Double Blind
Hannah Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

We are always grateful to our editor, Joan Marlow Golan, and her wonderful staff and colleagues, Krista Stroever, Emily Rodmell, Lee Quarfoot, Megan Lorius, Maureen Stead, Amy Jones and Diane Mosher, for untiring editorial support, marketing and encouragement.

Thanks to our agent, Karen Solem, for great direction and wisdom.

Thanks, again, to Mom, Lorene Cook, for going far beyond the high calling of motherhood to help us in every sort of situation imaginable, whether it be reading, editing, publicity, cooking or catsitting. We love you.

Thanks to Vera Overall, Mother, who always encourages us and shows her pride in her son.

Thanks to Barbara Warren of the Blue Mountain Editorial Service for spotting problems before they become a part of the book.

Thanks to Jerry and Mary Lou Baugher for their love and hospitality, whose experience serving in a Navajo school was a great benefit.

Our deepest debt is to our Lord, who allows us to keep working at playing.

Chapter One

C urved, white wolf fangs gleamed against the blackness of Sheila Metcalf’s closed eyelids. She winced, eyes opening wide as a clipboard slipped from her fingers for the second time in less than an hour. It clattered onto the tile floor of the private patient room of Hideaway Hospital. As the sound reverberated into the hallway, her neck and shoulder muscles knotted with anxiety.

She glanced at the bed, where her patient, Mrs. Mann, remained asleep. At least the commotion had not disturbed her. Sheila only wished she didn’t feel so disturbed this morning…so unsettled, with an old, haunting, long-suppressed nightmare threatening, more than once, to follow her into her waking hours.

“Hey, girl, what’s up?” Jill Cooper, slender, dark haired and attractive, strode into the room at her usual brisk pace. She rescued the clipboard from the floor, glanced at it, then gave Sheila a look of concern. “Something wrong?”

“Sorry,” Sheila said. “I’m fumble fingers this morning for some reason.”

“Time for a break.” Jill’s voice was filled with the concern so evident in her gentle blue eyes. With her typical economy of movement, she set the clipboard on the nursing desk, then turned again to Sheila. “Why are you a fumble fingers?”

“I’m just distracted. I promise I’m not usually like this.”

“Think I don’t know that?” As nurse director of Hideaway Hospital, Jill had every right to question a substitute nurse’s bumbling mistakes, but her concern was warm and personal.

Sheila tried to smile, and knew the result was more of a grimace. She and Jill had known each other since Sheila had fled here to Hideaway with her father twenty-four years ago. The older sister of one of Sheila’s best friends in school, Jill understood what it was like to live with specters from the past.

Jill took a step closer. “So what’s the distraction?” she asked softly. “Want to talk about it?”

Sheila thought about the shadows of memories that never quite materialized, questions that had returned to nag at her after all these years. The fangs. The terror.

“Relax,” Jill said. “We don’t eat nurses for breakfast.”

Sheila forced a smile. The confessions could wait until later. “Dr. Jackson tells me differently.”

Jill chuckled. “Call her Karah Lee, and don’t listen to a thing she says. I picked on her a little when she first arrived, and she’ll never let me live it down.” Jill’s blue eyes turned serious again. “What is it?”

“Just stuff. I’ll get it figured out, don’t worry.”

“All the same, I think you need some downtime. A few minutes to regroup.” Jill reached into the pocket of her scrub top and pulled out a stethoscope. “Besides, Preston Black is in the building.” She said the words with one eyebrow raised, a half grin on her face. “He wants to talk to you.”

Sheila ran the tip of her tongue along her teeth to keep herself from saying anything. Preston didn’t understand the word no.

Jill held up her hands, correctly reading Sheila’s expression, her blue eyes twinkling. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t tell him you were working today, he just saw your Jeep in the lot. He’s placing a bid for the upcoming construction on the hospital, and he’s come to talk to our new comptroller, Doris Batson.” Jill winked. “You’d better keep your hands on that man. Doris is one of my best friends from high school, and I can tell you from personal experience that she’s a hunk magnet. Half the men in the hospital are already drooling over her.”

Sheila gave a pointed glance toward Mrs. Mann, in the bed across the room. Though the casual atmosphere here was a relief from the tension in her old job, Sheila hoped the staff didn’t make a habit of discussing personal issues in front of the patients.

“Mrs. Mann isn’t wearing her hearing aids,” Jill assured Sheila. “I keep trying to get her to put them in her ears, but she refuses. Says they garble everybody’s voices.”

As Jill stepped to the patient’s bed, she glanced over her shoulder at Sheila and jerked her head toward the door. “Out. Now. That’s a direct order. Even if you don’t talk to Preston, you need a break.”

“Where is he?”

“Front office, chatting to Blaze Farmer last I saw him. I’ll see you in the break room in a few minutes, and you can tell me all the juicy details, including this strange desire you suddenly seem to have to go to Arizona.”

Sheila’s eyes narrowed. “Preston can’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Actually, I think it was Blaze who blabbed for all to hear, and you know what good buds Preston and Blaze are. Was it supposed to be a secret?”

“Not necessarily, but it wasn’t something I wanted to be discussed by everyone in the break room, either.”

Jill pointed her thumb toward the hallway. “Out. We’ll talk about it later. Try to grab a cruller before Karah Lee and Blaze eat them all.”

Sheila sighed. Jill laughed. Mrs. Mann grunted, and Jill leaned over the bed, pressing her fingers to the elderly lady’s wrist.

“How are you feeling this morning, my dear?” she shouted.

Mrs. Mann gave Jill a look of complete trust. Sheila recognized the expression, because she’d been the recipient of that kind of trust from her patients many times. She had to keep reminding herself she was a good nurse.

A good nurse. Yes. She was.

When Clark Memorial Hospital in Branson lost federal funding last month, there had been some major layoffs. Though Sheila had worked there for five years, she still lacked enough seniority to save her job.

Amazing how losing a position, even when it wasn’t personal, certainly felt personal. With the population growth in this region of the state, the labor market was wide-open…except for registered nurses, it seemed. She’d discovered, when she went looking for a job, that there were a lot of mature nurses retiring to Branson to work part-time. She couldn’t find a job. Now she was per diem at three regional hospitals, and until she could get back on her feet financially, she’d moved in with her father on the farm a mile from Hideaway.

Shaking her head, Sheila stepped quietly from Mrs. Mann’s room into the wide hallway. It would be easily expected for anyone to ask why on earth a thirty-four-year-old woman would find it necessary to get back on her feet. But it would be more pertinent to ask why she’d been so inept at choosing a husband in the first place. Ryan’s irresponsible money management had been apparent to her long before his untimely death, but his romantic affairs had not. She couldn’t forgive herself for having such blind trust in him through ten years of marriage.

In an effort to escape her bad memories, she’d recently reverted to her maiden name. The change wouldn’t keep the creditors at bay, but she no longer wanted to be identified with the man who had betrayed her in so many ways.

Still, she’d rather be dealing with the difficulties caused by a faithless husband than the situation that had arisen this past weekend.

Every time Sheila closed her eyes, the imprint of black letters announcing the deaths of two of her childhood friends superimposed on her lids. The names had stirred only dim memories when she’d first read the letter two days ago but the impact of the deaths, the call of a time long past, had grown more and more disturbing during this morning’s work.

The familiar sounds of distant laughter, coughing and the moan of an elderly lady with dementia down the hallway, all helped Sheila focus a little more on her current job, but not completely. The past kept intruding on her thoughts—especially the loss that she had never reconciled in her heart or in her life.

The resurfacing memories scraped raw her nerves and set her heart beating double-time. Those recent deaths were tragedy enough, but she’d been forced to admit to herself this morning that they had been only the catalyst for a deeper horror that had haunted her for twenty-four years.

She walked toward the early May sunlight streaking through the blinds at the end of the hallway. Why had the past suddenly become so relevant to her again after all this time?

Her father hadn’t intended for her to see the obituary announcement for Tad and Wendy Hunt. Maybe Dad had the right idea. And maybe Sheila shouldn’t have been such a snoop—even though the letter had suggested that she might be able to step into the breach created in the clinic by the sudden rash of deaths at the school. Tad and Wendy weren’t the only ones who had died.

“Hey, stranger,” came a warm, deep voice. Preston Black stepped from the stairwell into that May sunshine at the end of the hall. His tall frame and broad shoulders cast a great deal of shadow along the hallway…the way his presence cast conflicting shadows over her thoughts.

She watched him stroll toward her. “Preston, we agreed not to—”

“You were the one who decided not to see me. I didn’t actually agree to anything, but I promise to back off. I won’t argue with you—”

“This isn’t about the fight.” She resisted the urge to take a step backward as he came toward her. “Okay, maybe it is about the fight, in a way, because I do not appreciate your telling a teenager, who in turn has told the whole hospital, about the subject of our fight.”

“Don’t call Blaze Farmer a teenager within his hearing. I didn’t tell him about any fight—and it wasn’t a fight, it was a strong disagreement—”

“Which is a fight, and you must have told him, because Jill just mentioned it to me.”

He grinned at her. “I didn’t think it was a secret that you wanted to go to Arizona, and we never actually fought, Sheila. Fighting connotes yelling, and—”

Sheila couldn’t prevent a smile of irony. “We’re doing it again. We can’t seem to say three words to each other without arguing.”

“Discussing. Let’s just call it that. Healthy discussion is good for the soul.”

“We’ve fought since Saturday,” she said, “which is not good for my soul.” It was why she’d wanted some space from him, because she did not want him to influence her decision; he had too much effect on her already.

“Sorry,” he said. “Could we just take a short walk? You’re due a break, aren’t you?”

“I’m supposed to save Karah Lee and Blaze from the crullers.”

“I beat you to it.” Preston patted his belly…his tight, muscled stomach. The phrase “washboard abs” must have been coined with him in mind. The man had the physique of someone who worked out every day, but he never stepped foot in a gym. He simply enjoyed working outdoors, hiking, building his own cabin. For the fun of it, no less; his prior career had been as a CPA and financial advisor. He’d been good at that, too.

Sheila couldn’t help appreciating the results of those outdoor activities, both in his musculature, and in the beautiful log cabin in the woods on which he’d completed the finishing touches barely a month ago.

He tugged on her elbow with the entreating look that always weakened her defenses. “If I start another argument with you, I’ll let you drive my Jeep all the way out to Arizona. In fact, I’ll drive you, myself— if you go.”

She led the way to the nearest exit, suppressing a smile that would betray her thoughts. Preston knew her well. How easy it would be to capitulate right now. “Just the Jeep, please.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh.

In spite of her misgivings about the subject and their relationship at the moment, she laughed, needing to allow herself the pleasure of his company for a little while. It was his presence that had helped her banish the past back to where it belonged—both the recent history with her late husband, and the distant, more disturbing history that was the true origin of this sense of loss that seldom left her in peace.

He pushed the door open and stepped into sunshine, then escorted her out, his attention on her even more focused than usual. With Preston, she couldn’t help herself; not only did he make her heart pound, he made her laugh, and made her think more deeply about her faith—because he asked so many questions that challenged her beliefs.

And yet, this time she had to draw the line. Shielding her eyes from the morning light, she looked up into Preston’s calm, gray-blue eyes, framed by brown-black waves of hair that were due a cut.

She had to face the fact that if she left him here, there was Doris Batson, the new comptroller, a beautiful woman, as accomplished as he in the intricacies of finance, who might be waiting in the wings for him. But Preston would have to make his own decisions about that.

“I promise to miss you,” she said, then saw the sudden flash of pain in those eyes.

His jaw muscles flexed as he obviously resisted the urge to restart the argument. “Then it’s definite.”

She nodded. She hadn’t realized it until this moment, but she was going to Arizona. Twin Mesas’ Christian boarding school desperately needed help, and she wanted to help it.

