Warrior's Embrace (43 page)

He tended her wound and after she left the
kitchen, Clayton took a casserole out of the refrigerator. Chicken
and mushrooms with a white wine sauce. Whatever else happened to
him while he was in Witch Dance, he would not go hungry. He’d
learned cooking from Melissa’s French chef.

It was one of the few things he excelled at.
Cooking. Medicine. Sex.

He heard the sound of running water. Kate
would be naked under the shower, young and naked and glorious. The
casserole slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor. For a
moment he gazed at the mess as if he were trying to figure out
where it had come from.

Kate was singing in the shower now, singing
in a bluesy, smoky voice, slightly off key.

Clayton got a dish towel and knelt over the
smashed food. Dinner would have to wait.

Charleston, South Carolina

The letter lay open on the bedside table.
Mick Malone skirted around it, trying not to notice. In the
bathroom Martha was brushing her teeth, doing all that damned
gargling he hated.

He balled his socks into a wad and rammed
them into his shoes. He’d wear them again tomorrow if Martha didn’t
catch him. No sense in changing socks every day.

Martha turned on the shower, and he could
hear the door banging shut as she climbed inside. She used to hum
in the shower long ago, so long ago, he could hardly remember.

He glanced at the letter once more. Kate’s
signature stared up at him, bold as she’d always been. What would
it hurt to look?

Dear Mother
. . .

Mick’s hands trembled.

Witch Dance is a beautiful land, and I’m
busy and happy with my work. I don’t want you to worry. I’ve made
friends, and Dr. Colbert watches after me as if he were my father.
I love you. Kate.

There was no sound except that of water
cascading down the bathroom drain. Silently Mick replaced the
letter on the bedside table, exactly as he’d found it.

He lay on his side of the bed, careful to
leave enough room so Martha’s legs wouldn’t touch his. He closed
his eyes and was soon breathing evenly, but his hands were clenched
on top of the sheets.

Witch Dance

Anna Mingo liked to do her shopping on
Saturday, especially when the weather was good. If she hurried with
the grocery shopping, she always had time to go to her favorite
store, the little needlepoint shop on the corner of Itawamba and
East streets,

“Now, mind your manners, boys. No running
around the store and
no
touching the merchandise.”

“We’ll be good, Mama,” Clint said stoutly,
though Anna had her serious doubts. Her oldest son probably would
be good if Bucky didn’t always get something started.

“I mean it, children.”

They were still nodding their heads
vigorously as she took both their hands and started across the
street. She hurried along, thinking about the pink embroidery
thread she wanted to buy and if she had enough money left over, the
length of lace. Distracted, she almost didn’t see the medicine
woman until it was too late.

Kate Malone was crossing the street from the
opposite side. Anna knew it had to be her, for no one else in Witch
Dance had hair the color of the sunset and legs so long that she
could walk as fast as a man.

Anna stopped dead in her tracks, and the
medicine woman smiled directly at her.

“Why, hello there. What darling little
boys.”

Anguished, Anna let go of Clint and placed
her hand over her stomach. The baby gave a vigorous kick.

Kate Malone stood in the middle of the street
with an expectant smile on her face, waiting for an answer. It
didn’t seem right to turn away from her.

But Cole had been very specific, and Anna had
absolute trust in her husband. Without a word to the medicine
woman, she turned around and hurried back to her car.

“I thought we were going to the ‘point shop,
Mama.”

“Hush, Clint.”

Anna could still see the medicine woman,
standing in the middle of the street. She looked as if she’d lost
her best friend. Anna started the car and headed home, but for the
first time in her marriage, she questioned Cole’s judgment.

Kate watched the car drive away.

“I will not cry,” she said, but she felt the
tears gather anyhow.

The letter she’d sent her mother was nothing
but a pack of lies. But how could it be otherwise? How could she
tell her mother that the people she’d come to serve hated her so
much they stomped her flowers into the ground, tore down the walls
of her clinic, and passed to the other side of the street when she
walked by?

