Native Wolf (25 page)

He didn’t answer at first, and Claire wondered if he understood that she was talking about more than just the heroine Maude and Monowano.

But when he finally replied, it was with a cynical grunt. “Let me guess.” He stood and tucked the book into the back of his waistband again. "This savage asks her father for her hand in marriage. He says yes, of course, and they return to his village. He hunts deer, she grinds acorns, and they live happily ever after."

Claire caught her lip under her teeth. That wasn't quite how the story ended. Once Maude's father found out Monowano was half-white, he agreed to let them marry, and they lived in a fine house—a white man’s house. But she was sure it
could
have ended with them living in a native village.

Chase shook his head and offered her his hand. "Come on. Let's see this waterfall before you get any more wild ideas in your head about making foolish sacrifices.”

Claire frowned. It wasn’t a foolish sacrifice to her. But she knew she’d never convince him with words. Chase Wolf was as stubborn as his grandmother. Maybe that was why Yoema wanted Claire to take him to the waterfall, where magic would do what words could not.

Fortunately, it was Sunday, so most of the riverbank mining operations were deserted. Claire knew the best places to travel unseen. They crossed the river at a narrow spot, reaching the opposite bank by clambering over half a dozen closely spaced boulders.

Once they reached the east bank, she quickly found the creek that would lead up the mountain to the waterfall, and they began the steep climb.

Chase let out a silent sigh. He hoped this detour didn’t turn out to be a fruitless waste of time. Claire’s “not far” was turning out to be a lot farther than he’d expected. He needed to get her back home and out of his life before…well, before he lost his mind.

All morning, he’d been lusting after her. It was hard not to, when his gaze was drawn again and again to the pair of lovely bare legs emerging from that borrowed shirt and tucked into soft rabbit fur boots. And if his thoughts happened to stray to what he’d been doing between those lovely legs last night…

Last night had been a mistake. He knew that now. Claire may have enjoyed it. But for Chase today, it was pure torture. He desired her more than ever. The tightness of his trousers was proof of that.

He hoped they’d get to the waterfall soon. Mostly he hoped the water would be suitably cold.

He began to hear the tall water long before he saw it. The rush of the creek beside them as they traversed the slippery rocks was now joined by a low rumble farther up the hillside. The way was steep and narrow, littered with last year’s leaf-fall, green with this year’s saplings. The air was moist, and the trees formed a dense canopy that drooped across the stream.

Only after they had crested an almost vertical rise—one that Chase couldn’t imagine his grandmother scaling—did the waterfall at last come into view.

“
Momi lalami
,” Claire announced on a sigh of pleasure.

Chase could only stare, speechless, as they emerged from the shadows and beheld the waterfall in all its sunlit glory. He recognized this place. He’d seen it in his mother’s sketches. Against the bright blue sky, a gigantic boulder seemed to hang from the top of the cliff wall. Torrents of water cut a deep groove into the center of the stone and then free-fell in a tumbling cascade as tall as five men, pounding on the flat rock below.

As they climbed up the last few feet and stood on the banks, Chase could see the huge blocks of granite that contained the water in a giant stone bowl. The pool was magnificent—like an enormous, round gem of brilliant emerald—and so deep in the middle that, despite the clarity of the water, the bottom disappeared in inky shadow.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Claire asked breathlessly.

It was more than beautiful. Everything about the place—from the drumming thunder of the fall to the mist that whispered on the air, from the mysterious dark depths of the pool to the tender green of the cliffside ferns, from the plummeting power of the frothy surge to the sunshine sparkling like delicate crystals on the water—seemed almost otherworldly, like elements of a mystical vision.

He shivered once, and he knew it was from more than just the cold spray of the
momi lalami
. This place was special. He could feel it in his blood. He was connected to this place somehow, and in that moment he believed that this was the destination of his spiritual journey.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the moist air as if it were smoke from a sacred pipe. This place had meant something to his grandmother, and he had to discover its significance.

“Come,” Claire beckoned. “This is my favorite place to sit.”

