonora mounted the Harley and got back on the road. The setting sun was at her back as she rolled out onto the interstate.

The night promised to be clear. The first star of evening was already out and although the air was swiftly cooling, the heat of the pavement was still a force with which to be reckoned.

The power of the Harley carried Sonora swiftly down the highway. She rode with the confidence of a seasoned biker. Just before the last of the light faded away, Sonora signaled to change lanes, then glanced in the rearview mirror. The last thing she expected to see was the outline of a horse and rider up in the sky, following at her back.

Startled by the sight, the bike swerved slightly. She quickly regained control and then ventured another glance. This time, she saw nothing but a scattering of clouds.

Rattled, she curled her fingers tighter around the handlebars and focused on the road ahead.

It was nothing but clouds in an odd formation—no way had she seen a ghost rider.

No way, indeed.

* * *

Miguel Garcia was ticked off. He’d beaten Buddy Allen senseless and still wasn’t any better off than he’d been when he’d walked into the apartment. Either the man didn’t know, or he’d rather die than tell where Sonora Jordan had gone. All he’d gotten from his visit to Allen’s apartment was a photo of Sonora. He’d seen her driver’s license photo, but it did not hold a candle to the one Buddy had in a frame. Miguel stared at the image, eyeing the copper-colored skin and straight black hair. Her eyes were dark and almond shaped, her lips full with a twist that could be read as sensual or sarcastic.

Miguel had to admit that Sonora Jordan was beautiful. But beautiful or not, she’d killed Juanito and helped put Enrique in prison and for that she would pay.

Before he’d left the neighborhood, he’d done a little investigating, spread a little money around and learned that Buddy Allen used to have a Harley parked near his pickup truck, but that he’d ridden away on it about five days ago and come back in a cab. After that, he’d drawn a blank.

Once he got back to his hotel room, Miguel made a call to Jorge Diaz to see if he had any contacts in Phoenix who could hack into computer systems. Jorge had given him a name. Toke Hopper. It turned out to be a good one.

At Miguel’s instructions, Toke hacked into the Arizona DMV and discovered that the missing Harley actually belonged to Sonora Jordan, not Robert Allen.

Since Miguel had already been to her apartment and seen the amount of accumulating mail dropped through the slot in her door, he was guessing that she’d already been gone for a few days. He’d been puzzled by the fact that her car was still in its parking place, and assumed she’d taken a plane or a bus out of Phoenix.

Just to make sure his guess had been right, he had Toke check the passenger lists of airlines and buses for the past week. To his surprise, Sonora Jordan had not used either to leave the city. The only thing missing besides Sonora herself was the Harley. If she left town on it, he had no way of knowing a destination.

He decided to go back to her apartment and look again. Maybe he’d missed something before that would make sense to him now.

He paid off the hacker and drove back to Sonora’s apartment building, then walked in like he owned the place. It was quarter to eleven in the morning and most of the residents were at work. No one challenged him as he rode the elevator up to her floor and picked the lock on her door as he’d done before.

Once inside, he began going through papers, looking for something—anything—that would give him a clue as to where she’d gone. Thirty minutes later he was no closer to an answer than he had been when he came in, and was ready to give up. He was on his way out of the kitchen when he accidentally dropped his car keys. As he was picking them up, he noticed something on the floor underneath the island. He got down on his hands and knees and pulled it out.

It was nothing but a book. He had a difficult time speaking English and couldn’t read it at all, so he was definitely disappointed. He didn’t get interested until he realized the book wasn’t just a book, it was an atlas—a book of maps.

He was looking for a woman who’d obviously gone on a trip, so he started at the beginning and began turning pages one by one. About six pages in, he came to the page showing the map of the United States and found his first clue.

Someone had taken a highlighter and traced a path north out of Phoenix and into Oklahoma. The yellow line ended near a small town on the interstate called Henryetta.

He didn’t know how old the atlas was, or if the yellow line was from a previous trip, but it was simple enough to check out. Within minutes he was gone.

He made Flagstaff around four o’clock and immediately began flashing her picture around at gas stations and eating establishments. It took a couple of hours before he hit pay dirt.

He found an employee at a gas station who remembered a pretty woman wearing black leather and riding a Harley. When Miguel showed him Sonora’s picture, he confirmed it was her that he’d seen.

Miguel was congratulating himself on his detective work and thought about driving on through the night, but when he saw the gathering thunderstorms, he changed his mind. He got a room for the night and settled in, satisfied that he was on the right track.

* * *

Sonora was still rattled by her latest hallucination as she rode through Amarillo, Texas, but kept going.

She never knew when she crossed the Oklahoma border, but when the sun finally came up, she saw a sign on the side of the road indicating Clinton and Weatherford were only a few miles ahead. She’d never heard of Clinton, but for some reason, she knew Weatherford was in Oklahoma.

Just knowing that she was in the state fueled a sense of urgency she didn’t understand, but she was too weary to go any farther until she’d gotten some food and some sleep.

* * *

Adam Two Eagles had watched the sun rise, then fed his cat before making himself sit down and write checks to pay his bills. Some time today he was going to have to go into town and get groceries, but not for a while. The day was too nice to waste and he’d promised some families he’d go visit and make medicine for them.

And so the day passed as Adam made visits and answered a couple of phone calls for help from his cell phone. He worked without thought of what waited for him back home until it was getting late and he had yet to go to town and get his groceries. In a few hours it would be dark. He thought about waiting until tomorrow to go shopping and started to go inside his house, when suddenly the front door swung shut in front of him.

Startled, he stopped, opened it, then stood on the threshold and waited, expecting to feel a draft from an open window somewhere in the house.

He felt nothing.

The skin crawled on the back of his neck.

He turned and looked toward the horizon.

The sense of imminency was still with him.

“Okay,” he said softly. “I will go to town.”

Chapter 5

A man was in the motel parking lot cursing the flat he’d found on his car as a police siren sounded a few blocks over.

Sonora heard none of it. The air-conditioning unit near her bed was a buffer against the heat outside, as well as the noise. She slept deeply and without moving, until she began to dream.

* * *

She was surrounded by trees. The wind was rustling the leaves overhead. In the distance, she could hear coyotes. She was lost, and yet she wasn’t afraid. Something flew past her—most likely an owl. They were night hunters—like her. As soon as she thought that, she frowned. Why had she referred to herself as a night hunter? That made no sense.

A twig snapped off to her right.

Sonora froze. Something—or someone—was out there.

“Who’s there?” she asked, and then feared the answer.

Another twig snapped. This time from behind her. She wanted to turn around, but as always, she couldn’t move.

“Stop it,” she yelled. “Either speak up or get the hell away from me. This isn’t funny!”

Wind lifted the hair from the back of her neck as she curled her fingers into fists. It took a few moments for it to sink in that the gust of wind was past, but that her hair was still up.

She heard a sigh, then felt something brush the skin above her collar.

“No, no, no,” she moaned. “I want to wake up.”

“Not yet,” someone whispered.

Sonora shuddered.

“Shh, pretty woman…you are safe.”

“Oh, God, oh, God, I need this to stop. I’m waking up now. Do you hear me? I’m waking up now!”

She closed her eyes, counted to ten and then opened them, expecting to be anywhere but in a forest, in the dark, with a stranger at her back.

“Why am I not awake?” she moaned.

“Because we are not done,” he said softly.

“Then show yourself, damn it!”

There was a long moment of silence. Sonora waited—uncertain what would happen first. Either he would disappear, or she would wake up. Then suddenly, her hair was laying against her neck once more, and she thought she heard him whisper something near her ear. She wasn’t sure. It could have been the wind, but she thought she heard him say, “As you wish.”

She closed her eyes.

“Look at me.”

Panic hit her like a blow to the gut. Be careful of what you ask for, she thought.

“Woman. Look. At. Me.”

His voice was firm, but she was no longer afraid.

She took a deep breath and then opened her eyes just as a cloud blew over the moon. In the dark, all she could see were his eyes, looking down at her and glittering like a wolf.

So he was tall.

She felt his breath upon her face, or maybe it was just the wind.

“Do you see me?” he asked.

The wind blew the last of the cloud away from the face of the moon, and he was revealed to her in the moonlight.

It was a stunning face—a face that appeared to have been carved out of rock—all angles and hard planes—except for his mouth. It was full and curved in just a hint of a smile. When he saw that she was looking at his lips, she saw his nostrils flare.

“I see you,” she said.

“Then come to me,” he demanded.

* * *

Sonora woke up just as someone fell against the outside door of her motel room. She heard a burst of muffled laughter and then the sounds faded away.

“Oh, God, what is happening to me?” she whispered. “Am I going insane?”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and looked for the digital clock. It was either broken or unplugged, because the digital readout was dark. She turned on a light, then glanced around for her watch. She didn’t see it, tried to remember when she’d looked at it last and failed.

“Great,” she muttered, then stumbled to the window. It was still daylight outside.

She glanced back at the bed and then frowned. There was no way she was going back to bed and chance resuming that dream. It was too unsettling. Without giving herself time to rethink the decision, she hurried to the bathroom. The sooner she got cleaned up and dressed, the sooner she could leave.

She didn’t know for sure where she was going, but that hadn’t stopped her yet. If she admitted the truth, she hadn’t been in control of her life since that day in Tijuana when she’d fallen flat on her face and into what she could only describe as a parallel world. From the time she’d left Phoenix to right now in this strange motel room in a state named for the Native Americans who peopled it, she’d been led by something more powerful than anything she’d ever known before. As confused as she felt, she had come to believe that something—or someone would continue to lead her in the right direction.

As she was dressing, she remembered she’d been going to call her boss. She took the phone off the charger and made the call to the Arizona headquarters of the DEA, but when she was put through to Mynton’s office, he was gone. Frustrated, she left him a message saying that she was okay and she’d call him later.

Within an hour, she was back on the Harley with the sun at her back, trusting in a force she could not see.

* * *

Franklin Blue Cat was asleep in his favorite lounge chair on the back porch. The disease he was battling and the medications he was taking to fight it often left his body feeling chilled and old beyond his years. Shaded from the sun and with the breeze in his face, he reveled in the heat of summer.

Although he was still, his sleep was restless, as if his mind refused to waste what little time he had left. In the middle of a breath, pain plowed through his body, bringing him to an immediate upright position and gasping for air. He struggled against panic, wondering if he would be afraid like this when his last breath had come and gone, then shoved the thought aside.

He believed in a higher power and he believed that when his body quit, his spirit did not. It was enough.

He glanced at his work in progress and then pushed himself up from the chair. For whatever odd reason, he had a compulsion to finish this piece before he was too weak to work.

Once up, he decided to get something to drink before he resumed carving. He was in the kitchen when he heard a commotion outside in the front yard. He hurried onto the porch. At first, he saw nothing, although he still heard the sound. Puzzled, he stepped off the porch, then looked up.

High above the house, an eagle was circling. Every now and then it would let out a cry, and each time it did, it raised goose bumps on Franklin’s arms.

“I see you, brother,” Franklin said.

The eagle seemed to dip his wings, as if to answer, “I see you, too.”

Franklin shaded his eyes with his hand, watching in disbelief as the eagle flew lower and lower.

Was this it? Was this how it would happen? Brother Eagle would come down and take his spirit back to the heavens?

His heart began to pound. His knees began to shake.

Lower and lower, the eagle flew, still circling—still giving out the occasional, intermittent cry. And each time it cried out, Franklin assured Brother Eagle that he was seen.

Franklin didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath until the eagle suddenly folded its wings against its body and began to plummet.

Down, down, down, it came, like a meteor falling to earth.

Franklin couldn’t move as the great bird came toward him at unbelievable speed. Just when he thought there was no way they would not collide, the eagle opened his wings, leveled off his flight and sailed straight past Franklin with amazing grace.

Franklin felt the wind from the wings against his face, saw the golden glint of the eagle’s eye, and knew without being told that the Old Ones had sent him a sign.

Staggered by the shock of what had just happened, Franklin took two steps backward, then sat down. The dirt was warm against his palms. A ladybug flew, then lit on the collar of his shirt.

He smelled the earth.

He felt the sun.

He heard the wind.

