Eliana (14 page)

“All finished?”

“For now.” He grinned and stepped aside so she could enter. “Kon’s in the shower. He’ll be out in a couple minutes. You all rested and refreshed? How’s your leg?”

Sore, now that he had to mention it. “Fine. I took some painkillers.”

“I’m sure Kon would work on it for you. Just ask.”

If he touched her again, she might not be able to let him go. “It’s fine.” She glanced at the rumpled bedclothes. A pair of cuffs dangled from rings in the headboard, and for an instant, she was intensely jealous at missing the fun. “You were hungry?”

“I—yeah. You could say that.” He swiftly straightened the bed. “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Orange juice?”

“I’m fine.”

He poured two glasses of water and handed her one anyway. He gestured to the overstuffed chair. “Sit. Make yourself comfortable. How’s your room?”

“Just like this one.” She eased herself down. Damn her throbbing hip. It had stiffened during the long ride, but the hot water helped.

“You nervous about meeting your family?”

“Terrified.” She sipped the water.
Hurry up, Kon, before I lose my nerve.

Dane set his water aside and sat on the chair’s arm. “You’ll be fine. You’re a strong, beautiful young lady. Anyone would be proud to have you for a niece.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. “Kon will tell you the same thing.”

Her body wanted to melt into his and accept the comfort he offered, but she forced herself to remain stiff and upright. “I’m sure he will.” She took another gulp. “He always seems to know exactly what to say and do and how to…”

“How to what?” Dane asked.

Damn it
. She didn’t want to think about…“This.” She trailed a finger down the center of Dane’s chest.

“Yeah. Sometimes it’s handy being a mind reader. He’s also really good at using his energy to give me these little tingling feelings that… What’s wrong?”

“He’s a…what?” She pulled back and stared at him, certain she hadn’t heard right. A surge of panic hit her chest. “And what’s this about ‘little tingly feelings’?”

Dane gazed at the ceiling, muttering, “Kon, you asshole.”

Eliana grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked. “Tell me, damn it.”

He held up his hands, palms out. “He didn’t tell you he’s a Sensitive, did he?”

“It’s obvious he’s sensitive.” She ground out the words, wondering what it was going to take to get an answer.

“Kon is what we call
a
Sensitive. He’s able to
know
things about people without being told. I’m exaggerating when I call him a mind reader. He can’t read specific thoughts, but he can sense emotions and can occasionally pick up images and memories.”

“And those little tingles?”

“That’s his energy you’re feeling.”

And if he was the cause of all those feel-good sensations, that meant he’d manufactured the sexual ones as well. “That bastard.” All the peace and comfort she’d felt lying next to Kon, all the physical longing had been a lie. Kon had
created
those feelings. They weren’t hers at all. Her body was still broken.

The shower was still running in the bathroom.

She didn’t care.

* * * *

Kon tilted his head back to rinse his hair. Hot water sluiced across his scalp and shoulders. He hummed softly, enjoying the way his body felt after the pounding Dane had given him.

Without warning, the water went from hot to freezing. Cursing, he danced out of the stream—just as Eliana slid the curtain aside, rage palpable even without his Sensitivity.

“Eliana? What—”

The slap against his cheek cut off his question.

“Bastard. I
trusted
you.”

Crack
. His other cheek stung. He was so surprised and bewildered, he didn’t have a chance to use his Sensitivity to see past her fury. He turned off the water. Dane followed just behind her.

“Sweetheart, I—”

“Don’t call me that. How dare you
use
me like you did?” She jabbed the head of her cane into his stomach.

He grabbed the cane, wondering what had gotten her so riled up. “What do you mean?”

“You’re no better than my stepfather, forcing me to
feel
things I don’t.” She tugged but he didn’t let go.

He glanced at Dane, who tapped his temple with a finger.
Oh shit
. “Eliana—”

She yanked her cane out of his grip and whacked him. Pain blossomed in his upper arm. Kon yelped. Eliana raised it in preparation for another blow. “What about those people on TV? What about the people who come to you at the clinic? You’re no healer. You’re a fraud, making them feel things that aren’t really there. You must be some kind of a pervert to use them like that.”

