Whispers on the Wind (2 page)

It simply made no sense.

But neither did lolling around staring at a ceiling now tinged with pale shafts of light spreading themselves from the tops and sides of the chaste white eyelet curtains over the dormer window.

Tucked up against the western slopes of the Rockies, the log house received dawn later than the valley floor below where the Fraser River ran. Daylight entering her west-facing room meant it was long past the time she normally arose.

It was definitely time to get up.

And chop wood?

She just might do it. If physical exhaustion would eradicate the symptoms of mental exhaustion, it would be worth it.

Stepping off the rag rug and crossing the cold floor, Lenore whipped back the curtains, rolled up the shade, and leaned on the sill, gazing out over the land, idly picking at chipped paint.

The sight before her dispelled the last vestiges of the dream.

Golden light sparked the snowcaps of the Cariboo Range that formed a wall on the western side of the valley, gilded the dark tips of evergreens and spread like melted butter down the slopes toward the river. Smoke, blue-gray and lazy, arose from chimneys in the town along the riverbanks. Didn’t anyone use fuel-cells up here, even now? When they were young, she and Caroline had called place and everything in it, “The Time-Warp,” though both had loved their summers there with Caroline’s grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Francis. It had been a welcome relief from the relentless regimentation of boarding school.

The sense of being in a time-warp increased when a woman emerged from a house and began pinning clothing to a line where it would dry in the breeze. Now there was a back-to-basic woman if there ever had been one. A convoy of three transport trucks took turns passing each other on a long, straight stretch of highway, then a car and a pickup zipped past those, northward bound. She smiled, empathizing with the pleasure she knew the drivers would be taking in the freedom and individualism of controlling the speed and behavior of their own vehicles, here, far from the dictates of the traffic-controlling glideways of more populated zones.

The river, also northward bound, shimmered as it moved. It swept up the valley until it turned in a vast arc far beyond, where the Cariboo Range parted conveniently to let it slip through. There it turned west, and south, to continue its journey to the Pacific, fed by snow-melt from mountain range after mountain range along its way.

A week ago, when she’d arrived, patches of melting snow had lain along the sides of roads where plows had stacked it throughout the winter just past. Now, even that was gone, though behind the cabin, a thick bank of it remained in deep tree-shade, clear, cold water trickling slowly from it as it melted to form a tiny rivulet.

That rill ran to the year-round stream from which the house drew its water supply. In turn, the stream emptied into an even brisker creek that bubbled and danced, jumping in exuberant spurts in its rock-strewn bed, beside the narrow, twisting track leading down from the constricted bench where the cabin stood. Eventually, it spilled into the Fraser and in time, joined the spreading fan of mud and silt reaching far out into the Strait of Georgia, five hundred klicks away near the northern end of the Cascadia Corridor. There, it evaporated, rose in the form of clouds which condensed and fell as rain, as snow, to melt and trickle into the rivulet, which ran to the stream which became the creek which added to the river and evaporated, again and again and again.

Always, that thought had pleased her when she and Caroline had set little bark boats afloat in the creek and watched them bob away—to the ocean, the girls had been sure. There was a pleasing, satisfactory continuity in it she had recognized even as a child, a child with few roots and those tenuously planted.

That sense of continuity was what she’d come here for, not unsettling dreams that could never be fulfilled. What she needed was that beautiful, peaceful sense of eternal cycles spinning slowly, slowly, like the very earth on which she lived.

This was a good place to be and she was grateful that Caroline let her come here whenever she chose.

She swung the window wide and sucked in a breath of the thin, crisp mountain air. Maybe that was half her problem right there—the thin air. Oxygen starvation did weird things to people. She’d adapt in a few more days. All she had to do was concentrate on the normalcy of life as it really was, not let herself dwell on ridiculous dreams and fantasies.

A tractor on the valley floor worked a field with a plow. Gulls and crows followed it in a wheeling cloud as if a celestial hand sprinkled salt and pepper over the land. In scattered clumps among the fields, along the roadsides, and around the ranch houses, deciduous trees stood almost quivering with eagerness, flaunting the new yellow-green of quickening life.