He saw the eagle fly straight up into the air and disappear.

It was then he knew. A change was coming. He didn’t know how it would be manifested, but he knew that it would be.

* * *

Gerald Mynton got back in the office around three in the afternoon. When he heard Sonora’s voice on the answering machine, he groaned. He needed to talk to her and she’d given him no idea whatsoever of where she was or how she could be reached. It was obvious to Mynton that she kept her phone turned off unless she was physically using it, and had to be satisfied with leaving her another message that it was urgent he talk to her. All he could do was hope she called in again soon.

* * *

Sonora passed through Oklahoma City in a haze of heat and fumes from the exhausts of passing trucks and cars. Sweat poured from her hair and into her eyes until she could no longer bear the sting. She pulled over to the shoulder of the road long enough to take off her helmet and get a drink. She emptied a bottle of water that had long since lost its chill, then tossed it back into her pack to be discarded later.

There was some wind, but it did nothing to cool her body against the midsummer heat of Oklahoma. In the distance, she could see storm clouds building on the horizon and guessed that it might rain before morning. Maybe it was just as well that she’d taken to the highway this day. She knew Oklahoma weather had a predilection for tornadoes. Riding tonight would probably not be a good idea.

Reluctantly, she replaced the helmet, swung the Harley back into traffic and resumed her eastward trek, passing Oklahoma City, then the exit road to Choctaw and then exits to Harrah and then Shawnee. It dawned on her as she continued her race with the heat that nearly every other town she passed had some sort of connection with the Native Americans.

It wasn’t until she came up on Henryetta, once a coal-mining town and now a town claiming rights to being the home of World Champion Cowboys Troy Aikman and Jim Shoulders, that she felt something go wrong.

She flew past an exit marked Indian Nation Turnpike. Within seconds after passing it, a car came out of nowhere and cut in front of her so quickly that she almost wrecked. It took a few moments for her to get the Harley under control, and when she did, she pulled off the highway onto the shoulder of the road.

Her heart was hammering against her chest and she was drenched in sweat inside the leather she was wearing. She sat until she could breathe without thinking she was going to throw up, and got off the bike.

She took off her helmet, then removed her leather vest. Despite the passing traffic, she removed her shirt, leaving her in nothing but a sports bra. Without paying any attention to the honks she was getting from the passing cars, she put her vest back on. Then she wound her hair back up under her helmet, jammed it on her head and swung her leg over the seat of the bike.

The engine beneath her roared to life, then settled into a throaty rumble as she took off.

Less than a mile down the highway, a deer came bounding out of the trees at the side of the road. Sonora had to swerve to keep from hitting it. This time, when she got the Harley under control, she began to look for a safe place to cross.

She might be hardheaded, but she wasn’t stupid. For whatever reason, she’d gone too far east. She thought of the exit she’d just passed, and the odd feeling that had come over her as she’d read the words.

Indian Nation Turnpike.

For the same reason that had taken her this far east, she felt she was now supposed to go south. She waited until there was a break in the traffic, and rode across the eastbound lanes and into the wide stretch of grass in the center median. She paused there until she caught an opening in the westbound lanes and accelerated.

It didn’t take her long to find the southbound exit to the Indian Nation Turnpike, and when she took it, it felt right. Pausing at the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp, she took a deep breath and then accelerated.

The moment she did, it felt as if the wheels on the Harley had turned to wings. The wind cooled her body and she felt lighter than air.

* * *

Adam loaded the last sack of groceries into the seat of his pickup truck and then slid behind the wheel. As soon as he turned it on, he noticed his fuel gauge registered low. He lived too far up into the mountains to risk running out of gas, so he backed up and drove to the gas station at the end of the street.

As he pumped the gas, a sweat bee zipped past his nose, then took a second run back at his arm. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. As he did, he heard the deep, throaty growl of a motorcycle engine and, out of nothing but curiosity, turned and found himself staring into the simmering fires of a setting sun.

For a moment he was blinded by the glare, unable to see the rider or the bike. Quickly, he looked away, then shaded his face and looked again.

His breath caught at the back of his throat.

The bike and the rider were silhouetted against the heat and the sun as it paused on the horizon of an ending day. Despite the heat, Adam shivered. Although he knew it was an optical illusion, both rider and bike appeared to be on fire.

He was still staring when the illusion faded and the rider wheeled the bike into the empty space beside Adam’s truck. He heard the pump kick off, signaling that his tank was full, and still he couldn’t bring himself to move.

He didn’t know when he realized that the rider was a woman, but he knew the moment she took off her helmet and turned to face him that he’d been waiting for her all of his life.

When their gazes connected, she gasped, then staggered backward. If Adam hadn’t reacted so swiftly, she would have fallen over her bike. And the moment he touched her, he flinched as if he’d been burned.

“You came,” he said softly.

Sonora looked down at his fingers that were curled around her bare arms. She could feel him. She could see him. But that had happened before. The test would now be if she could move.

She took a step back. To her surprise, her feet moved. In a panic, she wrenched away from his grasp.

“I’m awake,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. She rubbed her arms where he’d been holding her, then looked up.

“Do you see me?”

He looked at her face as if trying to imprint every line and curve into his mind forever. There was no mistaking who she was, or why she was here. But from the little bit she’d just said, he suspected she was not in on the deal.

“Yes, I see you,” he said softly.

Sonora exhaled a shaky breath. She didn’t know what to say next.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“And yet you came?” he asked.

She thought of the nights and days of hallucinations and was halfway convinced that this was nothing but a repeat of the same.

“It seemed I had no choice,” she muttered.

“Your father waits for you,” he said.

Sonora jerked as if he’d just slapped her. She was disgusted with herself for being so gullible. Whatever had been happening to her, now she knew it was a dream.

“I don’t have a father,” she said angrily.

“But you do,” Adam said. “Have you ever heard your mother mention a man by the name of Franklin Blue Cat?”

She snorted in a very unladylike manner, and added a succinct curse word to boot.

“Mother? I don’t have one of those, either,” she said. “I was dumped on the doorstep of a Texas orphanage. The details of the ensuing years are hardly worth repeating. And now that this little mystery is over with, I’m out of here.”

Adam winced. Franklin would be devastated by this news, and he couldn’t let her leave. Not until they’d met face-to-face.

“You’ve come all this way. Don’t you at least want to talk to him?”

“Why? He never bothered to look me up.”

Adam heard old anger in her voice. The story wasn’t his to explain, but if he didn’t convince her of something, she would be gone before Franklin got a chance to state his case.

“Franklin didn’t know about you. He still doesn’t.”

Sonora shook her head. “You’re not making sense. And by the way, who the hell are you?”

“Adam Two Eagles.”

She tried not to stare, but it was surreal to be standing here having this conversation with a specter from her dreams.

“So, Mr. Two Eagles, what do you do for a living…besides haunt people’s dreams?”

Adam stifled a gasp of surprise. He’d been in her dreams? This he hadn’t known. The Old Ones had really done a job on her.

“I haunt nothing,” he said quietly. “I used to be in the army. Now I’m a healer for my people, the Kiowa. I know you’re Franklin’s daughter, but I don’t know your name or what you do.”

“Sonora Jordan is my name. I’m an agent with the DEA.” Then she turned the focus back on him. “So… Adam Two Eagles. You call yourself a healer.”

He nodded once.

She reached behind her, felt the seat of her Harley and clung to it as the only recognizable thing on which she could focus.

“Healer…as in medicine man or shaman, or whatever it is you people call your style of voodoo?” she asked.

“Healer, as in healer,” he said. “And my people are your people, too. Whether you accept it or not, you are half Kiowa.”

The words hit Sonora where it hurt—deep in the old memories of childhood taunts about being a throwaway child with no family and no name. She’d lived her entire life branded by two words that a priest and a nun had chosen out of thin air and given to the latest addition to their orphanage. Sonora because it was the priest’s hometown, and Jordan for no reason that she knew other than that they felt by not giving her a Latino name, she might have a better chance at a decent life. A quixotic thought for two devout Catholics who believed that everyone was equal in the eyes of God.

“You can’t prove that,” she muttered.

“Well…actually, I can,” he said. “You’ve come all this way. You don’t have to believe me. Follow me if you dare, and see for yourself.”

Sonora thought of the handgun tucked into the storage behind the seat and then of how far she’d let herself be guided by a whim. What could it hurt? If she had to, she could take him. Besides, maybe this would finally put an end to being a walking nightmare just waiting to happen.

Adam watched her eyes, only guessing at the jumble of thoughts that must be going through her head.

“I won’t hurt you,” he added.

She fixed her gaze on his face, remembered the last thing he’d said to her in her dream, and then sighed. “I know that,” she said.

Her assurance was startling.

“Why do you say that with such confidence?” Adam asked.

“I’m here because I fell into some sort of twilight zone. I’m here because I keep dreaming of a man who’s either sick or dying. And I’m here because you keep haunting my dreams.”

Again she mentioned seeing him in her dreams. Intrigued, he had to ask. “What am I doing in your dreams?”

“Trying to seduce me… I think.”

He wondered if he looked as startled as he felt.

“Indeed,” he drawled. “And did I succeed?”

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Sonora glanced up at the sky. Either she holed up in another motel until this storm passed, or she followed this man. Despite the fact that she’d seen his face in her dreams, she didn’t know him. For all she knew, he might try to harm her. Then she sighed. Miguel Garcia wanted her dead. So what was new? It was either the devil she knew or the one she didn’t.

“I have one question to ask you,” she said, ignoring the fact that she had not answered his.

He shrugged. “Then ask.”

“This man you claim to be my father. Does he have a wind chime on his front porch that looks like a dream catcher?”

Despite the depth of his tribal beliefs, Adam was taken aback by the question.

“Yes.”

“And does he have a hobby of carving things out of wood?”

Adam thought of his friend’s fame that was known all over the world by those who indulged in his particular brand of art.

“Yes, you could say that,” he said.

“And…a few days ago, was he taken ill?”

Now Adam was feeling off-kilter.

“You have seen all of this…in dreams?”

She shrugged, then nodded.

“The Old Ones have been playing with you,” he said softly.

“Who?”

“Never mind,” he said. “If you want to meet your father, then follow me.”

“I need gas.”

“I will wait.”

She reached for the nozzle to the pump, quickly filled the tank and then dashed into the station to pay.

Adam saw Franklin in every movement she made, from the cut of her features to the way she moved when she walked—with her toes pointed inward just the tiniest bit and with the grace of a young filly at one with the world. She was a woman with copper-colored skin and long legs that life had saddled with a hefty portion of defiance. She and Franklin would get along just fine.

When she came out and mounted her bike, Adam was already rolling out of the station and onto the street.

She stuffed her hair back beneath her helmet, then fired up the engine. She was on Adam Two Eagles’s tail before he passed the city-limits sign.

Chapter 6

Sonora was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that not only was the man she’d dreamed of actually real but that she was following him up a mountain without knowing where she was going. It was against every safeguard she’d been taught, and against every instinct she had. And yet she was doing it.

It was the first time in her life that she’d questioned the wisdom of having no personal ties. Before, it had been not only convenient but wise. Without family, bad guys had no leverage against agents like her. But she’d never been faced with this particular situation. She wanted someone to know where she was and what she was doing, if for no other reason than to have a place to start looking for her should she suddenly disappear.

Even as she was thinking the thoughts, something told her she was overstating the obvious. Adam Two Eagles had made no threats toward her. She didn’t feel uneasy around him and she was a good judge of character. She wasn’t afraid of Adam Two Eagles, but she was uncomfortable with what he represented.

Frustrated by thoughts that just kept going in circles, she began to focus on the beauty of the mountain, instead. Pine and cedar trees grew in great abundance, as well as knobby-barked blackjack trees—a cousin of the oak. Every so often she would see a bird fly out from among the branches of a tree and then disappear into another.

She thought of what it would be like to live up here, so far away from the conveniences of city living. One would have to be very secure to live so alone. Then it occurred to her that she lived in a city among thousands and was as alone as anyone could be. It was an eye-opening realization to know that it wasn’t where you lived, but how you lived, that made lonely people.