She led him around the edge of the bowl to a flat slab of rock that was cocked at a slight angle toward the water. Folding the long shirt around her thighs, she sat on the sunlit surface and patted the spot beside her.

He pulled her dime novel from his waistband to sit next to her, cross-legged, and studied his surroundings. The long white veil of water made a graceful drop and crashed with a hiss onto the hard rock below. Feathery green fronds against the wet stone cliff dipped and waved beside the falls. The ripples in the pool caught sparks of sunlight and moved outward to gently lap at the muddy shore. It was a place of great power, but also of great peace.

“Your grandmother liked it here,” Claire murmured.

He nodded. It
was
beautiful. But surely his grandmother hadn’t summoned him here to look at pretty mist and tumbling water. There had to be something more.

“I must speak to Yimantuwinyai,” he decided.

“Yiman-…?” She looked at him uncertainly.

Unable to explain in a few words the complexity of Yimantuwinyai the Creator, he smiled and translated, “I need to pray.”

“Ah.” She smiled back. “You pray then. I need to enjoy the sun.” She sank back onto her elbows, tipped her face up to the sky, and closed her eyes.

Chase gazed at Claire, thinking she was as breathtaking as the scenery and wishing he could keep her with him forever. But he also realized that holding on to her was as impossible as holding the waterfall in his hands. He sighed and covered his eyes with his palms, blocking the outside world and turning his thoughts inward. He must breathe slowly, let his mind go blank, and become receptive to the word of Yimantuwinyai.

The sound of the water—rumbling, splashing, whispering—became gentle music to soothe his spirit. He cleared all images from his head and let the tension drain away. He took three long, deep, even breaths, exhaling slowly, silently inviting Yimantuwinyai to speak to him.

Halfway through the fourth breath, Chase felt something dragging him out of his dreamy calm, keeping him from entering the vision realm. A tiny frown touched his brow, and he tried again. He inhaled slowly. But again, he felt strangely anchored to the real world. He exhaled. On the next breath, he opened one of his eyes to a slit and peeked out from between his hands.

Claire, the mischievous little minx, was propped up on one elbow and secretly raking his body with her eyes. Slowly. Deliberately. Shamelessly. Worse, as he continued to watch her, she caught her lower lip under her teeth, and the hunger that suddenly smoldered in her eyes practically made him groan aloud.

He must have made some sort of noise, for her eyes flew to his in the next instant. Caught, she lowered her gaze in embarrassment, and then cleared her throat and shifted to face away from him, casually running an idle fingertip over the surface of the rock.

Chase smiled ruefully, both flattered and frustrated by her attentions. Then he cleared his throat, closed his eyes, took a long breath, and tried again. He needed to understand his grandmother’s message. He needed to find out Yimantuwinyai’s will.

But now his mind was anything but empty. It was full of visions of Claire’s long, luscious legs, her half-bitten lip, and her smoky green eyes.

Claire wasn’t sure if the heat coursing through her body was from the sun, humiliation, desire, or all three. She only knew that lying on the sun-kissed rock, in this magical place, gazing on the all-too-delectable Chase Wolf warmed her blood and left her breathless.

She certainly hoped his god and his grandmother would answer his prayers and send him a clear message that they were meant to be together, for Claire couldn’t bear for him to go.

Several minutes passed. The water continued to fall. The sun continued to shine. Chase continued to pray. She wondered how long it would take for him to hear from Yiman-whoever-it-was.

She picked up her dime novel and tried reading it, but she found she was re-reading the same passages several times without comprehending them, so she set the book aside.

Several more minutes passed. Claire was starting to get bored.

Sometimes her father’s Konkow workers spent hours performing their rituals. She had no idea how long Chase would spend in prayer, but she didn’t dare disturb him to ask.

A light breeze stirred, ruffling her borrowed shirt. She wrinkled her nose. It may have been her imagination, but she swore she could still detect the lingering odor of skunk on her skin. She eyed the pool below, wondering if she could steal a quick dip in the pond before Chase finished praying.