It was also the place that held the secrets of her past. Others might be able to put the past behind them and move forward, but she felt stranded there, still searching for her mother. And now there were more children at that school, who had lost not only a mother, but a father, as well.

She knew it was illogical to think that she might have something in common with those children after twenty-four years…but what if she did? What if she could help them in some way? She couldn’t bear thinking about other children facing the same night terrors she was now facing.

She also could not endure the nightmares much longer. It was time to find some answers, once and for all, so she could move on with her life.

Chapter Two

Preston Black had never wanted so badly to break a promise. This was one argument he needed to have with Sheila, and she refused to argue. Why hadn’t he been able to make her use that characteristic logic of hers?

She and her father had fled from Arizona for a good reason. They hadn’t been back since, and now, when there suddenly seemed to be some unexplained epidemic of deaths at Sheila’s former school, she had no business tempting fate—particularly since one of the deceased had worked in the very clinic where Sheila would be working if she returned.

Wasn’t it enough that Sheila’s mother, who’d also been a nurse, had died at that same school?

But he didn’t say any of this. He even resisted reminding Sheila that she wasn’t a missionary, and if she returned to the mission school for a few weeks, she would fall even further behind in paying off her late husband’s debts. Besides, she wasn’t trained in testing patients for the plague…or any of the other diseases that were endemic to that area of the country.

He gazed down into her feminine face with the gamine features, hazel eyes, firm chin. Like other important women in his life, she had a stout heart. His sister had combated threats from a stalker for years. His mother continued to battle a wicked mental illness with a brave spirit that had been bruised and wounded again and again, but never broken.

That was why Preston had recognized Sheila’s courage when he’d seen it…and fallen in love with her. Now, sure, he admired her spirit, but she wasn’t being reasonable about this. Why not?

He reached up to brush several strands of her thick, dark brown hair from her shoulder and to look at those lush lips, usually so quick to smile. At this moment, they seemed as weighted with sadness as her eyes.

“This is what you feel you have to do?” he asked.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. He could tell she was expecting him to continue to protest.

“I’m keeping my promise,” he said. “I meant it. I have no right to tell you what you can and cannot do.” They’d made no promises to each other about their relationship—or rather, at this point, nonrelationship.

He was learning to use that word more often. Relationship.

She gave a soft sigh and reached up to touch his chin, gently. “Yes, Preston, I feel I need to do this.”

He braced himself. “Are you doing it to get away from me?”

The soft touch became a sharp tap on his shoulder, and the tender glance disappeared. “I told you the reasons. You don’t seem to listen.”

He raised his hands. “Okay, that’s fine, I realize this isn’t all about me, but I just don’t think you’ve been completely forthcoming. If even part of the reason you’re doing this is to escape me, there are many safer ways than hauling yourself alone across country to a desolate—”

She raised a hand. “Finish that sentence, and you’ll be forking over your Jeep for my trip.”

“Sorry.” He forced a smile. “Of course, my Jeep has air-conditioning, and yours doesn’t. You probably should use mine.”

“Who needs air-conditioning? It’s barely May.”

“You know how hot it gets out there in the summer? May becomes June becomes July, and you don’t know how long you’ll be there.”

She slid a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of her tiger-print scrubs, her slender hands graceful as she unfolded and scanned the letter.

Preston studied her face as she read. He knew the contents of the letter, of course. She’d shown it to him Saturday after she found it on her father’s desk in his home office.

Buster Metcalf was an agricultural engineer who had moved with his family to the Navajo reservation in Arizona when Sheila was five. Five years later, when Sheila was ten, her mother had died suddenly, mysteriously. And that was all Preston had learned in the year he had known Sheila. He’d marveled at the lack of information he’d been able to get out of her about Evelyn Metcalf.

Sheila looked up and caught him watching her. “What?”

“Since we’re not arguing now, I’m just asking a question for the sake of information, but I don’t want you to bite my head off.”

Her eyes narrowed once more.

“Honestly,” he said, holding up his palms. “I’m just curious. How close were you to the victims of that fire?”

“Those victims have names. Tad and Wendy Hunt.”

“Right. It’s just that I’ve heard you speak in glowing terms about your other friends, but Tad and Wendy never came up.” Though Sheila’s father had kept in touch with some old friends from the reservation from time to time, Sheila hadn’t seen anyone from her past in all these years, but now that the school’s clinic suddenly needed emergency staffing, she was ready to drop everything and hurry to be of help?

Granted, selflessness was a part of her character, but Preston thought that she was also responsible to a fault. And right now, her own life was in such flux, she couldn’t afford the time or the emotional energy.

“I had a lot of friends.” She returned her attention to the letter.

Besides Tad and Wendy Hunt, who had returned to their alma mater to work and serve after college, someone else had died—Bob Jaffrey, the principal of the school. He had contracted and succumbed to an aggressive illness only days before the fire that took the other lives.

Sheila looked up at Preston again. “Canaan needs help in the worst way, not only because he had to step into Bob’s shoes, but there’s no one to take Wendy’s place as office assistant. I’m free.”

Preston had heard enough about Sheila’s treasured memories of her friend Canaan York to provide enough misgivings about her trip back to the school all by themselves.

“I thought Canaan was the school’s doctor,” he said. “Why is he suddenly filling in as principal? Can’t a teacher do it?”

“Good question. I’ll ask when I get there.”

Preston tamped down his frustration. “Have you even checked to see if they’ll accept you?”

“I called and spoke with Johnny Jacobs yesterday evening.”

Preston nearly groaned out loud. Johnny Jacobs was Canaan’s grandfather, the man who owned the school.

Preston could no more help his strong distrust of this situation than he could help his growing madness over this bullheaded woman to whom he’d had the questionable pleasure of giving his heart.

How, for instance, did Johnny Jacobs found a religious school, pay the staff himself and not give in to the temptation to direct the curriculum with his personal biases about God? He did accept donations for the school, as well, but what kind of overseers kept track of his actions? He could be one of those control freaks with his own religion, a cultist.

How could Preston stand by and watch the woman he loved involve herself in this situation?

And yet, far from influencing her, he knew if he said any more about it now, he would only lose what little favor he had left with her.

He felt more than helpless. More than frustrated.

Sometimes she just didn’t make sense to him.

“It was home for five years. I can’t ignore it,” she said, looking up at Preston.

“I don’t understand why anyone would have sent your father the news, anyway. He isn’t a doctor. After all these years—”

“But Mom was a nurse, and she worked with the kids. She knew everyone.”

Preston stared at her, and he knew the puzzlement he felt was plain in his expression.

She closed her eyes, and he heard her soft intake of breath.

He waited, staring at the dark fan of her eyelashes against her pale skin, then felt his heart squeeze, falling head over heels once again as she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

“What?” he asked softly.

“I think Johnny Jacobs always suspected that my mother’s death wasn’t from natural causes.”

“Did he ever say that?”

“He would never have said anything like that to me.”

“But after all this time—”

“I can’t tell for sure, but when I spoke with him, I got the impression that he suspects…I don’t know…something odd about these recent deaths. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but I had the impression that he feels Mom’s death and these recent ones might be connected somehow.”

Preston held his tongue between his teeth. Even more reason for her to not go out there!

She read his expression once again. “Yes, I know my mother’s death was a long time—”

“And no reason to suspect that—”

“But if Johnny feels there’s a connection—”

“You don’t know that for a fact.”

“Not in so many words.”

What Preston thought was that Johnny Jacobs was eager to get Sheila out there because she was willing to be cheap labor. Had the man given any thought to her safety?

“There’s no reason to think I might be in danger,” she said.

“Except that Wendy Hunt worked in the clinic, your mother was the school nurse and now you’re going out there to work in that same clinic.”

As she gazed into his eyes, his heart contracted again. “You’ll think this is crazy, I’m sure, but I can’t help thinking this could be God’s timing.”

Oh, great, she’s pulling out the big guns. Who could argue with God? Of course, Preston had promised not to argue. But it couldn’t hurt to gather as many facts as possible about this endeavor. “So am I to understand that the reason Mr. Johnny Jacobs contacted your father about these deaths was to find out if you would go out there?”

She hesitated. “He knew I was in the medical profession now. Apparently he called Dad a week ago to see if I could go out. Dad just never told me.”

Preston took the letter from her hands and looked at it. There was something in Sheila’s past that she held back, even at those times when she seemed to share everything else in her heart. He’d realized Saturday that she was drawn to return to the place that had her history, where she’d been robbed of her mother….

Yes, she was going to help her old friends and she loved working with children, but she needed to solve a mystery in her life.

“Let me go with you,” Preston said.

She gave him a look of infinite tenderness, then took the letter from him and shook her head. “Nope.”

“You think I’ll only be in the way.”

She hesitated, then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I know you will.” She looked at her watch, then refolded the letter and slid it back into her pocket. “I’m on my way to Arizona.”

As she turned to leave, he reached for her and caught her hand. In the year he’d known her, in all the time they’d spent together, he had never told her of the depth of his commitment to her. She didn’t want to hear it. Even now, he could see the wariness in her eyes.

“I…want you to know that I…My Jeep is yours if you need it.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand, then pulled away and went back into the hospital. The words he longed to say remained unspoken.

Chapter Three

O n Friday the thirteenth of May, the blue canopy of Northern Arizona sky shimmered with the sun’s rays, baking clumps of sage and meager stands of white-gold bunchgrass. The few clouds that nestled against rims of distant mesas did nothing to ease the punishing heat.

In spite of dry, hot air rushing in through window and vent, sweat gathered and dripped from every pore of Sheila Metcalf’s body. Where had all this heat come from? It was only the middle of May.

She couldn’t remember when she’d felt this alone or frightened. She missed Preston. She missed seeing the way his blue-gray eyes contrasted vividly against his tanned face. This separation would be good for both of them, but that knowledge didn’t keep her from wanting to be with him.

Her father hadn’t been too crazy about her return to this place, either. Together, he and Preston had mounted a united front for the first time since they’d met, but she hadn’t allowed them enough time to complete their mission. After making the decision to come, she’d taken two days to handle her arrangements and pack, and then she was off before either man could catch his breath.

Now she stared at the shimmering mirage on the deserted blacktop road ahead of her, driving ever nearer to the setting of her childhood nightmares. What on earth had she done? She wasn’t prone to making impetuous decisions. Why start now?

What kind of phantom was she chasing, alone, in the heart of the Navajo reservation? Dad had implied she might encounter the same danger her mother had met twenty-four years ago, but that brief comment had been all she’d been able to get out of him, the cranky old widower.

Actually, Dad wasn’t old at all. He was fifty-eight. And he only got cranky when she tried to talk to him about Mom, or when anyone tried to set him up with a woman.

Though Sheila couldn’t remember her mother very well—the shadowy images in her mind took clearer form only when she looked at old photographs—she never forgot the love that filled her whenever she thought of Mom. She always carried with her an impression of happiness at the memory of the small Navajo school she’d attended while Mom and Dad had worked in the area—Dad helping the farmers and shepherds, Mom treating children and families.

Mom had been Sheila’s inspiration to pursue a medical career. Right now she couldn’t help wondering if she’d have been better suited to Dad’s specialty—agriculture.

All during this hot drive—why hadn’t she taken Preston up on his offer to let her use his Jeep?—Sheila had journeyed as deeply into her memories as she could, frustrated by Dad’s unwillingness to communicate with her about Mom. With every mile she drew closer to the school, the tension in her body was increasing, the images from the nightmare arising more frequently, and more horribly.

At the school, Sheila would be conducting the children’s year-end physicals, drawing blood, as well as operating the clinic lab, keeping a close watch over the students who boarded at the school. When the term ended, she would be testing families coming to collect their children for the summer break. In a mission school such as Twin Mesas, families were encouraged to take advantage of the medical care. Sheila would truly be following in Evelyn Metcalf’s footsteps.

