Table of Contents

A Little Night Magic

Allyson James

PROLOGUE

I am Coyote. I run on the wind; I invade your dreams. I know your darkest secrets, your most depraved desires. I know what it is you crave deep in the night.

The gods call me Trickster. They laugh at me but they fear and distrust me.

They are right to fear. I have no boundaries, no restrictions. I do as I please, screw whom I please, bestow bounty or terrible misfortune, as I choose.

I am Coyote. I am Chaos.

Enjoy your dreams.

ONE

I’m here to stay,” Jamison Kee said.

“Naomi stared over rows of red and white poinsettias at Jamison, who’d walked back into her life as suddenly as he’d walked out of it. He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans jacket, dark eyes quiet, easy as you please.

She’d woken not half an hour ago to the sound of hammering on her roof. Wrong time of year for a wood-pecker . Her deaf daughter, Julie, bouncing up and down excitedly, had nearly dragged Naomi out of bed and out of the room, too excited to stop and sign.

Throwing a coat over her sleeping shirt and exercise shorts, Naomi had picked up a baseball bat and marched outside.

She’d looked up to see Jamison Kee on her porch roof, hammer in hand, like he belonged there. Julie pointed up at him and yelled in joy.

“What happened to your roof?” Jamison had asked, holding a nail to another shingle. “It’s a fucking mess.”

Naomi had stood there with mouth open, unable to speak, unable to think. She’d turned and slammed back into the house.

Jamison had still been on the roof when she emerged again, dressed. Julie had climbed up the ladder to take Jamison coffee. Both ex-lover and daughter looked over the edge of the porch roof at her as she’d stalked to the greenhouse to check on the poinsettias she’d promised to take to the Ghost Train celebration.

Damn him for still looking so good. Black hair, brown eyes, honed body, at home in jeans and jacket and cowboy boots. A Navajo shaman with a gorgeous ass.

She heard the door to the greenhouse open behind her and knew it was him. Naomi walked around the table, hap pier with it between her and Jamison and her emotions.

“What are all those for?” he asked, his voice as dark and rich as she remembered. He’d lulled her with his voice the first night she’d met him, and if she wasn’t careful, he’d lull her with it now.

“The Ghost Train.” She leaned over to pluck off a dead leaf.

“You don’t believe in the Ghost Train.”

“Neither do you,” she shot back. “But it brings in my biggest week of business for the year. No way am I going to argue that it doesn’t exist.”

Jamison didn’t answer. The Ghost Train legend—that a ghostly steam train glided into Magellan on the empty railroad bed every Christmas Eve—was bullshit as far as Naomi was concerned. Plenty of people believed it, though, including the loads of tourists who came every year to the festivities. Jamison also knew it was bogus, but he kept his mouth shut. People liked to believe in things.

Jamison’s silence continued. He could do that, stand in place and simply be, for hours on end if he wanted to. She’d liked that about him—liked that he’d brought equilibrium back to her life. Peace.

Which he’d shattered by disappearing one fine morning. Naomi had awakened to her daughter standing sorrowfully by her bed and signing, Jamison’s gone.

“What do you want, Jamison?”

“To tell you why I went to Mexico, and why I came back.”

Naomi finally glanced up at him. Mistake. He was even better looking than she remembered, his body harder and stronger, his face bearing a new grimness.

She viciously squirted water on an ailing poinsettia. “Don’t bother. I know what you’re going to say—that you needed ‘time,’ but then you changed your mind and decided you wanted to see me again. Well, guess what? I don’t want to hear it.” She made her voice firm but couldn’t bring herself to look at him again. “I got over you, Jamison. I don’t want you back, and I don’t give a shit where you were or what you were doing. So clear your stuff out of your studio and go.”

“I checked the studio this morning. I was surprised you didn’t throw everything out. Or burn it down.”

Naomi slammed the water bottle back to the table. “I couldn’t risk that some half-finished sculpture might be worth a frigging fortune, and that wouldn’t be fair to your family. It’s not their fault you went walkabout. They say you do this all the time. I can’t believe how sick I got of people asking me if you were off working on a new sculpture.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Jamison said. “I really am.”

“So, what, after two years without hearing anything from you I should just say, ‘Golly gee, glad you’re back, let’s kiss and make up’? Forget it.”

She swung away but felt Jamison move behind her, his warmth on her back.

“I’m not leaving again, Naomi,” he said softly. “That’s what I came to explain. I’m here to stay. For always.”

Naomi tried to make herself pull away, maybe put the table between them again. Instead she turned and let herself look into his dark eyes, to see again the man she’d fallen in love with.

She’d met Jamison through one of her cousins in the vast Hansen clan, Heather, who owned Magellan’s New Age store called Paradox. Heather had invited Jamison, a noted Navajo storyteller, to come down from Chinle to talk to her study group about Native American myth. Naomi had gone and taken Julie, thinking it would be good to teach her about Navajo culture, since they lived so close to the Navajo Nation.

She’d expected an old man with a lined face and white hair. Instead, Heather had brought out a broad-shouldered, muscular man of about thirty-five, easy in his own skin, with sin-dark eyes and a mesmerizing voice.

Jamison had asked to be introduced to Naomi after his talk, because he’d watched Naomi sign his entire lecture to Julie. He’d smiled at Naomi, the sensuality of him making her breath catch. Jamison had invited Naomi and Julie to grab coffee with him, so Julie could ask him questions, he said, before he made his long drive back to Chinle.

Then next thing Naomi knew, Jamison was spending the night in her bed and making pancakes for breakfast the next morning. He never did go back to Chinle.

Jamison had made Naomi fall in love again, had taught her to feel again against her better judgment. He’d made love like an angel, his body sealed to hers, his mouth taking away all pain. Deep in the night he whispered that he loved her, that they were soul mates, together forever.

Soul mates, my ass.

Damn all magic-seeking, shamanistic men with gorgeous bodies and long cocks. Jamison had laughed at Naomi for being an Unbeliever—a person who lived in Magellan and didn’t buy the crap about it being at a confluence of vortexes or a center of mystical energy—then went on drawing circles and chanting and whatever it was he did in the art studio he’d built himself in her back yard. And she’d loved him like crazy.

Their first wild night together flashed through Naomi’s mind as Jamison slid his fingers behind her neck. She remembered every touch, every kiss, the feel of him invading her body, and her ready surrender.

He smelled of sweat and denim, winter sunshine and wind. As always, she sensed something wild in him, like an animal or lightning, she was never sure which.

Her skin prickled where his fingertips brushed her. He leaned closer, lips nearly touching hers.

He was waiting for her to kiss him, to make the first move. Once she did, once she acknowledged his touch, his kiss would turn hard, possessive. Jamison always did that, making her feel like she was in control, then taking that control away in an instant.

As Naomi willed herself not to respond, Jamison began brushing soft kisses to the corners of her mouth. His lips were smooth, his breath warm.

Warmth tingled through her body and pooled between her legs. She burned for him. She wanted him to lay her back on the pile of potting soil next to them and screw her right there, anything to ease the ache.

Naomi slid her hands down his back, over the hard leather of his belt to his slim butt cupped by tight jeans. She loved his backside, remembering it taut and bronze-colored against her white sheets.

“Let’s go inside,” he said against her mouth.

Naomi dragged in a sharp breath, and cold poured over her. “No.”

“Naomi . . .”

“No.” She almost cried as she pushed Jamison away. “You always do this to me. You kiss me until I want you so much, I’ll do anything you say. I won’t do it this time. I’m busy. I have a business to run and plants to get to the depot.”

“Let me help you.”

“No, thanks.”

“It’s a big job. You need me.”

She slammed her arms over her chest. “I needed you so many times in the last two years. Where were you then? Oh, I forgot, somewhere in Mexico.”

“Do you think this is easy for me? To love you so much it rips me to pieces to know I hurt you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I did fine without you.”

“Why? Did you start seeing someone else?”

She wanted to laugh. “In Magellan? Who? I’m related to half the town, and I’ve known the other half far too long. Besides, I don’t need a man in my life.”

Jamison relaxed. “Good. That makes things easier.”

“Easier for who?”

“Easier for me. I don’t have to worry about anyone else getting hurt.” He finally stepped away from her, his big body tense and tight. “I told you, I’m staying, Naomi. In Magellan, in the house. With you.”

“Oh, really? Well, what if I don’t want you to?”

“That doesn’t matter. I’ll sleep on the sofa if you don’t want me in your bed. I’m not leaving you and Julie alone, because they’ll be coming.”

His eyes held a darkness she’d never seen. “Who will?”

“People I pissed off in Mexico.”

“What kind of people? Shit, Jamison, don’t tell me you got involved with drug runners.”

A hard smile flitted across his face. “There are more dangers out there than drug runners, believe me. I’m one of those dangers. I’m staying here to protect you. For now. For always.”

From the look in his eyes, he wasn’t joking, he wasn’t exaggerating. She felt a qualm of fear. Julie.

“Give me your keys,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll bring the truck around.”

“I left them in the ignition. Paco Medina is putting on a new tire for me.”

“Don’t leave them there again. Lock your truck and keep the keys with you. Or better still, with me. Get Julie, and I’ll meet you at the truck.”

Jamison turned around, hands in his jacket pockets, and strode out of the greenhouse. Naomi’s palms sweated, her heart pounded, and her lips were raw from his kiss.

There was a part of Jamison that she’d never understood, never reached. Jamison had known so much, had seen so much. He’d grown up in poverty, which had been conquered only by his entire family’s hard work and Jamison’s sought-after sculptures. Naomi might be an Unbeliever, but she realized Jamison knew things she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Something had happened in Mexico that frightened even him. Whatever scared Jamison had to be damned dangerous.

She wished with all her strength that she could hold on to that fear and not be distracted by how nice his ass looked as he walked away from her.

Jamison let Naomi drive to the depot, not trusting himself behind a wheel yet. The Ghost Train was a popular holiday tradition, and everyone in town seemed to be at the old depot to help decorate. Jamison was greeted left and right by people happy to see him again, asking him how he was, where he’d been. Jamison hadn’t realized he’d made so many friends during his short sojourn here, but Naomi didn’t seem surprised.

Jamison was as friendly and polite as possible, but insisted that he, Naomi, and Julie return home right away. He wanted this over with; he’d looked forward to this moment since he’d finally broken out of his cage and started the thousand mile journey home.

The Changers had been fools to try to force him to bind to one of their own. He’d already been half-bound to Naomi, but if he didn’t complete the bond quickly, she’d be in grave danger.

When they walked into the house, Naomi slammed her purse on the kitchen counter. “Julie, go tell Mrs. Medina I told you to help her. I need to talk to Jamison.”

Julie’s smile grew sly. “Are you going to kiss?”

Jamison felt his own smile grow, but Naomi shot him an irritated look. “No, we’re going to talk.”

Julie shrugged, grinned once more, and ran out of the house, toward the open door of Hansen’s Garden Center, which backed onto Naomi’s property. The Medina family, who ran the nursery with Naomi, adored Julie and would take care of her.

Naomi faced Jamison in silence. Gods, she was beautiful. The wind had pulled Naomi’s brown hair into fantastic tangles, and her cheeks were pink with cold and anger. The cold poked her nipples into tight buds as well, obvious even through her sweatshirt. He itched to grasp her breasts again, feel the velvet areolas, the hard little points.

Naomi started talking, and Jamison struggled to focus on her words. The animal in him wanted to take over, and focusing was difficult.

“All right,” she said. “If you insist on explaining. Why did you disappear for twenty-four months, then charge back in like you expected me to be waiting? How long will you be gone for next time?”

“I told you, I’m staying. For good.”

“Why?”

“To protect you from my enemies.”

“What enemies? Jamison, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll explode.”

Not an hour ago, she’d been too angry to want his explanation, but he knew Naomi couldn’t stand not to know. She probably thought he’d taken off to some Native American enclave where he’d spent days in a peyote haze and seduced every female who came along. The peyote part had been true, though not by his choice.

Jamison shucked his jacket and laid it on a stool at her breakfast bar. “It would be easier to show you.” He held out his hand. “Come upstairs with me?”

She folded her arms across her chest, pushing her enticing breasts higher. “Something in Julie’s room you want to see?”

He let a smile touch his mouth. “This isn’t about sex. I promise.” At least, not yet.

Naomi’s eyes went flint-hard. Jamison loved her eyes. They were the color of turquoise, a beautiful blue green that defied description. He’d never liked blue eyes until he’d seen hers.

She walked past him, her arms still folded, and started up the stairs.

Naomi’s house was an old Craftsman bungalow, built in the 1920s and renovated several times through the years. The result was a modernized but solid, cozy house, with a large living room and kitchen below and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Julie’s room was on the right at the top of the staircase, Naomi’s on the left. Naomi marched into her own sunny bedroom and waited for Jamison, winter sunshine picking out golden highlights in her hair.

Jamison’s wariness prickled as he walked inside. There were too many windows. Naomi’s room had views north-east, northwest, and southeast, the bedroom running the entire length of the house. It wasn’t the axis Jamison would have picked on which to orient a bedroom, but people in Magellan built their houses according to street planning, not alignment with the four winds.

