Nightway (39 page)

“Where are we going?” Lanna asked, not really caring as she let her thumb trace the jutting line of his collarbone.

“The Swedes believe in a dip in a fjord after a sauna, don’t they?” he replied.

It was a second before the implication of his words registered. It lifted her head from his shoulder and opened her eyes wide. Turning her head, she saw he was carrying her to the spring. Her gaze jerked back to his face and to the faintly devilish glint in his eyes.

“Hawk, you wouldn’t? You aren’t?” But she already knew that he would, and he was. “No! Put me down!” Lanna struggled in laughing panic. “Please, Hawk, don’t!”

“I’ll put you down in a minute,” he chuckled.

“No! Don’t drop me into that!” she protested, neither frightened nor angry, just anxious to avoid that part of the ritual.

“Okay.” He stopped beside the spring. “I won’t drop you into it,” he promised.

Relief sighed through her and she relaxed in his arms, believing him. Suddenly, the arm that had been supporting the back of her legs was removed. Her feet swung down, straight into the cold spring water. Lanna shrieked from the shock of the cold water on her hot and sweaty legs.

“Is it cold?” Hawk laughed and splashed water on her thighs.

“You promised!” she accused, trying to keep her balance on the slippery bottom long enough to step out.

“I promised not to drop you,” he reminded her, then began splashing more water on her, aiming it higher.

Lanna retaliated, using the heel of her hand to send up a spray of water to drench his chest. He stepped into the pool and the water fight began in earnest: a playful, shrieking, laughing fest that succeeded in washing the perspiration from their skin. Drenched from head to foot, Lanna scooped a handful of water directly into Hawk’s face, laughing at him when he recoiled. She started to repeat it before his counterattack was launched against her, but she let the water trickle through her fingers when he put a hand to his eye. The game was instantly forgotten.

“Are you all right?” She moved quickly to him.

The minute she was within reach, Hawk captured her wrist and pulled her into his arms. His hard mouth came down on her own and her heart raced. In a state of limpness, she leaned against his masculine form, arching her curves to his shape. Her lips parted under the insistence of his mouth, responding to the need for
deeper contact. His bold masculinity touched her feminine core, making her pliant to his every want, and he wanted her.

His hands lifted her into the air, raising her above him until his mouth could reach her breasts. To keep her there, he circled an arm around her waist and another around her thighs below the curve of her bottom. Lanna curled her fingers into the sinewy cords of his shoulders, seeking balance in this mind-spinning embrace. With her hips arched against his stomach and her legs dangling against his, Hawk walked out of the pool.

When he reached the giant cottonwood, he let her slide down to his level and braced her against the trunk of the tree. His encircling arms cushioned her from the scrape of striated bark so his possession would give only pleasure.

It seemed a long time before she was finally aware her feet were on solid ground. Her arms were still wrapped tightly around him, reveling in his indomitable male strength. His mouth was moving in a rough caress against her hair.

“You are mine, Lanna.” His voice was thick and forceful. “No other man will ever touch you again.” He lifted his head, framing her face in his hands while his searing gaze challenged her to deny his claim.

But Lanna could not. Her agreement shimmered in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered gladly.

Hawk took a deep breath and released it slowly. The fierceness seemed to go out of him as he relaxed. His look ran gently over her. “You’re cold,” he observed.

Lanna glanced down and noticed goosebumps that the cool air had raised on her skin. Upon seeing them, she shivered, only then feeling the chill.

He stepped away from her, taking her hand. “We’d better get dressed before you catch cold.”

“What about you?” she countered.

“I’m thicker-skinned than you are, in many ways,” he said and led her back to the sweathouse.

His clothes were folded in a pile next to hers, but he disappeared inside the earthen hut while Lanna quickly began to dress. She was fastening the snap on her jeans when he stepped out wearing his primitive loincloth. He dressed as quickly as she had, but his motions appeared less hurried.

“Do you think you can make the climb back to the cave?” he asked.

“It should be easier going up,” Lanna replied.

It was, although Hawk stayed on the ground until she was safely on the ledge. Then he climbed up, bringing the canteens. The darkness of the cave added to the cool temperature.