Johnny Jacobs and his grandson, Canaan York, remained concerned about the cause of the former principal’s death, she knew. It was a natural concern, of course, considering the responsibility on their shoulders not only for the health and safety of the children, but for all the families of the student body. According to Johnny, Bob Jaffrey’s family had refused to allow an autopsy.

Sheila squinted into the sun’s glare as she rounded a curve, and, for perhaps the tenth time today, questioned her decision. But after two long, painful years, dealing with the loss of her husband, and his betrayals, she felt she was at least finally making an effort to sort some sense out of the first part of her life—even if it meant returning to the scene of her childhood terrors to find answers to some difficult questions.

A movement far ahead on the right side of the road drew her gaze and broke her concentration. Whatever it was disappeared in the white glare of the sun. She fidgeted in her seat, stretching taut muscles, willing away the anxiety that had persisted throughout this trip. It was a frequent condition lately, something she couldn’t blame on the letter from the school, or even on her turbulent attraction to Preston.

Her digestion had started acting up about a week after Ryan’s death and the discovery of his unfaithfulness. Within three months, she’d lost so much weight she had to punch extra holes in her belt to hold up her jeans—a need she would have rejoiced about at any other time of her life.

Many mornings she’d awakened with a stiff neck and a headache from troubling dreams she couldn’t remember—at least not until the past few days.

The shock of Ryan’s death, and the gradual discovery of his affairs during their marriage had chipped away at her self-confidence and her faith in life. For the first year of widowhood, she’d often battled against a wavering faith in God.

Why her? After losing her mother at such a young age, why had she been forced to endure yet another tragic loss?

Dad had instilled strong Christian convictions within her. Sometimes she even questioned whether that set of standards was at the root of her troubles. Although Twin Mesas held many good memories for her, it was also where all her worst memories had been made—and it was a Christian school, where strict Christian values were taught and upheld.

Though Sheila had never renounced her faith entirely, she had rebelled against many of its strictures—most notably the one about believers marrying within their faith.

And look where it had landed her. Never again.

What hurt the most was that she had been the last to know about Ryan’s affairs. His final fling had been with the woman who was killed in the auto accident with him, Theresa Donohue, the fourth-grade math teacher whose classroom had been just down the hall from Ryan’s. But not one of Sheila’s friends had told her, though she’d discovered later that several of them had been aware of Ryan’s extramarital activities.

The movement on the desert, closer this time but still several hundred feet ahead, caught Sheila’s attention once again. The sun’s glare continued to blur the figure, but when she looked away she could see it dimly in her peripheral vision, the same way her nightmares caught her sometimes when she woke up in the mornings. The figure was too small to be a horse. A sheep, perhaps? Or a large dog?

She kept her attention on the road and allowed the approaching animal to develop along the side of her vision. It drew nearer, and she recognized the shape. A German shepherd.

Or a wolf.

She flexed her damp hands, wiping first one then the other on her jeans, blinking several times. It could have been anything but canine, and she’d be okay. But she’d rather see a nest of rattlesnakes in the middle of the road than the shape of a dog.

Suddenly, the animal disappeared, and a cloud of dust rose where it had been. She glanced that way, but saw nothing. Strange.

The steering wheel jerked in her hand. The right front tire of the Jeep sank into the soft shoulder of the road, and Sheila realized she’d allowed her focus to drift too far. She pulled the steering wheel to the left. A loud pop-thunk startled her.

She caught her breath, fighting the wheel, but the deep sand would not relinquish its hold. The Jeep coasted a hundred feet down the road and then came to a stop.

She’d blown a tire.

“Great driving, Metcalf,” she muttered to herself. “Now look what you’ve done.”

Glancing again across the broad slope of the desert horizon, she found herself wishing that a blown tire was her only problem.

Canaan York slowed his silver-blue Plymouth Voyager to ease the impact of a deep pothole that stretched across the dirt road. He scanned the broad plain of desert surrounding the solitary mountain of White Cone. Tanya Swift’s family lived about two hundred yards ahead. Their small frame home, painted clover-green with dark spruce shutters, was a mansion compared to the other houses in this section of the Navajo reservation.

When Canaan reached the house, he stopped, frowning. Maybe the little runaway hadn’t come back home.

A cloud of trailing dust rolled past the van and drifted in through the open windows, depositing a layer of grit over everything. Canaan blinked and tugged down on the bill of his baseball cap.

He glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure no dust streaked his face. He knew that, aside from the light tone of his skin, his long, somber face and dark brown hair and eyes identified him as Native American. Navajo. The People. But he was also well aware that the white half of his heritage continued to instill distrust in a few Navajo.

Unfortunately, Tanya’s family belonged to that few, depending on the circumstances. And now this had to happen. He could only hope Tom and Linda Swift had already left for their thrice-yearly tour of the Southwest to sell their crafts. If they were here, he would most likely get an earful on his inability to control the students at the school…one lecture among many he’d received from several sources since stepping into the breach two weeks ago and inheriting a job for which he’d never asked—nor trained.

He wondered, as he’d often done lately, why his grandfather had been so adamant that no one else at the school could do the job.

A movement caught his attention from a window beside the kitchen door. He studied the low-slung house for a moment. With an intuition developed over years of working with people, he knew Tanya was there. The empty driveway told him she was alone.

He climbed from the van and walked toward the house.

Twelve-year-old Tanya opened the door before he had a chance to knock. Her large, slanted, exotic eyes were filled with defiant apprehension.

“Hi, Canaan.” Her gaze darted past him. “You alone?”

He nodded. She reminded him of a half-grown lamb, inquisitive and always landing herself into trouble.

She relaxed visibly and stepped aside. “I know what you’re thinking, and I know what you’re going to say.”

He ducked slightly at the threshold, taking slow steps, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the unlit house.

“You’ve learned the art of mind reading on your long walk home?” he asked.

“You know I didn’t—”

“Walk all that way?” In the gloom, Canaan found a yellow-and-red-patterned kitchen chair and sank into it. “How often do I have to talk to you about hitchhiking?”

Tanya took two mincing steps toward him, the delicate lines of her young face sliding into a grin of mischief. “Who said I hitchhiked? Maybe I turned into Yenaldlooshi and raced the wind home.”

Canaan studied her expression to see if she was teasing. She wasn’t. He willed away the chill that slid over his skin. For a year, he had battled this superstition at the school, but it had persisted, even grown, the way a piñon sapling grew in the heat of the Arizona sun during a year of good rain. The children had recently begun to blame Navajo spirit entities for everything from unfinished homework to illness to lost track races.

He would have another talk with Betsy Two Horses. Giving her permission to teach a couple of informal classes on the ancient Navajo customs did not include filling the kids’ heads with terrifying myths.

“Maybe you raced like the wind to escape Yenaldlooshi, ” he suggested to Tanya, and continued to watch her expression carefully.

She pivoted away, but not before he saw the fear in her eyes.

He sighed. “Tanya, who tells you there is a skinwalker at the school?”

She shrugged, refusing to look at him, which revealed the extent of her fear and clued him to the reaction she expected from him. She wanted him to deny the possibility of any kind of evil beings.

If Wendy Hunt were still alive, she would’ve been the one to come and get Tanya. She would’ve reassured the girl that there were no evil animal beings, only evil people. Canaan sure missed Wendy’s influence right now. Wendy also would have had an additional advantage as the mother of Tanya’s friend April.

Or rather, Tanya’s former friend.

Canaan couldn’t give any reassurances to Tanya. “Why would this skinwalker still be at the school and not here? Wouldn’t he have followed you home, if he’s after you?”

“He doesn’t know the way.” She was still serious; no teasing here. “I left after sunrise this morning, so he couldn’t follow me.” She believed what she was saying.

“But he can follow your tracks tonight, and your parents are gone,” Canaan reminded her. “What if he knows you, and knows where you live?”

Tanya stepped to the long window that overlooked a cactus-and-rock garden. With a stiffened spine, she stared out across the plain, her chin raised defiantly.

“Come back with me now, Tanya, and you’ll be safer.”

“You can’t protect me from everything.”

“I didn’t say I could, but do you really want to stay alone here?”

Her chin lowered a fraction. A tremor shook her. “I don’t want to stay at that school. He’s there, Canaan.”

“Who, exactly, is he?”

Tanya jerked around, dark eyes wide.

“Have you forgotten that my great-grandfather was a hataalii, a medicine man?” Canaan asked.

She shook her head. “I haven’t forgotten. That’s why I trust you.”

“I know of the spirits we have always feared,” he said. “The only way to fight this evil is with a more powerful spirit. You’re safer from the skinwalker at the school than you are here.”

Tanya’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.

“This skinwalker you fear,” he said slowly, “what animal form does he take?”

Tanya stared at him and did not answer.

He hazarded a guess, hoping he was wrong. “The wolf?”

A quick intake of breath.

“I know about your fear.” The wolf was one of the most terrifying characters in Navajo lore, a destroyer. Canaan felt another chill of foreboding. “My Christian grandfather taught me special prayers to keep the Navajo werewolf away when I was afraid. He taught me when I was very young, and I still remember.”

Some of the tension eased from Tanya’s face. “You mean Johnny Jacobs?”

Canaan nodded.

“How much do you remember of these prayers?” she asked.

“All of them, but it isn’t the words alone that protect us. It’s where we keep our hearts and minds.”

Tanya hesitated. “What…what about that woman?”

“What woman?”

“The one who’s coming. The biligaana who’s going to be there today. The white doctor.”

“You mean Sheila Metcalf. She has nothing to do with any skinwalker, and she isn’t a doctor, she’s a nurse.”

The girl pressed her lips together, obviously refusing to hear his words.

“Sheila lived here with us for five years.” His voice was sharper than he intended. “She and I grew up together. I knew her.”

Tanya searched his expression. “You…you knew her?”

“Yes. She was a good friend. She was also a good friend to the Hunts.”

“She’s white. Look what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Hunt.”

“I’m half white, my grandfather, the school’s owner, is not Navajo, but that hasn’t stopped your father from sending you to our school.” Tanya’s father was a selective bigot, but his bigotry would overtake his daughter, too, if Canaan allowed it. Sheila’s arrival might be good for the children, if they would respond sensibly.

He stepped toward the door. “You coming with me?”

Tanya’s jaw slackened. “You’re leaving? Now?”

“I have work to do at the school.”

Tanya paused, then nodded her head. “Okay. I’ll come. But you teach me that prayer before it gets dark tonight. Okay?”

Canaan bowed mockingly. “Yes, boss.”

Chapter Four

S heila tightened the final lug nut on the wheel, tested to make sure all was secure, then released the jack, glad she hadn’t taken Preston up on his offer of his Jeep. With her own vehicle, she knew where everything was and had been able to change the tire in ten minutes.

After heaving the equipment into the back, she cast a wary glance across the desert for at least the twentieth time. All that moved was the undulating air above the ground, dancing in the unseasonably hot weather. A green line of cottonwood trees to the south told her there was a stream of water nearby. To the west, the plain seemed to stretch all the way to the foot of the towering Twin Mesas, at least two miles away.

She glanced back down the road and saw a sizable boulder a couple hundred feet away that she must have struck with the tire when she allowed the vehicle to wander so far off the road.

“Dumb, dumb,” she muttered to herself.

It wasn’t until she was again behind the wheel, pulling onto the road, that she realized her heart had been racing, her hands sweating, and her breath doing double time all the while she was outside the Jeep.

She drove barely a half mile, checking the rearview mirror several times, when she saw the sign for Twin Mesas School and turned off Route 77 onto a gravel road.

Piñon and juniper trees bordered each side of the road for a mile leading to the school. The campus was set in the middle of what appeared to be a flat plain, but she knew that hidden hollows and rocky arroyos mottled the topography.