In South Carolina everybody crossed streets
to get to Kate, and in Virginia, where she’d gone to medical
school, she was never without at least half a dozen invitations to
go out for pizza and a beer. How could she say to her mother that
she had only three friends in Witch Dance, and one of them had been
so terrified of her father’s censure that she’d almost refused a
brochure about nursing school, and the other came and went on his
black stallion as the mood struck him.

“If they think I’ll leave, they’ve
underestimated me. I’m a Malone. Nothing can stop me.”

Having added talking to herself in the middle
of the street to her list of sins, Kate marched across the street
and into the ice cream shop with her head held high and a smile on
her face.

Not only that, but she sat on a barstool at
the counter and ordered the biggest banana split they had—even
after the two people already there picked up their ice cream bowls
and moved to a table. For good measure, she turned and gave them
her best smile.

She’d never known it was so hard to smile
with a lacerated heart.

o0o

That night they came to her in dreams.
Charles and Brian came to her with their hands outstretched and
their voices distorted by the water.

Help me. Help me, Katie.

The dream was always the same. They called to
her and she couldn’t answer. Weights held down her arms and legs,
and a wide, watery expanse separated her from them. Her
brothers.

Her fault.

“No!” she cried, her sleep-drugged voice as
weak and mewling as a kitten’s.

The covers were tangled around her legs like
seaweed. She kicked frantically, trying to free herself. She had to
get free.

“Kate?” Clayton stood in the doorway of her
bedroom. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Her hands trembled as she pushed her
damp hair back from her forehead.

“Are you sure? Can I get you a glass of water
...anything?”

“I’m fine. Just a bad dream.”

“Well . . .” He lingered in the doorway
concerned.

“I’m okay. Really.” She made herself smile at
him.

His footsteps were soft, padded by the
moccasins he wore as he crossed the room and stood beside her
bed.

“Kate . . .” He reached toward her, wavered,
then gently touched her forehead. His hands were damp against her
skin. “Might as well make sure you don’t have a fever.”

“I’ve always heard the doctors are the
biggest worrywarts of all when it comes to people they—”
Premonition sent shivers along her spine. She’d never felt
self-conscious around Dr. Colbert, but suddenly she was aware of
the thin white cotton T-shirt that barely covered her bottom, of
her naked legs and her tumbled hair.

“...when it comes to family,” she added
briskly.

It was an awkward moment. He took a step
back.

“You’re almost family, Kate. Like a
...daughter to me.”

“Thanks.”

“Well . . .”

His eyes were too bright. Kate wanted to pull
the covers over herself, but that would only draw attention to her
attire. More than that, it would indicate a lack of trust in him.
Her dearest friend. Her trusted mentor. She wouldn’t insult him in
that manner.

“If you’re sure you don’t need anything
...Good night, Kate.”

Abruptly he wheeled away and was out the door
before she could reply. Kate got out of bed and leaned against the
windowsill. The walls of her clinic rose, ghostly, in the
moonlight. It had taken four days to restore them. Four days of
sweat and hard labor.

Without the watchers on the hill. Without
Eagle.

Where was he?

Kate opened the window and let the night
breeze cool her hot face. Prickles still danced along the back of
her neck.

She tiptoed across the room and quietly
closed her door. Then she turned the lock ...feeling disloyal to
Dr. Colbert. And somewhat silly.

Instead of going to bed and risking the
dreams, she went back to the window. The yard was so bright, it
might have been a South Carolina moon hanging in the sky, a moon
that rose up over the ocean and took its iridescent glow from the
waters.

Memories flooded her mind.

“Can’t catch me ...can’t catch me,
Katie.” Brian’s hair was silver as he raced along the edge of the
water.

“I can, too. I can do anything because
I’m Daddy’s girl.”

