Real Men Do It Better (17 page)

“I’m trying to be open here, but a mosque?”

Jorey laughed. “There is a mosque, but it’s way over the hill in that direction, and you can’t even see it. We’re not going there. We’re going to a temple that wasn’t built by human beings.”

The Range Rover continued up a steep gravel road. Slowly, a shocking sight revealed itself. At first, Kate didn’t know what to think—what she was seeing was so strange and so beautiful that it didn’t register with her.

“What is this place?” she whispered.

“Plaza Blanca, the White Place,” Jorey said, pulling into a small parking area and turning off the engine. “Are you up for a little walk?”

Kate got out of the car and stretched her legs, looking around with big eyes. After Jorey grabbed a blanket and a small backpack from the trunk, he took her hand in his.

“This is my favorite place on earth, Kate. I couldn’t have you leave without seeing it.”

They entered a narrow path that led into a huge, all-white canyon. It was startling because of the contrast—all around it was the more familiar reds and browns of the desert. But this place was pure white, and lined with the strangest rock formations.

“They look like people,” she whispered, staring at one tall, thin rock after the next. Each was topped by what could be considered a head. Some had faces. Some had large noses. If she looked particularly hard, she could imagine that some wore hats or had long hair. “Holy shit,” she said.

“Precisely.” Jorey chuckled. “Locals have always considered this a home for the spirits of the holy ancient ones. It’s believed that the ancestors really live here, and you can talk to them. You can seek their guidance.”

“It’s almost spooky.”

Jorey put his arm around her shoulders. “Are you in the mood to expand your horizons a bit?”

Kate laughed slightly and shook her head. “Trust me, I’m expanding as we speak, Jorey.”

“Good. Then come with me.”

They walked in silence for a very long time, though all the while Kate knew it wasn’t silence. There was a strange humming in her ears, and she could hear the wind move through the valley. At one section of the canyon wall, the rocks formed a huge natural amphitheater, and a grove of trees grew in its embrace. The wind moved through those trees, shaking millions of small, shiny leaves. The effect was a hissing, breathing symphony.

Jorey placed his hand at the small of her back and nudged her up a steep rise. Kate sighed, thinking that she was forever in the wrong shoes. But Jorey kept her steady and they eventually reached the peak of a flattened hill.

Kate gasped. Then she laughed. It was just too beautiful—the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. It was nature at its most dramatic. The red sun spilled over the horizon and hit the white of the rocks so that they seemed to glow from an internal fire. It looked like there was warm blood running through those stone people. The whole canyon was awash in the light. Just then a hawk swooped low, cried out, and caught an updraft that lifted it high into the sky.

Jorey unzipped a compartment of his backpack, and the sound jerked Kate to attention.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Kate watched him reach into the pack and pull out a lighter, followed by a thick, silvery bundle of leaves and stems. She felt her eyes go wide.

“I was wondering when you’d pull out the peyote,” she said, giggling.

Jorey giggled with her. “I’m trying to be spiritual here. Stop it.”

“We’re both going to be close to God in a big way if we smoke that.”

Jorey shook his head, but his dimple appeared and his eyes crinkled, and Kate was overwhelmed with love for him. He stood up straight and flicked the lighter. “This is desert sage. I’m going to smudge you, then you’ll return the favor. Now pay attention.”

Jorey lit the bundle wrapped in twine, let the flame catch, then steadily exhaled over the burning end until it smoked. He asked Kate to face the sun, to breathe deep, and to close her eyes.

When she took the breath, a pungent blast of slightly bitter air filled her lungs. Jorey quietly told her that the smoke was purifying, that he would wave it over her whole body while saying a prayer, and the prayers would take wind.

Kate felt still at her core, aware of the presence of the stone people, of the wind’s music, and able to feel the heat of Jorey’s presence without him even touching her.

“May you be blessed with light. May your roads be fulfilled. May you grow old. May you be blessed in the chase.”

Those words had come from low to the ground, and Kate had to peek. Jorey was squatting at her feet, slowly waving the sage over the tops of her new cowboy boots, her ankles, her shins. He looked up, catching her.

“Concentrate, sweetheart. Listen to the words and breathe.”

