The Shadow Read online

  He followed her gaze. “I see your plan. Go for it,” Jonas said, sweat forming on his forehead.

  She moved away, quickly picked up a section of crown molding, and jammed the piece underneath the oak unit, using it as a brace. Despite the strain, Jonas’s arms had remained as steady as steel posts, and his shoulders like rock.

  She picked up a second section of molding and placed it on the other side, wedging it in place. “Slack off a little and see if it holds.”

  Jonas relaxed the pressure and saw that nothing moved. “Good work,” he said, stepping back. “Now let’s find those casters.”

  “Somebody in trouble?” Ken called, appearing at the door.

  “Nice timing,” Emily said, laughing. “But as long as you’re here we could use some help.”

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON when she sat across from Jonas at the small table in the trailer. “We were set up with that big cabinet. The caller left me a phoney telephone number, and Ken found that the doors had been glued shut with contact cement. Wood shims had also been placed along the bottom in the back so it was already leaning forward, and the casters removed, then propped in place. The caller was hoping I’d pull the whole thing down on myself.”

  “You could have been badly injured if that thing had come crashing down,” Jonas muttered, running an exasperated hand through his hair. “You should have left to go get Ken or one of the other men.”

  “No. By the time I came back with help, that Hoosier could have crushed you. You needed backup right then. You take care of me, I take care of you. Isn’t that the way soldiers work?”

  “You’re not a soldier,” he snapped.

  “I’m also not the kind of person who abandons a friend,” she said, her voice barely audible. Turning away from him, she went to the sink.

  He came up behind her and, pressing his body to hers, whispered in her ear, “You scared the hell out of me, Em. Promise me you won’t do something crazy like that again.”

  Following an instinct she couldn’t acknowledge in words, she leaned back into him. “I can’t promise you that, but I trust you to do whatever’s necessary to keep us both safe.”

  “Don’t trust me so much, Em,” Jonas said, and turned her around in his arms. Not giving her a chance to think, he lowered his mouth to hers and drank in her sweetness, needing her softness and wanting to drown himself in her taste.

  Emily gasped and shivered as he trailed light kisses down the column of her throat. When he lowered his hand to the swell of her breast, she arched into him.

  Knowing that she needed him made him crazy. “Em, what am I going to do with you?” he groaned. “You’re a part of me—you owned my dreams. You were the softness that saw me through all those sleepless nights when I was deployed overseas.”

  The way he cupped her breast, tugging at her nipple, made her mindless with desire. “I never forgot—” she began, then drew in her breath as he squeezed the tip between his thumb and forefinger.

  Feeling her melt against him shattered his restraint. Jonas lifted her up into his arms, then carried her to the bed just down the short passage.

  “In your arms…there’s magic,” she said, struggling not to whisper the secret locked away in her heart. Love…That wasn’t something that could be spoken aloud between them.

  Setting her down on top of the mattress, he lay over her and kissed her again, loving the way she clung to him. He wanted to give her pleasure, to feel her come apart beneath him.

  “There’s never been anyone else,” she whispered, the words torn from her heart.

  It was that admission that finally broke him. He would take care of her—and that meant that he wouldn’t make love to her. The ties between them were too strong as it was. But he could give her pleasure, and carry the sweet sound of her cries inside him for the rest of his life.

  Jonas unfastened the snap of her jeans and slid his hands downward.

  “No, we can’t,” she whispered.

  “Will you trust me?” he murmured. “Surrender to me, if only for now.”

  Without waiting, he moved his hand down until he found the center of her womanhood. Parting the sweet folds, he stroked her gently.

  She drew in a breath as sensations too powerful to resist coursed through her. “I…”

  “Feel,” he murmured. “Don’t think.”

  He caressed her, slowly bringing her to the edge. Drowning in pleasure, she clung to him, the fire at her center too strong to resist. She cried out his name, whimpering and begging for release.

  As the late-afternoon sun streamed through a crack in the curtains and bathed her in its golden glow, she shattered against him. He felt her heat, and held her as she came apart, helpless to resist him.

  Slowly her breathing evened and she nuzzled against him, needing his strength to find her own again. He held her, sharing in the peace that settled over her as she drifted back to earth.

  “Sawe,” he whispered. “Ayóó ninshné.”

  The rough timbre of his voice reverberated against her cheek, which was pressed to his chest. There’d be time to ask what the words meant later. For now, she’d bask in the glow and rest in the shelter of his arms.

  IT SEEMED LIKE AN eternity before she could find the energy to move. “I…”

  Suddenly embarrassed about what she’d allowed to happen, Emily refused to look at Jonas as she got up and quickly fastened her clothing.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

  “You gave me so much…but you didn’t…”

  Jonas went to her and, tilting her head upward, gazed into her eyes. “Giving a woman pleasure satisfies a man, too, sawe.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Sweetheart or darling are the closest words in English.”

  “And the other words you said?”

  “They meant…passion,” he stated, and was glad when she accepted the answer. His words had meant far more than that, and had come straight from his heart, but he’d had no right to voice them.

  Still feeling self-conscious, Emily finished dressing quickly and left the small bedroom area.