Obviously, Franklin Blue Cat was alone, but if he was as secure within himself as Adam, she doubted that he was very lonely.

Just when she thought they would never arrive at their destination, Adam began to slow down, then came to a complete stop.

Sonora was forced to stop daydreaming and focus on the immediate. Up to now, the road had been blacktop, but she saw that at the fork it became dirt. She realized she was about to eat dust.

When Adam leaned his head out of the window and waved her over, it became apparent he was concerned with the same thing.

“If you follow me too closely, you will be covered in dust.”

She flipped up the visor on the helmet so that she could more easily be heard. “I’ll manage,” she said.

“Still, if you want to lay back a little, I thought I’d tell you where we’re going so that you don’t miss a turn.”

Sonora thought about it and decided that a serial killer probably wouldn’t give her a chance to get away like this. His offer went a long way toward easing her already suspicious mind.

“Yeah, okay, I see your point,” she said.

“Good,” Adam said, then pointed to the left. “Four miles down this way, you’ll come to another fork in the road. Take the right fork, which goes up the mountain, and follow it. Franklin’s home is at the end of the road. You’ll see a couple of signs along the way that say Blue Cat Sculptures.”

Sonora frowned. “Really? Does he sell arts and crafts from his home or something?”

“No.” Then he grinned. “I think there are a few more surprises in store for you. Your father is world renowned for his carvings.”

“The bird,” Sonora muttered.

Adam frowned. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Let’s go. I need to get this over with. I don’t want to have to find my way off this mountain in the dark.”

Adam’s frown deepened. “There is no need for that to happen,” he said. “Your father will welcome you.”

“How could he when he didn’t know I existed?”

Adam eyed the woman, accepting her defensiveness as understandable, yet wondering how much of the spiritual world of the Kiowa she would be able to accept.

“It is your father’s story to tell,” Adam said. “So, are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she muttered, and waited for him to drive away. As soon as he’d gone about a half mile down the road, she revved up the engine and followed.

* * *

Franklin was sitting on the porch when he heard the sound of a car coming up the road. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for people to come unannounced, but he wasn’t in the mood to cater to strangers. Still, his good manners bade him to deal with it, just as he was dealing with the leukemia ravaging his body.

When the truck appeared at the curve in the road, he breathed a sign of relief. It was Adam. He was always welcome.

Franklin stood, then lifted his arm in a greeting as Adam pulled up to the yard and stopped. He was partway off the steps when he realized that someone had been following Adam’s truck.

Stifling a frown, he took a deep breath and put on his game face. When he saw that it was a rider on a motorcycle, he paused politely.

“Adam, it’s good to see you,” Franklin said, and then pointed down the road with his chin. “He with you?”

Adam stifled a smile, and then nodded.

Franklin sighed. “This has not been a good day.”

Adam put a hand on his old friend’s arm. “I’m sorry to hear that, old friend, but I have good news. That’s about to change.”

Franklin flinched. The eagle had warned him a change was coming. Was it already here?

The rider pulled up beside Adam’s truck and then parked. It was when he started to dismount that Franklin realized the he was a she. Even in black leather, the body was definitely feminine.

He glanced at Adam, but Adam only smiled at him, then shrugged as if to say wait and see. Franklin sighed. These days, he was not so good at waiting for anything.

The rider leaned slightly forward as she took off the helmet, and as she lifted her head, a long, black sweep of hair fanned out, then fell loosely down the back of her neck. Even though she had yet to face him, Franklin felt an odd sense of familiarity.

“Adam?”

“Just wait,” Adam said.

In that moment, Sonora Jordan turned, and for the second time today, found herself face-to-face with the other man from her dreams.

“This is too weird,” she muttered, and refused to let herself be overwhelmed by the fact that this man claimed he was her father.

Franklin was shaking. He couldn’t quit staring at her face.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Sonora looked at Adam, then frowned. “I thought you said he knew I was coming.”

Adam decided it was time for him to intervene. “Franklin, the Old Ones have delivered what you asked for. This is Sonora Jordan. She’s an agent with the DEA.”

Sonora frowned. “What Old Ones? What are you talking about?” She backed up and laid her hand on the storage compartment behind the seat of the Harley. It made her feel safer to be close to the gun. “Is this some trick Garcia has pulled to get me alone, because I warn you, if it is, I won’t—”

“No. No,” Franklin whispered. “It’s no trick. It’s a miracle. I asked Adam to find my child. And you have come.”

Sonora looked at Adam. “I don’t get it. You didn’t find me. I found you.”

“Actually, it was neither,” Adam said. “The Old Ones found you. They are the ones who have guided your path. They are the ones who have brought you to this place.”

“What are you talking about? Who are these Old Ones you keep talking about?”

Franklin waved her question away as he took her by the hand.

“Forgive me, but I just had to touch you. You are so beautiful. My heart is full of joy.”

“Look,” Sonora said. “I appreciate your kindness, but how can you be certain that—”

“Come into my house. I’ll prove it to you,” Franklin said, and then turned and strode to the porch and up the steps without waiting to see if she was behind him.

Sonora glared at Adam. “I’m not falling for all this ghost and spirit crap.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But consider this…how else did you come to be in this place?”

She flashed on the hallucinations and dreams she’d been having and glared even harder.

“My boss told me to get lost for a while. That’s how. I’ve got one man already on my back trying to kill me. So if you’re in mind of doing anything similar, you need to get in line.”

Adam froze. His voice deepened as his eyes went cold. “You are in danger?”

“Oh, Lord… I don’t know…. Yes, probably. At least enough that my boss told me to leave Phoenix.”

“Come, come,” Franklin called from the doorway. “You must see to believe.”

Sonora gave Adam one last warning glance. “Just don’t mess with me, okay?”

Adam didn’t answer.

Sonora exhaled angrily, took her gun out of the compartment and put it in the back waistband of her pants, beneath her leather vest, then stomped into the house.

“So what do you have to show me?” Sonora said.

Franklin handed her a photo that he’d taken from the mantel over the fireplace.

Sonora eyed it casually, then stifled a gasp.

“Who is she?” she asked, pointing at the woman in the photo.

“My mother, and he is my father. It was taken on their wedding day.”

“Good Lord,” Sonora whispered, then carried it to a table in the hall and the mirror that hung above it.

She kept looking from the photo to her face and then back again until Adam took it from her hands and held it up beside her. Were it not for old-fashioned hair and clothing, and the man in the picture, she would have sworn the picture was of her.

“I look like her,” Sonora said, and then bit her lip to keep from weeping. In all of her twenty-nine years, she’d never had the luxury of saying that before.

Franklin walked up behind her. Adam stepped back. Now Sonora was seeing herself, and Franklin Blue Cat, and seeing the similarities in their features. Her emotions were out of control. They went from jubilation, knowing she’d found a family, to hurt and anger that he’d never come looking for her. She wanted to cry, and settled for anger.

“Why?” she muttered.

“Why what?” Franklin asked.

“Why am I just learning you existed?”

Franklin took her by the hand. “Please, may we sit down? I’m not feeling very well.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he led her to a sofa.

Franklin shrugged. “I have leukemia and the medicines have quit working. I am dying.”

Sonora reeled from the news. She’d known he wasn’t well, and had even had the thought that he was dying, but to hear her suspicions were actually true made her sick to her stomach. This wasn’t fair. She’d spent her entire life alone. Why would she be reunited with her only living family only to have him snatched away? How cruel was this?

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, and bit her lip to keep from wailing.

Franklin nodded. “Such is life,” he said, then brushed the topic aside. “Did your mother ever mention my name?”

Sonora smiled bitterly. “My mother, as you put it, dumped me on the doorstep of a Texas orphanage when I was less than a day old. I was named by a priest and a nun and dumped in a baby bed with two other babies. My earliest memory is of sitting in the corner of the bed and bawling because one of the bigger kids had taken my bottle and drank my milk.”

Franklin reeled as if he’d been slapped. “You’re not serious?”

She laughed to keep from crying. “Oh, but I am. She didn’t want me and that’s okay. I can take care of myself.”

Franklin shook his head as tears unashamedly ran down his face. When she would have moved away, he took her hands, then held them fast against his chest.

“No. No. That is never okay. I am sorrier than I can tell you, but it’s not okay. I didn’t know until a few weeks ago that you might even exist. That’s when I asked Adam for help.”

Sonora shook her head. “That’s what I still don’t get. How did you come to believe you had a child? Who told you?”

“I had a dream,” he said. “I have it often. It’s always of your mother, whom I loved more than life. It’s a repeat of our last day together, and how sad I am that she’s moving away, even though I begged her to stay. Only this time the dream was different and it made me believe that your mother’s spirit was trying to tell me to search for you.”

“You’re serious.”

“Very.”

Sonora pointed to Adam. “So, where does he come in?”

“He’s the healer for our tribe. I am full-blood Kiowa. I have no brothers or sisters, and after your mother left, I never had another woman. I am the last of my people, or at least I was, until Adam sent for you.”

“Both of you keep saying that, but I don’t understand. How did he send for me when he didn’t even know if I existed?”

“I made medicine,” Adam said. “I told the Old Ones what Franklin wanted. They are the ones who looked for you. They are the ones who found you. They are the ones who have given you your dreams that led you to us.”

“Oh…oh, whatever,” Sonora muttered. “I can’t deal with all that hocus-pocus right now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Franklin said. “All that matters is that you are here.”

Outside, there was a quick flash of lightning.

“It is going to rain. Will you stay?” Franklin asked. “I have many rooms in this house and yet I live in it all alone. I would welcome your company for as long as you can be here.”

She thought about the danger her presence might cause, and then decided there was no way on earth that Miguel Garcia would ever find her here. Besides, she wasn’t just curious, she ached to know this man who was claiming her. She wanted to know everything there was to know about the people whose blood ran through her veins.

“Yes, I’ll stay, and thank you,” she said. “I’ll just go get my bag off the Harley.”

“I’ll get it,” Adam said, “but then I must be going. I have animals to feed before dark.”

He hurried outside, untied the bag from the back of the Harley and carried it into the house where Franklin was waiting.

“How can I ever thank you?” Franklin said, and then threw his arms around Adam and hugged him fiercely.

“It’s the Old Ones you must thank,” Adam said, then added, “Call if you need me.”

Sonora was standing behind an easy chair, watching the two men part company. She felt like the outsider she really was, and had a sudden urge to jump on her bike and leave before she became too involved to let go. Then Adam turned his attention to her.

“Franklin has my number. Call me if you need me.”

She made no comment, unwilling to admit that she didn’t want him to leave.

Adam refrained from looking at her again. It was difficult enough not to let what he was thinking show through. Somehow he didn’t think Franklin would thank him for lusting after his newfound daughter.

“Come tomorrow,” Franklin said. “I’ll make breakfast.”

Adam arched an eyebrow. Franklin’s fry bread was famous on the mountain.

“Fry bread, too?”

Franklin smiled. “Sure.”

“What’s fry bread?” Sonora asked.

Both men looked at her and then shook their heads.

“It won’t look good if word gets out that Franklin Blue Cat’s daughter has never had fry bread,” Adam said.

Franklin smiled. “You are right,” he said. “So…my first duty as a father will be to introduce her to it.”

Sonora caught herself smiling back. “Am I being the butt of a big joke?”

“Oh, no,” they said in unison. Then Adam added. “Your father often makes fry bread at the stomp dances.”

“Stomp dances?”

They looked at her and then smiled again.

“You have a lot to learn about your people,” Franklin said, then his smile went sideways. “I will teach you what I can with the time I have left.”

Sonora nodded, then looked away. “Maybe you could tell me where you want me to sleep. I would like to wash off some of the dust before we talk any more.”

“I’ll be going now,” Adam said. “See you for breakfast.”

Sonora picked up her bag as Franklin led the way down a hall.

“These rooms are cool and catch plenty of breeze. However, there is an air-conditioning unit if you wish to be cooler. The medicine I take makes me cold, so I don’t often use the main one in the house anymore.”

“This is beautiful,” Sonora said, overwhelmed by the subdued elegance. There were royal-blue sheers at the windows, as well as vertical blinds. A matching blue-and-gold tapestry covered a king-size bed and there was a large Navajo rug on the floor in front of it. But it was the carving of a small kitten that caught her eye. It was lying on its back with its feet up in the air, batting at a dragonfly that had landed on its nose.