Jamison quietly pulled the blinds down on the thick-paned windows while Naomi watched him in silence. He turned around and toed off his boots at the same time he pulled off his sweatshirt.

He didn’t miss how Naomi’s gaze went to his chest, to his own nipples, which were dark and tight. He liked that she didn’t look away as he undid his turquoise belt buckle and slid off his jeans.

Her face went pink as she gazed at his ordinary cotton briefs. He was hard behind them—how the hell could he help it? Jamison tugged off his socks then, without modesty, pulled off the briefs.

The way her gaze swiveled to his needy arousal was gratifying. She’d always liked to look at him, lord knew why. She’d wet her lips like she was eager to savor every inch of him.

Two years without Naomi had been way too damn long. He loved every molecule of the woman. Why do I love her? he’d once asked his grandfather, who was a much better shaman than Jamison could ever hope to be. Was it some kind of trickster magic? Jamison had spent his entire life on the Navajo reservation, scoffing at white people and white ways. Then a woman with blue green eyes had smiled at him, and he’d fallen like boulders in an avalanche.

He’d fallen so hard he’d moved into her house in the middle of a white man’s town. In the middle of a community who believed that the ghost of a steam train chugged through their little town every Christmas. The gods had to be laughing their asses off at him. Except Jamison hadn’t felt humiliated. He’d been happy.

Jamison crossed his hands over his chest and closed his eyes. He drew on the stillness he’d learned deep in drug-induced dreams, looking for the center of calm that nothing could breach.

He found the beast right where he’d left it. The beast had terrified Jamison the first time, and he’d been convinced he’d been put under a spell or cursed by a sorcerer. The Changers in Mexico had explained everything to him. Whatever else they’d done, they’d at least let him understand.

Jamison’s mouth always changed first. His flat human teeth enlarged and elongated, becoming sharp canines, top and bottom. His face pushed forward, his jaw and tongue re-forming to fit the new mouth. The strangest feeling was the whiskers poking out sharp and hard from the sides of his face.

The mouth took the longest, then the rest of his head followed rapidly. Ears pricked, his hearing sharpened, and his eyes became round and wide. His spine narrowed and lengthened, and claws erupted on his now huge feline feet. He fell to all fours, feeling a long tail twitching behind him.

He wanted to roar but stifled it; there was enough of his own consciousness left to realize what would happen if someone heard a wildcat snarl in Naomi’s bedroom. He lifted his gaze to Naomi, his world now black-and-white, the edges rounded and slightly concave. She stared back at him, her red-lipped mouth open, her blue green eyes wide.

His beautiful, brave lady didn’t scream or faint. She simply gaped at him for a moment then said, “Jamison, what the fuck?”

TWO

This couldn’t be happening. Naomi stared at the mountain lion that gazed back at her from the middle of her bedroom rug. A mountain lion. In her bedroom.

Jamison Kee had turned from a magnificently nude man into a mountain lion.

He looked back at her with the large dark eyes of a hunting cat, his lips parted to show huge, sharp teeth. She’d never seen a mountain lion this close before—never seen one at all, in fact, except in a zoo or through a pair of strong binoculars. She noted every detail—the light tawny color of his pelt; the black around his muzzle and the tip of his tail; the round, pricked ears; the heavy muscles of his shoulders and chest.

He looked bigger than she thought mountain lions were—his head would reach her chest if she were brave enough to go to him. And his eyes held intelligence. Jamison’s intelligence.

“Jamison,” she whispered.

The mountain lion growled softly. Then its face began to flatten as it rose on its hind legs. The transformation she’d witnessed happened in reverse, and in a few seconds, Jamison stood on his flat feet, naked in front of her.

They stared at each other in dead silence for a full minute. Then, as though to make sure she got the point, Jamison morphed back into the mountain lion.

“Jamison, why are you doing this to me?”

The mountain lion padded toward her. Naomi stood frozen, unable to run, unsure she wanted to run.

She was right, his head came up to her chest. He butted against her like a tabby cat, rumbling in his throat as he stroked his forehead across her breasts.

Naomi didn’t like how her body flushed with heat, how her nipples tightened. She tentatively pushed him away, and he turned his head into her hand, rubbing his whiskers against it.

She started to laugh. “That tickles.”

The mountain lion reared up and placed his paws gently on her shoulders. The look in his eyes was almost amused as he swiped a rough tongue across her cheek.

“Jamison.”

The cat morphed back into Jamison. Now she had his tall, naked body against her clothed body. He leaned down and licked her neck, his hot breath sending fire through every nerve. He gently bit where he’d licked.

“Please tell me that was a trick,” she said. “You’re playing a trick on me.”

“No, love. It’s what I am.”

Naomi ran her hand through his warm hair, which had come out of the braid when he’d changed. He lifted his head and looked at her, his dark eyes holding the edge of danger she’d sensed before.

“I can smell you,” he whispered. “So ripe and hot. You’re scared, but you want to fuck me.”

She nodded, her breath quick. Her blood was so hot she feared it would boil in her veins. She could smell him as well: aroused male, sweat, and dust.

Jamison pressed his thumbs to the corners of her mouth, opening her to take his deep kiss. He scraped his tongue through her mouth, his teeth catching on her lips.

The kiss in the greenhouse had been tame and tentative. This one contained wild animal strength. He snaked his fingers through her hair, pulling her head back, moving to bite her throat. She arched against him, the small pain of his bite arousing her like crazy.

She felt his penis pressing her abdomen as though Jamison wanted to crawl inside her clothes with her. He shuddered, mouth closing over her neck, sucking.

Naomi’s breasts hurt where they rubbed his chest, tips swollen and hot as fire. She pried at her shirt, trying to free herself, and Jamison yanked the shirt off over her head. He made short work of her bra, unsnapping it and tossing it aside, before his hand went to her pants.

Naomi helped him unbutton and unzip, shoving her pants down and then her panties. No slow seduction this time—Jamison could spin out lovemaking for hours, but that careful, sinfully lazy man had disappeared.

He growled, a real, rumbling wildcat growl as his hands went to her naked buttocks. The space between her legs was wet, hot, needy. He rubbed his tip there but didn’t enter.

“I’ll try to go slow,” he said. “I don’t know if I can.”

“I don’t care.” She touched his face. “I need you.”

Jamison lifted her, and she eagerly locked her legs around him. He took two steps to the bed, holding her firmly, and then he lowered her to the mattress.

That was the only thing he did gently. He grabbed her ankles and spread her legs, and then climbed on top of her.

She’d craved his warm weight for two years, had fought to forget what it felt like. But as he kissed her, she knew she hadn’t forgotten one fraction of him. She knew every touch, every pressure of him, the smell of his sweat, the heat of his body.

His eyes had changed. His look was fierce, possessive, where years before it had been only loving and tender.

“You’re mine,” he said with another animal growl.

She was too far gone to hear him. “Do me, Jamison. Please. I need you to.”

He smiled a triumphant smile. The lion shone out of his eyes as he collapsed onto her and entered her with one fast, tight thrust.

Jamison threw back his head as he slid inside her. Back where I belong. Images of what he’d been through flashed in his mind then fled, resolving in the beautiful face of Naomi.

Please. I need you to. Her words rang in the room, mixing with his own—You’re mine.

He drove into her, his cock aching as her walls closed around him for the first time in two years. He felt nothing except her sweet clench on him. She was hot and slick, and he slid in and out, hard and fast, no barriers between them.

Naomi arched, her mouth twisted in pleasure. He squeezed one of her nipples between thumb and fingers, liking how she cried out at the pressure.

Two years. Two damn, long, empty years without Naomi. He hated the people who’d caged him, who’d taken his freedom in exchange for knowledge. They hadn’t wanted him to return to Naomi, to take refuge in her.

The bed creaked and banged against the floor. Naomi lifted her legs and wound them around his buttocks, her heels digging into his back. She rocked her hips, taking him deep, deeper, and he groaned with the joy of it.

Damn, it had never been like this before. They’d had great sex in the past, but now he wanted to pound into her, harder, harder, until she screamed. She was responding, her sheath so wet, her hips moving with his rhythm.

He wanted to come inside her, and then flip her over and pull her hips back against his and do it again. He wanted to do what he’d never done with her, press his finger to her anal star and ready her to take him that way.

He kissed her again, their lips swollen, Naomi nipping at him. His body dripped with sweat. It was hot in here, so hot, and she felt so fucking good. Fire spread from where they joined, and flared through every nerve ending until his entire body burned.

“I’m going to come,” he whispered.

She locked her hands around his shoulders, encouraging him with her hips and legs. “Yes. Please, please. I need it.”

He thrust into her five more times, groaning like a maniac with each one. His balls were so tight, his skin stretched until he couldn’t stand it.

Then the surge came, and he was pumping his seed high and hot into her. He snaked his hand between them, massaging her. She screamed and bucked, coming at the same time he did.

He wanted to stay inside her, but they were both so wet that he slid right out as soon as his cock slackened the slightest bit. Jamison landed next to her, his legs tangled in hers, both of them breathing hard.

He drew his hand across his forehead, finding his hair soaked with sweat. Naomi lay limply, her swollen breasts rising and falling. He stroked them, feeling her heart beating swiftly beneath her skin.

“Damn.” Jamison panted. He let his head flop to the pillow, his breath too ragged for speech.

Naomi nodded tiredly. “I know.”

Jamison wrapped his arms around her and spooned her back against him. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you every minute,” she said. “Every second of every minute for two years.”

Pain twisted his heart even as his erection tightened, wanting more. “They wouldn’t let me come back to you. I tried so hard.” Even now, they hunted him. They hadn’t let him go—he’d escaped, and he knew the Alpha wouldn’t let him live for that transgression. “But I’m here to stay. I’m never leaving again. I promise.”

Naomi said nothing. He couldn’t tell whether she believed him or not.

Jamison stroked her hair. She had thick hair, silken and beautiful. She didn’t like to wear it long; she cut it when it reached past her neck.

“I want you again,” he said.

He expected her to say she wanted to sleep instead, but to his delight, she turned over and smiled at him. It was a wicked smile, one that made every blood vessel inside him heat.

“Please,” she said in a seductive voice.

“Damn, I missed you.”

He pulled her to her hands and knees and entered her. The lovemaking was faster this time, but just as intense.

Not long later, they fell again, landing together on the bed. Jamison had just enough strength to pull a quilt over their bodies before he fell into a black, untroubled sleep.

aomi was stirring tomato sauce on the stove not long later, when she felt Jamison’s arms come around her from behind. She closed her eyes briefly, enjoying the sensation of him.

Julie, perched on a stool at the breakfast bar, grinned at them both. Her hands started to move. “Mom and Jamison, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

“Where did you learn that?” Jamison asked her.

“My teacher,” Julie answered.

Naomi said, “She says that if Julie mainstreams in high school, she’ll need to know all the silly things hearing kids learn growing up.”

Julie was homeschooled because schools for the deaf were expensive and heartbreakingly far away. A teacher from Santa Fe, specializing in deaf children, came out to Magellan three days a week to teach Julie. In a few years, when Julie was ready to attend junior high, she’d be going to Tucson to stay with Naomi’s parents and attend the deaf day school there. Naomi wanted Julie to have the best education possible, but at the same time, she didn’t look forward to the day Julie would pack her things and leave.

Jamison kissed Naomi’s neck. He’d showered, and now smelled of shampoo and soap. He rummaged in the refrigerator to pull out soft drinks for himself and Julie. Jamison never touched alcohol; he said it clouded both his artistic and shamanistic abilities.

Caffeine must not, because he guzzled coffee, tea, and soft drinks by the gallon. Naomi suspected that another reason Jamison didn’t drink was because his father had been an alcoholic, and he’d died in a single-car accident on a lonely road in the middle of the Navajo reservation.

Jamison sat down with Julie and became the Jamison Naomi had known before. He told Julie stories and made her laugh while Naomi finished cooking. He helped clean up the dishes afterward, and then he and Julie settled in for some serious TV watching, Christmas special after Christmas special.

Naomi sat a little apart from them. Jamison’s lovemaking upstairs had been incredible, nothing short of explosive. Jamison had always been good, but that. God. Her whole body throbbed just thinking about it.

The intensity had been more than about going two years without sex. Jamison had turned into a live, dangerous animal right in front of her, slapping down her Unbeliever skepticism. Then he’d made love to her with animal wildness, showing her he’d changed more than just in shape.

Jamison put Julie to bed himself, and then he came downstairs and checked that the doors and windows were secure. He took Naomi by the hand. “Come with me. I need to show you something.”

“You mean there’s more?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can take more.”

“You need to understand.” Jamison pressed a brief kiss to her lips, one that told her his fires hadn’t been dampened at all.

She locked her fingers around his, and he led her outside, heading for the art studio that waited silently in the corner of the yard, away from the now-empty parking lot of Hansen’s Garden Center. Back here, in the private world Jamison had carved for himself, all was quiet and serene.

He unlocked the padlock on the door of the studio and ushered Naomi into his sanctuary.

THREE

Jamison loved his art studio. He’d constructed it like he J would a hogan, but the roof was copper sheeting with a huge skylight to let in the sunshine as he worked. The door faced due east, and he’d scattered corn to bless the studio before he’d moved in his sculpting tools.

