SkinwalkersWoman

Fran
Lee

Running away from heartache is
easier than facing it. But when Chellie runs from a bad relationship with a
cheating ex and lands smack-dab in the arms of a hot and sexy stranger who
thinks she was born to be his mate, could things get any weirder?

They sure can…especially when she
discovers she’s a closet nymphomaniac and he’s a shape-shifting explosion of
animal magnetism she simply can’t resist.

A
Romantica®
paranormal erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Dedication

To women everywhere—may all your fantasies come true.

Acknowledgements

My deepest thanks to the White Mountain Apache Tribe and
Dorothy Bray, editor of the
Western Apache-English Dictionary
.

Any inconsistencies or errors in the translation of Native
languages are my own.

How the hell could she have managed to turn the wrong way?
There couldn’t possibly be
two
different roads in this desolate,
God-forsaken place. The old man had even drawn a rough map for her on the back
page of her notepad. It was totally “duh”-proof. She ticked off the
instructions one by one to reassure herself that she hadn’t made some gross
blunder.

Follow the highway to the first ranch-road cutoff just
beyond the forty-five-mile marker, then swing right. Twenty-three miles north
along the nearly invisible two-rut track that led into the hills. Drive past
the two abandoned shacks and the “no trespassing” sign that signaled that she
was on private land. Then take the first right-hand fork that came along. All
she was supposed to have done was follow it to the cabin. The landmark he had
drawn, a tall sandstone monolith to the right of the narrow track, had been
right where he had said it would be.

So where’s my frigging cabin? And how the hell can I
possibly be lost?

Michelle Abernathy lifted her gaze from the rough sketch and
the shakily written instructions and heaved a weary sigh, shoving her oversized
sunglasses up onto the top of her sweat-straggled hair. She lifted the heavy
mass off her neck for a momentary respite from the sauna-like heat inside the
car. Her dry, stinging eyes searched for any possible sign of the small cabin
she had rented for the next two months.

She
couldn’t
have made a wrong turn, damn it. There
weren’t that many turns around here. She’d already back-tracked twice to the
boulder and had watched carefully as she drove. It was getting late, and she
sure as hell didn’t want to be alone out here after dark.

She could see nothing but tall-growing sage brush, scrub
pines and cedar and gigantic piles of red rock. She got a sick feeling of
disorientation inside. She checked the screen of the state-of-the-art GPS on
the dash and cursed once again at the “unable to process request” that still
glowed benignly on the screen.
You piece of shit
. The GPS satellite
system didn’t seem to work at all out here, despite what the agent at the car
rental office had spouted off to her. “You can’t possibly get lost with this
baby!” he’d bragged.

Well, la di dah! Apparently the car doesn’t believe its
own hype.

She pulled her cell phone out of the laptop bag next to her
and flipped it open, ready to ask if she’d misunderstood the elderly Native
American man who had rented the place to her.

He seemed so nice.

With a loud, very unladylike curse, she closed her eyes and
barely stopped herself from throwing the offending phone as far out the window
of her car as possible.

No service.
Not even one tiny little bar…maybe it was
on the same frequency that the car’s GPS used.

Chellie—she hated her given name—clenched her teeth and
prayed for patience, resting her forehead against the leather-covered steering
wheel. Wayward strands of dark hair clung to her sweat-damp cheeks. Even the
hardworking air-conditioning couldn’t make much of a dent in this damn
oppressive heat. It had to be at least a hundred and ten outside. Could
anything else possibly go wrong in this hare-brained scheme of hers to find a
secluded, remote place and get away from all the stress of her life for just a
few frigging weeks? All she had wanted to do was read, maybe watch some TV and
kick back and…okay, so she was running away.
Just admit it, girl. It’s no
crime to run.

Murphy’s Law was always alive and well in Chellie’s life and
daring it to make its move had obviously not been the wisest thing.
Ya
think?

She drew a deep, cleansing breath and blew it out slowly as
she climbed out of the dust-covered Escalade she’d rented in Phoenix. She
scrambled onto the front bumper to see if a higher vantage point might reveal
what she couldn’t see from the road. Her eyes skimmed the low-growing trees and
rocks. She pulled her sunglasses back down to shield her eyes from the
merciless sun. Nothing.
Maybe just a bit higher?