She moved toward it, touched it lightly, then picked it up. “I can’t believe this is wood. It looks real.”

Franklin smiled. It was praise of the highest kind. “Thank you. It would honor me if you would accept it as a gift.”

Sonora’s eyes widened. “Oh. I didn’t mean to suggest… I couldn’t possibly…”

Franklin put a hand on her shoulder. “Please. You’re my daughter. Of course you must have this.”

Sonora ran a thumb along one of the paws, tracing each tiny cut that gave the appearance of fine hair.

“This is magnificent,” she whispered.

“I call the piece Friends,” Franklin said.

“It’s perfect,” Sonora said, and then held it close as she looked up into his face—a face so like her own. “Today has been overwhelming,” she said. “There is so much I don’t understand—so much I don’t know how to explain. I’ve never had family of my own, so if I do something wrong, I beg your forgiveness ahead of time.”

“You can do no wrong,” Franklin said. “You’re the one who’s been wronged. I don’t understand how this happened, but if I’d known about you, I would have moved heaven and earth to bring you home.”

Threatened by overwhelming emotions, Sonora shuddered. “If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”

Franklin shook his head. “It is no dream. Now, I have one request to ask of you.”

“If I can. What do you need?”

“To hold my daughter.”

Sonora hesitated long enough to put down the sculpture, then turned and walked into his arms.

Franklin stifled a sob as she laid her cheek against his chest. For the first time since he’d received the news of his death sentence, he was angry all over again. This wasn’t fair. Why should they be reunited like this only to know it would soon come to an end?

* * *

It was almost dark by the time Adam got home. He finished his chores in the dark and then hurried inside, reaching shelter only moments before the heavens turned loose of the rain.

Wind blew. Thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed.

He ate a lonely meal and thought of the breakfast tomorrow, knowing that, for a short time, he would be with Sonora again.

He didn’t know what was going to happen between them, but he didn’t want the relationship to end before they had a chance to know one another.

He thought of Franklin, wondering how he was going to take finding a daughter and losing his life.

Rain blew against the kitchen window as he washed the dishes from his evening meal. Lightning flashed, momentarily revealing the wildly thrashing trees and limbs and the flow of rainfall funneling through the yard to the creek below his house.

Then another, more sinister thought reared its head.

Sonora had said she was in danger.

He feared she was understating the issue. The soldier in him wanted to take her to a place of safety and guard her against the world. But the healer in him knew there was another way.

His eyes narrowed as he dried his hands and moved from the kitchen to the medicine room.

He paused in the doorway, thinking of a stranger on Sonora’s trail, and then moved with purpose to the shelves. Without hesitation, he chose the items he needed, then carried them outside onto the porch. Sheltered from the rain, he lit a swatch of dried sweetgrass, then purified the air with the smoke.

He fell into the old language as easily as he breathed, turned to the north and began to chant, telling the Old Ones of the danger to one of their own, beseeching them to protect her when he could not. Then he repeated the request to the east, then the south and finally the west.

A wild crack of lightning hit the ground only yards away from his house. Adam staggered backward from the force of the strike. The scent of sulfur was heavy in the air. As he stood, the wind suddenly changed and blew rain up under the eaves of the porch and into Adam’s face.

He took it as a sign that they’d heard.

It was done.

Chapter 7

Sonora spent the rest of the evening in a daze. It was difficult to wrap her mind around the fact that she not only had a father, but that she was actually in his house. While the premise was far-fetched and almost too good to be true, whatever doubts she might have had about being his daughter ended the moment she’d seen her grandmother’s picture.

Thinking about how she got here could make her crazy if she dwelled on it, so she didn’t. For a woman who’d spent all of her adult life dealing in truth and facts, accepting the notion of being guided by what amounted to ghosts seemed ridiculous. Still, however it had happened, she was grateful to be here.

And Franklin, who was normally shy and reticent toward strangers, was struggling to give her space. The last thing he wanted was to scare her off, but he felt a constant need to be with her. With his life span already limited, he was resentful that their time together was destined to be short.

So, while they wrestled to find comfort with each other, the thunderstorm that threatened earlier had come full force. Sonora and Franklin ate their evening meal with an accompaniment of thunder and lightning, then washed dishes with rain splattering against the windows. After that, Franklin had taken her on a tour of the house, only to have it interrupted by a power failure. Sonora had embarrassed herself by panicking when the lights had gone out. By the time Franklin found flashlights and lit a few candles, the power was on.

Now they sat in front of a television without paying any attention to the programming, trying to find points of connection between their separate lives.

Sonora was fascinated with his artistic skills and was going through a photo album that represented a complete set of his work once he’d turned a hobby into a profession. She was in awe of where he’d been, and the heads of states he’d met in faraway countries.

Franklin, on the other hand, was trying to hide his dismay at the profession his only child had chosen.

“So, when did you begin working with the DEA?” he asked.

Sonora turned a page in the album, then looked up.

“It seems like forever, but I guess it’s been about seven or eight years now. I had just turned twenty-one. I’m twenty-nine now. I’ll be thirty in September.”

Franklin’s nostrils flared. It was the only indication he gave of realizing there was another slot to be filled.

“Your birthday,” he said softly.

Sonora nodded, then stopped.

“Oh. Yes. Another gap in our knowledge of each other, which I can quickly fix. My birthday is September 12. I’m five feet ten inches tall in my bare feet. I wear a size ten in clothes, and I love chocolate.”

He tried to smile and hugged her, thankful that she was trying to make light of the vast gap between them, because the truth of it broke his heart.

“You are tall, like me,” he said. “Your mother, Leila, was a small woman, but she had a big laugh.” His smile faded. “It was the first thing I loved about her.” Then he shook his head. “But that’s for another time. I was born on June 4 in a storm cellar while a tornado blew away the house that was here. This is the one they built to replace it, so it is the only home I’ve ever known.”

Sonora nodded as she listened to him talk, but she wasn’t listening as intently as she should have been. Instead, she was marking the way his left eyebrow arched as he told something funny, noticing his slim hands and long fingers, hands of an artist. His skin was darker than hers, but not by much, and she suspected part of the washed-out color of his skin was due to his illness. She thought of seeing him unconscious on the floor and not knowing the connection between them, and how blessed she was to be sitting here now.

Then she thought of Adam coming to his rescue.

“Tell me about Adam Two Eagles,” she said.

Franklin had sensed what seemed to be interest between the two and could only hope something came of it.

“His father was my best friend,” he said. “His mother was a distant cousin on my mother’s side.”

“We’re related?” she asked, unaware that she was frowning.

This time, Franklin allowed himself a grin. “Only in the most distant sense of the word. Probably what would amount to a sixth or seventh cousin.”

“Oh. Well. That hardly counts, does it?”

Franklin’s grin spread. “Definitely does not count.”

Sonora realized he was having fun at her expense and made a face at him. “It’s not what you think. I was asking only because I would want to know of any relatives.”

Franklin sighed, and then took her hand in his. “I’m afraid, when it comes to close family, we’re it.” Then Franklin shifted gears to Sonora’s life. “Have you ever been married?”

“No.” She thought of Buddy and smiled. “Not even close, although I’ve had a couple of relationships and gotten a good friend from one of them.”

“Friends are good,” Franklin said.

Sonora thought of the dream she’d had of Adam, of the whisper of his breath on the back of her neck and the challenge he’d given her right before she’d awakened.

“Come to me,” he’d said.

And she would have done it—willingly. However, faced with the real man and not one out of some dream, she was far more discerning. As intriguing as he was—as handsome and compelling as he was—he was still a stranger.

Unaware of the places her mind had taken her, Franklin had shifted a few mental gears of his own.

“In the morning, I’ll show you the boundaries of our land,” Franklin said.

Sonora was so taken aback by the fact that he’d referred to the property as “ours” that she could hardly speak. Still, she felt a need to slow him down from committing to things he might later come to regret.

“Franklin…wait. Please. You don’t need to do this,” she said.

“Do what?” Franklin asked.

“Include me in your life so quickly. It’s not ‘our’ land, it’s yours.”

Franklin frowned, then shook his head.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “Everything I do these days is done quickly. I don’t have the luxury of assuming there will be a tomorrow. And knowing you exist and that you are of my flesh is a joy you don’t understand. To the Native American, family is everything, and my family has lived in this area for generations. The last four generations are buried here, and until your arrival, that heritage was going to end with my death. Now I can die with peace. Even if you choose not to live here, it will always be yours, and hopefully, the generations that come after.”

Sonora was too moved to speak. All she managed to do was nod and then look away.

Franklin sighed. “I did not mean to upset you, but these are things you must know.”

Sonora’s voice was shaking, but she looked him square in the eyes. “And by the same token, you cannot know what this means to me. I have lived twenty-nine years without belonging anywhere or to anyone. Now to have been given both at the same time is almost more than I can comprehend. I’m not upset. I’m overwhelmed.”

Franklin relaxed, then patted her hand. “Then this is good, yes?”

Sonora sighed. “Yes, this is good.”

“So…would you mind very much if, from time to time, I called you daughter?”

Sonora blinked away tears. “I would be honored. And for the same reasons, it would be wonderful to know I could call you Dad.”

There was a time in Franklin’s life when he would have hesitated to let someone see him cry, but that time had long since passed. His eyes filled with tears as he took her in his arms and held her.

They might have stayed there longer, but Sonora felt his body trembling and knew it was from fatigue. Without calling attention to his weakness, she claimed exhaustion on her own.

“I hate to be the party pooper, but this has been a long day. If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go to bed.”

“Of course,” Franklin said, and got up as she stood.

“So…you invited Adam for breakfast, didn’t you?”

Franklin grinned.

“Quit that,” she muttered. “I’m just asking so I won’t oversleep. That would be rude.”

“Oh, definitely, that would be rude,” Franklin said, and then they both laughed out loud. “He’ll probably show up around nine. He knows I don’t get up as early as I used to.”

“I’m a pretty good cook,” Sonora said. “If you show me where stuff is, I’d love to make the meal.”

Franklin took a slow breath, and then touched her face with the back of his hand. “And I would love to eat your cooking,” he said, then puffed out his chest in an exaggerated manner. “My daughter cooks for me tomorrow. If someone had told me I would be saying these words tonight, I would have called them crazy.”

“So it’s a deal?” Sonora asked, and held out her hand.

Franklin shook it. “It’s a deal,” he said.

Sonora nodded and started to leave the room, then she paused and looked back.

Franklin was watching her go.

She bit her lip, then took a slow breath. Revealing her vulnerability was more difficult than she’d imagined it would be. Still, she’d waited a lifetime to say these words and she wasn’t going to cheat herself out of the opportunity because she was afraid.

“Night… Dad.”

Franklin smiled.

“Good night…daughter. Sleep well.”

Soon the house went dark, and both father and daughter slept with a peace in their hearts they’d never known before.

* * *

Adam, on the other hand, didn’t get much sleep. His dreams were troubled with a faceless enemy stalking Franklin’s daughter. Finally, he woke up in a sweat, and abandoned his bed for the swing on his front porch.

The air was cooler and rain washed. Bullfrogs sang from the overflowing creek while their tinier cousins, the tree frogs, contributed to the chorus. The quarter moon hung low in the sky, shyly showing its face from behind the swiftly moving clouds.

Adam walked to the edge of the steps and then looked up, inhaling deeply as he combed his fingers through his hair.

There was a power in the dark that daylight didn’t share. He’d known it since childhood, and it had saved his life more than once during his years with the military. Night was a shield for those who needed it, and kept secrets better than a best friend ever could. It protected but at the same time left the weak more vulnerable.

Adam thought about the creek running out its banks down the hill below. If it wasn’t for the copperheads between him and the water, he’d chance a midnight dip. However, his foolish days were long gone, and he would gladly settle for a cold shower.

He was about to go back inside when he heard a coyote yip. Within seconds, another answered, and then another and another, until the night was alive with their calls. He smiled. It was one of the sounds of the Kiamichi Mountains that he loved most.