The trees along the road cast little shade. She’d forgotten how sparse shade could be out here. Everything looked hot and dusty.

As she approached, Sheila’s gaze darted back and forth across the road, searching for another phantom, even as she scolded herself for allowing her imagination to run wild. No more specters materialized, of course. By the time she reached the school building, she also reached the conclusion that the heat had affected her. An overactive imagination didn’t help, nor did the headache that pressed along the back of her skull.

She loosened her death grip on the steering wheel and studied the place. Simple, large adobe buildings with rounded corners formed a courtyard around a playground partially shaded by piñon trees. A small garden of rocks and petrified wood ringed the first building, a pattern that repeated all through the courtyard. It would have looked peaceful to her, if not for the apprehension that she couldn’t shake.

Sheila didn’t recognize this place.

During her last phone call with Johnny Jacobs, he had mentioned that most of the buildings were new. He’d also asked her if she was sure she wanted to come.

She would bet her Jeep that Dad had called Johnny and tried to get him to talk her out of coming. Johnny hadn’t admitted to it when she’d asked him, but she’d heard hesitation in his voice.

Though Johnny lived in Tucson now, he’d always kept a close watch on all his holdings, and was particularly concerned about Twin Mesas, so much so that a year ago he’d sent his grandson, Dr. Canaan York, to keep a watchful medical eye on the children and their families. And now Canaan was interim principal. Why couldn’t Johnny have come to help out for the remainder of the school year? He had a background in education, whereas Canaan did not.

Canaan. Gentle, always laughing, smaller than the other boys his age when he was growing up. He’d been called pip-squeak, although Sheila had never called him that, of course. She had known how deeply that taunt had wounded him, but he’d never let on to anyone else how much it had hurt.

Sheila parked the Jeep by a split log railing at the first rock garden with a spindly olive tree in the middle, barely big enough to cast a shadow, much less provide shade. She turned off the motor and sat for a full minute, studying the landscape.

Occasional breezes whipped the sunbaked sand into vague, ghostly forms that darted between the buildings. If not for the sign beside the road, and the view of Twin Mesas from where she sat, she might have decided that her map had been misleading.

The thought barely developed, though, before three little boys shot out of the door of the building in front of her. Giggling and talking, they glanced her way, then ran toward the playground in the center of the circle of buildings.

Sheila released the steering wheel. Well, it looked like a school, anyway.

She shoved open the door of the Jeep and got out. She glanced at the boys, now climbing the wrong side of a slide.

The door they had exited swung open again, and a man strode out, a handsome man, Navajo. He didn’t look quite fifty. His black hair, close-cropped, grew thick enough to look good so short. Though not much taller than Sheila’s five foot five, his powerfully built body gave him the appearance of height. Doc Cottonwood.

He glanced at Sheila briefly, looked away, then jerked to a stop and stared at her. She stared back, attempting to moisten her suddenly dry mouth.

He walked toward her.

She suddenly felt like a schoolgirl again, with a huge crush on her favorite teacher.

He stopped before he reached the Jeep; his dark, inquisitive eyes searched her face, penetrating her protective exterior like a drill through soft wood.

“Sheila.”

She caught her breath.

A smile lifted the corners of his lips. “Little Sheila.”

“Hello, Doc.”

With a sudden burst of laughter, he sprang toward her, arms outstretched. She managed a weak smile just before he grabbed her up in a bear hug and swung her around.

“Been expecting you!” he exclaimed as her feet touched ground again. “Took you long enough. Canaan’s been talking about you coming for days. You two will have a lot to catch up on.”

She couldn’t keep from staring at him. He was still here after all these years, as handsome as she remembered. His dark brows and strong, bulldog chin still gave him that iron-stern expression with which he’d controlled even the most rebellious boys in gym class.

She dragged her gaze from his and gestured around at the buildings. “It’s all changed.”

He grinned, a brief flash of white teeth against red-brown skin. “Good thing,” he said, his attention never leaving her face. “Those old buildings nearly crumbled around us before Johnny made the right decision. He should’ve taken down all the shacks along the back road, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. How about me? Have I changed?”

Sheila stood back to get a good look at his strong, still-young physique, which showed well in a pair of gray shorts and a snug red knit shirt. For her benefit, he even flexed a couple of muscles.

She grinned. “Not at all.” Gone was her schoolgirl crush, of course, but his charisma couldn’t be denied.

“Neither have you.” He leaned forward and chucked her under the chin.

Some things never changed.

She held out her dirty hands, motioning at her smudged white T-shirt and scruffy jeans. “Is there a place where I can clean up before meeting anyone else? I had a blowout a few minutes ago, and—”

He held up his hand. “Never fear, your apartment is ready for you. Give me the damaged tire and I’ll have it repaired in our auto shop on campus.”

Without another word, Doc got into the passenger side of the Jeep and gestured to Sheila. “Come on, I’ll show you where you’re staying.”

Sheila hesitated. She’d been instructed to report to Canaan York at the principal’s office as soon as she arrived.

“Canaan had to leave for a couple of hours,” Doc said, reading her expression—something he’d always done well. “One of the kids decided she wanted her mommy, and he had to go drag her back.”

Sheila glanced at him. There was that sharp way of speaking that Doc sometimes had that could hurt a sensitive child. As a track coach, he inspired either great loyalty or fearful respect. Either way, it got the job done. Even Sheila had won a race as a child, and had discovered, while in training, that Doc Cottonwood reserved his sharpest words for his favorite students.

She followed Doc’s instructions and drove the Jeep across the school grounds to the far side of the open courtyard.

When they reached the two-story building that Doc said housed the staff, he led the way to one of the ground-floor apartments. He opened the door and held it for her to enter.

“It’s small but efficient,” he said. “One bedroom, one bath, but count yourself lucky. A lot of the teachers have to share a bathroom.”

The interior smelled of the dry wind of the surrounding plain, flavored by sunbaked cedars and piñons. The walls were the color of kiln-dried clay.

“April Hunt just finished cleaning the place,” Doc said. “She cleans the offices and some of the apartments and classrooms for money that she blows on clothes on the mall trip once a month.”

Sheila turned to him. “April? Was she related to—”

“Tad and Wendy, yep. Their daughter.” He sobered, heavy brows lowering as he shook his head. “They had three kids, Steve, Jamey and April. Awful tragedy.”

Sheila nodded, feeling again the shock of the news. “Tad and Wendy were friends of mine when I lived here.”

The dark gaze snapped back to her. “Probably brought back memories for you.”

She spread her hands. How was she supposed to answer him? “The Hunt children are staying at the school?”

He gave his customary, curt single nod. “They’re still reeling from the blow, of course. Their clan would take them in, but the kids want to be here. So they’ll be staying at least until school is out. They’re living in one of the small old cottages at the edge of the campus.”

“Wasn’t it one of those cottages where Tad and Wendy died?” Sheila asked.

Doc nodded. “Johnny didn’t tear down all the buildings when he rebuilt the place. Unfortunately, it was one of the old shacks that burned.”

“What caused the fire?” Sheila asked. “I gathered Johnny didn’t know.”

“No idea yet.” He waved his hand around the living room. “What do you think? The apartments were the latest addition, built last summer.”

Sheila took the hint and allowed him to change the subject. She walked across a slate floor and reached out and touched the soft, plush love seat upholstered in shades of terra-cotta. The kitchen, separated from the living room by a breakfast bar, continued the desert decor.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It looks as if Johnny called in a professional decorator.”

Doc cleared his throat. “That would be me.”

She looked at him in surprise. “No way.”

His eyes glinted with pride. “Cheap labor.”

“You did this?” She shook her head as she admired the taste and style, took in the modern kitchen appliances. “I’d never have dreamed it.”

“You didn’t know your tough old track coach had a touch of the artist in him, did you?” He walked into the kitchen and opened the window over the sink. “Since I stayed on through the summer last year, I had to do something to earn my keep between sessions with the track team.”

“How did the summer sessions pay off with the team?”

“Trophies in every category.”

“Congratulations. I know that isn’t unusual for you, though,” she said.

He nodded his acceptance of her approval. “Let’s bring in your things, and then I’ll get that tire taken care of for you.”

He strode out ahead of her toward the Jeep.

She hesitated, glancing around the apartment, then through the window out across the plain. The gap was breached. After an agonizing time of alternating dread and expectancy, she had arrived.

This was the last place on earth she wanted to be.

Canaan and Tanya were about a half mile from the turn to the school when Tanya gasped and reached across the seat to grab his sleeve.

“Canaan, look!”

She leaned forward, lips parted. She slapped her hand against the windshield in the direction of a white-and-blood-red mound of fur at the right side of the road ahead of them.

Canaan stepped on the brake. A dog.

Tanya grabbed his arm again, her short nails digging into his flesh as the van rolled to a stop.

“It’s Moonlight!” Her voice rose to a screeching crescendo. “It’s our Moonlight!” She clawed at the latch, scrambling to get out.

“Tanya, wait.” Canaan shoved the gearshift into Park and reached for the girl’s arm. “A wounded animal is dangerous.”

“She’s not hurt, she’s dead! Look at the blood.” Tanya’s face crumpled. She jerked away from Canaan and jumped out onto the pavement.

Before he could get out of the van, she’d reached the dog and dropped to her knees. Sobs shook her body. With dismay, Canaan recognized Moonlight, the white animal that had wandered onto the school grounds a week or so ago and been adopted by the children, who had attempted to keep it a secret from the adults—no pets were allowed on school property.

The big dog’s eyes stared, sightless. But she hadn’t been dead long; Canaan caught a whiff of the faint coppery odor of blood and saw that flies had not yet begun to gather.

He bent down, took Tanya by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She whirled around and buried her face in his stomach.

“The wolf killed her, Canaan!” Her voice was muffled against his T-shirt. “He was jealous of her and he killed her.”

Canaan held her, feeling more and more uneasy at the way Tanya spoke about the wolf. “Moonlight has obviously been hit by a car, Tanya. You can see that.” And since he could see no black tire marks on the pavement, it looked as if whoever hit her didn’t even try to stop. In fact, it looked as if someone might have intentionally swerved onto the soft sand shoulder to reach the dog. Anger warmed Canaan’s face.

Tanya raised her head, her stare accusing. Sniffing hard, she stepped away from him, as if she resented his logic.

Canaan turned and followed her back to the van. He would have to break the news to the other children as soon as they reached the school. They would be as devastated as Tanya.

What a bad scene for Sheila to witness when she arrived here. Especially in light of the difficulties she’d had here just before she and her father moved away. Maybe the whole thing could be handled before she arrived.

“You should keep the wolf talk to yourself, Tanya,” he warned. “Others, especially the older people, won’t want to hear it.”

“But why not?”

“Because some of the old ways still linger. Our people don’t talk about the wolf to others, because they believe anyone could be the wolf.”

Tanya shot him a look of alarm.

He smiled. “I’m not trying to scare you, I’m just trying to let you know how others might react.”

“But you’re right, it could be anyone,” she whispered, her wide-eyed gaze aiming toward the school. “And I don’t know who.”

Chapter Five

S heila and Doc Cottonwood set her two suitcases in the bedroom just as the crunch of tires on gravel reached them from outside.

“That must be Canaan and Tanya now,” Doc said, leading the way back out the door. “Might as well start meeting the kids. Tanya’s probably going to be your first challenge.”

“Why is that?”

“She likes her way. She’s a drama queen. Her parents spoil her when they’re with her, and she’s good friends with the Hunt children, so she’s annoyingly emotional right now.”

In spite of the abrasiveness of his words, Sheila thought she picked up on some concern in his voice. “Is she having a lot of trouble with Tad and Wendy’s deaths?”

He nodded as he led the way back out of the apartment. “You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”

Sheila took the sidewalk, curious about what Canaan York would look like all grown-up.