In the middle of the room a table held the chisels with which he created the sculptures that for some reason people paid big money for. He sculpted what moved him, from stones nature put in his way—an abstract hawk, the stillness of a wolf watching his prey. He breathed a prayer and a bit of magic into every piece.

He also sculpted things from scrap iron, or custom designed decorative wrought iron for extra money. His iron-working tools stood against the north wall with an acetylene torch that he’d refilled when he cleaned up this morning and scraps of twisted iron he’d been working on before he’d gone.

Jamison led Naomi inside and jerked the cover from the sculpture he’d been working on the night he’d left. The head of a mountain lion peered out of orange red stone, its shoulders ending in a jagged line of reddish rock. Naomi reached out and touched it with one slender finger, her eyes filled with wonder.

Jamison had found the nearly smooth red sandstone in a wash near the Pink Cliffs and hauled it the twenty-five miles back here. He’d let the stone rest for a few months before he’d taken out his tools and carved what he saw inside it.

“I don’t understand,” Naomi said.

Jamison put his hand on the sculpture, the porous stone cool and rough. “I was working on this that night. It was freezing out here, but I couldn’t stop. The sculpture was coming—like magic. And then . . . ” He trailed off.

He couldn’t explain the terror, the feeling that he’d been choking, dying. Watching his hands and arms change before his eyes, suddenly finding himself on all fours thinking and seeing like a wildcat.

Naomi’s blue green eyes were wide. “You were sculpting a mountain lion, and then you changed into one?”

Jamison caressed the stone. “It scared the shit out of me. I thought I’d gone insane. When I changed back, with my clothes all ripped, I was afraid a skinwalker had cursed me. Then I changed to the lion again, and again. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t control it.”

“Why didn’t you call for me?”

“And tell you what? That I kept turning into a mountain lion?” He shook his head. “I was so scared I’d hurt you, hurt Julie.”

“So you just left?”

“I didn’t trust myself to come back into the house and say good-bye. I had to go.”

“You told your family,” she said, hurt. “They knew you’d gone to Mexico, but they wouldn’t tell me anything more.”

“I called my grandfather on the way out of town. I told him to get word to you, but he decided you shouldn’t be told everything. He wanted to prevent you from coming after me, he said, which would have been too dangerous. He was right.”

“So he knew where you were the whole time?” Naomi’s voice rang with anger and outrage.

“He knew I’d gone to Mexico, but not exactly where. Even I didn’t know exactly where I was going.”

“He should have told me. I know he doesn’t approve of me. He says I bewitched you, which I always thought was funny, since I’m a notorious Unbeliever.”

“He isn’t wrong.” Jamison crossed to her, but he didn’t reach for her. If he touched her, he’d want to keep on touching her, to drag her upstairs and have sex with her again. Maybe have sex with her right here. He needed her every second.

“You did something to me, Naomi. You made this Diné boy leave the land of his people so he could lie in your bed. And I don’t regret one second of that choice.”

“Just tell me what happened in Mexico.”

Jamison walked away from her, around the other side of the half-finished statue. The mating frenzy still hadn’t left him, and if he was going to talk, he needed to be as far from her as he could be. “I went to Mexico to find people like me, other Changers. I needed to know what was happening to me.”

“How did you even know where to look for them?”

“Coyote told me.”

Her brows shot up. “Coyote, the drifter?”

The man who called himself Coyote was a Native American, from what tribe Naomi had never discovered, who liked to hang around the streets of Magellan. He didn’t seem to be homeless, but no one knew where he lived or where he went when he disappeared. He was a big man with black hair, youngish and amiable, always joking with the locals and entertaining the tourists.

Coyote always greeted Julie with a big smile and would crouch down on his heels to speak sign language with her. Naomi had once asked him where he’d learned to sign, and he’d shrugged broad shoulders and said, “Around.” The townspeople regarded him as mysterious, sometimes annoying, but harmless.

“Don’t tell me Coyote is—what did you call it?—a Changer too?” Naomi said.

“No, he’s Coyote.”

“Huh? I’m lost.”

“He’s Coyote the god,” Jamison said gently.

Naomi the Unbeliever gave him a skeptical look. “How could he be? He hangs out with bikers at the the Crossroads Bar.”

Jamison stifled a laugh. As though gods were above fraternizing with bikers.

“Coyote does whatever he wants, and he has fun at the Crossroads.” Jamison sobered. “I was standing in here, sweating and terrified, and all of a sudden he was at the door. He knew what had happened. He told me that other Changers could help me and told me how to find them. He drove me down to Nogales and across the border himself, in a ratty pickup. Then he disappeared. Literally. Truck and all.”

Naomi ran her fingers along the sculpted head of the lion. “How did you get the rest of the way?”

“Walked. Hitched. I found the other Changers in the mountain ranges in Durango—pretty much in-the-middle-of-nowhere Mexico. I thought some parts of the Navajo Nation were remote, but they’re roaring civilization compared to this place. The Changers were there, all right.”

“And they took you in?”

“They beat me up, stripped me naked, stole everything I had, and locked me in a cage.”

Naomi looked at him in shock. “Oh, God, Jamison. Why?”

“To teach me obedience. I threatened the Alpha.”

“Why did you threaten the Alpha? What’s an Alpha?” He gave her a wry smile. “I didn’t, not intentionally. But when I showed up out of the blue, the pack leader took it as an attack by a dominant.”

“Mountain lions have packs?” Her voice shook. “I thought they were solitary.”

“Natural mountain lions are, but not Changers. They have a hierarchy, like wolves or African lions, and my scent and my approach wasn’t submissive enough for them.” Jamison folded his arms across his chest, uncomfortable with the memory. “It was partly my fault. They kept telling me to yield to their power, but the Alpha pissed me off so much I wouldn’t. The Changers feared I wanted to take over their little pack, even though I told them I didn’t give a damn and didn’t even want to stay. They’ve become inbred and paranoid, though I can’t really blame them. There’s no place in the world for them.”

Naomi studied him, worried. “Is there a place in the world for you?”

“I think so.” Jamison started to pace the tiny space, restless. “The Changers hid themselves away down there. They’d fled from many parts of the world to survive together. But they spoke of others out there who manage to live among normal human beings. I plan to be one of those.”

“But what if you have no choice?” She rubbed her arms. “You already seem different.”

“Different?” He’d tried so hard to remain solidly himself. “Different how?”

“The Jamison I knew would never pace. And he wouldn’t not talk for an hour when he saw someone he knew. You rushed us out of the depot in twenty minutes. And the sex today was . . . ”

He stopped. “Was what?”

“Phenomenal. You’ve always been the best lover, but . . . wow.”

Jamison couldn’t help grinning, remembering the amazing joy when he’d shot his seed inside her. “It was powerful. Maybe two years of abstinence fed it?”

“Were you abstinent?”

She looked straight at him, but he saw the pain in her eyes. She wanted to believe he’d been true to her, but feared his answer.

“The Changers had weird rules about sex.” Jamison made himself stop pacing and lean against a table, pretending to relax. “Every sexual encounter you had, and who you had it with, meant something. The leader could screw whoever he wanted, in whatever form he wanted to. The next cat down could screw anyone she wanted, but had to submit to the Alpha. And so on. They tried to put me at the bottom, at the mercy of everyone, but no way was I letting myself be used like a sex slave. They said I could participate in the group orgies if I stayed chained up, but I declined.”

Naomi smiled suddenly, like the sun lighting up the sky. “I know you, Jamison. You didn’t just decline.”

“No, I pretty much told them what I thought about their sexual perversions, in vivid terms. Navajos are a modest people.”

“Modest, my ass. This afternoon you stripped in my bedroom, ripped off my clothes, and jumped my bones.”

Jamison warmed, thinking of the glorious feel of her clenched around him. “I pulled down the shades first.” He came to her. “Besides, it was you. I’ve never been able to resist you.”

Her gaze moved to his lips, and his pulse started to throb. “You haven’t finished your story,” she said.

“It’s almost done. Another way I fought their sexual advances was to tell them I already had a mate. This puzzled them, because according to the Alpha, Changers should only take Changer mates. Even Changers who mainstream don’t marry.”

“A mate.” Naomi’s voice went quiet.

“That’s what they call it.” Jamison cupped her cheek. “It sounds more intimate than girlfriend, but less intimate than lover.”

“Did you mean me?”

He laughed softly. “Of course I meant you. My lover with the turquoise eyes.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“Why were they so cruel to you?”

Jamison brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “They did teach me things, like how to control the Change, and how to calm the beast inside me so I didn’t savage everything in sight. I learned how to be contained, controlled. It took a long time. They were right to keep me caged at first. I tried to rip out the throats of everyone I saw.”

She slid her arms around his waist. “I can’t believe that.”

“I’d never felt like that in my life. I was a killer, and I wanted to kill. Me, the storyteller who reads to children.” Jamison remembered his fear and self-loathing, his certainty he couldn’t trust himself with anyone he loved. “But the Changers taught me how to focus the killing instinct to what was necessary—hunting game or moving up in the pack. Not that they were about to let me move up. They taught me, but the Alpha didn’t trust me.”

“You got away from them, though.”

Jamison nodded. “Once I got used to the Change and made it clear I wasn’t going to challenge the Alpha, they let me have more freedom. Not much, but more. The Alpha had some idea of using me as a guard for the pack, but he couldn’t trust me enough. So he decided that, to enforce my loyalty to him, I should mate with one of his females.”

The worry returned to Naomi’s eyes. She was trying to listen and be understanding, but he preferred her flash of jealousy to total indifference.

“Was she pretty?” Naomi asked, trying to sound casual.

Jamison wanted to laugh. “She’d lived in the remote desert most of her life, and I don’t think she’d combed her hair in five years. She was a beautiful mountain lion, but as a woman . . . let’s just say she let herself go.”

Naomi didn’t look amused. “Are you telling me this because you think it’s what I want to hear?”

“Because it’s the truth, love. I didn’t want to take her as mate, either as a cat or as a human. I wanted to get out of there, get home, and find you.” He lost his smile. “But they didn’t want me to go.”

“Then how did you get here?”

“I escaped.” Jamison closed his eyes, remembering the pain of the spelled chains. He’d drawn on his own limited shaman magic to counteract the spells, but it had been brute strength that finally broke them.

“It took me a long time, but I finally escaped their compound. And they chased me. They’re still hunting me.”

Naomi touched his face. “Is that why you said your enemies were looking for you?”

“Yes.” Jamison kissed the line of her hair. Her scent was intoxicating. “I had to come back here to protect you. The Alpha knew I was only partially bonded to you—he could smell it. I heard him tell his seconds that he had to get rid of you before he could fully bond me to the female.”

“Get rid of me.” Naomi’s beautiful eyes filled with alarm. “I bet he didn’t mean persuade me to break up with you.”

“The Alpha has lived apart from civilization so long he knows only one method of dealing with something in his way.” Jamison felt grim. “Kill it.”

FOUR

Naomi went still. She gazed into Jamison’s dark eyes, windows to the man she’d thought she knew.

“Kill it,” she repeated.

Jamison touched his lips to her hair again. “The Alpha is a vicious bastard,” he said softly. “As soon as I understood what he planned, I doubled my efforts to escape, to get back to you. I won’t let anything happen to you, Naomi, I promise.”

Naomi thought about the way Jamison had not let her do anything alone since he’d arrived. Every step of the way he’d been right beside her and Julie.

“Julie,” Naomi said, watery fear washing through her. Julie was sleeping alone in the house.

“They’re not here yet,” Jamison said as though reading her thoughts. “I can smell them, and they haven’t found me or Magellan. They’ll figure it out sooner or later, but it gives me a little time to complete the bond with you.”

She frowned up at him. “What do you mean, complete the bond? Won’t that make them more determined to kill me?”

“Once I am completely bonded to my mate, they can’t touch you. There’s powerful magic in the bond. It’s not just a civil agreement, like marriage. No Changer will dare touch another’s mate on pain of death. Changers bond only once, and after that, never again. There is no divorce, no remarriage. If you bond with me it will be forever. For both of us.”

“If I bond with you?” she repeated. “You’re giving me a choice?”

He was standing toe-to-toe with her, his arms like strong wings on her back. “If you don’t want to complete the bond with me, I’ll go, draw them away from you.”

“But if you leave, is that any guarantee they won’t find me and try to eliminate me anyway?”

His mouth turned down. “No, it’s no guarantee. I’m sorry, Naomi. If I’d known all this three years ago, I never would have moved in with you. I’d never even have asked you to have coffee with me.”

“That would have been a shame,” Naomi said softly.

“But you’d be safe now. You wouldn’t have to know any of this.”

“I wouldn’t have known happiness, either. Or what it was like to truly fall in love.”

Jamison said nothing, but his eyes filled with anguish. “I think when I met you, the Changer in me started to bond to you at once.”

Naomi had felt it too, she realized now. When Jamison had come home with her the night she’d met him, and they’d made love in the white moonlight, she’d known that she’d waited all her life for this man. A man with midnight-dark eyes and a warm, liquid voice.