“Shall I fix some coffee?” Lanna suggested.

“I could use some.” He tossed her a canteen.

When the coffee had boiled in the mug, Lanna added a spoonful of springwater from the canteen to settle the grounds. They sat close to the small fire, sharing the cup, in an atmosphere of quiet intimacy.

Hawk flexed his shoulders in a weary gesture and handed her the cup. “You finish the rest,” he said. “I’m going to take a nap. I haven’t had my quota of sleep in the last forty-eight hours—for one reason or another.” Rising to his feet with catlike ease, he moved to the tarp spread out from the saddle and stretched out on top of it. Before he covered his face with his hat, he sent her a glance. “We shouldn’t have any visitors, but you’d better keep an eye open just the same.”

He fell asleep almost instantly. Any moving around Lanna did, she was careful to be quiet. She found a comb in his saddlebags and sat in the sunlight-drenched entrance to unsnarl her hair. When the shadows moved in, she noticed the way Hawk was sleeping with his
arms clutched across his chest, as if staving off a chill. She shook his quilt free of any wisps of grass and covered him with it. He stirred but didn’t awaken.

Before the sun went down, she fixed their evening meal, guessing that Hawk wouldn’t want a fire going after nightfall. Light could be seen for miles in this clear desert country. She didn’t awaken him until the food was ready. One touch of her hand and he was fully alert.

When they had eaten, Lanna fixed one last cup of coffee. The sky was purpling with the coming night as she smothered the small fire. Hawk was standing at the cave entrance, looking out into the dusk. She brought him the coffee.

“Where do you suppose they are?” she asked, guessing where his thoughts were.

“I don’t know.” He turned to her with a faint shrug.

She offered him the coffee, her skin tingling sensitively to the brush of his fingers when he took it. “Are you going to stay up and keep watch tonight, too?”

“No. I don’t see any need to.” He blew at the hot liquid before taking a sip. “They aren’t likely to come back in the middle of the night.”

In the purple-orange light, Lanna could barely make out the roof of the hogan. The sweathouse wasn’t visible at all. “What was it like growing up here?” she asked, curious about anything connected with him.

“Innocent. Cruelly so, as it turned out,” Hawk replied, but without bitterness. “Yet, it’s from here—from my childhood as a Navaho—that I’ve derived a sense of stability. Someday I want to show you this land—the Four Corners.”

“I’d like to see it,” Lanna admitted, because he wanted to show it to her since it was special to him.

“Its mesas and buttes stretch between sage-covered plains, rock-ribbed and empty.” He looked out, seeing
in his mind’s eye what wasn’t visible in the twilight. “Blue spruce canyons, tawny sands, dull red rocks. How can I explain how dramatic the colors are, shifting and intensifying in sun and shade? This land is vibrant and dynamic, filled with the force that created it.”

Lanna could hear the intensity in Hawk’s low voice and realized this profound indentification with the land was something she would probably never be able to share with him. It was perhaps wise to understand that now.

“An Indian is inseparable from the earth,” Hawk said, not speaking directly to her, but merely voicing his thoughts aloud. “Every tribe that’s been separated from its ancient homeland has withered and died—the Chippewas, the Mohicans, the Chickasaws. Yet the Navaho, the Pueblo, and the Apache live where they have for centuries, within the sacred four peaks, and they survive.” He stopped, sending her a sideways glance, as if just remembering she was there. “Sorry.”

“There’s no need,” she insisted.

“You might as well know this about me, I could never leave this place if I didn’t know I could always come back. Neither can I stay, because I know there’s more out there. There will always be two parts to me. I’ve learned how to make them walk together and compromise their needs for the sake of the whole.”

“Two parts, like your name—Jim and Hawk—one American and the other Indian,” Lanna mused.

“Jim Blue Hawk is my full name,” he corrected.

“Jim Blue—” she began before the significance penetrated. “J. B., the same initials, and Hawk for Faulkner.”

“Purely coincidental. I took the name when I was a boy. J. B. probably saw the analogy and was amused by it, maybe even subconsciously proud. I don’t know.” He shrugged to indicate it held no importance to him.