  “It’s quiet outside,” she said, looking through the kitchen window.

  The bulldozer operator was taking off his jacket, and another worker was spraying water from a hose to settle the dust. They were the only ones still around, and they’d be leaving in a few minutes.

  “I guess there wasn’t time to begin staking out the foundation and putting up any of the wooden forms. Ken said he wanted to do that and the ground plumbing all in the same day. The delay earlier must have made that impossible.”

  Jonas sat down on the bench-style seat. “Em, we need to talk. Your attorney has disappeared. I’ve tried to track him down using our sources, but we’ve had no luck. Until he surfaces again we need to concentrate on Grant Woods. For whatever reason, he really wants this property, and he also has the financial resources to hire thugs to create problems for you.”

  She nodded. “I know, and though I can’t prove it unless I go to court, you and I both know he forged my dad’s signature on that drilling rights contract.”

  “Since the tribe and you both have a vested interest in this, let me ask and see if they’re willing to provide you with another attorney—pro bono.”

  “Thanks, but no. I’d still like to pay for any attorney services. Do you think they’d be willing to subtract the fee from the purchase price?”

  Jonas recognized pride, and knew it was important to Emily to carry her own weight. “Let’s see what can be worked out. In the meantime, let’s follow up with the county records office. I’m no lawyer, but I’m thinking that if that contract wasn’t officially filed and notarized, it might not hold up in court, anyway. Your father’s signature was forged, so the document number might not be valid, either. It bears checking out.” He glanced at his watch again. “The county office closes at five, so if we leave now, we should be able to make it.”

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Jonas
hurried with her out to his truck. The shade from the old cottonwood trees was heavy as they crossed the grounds, and he noticed the way she tried to look from the side, using her peripheral vision as she picked her path. Aware of how hard she was concentrating, he suddenly wondered if her vision problems were greater than she’d led him to believe.

  “What gave you the idea to build an inn that caters to the handicapped?” he asked, playing a hunch as they climbed into his truck.

  “I saw that there was a need for it, and I felt a special kinship to people with disabilities,” she said. “Those who succeed do so through determination and by demanding more from themselves. Determination defines them—not their handicaps,” she declared, then in a soft voice, added, “Courage, the kind that can move mountains, often works in the dark, and lives behind a wall of silence.”

  Emily’s words stayed in his mind, replaying as he drove rapidly down the dirt road toward the highway. He’d heard a whisper of something beyond her words…maybe the secret that she was fighting so hard to keep from him.

  He forced himself to concentrate on the road ahead, rushing to beat the clock. The sun, low in the sky, filtered through the trees in bright flashes, the nearly random patterns making it difficult to see anything but backlit objects.

  Halfway around the turn, Jonas reached up to adjust the sun visor, and suddenly spotted a big object on the road. Cursing under his breath, he braked hard and swerved to the left. As he did, the driver’s side of the truck dropped and the left tire sank down into a hole. The truck plowed ahead, shaking like a wet dog.

  “Hang on,” he called, fighting the wheel.

  The truck fishtailed, dipping even lower on the driver’s side as they hit a pocket of sand. Fighting hard to avoid a rollover, Jonas yanked the steering wheel back to the right, and the pickup slid to a stop, tilted at a steep angle.

  Chapter Ten

  Emily gulped in a lungful of air as he switched off the ignition. “What happened?” she managed to ask, her voice shaky. “Was there an animal in the road?”

  He unbuckled his seat belt and glanced over at her. She hadn’t seen it…Had she been looking the other way, daydreaming? Or was there more to it?

  “I swerved to avoid a fallen branch, but the shoulder of the road on my side caved in and I had to fight to keep us from rolling. Maybe one of the dump-truck loads collapsed a culvert. Let’s go take a look. Hopefully, we’re not stuck.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe to get out? The pickup’s really at an angle now,” she said, staying very still.

  “It’s not steep enough to tip over, but you’ll need to get out on my side, where you’ll be a lot closer to the ground. Just be careful where you put your feet. We’re halfway down an embankment.”

  He got out then, taking her hand to steady her, and helped her out of the pickup. She moved carefully, relying more on him than her own view of the ground. Knowing that she had trouble seeing in low light, he led her around the truck to the road.

  “Will you be okay here?” he asked.

  “Sure. Go ahead and do whatever you have to.”

  Jonas stepped back to check out his truck. “The tire looks okay, but the wheel’s half buried in the sand. I’m going to dig out that tire, make a trench it can follow, then put some brush in front and around the rear tires to get some traction. If I don’t, the tires will just spin and dig in deeper,” he said, crouching by the front of the truck.

  “I hear a car,” she said, as he was reaching behind the backseat for a small shovel. “Someone’s coming in from the highway.”

  Their accident, followed by a driver coming up at just the right time on a private road, was like a warning flag in his brain. Stalkers often set up “rescues” for their potential victims.

  “Come around to this side and keep the engine compartment between you and the upcoming vehicle,” he said, positioning himself between Emily and the possible threat.

  As he waited, braced for whatever came, Jonas could feel the weight of the gun and holster beneath his jacket, out of view but not out of reach.

