Shadowed: Brides of the Kindred book 8 (3 page)

She always woke up from these dreams sweaty and disheveled. And confused—so
confused.
Had she had a nightmare or a wet dream? Part of her said nightmare—no question. A man with no face chasing her? That had to be a bad dream. Except…bad dreams didn’t make you horny out of your mind. So much that she had to touch herself before she could go back to sleep. Nina couldn’t help being ashamed of that—how could the idea of a huge, frightening man whose face was hidden make her so hot? And why wouldn’t the dreams leave her alone?

Stop thinking about it! You’re only making it worse. And anyway, it’s time to go.

Nina glanced down at her watch and gave a low curse. She’d been thinking about her bad dreams so long she had forgotten about how late it was getting. It was past time to be out of there.

Flipping off the light switch, she locked up the small museum and ran for her car, parked at the far end of the employee lot. The hot Florida sun beat down on her, but Nina was used to it. She slid into her little hatchback, barely noticing that the interior was like an oven. The heat she could handle—it was the few cold days a year that got to her. Luckily, living in Tampa, those days were few and far between, so she was generally pretty comfortable.

She went through the drive-thru and got a double cheeseburger for Mehoo-Jimmy and a chocolate shake for herself from the dollar menu. It was a small splurge, since she was trying to save every penny to go back to school, but after the particularly bad dream she’d had the night before, Nina decided she deserved it.

I just need to let the dreams go,
she told herself as she sipped the shake and drove toward Mehoo-Jimmy’s little bungalow.
Need to forget about them and just breathe.

Pulling up in front of the little green house, she saw that Mehoo-Jimmy was sitting out on the front porch, petting one of her many cats and probably humming to herself. Sure enough, when she got out of the car, Nina could hear the soft, wordless crooning that was surprisingly tuneful drifting through the air. It was this soft sound that had comforted her after the death of her mother, when Mehoo-Jimmy held her and whispered that all was not lost, that she would see her again someday on the other side.

Nina had only been twelve when her mother had died of breast cancer, and Mehoo-Jimmy had taken her under her wing and protected her when Nina’s father was out trying to drown his grief in whiskey and gambling. In some ways, he had never gotten over her mother’s death—or at least that was the excuse he always gave when he came home drunk or lost his paycheck at the craps table.

But Nina didn’t want to think about her father now. She ran lightly up the path to the tiny pea-green bungalow, the white paper sack with the cheeseburger crinkling cheerfully.

“Mehoo, how are you?” She took the porch steps in two bounds and bent to kiss the soft cheek, wrinkled with age. As always, Mehoo-Jimmy smelled of baby powder and the herbs she grew in her garden out back.

“Hello, eecho.” The affectionate name meant “little deer” in Miccosukee, one of the Seminole dialects. The old woman gave her a wide smile, revealing teeth too white and even to be anything but false. “What you doing here? Don’t you have to be at that Greedy Massage place?”

“It’s Massage
Envy,
and I have a few minutes. Thought I’d bring you lunch.” Nina handed her the bag and pulled up a wicker chair to sit beside her. “So how are things?”

“Not bad, not bad. Except…” The old woman frowned at her. “I got a worried feeling about you, eecho. Early this morning when I first woke. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Mehoo.” Nina shifted uncomfortably under her adopted grandmother’s ancient stare.

“Tell the truth to your mehoo.” The old woman spoke sternly though her eyes were gentle. “I can tell when something is on your mind.”

“I had another dream,” Nina said, looking down at her hands. “A dream about the man…the man whose face I couldn’t see.”

As she spoke, the half-remembered dream came back with a force that left her feeling uneasy and ashamed. Besides the shameful way the strange dreams turned her on, there was something else about them—a feeling she got that the faceless man needed her help. That he was in terrible trouble, and only she could save him. But it was hard to say how she could possibly do that—he was so
big,
and his face was always shadowed…

“A man who hides his face? Hmm…” Mehoo-Jimmy hummed thoughtfully as she unwrapped the burger Nina had brought her. “That’s not good, child. He sounds like a bear.”

“He could be, I guess,” Nina admitted, frowning. “He’s huge—as big as a bear, anyway.”

“The bear is your spirit animal, Nina,” Mehoo-Jimmy said sternly. “You’ve dreamed of him before, remember?”