Having him quietly move in and start helping her at the garden center had seemed so natural. They’d started driving up to Chinle every other weekend to visit his mom and sister and his vast extended family. They were warm, calm people, like Jamison, and they’d instantly absorbed her into their ranks. She’d feared that they would be angry at Jamison for pairing himself with a white woman, but their attitude seemed to be that if Jamison liked her, she must be all right.

Only Jamison’s grandfather hadn’t been enchanted with Naomi. He spoke little to her, sometimes pretending she wasn’t in the same room with him. Jamison had told her not to worry about it, but Naomi hated that the most respected member of Jamison’s family didn’t like her. She felt like she’d failed Jamison in some way, though Jamison hadn’t understood that when she’d told him. “Grandfather has always been difficult,” Jamison had said.

Naomi smiled a little. “So great sex is not enough to complete the bond?”

Jamison grinned back. “There’s a ritual Changers have to follow to bond to their mates. I’ve heard of a shaman up in the White Mountains, an Apache, who can do it. If you’re willing, we’ll go see him tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. I have to take Julie to the Ghost Train.”

“We’ll be back long before the celebration starts.”

“Why not a Navajo shaman? Aren’t there several in your family, not to mention your grandfather?”

“This Apache is a Changer, one of the ones who managed to sync with the rest of the world.”

Naomi frowned. “If he’s a Changer, why didn’t Coyote send you to him instead of driving you to Mexico to be locked in a cage for two years?”

Jamison blew out his breath. “You know, I don’t know.” He smiled, his warm, to-die-for smile. “Come with me tomorrow, and we’ll find out. That is, if you’re willing.”

Naomi clenched her jaw. “Don’t worry. I don’t think I want to let you out of my sight again.”

Jamison leaned down and kissed her. “I’ll make sure you don’t regret it, love. I promise you.”

Jamison told Naomi that Julie should be taken somewhere safe for the day, because it would be too dangerous for her to accompany them. Naomi, her heart squeezing, agreed. Julie didn’t want to be left behind, but on the other hand, she viewed staying with Naomi’s old high school friend, Nicole, in Flagstaff and playing with her kids as a fun vacation. Nicole would bring Julie back to Magellan tonight for the Ghost Train, and hopefully by then this bonding thing would protect Julie too.

It was midmorning by the time Naomi drove with Jamison out of Flag and along the 87 up into the mountains. An hour later, Naomi turned onto the winding highway that rolled across the top of the Mogollon Rim and into the White Mountains.

It had been cold in Magellan and snowy in Flagstaff, but up here, winter had settled in hard. Glittering drifts piled on either side of the plowed highways, and the tall ponderosa pines were mantled in snow.

Naomi loved the beauty of it, though part of her looked forward to spending a balmy Christmas day under the palm trees with her folks in Tucson. She wondered briefly what her parents would say when she brought Jamison with her and told them he was back in her life. She glanced at Jamison, who lounged comfortably beside her, sunglasses shielding his eyes from the glare of sun on snow. Her parents would be delighted. Jamison charmed everyone.

They stopped in the Apache community of Hon Dah for hot coffee, and Jamison asked a convenience store clerk if he knew a shaman called Alex Clay.

Naomi wasn’t really surprised when the Apache man grinned and said, “Hey, Jamison. How’ve you been?”

He and Jamison talked about mutual acquaintances and family members for a moment, then the man continued.

“Yeah, I know old Alex. He lives down by Whiteriver. I’m not sure exactly where. He’s a crazy old man, though.” The clerk mimed lifting a bottle and drinking.

“Thanks.” Jamison paid for the coffees and held a steaming cup to Naomi. “If anyone else asks about him, you never saw me.”

The man flashed a sunny smile. “Sure. I don’t gossip.”

“Like hell he doesn’t,” Jamison said under his breath as they climbed back into Naomi’s truck. “But he doesn’t like strangers and won’t tell them anything.”

“Where to now?” Naomi asked as she put the truck in gear.

“We go to Whiteriver and ask around.”

She gave him a dark look. “So this Alex Clay doesn’t have an address?”

“You’ve lived in a town too long, love. Someone will know where he lives and give us directions.”

It had already taken hours to drive along snaking highways through snow and traffic, and there was the Ghost Train celebration to get back for. “He doesn’t have a cell phone or anything?” Naomi asked, exasperated. “Some way we can call him and ask where he lives?”

“Probably not. If he’s anything like my grandfather, he’ll think cell phones were invented by evil spirits to enslave humanity.”

“Yeah?” She subsided. “He might be right about that.”

Jamison studied her a moment, his sunglasses still. “Grandfather likes you, Naomi. He’s just not comfortable with non-Indians.”

“It’s all right.”

Jamison slid his hand to her thigh, his touch warm. “He’ll come around.”

“Really, it’s all right.” As long as Jamison was beside her, she thought, making her feel loved and wanted, she could put up with the silent disapproval of his grandfather.

Whiteriver was a small community, but it was busy today with last-minute Christmas shoppers as well as hunters and skiers up from the desert cities. Jamison talked to several people, who, for an interesting change, had never met him. At last Jamison jumped back into the truck with a smile on his face and kissed her.

“Go that way,” he said, pointing down a side street.

Naomi followed Jamison’s directions. Soon they were out of town, following a tiny ribbon of road through snowy paradise. Naomi drove carefully, keeping an eye out for stray elk, other cars, or citified hunters who might mistake a red Ford pickup for a deer.

After half an hour, the pavement ended and they followed a washboard road through the woods. The road had been plowed, which meant people lived back here, but Naomi winced as her tires ground through frozen potholes.

Finally Jamison pointed to a tiny house in the shadow of the trees. Smoke rolled from its chimney. “Here, I think.”

Naomi parked in front of the house, but Jamison put his hand on her arm when she started to open the truck’s door. “Wait a few minutes. Let him get used to the idea that we’re here.”

Naomi was impatient to get on with it, but she recognized that she had to do this Jamison’s way.

“One thing I don’t understand,” Naomi said as they waited. “If the Alpha of these Changers thought you were such a threat, why didn’t he try to kill you right away when you came along? Why keep you alive and try to make you part of the pack?”

Jamison smiled a chill smile. “Because the Alpha is a snob. Apparently, I’m a purebred Changer. One of the Alpha’s missions in life is to keep the Changers’ blood from being diluted. That’s why he wanted to mate me to one of his—to breed more purebloods.”

“Ick. Like you’re a racehorse.”

“That’s how I saw it. It drove him crazy when I told him that the woman I claimed as mate wasn’t a Changer at all.”

Naomi shuddered. “That’s why he wants to keep you from being with me? How bizarre.”

“He’s fanatical about genetics and inheritance for some reason. What I’ve learned is that Changers in the Americas were originally shamans from a tribe that has long since vanished—divided into and absorbed by other tribes. The shamans became so attuned to the animals they watched and prayed to that they learned their essences, their spirits, and could eventually take their shapes.”

“You mean like skinwalkers?”

Jamison sketched a symbol in the air that he’d told her was a sign against evil. “Not like skinwalkers. A skinwalker wraps himself in the hide of a freshly killed animal and then morphs into its shape. Skinwalkers are evil and dangerous. These shamans understood the spirits of the animals, they could become an animal. It was the animal gods’ gift to them. In my case, the mountain lion.”

“Can Changers be other animals? Not just mountain lions?”

“Depending on the original shaman they descended from, yes, though it’s usually a predator. Wolves, coyotes, hawks.”

“If you are a pureblood,” Naomi said, “that would mean your father was a Changer. Or your mother. Right?”

“Both my families have the genetic strain, the researchers in the pack told me. But apparently the ability to change doesn’t manifest in every generation. If anyone else in my family can change, they’ve never admitted it.”

“The researchers?” Naomi picked up on the word.

Jamison went silent a moment. “They had a lab. They had money. Everything was state-of-the-art.”

Naomi reached over and plucked off his sunglasses. Behind them his eyes were filled with memories of pain. “They hurt you,” she whispered.

“They had to make sure I was worthy to be allowed to live. They took a lot of samples.”

She didn’t like the way he said samples. “You only need a strand of hair to check DNA.”

“They checked so many things. My stamina, my strength, my endurance.”

“They tortured you, you mean.” Anger surged through her, wild and furious. “Those Changers had better not come up here after you, because they’ll have to deal with me.”

Jamison smiled a little, but he said, “Don’t even think about fighting them, Naomi. They’re dangerous and well trained.”

His tone made her subside, but Naomi wanted to scream in frustration. They’d hurt him and caged him while she’d been living obliviously in Magellan, angry at Jamison for deserting her.

If she’d known what was going on, she could have found some way to rescue him—how, she had no idea. But she was related to half of Hopi County and must know someone who could have helped her. Putting her connections together with Jamison’s huge family, she could have raised a formidable army.

Jamison put his arm around her shoulders. “I got away, and I’m back. Thinking of you, needing to get back here to you, kept me alive, kept me from giving up hope.”

Naomi’s throat ached. “And here I was pissed at you for not calling me.”

Jamison pulled her close and buried his face in her neck. “But I’m glad you were here not knowing. It kept you safe.”

His warmth was much better than the heater running full blast. She turned her head and met his mouth with hers. She loved having him here, with his satin-smooth lips on hers.

“Let’s do this bond thing,” she whispered. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

Jamison caressed her face, his hand sliding into her coat to cup her breast. “The bond means I protect you, and no one else touches you.”

“Good.”

Jamison started to kiss her again, then glanced out the front window. The door of the house stood open. “Ah, it looks like Mr. Clay is ready for us.”

“Good,” Naomi repeated and snapped off the engine.

FIVE

Jamison realized before they’d spent ten minutes inside Alex Clay’s tiny and rather smelly house why Coyote hadn’t sent him here to learn about being a Changer. The man was insane.

The thin, elderly Apache shuffled around his one-room house, gathering up bits of trash and piling them on a worn blanket in the center of the room. He muttered to himself, paused to extensively scratch an armpit, then plopped cross-legged onto the blanket and closed his eyes.

Jamison gestured for Naomi to sit facing the old man, and Jamison sat next to her, letting his thigh touch hers.

Alex kept his eyes closed as he rummaged through a leather pouch. He brought out stones—turquoise, onyx, and a white stone Jamison couldn’t identify.

He began muttering to himself again, but Jamison couldn’t understand what he said. Alex wasn’t speaking any Native American language Jamison recognized, and he knew many.

Naomi looked sideways at him, and Jamison shrugged, though his heart constricted with uncertainty. He wanted—needed—this bond with Naomi, and he grew impatient.

Impatience was something new to Jamison. He’d been raised to be calm and accepting, not acting until nature or the gods showed him the right path. Since his first Change, he’d been more volatile, less willing to wait for someone else to tell him what to do.

Had he ever been patient? he wondered. Or just stubborn? Had he only wanted to show off to others that he could sit in meditation longer than they could? To show that he didn’t need to rush around looking for happiness? That he could sit like a lump and wait for grass to grow on him better than anyone else? Idiot.

Naomi had never waited for life to show her what to do. She faced her problems full-on and did what she had to do. She’d left her husband in Phoenix when he made it clear he blamed Naomi for Julie’s deafness. She’d returned to her people, took over her parents’ business when they retired, and made something of her life. When Jamison had disappeared, she hadn’t folded up and stopped. She’d gotten mad and kept on living.

Naomi embraced life, the good and bad of it. She was an Unbeliever, yet she indulged her neighbors’ obsession with the Ghost Train and took in Jamison’s Changer ability with good grace.

Jamison put his hand on hers. He liked the feel of her skin, always warm, on his. She laced her fingers through his and gave him a little smile, which made his blood sing.

Jamison had been raised not to interrupt his elders, but he sensed that this man could go on rocking and mouthing nonsense for days if he wasn’t stopped.

“Sir,” he said in a low voice. “Mr. Clay.”

Alex Clay didn’t look up or stop chanting. But after another minute or two, he wound down to silence. He rose, took a bundle of herbs from a basket in the corner, and tossed it into his wood-burning stove. A sweet but acrid smell permeated the room.

“I think that’s a controlled substance,” Naomi hissed. Jamison gave her the barest nod.

The old man sat in front of them again. He took Jamison’s hand in his then Naomi’s. He closed his eyes and began chanting in a low drone as the room filled with heady smoke.

Alex put their hands together and started piling the stones on top of them. The turquoise and onyx felt warm, the white stones strangely cool. Naomi’s eyelids drooped from the smoke, and Jamison wished the man would open a window or something.

Alex suddenly opened his eyes. They were wide and black, full of more intelligence than his rambling muttering had led Jamison to believe. He put his hand on their joined hands and squeezed. Naomi winced, and Jamison felt the pain of stones pressing into his skin.

Just as suddenly the old man let go and raked the stones back to the blanket.

“One hundred dollars,” he said clearly. “Cash.”

Naomi raised her brows. Jamison bit the inside of his mouth, pulled out his wallet, and counted five twenties into the man’s outstretched hand.

Jamison helped Naomi to her feet while Alex recounted the money and stuffed it inside the pouch with the stones.

As they made to leave, Jamison turned back.

“I don’t mean to question you,” he said. “But you are a Changer, aren’t you?”