  It was now dark enough for vehicles with sensors to have their headlamps switched on, and within a few seconds he saw the bright lights of a familiar tan crew cab. The upscale model pulled up just ahead of them and stopped.

  Grant Woods stepped out and came around the open door, looking over the hood of the big pickup. “Trouble just seems to find you two, doesn’t it?” he commented. “I’d offer to help you dig out, but I don’t have a shovel. Carpenter’s using it while working on the fence line.”

  He glanced at Emily, who was barely visible on the other side of Jonas’s pickup. “Emily, would you like me to drive you home? Or you could come to my house for something warm to drink. With the sun setting soon, and the breeze starting to pick up, it’s getting cold out here.”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine,” Emily answered, her voice calm and detached.

  “Okay, then. Just thought I’d offer.” Grant climbed back in and drove off, accelerating quickly enough to add a cloud of dust to their situation.

  Coughing, Emily moved closer to Jonas, who was watching the taillights as her neighbor raced away. The turnoff to his property was just a few hundred yards farther, and the gate automatically opened just ahead of his truck.

  “I’ve never really liked him, and on some level I think he knows it. Yet it doesn’t seem to phase him,” Emily said.

  “I’ve seen his kind before. They’re basically lonely people who haven’t got a clue how to make friends. A woman smiles at them, and all of a sudden they’re in love—or obsessed.”

  Jonas reached into the pickup and brought out a powerful flashlight. It was too dim now to pick out any prominent marks without extra lighting.

  He moved to where the big branch lay across the center of the road, stopped and looked around. The closest cottonwood was a hundred feet or more away, and no limbs extended over the road, or even close.

  Lost in thought, he returned to where they’d run off the road. The hole where the tire had broken through still contained soft, dry sand, though the surrounding roadbed was packed almost rock hard.

  The person who’d placed the log on the road had no doubt engineered their accident. The lowlife had dug out a hole in the hard-packed surface, then filled the pit with sand. In the flashlight beam, he could make out the imprints of a pick around the edges of the crater.

  Searching at the side of the road, he found shovel marks and a cavity where sand had been carried over to fill the hole. There was also a pile of road-hardened clods. The perp, or perps, had taken care to smooth out any footprints with a shovel. The work had been done quickly, probably after the last of the construction workers had passed by.

  As he glanced over at Emily, he saw her rubbing her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, but it looks like we’re going to be here awhile. I won’t be much help digging unless you have a second shovel and a big lantern.”

  “No second shovel,” he answered. Though he was still curious about the problem with her eyes, this wasn’t the time to bring it up. He had other pressing business at the moment, like digging them out before it got totally dark.

  LONG AFTER HE’D DROPPED Emily off at her trailer, Jonas drove to a high spot on her property. It was past midnight by the time he met with Diné Nééz.

  “I need more background on the woman you’ve assigned me to protect,” he said, his voice low and direct.

  Diné Nééz sat on the ground, lost in thought and aimlessly tracing something on the soft earth with a stick.

  Knowing that other warriors were watching over Emily, Jonas didn’t feel pressed for time. He waited, studying the stars.

  “Do you feel it?” Diné Nééz asked at last. “This isn’t our land, not according to the white man’s law, but even here, outside our borders, the sacred mountains in the distance watch over us.”

  After spending so much of the last decade outside the rez, Jonas wasn’t sure how much to believe a
nymore. He was alní, cut in half between his heritage and the hard lessons learned living the life of a Ranger. Yet the modern-day warrior within him wasn’t easily pacified, and his spirit demanded more than the old stories for strength to continue the fight. What kept him going was an unflagging dedication to restoring order. He knew he could make a difference here.

  “I have all the information you need,” Diné Nééz said, interrupting his thoughts. “That family has had many tragedies.”

  “Why wasn’t I given a complete profile during my briefing?” he demanded.

  “It wasn’t considered necessary at the time,” the warrior answered. Another minute went by before he continued. “When the attorney’s daughter was still in high school, she left town on a weekend field trip to Mesa Verde, taking a bus directly from school. The mother disappeared sometime that same day—a Friday, according to law enforcement records.”

  “What about her father? Where was he during this time?”

  “He’d been working on a delicate matter for us and was in Arizona. He returned home on Saturday when he couldn’t reach his wife on the phone Friday evening. A concrete slab had been poured on Friday afternoon, but all the construction workers there at the time agreed that Mrs. Atkins hadn’t been at home when they did the job.”

  “Did the Brotherhood join the search to find her?”

  “Yes, we did so at the attorney’s request, but there was no trail to follow. Her car was found in the city, close to the bus station. It appeared to be a clear case of abandonment, particularly in view of a statement made by Grant Woods, the son of their neighbor.”

  “What was his involvement?”

  “Nothing direct. He went on record telling the sheriff that he’d seen Mrs. Atkins meeting a man outside the public library several times, but the description he gave didn’t lead to a suspect. Local authorities checked out security cameras in the library area, but found nothing they could use. The case was eventually set aside for lack of leads. At the time, too, the police were busy working another missing person’s case, and they already had a suspect.”