“Well, yes…” Nina sighed. She
had
had several dreams about a bear that talked to her when she was little, but that was years ago—a childish fantasy. Not that she would say that to Mehoo-Jimmy.

“When your spirit animal comes to you in a dream, you need to listen. What does he want, this bear?”

“I don’t know.” Nina raised her hands helplessly. “He never speaks, and I can never see his face—just these strange, glowing eyes like he’s hiding somehow.”

“Dreaming of a bear means fever coming,” Mehoo-Jimmy announced. “A fever you can’t put out with water alone.”

Nina nodded respectfully, though she wasn’t completely sure she understood. Mehoo-Jimmy’s late husband had been a respected medicine man of the panther clan, and the old lady had studied with him until she too was known as a doctor of Seminole medicine. She would never be as powerful as a medicine man, but her herbal remedies and medicinal rubs got good results and were favored above “white medicine” by many of the older tribe members. Her homemade medicine earned her just enough to let her keep up her house as well as feed herself and the many cats that could always be found wandering through her garden.

“This fever—could you put it out with your special tea?” Nina asked. Personally, she swore by the herbal tea Mehoo-Jimmy brewed for colds and flu. She was almost never sick herself, but when she was, the tea helped her bounce back within a couple of days.

“No medicine will be strong to quench this kind of fever,” Mehoo-Jimmy said mysteriously. “The power to heal such a fever will have to come from within. From here.” Leaning forward, she tapped one crooked finger above Nina’s heart.

“You know I don’t have power like you, Mehoo,” Nina protested.

The older woman had tried to teach her some of her cures and remedies, claiming she had the “healing touch” but Nina had never learned to make much more than the tea and a few herbal rubs. She always promised herself she would come and learn more, but these days she was so busy she barely had time to spare a few minutes with her adopted grandmother before it was time to rush off to the next job.

“Of course you do, eecho. Why do you think those clients of yours at the Jealous Massage place keep coming back over and over? Why else are you saving to go back to school and be a doctor? Because when you touch people, they feel your power—the power of your heart to heal.”

“Oh, Mehoo…” Nina made a shooing motion. “I just want to be a physician’s assistant. And it’s not like that—I’m just a good therapist. That’s why my clients come back. Not because of any ‘power’ I have.”

“You have more power than you think.” Mehoo-Jimmy nodded solemnly. “You have a strength in you, eecho. A strength that won’t let you break, no matter how far you have to bend.”

Nina felt sudden tears prick her eyes, and she looked away, trying not to let the older woman see her cry.

“I…I certainly hope so,” she said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “Because lately, sometimes I feel…feel like I’m going to break. These dreams…” She looked back at Mehoo-Jimmy and tried to smile, but the other woman shook her head.

“Tell me, Nina,” she said softly. “Are the dreams really so bad? Or is there another reason you’re upset. Is it that no good father of yours? What did he do this time?”

“Oh, Dad’s always in trouble.” Nina sniffed and sighed. “I
am
disappointed, though—I thought he was doing better. I had him going to Gambler’s Anonymous every Friday night. He hadn’t been in the casino in ages. And then…”

“Then what?” Mehoo-Jimmy’s eyes were hard, but the anger in them wasn’t directed at Nina.

Nina sighed. “Oh, I found out he’d been in the casino again. That’s all.”

“How much?” Mehoo-Jimmy asked. “How much did he lose?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” Nina lied uneasily. In fact, she knew to the penny how much her father owed. But if she told Mehoo-Jimmy, the sum might give the old lady a heart attack.

“Nina…” Mehoo-Jimmy frowned at her. “Are you helping him pay it off? Is that why you’re all the time working, eecho?”

“I’m helping a little—it’ll be okay,” Nina said. “Mostly, I’m saving for school. It’s just…I haven’t been sleeping well, so I’m a little tired right now, that’s all.”

In fact, she felt near the ragged edge of exhaustion lately. All the hours she was working combined with all the stress of the dreams to make her feel half-crazy most of the time. But she couldn’t let her mehoo know that.

“You shouldn’t be helping that dog of a man,” Mehoo-Jimmy snapped. “All he does is take, take, take. Probably doesn’t even care that you’re working yourself away to nothing, trying to keep his worthless hide from being nailed to the nearest tree.”