“But you have so many of his traits. Chad inherited his weakness, perhaps his shallowness.” Lanna was willing to concede that J. B. had possessed human failings. “You have his strength, his intelligence. Taking charge comes naturally to you. I watched you during the cattle drive. And this—bringing me here when you found out what Chad was trying to do. Why haven’t you ever made use of your talents? You dodged the question the last time I asked you.”

“There are times when I have to come and go as I please. Bosses have the nasty habit of expecting people to keep regular hours.”

“But if you were your own boss, you could arrange your schedule to suit yourself,” she pointed out.

He smiled lazily and handed her the cup. “I told you once before that you think too much,” he mocked and moved away from the entrance. “I’m going to water the horses and see that they’re settled in for the night. We’re going to have to do something about getting them some exercise tomorrow, or they may wind up with cabin fever.”

Lanna stayed at the mouth of the cave, listening to the faint sounds going on behind her. Her mood was a little pensive as she watched the stars come out and the moon rise in the sky. She drained the coffee to the dregs, swirled it, and dumped all but a few grounds on the cave floor. When she turned, she saw Hawk was lying down.

He folded back a corner of his quilt. “Bring your blanket,” he invited.

She noticed he was fully clothed beneath it, so she didn’t remove her own. Placing the coffee cup with the sack of supplies, she gathered up her own blanket and walked over to lie down beside him. He offered his shoulder for a pillow and she curved into the hollow of his arm.

“Tired?” she asked.

“I don’t have a headache, if that’s what you’re asking.” There was a smile in his low voice.

Lanna felt the warmth in her cheeks. “That isn’t what I was asking, exactly.” But her flesh was fully aware of the male outline of his body stretched out beside hers.

Sighing, he turned onto his side, partially facing her. His hand glided over the curve of her waist and hip in an absent caress. “You could steal a man’s potency,” he accused lazily.

“Could I?” She tipped her head back on his arm, eyeing him with a faintly provocative look.

“The Navahos believe that too much sex is harmful,” he said while his hand continued its wayward wanderings.

“Why?” Curiosity gleamed in her eyes.

“Because it can—Navaho translation—’affect the spine where it joins the brain.’ An anatomy professor would tell you that’s a reference to the median nerve. Have you ever studied yoga?”

“No.” Lanna unfastened a button on his shirt and slid her hand inside to make direct contact with the warmth of his skin.

“In order to achieve the transcendental Illumination, a yogin must redirect the course of sexual power up the median nerve to the brain. A great many of the esoteric ceremonies of the Navaho deal with parables and myth dramas. From the physical life force comes spiritual power,” Hawk explained. “In Buddhism, it is believed the spirit exits the body, after death, near the crown of the head, where the median nerve exits—which is why many Buddhists shave their heads, except for that spot. When they die, a few hairs are plucked to ensure the safe exit of the spirit.” He wound his fingers around a thick lock of hair on top of her head. “It’s also the
reason why many Indians scalped their enemies, to ensure that their ghosts escaped and didn’t return to haunt them.”

“Fascinating,” she murmured. Her mind meant it, although her senses were concentrating on other things.

“I should hate to see your beautiful hair dangling from someone’s belt.” His hand pressed her hips flat against the ground sheet.

“Not even yours?” Lanna whispered as his fingers began to make short work of the buttons on her blouse.

“Not even mine.” Hawk formed the words against her mouth and chose a more satisfying means of communication than with words. Lanna acknowledged the excellence of his choice with a smothered murmur of pleasure.

Watching the interplay of sunlight on a distant butte, Lanna remembered how Hawk had described his land last night. She saw its vibrance for herself as the clay butte leaped with red fire, then shadowed to brick. Far away, a low cloud fell on the horizon—a hill darkened with juniper and pinon.

She lifted her face to the strong wind, feeling the tiny particles of sand it carried. It whipped her hair away from her shoulders, streaming it like a brown silk banner, and plastered the material of her cream yellow blouse against the thrusting outline of her breasts, billowing the material at her waist. The air was scented with the pungent smell of sage and dry with dust. Yet it lived—it all lived.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, wandering off like that?” The anger of concern in Hawk’s demand made Lanna turn from the waist.