He thought of the years he’d spent in foreign countries, living his life for the American government instead of for himself, and said a quiet prayer of thanks that he’d lived to make it home.

He stood on the porch and gave the coyotes their due by waiting until the chorus had ended.

“Good job, boys,” he said softly, then started into the house. He was crossing the threshold when his cat, Charlie, slipped between his legs and darted beneath a chair.

He closed the door, then got down on his hands and knees and grinned at the cat who was peering at him from beneath the small space.

“What’s wrong, old man? Coyotes make you a little nervous?”

“Rowrrr.”

“I feel your pain,” Adam said.

“Rrrpp?”

“Yeah, sure…why not?” Adam said. “I don’t have anyone else fighting you for the space.”

Since he’d been given permission, Charlie abandoned the space beneath the chair for a spot at the foot of Adam’s bed.

Both males were soon sound asleep, taking comfort in the knowledge that, for tonight, they were not alone.

* * *

Miguel Garcia was in Amarillo, Texas, pacing the room of his motel with his cell phone up to his ear. He’d trailed Sonora Jordan this far and then had lost her. At this point, he knew he needed help, and had been trying to contact some of his men in Juarez. But no matter who he called, he got no answer. That alone was enough to make him nervous.

And if he’d known the truth, nervous would have been an understatement. He didn’t know that there was already a big upheaval in his organization that had nothing to do with Enrique and Juanito’s absences. He didn’t know that Jorge was moving in on territory that had been under Garcia control for years. And, he didn’t know that Jorge had given the DEA the description and tag number of the car Miguel was driving. Miguel thought he was the hunter, but in truth, he was also the prey.

* * *

Gerald Mynton was beside himself with frustration. Twice he’d missed phone calls from Sonora. He didn’t know what she was trying to pull, dropping out of sight like this without staying in touch.

Yes, he knew he’d told her to get lost. But he hadn’t expected her to actually do it. As far as he knew, she was in imminent danger and he had no way of warning her about it. So, in order to offset the chance that they might miss connecting again, he was having all of his calls, both personal and professional, forwarded to his cell phone. No matter what time of day or night a call came in, he would get it. With this small assurance set in place, Mynton finally gave up and went to bed. And while he wasn’t a praying kind of man, he still said a prayer of safekeeping for Sonora before he could fall asleep.

* * *

Sonora woke abruptly, and for a moment couldn’t remember where she was. Then her gaze fell on the carving of the kitten and the dragonfly and breath caught in her throat.

Home.

She was home.

She glanced at the clock, then her eyes widened. It was already seven-thirty and Adam was coming for breakfast. She flew out of bed and raced into the bathroom. It was the quickest shower she’d ever had. She dressed in a pair of old jeans and a red sleeveless T-shirt, and as an afterthought pocketed her cell phone. Then she pulled her hair up on top of her head, securing it with an elastic band. She started to put on her tennis shoes, then decided against it and left the room in bare feet.

As she started down the hall, she could hear Franklin moving around in his room, so she knew he was up, but she was going to do her own investigating into what was available in the kitchen without bothering him.

Before she started looking in the fridge, she made a big pot of coffee, hoping that the men liked it strong. Soon the enticing aroma of freshly brewing coffee filled the air as she began looking to see what was available to cook.

It was easy to spot the bacon and eggs, and she found half a loaf of bread and two kinds of jelly in the refrigerator, as well. A set of canisters on the cabinet revealed flour and sugar. After digging through the pantry, she found a partially used bag of self-rising flour, a can of vegetable shortening and a small bottle of sorghum molasses. She was in business.

She turned on the oven to preheat, laid her cell phone on the counter out of the way, then dug through the cabinets and drawers until she found the rest of what she needed. It wasn’t long until the smell of baking bread was added to the aromas drifting through the house.

Sonora was frying bacon when she sensed she was no longer alone. She looked up. Franklin was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She smiled.

“Good morning. How did you sleep?” she asked as he moved toward her.

Franklin touched her shoulder in a gentle, hesitant manner, then kissed the side of her cheek.

Sonora leaned against him for a fraction of a second, then made herself smile when all she wanted to do was cry. This family stuff was harder than she would have thought.

“I slept well,” Franklin said. “And you?”

“Like a baby,” Sonora said. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugged. “Some mornings are better than others.”

She eyed the food she was making. “Does this bother you… I mean, the smells of food cooking? I didn’t think that you might not be—”

Franklin held up a hand to silence her. “It smells wonderful. I will drink some coffee and take my meds and maybe steal a piece of that bacon when it’s done before Adam comes and eats all my food.”

Sonora nodded and made herself smile, but she could tell he wasn’t right. Either he was weak, or in pain, or possibly both. It broke her heart to think that she had just met this wonderful man and might lose him before they got to know each other the way father and daughter should.

She pretended not to notice his hand shaking as he poured coffee into a cup, and she busied herself making gravy when he counted out more than a dozen pills and swallowed them one by one.

Biscuits had just come out of the oven when someone knocked on the front door.

Franklin looked up at the clock and grinned.

“Adam already? It’s barely eight-thirty. I’m thinking he must really be hungry…or something.”

Sonora heard the sarcasm in his voice and laughed in spite of herself. Franklin was obviously a big tease and she may as well face the fact that he wasn’t going to give up alluding to Adam’s interest in her.

“Probably smelled the biscuits,” she said. “Want me to let him in?”

Franklin’s smile widened. “Someone has to. Might as well be you.”

She threw a pot holder at him.

Surprise lit his face as he caught it. This daughter of his had fire in her soul. But he should have known that. No one did what she did for a living without having a large amount of faith in herself. It made him sick at heart to think of her growing up so alone. It was a good thing that she’d had a strong belief in herself, because there had been no one else to do it for her.

He heard Adam’s deep voice, then the sound of Sonora laughing. He smiled. It had been years since such joy had filled this house. His blessing was that he’d lived long enough to hear it.

“Good morning, Franklin,” Adam said as he followed Sonora into the kitchen. Then he eyed the stove and the pan of biscuits. “You outdid yourself this morning, didn’t you?”

Franklin beamed. “I did nothing but oversleep. My daughter has cooked our food this morning.”

Sonora bit her lip to keep it from trembling as she cracked eggs into the hot skillet. This was nothing short of a miracle, and she was frying eggs in this kitchen as if it was no big deal.

“I like mine over easy,” Adam said.

Sonora jumped. She hadn’t known he’d come up behind her.

“How many?” she asked.

“Two, please.”

She grabbed another egg and broke it into the skillet beside the three that were already beginning to cook.

“What about you, Dad? How many eggs for you?”

“Oh…maybe one. My appetite isn’t what it used to be.”

Sonora turned around and frowned at Franklin. His color was ashen, and there was a bead of sweat on his upper lip. She took a piece of bacon from the platter, handed it to him and pointed toward the table.

“Sit.”

Franklin took the bacon and sat without argument. Adam looked startled by Sonora’s perception, and without comment, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down by Franklin.

Sonora noticed the way Adam cared for Franklin, subtly checking the older man’s pulse, then shaking out two painkillers for him from a bottle in the cabinet. By the time the eggs were done, Franklin appeared to be feeling better.

Sonora carried the plates to the table, then added the biscuits, bacon and jelly. She poured the gravy and refilled the coffee cups, then finally sat down.

Franklin eyed the table, then Adam, then Sonora.

“Today, I am truly blessed,” he said softly. “And so I ask blessings for the food we are about to eat, and for the company of my daughter and my best friend.”

“I am the one who’s honored. Are those biscuits homemade?”

Sonora eyed Franklin, who appeared ready to offer another comment regarding her expertise in a kitchen, and headed him off.

“Yes, and before we get all carried away with praise for the cook, you should know that the eggs are getting cold,” she said.

With that, she passed the biscuits down the table, trying not to appear too pleased when both men took two apiece to start with.

For a few minutes, little was said other than a request for something to be passed. It wasn’t until Franklin was finishing his second biscuit that it occurred to him the food tasted good.

“Sonora, this food is very good,” Franklin said. “Who taught you to cook like this?”

“Betty Crocker.”

Adam grinned.

Franklin’s eyebrow arched.

“The Betty Crocker?”

“The one and only,” Sonora added.

Adam snagged another biscuit, slathered it with butter and jelly, then toasted Sonora with it.

“Then…my compliments to the cook,” he said.

But Franklin wasn’t satisfied.

“You learned to cook like this from a book?”

Sonora shrugged.

“Pretty much. I got tired of eating out all the time, bought myself an old Betty Crocker cookbook from a library sale when I was…oh…probably eighteen or nineteen. After that, it was largely a case of trial and error. I did get a few pointers from an elderly woman who was my neighbor at the time.”

Franklin lifted his head and then stared off into the distance. Sonora could tell that he was troubled, but she didn’t understand.

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling bad again? Maybe you should go lie down for a—”

“I’m sick, but not like you mean. I am sick at heart that you have marked every step in your life alone.”

Sonora got up and put her arms around her father’s neck and hugged him.

“You worry too much,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m strong. And if you’re feeling all that good, you can do dishes.”

Franklin looked startled, then he laughed and pointed at Adam.

“Two Eagles will do the dishes.”

Adam grinned. “It would be my pleasure. However, I hope you know that there’s a house rule about the dishwasher getting to take home the leftovers.”

Sonora frowned.

“There’s nothing left but biscuits.”

“Exactly,” Adam said, and then grabbed the bread plate and headed for the cabinet.

“We will be outside on the back porch for a while,” Franklin said. “When you’ve finished, please join us.”

“Hmmpf? Oh…shurr,” Adam mumbled.

Sonora wasn’t sure, but she thought he’d just stuffed another biscuit in his mouth, then Franklin took her hand and led her outside.

“Let’s sit here,” he said, and pointed to a couple of wicker chairs at the north end of the porch.

They sat. Franklin took a deep breath, folded his hands in his lap and then stared straight into Sonora’s eyes.

“Now we ask questions of each other, and the answers must be honest.”

Before they could start, Sonora heard the familiar ring of her cell phone that she’d left on the cabinet. At the same time, Adam called out.

“Sonora, your phone is ringing.”

“The only person it could be is my boss,” Sonora said. “I’d better get it.”

Adam met her at the door and handed it to her as she came inside.

“Thanks,” she said, glanced at the caller ID, then smiled. “I was right. It’s my boss. This won’t take a minute, okay?”

Franklin nodded, and then leaned back in the chair as Sonora answered.

“Hello.”

Gerald Mynton breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Thank God,” he muttered. “You’ve been harder to find than the Loch Ness monster.”

Sonora frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Mynton sighed. There was no easy way to say this. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Sonora stilled. “How bad?”

“Your friend Buddy Allen is dead. We think Garcia got to him, trying to find you.”

Sonora moaned. She didn’t know it, but her face had gone white as a sheet.

“What happened to him?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter how. I don’t know what this means, but before he died, Buddy said to tell you that ‘he didn’t tell’.”

Sonora choked on a sob. Buddy the joker, the life of the party who could never shut up, yet he’d wanted her to know that he didn’t tell Garcia anything about how she’d left town.

She took a deep breath and then made herself calm when all she wanted to do was start screaming. She compromised by shouting. “I asked you a question and I need an answer. What did Garcia do to him?”

Startled by her outburst, Franklin started to get up and go to her, but Adam beat him to it. Adam walked up behind her and put an arm around her waist, just to let her know she wasn’t alone. To his surprise, her legs all but gave way.

“Easy, girl,” Adam said softly. “We’re here for you.”

Sonora’s knuckles were white from the grip she had on the phone and she was struggling to keep focused as she repeated herself one last time. “Please, boss. I have to know.”

Mynton was sick to his stomach to have to be the one to tell her. “He beat him, honey…bad. He beat him real bad.”

She bent over and grabbed her stomach, certain that her breakfast was about to come up.

“Oh, God, oh, God. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have—”

“No, damn it. It’s Miguel Garcia’s fault,” Mynton said. “And just so you know, he’s on your trail.”

Sonora straightened up with a jerk and cast a frantic glance at her father, and then at Adam. What evil had she brought to this beautiful place?