Another couple of cautiously wobbly steps carried her onto
the hood, then up over the windshield to the luggage rack, her vantage point
now several feet higher than before. She lifted her hands to shade her face
from the late afternoon glare and scanned the surrounding brush and rocks for
any sign of the promised cabin. When she strained onto her tiptoes to gain
another couple of inches, she thought she could just barely see the slanted
roofline of a building nestled in a stand of gnarled junipers and cedars
several hundred yards off to the right of the track.

“Oh thank God!” she whimpered. Getting a visual fix on the
cabin, she carefully stepped down off the luggage rack and her steamer trunk,
which was strapped on top of the SUV. As she began to gingerly ease herself
backward over the windshield onto the hood, a loud screech from overhead made
her jerk her head up to see a very large bird wheeling in a wide, lazy circle
in the sky, seemingly floating on currents of air above the red stone monuments
that stood as ancient sentinels to the wonders of nature—at least, that was
what the rather poetic travel guide book had said.

She watched the bird for several minutes, captivated by the
sheer, amazing power and beauty of the wide-spread wings and the fan-like tail
that seemed to keep the magnificent creature aloft without having to work. The
bird seemed to be watching her too. After a while, it wheeled off, seemingly
losing interest in her. As she followed its progress toward the spires and
arches to the west, she realized that she’d been holding her breath and exhaled
explosively.

So beautiful!

Being a city girl, Chellie had never before seen a bird that
large and majestic outside a zoo or a movie. Had it been a hawk? No. She’d seen
hawks. It had seemed way bigger than that, even from this distance. Most likely
a golden eagle. The guide book said that they nested in the high, wind-carved
spires in the red rocks of the ancient valley.

Goose bumps ran over her skin as she rubbed her arms and
slid the rest of the way down from the hood to dust off her slacks and climb
back into the high seat of the Escalade. Shifting out of park and swinging to
the right, she followed a barely discernible track in the windswept grass that
would—hopefully—lead her to the well-hidden cabin she’d caught sight of moments
ago. A giddy wave of excitement ran through her as she drew nearer to her
destination.

A sense of something about to happen trickled over her.
Hopefully
something good.

Maybe her life was taking an upswing—at least, she hoped it
was. Her inner voice kept telling her that things would be okay. And the fact
that it was stirring once again, deep inside, filled her with relief. Chellie
was utterly thrilled that her severely repressed sixth sense was beginning to
reassert itself. Happily, it was still alive and well after having been shoved
down deep and totally ignored for the past couple of years.

And whose fault was that?
her inner voice asked
huffily.

You can only blame your own pathetic stupidity for that,
girl.
She could only agree.

Usually she was calm, collected, and prided herself on being
rational and responsible.

Her actions over the past week could only be described as
totally irrational. Irresponsible.
Desperate, even?
She’d amazed herself
with her decision to run away. Chellie had never done anything so shockingly
unplanned before. But something had snapped inside her when she’d read the
“Dear Joan” letter from Karl, her now ex-fiancé. That rat-faced bastard! After
sitting numbly on her sofa for hours, tears streaming down her face as she
wallowed in feelings of total inadequacy, she had made a rather abrupt
decision. She’d decided that she wouldn’t just sit around, numbly accepting the
utter disappointment that she had felt as her perfect, well-planned future had
come tumbling down around her ears. Obviously she had been the only one
planning it. It was apparent now that he never had been involved in more than a
cursory manner.

And no way was she going back to the closed-up house in
Albany where he could so easily find her when his new flame dumped his sorry
ass. She had no illusions about what he would do when his new bed-pal found out
he had feet—and brains—of clay.

He’ll come hunting for me. Gullible, love-starved
Chellie.

Not if I can help it!

So she’d made a split-second decision to cut and run.
Self-preservation. Yep. That was one way to put it. Her inner voice had called
it being a chicken-shit. She had paid to have her things professionally packed
and placed in storage, moving everything out in one day, leaving his expensive
East Central Park apartment as empty and bare as it had been when she’d moved
in with him two years before.

She’d even given the canned goods she’d bought and the
frozen food she had purchased to the food bank as a donation. He could bring
his new lady friend home to a totally empty apartment with no food or
furniture—not even toilet paper. Just the way it had been when she’d moved in.
In a final fit of pique, she had taken a bottle of white shoe polish and
written a farewell note on the antique marble fireplace—“Have a wonderful life.
I hope your new friend has enough money to keep you in the style to which I
have accustomed you”.