She recognized him immediately, of course. As a child, he’d been small for his age. Now, as he climbed from the van he’d parked beside her Jeep, he straightened to a height well over six feet, long and lean, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt…and a green baseball cap.

He’d always worn a baseball cap.

His skin was well tanned, bare arms muscled, his eyes dark, watchful. He met Sheila’s gaze for a bare second before the young girl, Tanya, exploded from the passenger side of the van.

“It’s Moonlight, Doc! She’s dead!” The girl had long black hair and strong features that would one day lead to beauty. She was possibly in her early teens, with the developing contours of a woman. Tears streaked her cheeks as she flung herself into Doc’s arms. “She’s out on the highway. We’ve got to go get her!”

Sheila saw Doc’s expression harden, and his arms went rigid in the act of encircling Tanya. He raised his gaze to meet Canaan’s.

Canaan nodded as he walked toward them, his sober face pained as he flicked a quick glance at Sheila, then looked back at Doc. “Looks like someone hit her with a car. We’ll take the pickup out and load her.”

“No need. I’ll take care of it,” Doc said.

Canaan’s attention shifted again. “Hello, Sheila.” He took her hand and squeezed it. His hand engulfed hers. “I’m sorry this has happened on your first day.”

Sheila didn’t speak, didn’t return the pressure of Canaan’s hand. She stood perfectly still. That dog in the desert…

No. She hadn’t lost her mind.

But a whisper of foreboding settled on her.

Doc released Tanya and turned to Sheila, brows lowering with obvious puzzlement at her silence.

“Wh-what color was it?” Sheila asked Canaan. “What kind of…dog?”

“She was just a big white mutt,” Canaan said.

“Kind of like a German shepherd?” Sheila asked.

“So did you see the dog?” Canaan asked.

“Well, I thought I saw something in the desert as I drove in, but I didn’t see anything on the road.” She thought again about the blowout…and the big rock on the shoulder of the road. “I had some trouble with my Jeep, hit a rock or something, but—” She hesitated, then shook her head. “The animal I saw was out in the desert, not under the wheel of my car.”

Tanya turned narrowed eyes toward her in accusation.

Sheila shook her head, still thinking about that rock. It was white, shining in the sunlight. The dog had been white.

Canaan glanced toward the front of Sheila’s Jeep. Instinctively, she looked, as well. All she saw was the dent that had been there for several years. No blood, nothing to indicate impact with the hapless animal.

Tanya glared at Sheila. “You just got here, didn’t you?”

Sheila nodded.

“Moonlight was a fresh kill.” The words coming from the girl held an ominous quality. “I think you killed her.”

Sheila shook her head. Surely she’d have seen some evidence…would have seen the dog, if she’d hit it. But she’d been too busy fighting her steering wheel, then changing the tire in record time. The noise she’d heard couldn’t have been the sound of the tire hitting an animal…could it?

But she hadn’t actually walked down the road to make sure that what she had taken to be a big rock was, indeed, a rock and not the lifeless form of a dog. It hadn’t even occurred to her at the time. Why should it?

Tanya’s small fists flexed, her jaw jutting out as she gnashed her teeth. “It’s what we can expect from a biligaana! ”

“Hold it right there.” Doc put a hand on Tanya’s shoulder. “Enough of this. You know better.”

Tanya jerked free of Doc’s hand. “But look at her! She acts guilty.”

“Stop it, Tanya,” Canaan said. “Quit while you’re ahead and go to your dorm.”

The girl stared at Canaan, rebellion in every line of her face, anger dark in her eyes. She turned to Doc, as if for help.

“You heard Canaan,” he said, then turned to Sheila. “Of course, you wouldn’t have—”

“How do you know?” Tanya demanded.

“Okay, that does it.” Canaan stepped forward, took Tanya by the shoulders and aimed her in the direction of the dormitories. “You need a lesson in the value of silence.”

“I’ll take her.” Doc moved quickly. “She can help me take the tire to the shop and dispose of the dog. That’ll take some of the pepper out of her today.”

With a shrug, Canaan stepped aside. “Sure, but what about tomorrow? And the next day?”

Doc nodded grimly. “I’ll let you worry about that. You’re the principal now.”

Sheila braced herself once more. This was quickly developing into the horrible experience she had feared, though not for reasons she ever imagined.

Canaan listened to Doc’s footsteps echo around the curve of adobe buildings and mingle with Tanya’s low, urgent voice as she did her best to convince her mentor of who knew what.

And then Canaan turned to look at Sheila, who was also watching Doc and Tanya, her eyes troubled, confusion in every line of her face.

He hadn’t expected to remember her so well—hadn’t known that twenty-four years could seem like mere days in his memory. Yes, she was an adult now, but she was still Sheila…and he could still read her.

He hated to treat his old friend, whom he’d once loved like a sister, like a crime suspect, but he needed to know what was going on. And something was definitely going on.

“What do you mean, you didn’t see her?” he asked gently.

His question dragged her attention away from Doc and Tanya. “What?”

“You obviously saw the dog, and you haven’t out and out denied hitting her. Do you think it’s possible you hit her? Maybe didn’t see her in the road because of the glare?”

“I…uh…I told you I saw something.” Her face had grown pale. “Just not on the road.”

“I didn’t see any skid marks on the pavement,” he said, trying hard to keep any accusation out of his voice. “But I did see tire tracks in the sandy shoulder. I thought it looked as if someone went to extra lengths to make sure the animal was dead.”

That brought some color back to Sheila’s face. The bright sunlight also exposed tiny lines of worry around her eyes and accentuated the downward turn of her lips, making him further regret this line of questioning. He knew she would never intentionally run down an animal, but he needed to know what did happen, especially now.

She looked away and took a slow, deep breath. “Right. Guess I’ve not made myself clear, but do you mind if we continue this grilling inside? It’s been a long, hot trip from Missouri.” Without waiting for a reply, she stepped back into the apartment, stood by the door until he stepped in, then closed it. “Have a seat. I want something to drink. You?”

He shook his head and sat on the love seat. She was stalling, bumbling around in the small kitchen, searching for glasses, testing the tap.

He watched every nervous move, his concern deepening. “There’s cold water in the fridge,” he said at last.

She ignored him and filled her glass with tap water.

“It’s not an option.” He continued watching her, remembering her occasional stubbornness when they were children. “It’s the only drinking water you have. It’s brought in once a week. That’s never changed.”

With a sigh, Sheila emptied the glass into the sink, set it on the counter and strolled back into the living room, obviously trying hard to look unflustered. “Guess my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

He waited and watched as she sat across from him in a straight-backed chair. Wasn’t she going to explain about the dog? This was the friend he’d loved when they were children, a champion with a tender heart. How many times had he thought about calling her in Missouri, just to see how she was doing? But he never had. How many times, driving east during his medical training, had he considered stopping in Hideaway to look her up? Especially when his own marriage had gone so wrong, and he’d found himself longing for simpler times.

“The Sheila I knew would never have purposely hit a dog,” he said, hoping to reassure her.

She grew still, her glance stabbing at him quickly before sliding away again. “The Sheila I know wouldn’t, either,” she snapped.

It disappointed him that she had taken his statement wrong.

“I’m sorry, Sheila, I’m just having trouble understanding everything that’s happened this—”

“Join the club,” she snapped. Immediately, she looked chagrined, staring down at her hands, strands of her dark, windblown hair falling across her face. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, sighed.

“I don’t know about you folks out here,” she said, “but a suspect is innocent until—”

“We folks out here care about our animals as much as you hillbillies back in Missouri,” Canaan said. He’d intended for that to sound like his old, teasing sarcasm, but for some reason it came out a little more sharply than he’d expected. Her irritation with him, when he was only trying to get to the truth, was not helpful.

Sheila’s mouth snapped shut and her eyes narrowed at him.

Oops. He knew that look. It’d been a while, but it still wasn’t a look he’d wanted to invoke from her.

“And you’re in charge here?” she muttered.

He grimaced. “For lack of a better leader.” Granddad had warned him that there would be days his mouth would get him into trouble. This was one of them. Backpedal, fast. “Sorry, Sheila, that was uncalled for.”

“You bet it was. You got something against Missourians?”

“Nope.”

“Fine. I’ve got nothing against the Navajo, and most of the time I don’t even hold it against men for being men, but I’m not about to let one manhandle me. The Canaan York I knew would never have tried.”

Okay, this wasn’t the Sheila he’d known as a child. Where had this hard streak of bitterness come from? “People change, then, don’t they?” he said softly.

“Yeah, they do. You didn’t used to have this chip on your shoulder.”

He wondered if his eyes might bug out of his head. He had a chip? “You’re adept at changing the subject.”

“Did you come here to talk to me about my new job, or just harass me about a dog?”

“Neither.” He hesitated. His recent suspicions were affecting his manners. “I’m the welcoming committee.”

She grimaced. For a moment, they stared at each other, then Canaan realized the ugly irony of those words. He grimaced. “I tried to give it a personal touch.”

Sheila raised a dark brow. “I’ll consider myself welcomed.” Her voice dripped sarcasm in every word. “This isn’t exactly what I expected.” Though her tone suggested that it might have been what she’d feared.

“I’ll try to do better.”

She nodded, then her shoulders dropped slightly. “Canaan, I’m very, very sorry about the kids’ dog. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know what I can do about it now.” She clasped her hands and looked down at them pensively. “The trip must have taken more out of me than I expected it to. I thought I was up to this, but maybe not.”

Canaan waited.

She continued to stare at her hands. She said no more.

From the Navajo side of his ancestry, Canaan had learned to be comfortable with long stretches of silence during conversation. Busy, useless chatter bothered him. Sheila, obviously, would not inflict that annoyance on him. She used to be quite a talker. Until her mother’s death.

When she finally raised her head, he saw tears in her eyes.

He suppressed a groan. What now? Two crying females in one day. He was not ready for more tears.

“Sheila, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

“Oh, stop it.” She dashed the tears away with an impatient swipe of her fingers. “Please get a different welcoming committee next time.”

He stood up. Time for a quick and merciful departure. “Why don’t you take a rest, and I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready in the cafeteria.”

“That’s an improvement. Why couldn’t you have said that when you first got here?” She stood and walked him to the door. She even managed a tentative smile, a well-remembered smile. With the quick jolt of recognition also came the memory of the sense of loss he’d felt for so many long weeks after she’d left.

He returned her smile. “See you in an hour or so.”

“Right. Thanks for the warning.”

The scent of death…it has haunted me for weeks. Even as I stand in the bright sunlight and watch the life that teems in the children at this great school, I catch that scent. The spirit of the wolf is rumored to enjoy death, and when that spirit comes over me, I catch that passion.

But when that spirit does come over me, I am no longer myself. I am the wolf. My voice changes, my back bows. I walk less upright. The skins I use to cover myself fit me as if they are my own fur. These fools who say there is no other spirit but the precious Lord they serve at this school…they understand so little of the true realm of power.

Let them keep believing there is no such power. The children know. The adults never believe them. And when an adult happens on the truth, I see to it—the spirit of the wolf sees to it—that this adult is silenced forever, no matter the loss to me.

I miss my hogan today, where the smoke of the cedar fire engulfs me like a magical caress. The winds of change drive the heat of the sun through this school and bring a growing threat to me. I must be ever more vigilant, not only to the task before me, but to detection. That would ruin all I have worked for in my life—and the deaths of others would be in vain. As always, though I work with others who also crave the wealth and power we have labored for all these years, I am alone. No one else truly understands the soul-searing power of the spirit of the wolf.

Chapter Six

P reston Black sat on the deck of Graham and Willow Vaughn’s log lodge on the shore of Table Rock Lake, listening to his giggling nieces, Lucy and Brittany, at play by the water. He’d never have dreamed he would love babysitting so much, but those two little charmers captured his heart the first time he met them last year.