“How? How could he know where I am?” Sonora asked. “Nobody knew. Buddy sure as hell didn’t. Even I didn’t know where I was going and I’ll bet my life I didn’t leave a trail.”

“Well, that’s just it. You are betting your life and I don’t like it. I want you to come in. We’ll put you in protective custody and—”

“No. I will not hide from the bastard. Besides, how do you know he’s following me?”

“He was last seen in Flagstaff. Did you go through there?”

Sonora shuddered.

“Yes, but so what? There are four different ways to leave that city.”

“He’s moving east.”

“Shit.”

Mynton heard her muffled curse.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said, swiping tears from her face even as she pulled herself out of Adam’s arms. “I’m sorry, too, but not nearly as sorry as Garcia is going to be when I find him.”

Mynton nearly dropped the phone. “What the hell do you mean…when you find him?”

“I’m not going to sit here like a Judas goat and let everyone else—”

Adam didn’t know what was happening, but he could tell that it was bad. And he could tell that Sonora was in trouble.

He grabbed her arm and mouthed the words what’s wrong?

She frowned and waved him away.

He grabbed her arm again, and this time, said it out loud.

“What’s wrong?”

Sonora rolled her eyes.

“Boss…hang on just a minute, okay?” Then she turned her pain into anger and lit into Adam. “It’s business, Adam, my business, which means it’s none of yours. I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.”

“Who’s Buddy?”

Her face crumpled like a used napkin.

“My friend. He is…was…my friend. The man who wants me dead beat him to death, trying to find out where I was.”

Franklin took the phone from Sonora’s hands.

She was so surprised by his actions that she let him do it.

“Excuse me,” Franklin said. “I’m Sonora’s father, and whatever trouble she is in, we will help her deal with it.”

Sonora grabbed the phone away. “Boss! It’s me! Don’t pay any attention to him. I’ll be leaving here as soon as I can pack. I’m not going to have Garcia come looking for me here.”

Mynton was too stunned to follow her conversation.

“I thought you were raised in an orphanage.”

“I was, damn it, but—”

“Then how did you find your father?”

“It’s a long story,” she muttered.

“I don’t know what’s going on there,” Mynton said. “But think a minute. No one knows you have family, so there’s no one to look for. However, if you leave, how are you going to be sure that Garcia doesn’t find them in his quest to look for you?”

“Because I’ll find him first,” she snapped.

“Yeah, well, Buddy Allen might have given you an argument with that thought.”

Sonora reeled as if she’d been slapped.

“That’s not fair,” she mumbled, then swiped a shaky hand across her face. “I can’t think right now. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Promise?” Mynton asked. “Oh. Wait. You’re supposed to call a detective named Broyles with the Phoenix P.D. He’s working Buddy’s case.”

“Yes, all right,” she said, and then hung up.

For a moment, she stood with her head down and her shoulders shaking. Tears were rolling out of her eyes and down her face, but she wasn’t making a sound.

Adam waited silently until he could take no more.

“You’re not alone.”

She put a hand over her eyes and then turned away.

Franklin put a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re not alone,” he said, repeating Adam’s words.

She lifted her head, looking first at her father, then at Adam. Whatever might have been between them was over before it began.

“I can’t be here,” she said softly. “I will bring death to this place if I stay.”

Franklin waved his hand as if he was shooing a fly.

“Death is already here, daughter. It’s been here for months waiting for me to notice. Please, whatever is wrong, you must let us help you.”

“It’s DEA business,” she muttered. “I can’t get civilians involved in—”

Adam interrupted. “I spent twelve years with the army rangers. I was good at what I did. You’ll stay. We will help.”

“It is settled,” Franklin said.

Sonora was too overwhelmed to argue, and when they came to her and held her, she didn’t say no.

Chapter 8

Once the shock of the call and the trauma of the morning had been dealt with, Franklin went inside to rest, leaving Adam and Sonora alone. Normally, she would have been defensive with a man she hardly knew, but she wasn’t with Adam. She didn’t bother with trying to figure out why. She just took his presence as the comfort she desperately needed, and finally let herself grieve.

Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, and the sight hurt Adam’s heart. As they walked beyond the yard into the shade of the forest, little by little Adam drew out details of the relationship that had been between her and Buddy Allen. He wouldn’t let himself think about the spurts of jealousy that came and went as he listened to her talking about a man with whom she’d once been intimate. He didn’t want to admit, not even to himself, that he was envious of a dead man.

“So you dated Buddy for nine months. You must have some really good memories,” Adam said gently.

Tears finally spilled over and rolled down her face as she paused beneath a large oak.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But all I can remember was constantly disappointing him. I was gone so much and he wanted more from the relationship than I was ever able to give.”

“He wanted to marry you?” Adam asked.

“Something like that,” Sonora said, then her voice broke. “And now he’s dead…he’s dead because of me. I told him my life was too complicated for commitments, but he wouldn’t listen.” She choked on a sob and then covered her face with her hands. “Oh. God, Adam, Garcia beat him to death. I can’t get that out of my head.”

Adam put his arms around her. Sonora stiffened. Accepting sympathy was as difficult for her to deal with as accepting advice. But he didn’t turn her loose and she didn’t pull away, and slowly, slowly, she began to relax. When that happened, the wall of her emotions crumbled. Before she knew it, she was sobbing.

“Yes, pretty lady…cry for your friend…and for yourself. Cry it all out,” Adam whispered.

And she did.

* * *

A day passed, and then another, until an entire week had come and gone since Sonora’s arrival. As per her father’s wishes, she’d checked in every day with Mynton, just so she would stay up-to-date on the investigations. She’d called the Phoenix detective as she’d been asked to do but had been unable to give him any information he didn’t already have.

She knew that after a possible sighting of Garcia in Amarillo, Wills and the task force had left Flagstaff to check it out, and upon arrival had gotten a positive ID. Problem was, by the time all of that had been confirmed, Garcia was long gone—destination unknown.

* * *

As for Miguel Garcia, it had taken big money and calling in some favors from an old friend of his father before he’d finally gotten some help. Now four of the drug cartel’s finest were combing the highways and the states bordering Texas and Oklahoma, trying to get a fix on the whereabouts of the missing DEA agent. Miguel had let it be known that it was worth a half million dollars to him to find Sonora Jordan.

While the men were searching, Garcia was forced to lay low. He now knew he had agents on his tail. He’d been assured by Emilio Rojas, the man who’d been his father’s right hand, that not only did the DEA have agents on his trail, but they knew the make, model and tag number of the car he was driving. Once the significance of this news sank in, he felt sick. The only way that could have happened was if he’d been betrayed.

Time and time again, he went over a mental list of people who’d helped get him across the border. There were any number who could have tipped off the DEA, but he kept remembering the man at the airport outside of Houston who’d brought him a car and money and then so abruptly disappeared.

It stood to reason that this man could be the one who betrayed him. But then he would skip to the fact that Jorge Diaz had set everything up. Diaz was entirely responsible for successfully getting Miguel out of Mexico. He would have had access to the same information.

To go there in his mind, Miguel had to accept that Diaz would betray him, and he couldn’t believe it, even though he had been unable to contact Diaz for days.

To be on the safe side, he’d sold his car at a used car dealer in Oklahoma City, bought a four-year-old Jeep from a different car lot, driven thirty minutes east on I-40 to Shawnee, Oklahoma and had the Jeep painted black.

Before he left town, he’d stolen a Native American license plate from a member of the Muscogee Nation while the car was parked outside the Firelake Casino south of Shawnee. He’d driven off with no one the wiser, traveling as far as Tulsa, Oklahoma before going to ground.

There, he’d begun the business of disguising his appearance. He’d shaved his head and mustache, bought himself some Western-style clothes, including a pair of ostrich skin boots and a big black hat. By the time he added a large silver belt buckle to his wardrobe, his own mother would not have recognized him.

Feeling fairly safe about getting back out in the world, he thought about resuming his own search for Sonora, but decided to err on the side of caution. If his men didn’t find her within the week, he was going to go back to Phoenix. Sonora Jordan couldn’t stay gone forever, and he was a patient man.

* * *

Adam had not been to Franklin’s house or seen Sonora since the morning she’d received the news of her old friend’s death. He relived their last moments together in his dreams—holding her close against his body—feeling the thrust of her breasts against his chest as she cried for another man. But in his dreams, her tears somehow turned to passion. They would lie down together beneath the sheltering limbs of the old oak. There would be whispers and promises and an ache so deep that it took Adam’s breath away. What was driving him crazy was that he kept waking up before they could make love. He was sick and tired of cold showers and aches that wouldn’t go away.

She and Franklin didn’t have a lot of time to play catch-up, and he didn’t want to intrude. But he wasn’t a fool. He also didn’t want to lose the small foothold he’d gained with her by staying gone too long. She was a stranger in every way that it mattered, and yet there was a part of him that knew he couldn’t bear to let her go. He didn’t know how much time she would give herself to stay on the mountain, but he wanted his share of it. The way he looked at it, he’d given them a week. His streak of generosity was over.

* * *

Franklin was having a bad day and, after breakfast, had gone back to bed. Sonora had quickly learned that on these days, the best thing she could do for him was give him space and quiet. So when he went back to his room, she took his fishing pole and straw hat and headed for the pond at the back of the property.

She caught a few grasshoppers on the way and put them in a jar to use for bait just like Franklin had shown her. The wide brim on his old hat shaded her face while the sun had its way with the rest of her body. Even though it was hot, she knew she wouldn’t burn. By the time she got to the pond, her T-shirt was stuck to the sweat on her back and she had some kind of weird-looking burrs in her socks. Still, she was happier than she could ever remember being.

On the second day of her arrival, Franklin had saddled up two of his horses and they’d ridden from one corner of the property to the other until she knew where Blue Cat land began and ended. It had given her a sense of identity that she’d never known.

So, today, as she baited her hook, she had the satisfaction of knowing that she was standing on Blue Cat land—about to fish in a Blue Cat pond.

She wrinkled her nose and asked an apology of the poor grasshopper that was still kicking on the hook as she tossed it in the water. The red-and-white bobber bounced a few times within the spreading ripples. After that, it was a case of sit and wait.

For Sonora, it was like living out a dream. As a child, she used to imagine the innocence of a life like this, with people who loved her sitting beside her. There would be a picnic and laughter and playing barefoot in the water. It wouldn’t matter if anyone caught fish because they were together.

The sun was hot. Sonora’s eyelids were drooping. The bobber was riding high in the still water like an empty ship, and she couldn’t bring herself to care that she wasn’t getting any nibbles.

Something tickled her arm. She brushed at it without looking. Then something tickled the back of her neck. She brushed at it as absently as she had her arm.

“If I was a bad guy, you’d be in trouble.”

Sonora choked on a squeak and fell backward. For a second, the sun was in her eyes, and then a tall shadow fell across her face and she could see.

It was Adam.

“Darn you,” she muttered as she sat up, then yanked the pole from the water and flung it on the ground. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he said, but he was smiling as he sat down beside her.

“No, you’re not,” she said, and then pointed a finger in his face. “I didn’t even hear you coming. How did you do that?”

“I’m Indian.”

She rolled her eyes and then punched him lightly on the arm.

“You’re full of it, that’s what you are.”

His smile widened. “Well, there is that, too.”

She wanted to stay indignant, but it didn’t work.

Adam brushed his hand against the curve of her cheek. “Forgive me?”

His dark eyes were glittering with laughter and his mouth was curved up in a smile. There was a small bead of sweat at the edge of his hairline as well as a sheen from the heat on his face. He smelled good—like the outdoors with a hint of musk, and the look in his eyes was on the broad side of dangerous.

At that moment, Sonora knew if she let it happen, they would be lovers. Part of her wanted to know him in that way. He was kind and generous. She could only imagine what kind of a lover he would be. But she had to remember there was danger in giving too much of herself away, and danger to whomever she let get too close. Buddy’s death was evidence of that.

Adam watched the playfulness come and go on her face and wondered what she was thinking, although he doubted she was the kind of woman who gave away her secrets.

“Hey,” he said, and playfully bumped his shoulder against hers.

She managed a halfhearted smile and then looked away.

“You’re forgiven,” she said.