“I’d never…”

“Is that how you get your kicks? Using your mind to fuck with someone?” Eliana swung.

Dane caught the cane before the blow landed. “Hey. You’re going too far.”

“And
you
.” She twirled around to rail at him, wincing as she twisted her bad leg. “I don’t know how you can stay with someone who just
uses
you. Fuck you. Fuck both of you. I don’t ever want to see you again.” Leaning on her cane more heavily than usual, she limped out of the room.

Kon watched her go, too stunned by the suddenness of her attack to move. Then he grabbed a towel and stepped out of the shower. “Eliana.” His feet slipped on the tile floor as he hurried after her. “Don’t. Please. I can explain—”

She turned, emanating a hurt that cut to the bone. “Go away, Kon. Don’t you ever come near me again.”

She limped out, every step sending a sympathetic bolt of pain through Kon’s hip.

Dane told him briefly what had happened. ”It’s my fault. I’ll talk to her. She’ll come around.” Dane made to follow Eliana, but Kon caught his arm.

“Let her go.” It hurt to say it, but it was for the best. “She’s afraid. Trying to explain anything now will push her farther away. Let her find her family and maybe she’ll find herself as well. We’ve done everything we can.”

“But…” Dane jammed a fist into his thigh. “So we’re just going to leave her?”

“A good Sensitive knows what his partner needs.” And sometimes those needs were the exact opposite of his own. He tied the towel around his waist and sat, still dripping, on the bed. “I want to go home.”

Chapter Fifteen

Eliana gazed raptly out the window as Sam drove her out of town and onto the Pine Ridge reservation. The land called to her. Snow covered gently rolling hills. Down by the river, a pair of deer bent their heads to drink.

“Seems a funny thing, Kon and Dane leaving so sudden yesterday,” Sam said.

“I told them they didn’t need to stay.”

“I just figured Kon would come with you. He seemed pretty determined to see you safe.”

Eliana had no desire to tell Sam anything. He was one of
them
, a Warden, despite being full-blooded Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud reservation and her one link to finding her family. Yet he was kind in a grandfatherly sort of way, and she found it hard to imagine him getting up to the antics Kon and Dane did. “Do you have a cambion?”

“I did. She died a few years back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She was a good girl. It was her time to go. These days I spend most of my time counseling and advising younger Wardens and cambions.”

So that was why he was so easy to be around. He talked for a living. “Do you know my aunt?”

“We’ve met at one gathering or another. She has good medicine, your aunt. Looks after a lot of people.”

“She’s a doctor?”

Sam slowed at a crossroads and took a left. “Not in the traditional sense. She doctors people, but she doesn’t have formal schooling. She learned from her teachers and her dreams.”

Eliana shuddered at the mention of dreams. She didn’t want to think of Kon, yet the traitorous bastard refused to leave her thoughts. “He lied to me.”

Eyebrow raised, Sam gave her a questioning glance. “Kon? I’ve known him a long time. He’s not someone I’d call a liar.”

Not wanting to offend her host, she rephrased. “He didn’t tell me something he should have.”

“Oh. This is one of those lover’s spats.”

“He’s not my lover.” The moment the denial left her lips, she knew she was the liar, not Kon. She
did
love him, but was sure it was only because she couldn’t take her eyes from him. There was no way she could care for someone who mentally manipulated his patients.

“If you say so.”

“I
do
say so. If you don’t believe me, ask Kon. He can read minds, after all.”

Sam hunched down to gaze at something through the windshield. Eliana looked too, and saw a bird of prey, either a hawk or an eagle, soaring high above.

“Spotted eagle. It’s a good sign,” Sam said.

Curious, Eliana studied the head of her cane. “This is an eagle too.”

Glancing over, Sam smiled. “I gave that to Kon four years ago. He came out for a ceremony and managed to slip down a riverbank and sprain his ankle.”

She had to resist the urge to pitch the cane out the window simply because Kon had used it. Her hip was already sore from the long, bumpy ride in Sam’s truck, and no doubt she’d need the damn stick when she got out. “I don’t want anything of his.”

“Oh, we all need some help from time to time. You’ll learn how much we depend on each other here. Everyone gives what they can.”