A movement caught his attention from across the lake. Blaze Farmer was paddling a canoe from the boys’ ranch on the other shore, about a quarter mile away. Preston knew it was Blaze because it was time to exercise the horses, and also because Blaze was the only Hideaway citizen with skin the color of espresso.

When Preston’s sister and brother-in-law had left him in charge of the place for two days, he had not agreed to do all the chores, keep the horses watered and exercised, the chickens fed and eggs collected. Blaze was in charge of that, for which Preston was deeply grateful. Keeping up with a nine-and six-year-old was enough to keep him occupied.

He appreciated that occupation right now. It couldn’t have come at a better time. He’d been able to do little besides worry about Sheila and brood about their situation. He’d searched the Web countless times for the diseases endemic to the Southwest. That had been a mistake. Squirrels in the Grand Canyon carried fleas that carried the plague. Although anthrax had not been mentioned as a concern at the school at this point, he’d discovered that this nasty little killer could be found in the wool of sheep, which were raised on Navajoland.

He’d harassed nearly every medical person in Hideaway, including Graham and Willow, with questions about hantavirus. This, of course, was fruitless, because hantavirus was not endemic to Missouri, and those who worked in the Ozarks focused on Ozark illnesses.

Hantavirus was the deadly virus that most often occurred in the southwestern part of the country. Deer mice were carriers of this strain of hemorrhagic fever. The droppings from these mice spread the disease through the air.

Though Sheila had assured Preston before she left that the buildings at the school were new and closely monitored for rodents, he knew all the monitoring in the world couldn’t catch everything.

But his real fear wasn’t over the diseases in the area. Yes, the principal had died from the effects of a microogranism, but Sheila’s mother had not, and neither had the Hunts. Preston couldn’t help connecting the deaths of Sheila’s mother and Wendy—both of whom worked in the school clinic. He might be stretching it a bit, but he couldn’t shake his worry.

The canoe was almost to the lake’s halfway point—a distance of about six hundred feet—and Blaze waved. As Preston waved back, the cell phone chirped from his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. Sheila. At last.

He flipped open the phone, eager to hear her voice, yet determined not to let on how badly he missed her, or how much he worried. “Are you there yet?”

“I’m here.” She sounded tired…and something more.

Sheila Metcalf was an eternally upbeat person who tended to lift the spirits of others—without irritating. Many perky people got on Preston’s nerves, but for as long as he had known Sheila, her presence had soothed him. Their relationship hadn’t always been comfortable, but being in her company was like a good day of fishing on James River.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

The barest of hesitations alerted him further. “It’s been a long drive,” she said. “It’s hot, and I’m tired.”

“What happened?”

“What makes you think—”

“Did you find any sick people?”

“I just got here—how am I supposed to have done that?” The fatigue in her voice had quickly turned to irritation, not a usual response from her.

“Did you have trouble on the road?” he asked.

No reply. Which meant she’d had trouble on the road.

“Did the Jeep break down?” he asked. “I knew you should have taken mine.”

The continued silence disturbed him. He watched as Blaze moored the canoe to the small dock about a hundred feet down the gentle slope of hill from the house.

Lucy and Brittany ran to greet their good friend. Brittany hurled herself into his big, strong arms while Lucy hung back, suddenly shy. Lucy adored Blaze Farmer; she had informed Preston that she was going to marry Blaze when she grew up. Preston had a feeling Lucy might have some competition.

The handsome young college student could have an active social life if he weren’t so busy, completing three years of study in two years, helping out at the boys’ ranch that he called home, working part-time at the hospital for his foster mother, Dr. Cheyenne Gideon, taking care of most of the animals in town—Blaze intended to become Hideaway’s first full-time veterinarian.

Just watching the kid work made Preston tired.

“There was something in the desert.” Sheila’s voice was shaky as it reached Preston over the receiver.

His full attention snapped back to her. “Something like what?”

“It looked like an animal running toward the road, maybe a dog. A German shepherd. I saw it as I drove, and then it just seemed to disappear in a puff of smoke.”

Preston waited, tamping down on his alarm while the thought of rabies crossed his mind. He was losing it.

“It drew too much of my attention,” she said. “Next thing I knew, I was off the road. I heard a pop-thud. I had a blowout from hitting a rock, had to change the tire, but if I hit a dog during all that mess, I’d have surely known it.”

He frowned. “What?”

She sighed. “There was a dog found dead on the side of the road near where I had the blowout, and it seems I’m now being blamed for hitting it. Some kind of school pet, I guess.”

“Why does everybody seem to think you hit this dog?”

“I think it’s because they want to believe it.”

He really didn’t like the sound of her voice. He hadn’t liked this journey from the beginning, but telling her that right now wouldn’t help. “So why are you suddenly doubting yourself?” he asked gently. “You’d have known if you hit a dog. In fact, you’d have jumped to the dog’s aid, tried to resuscitate it and barring that, you’d have hauled the poor creature into your Jeep and taken it for help.”

There was a sigh, and then silence.

“Sheila?”

“Thanks. I needed to hear that. It’s just so…so upsetting to be suddenly accused of this…this awful thing barely minutes after arriving here.”

“Bad omen, huh?”

There was a short silence, then a sniffle.

He really, really didn’t like this. He stood up, ready to pack immediately and fly to Arizona. Sheila always had both feet solidly planted on the ground…and now she was talking about disappearing dogs, and crying because she thought people didn’t like her?

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked. “You’re not sick, are you? Because you don’t sound like yourself.”

“Don’t you start, too.”

“I’m not starting anything, I just think—”

“I’m fine, okay? It’s just that when Canaan and Tanya—she’s one of the students at the school—when they arrived…” Sheila sighed. “Anyway, it wasn’t pretty, and I’m tired, and I know this will all blow over, but I’m not feeling the best about things right now.”

“I could come out—”

“And do what?” Snappy again. “Preston, we’ve already discussed this. I’m doing what I need to do. I’m just running into some…bumps along the way. Literally.”

He wanted to be there, but it would do no good to dwell on his frustration, or on hers. “I understand,” he said instead. And he did understand. “Just keep in mind that I’m only a phone call away.”

“I know.” Voice soft again, she sounded defeated. And frightened. “Thanks. That helps, it really does. I think I’m going to take a short nap. Maybe everything will look better after I’ve rested.”

“You said Canaan York was your friend from childhood.”

“We were the best of friends, and if circumstances hadn’t been as they are, it would have been great to see him.”

Preston had never been jealous before. Of course, he’d never been this in love before, either. “It seems to me that such a close friend would have given you the benefit of the doubt.” Already, he disliked this Canaan York. To be honest, he’d felt a chill toward the guy from the moment Sheila began talking about him in such glowing terms before leaving Missouri. A man had his limits.

“Yes, well, people change,” she said.

Preston could have told her that. In fact, he remembered telling her that very thing, which she hadn’t exactly appreciated at the time.

“Besides, as acting principal, he has to get to the bottom of things, and I was the obvious suspect.”

“He accused you of hitting the dog?” he asked. The jerk.

She groaned. “Let’s say he seems to have some concern about my presence here, and the dog tragedy didn’t help.” Again, the weariness.

“Just remember my thoughts are with you,” Preston said.

She was silent.

“Sheila?”

“Yes, I know, your thoughts are with me, but I think what I need right now is something more powerful than mere thoughts, Preston.”

Her words caught him unprepared. He knew what she meant. She was a prayerful person. He was not. And that was her issue with him. No matter how many times they’d argued, discussed, challenged and questioned each other, their differing views about faith had formed a wall between them. No matter how many ways they came at it, the problem was still there…and seemed to be growing.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” he said.

“Yes. I know. Thanks, Preston. I’ll talk to you soon.”

He said a simple goodbye before disconnecting. He wanted to tell her a lot more, to reassure her, but he didn’t see how he could do that. He didn’t know what she was dealing with out there, and she was intentionally keeping several states between them.

How he hated being on standby.

And yet, Sheila had led him to believe that, right now, it was this or nothing. He couldn’t bear nothing.

Canaan stepped through the large room he’d occupied far too much in the past few weeks—the principal’s office. When he was a student here, it was the one place all the children dreaded to go. That hadn’t changed for him. In fact, he’d learned that the principal hated disciplining the child more than the child hated to be disciplined.

Or, at least, this principal hated it. He was not principal material. When his grandfather had asked him to fill this position on an emergency basis, the teachers and other staff had promised to help him with the load. Now he was afraid to ask for help. Whom could he trust?

He entered the clinic, where he’d spent many nights lately, often falling asleep at the desk in the corner. Sinking into the well-used chair, he turned his attention to the bank of file cabinets, where patient records dating back to the founding of the school thirty years ago were waiting for him to study.

And study them he must, as soon as he found time.

People in these parts, including the staff, believed Canaan’s grandfather, Johnny Jacobs, to be a wealthy man. After all, he’d spared no expense on the new buildings last year, especially the clinic, which was, in truth, a very modern medical station, with excellent technical capabilities. The equipment had all been donated by Arizona hospitals, but Johnny made sure that everything was in good working order.

What few people knew was that Granddad had sunk his whole fortune in Twin Mesas and three other mission schools around the state, with just enough generated income to meet the payroll at each school. He also accepted donations from several benefactors who had supported his goals for educating Navajo children from the start. He kept careful records, which he shared with the other contributors.

It was the principal’s job at each school to make an annual report. Bob Jaffrey had done the preliminary work for Twin Mesas this year, but it was up to Canaan to complete it. He looked at a stack of files piled on a corner of the desk and sighed—yet another task he didn’t feel capable of performing.

Canaan loved and respected his grandfather. He would do anything to help him and this school. The problem was that Canaan had almost reached his limit.

When he’d first discovered Sheila was coming, he’d been hopeful. Hard on the heels of that hope, he’d recalled the trouble Sheila had endured here at the time of her mother’s death. He would never forget the haunted child she’d become before her father took her away. No one had seen her pain as Canaan had.

Because of this knowledge, he’d argued with his grandfather about this choice. He’d also argued with Doc Cottonwood, who thought Sheila’s arrival would be reason for celebration.

Johnny Jacobs was not a man easily swayed, or he’d have given up on his dreams for his Navajo friends years ago. He was sold on Sheila’s qualifications, and Canaan hadn’t been able to talk him out of her coming.

After all, as Granddad had emphasized, Sheila was grown now: her traumatic experiences were long behind her. He believed she could handle returning, and that she was familiar enough with their ways that she would be an excellent fit with the schoolchildren she would be helping.

Judging by today, however, Canaan had even more doubts that she’d be able to carry out what needed doing—the blood testing, the physicals. He knew she could perform the tasks, but would she be able to win over the sometimes skeptical children and staff?

Tanya’s reaction concerned him. And Tanya wouldn’t be the only one to resist Sheila’s presence.

He would have to wait and see.

Chapter Seven

P reston shoved his cell phone into the front pocket of his shirt as Blaze walked up the hill toward the house, with a child holding on to each hand. Brittany chortled with laughter at something he had just said; Lucy chuckled with less abandon…though not with less enjoyment. Blaze knew enough animal jokes and stories to keep the girls entertained all day, and he seemed to be having as much fun as they were.

Several of the staff at the Hideaway Hospital had tried to convince Blaze that he had a future in pediatrics. His favorite comment was that he preferred piglets to kidlets, though judging by his behavior with Lucy and Brittany, he would be hard-pressed to charm a baby pig with any more tenderness.

“What’s up?” Blaze stepped up onto the deck, eyeing the glass Preston held in his hand. “That your famous Preston Black iced coffee? Got any more?”

Preston jerked his head toward the kitchen door behind him. “Help yourself. There’s coffee and ice in the kitchen. You know where the glasses are.”