“Of course, he cares,” Nina protested. “He feels terrible about what he did. He just hasn’t been the same since Mom died. You know that.”

“That was twelve years ago, Nina. The death of a loving spirit is a terrible thing, but you can’t use it as an excuse forever.”

Mehoo-Jimmy was only saying what she herself had often thought, but Nina couldn’t help the surge of guilt she felt when hearing it spoken aloud. Her mother had begged her to take care of her father when she was dying, and Nina had done her best, though she was scarcely twelve at the time.

Cooking and cleaning the house as well as doing her homework had been a heavy burden at such a young age, but somehow, she had managed. And no matter how much she might hate her father’s drinking and gambling, she could never forget all the good times. The way he and her mother would laugh and dance in the little kitchen to the tunes coming out of the scratchy old radio… The way her father with his charming Welsh accent and deep blue eyes—the one feature Nina had inherited from him—would tell silly jokes and tickle her mother until she laughed so hard she cried…

“They were so in love,” she murmured, looking down at her hand again. “I guess…I can’t blame him for missing her so much.”

“He had a problem with gambling fever a long time before he met your mother.” Mehoo-Jimmy sighed and put a withered hand to Nina’s cheek. “Just don’t work yourself to death for him, eecho. He’s had his life, and he used it badly—don’t let him take away yours too.”

“He’s not,” Nina said a touch defensively.

“Yes, he is.” Mehoo-Jimmy sounded sad. “Look at you—you’re halfway through your twenties, and you still have no house or family of your own. You ought to find a good man to love you—someone to cook my special fry bread for.”

“You
do
make good fry bread,” Nina admitted, glad to change the subject. “I’d eat it all day if it wouldn’t go straight to my behind and hips.”

Mehoo-Jimmy made a disgusted
hmmph
sound. “You’re too skinny as it is, eecho—you ought to be eating a whole plate of fry bread every day.”

“The top of me, maybe. But this…” Nina patted her too-generous hips and ass. “This is never getting skinny, no matter what I do.”

“Nothing wrong with having wide hips,” Mehoo-Jimmy said with certainty. “It shows you’re fertile. The right man will come along and want to put a baby between those hips.”

“Mehoo!”
Nina shook her head, laughing in embarrassment. Mehoo-Jimmy was known for speaking her mind, and she didn’t mince words. Half the time, Nina had no idea what she was going to say next.

“It’s true,” her adopted grandmother insisted. “Just you wait and see.”

“Well, I promise if I find a man who actually
wants
a girl with big hips and a wide behind, I’ll bring him home and feed him your fry bread—how about that?” she said.

“Hmmph,” Mehoo-Jimmy said again, frowning. “I’ll believe it when I see it. You don’t have time to find a man with all the hard work you do.” She narrowed her eyes at Nina. “The best I can do is send out a prayer that the man will find
you.”

For some reason a shiver went down Nina’s spine. She thought again of the man in her dream, the one whose face was always shadowed.

“Don’t do that, Mehoo,” she begged. “I’m fine just like I am, really.”

“We’ll see.” The old lady turned her attention back to her half eaten burger. “We’ll just see.”

“Well, right now, I see it’s time for me to go.” Nina glanced at her watch. Actually, it was past time. She hopped up and dropped another kiss on Mehoo-Jimmy’s wrinkled cheek. “Love you, Mehoo. I’ll see you later.”

“Good-bye, eecho. Be well and safe. And thank you for lunch.” The old lady smiled and shooed away a cat before taking another bite of the burger with her big false teeth.

Nina waved as she slid behind the wheel of her car. Time to go to her shift at Massage Envy, which would last until nine. She loved working at the museum, but it
did
make for some long days.

She sighed wearily as she took a back road that led to South Tampa. The long hours had never bothered her before, but back when she first started her demanding schedule, she hadn’t been woken at least once a night by the dreams. And once she woke up, she couldn’t get back to sleep. Couldn’t get him out of her head.

How much longer could she keep going like this with little to no sleep? And why couldn’t she stop having the dreams?

Not for the first time, Nina wondered uneasily if something was wrong with her. Was she having some kind of mental breakdown? Going crazy?

Of course I’m not going crazy,
she denied to herself uneasily.
Everything is going to be fine. I’m sure tonight I’ll be able to sleep without dreaming. Tonight will be the night the dreams finally end.