She’d gathered that when she’d helped Sam load several bags of groceries and a few canisters of gas in the back of the truck. He’d explained how poor most of the families were. “I like to help out as much as possible.”

Sam turned down a slush-lined road with wooden homes, some weathered and worn, others modestly kept, yet the whole area had the depressed feeling of poverty she knew all too well. “This is Evergreen.”

The truck stopped in front of a blue one-story house. A few cars were parked outside along with three fuzzy horses swishing their tails. Before the engine turned off, a woman thrust open the door and dashed outside. Eliana had just stepped out of the truck when she found herself swept up into an embrace so strong it took her breath away.

“It’s true. I didn’t believe it when I got the call, but you are…you
are
my baby brother’s daughter.” She held Eliana at arm’s length, eyes brimming with tears. “I’m your Aunt Joanna.”

She was a plump woman with a kind smile and graying hair braided and trailing past her shoulders. Eliana melted into her arms, sensing at once the maternal love she’d been lacking since her
abuela
had died when she was eight. Her aunt hugged her again. “Welcome home.”

Home
. Eliana burst into tears. She hardly noticed Sam grab her bag and carry it inside.

Joanna rocked her and crooned. When Eliana handed her the military ID and the dog tags, she stared at them reverently.

“My mother kept them in a drawer. It’s all she kept of him. You should have them,” Eliana said.

But Joanna pressed the items into Eliana’s palm and curled her hand around them. “I have my memories to remember him by. These are yours.” She smiled. “Come in. Meet the rest of your family and most of the neighbors.”

Once inside, Eliana couldn’t breathe—and it was all from nearly being crushed by one relative after another. The house was overloaded with people and food brought by her cousins, their children, another aunt and uncle, and what seemed like dozens of neighbors curious to meet John Tall Elk’s unknown daughter. She was surprised to find that nine of the children—two of them her cousins, the rest not—lived in the house as well, taken in by her aunt to get them out of desperate or abusive situations in their own homes.

Before she knew it, she was captive to numerous stories about her relatives, everything from a baby cousin’s first step to a girl cousin’s mischief to the wedding the past summer of her aunt’s oldest daughter.

But the stories she wanted to hear no one told. Aunt Joanna took her aside and explained why. “It isn’t polite to speak of the dead, but you are his daughter and should know. John was my little brother. He was much like you, strong-willed and certain life would be better elsewhere. He joined the army over twenty years ago, but when he thrust his past aside, he lost himself. I went to visit him once down there in Arizona. Strong man. Smart man. Already taken to drink, though. Said he’d found a pretty Mexican woman to keep him company. Said he was happy.”

Eliana’s heart thudded. “What was her name?”

Joanna’s smile was sad. “Aida. Like the opera. We fought, he and I. He threw me out. Said he never wanted to see me or any of his family again. Two months later his plane went down. Pilot error, they said.” She patted Eliana’s cheek, tenderness and love in her gaze. “You have his eyes, his spirit, though he’d turned his back on a life he felt was painful and pointless.”

There was something more she didn’t say. Happy as Joanna was, a lingering sadness remained. It was quickly doused when a pair of children rushed over to tug at Eliana’s sleeve and beg her to go outside and see their pony.

* * * *

At last the guests had left, and Joanna led Eliana to the peace and quiet of a modest bedroom. Two other girls were already asleep inside. A third bed covered by a star quilt had been squeezed inside near the window. “I hope you don’t mind sharing. There aren’t enough bedrooms to go around.”

“I used to share with my sisters.” She missed the nighttime girlish chatter and looked forward to having girls around again. Embracing her aunt, she couldn’t help but feel welcome. “Thank you, Aunt. It’s perfect.”

“My mother—your grandmother—made that quilt,” Joanna said, then gave Eliana one last kiss good night. Eliana put on her pajamas and snuggled into the bed, comfortable and happy. In surprise, she realized that while her hip remained sore, it wasn’t bad enough to take a pill. The excruciating pain that had followed her for a year was gone.

Through the window, she could see stars, thousands of them. The faint light from the slivered moon cast shadows across the snowdrifts. The house. The land. The people. She
belonged
here, yet there was some piece of her still missing.