Blaze grimaced and shook his head. “Nah. It doesn’t taste the same if I have to make it myself. Yours are always the best.”

“Who’d ever suspect the great, hardworking Blaze Farmer would be too lazy to make his own drink?” Preston quipped.

“Ask Cook. He’ll tell you how my cooking skills have dropped off since I started college. I can peel taters and haul groceries from the store, but once I start to work around the stove, the boys at the ranch suddenly discover they’ve got to be somewhere else for supper.”

“I guess it’s a good thing Fawn Morrison can cook, then,” Preston teased, and was rewarded by a warm, if clueless, smile. Blaze and Fawn—both students at College of the Ozarks—had been best friends since Fawn’s arrival in Hideaway two years ago. Nearly the whole population of the town knew they were sweet on each other, except for the two of them.

“She’s got Bertie’s black walnut waffles down to a fine art,” Blaze said. “And she’s about to improve on the recipe. I get the rundown on every ingredient change she makes, and I get to sample the results.”

Preston didn’t pursue the subject. Those two kids would pick up on the obvious one day. Until then, let their friendship continue to develop; it was the best way to build a long-lasting marriage. But then, Preston hadn’t ever been married, so what would he know?

Blaze frowned at him. “You got something on your mind today?”

Preston glanced toward the door. “Why don’t I make you my special iced cappuccino.”

“Why don’t I take the girls horseback riding as soon as they wash all the lake mud off their arms and legs,” Blaze said, giving the girls a pointed look.

Before Preston could respond, Lucy and Brittany were racing into the house, arguing over who would be first at the sink.

With a smile, Preston jerked his head toward the door, and led the way inside to make Blaze’s favorite coffee drink.

Blaze followed. “Sheila get to Arizona yet?”

Preston nodded.

“She doing okay?”

Preston placed ice in the blender and started adding coffee, cream, spices. “Not sure.”

“That don’t sound good.”

Preston gave his young friend a glance. Blaze had arrived in Hideaway as a fifteen-year-old kid with dreadlocks, an undeserved reputation as an arsonist…and a broken heart. His father, a divorced veterinarian, had raised Blaze well until the day of his death.

That was when life for poor Blaze—whose given name was Gavin—went swiftly downhill. According to the local grapevine, Blaze’s mother had no maternal instincts, and consequently, the boy had ended up at the boys’ ranch across the lake. Dane and Cheyenne Gideon loved him like a son and were obviously proud of his scholastic accomplishments.

Blaze was very literate, but he had a tendency toward slang, perhaps used in an effort to fit into his surroundings.

Preston set the completed coffee drink on the counter. “One Preston Black Special, just for you.”

“You still thinking about a road trip?” Blaze asked.

“Thinking will do me no good. She doesn’t want me there.”

Blaze waited, his coffee-dark eyes watchful as he sipped his drink.

Preston had never been one to make friends easily. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the reason: no child with a mentally ill mother dared to invite friends over after school. And so he was therefore surprised by his developing friendship with this kid. Blaze had a special talent for sliding beneath a person’s defenses.

Preston also reminded himself that Blaze had a reputation for matchmaking, earned since his arrival in Hideaway, and the kid was proud of it.

“Since when did Sheila start telling you where you could and couldn’t go?” Blaze asked.

Preston gave Blaze a mock glare. “I’m for sure not going down that road, pal. I want to stay friends with her, not alienate her completely.”

Blaze took a long, slow drink of the Preston Special. “Seems to me it can’t get much worse than it already is…unless she up and renews her friendship with that man in Arizona. You got any guarantee against her doing that?”

“There are never any guarantees about anything when it comes to women,” Preston said. “You should know that by now.”

Blaze shook his head. “Not me. I’m just a poor student, trying to figure out how to make his own way in the world.” He set his glass down. “Of course, even busy as I am, seems I’d have time to take a trip to Arizona, if anyone were to ask me to ride shotgun.”

The girls ran back into the room, ready to go riding with Blaze. Preston grinned at them. “Don’t be too hard on the horse.”

“We won’t, Uncle Preston,” Lucy said, gazing up at Blaze with complete adoration.

Blaze winked at her, then opened the door to usher the girls outside. He looked back over his shoulder at Preston. “We could call it a mission trip, you know. From what Sheila said, they could use some more medical help out there to check the kids.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Preston asked. “I’m not medical.”

“Clinics always need willing aides, and you’re a whiz with numbers and finances. Mission schools always need a lot of that, too. If the place doesn’t need your brain, it could probably use your brawn, fixin’ things, hammerin’ nails, you know, things like that.”

Preston nodded as Blaze walked out the door with the girls. Blaze always tended to slice to the heart of a matter. Sheila wanted space, and she was candid about the reason why.

Neither Preston nor Sheila could deny the attraction between them—a powerful draw that often left common sense and thoughtful consideration in the dust. Though they remained chaste, their attraction still influenced their ability to make good decisions.

At least, that was what Sheila said. Preston knew she had good reasons to go to Arizona—even more compelling reasons than Blaze’s—but Preston couldn’t help feeling that one of her unspoken motives was to get away from him so it would be easier to break things off with him for good.

Until now, he’d been comfortable respecting her wishes. But after talking with Blaze, that didn’t seem like such a good option, after all. Sheila had spoken of Canaan York with a great deal of affection, which Preston found impossible to ignore. Did she hold some kind of hope of renewing her childhood friendship with the man?

What if the unthinkable happened? Sheila and Canaan had been good friends once—and he was the grandson of the owner of Twin Mesas School, as well as a physician, and most likely a Christian. Buster Metcalf, Sheila’s father, had mentioned, too, that Canaan was no longer married.

Preston wasn’t the kind of man to panic, but neither did he want to just sit on his thumbs here in Missouri and risk losing the only woman who had ever made him see the possible merits of a lasting marriage.

He knew Blaze had a passion for medicine of any kind, be it animal or human. Trauma junkie that he was, the kid could make a great pediatrician or a great E.R. doc, if he wanted. And he’d made it obvious he would love to take a trip to Arizona.

With some creative reasoning, Preston and Blaze might be able to drive to Arizona and call the drive a mission trip. For sure, it would be that for Blaze.

Preston’s first priority was Sheila’s safety. The Navajo reservation didn’t seem to him to be a safe place at the moment, and the more he thought about Blaze’s words, the more convinced he became that sitting here waiting for Sheila to call wasn’t necessarily the best thing for her.

Sheila wouldn’t buy this thinking, of course, and she would resent his interference. No matter what Sheila said, though, one thing was obvious—Canaan York needed more help just to see that the kids and their families received the usual medical screening before school let out for the summer. Blaze could help get it done in half the time, and Preston did know how to do paperwork.

Wouldn’t that be worth a little emotional risk for her, in the long run?

A black shadow-image with long, pointed ears and sharp, blood-smeared fangs raced across the darkness after Sheila. Her mouth opened in a mute scream. Her body tensed, then jerked, bringing her wide-awake. She lay still for a moment, body stiff, as awareness of the dream slipped away and relief flooded her.

She gazed around the shaded room, grown darker with the dying sun. Perspiration filmed her skin, soaking her hair and clothes, even the bedspread.

A warm, dry breeze blew through the open window beside the bed, pushing past the lapis lazuli curtains. The tang of cedar was pleasant, but it stirred the dead ashes of the dream, evoking once more the monster that kept stalking her into her waking hours—a familiar specter that had impelled her here in the first place.

“Sheila?”

At the sound of her name, she had no trouble imagining the voice of that monster, calling to her from beyond the divide between sleep and consciousness.

“Are you in there?” he asked.

She felt a wash of relief and relaxed. It was Canaan’s muffled voice, reaching her from outside the apartment door. She blinked and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

Canaan knocked.

“Coming,” Sheila called, her voice barely more than a croak. She closed her eyes and swallowed, willing her heart to slow. The day’s events had mingled with her nightmares, making it all more real and more frightening.

“Are you okay, Sheila?”

“Yes, I’m coming, keep your cap on.” Great. She was in no mood to exchange small talk in the school cafeteria with new faces and with old acquaintances who had lived only in her memories for the past twenty-four years, and her reunion with Canaan wasn’t turning out to be as comfortable as she’d hoped it would be. So much for old friendships. After the incident with the dog, even Doc Cottonwood might no longer be so welcoming. She had prepared herself for this, though. She’d known it might not be easy to come back here; this could be a challenging exercise in patience—and fortitude.

She opened the door, still fingering the hair out of her face. It didn’t surprise her to see that Canaan had on a different ball cap than the one he’d worn this afternoon.

Sheila tried to force a smile that she couldn’t quite get to materialize. “Hi. Guess I fell asleep.”

“I’m glad you decided to take a nap. Are we on speaking terms again?”

“I hope so, because I wanted to ask you about your ball cap collection. How many do you have now?”

He grinned. “I’ve whittled them down over the years, but I still have about fifty.”

“You had more than that when I lived here.”

He removed the one on his head to reveal shiny black hair, cut above his ears. Shorter than Preston’s.

And why was she comparing the two men, all of a sudden? “I also wanted to ask you about the beautiful works of art.” She gestured toward two wood carvings on the coffee table. One was a life-size head of a bighorn sheep; the other was a startlingly beautiful replica of the famed Rainbow Bridge stone arch on Lake Powell.

“The initials on the bottoms of these are CY. ” She picked up the carving of Rainbow Bridge. “Anyone you know?”

“Sounds familiar,” he said.

She sighed. Canaan York had always been willing to shoulder responsibility when anything went wrong, and always reluctant to take credit—like for the beautiful results of his creativity.

“So you followed in your mother’s sculpturing footsteps,” she said. “Is she still creating her fascinating works?”

He nodded, obviously proud of his mother. “Her name is known in some circles all across the country.”

“I think these are just as beautiful. I’m honored you used them to decorate my apartment.”

She replaced the carving on the coffee table, aware of Canaan’s flush of pleasure and his effort to suppress it.

“Thanks. Are you hungry?”

“Not too much.” Sheila glanced at her watch. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m really not up to this right now. Why don’t you—”

“You need to eat.” His deep voice suddenly became firm. “Besides, you should start meeting some of the staff. You don’t want them to think that you think you’re too good to eat with them, do you?”

Sheila grimaced. Her head ached. But she did need to start meeting the staff, and she didn’t want to do it all alone.

“You aren’t my boss until I start work,” she said. “But I guess I can force myself to eat.”

Canaan gave her a smile, erasing the serious expression that seemed to be permanently attached to the adult Canaan York. “Hope you still like mutton stew.”

Sheila made a face, and Canaan chuckled.

“It’s a special treat for the others. They’re also serving chicken fried steak for those with biligaana tastes.”

“Good.”

“By the way, Betsy Two Horses is still in the cafeteria. She’s head cook now. She and your mother were once pretty good friends, weren’t they?”

“Yes, they were.” It would be good to see Betsy again. Not that she and Sheila would have time to talk with a dinner crowd around, but just to see her again…Sheila reached up and fingered the turquoise-and-gold cross at her throat.

Seeing Betsy would bring so many of her memories crashing back. But the time had come to face them—and there was no turning back now.

Chapter Eight

C anaan sat on the sleeper sofa in Sheila’s small apartment, listening to the splash of water in the bathroom as Sheila got ready to go to dinner. She obviously was reluctant to join him for tonight’s meal. He wasn’t exactly ecstatic about it, either. He would have enjoyed sharing a meal with her without the prying eyes of the whole student body and faculty on them. How he would love to sit down with her and catch up on the past years.

Sheila joined him, and they stepped out into the darkening, cooler air of evening.

“I had forgotten how suddenly night falls here,” she said. “In Missouri, the sunset hangs on forever.”

“I remember,” he said.

She looked up at him. “You were in Missouri?”