Brian stuck out his tongue and raced off,
his sturdy legs spewing up sand. He didn’t see the piece of
driftwood in his path. When Katie got to him, he had blood on his
leg and he was crying.

She sat cross-legged on the sand and
pulled him onto her lap.

“It hurts.” Sniffling, he wrapped his
arms around her neck.

“It’s just a little blood ...see.” She
wiped it away with the tail of her T-shirt.

Nobody would ask her where it came from.
At thirteen, she was already the neighborhood “doctor.” Her
patients ranged from stray cats to baby birds fallen from their
nests to an occasional playmate who was not strong enough to
withstand her threats. “If you don’t let me doctor you, I’ll punch
your nose and really give you something to cry about,” she’d tell
them.

“See,” she told her five-year-old
brother. “It’s nothing but a little ol’ scratch.”

He ran a chubby finger along his injury,
then gave her a watery smile. “Don’t tell Daddy I cried.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to
die.”

“An’ Charles. Don’t tell Charles. He’d
laugh.”

Ten-year-old Charles probably would. He
prided himself on being a man ...just like his father.

“I won’t tell Charles.”

Brian wrapped his arms around her neck
and gave her a kiss that left sand on her cheek.

“I love you best in all the world,
Katie.”

“I love you too, Bee Boy.” It was the
family pet name for Brian, a name he’d given himself when he was
first learning to talk.

“Will you love me always,
Katie?”

“Always.”

“And take care of me forever and
ever?”

“Forever and ever and ever.”

He wiggled out of her lap and flew across
the sand with his arms outstretched. “You can’t catch me,” he
yelled, his joyous voice lifting on the wind.

A year later she’d broken her promise to
Brian.

His forever lasted only six
years.

Would nothing take the dreams away? Even wide
awake she couldn’t escape them, couldn’t escape the guilt.

Kate pressed her hands against her face and
felt tears. Angrily she wiped them away.

She was in Tribal Lands for a fresh start.
She leaned her elbows on the windowsill, determined to see nothing
except the trees and the mountains.

And that’s when she saw the horse and rider
silhouetted against the moon. A man sat tall and majestic on a
horse as black as the night.

“Eagle!”

His name ricocheted off the walls of her
room, mocking her. She was so mesmerized by him that now she was
seeing mirages. Rubbing her hands over her tired eyes, she glanced
at the hillside once more. The horse and rider were gone.

She watched out the window awhile longer,
letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Nothing moved, nothing
marred the horizon. And yet ...she was certain she’d seen them, the
horse and rider so clearly outlined on the hillside.

Could it be an intruder come back to wreck
the clinic once more?

“Over my dead body,” she muttered.

Moving quickly, Kate pulled on a pair of
jogging shorts; then she raced through the house, her bare feet
scarcely touching the smooth wooden floors.

She’d been a long distance runner in her high
school and college days. During her years in medical school she’d
often relieved the tedium and stress by racing on the nearest
track.

On her way out the back door she grabbed the
first weapon she could get her hands on, the string mop hanging on
a nail, still damp from scrubbing the kitchen floor. The Lord only
knew what she would do with the mop, but she wasn’t about to sit
idly by while someone destroyed her work again.

Hiding wasn’t her style.

o0o

Eagle saw her coming, her red hair as bright
as a beacon. He’d expected the intruders, but he’d never expected
Kate Malone, brandishing a mop.

She was as noisy as a freight train, roaring
through the night with the mop held aloft. Fearless, she stormed
through the clinic.

Eagle watched her, amused. She was in no
danger, for he’d kept watch all night. The clinic was empty.

He knew the art of stillness. The years away
from Witch Dance had not taken it from him, nor the ability to
blend with the night, to be a part of it.

Kate passed so close, he could have reached
out and touched her. Eagle stayed his hand. The touching would
come. For now, watching was enough.

“Come out,” she said. “I know you’re in
here.”

She poked the mop behind a stack of lumber
and jabbed it into dark corners.

“Come out with your hands up and I might be
generous.”