The old man chuckled. He didn’t move, but suddenly his body shrank and his clothes collapsed inward. Naomi gasped.

An elderly hawk emerged from the clothes, shaking its feathers. It glared at them with yellow eyes, put one wing over its head, and went to sleep.

o that’s it?” Naomi asked as she started the truck. “Now “we’re bonded?”

“No.” Jamison sighed, frustration and disappointment warring within him. “I think that was the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever gone through. He’s not a real shaman.”

“But you gave him a hundred dollars.”

“He needs food and fuel for the winter. I bet he shafts a lot of people, and they go along with it because they feel sorry for him.”

“He really is a Changer, though. He didn’t fake that.”

Jamison shook his head, glum. “But there was no bonding. You’re still vulnerable.”

“Then so are you.”

Jamison tried to contain the anger boiling through him. “Let’s get back to Magellan. The weather’s changing.”

Naomi peered at the sky, which had moved from blue to gray while they’d been inside, clouds lowering. Storms could gather fast in the mountains. Jamison remembered a summer day he’d been hiking on Humphreys Peak, one of the sacred mountains of the Navajo near Flagstaff. One small cloud had been hovering over the summit when he started, but within an hour, he was dodging lightning strikes and a deluge of hail.

Naomi said nothing as she inched the truck back toward the main road. As they snaked northward through the reservation, flakes of snow began to dust the windshield.

“What do we do now?” Naomi asked. “Who else can perform the bonding thing?”

Naomi faced the road like she faced everything, chin up, with bring-it-on sass. A defeat was only a minor setback to her.

“I don’t know anyone else,” Jamison said. “Except the Alpha who held me captive, and I don’t plan to ask him.”

“What about this Coyote? He knew where the Changers were in Mexico, maybe he knows where some others are around here.”

“He’s not exactly trustworthy.”

“He’s nice to Julie. And it’s worth a shot.”

She had a point. “I’ll try to track him down,” Jamison conceded. “I’ll check out the Crossroads Bar and see if anyone knows where he’s staying. If he shows up at the Ghost Train tonight, I’ll try to corner him there.”

“Or I will. I’d like to know why he shunted you off to Mexico and didn’t tell me. If he’s some powerful god, he could have at least called.”

Jamison chuckled. Coyote the mighty trickster god would meet his match in Naomi.

“Damn, the snow is picking up,” she said.

The black strip of road they’d reached was deserted, and snow fell thick and fast. They had miles to go before they met the northbound highway, and then they’d have to crest a summit before twisting back down to the plateau.

Naomi set her jaw, slowed the truck, and drove carefully and intently. Five miles later, wind slapped them halfway across the road, and the windshield was covered with white.

“Shit.” Naomi pumped her breaks. The truck obediently slowed, listing sharply to the right as the wheels went into the shoulder. They stopped, the truck rocking, and the whiteout blizzard struck full force.

Naomi sat still, hands locked around the wheel, eyes wide. Jamison unbuckled his seat belt, slid across the cab to her, and put his arms around her.

“We’ll be all right.” He turned her face to his, smoothing her cheek with his thumb. “There’s no other traffic, and when the storm lets up, they’ll send out the plows.”

“Julie . . . ”

“Is snug and safe with your friend in Flagstaff. We’ll just have to think of a way to keep ourselves warm.” He licked her ear.

She relaxed enough to smile. “I missed you, Jamison.”

“I missed you too, love.” Her hair smelled so good. It always had. He nibbled her earlobe, liking the little noise of pleasure she made.

Naomi turned her head and kissed him. He melted into her, feeling her hot mouth, her questing tongue. He remembered falling asleep inside her last night, her warmth filling his empty spaces.

“You’re mine,” he murmured. His entire body flushed with heat. “Mine.”

She kept kissing him, her lips so soft. He imagined her lips sliding around his heavy erection, and his body throbbed.

“I’m going to do another sculpture and sell it,” he said. “Then use the money to buy you the biggest diamond ring you ever saw.”

She stilled. “Diamond?”

“It’s the custom of your people for a man to give a diamond ring when he asks a woman to marry him, isn’t it?”

Naomi’s turquoise eyes went wide. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“I plan to, when the time is right.”

“Jamison . . . ”

He kissed her again, finished with words. He let his fingers move to the button of her jeans, then her zipper. She jumped. “What are you doing?”

He grinned. “Celebrating that you’re going to let me ask you to marry me. Besides, who’s going to see us in a blizzard?” He kissed her again, then he tugged at her open jeans. “Pull these down.”

Naomi gave him an amazed look, then she quickly slid the jeans and her panties down over her butt. Jamison moved his hand between her legs, feeling her liquid heat.

“The seat is cold.” Her eyes widened, then she dissolved into laughter.

Jamison reached behind the seat, where she’d stowed a neatly folded blanket along with her emergency supplies. She was always so practical.

Naomi half rose, and he slid the blanket under her. “Better?”

“Better.”

“Good.” Jamison leaned down into her lap and moved his tongue into her slick heat.

esponsible Naomi never dreamed she’d let a man go down on her in the front cab of her truck on a major highway. Of course, snow was piling up on the windows, blotting out the world. She should worry about how much gas and battery life her truck had, but right now those concerns seemed irrelevant.

Jamison had a magic tongue. He licked and kissed her, using fingers to spread her. She let her head drop back.

“Jamison.”

“Mmm hmm?” he asked, his mouth busy.

“I’m glad you came back.”

“Mmm. So am I.”

His hot tongue contrasted sharply with the cool air in the cab. She needed his mouth and what it did.

His tongue moved across her labia, parting the lips, then tickled her swollen berry. He suckled her, pulling the nub into his mouth, the tiny pain of his teeth arousing as hell.

She looked down at his satin black hair and strong back, marveling that this man wanted her. Three years ago, when he’d said in his lecture, “Navajo legend says that this world is the fourth level of worlds we’ve ascended to,” his smooth voice had made her wet. She’d never thought listening to a creation myth would make her want to take a man to bed.

This incredible man everyone liked wanted her, and he showed her now by jabbing his tongue straight into her cream. She moaned out loud, her fingers furrowing his hair.

He went on driving her crazy, his neck muscles working as he drank her. Her hips moved frantically, her juices pouring out of her and over his tongue.

“Jamison,” she screamed.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered into her skin.

He kept his mouth on her, moving with her frenzy until she suddenly broke. She had no idea what she shouted or what she did, but she was squeezing with her thighs, raking her fingers across his back.

Finally he raised his head, his smile stretched wide. “Don’t kill me, love. I want to do more later.”

Naomi collapsed against the seat, panting. “Sorry.”

“I was teasing.” Jamison licked his lips as he sat up, his eyes hot and full of sin. “I like it a little rough.”

Naomi dragged in long breaths, fire still raging in her core. Before she could reason out what she was doing, she unbuckled and unzipped Jamison’s jeans and lowered her head to his lap.

“Naomi . . . ”

“Payback,” Naomi said and swirled her tongue around his stiff cock. “Sit there and take it.”

Jamison made a raw noise, fist closing on her hair. He tasted so good, better than she remembered. She wanted to suck him into her mouth and keep on sucking, to let him know how much she missed him. He rocked his hips like he wanted to fuck her mouth, and she opened wide for him.

“Damn, I missed you,” he said.

Naomi was slightly surprised at herself, but the new wildness in him touched a wildness in her. And what the hell? If they were going to freeze to death out here, they might as well go out having fun.

Naomi suckled and licked his cock until he groaned and shot a sweet stream into her mouth. She sat up again, triumphant, and reached for the tissues she kept in the glove compartment.

Then she noticed the silence. “Oh my God, it stopped snowing.”

The blizzard had slowed, and a snowless wind had blown chunks of white from the front window.

Naomi wiped her mouth and jerked her jeans up with shaking fingers. “We’d better stop this.”

Jamison’s smile was wicked. He drew her against him, kissing her neck, under her hair, his breath hot. “Why, so we don’t embarrass the highway workers?”

“I was thinking we’d be the ones embarrassed, sitting here with our pants down.”

Jamison licked her ear, and she felt the ridge of his already hard erection against her thigh. “Hope they get here soon,” he rasped. “I want to do more in a more comfortable setting.”

“Maybe you should take a look at how stuck we are. The cold might do us good.”

“I don’t think anything will cool me down from being with you.”

“Even so.”

Jamison laughed and kissed her again, then he zipped up his jeans, pulled on gloves, and opened the door. Freezing air rushed into the cab, cut off abruptly as he slammed the door again.

Storms up here could diminish just as quickly as they blew in. Jamison brushed the remains of the snow from the windshield and Naomi could see the road, or at least a thick blanket of white with reflective markers sticking up through it. Even with her four-wheel drive, the road would be impassible for a while, the snow too soft and slick. They’d have to wait for a plow.

Jamison walked around the truck, the wind whipping his hair. He retied part of a tarp that had come loose in her pickup bed, brushing snow from the top of it.

Towering pine trees grew thickly on either side of the road, and Naomi saw something moving under them. An elk maybe? Or a deer?

It came closer, a large animal lumbering on four legs. Elks were big and could be dangerous if they charged.

Jamison turned around and stilled. It was a bear. Two bears, one shadowing the other.

Black bears roamed these mountains, but Naomi would have thought this deep into winter they’d be hibernating. These bears didn’t look lean and hungry, and were nowhere near sleepy.

They stopped, snouts swiveling to point straight at Jamison. They sniffed the air, then with enraged growls, they charged.

SIX

Naomi screamed. As Jamison leapt back into the cab, Naomi instinctively slammed the truck into drive and stomped on the accelerator. The pickup lurched forward a few inches, then the tires spun, digging them deeper into snow and mud.

“Stop!” Jamison said in a commanding voice. He was yanking off his coat, shoving the boots from his feet.

“Making noise might scare them away.”

“Those aren’t bears,” Jamison said grimly as he hauled off his shirt and kicked out of his jeans. “They’re Changers.”

Naked now, he grabbed Naomi by the back of her neck and gave her a rough kiss. “Stay in here.”

He slammed open the door, changing into a snarling mountain lion as he jumped from the cab. The bears charged. Naomi cried out as Jamison met them head-on, teeth and claws clashing.

Holy shit. She couldn’t just sit here and watch them tear Jamison apart. Maybe she could scare them, distract them. She punched the horn, letting it sound in loud bursts. One bear jerked its head up, then as the other bear tackled Jamison, the first bear rushed the truck.

The cab rocked as the bear slammed into it. It was a Changer, Jamison said. That meant the bear could morph into a human who could open doors and drag her out into the snow.

She slammed the locks shut and flipped open her cell phone, punching 9-1-1 and praying she had reception. “Hey,” she shouted at the person who answered. “We’re stuck in the snow, and bears are attacking.”

The calm-voiced woman on the other end asked her where she was and promised help was on the way. She advised Naomi to stay inside the truck with the doors locked.

“You think?” Naomi screamed as the bear slammed its paws into the driver-side window. Glass shattered and cold air poured in.

The bear suddenly howled and went down when a huge, tawny-colored beast jumped on it. A wolf? Naomi wondered as the two animals rolled away. Could this get any worse?

A moment later she wished she hadn’t thought that. Another mountain lion bounded out of the woods, this one nearly twice Jamison’s size. He was snarling, foam flecking his red mouth. The bear with Jamison backed off, and the two mountain lions met with a crash and a wildcat scream.

The bear hovered outside the fight, breath steaming in the air. He was watching like a referee, his head moving back and forth as the two combatants wrestled and struggled.

“Jamison,” Naomi sobbed.

The broken window darkened, and Naomi whipped her head around to see the man who called himself Coyote standing next to her, stark naked and breathing hard. Gone was the man who wandered Magellan’s streets and teased tourists, who smiled at Julie and signed to her. His eyes were yellow and glittering, his lips pulled back from pointed canines.

“Get out,” Coyote said to Naomi. He yanked open the door and unlocked her seat belt himself, pulling her out by the arm. The bear that had been attacked lay still, groaning, the snow stained red around it.

“If you stay in there, they’ll crush the truck,” Coyote said.

“If I’m out here, they’ll crush me.”

Coyote ripped the tarp from her truck bed and pulled out a shotgun, one she hadn’t put there.

He thrust the gun into her shaking arms. “You know how to use this?”

Naomi nodded, hands automatically moving to hold the gun in a safe position.

“Good. Defend yourself. Shoot to kill, because they’ll kill you if you don’t.”

He turned away, not seeming to notice the cold and snow, even though he was bare-ass naked. He threw back his head and let out a ferocious howl. Then he started running at the second bear, morphing into a beast as he went.

He was bigger than a wolf, huge and muscled, but his face was pointed and foxlike. A coyote’s face.

The second bear roared, turning to meet the threat, and both went down in a tangle of limbs. Jamison was still fighting the other mountain lion, the two cats springing apart to circle each other before slamming together again.

Naomi charged around the truck, the shotgun cradled in her arms. She cocked it and sighted, but she couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting Jamison.

Wind suddenly howled down the highway, stirring up the drifts. The sky darkened with impossible speed and snow started to fly. The driving flakes stung Naomi’s cheeks, and white clouded her vision. The red truck was ten paces away from her, but in a matter of seconds, she could barely see it.