She was slipping away from him and he couldn’t let that happen.

“Hey,” he said again, and cupped her face with the palm of his hand, pulling gently until she was looking at him. “What just happened here?”

Sonora met his gaze straight on. “I’m not who you need to be hanging out with.”

He inhaled sharply. She was thinking of Buddy Allen.

“I don’t run from anything,” he said. “Not even you.”

Sonora frowned. “I don’t know what you think you want, but I’m not it.”

“I don’t think. I know what I want,” Adam said. “I’m just not sure you’re ready to hear it.”

Sonora’s heart skipped a beat.

“I don’t run from anything…or anyone…either,” she said. “I left Phoenix only because I was ordered to do so.”

Adam turned until he was facing her. His legs were crossed, his gaze steady upon her face.

“I know,” he said gently. “You are fierce and you are strong. You wouldn’t be your father’s daughter if you were not. But it’s not your job to protect me or Franklin. We’ve faced our own troubles and dealt with them just fine.”

“You’ve never had troubles like the kind Miguel Garcia can bring.”

Adam shook his head, then ran the tip of his finger down her nose, tapping the end like punctuating a sentence.

“Again you forget I was an army ranger. I’ve been in the middle of things the American public never knew happened. I am not afraid of a drug dealer, and you should trust me when I tell you this.”

He was no longer smiling, and the tone of his voice was as dark as his eyes. Sonora took a deep breath and then nodded.

“Okay.”

Adam hated the expression in her eyes. It was a combination of distrust and fear. When he reached for her, she looked away.

“Don’t do that,” Adam said.

There was a frown on her forehead as she cast him a sideways glance.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said.

“Are you afraid of what you’re feeling?”

Her nostrils flared as she raised her chin. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It was a defensive motion Adam knew only too well. He shook his head, leaned forward, slid a hand behind her neck and pulled her into a kiss.

She sighed, then she moaned. She’d known this man would be different. This man could hurt her in a way like no other. She knew it and still clung to the urgency in his kiss.

Adam had no sense of self. He’d lost it the moment he’d covered her mouth with his. He’d known it would be like this. She was sweet as wild honey, but the kiss was no longer enough. He rose up on his knees without breaking their kiss, then pulled her up to meet him. Now they were body to body, clinging to each other in quiet desperation.

The kiss lengthened—deepened.

Sonora lost focus when he took down her hair and ran his fingers through the length. She swayed weakly, then grabbed his shoulders to steady herself, but it was too little, too late.

Adam took her in his arms and laid her down, cradling the back of her head with his hand as he leaned over her, and as he did, saw a moment of panic on her face. Regretfully, he leaned down and rubbed his cheek against her face. Her skin was warm against his lips, and he could feel the rocket of her pulse against his fingers.

“I will never hurt you,” he whispered.

A tear rolled out of Sonora’s eye.

“You will break my heart.”

The poignancy in her words was a red light to what had been about to happen. Adam didn’t know what to say to make her believe it wasn’t true. But he couldn’t—wouldn’t—make love to her without her complete faith and trust.

“Never,” he said softly, then wrapped his arms around her and rolled them both until she was the one on top. They lay without moving or talking while the passion cooled.

Sonora didn’t know what to think. She’d thought they were going to make love and she’d wanted it. God knew how badly she’d wanted it. She still ached for the weight of him—for that promise in his eyes of things to come. And she still couldn’t believe what she’d said—that he would break her heart. It was as good as admitting that she already cared for him, which seemed ridiculous. They’d spent less than twenty-four hours together, but she felt as if she’d known him forever. He was a healer. Maybe he was a wizard, as well.

“Adam?”

He shifted to allow the weight of her head against his shoulder.

“Hmm?”

“Did you really make magic to get me here?”

He sighed. How did you explain the Native American way to someone who had not been raised in the culture?

“It’s not magic…exactly.”

“Did you put a spell on me, too?”

He grinned. “Honey, I didn’t even know you were you until I saw you at the gas station with the fire of a setting sun behind your back. How could I put a spell on someone I’d never met?”

“I don’t know…maybe the same way you sent for me. What did you call those…those…?”

“The Old Ones?”

“Yes, the Old Ones.”

“Do you believe in them?” he asked.

Sonora rose up on her elbows to look down at his face.

“I don’t know what to believe, but I’m here, and that in itself is a miracle. So if I accept your truth of how I got here, then it’s not reaching much further to assume you’ve put a spell on me.” She looked embarrassed, but she kept talking, intent on making her point. “It’s the only explanation for this…this…thing that’s between us.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “It’s called sexual attraction.”

Her eyes widened. She almost smiled.

“Is that what you call it?”

“Well, woman…it’s what we Indians call it. Is there another name for hot and heavy in the white man’s world?”

She grinned, then lightly punched his shoulder. “You’re teasing me.”

He grinned back. “Not about the sex part.”

“Okay, so there’s something between us.”

He arched an eyebrow and rocked his pelvis against her belly. “Yeah, but don’t worry. Eventually, it will go away.”

This time she laughed out loud then rolled off him and grabbed her fishing pole. “Shut up, Two Eagles. I have fish to catch.”

“Can I watch?”

She eyed him cautiously. “Are you capable of keeping your hands to yourself?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, and then proceeded to kiss her one more time.

“Hey,” Sonora said. “I thought you said—”

“You asked me if I was capable of keeping my hands to myself. I told you the truth. I am capable. But I didn’t promise I would.”

Sonora cast the line in the water, then propped the pole against a rock. Without saying a word, she turned around, grabbed Adam by the collar with both hands and yanked him forward.

They’d kissed before, but never like this. Sonora set him on fire. He’d thought about dying plenty of times, but never thought it would be like this.

“Sonora… God…let me—”

She turned him loose as fast as she grabbed him.

“I’ve got a bite,” she said calmly, bent down and picked up her fishing pole and landed a fish.

Adam was still shaking when she took it off the hook and put it on the stringer.

“You’ll stay for lunch, won’t you?”

Adam took a deep breath and jammed his hands through his hair, but wouldn’t answer.

That didn’t stop the conversation.

“Good,” Sonora said. “How hungry are you…one fish or two?”

“Starving,” he muttered, and pulled his T-shirt over his head.

When he sat down and pulled off his boots, then got up and started unbuckling his belt, Sonora’s lips went slack.

“Um…uh…”

He glared. “What? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a naked man before?”

Sonora’s mouth went dry. She’d seen naked men before, but never one so remarkably built or so remarkably aroused.

She glared back. “I’ve seen plenty,” she snapped.

“So what’s your problem, then?” he asked.

She kept trying to look at his face, or at the trees under which they were standing—at anything and everything but the obvious.

“Uh…you’re…you’re…”

“I’m what?” he said, and then turned his back on her and dived into the water.

She watched the perfect dive with undue appreciation, both for his form and his perfect backside.

He came up with a whoosh, sending a shower of water into the air. The frustration and anger were gone from his face. To add insult to injury, he was treading water and grinning.

Sonora wanted to scream.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I think I was in the water when you answered. You were saying I was…?”

Sonora hadn’t grown up alone and tough for nothing.

“I was about to say…you’re scaring the fish.”

Chapter 9

Sonora made Adam clean the fish. He considered it only fair since he’d come to the meal uninvited. Franklin woke up just as Sonora was taking the last fish from the skillet and followed the scent of his favorite food into the kitchen.

His delight in knowing there was fish for lunch doubled when he realized they would be having company.

“Adam! It’s good to see you. I was beginning to think you’d found something better to do than visit a sick old man.”

“You’re not old,” Adam said.

“Maybe not, but today I am not so sick that I can’t eat some of this wonderful fish. Daughter! It seems you have been busy while I was sleeping.”

“You have no idea,” Sonora muttered, then made herself smile.

She was still shocked at herself for letting Adam push all her buttons. Her lack of self-control was so out of character she felt off-center with the world.

Franklin paused. There was something different in her tone of voice, and now that he was looking, there was something different about her appearance, as well. This morning her hair had been up. Now it was down, and her face was flushed. The flush on her cheeks could have been from the heat of the kitchen, but the fact that she was studiously avoiding looking at Adam seemed more likely. And there was no explanation forthcoming as to why Adam’s hair was damp.

“Has something been going on in my house that I should know about?” he asked.

Sonora looked guilty.

Adam looked up. “Of course not, Franklin. I would never disrespect you or your home in that manner. The pond, however, is neutral territory, right?”

Sonora gasped, and then glared at Adam all over again.

Adam’s eyes were twinkling, but his expression was completely calm as he awaited Franklin’s answer.

Franklin grinned. “Yes. You are right. The pond is neutral territory.”

“Oh… I’m so laughing my head off,” Sonora muttered, then pointed at Adam. “You. Put some ice in the glasses, please.”

Adam knew better than to say anything else. He was still reeling from the kiss she’d laid on him down at the pond.

“Hey, Franklin… I was looking at that new piece you’re working on. It’s really something. What kind of bird is that…a wren?”

“Yes. I thought it was going to be a barn swallow, but when I began carving, the wren is what began to emerge.”

Sonora was listening to their conversation with interest as she put a small bowl of quartered lemons on the table, along with a bottle of tartar sauce.

“You mean, you don’t know what the sculpture is going to be before you begin?” Sonora asked.

Franklin smiled. It was something people often asked him once they found out his process.

“How can I know until I remove the excess wood?”

Sonora’s eyes widened with amazement. “The excess?”

“Yes, you know—the part that doesn’t belong.”

“That’s just amazing,” she said.

Franklin shrugged. “It’s not so much. It’s just the way it works.”

A timer went off.

“I’ll get it,” Adam said.

“It’s the corn bread,” Sonora said, and pointed to a platter on the counter. “After you cut it, would you put it on that plate?”

Already absorbed in his task, he nodded absently.

Sonora caught herself staring, and when she finally came to herself and turned around, her father was grinning at her.

“Don’t say a word,” she warned him.

Franklin could tell she was interested in Adam. He just didn’t know how much.

It was all Sonora could do to sit down at the table with Adam and get past the memory of his naked body enough to pass him the fried potatoes.

Adam knew she was bothered. It served her right. Yes, he’d kissed her first, but it hadn’t been the toe-curling, mind-blowing lip lock that she’d laid on him. She was dangerous to mess around with.

Still, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. There was tension in her shoulders and her back was too straight. She was bothered, all right. He smiled as he passed her the bowl of potatoes.

“Want some?” he asked.

Her eyes narrowed. He wasn’t asking about potatoes, and they both knew it. She snatched the bowl from him and spooned a large helping onto her plate, then passed it to her father.

Adam managed to pretend disinterest as the meal progressed, but the truth was, he could have used another cold dip in the pond.

It wasn’t until they were doing the dishes that Franklin decided to stir the pot simmering between his daughter and friend.

“Hey, Adam, isn’t there a powwow coming up in a couple of weeks at the campgrounds?”

Adam was drying the last plate and answered before he thought. “Yes.”

“You gonna go?” Franklin asked.

“What’s a powwow?” Sonora asked.

“Kind of like a family reunion. There will be food and both men and women’s dancing.”

Sonora frowned. “What do you mean…men and women’s? Don’t they dance together?”

“No.”

“Isn’t that sort of antisocial?”

“Not when you see it,” Franklin said.

“Then show me,” she said.

Franklin sighed. “I’m sorry, Sonora. I would like to, but I’m afraid I will have to wait and see how I feel when the time comes.”

“I could take her,” Adam said.

Franklin pretended to think about it, when in fact it was his plan all along.

“Yes, that might be best,” he said. “If I feel well, I can come with you, but if I don’t, then you two can go on alone. Would you like to do that, daughter?”

Sonora wanted to know this side of her heritage, but she wasn’t sure she’d learn a damn thing with Adam Two Eagles except how much restraint she had left. Still, she wasn’t about to let either one of them know how much she wanted to be with Adam.

“Sure. Why not?” she said, then added, “But I hope you can come, too.”

“As do I,” Franklin said. “It would give me great pleasure to introduce you to some of our clan.”

“Clan? You mean the Kiowa?”

“The People are Kiowa, but we are of different clans. We belong to the Snake clan, as does Adam and his family.”