Possibly, that was the other half of her problem. Spring, to say nothing of a biological clock that had come too damned close to trapping her into a relationship that had utterly no meaning to her. It continued to tick away, and each spring its alarm rang more and more sharply in her soul. Though never like this.

Lenore sighed and shoved herself back from the window. It was time to put erotic dreams behind her with the night and get on with the practical pursuits of the day. What was needed here was a serious dose of the pragmatism that had served her all of her life. Dreams were for the weak of mind. Fantasies, for fools. And she was neither.

First thing after breakfast, she’d scrub the kitchen floor, then she’d immerse herself in some good, escapist fiction.

Later on, she’d spend an hour—at least an hour—working on the afghan she’d started crocheting years ago. She’d bake bread. She thought she remembered how, and if she didn’t, downstairs was a collection of museum quality cook-books. She might even turn on her compad, which she hadn’t done once since her arrival. If the doctor had had her way, Lenore wouldn’t even have brought it. Leaving it behind, though, would have meant cutting herself off much too thoroughly.

With plenty to occupy her, she would not spend even one minute thinking of a bronze-skinned stranger named Jon, with golden hair and grass-green eyes and broad, muscular shoulders.

What?

Bronze skin? Golden hair? Green eyes? Dammit, it had been dark in the night! He had been nothing more than a shadowy shape, a soft whisper, sure hands, and hot breath. He’d had no form, no color, no substance beyond those hands.

From the top dresser drawer, she selected a good firm bra for her full breasts, cotton panties that came right up to her waist, and thick socks. Not the garments of a fanciful woman. Not the garments of erotica. They were her clothes, the kind she always wore, good quality, practical, they lasted. They provided value for money.

And that, she decided, stomping down the stairs to make herself a good, practical, warm breakfast of cooked cereal, was what was important in life. Getting good value. Nobody ever got that from a dream.

Burning...Pain. Swirling dark, welcoming, warming...

No! Must hold, focus, concentrate. Bones to knit, blood to stanch, wounds to heal too large too deep too big for one alone...Help me. Help me. Where are you? I ask so little. A small, warm point of light. Return, return!

No one. Nothing. Sleep and heal and let the swirling dark glide in...I must not die! Kahinya, seek help. Seek...Zenna!

Jonallo!
Zenna clutched mentally at the
Kahinya
encircling her neck as, for an instant, one brief, heart-wrenching moment during a risky translation, her brother Jonallo’s presence swept through her senses, stunning her. So strong was it, she nearly lost her focus, came perilously close to sliding out of the already unsteady link she had maintained, aided by her amplifier, with the criminal B’tar.

Then, agonizingly, the fleeting connection with Jon was no more. Had it, even for that split second, truly been?

On the ground again outside the house she shared unwillingly with her captors Rankin and B’tar, she resumed her corporeal form. In that first instant of full, Earthly awareness, she saw her three-year-old daughter Glesta running toward her, tawny hair streaming behind her, stubby legs pumping, a glad smile on her face. Zenna caught an equally glad sob in her throat as the only reason she obeyed Rankin and B’tar’s dictates flew into her arms.

“D
AMN, THAT HURTS!” LENORE
slammed the heavy axe into the chopping block, tugged off the oversized and stiff leather gloves—all she’d been able to find—and sucked on a blistered palm. Crunching numbers for a living did not lead to tough hands.

The blisters, which had developed over the past hour, popping up on the pads at the base of her fingers, had now broken, which effectively put an end to her wood-chopping and made stacking the product of her toil a task for another day. But at least she was tired, she thought, kicking off her boots at the back door, then bending to stand them neatly on the mat in the corner. Maybe tired enough to sleep the night through without dreaming.

Placing both blistered palms against the small of her back, she stood erect, groaning. That hurt too.

She unbuttoned her heavy flannel shirt, shrugged out of it, working her shoulders to try to relieve the stiffness and pain between them. The unaccustomed labors of the day had definitely taken their toll.

In the kitchen, she took three loaves of fully risen bread and slid them into the hot oven before adding two sticks of wood to the fire. She smiled, recalling the astounded expression on Worth’s face when she asked for yeast in the small community store where she picked up supplies when she needed them.

“You’d better get out of this valley, and fast,” she had said. “You’re turning into another Jane McQuarrie!” As if Jane was the only person in the valley who baked bread. But, on reflection, Lenore realized Jane might well be.