The bear that Coyote had already wounded struggled to its feet behind her. Naomi swung around and aimed at it, but it morphed into a human man and stumbled toward the truck. He leaned heavily against the hood, blood streaming from his shoulder.

Naomi moved toward him, still aiming the gun. “I called nine-one-one,” she yelled. “You just stay right there.”

The man gazed at her like he hadn’t heard. He had black hair and eyes so dark she saw them through the whirling snow. “There’s sorcery in this,” he said with a harsh accent. “Are you doing sorcery?”

“The only sorcery I have is right here.” Naomi sighted down the barrel to make her point.

“If you are not, then . . . ” The man’s eyes widened in horror and he stared past Naomi at the fight between Jamison and the other mountain lion. “He’s doing it. He’s a sorcerer. Shoot him! Shoot him, now!”

Did he mean Jamison? Or the second cat? Naomi swung around and looked over the gun at the mountain lions. But they were locked together, Jamison’s ears flat against his head.

A few feet from them, Coyote morphed into a man, lifted the bear he fought, and threw it to the ground.

The man next to Naomi emitted a moan of distress and started for the fallen bear. To Naomi’s astonishment, the bear on the ground morphed into a woman with tangled dark hair. She lay still, her arm bent at an unnatural angle.

Unperturbed, Coyote walked back to Naomi as the man fell to his knees beside the woman. Coyote was a huge man, easily six and a half feet tall with bulging muscles filling out his body. He had the dark skin of a Native American, long black hair, and black dark eyes. His face had a flat look, as if his nose had once been broken, maybe in a biker bar?

Coyote put his hands on his hips, watching the mountain lions fight. Jamison was going to lose. Naomi’s heart thumped as the larger cat drew claws along Jamison’s side and bright red streaks erupted on Jamison’s fur.

“Do something!” she screamed at Coyote.

“He’s the Alpha,” Coyote grunted, gesturing at the cats. “If I interfere, Jamison automatically loses.”

“The Alpha? You mean the Changer who locked Jamison in a cage and treated him like a lab rat?”

Coyote didn’t answer. Naomi’s blood ran hot. She uncocked the gun and moved toward the fighting pair, treading carefully in the snow. Maybe Coyote’s assistance would negate the testosterone contest, but would that happen if Jamison’s own mate helped him?

Naomi dug her boots into the snowy ground. She cocked the gun, and as soon as the Alpha flung Jamison underneath him, she shoved the barrel of the gun into the creature’s neck.

“Let him go,” she shouted.

The mountain lion screamed. With lightning speed, he yanked his head around and leapt at Naomi.

Naomi shot. The boom of the gun deafened her, and several things happened at once.

Coyote dragged Naomi out from under the Alpha’s flailing claws at the same time Jamison flung the Alpha to the ground. Blood spattered across the snow, but the Alpha rolled away, still alive.

Naomi’s shot had ripped into his side, but he’d been moving fast, and she hadn’t killed him. Jamison morphed back into his human form with a grunt of pain, his skin scored and bleeding.

The Alpha stood upright, his wildcat body changing to that of a tall man. But his shape shimmered and changed again, unfolding into something even taller. He was huge, his hair tangled and coarse, his eyes red. An overpowering stench rolled off him.

“A skinwalker,” the man who’d been a bear rasped. “He’s a fucking skinwalker.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jamison panted.

The Alpha clutched his side, blood pouring from it. He snarled, then turned and loped off under the trees. Coyote started after him, but after the Alpha had run five paces, the man vanished. The snow whirled where he’d been, then the storm stopped. The wind died away, and clouds parted to let the sun through.

Jamison collapsed. Naomi dropped the shotgun and caught him in her arms, kneeling with him in the snow. He was bleeding from many wounds, but his eyes were clear and alert.

“I’m all right,” he rasped. “A lot of scratches and bites, but nothing too deep.”

“You’re a good fighter, Jamison,” Coyote said above Naomi. “No wonder he was afraid of you.”

Naomi turned toward Coyote then immediately whipped away when she saw the man’s very long, flaccid cock hanging right next to her.

“He’s a skinwalker,” the male bear Changer snarled. He limped toward them, supporting the woman, who was pale but upright. “All this time. We will tell the pack, choose a new leader.”

The woman looked at Jamison with narrowed eyes. “Do you wish to challenge for Alpha?” She spoke with an accent that told Naomi English wasn’t her first language.

Jamison shook his head. “I’m staying here.” He glared up at Coyote. “Why did you send me to be trained by a skinwalker?”

“I didn’t know. I never met the man until today.” Coyote gazed off into the woods where the Alpha had disappeared. “He must be a damn good skinwalker if he fooled you all for so long.”

“He will not be allowed to return to us,” the man vowed. “We will retreat, and I will care for my mate. We have no quarrel with you, Jamison.”

Jamison sat up, brushing the snow off his body. Like Coyote and the other two, he didn’t seem to notice the cold. “Then why did you attack me?”

“On the orders of our Alpha,” the man said. He spat into the snow. “But we take no orders from skinwalkers.”

Without another word, the man and woman turned and walked together into the woods, each supporting the other.

“Will they be all right?” Naomi asked.

Coyote grunted. “They’re Changers. They’ll heal quickly, and the skinwalker will be more interested in coming after Jamison.”

Naomi looked at him in fear. “But I wounded him. I drove him off.”

“Temporarily,” Jamison said. “We’d better go.”

He started to climb to his feet, and Coyote and Naomi grasped his arms to help him. Coyote didn’t have a scratch on him, though the hair on his chest was damp with sweat.

Jamison walked to the truck without limping, leaving large footprints in the snow. He opened the passenger door and reached for his clothes.

Coyote pulled jeans and a flannel shirt from under the tarp in the truck bed and started dressing without hurry.

“Were you riding back there this whole time?” Naomi demanded.

“Yep.”

Naomi’s face went hot. She’d let herself scream without restraint when Jamison went down on her, and then she’d happily sucked Jamison off, thinking they were cut off and alone. From the grin on Coyote’s face, he’d heard everything.

“I figured you’d need me,” he said, his yellow eyes dancing with amusement. “You mind giving me a lift back to town?”

“Do I have a choice?” Naomi glared at him. “And wipe that disgusting look off your face or I’ll charge you for the gas.”

SEVEN

He would be coming. Jamison knew that as they drove out of the mountains, following the flashing yellow light of the plow. By the time they reached lower elevations, the snow had gone, and bare desert greeted them under blue sky.

Coyote rode in the truck’s cab with them, squishing Jamison between himself and Naomi. Jamison didn’t mind sitting right next to Naomi, where he could rest his hand on her thigh. She was scared and angry, and he wanted her so much he could barely sit still.

She’d leapt to his defense, damning the rules of Changer combat to protect her mate. The bonding ceremony the Apache had done might have been bogus, but Naomi possessed the courage of a true mate. He’d find a way to bind her to him in the Changer way. He had to.

They arrived in Magellan as the sun set, the tattered clouds to the south streaked brilliant red. The Ghost Train celebration would begin in a few hours. All businesses in Magellan closed for it, including Hansen’s Garden Center, so the parking lot was deserted when they reached the house.

Coyote went straight to the refrigerator and started rummaging around until he came out with a can of beer.

“You’re staying?” Jamison asked him.

“You need me to.”

“I know.” Jamison stripped off his shirt as he went into the downstairs bathroom. Naomi followed.

Her worried look turned to one of surprise when she saw that Jamison’s torso had almost healed. The long scratches on his skin already had closed and scarred over. Jamison dabbed off the remaining blood with a washcloth.

“Why do you and Coyote think the skinwalker will come back?” Naomi asked him. “We defeated him, didn’t we?”

“Not quite. He wasn’t fighting to kill. He was fighting to see what I could do. What I would do.” Jamison dried himself and twined his loose hair into a braid. “And now we know his secret. He’ll have to return and kill us.”

“Why? If he disappeared, how would we know how to find him? Who would we tell?”

“The Alpha, or whoever he is, is crazed about honor. You and I and Coyote made him lose face as well as control over the pack.” Jamison nodded grimly. “He’ll recover, and then he’ll come.”

Naomi slid her arms around him, and Jamison pulled her warm body close. “I never realized what you went through,” she said softly. “Thinking of what they did to you makes me so angry.”

Jamison buried his face in her neck, kissed her skin. He knew he’d never have survived without the memory of her. He’d think of how good she smelled when she first woke up, warm and sweet, her sex juices scenting her from whatever arousing dream she’d been having. Making love to her in the morning had been the best thing in the world.

The idea that, after he’d left, some other man might have made love to her as the sun rose, had also kept Jamison alive in the cage and determined to get back to her. To fight for her, if necessary. Two years hadn’t made much difference in the savage possessiveness that spiked in Jamison every time he saw her.

“I kept going because I wanted to come back to you,” he said. “Whether you were waiting for me or not, I wanted to see you again.”

Coyote darkened the doorway, and Naomi broke the embrace. Jamison didn’t want to let her go, needing the feel of her body against his.

“Ready for the Ghost Train?” Coyote asked. “Sounds like fun.”

Naomi bit her lip. “Maybe we shouldn’t go. Julie shouldn’t, anyway. Nicole needs to keep her in Flag.”

“Nah.” Coyote shook his head. “Julie’s been looking forward to it all year, and she’s invited me special. Don’t disappoint her.” He gave them his pointed-toothed grin. “Me, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

aomi still had misgivings, but the thought of being somewhere bright and cheerful surrounded by friends appealed to her.

“Skinwalkers hate light and fire,” Jamison said on the way over. “And crowds. We’ll be safer there than at home right now.”

Magellan’s railway depot was typical of those built in the Southwest during the great railroad boom of the end of the nineteenth century. Crafted from wood and stucco, the depot was one long, narrow room, with a station office in the back. It had been built in 1890 to service tracks that connected the main line in Winslow to the mountain and mining towns to the south. In the 1930s, the service up to the mountains had been discontinued and the depot closed. Over the years the railroad company had removed the rails and ties from the railroad bed, but the raised bed was still there, empty and unused.

Then an enterprising town planner claimed he’d found a story of a “ghost train,” which rumbled through Magellan each Christmas. He’d started a celebration on Christmas Eve to greet the ghosts as they rode past. The depot was restored, the event planned, word sent out. It worked. The Ghost Train celebration had become a Magellan tradition, and people came from all over the Southwest to see it.

By the time Naomi, Jamison, and Coyote arrived at the depot, it was lit from top to bottom, and a huge Christmas tree glittered in one corner. Candles flickered inside luminarias on the depot porch and the low walls surrounding the platform. The poinsettias Naomi had provided were holding up well, lending brilliant color inside and out.

If skinwalkers didn’t like light and fire, they wouldn’t like this place. Naomi nervously watched the dark desert beyond the depot, but nothing more frightening came out of it than a few rough-looking bikers, riding up to join in the celebration.

Julie, unhurt and unworried, ran inside with Naomi’s friend Nicole and hugged Jamison. Maude McGuire was already there with her husband, Magellan’s chief of police. Maude walked around with a large cookie jar, taking donations for the historical society. She greeted Naomi with a wave and a smile, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Her daughter Amy had been missing for a year now, with no word whether she was dead or alive.

“I might know someone who can help them,” Jamison said into Naomi’s ear. She jumped, still nervous.

“Help who? The McGuires?”

“I know a woman, a half-Navajo from Many Farms, who investigates mysterious happenings. If I talk to her, she might be able to look into their daughter’s disappearance. If nothing else has helped, it’s worth a shot.”

“Do you know everyone on the Navajo Nation?” Naomi asked. “In the entire Southwest?”

Jamison allowed a smile to touch his eyes. “Janet Begay went to school with my youngest sister. Janet moved off to Flagstaff, and I haven’t seen her since, but I can track her down. And it’s my mother who knows everyone in the Southwest. She just tells me all the gossip.”

Beside her, Julie squealed. Naomi swung around, heart pounding, but Julie was waving madly to Coyote. He smiled at Julie, a friendly look that softened his face, and he lifted Julie up on his shoulders.

Naomi glanced around the bright depot, which seemed warm and safe. But after the celebration the town would grow dark again, lying vulnerable to attack.

“Julie can’t come home with us tonight,” she said.

“No,” Jamison agreed.

“Will she be safe if she goes back with Nicole?”

“Safer than she will be at home. But I want you to stay in Magellan with me.”

Naomi looked at Julie laughing at Coyote, her hands moving in quick signs. “Because you think the skinwalker will come after me if I’m separated from you?”

“I wouldn’t be able to keep you safe. And if you’re with Julie, he’ll take her too.”

“Damn it.”

“I’m so sorry, Naomi.”

His eyes were dark and grim, and Naomi touched his shoulder. “I’ll help you defeat it. I’m scared as hell, but I’m not letting it hurt my mate.”

Jamison gave her one of his warm, sinful smiles. At the same time someone cried, “The Ghost Train is coming!”

Everyone hurried out onto the platform. Jamison and Naomi followed more slowly, and Coyote came behind them, Julie holding his hand.