Was that proper grammar? Aw, who the hell cares?

Oh how damn…used she felt. Yes, that was definitely the
word. But she’d walked into that mess with eyes wide open.
No one to blame
but yourself, girl
. She should have realized two years before that a man
living in a fancy upscale Manhattan apartment with not a stick of furniture
except a ratty recliner and a TV set would be a poor risk. For Pete’s sake!
She’d even provided the bed, since he’d been sleeping on an old air mattress.
He hadn’t even owned
pillows
. Her inner voice had repeatedly warned her,
but of course, being stubborn and believing him to be what she wanted and
needed him to be, she had ignored it and shoved it deep, forbidding it to
emerge again.

His story, of course, had been that he’d just moved in and
was still a student and didn’t want to impose further on his parents.
Right.
Because I was stupid enough to provide everything he needed.
Chellie winced
at her dimwitted acceptance of his excuse for living like a transient in his
own apartment. One look at a chiseled face and a hot, gym-toned body, and she’d
fallen all over herself to believe him. She had paid his lease payments, bought
their food, their laundry soap, their toothpaste and even his underwear—all
because he’d professed his undying love. Yeah right. How utterly stupid could
one woman be? How damn pathetic?

Stop it, Chellie! Don’t you dare take the full blame for
this.

How could she have known? She’d had little to no experience
with men. He had been what smarter people called a “professional student”. He’d
never worked a day in his entire thirty-six years. He had enough
inconsequential degrees to fill a large garbage can. When his folks had finally
cut off his cash flow, he’d needed a fresh source.
And I looked like the
perfect patsy.
Glowing with fresh-from-the-farm naïveté and smelling of
loads of delightful cash, she had been easy pickings for the handsome, suave,
smooth-talking creep. She had supported him through his studies at NYU, but the
minute he’d gotten that out of the way, he’d told her he needed to continue his
master’s studies in England. Chellie gave a short bark of laughter. He’d
already been a master—at conning people. A wiser, more self-confident woman
would have realized that early on.

He had left for London. His great opportunity.
Hah!
He would get his PhD from Queen Mary University and would return to a highly
paid administrative position in his uncle’s company. At last he would be
self-supporting! An unladylike snort managed to get past her tightly clenched
teeth. Sure…more like he’d wanted a fully paid twelve-month European vacation
.
And I so kindly obliged.

When she’d finally grown a brain and begun to seriously
question his need for yet another degree while she was stuck in New York paying
all the bills and his tuition and expenses there, he had reassured her that
this would be the final important step in his journey to financial
independence. After all, he owed her more than merely a living. A woman like
her deserved the high life. He would come home with an education that would
assure them a wealthy, happy future.

She had swallowed that load of crap hook, line and
sinker—until he’d written to her a week ago telling her that he had found
someone he
truly
loved. That he couldn’t go on with their “travesty of
an engagement”. And oh, by the way, he wanted her to be out of his apartment by
the time he and his new love arrived home in two weeks. Would she mind?

What. The. Hell?

After a few hours of numb shock and a lot of pirate-worthy
cursing, Chellie had fallen asleep next to the three empty bottles of
outrageously expensive Cristal she’d been saving for his triumphal return, and
had woken with the hangover from hell.
Stupid much?
And she had somehow
managed to hear her inner voice, which had forcefully poked its head out of
hiding at last to kick her in the very deserving ass. She had welcomed it back
and dusted it off. It had been that inner wisdom that had driven her to jump
headfirst into this totally ridiculous journey. Made her pick up the phone and
call her travel agent.

Maybe I should call it inner stupidity?

So here she was, driving across rutted, bumpy, rocky cow
trails, scraping over rocks the size of bowling balls, swishing through dead
grass and brush to a rustic cabin in the total middle of
nowhere
. It had
made her drop everything and hare off to BFE without a single rational thought.
She had simply called the office and told them she was going on “sabbatical”.
No one had questioned her. That was okay, because she didn’t have to go to
work, not really. Her position with Abernathy, Inc. was mainly that of a
figurehead. Her adoptive parents had left her the whole ball of wax, along with
capable managers, honest accountants and the works. All she had to do was walk
in, sign the necessary papers when required and present a façade of leadership
to a company so well-oiled and smooth-running that it required virtually no
work at all on her part.