The kitchen stove had been burning all day, meaning there would be plenty of water heated by the coils running behind the firebox for a nice long soak in the century-old claw-footed tub. Maybe fuel-cells weren’t all that necessary after all. After all, weren’t chunks of wood, in their own way, fuel-cells of a sort?

Bubbles, she thought, heading for the bathroom. Lots and lots of bubbles. Even a hard-working, practical woman deserved the solace of a bubble-bath now and then.

The hot water stung her hands, and it would take more than one soak in a bath to ease the twin aches in her lower back and between her shoulder blades, but she had to start somewhere. She lay back on the warm slope at the end of the tub, stretching her toes out to keep herself from sliding right under the water. She closed her eyes, drawing in the scent of the perfumed bubbles, mingled with the aroma of slowly baking bread.

Ah...Heaven.

She had no idea how long she lay there before the water began to cool, but she knew she should stir herself and get out of the tub. She tried, against the weight of lethargy, to sit up, but it took too much effort. Besides, what was the hurry? There was no one to want the bathroom, no one to make any demands of her, no insistent compad chime, no doorbell, no traffic sounds to disturb her.

Bathe it, soothe it, cloak it in calm. Strength ebbing...No, focus, tighten, aim and...there! Is done. Rest now. Breathe. And...reach again. The next. Cloak, surround, ease. Good. Once more...cannot. But must. She, the strongest essence, must be well, whole, to help. Tighten, reach, touch and...done. Ahh. The swirling, welcome dark to drift...

As the aches in her back floated away into the popping bubbles, the smarting of Lenore’s hands turned to a delicious warmth that soaked up her arms, into her shoulders, down her spine and through her legs, softening her muscles, leaving her totally relaxed. She entered a state of perfect peace filled with the faint popping of bubbles in the warm water, the scent of baking bread, the scent of the forest moss, the soughing of the trees and the distant crackle of the fire glowing, sending dancing light against the cavern walls...

Cavern? Her lids fluttered as she tried to open them, but their heaviness daunted her and she let herself drift, knowing, wanting to know only the warmth of the water, the comfort of the tub. Peace.

Just a few more minutes, she thought dreamily. Another five, anyway. The water, oddly, seemed warmer now, as hot as when she’d first run it. How strange...

She sensed his presence—his energy and promise—even before hard lips covered her startled cry. His kiss, unlike any kiss she had ever experienced, filled her with heat. A hard body slid intimately between her legs, slippery with soap and warm water. A hard hand pressed against the back of her head, keeping her face above water and a hard, determined tongue dipped into her mouth. She sighed, accepted the stroke of that tongue against hers, sucked on it, tasted it and found it to her liking. Her heart rate climbed. He demanded her tongue, received it, toyed with it, treasured it, then returned it to her safekeeping. Her hands, cupped over warm, taut skin covering muscular shoulders, trembled.

“Yes,” he whispered, lifting his golden head. “Come to me.”

Lenore shifted her legs, drawing him deeper into the cradle of her thighs, seeking his heat, his hardness, opening for him. “I’m here, I’m here,” she said, her voice ragged. “Please, don’t make me wait.”

“Come,” he said again. “Hurry. I need you.”

She arched her back, her hands gliding down over his sleek, bronze hide, nails digging into his tight buttocks. “Now!” she gasped. “Now, Jon!”

“Now!” he whispered, and then he was gone.

Lenore gasped and sat up, water spilling down over her aching breasts. She looked at her nipples, touched them, feeling their hardness. Her breasts felt fuller, her body pulsed with unfulfilled need. Her legs trembled. Reaching down, she pulled the plug to let the water, cold now, bubbles just a memory in scum, drain out. How long had she been caught in the fantasy that time? She had not—she was certain she had not—been asleep.

It was as if she had been...She frowned, disliking the connotations of the word that came to mind. Possessed.

She shivered. Was that what was happening to her? Was there an unfriendly—or perhaps an overly friendly—spirit trapped with her in the cabin? Her sensible, pragmatic side wanted very badly to pooh-pooh the notion, but the image had been so strong, the physical sense of touch so real, a hitherto unknown side of her shook with fear of the supernatural.