The night was clear, the mountain storms having stayed in the mountains. Stars filled the horizon in an opaque sheet of white. It was so beautiful, but Naomi had learned how much evil the empty desert held.

Naomi’s cousin Heather shushed everyone. “Can you feel it?” she said. “The heat of the steam? Can you hear the wheels on the track?”

“Yes,” someone else whispered. “The Ghost Train has returned to Magellan.”

Coyote stared at the empty track bed and then back at Jamison. “They’re crazy,” he murmured. “There’s nothing there.”

Jamison shrugged. Julie signed silently to Coyote, We know, but everyone likes it.

Coyote threw back his head and laughed, which earned him glares. After a few minutes of people murmuring about the Ghost Train’s presence, Heather sighed. “It’s moving on now. Shall we send it on its way?”

As one, everyone on the platform waved as though they were seeing off old friends. “Good night! Merry Christmas! See you next year!”

“Time to go,” Coyote said. His laughter was gone.

Jamison explained to Julie that she’d be going back to Flagstaff, but they’d come for her tomorrow to open presents and make the journey to Tucson to her grandparents’ house. He spoke with confidence that by tomorrow, everything would be all right.

Julie wasn’t stupid. She looked anxiously at Naomi, then signed to Coyote that she expected him to take good care of her mother and Jamison.

“I will,” Coyote said. He leaned down and kissed Julie’s hair. “I’ll keep them safe, sweetie. Promise.”

Jamison put his arms around Naomi as Julie got into Nicole’s SUV. “She’ll be fine with them. And if anything happens to us, your folks will take care of her.”

Naomi’s heart beat faster. She knew her family would help Julie more than Julie’s own father would, but the thought of leaving the little girl alone made her crazed.

She turned in Jamison’s arms. “Let’s get this bastard.”

Jamison smiled and kissed her. “That’s my girl.”

hen they reached the house, Coyote in tow, Jamison flipped on all the lights, inside and out. The flood of light made him feel better, but he knew it wouldn’t last. Coyote seated himself next to the Christmas tree in the living room, snapped the shotgun open, and started to clean it.

Naomi decided to make sandwiches while they waited, and while she was occupied, Jamison went out to his studio. He unlocked it, turned on the lights, and looked around. The wrought iron project he’d started two years ago still hung on the wall, his equipment ready for use.

Jamison wrapped the unfinished stone mountain lion in heavy cloths and carried it out. He didn’t lock the studio this time, and he set the padlock on the ground inside the door. When he reached the house, Naomi was still making sandwiches. Coyote had put aside the shotgun and turned on the television.

Jamison took the sculpture upstairs to Julie’s room and placed it on a shelf in her closet. He smiled at the clutter of little-girl things in her bedroom: magazine pictures of current male stars, posters of unicorns and ballet dancers, and stuffed animals all over the bed. Books spilled off shelves and lay in piles on the floor, from the latest young adult novel to classics like the Narnia series to the Navajo sto rybooks Jamison had given her. In Julie’s silent life, books were her connection with the world.

Naomi set a plate with a sandwich on the breakfast bar, and Jamison leaned on the counter to eat it. He wasn’t hungry, too keyed up, but he knew he shouldn’t drain his strength.

He caught Naomi as she turned away. He skimmed his hands up her back and kissed her lips, unable to keep from touching her.

“So we just wait for him to attack?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“It’s better this way. We have a base here, and it will be safer than going out to hunt him. He’ll come tonight.”

He kissed her. She melted into him, her fear and adrenaline flowing up to him. He wanted nothing more than to take her upstairs, bury himself in her, draw strength from her for the coming fight.

From the way Naomi kissed him back, she wanted it too. She pressed her thumbs to the corners of his mouth, put her tongue inside. Her hips rose to his, rubbing his hardness, which itched for her.

“Nice,” Coyote said. “Want to fuck while we wait?”

Jamison eased away from Naomi in regret. “It might not be a good idea.”

“I meant with me,” Coyote said.

Naomi gave him a withering glance. “Don’t you wish.”

“I do wish. That’s why I asked.”

“Keep your paws off my mate,” Jamison said, torn between amusement and possessiveness. Trickster gods.

“I meant with both of you.”

“No,” Jamison and Naomi said at the same time, and Jamison laughed.

Coyote shrugged his massive shoulders and turned away. “TV it is, then. You have HBO?”

EIGHT

The skinwalker struck just after one.

Naomi lay against Jamison on the sofa, her warm head on his shoulder, while he and Coyote watched an old horror movie. Coyote had laughed all the way through the movie, pointing out flaws in the plot, claiming no werewolf would act like that. And anyway, there was no such thing as werewolves, he said; only Changers who could take wolf form.

Jamison didn’t notice the movie, listening for every noise outside.

He knew the skinwalker had arrived when the house suddenly went black. The television noise ceased abruptly and the pinprick lights on the Christmas tree died. Jamison picked up a flashlight from the coffee table and pressed it into Naomi’s hands. He heard Coyote reach for and lift the now-loaded shotgun.

Something scraped on the boards of the porch. The door-knob rattled then there was more scraping, then silence. Jamison saw Naomi’s eyes glitter in what little moonlight penetrated the windows, saw the glisten of the shotgun’s barrel, held steady by Coyote.

They heard a quiet splinter of glass in the back door’s window, then the latch clicked and the hinges creaked. A huge creature stood in the open doorway, blocking the light outside.

His stench was overpowering. Jamison’s sense of smell had developed sharply since his Changer ability had manifested, and the odor made him want to vomit.

Beside him, Naomi clicked on the flashlight and shone it full on the creature. He must have been eight feet tall, his skin crusted with blood from his earlier wound. His eyes were huge and red, teeth jagged. He was a far cry from the clean-shaven, controlled Alpha Jamison knew. Skinwalkers could take the shapes of their victims, so he must have killed the real Alpha a long time ago and stepped into his life.

The skinwalker roared and charged into the kitchen. Coyote brought the shotgun up and fired.

The gun’s roar blotted out all other sound. The creature moved fast, spinning away from the shot, and Jamison couldn’t tell if he’d been hit. A second later the skinwalker was back on his feet and crashing toward them.

Jamison shoved Naomi at Coyote. “Get her out of here!”

Naomi screamed as Coyote grabbed her and hauled her to the front door. Jamison began ripping off his clothes, willing the change to come.

Changing without stilling his mind could be painful and made him nauseous, but he had no choice. His limbs jerked as they became the strong legs of a mountain lion, his face aching as the shift took him.

The skinwalker lunged, trying to get past Jamison to Naomi. Jamison knew the strategy: Kill the mate, weaken the Changer.

Jamison leapt, twisting to plant all four paws into the giant creature’s chest. The skinwalker’s foul stench nearly overwhelmed him, but he held his breath and raked his claws across the being’s flesh.

The skinwalker wrapped two huge arms around Jamison and threw him across the kitchen. Jamison regained his feet, running back at the skinwalker as soon as his claws touched the floor.

His full-on attack gave Coyote time to get Naomi out the front door. The skinwalker threw Jamison aside again and charged after them.

The lights of Naomi’s pickup sliced across on the skinwalker’s body, and he threw up one hand to block the glare. The truck roared at him. Coyote hunched over the wheel, Naomi next to him with the shotgun.

The skinwalker leapt into the house again, shoving Jamison in front of him. The truck’s tires squealed as it turned at the last minute.

“Jamison!” Naomi shouted, then Coyote gunned the truck into the street, carrying Naomi to safety.

“Just you and me now,” Jamison said.

Skinwalkers could move fast. Legend said they could keep up with speeding trucks, even fly, and Jamison’s heart beat wildly in fear that the creature would simply turn and chase Naomi. But the skinwalker stalked Jamison, flicking into the human form of the Alpha Changer Jamison had known for two years.

“I never trusted you,” the Alpha hissed.

Jamison morphed back into his own human form. “Looks like you had good reason. Why pretend to be a Changer? Why fool everyone for so long?”

“Changers have a pack. Skinwalkers are alone.”

Was it that simple? Jamison wondered. The skinwalker was lonely?

“And as an Alpha Changer you could control others,” Jamison said. “Don’t bullshit me.”

“You were always resistant to the rules. Why? Did you know what I was?”

“The others are sheep,” Jamison said in contempt. “They’re too scared to exist in the world alongside human beings, they were happy you provided a place they could hide. I didn’t want to hide.”

“You love your human mate. Pathetic. Changers are stronger when they mate with Changers.”

“You inbred the pack down there so much you weakened them. You liked that, so they’d be subordinate to you, and you could continue your charade.”

“They could be an army.”

“An army afraid to leave their caves? I was surprised to see Matto and Lira up here, but I guess you convinced them I was dangerous to the pack.”

“You are dangerous. To me. You die now.”

Jamison was morphing back into his cat form before the skinwalker finished his sentence. The skinwalker snarled and lunged at him, the Alpha’s form gone now, but instead of fighting, Jamison turned and raced out the back door.

The skinwalker laughed. It came after him, faster than thought. Jamison slammed open the studio and plunged into the darkness inside.

Tables of Jamison’s equipment crashed to the floor as the skinwalker charged in behind him. Jamison felt the skinwalker’s hands around his neck, yanking him off the floor. The skinwalker began to squeeze while Jamison scratched and fought.

With the last of his strength, Jamison raked him with his back claws, then twisted away, morphing to human as he landed.

The pain of the sudden change sent him to his knees. The skinwalker grabbed him in the dark, and Jamison kicked him away frantically.

He knew by heart where everything in his studio lay. That way, when he worked in a creative frenzy, he could reach out and pick up the exact tool he needed without having to search for it.

He knew how far he had to reach to close his hands around his acetylene torch and lighter. He cranked the torch on full blast right into the skinwalker’s face.

The skinwalker screamed. The blue white light of the torch lit the room in a blinding flash. Jamison screwed up his eyes, but kept the torch on the skinwalker.

The skinwalker caught fire. He flailed, screaming, straight into Jamison. He knocked the canister from Jamison’s hands with amazing strength, and the torch exploded into flame on the floor.

The wooden sides of the studio caught quickly, fire licking the dry wood. The copper and glass roof groaned—it wouldn’t burn, but if the walls went, the hot metal would crush everything beneath it.

Jamison crawled toward the door, choking on smoke. Behind him, the skinwalker stayed upright, roaring and burning. The creature lunged at Jamison, catching him in his fiery hands. Jamison struggled, but the smoke was suffocating him, flame scoring his flesh.

The studio walls collapsed slowly around them. Jamison morphed back into the mountain lion, fire singeing his fur. The heat was unbearable, his once peaceful studio an inferno.

With a tearing sound, the roof came down. Jamison kicked away from the skinwalker and flattened himself against the stone floor, his body raging with pain. Pieces of glass and wrought iron flew past him like hail.

A section of roof bowed in front of him, scattering the remains of a wall. Jamison leapt for the flame-filled tunnel it created, letting his mountain lion instincts take over. The cat squeezed through the tiny opening, scrambling for the cold desert night.

But the opening was too small, and his cat’s body became wedged in the rubble. He was burning, dying, smoke filling his lungs. At least the skinwalker wouldn’t make it out, he thought in some satisfaction. And he’d saved the mountain lion sculpture for Naomi.

He dragged in one more breath, feeling his oxygen-starved limbs tingle, his heart trying to beat. His vision went dark.

Hands on his shoulders hurt like hell, and he regained enough strength to snarl. Then his body was being dragged out into the cold, and he heard Naomi swearing and crying.

Coyote started hitting him. Not hitting, he realized as his senses came back, slapping the fire out of his fur. Jamison forced himself to roll over in the cold gravel, then he lay panting, sucking the crisp desert air into his lungs.

The remains of his studio roared with flame. He opened his eyes to see Naomi stretched beside him, weeping. He touched his cat’s tongue to her forehead. Be well, my mate.

Somewhere beyond this hell he heard the faint wail of sirens as Magellan’s fire crew raced toward Naomi’s house. With the last of his strength, Jamison morphed back to his human form and lay still.

NINE

Don’t you ever do that to me again.” Naomi buried her “face in Jamison’s chest on her bed, loving the sound of his heartbeat beneath her ear. “Don’t you dare decide to send me away and then rush into danger.”

She’d thought she’d die when she’d seen the flames erupting from behind her house. She’d made Coyote turn the damn truck around and go back. Thank God she’d spotted Jamison half sticking out from the burning rubble of the studio. She’d raced to him without thought, reaching into the flames to pull him out.

The paramedics had given him oxygen when they’d arrived, but by that time Jamison’s burns had decreased dramatically, his Changer body having healed him. The paramedics gave him a once-over then sent him home.

The studio lay in a charred, smoking ruin. The firemen didn’t mention finding a corpse inside, and Naomi wondered what had happened to the skinwalker.

In bed in her bedroom, Jamison brushed Naomi’s hair from her face and kissed her. “If Coyote hadn’t taken you away, the skinwalker would have killed you. He was trying to weaken me by killing my mate. And he’d have been right. Without you, I’d have wanted to die.”

“So you let him corner you in your studio?” Naomi said angrily. “Good plan.”

“I knew if I could lure him to the studio, I’d have the means to kill him. They don’t like fire, remember?” Jamison grinned. “Who says art isn’t useful?”

