It was time.
She didn’t want to live as she’d been doing anymore…no more than a shadow in this world. Part of her had died with Father in that nightmare she’d tucked to the far reaches of her mind. She didn’t stray there anymore, not on purpose, but sometimes her mind betrayed her and she had no choice but to relive the unthinkable.
Ella fought it, then unable to help herself, closed her eyes and saw Father tied to the stake. The air around her stirred as it always did with his presence.
It’s time, he tells her as the fire licks at his feet.
Time for what? Ella asks.
The journey…
Journey? Father, what do you mean?
Danger everywhere, he says. Look to your other half, for only then will you be whole.
As quickly as her father had entered her mind, he was gone.
Ella opened her eyes and the earth came back into focus. She rubbed her left arm, the scarred area a little stiff from the long drive in air-conditioning.
That wasn’t a memory. Then what had it been?
Nothing like this—Father talking to her as if he were still alive—had ever happened to her before. What did Father mean by her other half?
Her chest tightened and her stomach knotted. That fateful day, Father had said she wasn’t ready, that she would be destroyed…but now he was saying it was time? Or was she telling herself this, conjuring her father herself? Fear licked at invisible wounds, and Ella huddled within herself at the enormity of the charge.
“Oh, Father, I don’t know.”
But part of her did. Some intuitive part deep in her soul. Father had said she would need her bravery for a journey of terrible danger. She’d remembered that when she’d accepted the consultant job on Paha Sapa Gold. When she’d gone against her mother’s wishes and agreed to return to the place of nightmares.
Ella closed her eyes and tried to call her father back so that he could explain further, so that he could tell her what he expected her to do.
Father, I need you.…
But the air around her remained still.
When nothing further happened, Ella decided to get going. The grandparents would be waiting, her return a momentous event in their quiet lives. Mother had insisted her returning to the rez would be a huge mistake, but Ella didn’t regret coming to reconnect with the grandparents who wanted to know her in person again. Grandparents she hadn’t seen in fifteen years.
Despite her arthritic hands, Grandmother was too stubborn to give in to the affliction. Ella knew this from their phone conversations, even as she knew Grandmother would have been cooking since dawn, to celebrate the return of her granddaughter.
Was there true reason to celebrate?
Though Ella was no less determined to return to the rez, doubt had set in after signing the contract with the movie company. Was she really ready to face her past and the people responsible for her father’s death? Who had started the rumors? Who had whipped the crowd into a feeding frenzy? Would she know them when she saw them?
Picking her way back to her SUV, she heard a twig snap nearby and froze. Her pulse fluttered. Focusing in on the sounds around her, she heard an explosive squeak like that made by the tail feathers of a hummingbird…in the opposite direction, the low, throaty noise of a jackrabbit in distress…and directly behind her a whispered footfall that reminded her of a cougar preparing to pounce.
That would account for the mustang herd taking off, she thought, scanning the ground wildly for a weapon and spotting a softball-sized rock.
Before she could reach for it, a sharp pain in the back of her head accompanied by an explosion of light confused her senses, made everything go in and out of focus, sent her reeling, facedown into the earth.
FOR ALL HIS curiosity, Tiernan hadn’t expected to find anything, so when he spotted the dark green SUV sheltered under a boxelder amidst the pines, he stiffened, his surprise touching Red Crow, who danced sideways. Not making a sound, Tiernan held the gelding in check and focused all six senses.
What came to him strongest was a blinding pain. He let go and the pain subsided and his vision cleared.
Dismounting, he looped the horse’s reins in a low branch of a pine and moved carefully to the left, through a scattering of trees, toward a clearing overlooking the meadow valley. That’s when he saw her—an attractive lass in jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt, dark hair flowing down her back in a thick ponytail. She was sitting on the ground, trying to get to her feet but not quite managing.
Tiernan rushed to her side to help, but what he got for his trouble when he touched her arm and murmured, “Easy, there,” was a fist square in his chest.
The air rushed out of him and he let go of her and she scrabbled back, staring at him with wide-open amber eyes. “Get away from me, or I’ll…I’ll…”
She looked around wildly—for a weapon, he supposed.
“You’ll what?” he asked in the soft, melodic voice he used when working with horses, a voice meant to calm and seduce. “I’ll not be hurting you.”
“You knocked me out!”
“’Tis someone else you need to be accusing. I just rode up a few seconds ago.” He indicated Red Crow, now standing quietly in the pines, his head lowered as if he were napping.
“If it wasn’t you…”
Again, she looked around.
“The culprit would be gone,” Tiernan said.
“How can you be sure?”
He concentrated, tested the atmosphere, then shook his head. “If anyone else was around, I would sense it. ’Tis my fey Irish blood,” he explained.
Frowning at him, she tried to stand once more. And once more he moved closer, this time hesitating before touching her.
“May I offer my help?”
She thought about it for a second, then gave him her hand. Though she wasn’t a small woman—only a few inches shorter than he and nicely curved—he easily pulled her up to her feet. She stood there, amber gaze taking him in, while he did the same. Pale skin, wide-spaced round eyes, high cheekbones, strong chin, full lips—a mix of the people in this state.
She was the most fascinating-looking lass he’d ever met.
“Thank you,” she said. “Ella Thunder.”
He grinned. “Powerful name. Tiernan McKenna. I would be a cousin to Rose Farrell.”
“Farrell.” As if suddenly realizing he hadn’t let go of her hand, she pulled hers from his grasp and slid it behind her back. “They have a ranch a couple miles from here, right?”