She did. As he spoke, her shoulders relaxed and her back strengthened. Her feet felt bolted to the hard earth beneath her. Jorey’s words moved up the front of her body, from her fingers up the length of each arm. The words paused over her heart.

“Breathing in, I am alive,” he said. “Breathing out, I am alive.”

He moved the smoke around her face and the back of her head. “In this precious moment, in this sacred place, in the abundance of love I dwell.”

Kate stood still, her body and mind in deep calm. She had no idea how much time had passed, but she started at the soft touch of Jorey’s hand on her shoulder.

“It’s your turn, Kate. Please smudge me before the sun goes down.”

She opened her eyes and was greeted with a changed world. The stone people were now deep red, and the entire canyon glowed with passion. She looked to Jorey and saw the same intensity in his face.

“I didn’t expect this,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, I thought you were taking me for cheesecake.”

He laughed. “I love you so much, Kate. I love you so much that I’d move back to Los Angeles to be near you.”

She shook her head. “Never. We’ll try, Jorey. I will stay here in your sacred place for as long as I can, and we’ll see where this goes.”

A very soft smile spread over his face, and Kate could see him blink back tears.

“I love you, too, Jorey. It’s the damnedest thing. But I’m going where the universe has taken me, and it’s taken me to you.”

“Smudge me so we can go home and get back in bed.”

“I don’t know how to do this.”

“You’ll think of something. Just have faith.”

Kate accepted the weightless bundle from Jorey and took a deep breath. “Face the sun and close your eyes, please,” she said, squatting down at his feet. She took a moment to appreciate the broken-in brown leather of his hiking boots. He had walked all over this land, taking people where they needed to go. And it’s exactly what he’d done with her.

“God, guide this man so he can walk in beauty always.” She waved the sage, mesmerized by how the smoke danced and rose up the front of his body. She created a pattern around his feet, ankles, and legs. “Keep him strong and healthy.” She paused at his chest and closed her eyes in concentration. “Guard his heart, because it is so pure, but keep it open to all of life’s possibilities.”

Jorey stood very still with his eyes closed, breathing evenly. She waved the sage around his beautiful eyes, ears, mouth, forehead. “Be with this man I love. Give him the strength and patience it will take to love me back.”

She ground the tip of the sage in the sandy soil. And she waited for him to open his eyes.

“That was very nice, Kate.”

She shrugged. “It was kind of weird, but I liked it a lot.”

Jorey laughed. “Can’t ask for more than that.”

They gathered up their things and Jorey started down the hill in front of her, holding out his hand for her to steady herself. They walked to the car just before it became dark, and stood arm in arm to watch the last seconds of the sun’s glory.

“I know this is a bad time to bring this up,” Kate said, “but what in the hell am I supposed to do with myself up here, Jorey? Does Archie need a PR agent?”

He looked down at her and grinned. “I’ve been wondering that, too. Not about Archie, but about what you could do. What would you like to do? What would you do if you could do anything in the world?”

She thought for a moment. “I’d like to learn to ride horses. I’d like to read everything I’ve never had time to read. I’d like to discover things about myself and about you. Maybe write books someday. And I could grow brown eggs, like Archie and Joan.”

“Technically, eggs aren’t
grown
. They’re laid.”

“Right.”

“But you could do that if you wanted.”

She looked up at him with a wicked grin. “You want me to lay eggs?”

“Not necessarily, but that might happen.” He put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her face close to his. “I was thinking you’d just get laid—a lot.”

“I didn’t know there was any money in that.”

“No money, just joy.” He bent down closer and propped his forehead against hers. “And when I don’t have you tied to the bed you can read and write and help me with the lodge.”

“I could learn to make breakfasts.”

“Cool.”

“But we’d have to have real coffee.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

“I saw our aura today, the one we make together.” Kate had almost been afraid to say it out loud. She looked into Jorey’s eyes and noticed that their fire burned, even in the twilight.

“I saw it, too. Gold and white and very, very real.”

Jorey then pressed his mouth to hers with such finality that it drove the breath from Kate’s lungs. She felt herself surrender—from the deepest core of her being she let go of the doubt. She would not allow this chance for something real to pass her by.