Another minute made up her mind. Very quietly, she moved from her spot, slipped off the rock, and crept down to the water’s edge. With one cautious glance back at Chase, who sat motionless in meditation, she shrugged off the shirt and eased into the water.

The cold took her breath away. The pond was definitely more pleasant in the middle of summer. But soon enough she grew accustomed to the chill and began to enjoy the water’s cleansing caress. She ducked under the waves and wet her hair. She emerged, then paddled a bit and rolled onto her back. She swam near the base of the waterfall, and then dove back toward the center of the pool.

Occasionally, she cast a glance Chase’s way, half-hoping he’d open his eyes. She could imagine what would happen if he did. Once he beheld her in all her naked glory, shining in the sunlight like some ethereal water spirit, his eyes would widen in lusty surprise. She’d pretend she didn’t notice him. She’d continue splashing and cavorting to her best advantage. He’d intend to avert his gaze. But he’d be unable to, because she’d prove irresistibly enchanting. Eventually, she’d catch him gawking. She’d gasp, feigning shame, and shyly lower her eyes, all the while giving him ample opportunity to stare. There would be nowhere for her to hide, after all. She’d be completely at his mercy.

She shivered at the deliciously wicked bent of her thoughts. It
could
happen. She only hoped it
would
happen before the cold water turned her into a frigid prune.

She squinted up at the rock again. Chase was still sitting there, cross-legged, his hands covering his eyes, oblivious to her.

She was halfway through a sigh, wondering how she could garner his attention, when, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed something atop the waves.

She frowned. At first, it looked like a small black bead skimming back and forth on the surface of the pond. Then she noticed it was drifting closer. Could it be a seed pod caught in a strange current or a water bug zigzagging from left to right over the waves? She treaded water, watching as the curious thing neared.

All at once, she spotted the sinuous curve of the long black tail behind it as it sliced an “S” through the water—“S” for snake.

Her heart vaulted into her throat. In a panic, she shrieked and began flailing in the water.

The beast was admittedly tiny, no bigger around than a pencil, and it had probably mistaken her for a convenient land mass in the middle of the pond. But it seemed so menacing, never altering its course, heading straight for her.

She frantically paddled backward as it continued to advance. When it flicked out its little forked tongue, she shrieked again. And then, forgetting all about her intentions to cavort like a graceful, watery nymph, she began floundering and flapping wildly in the water, squealing in horror.

An instant later, a thunderous splash beside her sent a wall of water over her head and into her nose. When she resurfaced, it was in a fit of gasping and choking.

Something slick slipped past her shoulders and brushed her hip. The snake? She shuddered and recoiled instinctively. As she tried desperately to blink the water from her eyes, she felt something circle her waist, and she thrashed against it in terror.

“Easy! I’ve got you.”

She stiffened. It was Chase. He had his arm wrapped around her, holding her afloat.

“There’s a s-snake!” she wheezed.

“A snake?”

She twisted in his grasp, searching the water and finally finding the little beast. To her immense relief, it was headed for the far end of the pool. “There.”

“That little thing? I thought you were drowning.”

“Drowning? Me?” The thought was preposterous. She’d been swimming all her life. She tossed the hair out of her eyes and looked up at him. Her heart wasn’t jabbing quite so hard at her ribs now, but her nose stung, and it was hard to focus on him when he was so close.

He was wet and frowning, like a disgruntled cat in a rainstorm. For an instant, it made her want to smile.

And then she remembered she was naked. He was nearly naked. That was his strong arm circling her bare back and his well-muscled chest pressing against her bare breast. All at once, the last thing she felt like doing was smiling.

The water was not that deep where Chase was now standing, but he suddenly felt like he was in over his head and about to drown.

Despite sitting on that rock for what had seemed like forever—focusing, breathing, clearing his head—he hadn’t received a single vision from his god or his grandmother. He’d been about to give up when he heard Claire’s cry.

His reaction had been purely instinctive. He’d shot to his feet and dove in to rescue her. The fact that she wasn’t in mortal danger made no difference. He felt a sense of protectiveness toward her. Even if she was only squeamish about a tiny water snake, he’d gladly jump in to save her.