“But you might have died too. You had no way of knowing whether you could get out.”

Jamison kissed the corner of her mouth. “If I hadn’t killed him, he’d have come after you. I’d do anything to keep that from happening.”

Naomi rose on her elbows. “Don’t die for me, Jamison. I need you alive.”

“You got along all right the two years I was gone.”

“No, I didn’t.” She pulled back the sheets and slid on top of him, thighs straddling his. “I told you I did, but it was bullshit. A part of me was missing, like there was a hole in my life. I need you, and not because you’re handy repairing my roof or making pretty sculptures.”

Jamison’s grin was wicked. “Is it because you need a man between your legs? Please say yes.”

“Only partly.” Her blood warmed, but she wasn’t finished yelling at him yet. “I need to see you every day. I need to hear your beautiful voice. I love how you love Julie and how you made her believe in you. I love you, not just how you make love. Although you’re good in that department too.” She moved her hips, feeling the hard ridge of his erection. He was so solid under her, so male.

“Good,” Jamison said in his dark voice. “Because you’re a beautiful woman, you’re sitting naked on top of me, and your breasts are tight and right where I can touch them.” He traced a swollen bud with his thumb.

“So now it’s time for seduction?” she asked.

“I hope so.” His hand drifted up her back, protective, supportive. “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you? Even if the Changer bond didn’t work, we can bind in the human way.”

Naomi’s heart squeezed both in joy and regret. Two days before, she’d never heard of the Changer bond, but now she wished they’d have been able to complete it. It meant so much to Jamison.

“I’ll marry you,” she said. Now, tomorrow, whenever you want.

Jamison pulled her down to hold her tight. “Thank you. I’ll try to make it a hell of a lot better than your first marriage.”

Naomi laughed. “You won’t have to work hard for that.”

“But I am going to work at it. Because you’ve done so much for me.” He stroked her hair. “I love that you take what life throws at you and face it head-on. I love that you took in a stuck-up Navajo storyteller and made him your love slave.”

“You aren’t stuck up.” She marveled at how he could think that. “You have time for everyone.”

“Because you taught me. I thought I was so smart, coming down here to teach white people what life was all about. You and Julie blew away my prejudices with one cup of coffee.” His grin widened. “I noticed you didn’t argue about the love-slave part.”

“I don’t mind having a love slave. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to cup your breasts in my hands.” He did so, thumbs stroking her areolas. “Then I’m going to lift you a little bit.” He slid his hand under her thighs, coaxing her to rise. “Then I’m going to enter you. And I don’t feel like being gentle.”

In spite of his words, his touch was tenderness itself as he lowered her onto him.

His next thrust was not so calm. Jamison tightened his grip on her hips and pulled her onto him, stabbing deep into her.

“I love it,” she whispered, her head dropping back. “Jamison, I don’t care that the bonding ceremony didn’t work. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Jamison said, then his rumbling voice drifted into groans, and he made love to her as though he’d never let her go.

utside, something stirred under the remains of the smoldering copper roof. A blackened hand pushed away a sheet of hot roofing, and a monster crawled out. He was a burned husk, hair gone, eyes blind, but he moved with determination. Kill.

He sensed something sitting in wait for him, a white presence, though he couldn’t see it. He stopped.

Coyote, in his animal form, put one paw onto the remains of the skinwalker and pulled back in distaste.

“Why don’t you just die?” he growled.

“I am a skinwalker,” the thing rasped. “More powerful than any Changer. I will kill you.”

“Bad luck for you,” Coyote said. “I’m not a Changer.”

He blew his breath onto the skinwalker. The half-dead beast screamed once, then shuddered, mewled, and dissolved into dust.

“Done,” Coyote said in a deep voice.

He looked up at the house. Even though the windows were closed, Coyote’s superior hearing picked up the excited sounds of sex. He licked his lips. He could climb up there and watch them. That might be fun.

He laughed, imagining the look on Naomi’s face if he did.

Coyote threw back his head and gave the starlit sky one determined howl. Then he turned and loped through the deserted parking lot of Hansen’s, heading down the road toward the Crossroads Bar.

he depot was deserted and dark when Naomi parked the truck in front of it just before dawn. The celebration was long over, the lights extinguished, the depot locked.

Coyote’s message had told them to meet him there. He’d left the scrawled note on top of the quilt under which Jamison and Naomi had slept. Which meant he’d crept in there while they’d been naked and entwined. The shit.

Naomi and Jamison climbed to the deserted platform behind the depot. It was freezing, and their breath hung heavily in the starlit air.

The night held no terror for Naomi now. The skinwalker was dead, and Jamison was alive, and they would marry after the Christmas celebrations. Coyote helping her save Jamison was the best Christmas gift anyone could have given her.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t damn cold out there. “He’d better show up soon,” Naomi muttered. “And I still don’t understand why he sent you down to those awful people in Mexico.”

Jamison slid his arm around her. “I think he did because there was no one closer to teach me. Whatever else the Changer pack did, they taught me how to control my ability and use it well. If I hadn’t learned that, I probably would have gone insane, like Alex Clay. I never could have returned to you.”

“Maybe,” Naomi said grudgingly. “But Coyote should have checked on you.”

“He’s a god. He doesn’t follow our rules.”

“I’m just glad he was here to help you now.” She shivered, thinking of what might have been. Jamison tightened his hold on her, leaning her back against him.

They waited in silence. The railroad bed stretched to the horizon, a straight man-made line running across a land creased with winding arroyos.

An icy wind whispered across Naomi’s cheek. She turned to look north, in the direction of the wind, and squinted at something flickering out in the desert.

Footsteps sounded behind them on the platform. “Hey,” Coyote said. He wore his usual jeans and leather coat and carried a small duffel bag over his shoulder.

“Hey yourself,” Naomi answered. “Why are we here?”

Coyote grinned. “To see the real Ghost Train.”

“What are you up to?” Jamison asked him, but Coyote held up his hand.

“They’re coming. Look.”

The chill wind touched Naomi’s cheek again, and the flickering she’d seen grew brighter. A small cloud of dust drifted silently over the desert.

When the dust cleared, she saw figures moving along the railroad bed, walking single file on the raised earth. The figures were those of men and women, ghostly and nearly transparent. They were Native American, dressed in Navajo wool or in leather and skins. Silver glittered here and there along with the flash of turquoise.

“I feel this,” Jamison said softly. “This is real.”

“Who are they?” Naomi asked.

Coyote’s voice was slow and quiet. “Magellan is a crossroads. The way is thinner here between this world and the ones below it. On this night, the land remembers the crossing of so many from life to what lies beyond.”

Naomi’s eyes widened. “So the Ghost Train is a train of people?”

“It’s no coincidence that you refer to the place the highway ends and the bar there as the Crossroads. The railroad was built on top of an ancient trail. It’s no coincidence that the service closed down either.”

“I thought it was because it was too expensive to run,” Naomi said.

Coyote chuckled. “Naomi the Unbeliever.”

“She believes now,” Jamison said. “She believes in what’s real.”

Coyote’s grin vanished. “Look at the land around us. It looks flat, dry, empty. But you have lived here all your life—you know that there are hundreds of arroyos and canyons and washes that crease the land, their banks so sharp you don’t see them until you’re right on top of them.”

“Yes,” Naomi said impatiently. “I know that.”

“They are cracks in the earth. Things can fall into them. And things can come out of them.”

So Jamison’s stories had told her. “Things,” Naomi repeated. “Like the skinwalker?”

“Worse than any skinwalker you will ever see. I know this. I came from the cracks in the earth.” He looked at them staring at him, but he didn’t laugh. “The time is coming when you will have to believe, Unbeliever. We will need you both.”

“We who?” Naomi asked, mystified.

Coyote watched the ghostly figures parading silently past without answering, then he shouldered his duffel bag.

“Time for me to go. I’ve got places to visit, people to save, villains to annoy.” He winked at Naomi. “You two stay out of trouble. I can’t always be saving your asses.”

Jamison tightened his arms around Naomi. “I’ll take care of her.”

“And she’ll take care of you.” Coyote laughed. “Have to go now.”

He leaned over and kissed a startled Naomi full on the mouth. Then he hoisted his bag, jumped from the platform, ran up to the top of the railroad bed, and fell into step with the walking figures. Coyote was real, substantial and colorful against his pale companions.

He headed south with them, the line now stretching as far as they could see. A cold wind rippled the dried desert grasses, then the entire column of figures wavered and vanished. Coyote vanished with them.

The two on the platform stood in silence, staring at the empty desert.

Jamison blew out his breath. “I’ve seen a lot, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Was it real?” Naomi asked, her voice hushed.

“It was real,” a new voice grated beside them.

Naomi swung around. An elderly Navajo man, bundled in a fleece-lined jacket, was standing next to them, watching the place where Coyote had vanished.

“Grandfather,” Jamison said. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to pay my respects to the Ghost Train.”

Naomi noticed he spoke English, not Navajo. She wondered at the courtesy, the first he’d ever shown her.

Grandfather Kee looked at Jamison with warm, dark eyes. “You are strong, Jamison. Coyote did well for you.”

“Are you a Changer?” Naomi asked. “Jamison told me it ran in families.”

The old man shook his head. “I am a descendant of the original Changer tribe, yes, but I do not have the talent. I did not know Jamison did, either, until Jamison told me Coyote was taking him away.” Tears gathered in his eyes. “But I knew that where Coyote sent you would strengthen you, prepare you. And he was right. You made it home, you defeated a skinwalker. You are very strong, and he knew it. He feared you.”

“How do you know all this?” Naomi asked him.

“Coyote told me.” Grandfather Kee smiled a little. “Coyote told me many things. About how you tried to bond like a Changer.”

Jamison nodded, and Naomi again felt the sadness of their failure. “We tried. It didn’t work.”

To Naomi’s amazement, Grandfather Kee burst out laughing. She’d never heard him laugh before.

“Jamison, you are such a fool,” he said. “You think a ceremony with turquoise and smoke is what it takes to make a bond. Did you not tell me that when you took coffee with this woman the first time you knew she was meant for you?”

“Yes,” Jamison said slowly.

“When you were born, your grandmother prophesied that you would find happiness only outside your own kind. You were so angry about that, remember? And didn’t you tell me after you met Naomi that your grandmother had been right?”

“Yes to everything, Grandfather.”

“You are already bonded to her, Jamison. You are bonded by spirit and by soul. By love. I knew it when you first brought Naomi home.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of me,” Naomi said.

“Not true, child. I saw how much in love you both were, and how much Jamison loved your daughter. It reminded me of what your grandmother and I had together, what I had lost. While I am happy for you, it also makes me sad.” His dark eyes filled. “I am only half a man without her.”

Jamison’s eyes grew moist. “Grandfather.” He enfolded the man in a heartfelt hug.

Grandfather Kee pulled Naomi down to give her a kiss on the cheek. He took her hand and Jamison’s and pressed them together.

“You are one,” he said. “The bond between you is true. I am shaman. I can see.”

Naomi’s hopeful gaze met Jamison’s, and Jamison realized that his grandfather was right. The instant connection he’d felt with Naomi had been his destiny fulfilling itself. And hers. During his absence she’d remained true to him, even while telling herself she shouldn’t. She hadn’t sought comfort elsewhere or even gotten rid of his things.

Julie had known, and his grandfather had known. Even Coyote had known.

“Why didn’t the Alpha know?” Naomi asked. “You said that he thought we hadn’t completed the bond.”

“He wasn’t a true Changer,” Grandfather Kee said. “He just wanted to be one.”

“I guess I need to catch up too,” Jamison said.

Naomi laughed in her beautiful, unself-conscious way. Her smile was wicked. “I can think of many things we can catch up on.”

Jamison’s grandfather regarded her with twinkling dark eyes. “After your Christmas day in Tucson, you will come to see us and bring young Julie. We all miss her.”

“We’ll be there,” Jamison said. He embraced his grandfather again, his eyes wet. “Thank you.”

Grandfather Kee squeezed Jamison’s shoulders, gave him a dignified nod, then turned and walked away, fading like the ghosts into the lingering darkness.

Jamison took Naomi’s hand, led her to her warm, familiar truck, and drove her home.

Later as Naomi snuggled down on Jamison’s bare shoulder, she murmured, “We have so many homes now. This one, my folks’ place in Tucson, and your family in Chinle. Kind of nice for an only child.”

“Julie’s an only child,” Jamison said in a speculative voice.

Naomi laughed and kissed the tip of his nose. “If we keep this up, she won’t be for long.”

Jamison’s eyes warmed, his kiss when he pulled her down to him both loving and heat-stirring. “Then as the years go by, we’ll have even more homes to go to on Christmas.”

“Fine with me.” Naomi opened her arms as he slid on top of her. “My Changer mate. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Allyson James writes nationally bestselling, award-winning romances, mysteries, and mainstream fiction under several pseudonyms. She lives in the desert Southwest with her husband and cats and spends most of her time in the world of her stories. A list of Allyson’s current books and upcoming releases can be found on her website, www.allysonjames.com, or contact Allyson via e-mail at allysonjames@cox.net. And keep an eye out for Stormwalker by Allyson James, coming in Spring 2010!