For Maggie’s Sake

by

Lora Leigh

1

Maggie Samuels was pale. Too pale. The freckles across her creamy cheeks and along the bridge of her nose stood out clearly, emphasizing the frail, delicate look of her features. Her lush lips trembled, her wide green eyes were shocked and filled with unshed tears.

And he wanted to save her. Joe Merino stared through the two-way glass, his hands pushed into the pockets of his slacks as he watched Maggie wrap her arms across her chest and stare unseeing back at the detective questioning her. Detective Folker had been questioning her for hours.

Her husband had been dead less than a week, a husband who had supposedly adored her. Who lived for her. The same man who had supposedly been Joe’s friend. And now, Maggie’s life was being threatened as well. Because of that same man.

Joe knew he shouldn’t give a damn. From all accounts, she had gotten herself into this; he should let her get herself out of it. That’s what his head was saying. His heart was saying something different. His heart was assuring him that there was no way Maggie was involved. He had slept with this woman at one time, held her in his arms, and watched her as she climaxed. The woman he had known couldn’t be cold-blooded enough to be involved with this. But then again, he had never suspected for a second that Grant was part of Fuentes’s organization. That he had helped rape and torture many of the young women that Fuentes had kidnapped.

And now, here he stood, days after Grant’s death, trying to harden himself to the threat that someone else he cared for could be involved in the horror that operation had turned into. That his own life could have become such a mess.

He had let his bitterness, his distrust of women after his wife’s deceit and death five years ago, stand between him and the woman he knew belonged to him. Hell, he had known it at the time. Each time he thought of forever with Maggie, the memory of Bettina’s death hung over him like a haunting specter. She had died leaving him. She and her boyfriend, high on drugs, had run the car they were in over an embankment, killing them both. He hadn’t been able to hold on to the woman he married, the woman who swore to love him. And two years later, there he had been, falling in love with Maggie.

Joe watched Maggie now, his jaw clenched, his back teeth grinding, as the past threatened to swallow him. Two and a half years before, Maggie had belonged to him for a few short months. But he hadn’t taken what he knew could be his. Maggie had walked out of his arms, and months later had walked into Grant’s.

The problem was, he hadn’t stopped loving Maggie.

He stared into the interrogation room, fighting to ignore the tightening of his chest, the regret and the rage and the lust. He had been fighting the lust for two and a half years. A hunger that never slept, that never eased, for a woman he could never have again. A woman who, it appeared, was involved in her husband’s illegal activities.

He ignored the gut-clenching feeling that she couldn’t be involved, that she was innocent. It was the same reaction he had when he began to suspect there was indeed a mole within his team. He had begun the investigation on all the team members, except Grant. He had shared his suspicions with his friend, discussed the best way to flush the traitor out. And Grant had sympathized, become angry on Joe’s behalf, and pretended to help.

God, he had been a fool. Just as he was being a fool again, wanting to believe in Maggie when the evidence against her was mounting.

“Mrs. Samuels, your husband was working for Fuentes,” Detective Matthew Folker told her, not for the first time, his plump face and hazel eyes appearing almost kind as he watched her. “Your neighbors have seen him.” He pointed to Diego Fuentes’s picture. “As well as his nephew Santiago Fuentes, and his brother Jose, at your home. Surely you overheard something?”

Maggie shook her head, the silken fall of her deep red hair caressing her shoulders as her lips trembled again. He knew how Maggie reacted when she was hiding something. Her lips didn’t tremble. Her lips trembled when she couldn’t understand the pain she felt or events unfolding. Her lips had trembled when she had seen another woman on his arm, and her face had gone that same pasty white.

“I saw them. They came to the house several times over the past months.…”

“You met with them,” Folker accused, his voice benign, confident.

“I didn’t meet with them.” Her voice was thin, filled with fear. It sent a surge of fury racing through Joe. Was she lying? The evidence said she was. But the evidence had come from Grant. And they all now knew how reliable Grant had been. Even two and a half years ago Joe had known he knew Maggie better than he knew his best friend. He had acknowledged it, and it had scared the hell out of him.