Sonora felt the blood draining from her face and thought she would pass out. There was a roaring in her ears and her legs suddenly went weak.

“Oh, God…oh, God,” she whispered, and staggered backward. Adam caught her, steadying her until she could sit down in a chair.

“Sonora? What’s wrong? Are you ill?” Franklin asked.

Adam knelt down in front of her, then looked up into her face. “Sonora? Sonora?”

She saw Adam’s lips moving, but she couldn’t hear anything but the thunder of her own heartbeat.

Franklin pulled up a chair and sat down beside her as Adam bolted from the room.

“Daughter…what did I say? If I offended you, it was unintentional.”

Adam came back with a wet washcloth and pressed it to Sonora’s forehead.

“Here, honey, see if this helps,” he said.

She grabbed it with both hands, and then swiped it across her face.

“This just keeps getting crazier and crazier,” she muttered. “Half the time I feel like the luckiest woman in the world, and the other half of the time like I’ve fallen into the Twilight Zone.”

She handed the washcloth to Adam, and then stood abruptly.

“You said you belong to the Snake clan?”

Both men nodded.

“What does that mean?”

Franklin frowned, then looked to Adam for support.

“Think of it like this,” Adam said. “You are an American, from the state of Arizona, right?”

“Right.”

“So then transpose that same identification process to your ethnicity. You are Kiowa, from the Snake clan.”

“So, what does the snake mean to people from the same clan?”

“It’s like our totem…what the white man might consider a mascot. But we believe it is like a conduit between us and the spirit world. That’s a little simplistic, and it means much more, but it’s the best way that I can describe it.”

“I see,” she said, and began rubbing her hands together nervously. “This is so weird,” she kept saying.

“What is it that is weird to you?” Franklin asked.

She shrugged and tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a sob.

“Wait until you see this,” she said, and stood up, then turned her back on the men.

Before they knew what was happening, she’d pulled her T-shirt over her head, revealing the tattoo of an elongated snake that traced the length of her spine. The snake’s tail was somewhere below the waistband of her jeans, while the head marked the bottom of her shoulder blades and was twisted toward the viewer with fangs showing and the forked tongue extended. It was so perfectly depicted that neither man would have been surprised if it had suddenly hissed and struck.

Franklin’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Adam inhaled sharply.

“This is strong medicine,” he said softly.

“Daughter, how long has this been on your body?”

“Since I was sixteen,” she said.

“Your parents let you do this?” Adam asked.

“I didn’t have parents, remember? At sixteen, I’d just run away from my third foster home in the same year. I think I was on the streets in San Francisco when I had it done,” she said, and pulled her shirt back down before she turned around. “Cost me a whole week’s worth of tips, too.”

Franklin stifled a moan. There were times when the plight of her childhood took his breath away.

“I’m so sorry,” he said softly.

She frowned. “About the tattoo?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Franklin said. “When I hear you speaking of your growing-up years, it always saddens me. You should have been with family, learning the ways of The People and growing up knowing you were always safe and always loved.”

Adam was momentarily stunned to silence. That this woman, who knew nothing of her heritage, should choose such a mark for her body made her powerful. He suspected the Old Ones had always known where she was and were just waiting for the right time to show her the way home.

“Sonora.”

She hesitated, then shifted her gaze from her father to Adam. “What?”

“Why the snake?”

“You mean, as opposed to any other tattoo I might have chosen?”

He nodded.

“The reason just sounds silly,” she said.

“Try me,” he asked.

“Have you ever been in a tattoo parlor?”

He nodded.

“So…you know how they have all these photos and drawings of different tattoos? Well, I was with a couple of friends. We’d been in there for a good hour, looking at photos and daring each other to go first, but no one could decide on what they wanted. I was flipping through this book of drawings and when I got to the page that had this snake on it, I felt like I was going to pass out. The room started spinning around me and I began hearing a rattle in my head…like the kind a rattlesnake makes.”

The skin crawled on the back of Adam’s neck. The Old Ones had been with her all along and she’d never recognized the signs.

“The tattoo on your back…it’s a rattlesnake?” Adam asked.

“Yes. You can’t see the rattles unless I’m—”

“Naked,” he said, and felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

She nodded, then glanced at her father.

His face was expressionless. She didn’t know what he was thinking, but it surely had nothing to do with the tattoo. She’d had the tattoo for so long that she often forgot it was there. Slightly embarrassed, she pulled her shirt back over her head moments before Franklin laid his hand on the top of her head.

“You are blessed among women,” he said softly.

She was uncomfortable with what she considered Native American voodoo and tried to make light of it.

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” she said. “My life has been anything but blessed and pure.”

“Not in that way,” Adam said. “The snake has power not often given to a woman.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “I wasn’t born with this. It’s not a birthmark. It’s a tattoo I picked out of a book, compliments of a man named Stumpy.”

“You didn’t pick it. It chose you,” Adam said.

“I don’t—”

“You said you heard it rattle?”

“Yes, but Stumpy was smoking weed. We were all probably suffering the effects of his secondhand smoke.”

Adam stifled a frown. “Believe what you must.”

“Yeah, okay…whatever,” she said, a little embarrassed by the seriousness of the conversation.

Franklin kissed the side of her cheek and gave her a quick hug.

“If you don’t mind being left on your own again, I think I will go work on my little bird for a while. He’s anxious to be free.”

“And I need to go check on Linda Billy’s little girl,” Adam said.

“I hope she hasn’t been ill. She’s a sweet child,” Franklin said.

“Not exactly ill,” Adam said. “She overheard her grandmothers talking about someone dying in their sleep. By the time Johnny called me, she’d been awake almost three days.”

“Poor baby,” Sonora said.

Adam eyed her curiously. “So, Sonora, what are you going to do this afternoon?”

“It’s too hot to be outside,” Sonora said. “I’m thinking about a nap under the air conditioner in my room.”

“Come with me,” he said.

“Uh…”

“It’s not far. I’ll have you back in a couple of hours.”

Sonora glanced at her father. “Dad?”

He smiled. “You’ll like them.”

She still wasn’t convinced. “So…what are you going to do there?” she asked.

Adam grinned. “Well, I won’t be killing any chickens and slinging the blood about the house or praying to the sun gods today, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Franklin snorted softly, then grinned.

She glared. “You’re making fun of me.”

Adam jammed his hands in his pockets and grinned. Payback was fine. “Yeah, I am,” he drawled.

“Fine! Laugh your head off while I go change my clothes. I smell like fish.”

“Okay, but don’t dress up,” Adam warned. “The Billy family is a fine family, but somewhat distressed when it comes to money.”

“Well, damn, and I had my heart set on wearing the Versace,” she snapped, as she strode out of the room.

Adam figured he’d aggravated the situation even more by telling her what to do. The last thing he heard her say was something about “…making me nuts.”

He frowned, then let go of regret. He had all afternoon to get her in a good mood.

“I’m going to the studio while I have the energy to work,” Franklin said. “It was good to see you. Come back soon.”

Adam grinned. “You know I will.”

Franklin turned to leave, then paused. “I wish you well,” he said softly.

Adam stilled. “Thank you. You honor me with your trust.”

Franklin nodded.

“She doesn’t need my permission to do anything, but I ask only that you don’t hurt her. She’s been hurt far too many times already.”

“I would sooner hurt myself,” Adam promised.

“Then it is done,” Franklin said, and walked away, leaving Adam on his own.

He didn’t quite know how he felt, but he knew he was more than attracted to Sonora. She did things to him—made him feel things that he’d never felt for another woman.

And there was that tattoo. It had to be more than coincidence that a lost child of the Kiowa would choose the sign of her clan purely by accident. Adam was certain that there was more at work here than either he or Franklin first believed, and he didn’t know where he fit in at all. What he did know was that he didn’t want to lose the tenuous connection that they had.

“Is this all right?” Sonora said.

Adam turned around, surprised that she had changed clothes so quickly. She was wearing a pair of clean, but well-worn jeans with a denim shirt hanging loose against her hips. It was sleeveless and nearly white from countless washings, but both the jeans and the shirt were clean and crisp. She’d brushed the tangles out of her hair and left it hanging. It swung against her neck as she walked, teasing Adam with its silky sheen.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked.

“In the studio.”

“Wait. I need to talk to him.” She dashed from the room before Adam could answer.

Franklin was already bent over the worktable when Sonora hurried inside.

“Dad… I need a favor.”

He smiled as he looked up. “After that fine fish dinner…you have but to ask.”

“This little girl that we’re going to see. How old is she?”

“Not sure… Four or five…maybe six. Why?”

“I would like to take her a gift, but I don’t have anything. What would you suggest?”

He looked up, quickly scanning the pieces of the shelves of his studio as he moved toward them.

“How about this?” he asked, and lifted a small carving from the end of a shelf, then put it in the palm of her hand.

“Oh, Dad…it’s perfect. Do you mind?”

He shook his head as he smiled. “Mind? It is my joy to be able to share my work with you.”

She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you again,” she said, then added, “Don’t work too long.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve been taking care of myself for years. I can do it for a while longer, I think.”

Sonora frowned as she watched him return to his worktable. What he’d said was an unwanted reminder of the limits with which he was living.

“We’ll be back soon,” she said.

“Take your time,” he said, already immersed in his work.

Sonora dropped the carving into her shirt pocket and then ran back into the living room.

“Okay, I’m back,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“Oh, yeah. I stay ready,” Adam answered.

Words stuck in the back of her throat as her mind went right to the memory of him brown and bare as the day he was born. Despite the knot in her belly, she straightened her shoulders and tossed her hair.

“Shut up, Two Eagles, and just so you know… I’m a black belt in karate.”

“Well, now…isn’t that interesting? I had no idea that we have so much in common.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“I’m a black belt, too.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Weren’t we going somewhere?”

He opened the door and then stepped aside.

“After you, Ms. Jordan.”

* * *

The ride to the Billy home started out awkwardly, but it wasn’t long before Adam had Sonora laughing about an incident from his childhood.

“I can’t believe you and your cousin thought up such an intricate revenge.”

He laughed as they sped down the road, leaving a cloud of dust behind them to settle on the trees and bushes along the way.

“We were ten. What can I say? Kenny was like a brother to me, and Douglas Winston told all the kids at school that Kenny still wet the bed. We just figured to give him a dose of his own medicine.”

“Yes, but how did you get the plastic tube under him while he was sitting at the desk?”

“Douglas had a habit of breaking the lead in his pencils, so he was always having to get up to sharpen it. Kenny sat right behind him and I was on Kenny’s right with the aisle between us. We waited until Douglas got up to sharpen his pencil. When he was on the way back, we pretended to be working, and as soon as he turned around and began sitting down, Kenny slipped the tube directly under him. It was so small and pliable that he never felt it. As soon as he began writing again, I handed Kenny the water bottle. He poked the tube in the place where the straw would go, then squeezed. Water went up and through that tube as slick as butter.”

“Didn’t the other kids see you?”

“Yeah, but Douglas was something of a bully, so they figured he had it coming.”

“Then what happened?”

“The bell rang. Kenny yanked the tube out from under him as he leaned over to get his backpack out from under the seat. I stuffed the water bottle in my backpack while Kenny stuffed the tubing in his, and we ran like hell out of the classroom.”

“What about Douglas?”

“Well, it looked like he’d peed his pants and then sat in it. We were halfway up the hall when we heard him squall. He bellowed and bawled and then refused to come out of the room. The principal had to call his mama, who had to take off work to bring him some dry underwear and pants. She was so mad. He begged to go home, but she made him change his clothes and stay.”

“Did he ever know it was you and Kenny?”

“Probably, but he didn’t have the guts to confront us and everyone was so busy teasing him that they forgot all about Kenny. It was fifth-grade justice at its best.”

“Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you,” Sonora said.

Adam tapped the brakes as he took a sharp turn, then glanced sideways.

“I’ll never be your enemy, Sonora. Trust that. Remember that.”

Sonora felt branded by the glitter in his eyes, but it was the promise of his words that soothed the fire. Even after he turned his attention back to the road, she kept watching him time and time again. She knew he was right. They’d never be enemies, but they would be lovers. Of that she was certain.

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