“When I had rotations, I drove through a couple of times. I discovered that, in the Ozarks, the sun seems to spread out into the heavier, moister atmosphere there, and then, just before it starts its plunge past the horizon, it lingers in the line of forest.”

“Sounds as if you enjoyed it.”

“I did.”

“I wish you’d tried to contact Dad or me on your way through. We could have put you up for the night.”

“It just never seemed to be the right time.” Especially since she had been married then. Canaan doubted her husband would have understood an old male friend simply stopping by to spend the night.

He couldn’t help noticing as they walked that Sheila was studying every line of every building, every plant. It must be disconcerting to find a once-familiar home changed so completely.

All of the old school buildings were gone, and it seemed to take her a few moments to realize that the cafeteria, just ahead and to their right, was set in exactly the same position as the old one.

“The new cafeteria’s prettier,” Canaan said, and was rewarded by a fleeting look of surprise. Amazing he could still, at times, read her mind.

Piñon and olive trees, thriving in this climate, surrounded the cafeteria. Canaan had considered planting cactus, as well, but he couldn’t risk harm to children playing in the area.

“It seems as if some calm, gentle spirit has encompassed the school,” Sheila said.

He warmed at her words of praise. “Thank you.”

“Don’t tell me you did the landscaping,” she said.

He nodded. “Doc said I needed a deeper tan.”

“That sounds like something he would say.” Warm affection filled her words. Sheila had once been one of Doc Cottonwood’s favorite young students; when he had taken her under his wing, it had helped establish her as just another student, and not a biligaana. Her friendship, in turn, had encouraged Canaan to face up to the bullies who’d picked on him.

“I enjoyed the gardening,” Canaan said.

“More than you enjoy medicine?” she asked.

“No, but I like it more than being principal. Besides, the physical activity did me good.”

She glanced up at him, and he thought he caught a brief gleam of approval as her gaze rested on the breadth of his shoulders, and again he relished that approval. Having been the smallest in his class, he had despaired as a child of ever growing. His growth spurt had hit in his senior year of high school. Perhaps it was this feeling of isolation for so long in his childhood that had kept him hitting the books when other classmates were more active in sports.

“Once the trees have matured,” Sheila said, “this whole place will look like an oasis from the road.”

“That’s the plan.” He hesitated. Though it would be great to bask in her kind words—particularly after the uncomfortable circumstances accompanying her arrival—he couldn’t linger there. “Were you looking for an oasis when you decided to come here?”

“Nope.” Clipped. Almost sharp, and the tone relayed Back off clearly enough for most people.

“So why did you come?” He wasn’t most people.

“Because I’m between permanent jobs at the moment. And no, I wasn’t fired from my previous position. The hospital where I worked lost federal funding and had to cut back on staffing.”

“A loss of federal funding would shut down most hospitals.”

“It probably will this one, as well, eventually, but it’s still limping along right now.”

“What was the infraction?”

“One of the doctors refused to accept a patient being transferred from a smaller hospital. The patient died in transit to the other hospital in town.” She looked up at him. “Do I have to undergo another employment interview? Your grandfather already asked me these questions.”

“I’m just curious,” Canaan assured her. “So you suddenly decided, after all these years, that you’d like to work for room and board and paltry pay in the isolation of this school?”

She didn’t reply.

“It’s been a bad homecoming for you,” Canaan said. “I’m sorry I’m not making it any easier.”

“You sure aren’t.”

He glanced at her, appreciating the profile of the grown-up Sheila. She looked a lot like her mother, though her hair was darker; her mother had been blond. Evelyn Metcalf had been a beautiful woman—at least, from the viewpoint of a ten-year-old boy who didn’t know very much about women. Sheila had inherited those looks.

It appeared that she’d also inherited a strong strain of her father’s dynamic personality. Although that strength seemed to have left her earlier today.

“I think you’ve had a difficult couple of years,” he said.

She didn’t look at him, but slowed her steps to match his. “You’ve been talking to your grandfather.”

“Of course. I was sorry to hear about the death of your husband.”

She nodded but said nothing.

Canaan wanted to ask why she’d resumed using her maiden name, but that was pushing it too far. Maybe after dinner.

“I gather you’re not thrilled about my presence here,” she said.

“I am, in a way.”

Amusement came and went in her expression. “A very small way.”

“Fishing for compliments?” he asked.

She chuckled suddenly, and he couldn’t help smiling. When they were kids, any time Canaan became frustrated and bemoaned his size, she’d poke him in the ribs and say, “Catch a big one, York, but you’ll have to clean it yourself.” Since Canaan wasn’t a fisherman, she’d had to explain the fishing reference she’d learned from her father.

“We’re not talking about how I feel right now,” Canaan said. “We’re talking about your true mission here.”

She scowled at him. She even had a pretty scowl.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “If I weren’t in the position I’m in, I wouldn’t be asking any questions, I’d just be happy to see you, no matter why you came.”

“That wasn’t the impression I got.”

He spread his hands. “Things aren’t as I’d like them to be.”

“What did your grandfather tell you about me?”

“Not enough for me to form an opinion, only that you’d had a rough two years, you needed a break for a few weeks and that you were the best nurse in the county.”

She glanced at him.

He shrugged. “Direct quote from your father, I think.”

“Are you still open to discussion about the dog this afternoon?”

“To be honest, though I was upset about Moonlight, something else about your behavior concerned me.”

“Because I didn’t realize I’d hit her?”

Canaan shook his head, not sure, exactly, why he had even admitted that much. “Because you probably didn’t hit her.”

Her steps slowed further. “You really think that?”

He nodded.

“You could have fooled me.”

“You didn’t defend yourself, Sheila. Tanya jumped to conclusions because of that.”

“I had the impression that she didn’t need much encouragement. It’s been a long time since I’ve been called a biligaana with such vehemence.” She shrugged. “Hillbilly, yes, but not biligaana. ”

“That’s another thing,” he said. “The words I used in an attempt at a joke, you interpreted as hostility.”

As a group of children marched past them on the sidewalk, Canaan called greetings to them, then returned his attention to Sheila. “You weren’t yourself today.”

“You don’t know me as an adult, so you can’t say that.”

“Okay, sorry. I meant to say that the Sheila I once knew would never have allowed anyone to unfairly accuse her.”

“Well, this Sheila couldn’t help second-guessing what she saw. Did you ever think that there might have been two dogs on the road today? The dog I saw in the desert distracted me at the wrong time, and the dog alongside the road—perhaps a buddy—got under the wheel of the tire as I veered from the road.”

“So now you’re trying to work out a scenario in your mind that you can accept. The Sheila I knew would never try so hard to place herself in the wrong.”

“That makes the third time you’ve mentioned the Sheila you knew. Mind telling me a little more about this other me?”

No difficulty there. He’d given it a lot of thought since his last conversation with his grandfather. “The Sheila I remember best is the one I knew when her mother was alive.”

She looked away. This interested him, since he could have sworn Sheila had returned to Twin Mesas, at least in part, to discover more about Evelyn Metcalf, her death and her life here. He had no idea what her father had told her, but Canaan wasn’t going to pass along old hurtful gossip about Evelyn.

Although there hadn’t been much. The People did not make a habit of speaking ill of the dead, because they rarely spoke of the dead at all.

“Don’t you and your father discuss your mother?” he asked.

“We’re talking about young Sheila right now.”

He nodded. Fair enough. “She laughed a lot, she spoke her mind and she despised bullies. She wasn’t afraid to face down the biggest kid on the playground if he was picking on the pip-squeak.”

Canaan saw her wince at the name he’d been called so often.

“No one would call you that now,” she said.

“Sometimes I wonder if I grew so tall just to prove those bullies wrong.”

She smiled at him. “Or maybe to prove me right? That you were the best guy at Twin Mesas.”

He tentatively returned the smile. “I sure missed that after you left.”

Her smile was a fleeting thing, and once again she stared at the ground, looking pensive.

“I often wondered if the real Sheila ever resurfaced,” he said. “By the time you and your dad left here, your heart had gone into hiding. You never cried for her.”

She looked at him, obviously startled. “I cried.”

“For your mother? I know you cried about leaving here, and about leaving me. You never mentioned your mother’s name, never talked about her.”

“My father never mentioned her.”

A troop of little girls pranced across the sandy playground from the dormitories. Their dorm mother, a plump woman with short black hair and olive-toned skin, waved to Canaan. He waved back as the group filed through the cafeteria entrance.

“You remember the day of my mother’s death that well?” Sheila asked.

“It isn’t something I’m ever likely to forget, the day Granddad carried you in from that desert, dehydrated and nearly catatonic.” He could still close his eyes and see his grandfather’s gaunt face and tortured eyes as he carried her, surrounded by teachers and dorm parents from the school.

“It was the day I lost my best friend,” he said softly. “You were never the same.”

He watched her close her eyes, and he knew he’d scored an unintentional hit. Sheila Metcalf had come back to Twin Mesas to find what she’d lost as a child.

Why did he suspect that the tragedy of Evelyn’s death could somehow be connected to the recent tragedies that had taken place here at the school? Could it be because Wendy Hunt had called him just before the fire, telling him she had found something disturbing, and that he needed to see it?

Evelyn Metcalf had done the same long ago. Canaan had been in the cafeteria, slouched over his food, under orders from his dorm room father to eat it all before leaving. Canaan’s smallness had seldom been a bonus for him, but at that time no one had seen him. He’d overheard Evelyn whisper something to Betsy behind the counter. “I need to talk to you later,” she’d said. “I found something in the medical records that I can’t figure out.”

Moments later, Canaan had seen a teacher, Kai Begay, get up from his table in the faculty section, behind a partition. Later, Evelyn had been found dead. Canaan had always wondered if anyone else had heard the exchange.

If it had been just his child’s imagination that made him suspect something sinister had happened, then why was he so anxious now that danger may have lain in wait all these years?

Chapter Nine

S heila felt sick all of a sudden—and in over her head. She had lost all her curiosity about her mother, though she was sure that would return. But now, everything seemed to be happening too quickly.

“So, I think we’ve exposed everything about Sheila that we can tonight,” she said drily, hesitating at the cafeteria door. “Why don’t we learn a little about Dr. Canaan York?” Anything to delay the inevitable plunge.

To her relief, he took the hint and ceased further probing. He also didn’t open the door. “I’m not a good principal.”

“Most doctors I know wouldn’t make good principals, but this position is temporary, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “If I can make it three more weeks.”

“I understand this has been your first year at the school clinic.”

He looked at her. “I’m sure Granddad managed to tell you everything about my life since you left. He has a tendency to…um…boast a little more than I’d like him to.”

“Oh, yeah, you mean the way he has of saying, ‘My grandson, the doctor,’ every other sentence?”

Canaan chuckled.

“He told me you joined a clinic practice in Ganado as soon as you’d completed your residency.”

“That’s right,” Canaan said. “Many of the Twin Mesas’ graduates went to college in Ganado, so I knew many of my patients already.”

“Sort of like built-in job security,” she said.

Canaan hesitated. How he wished he’d been able to have built-in marriage security so easily. “You know how hard it can be for The People to trust outsiders, or even strangers in our tribe.”

“Your grandfather said a large percentage of Twin Mesas’ graduates go on to college.”

“Yes, Granddad’s proud of that.” Canaan hesitated. “I am, too.”

Sheila glanced up at the change in his voice. “You don’t sound too sure of that.”

He shook his head. “Some of the graduates didn’t make it to college. Two didn’t even live to graduate. They had such high hopes for the future, but they died before they could realize their dreams.”

“How?”

“Accidents.”

“What kind of accidents?”

“One from heatstroke. He was found out in the desert two years ago. He should have known better. He grew up in this desert.”

“And the other?” Sheila asked.

“Car wreck down in Gallup last year. Hit by a drunk.”

“So the deaths were unrelated.”

He grimaced.

She wondered if he realized how poorly he hid his thoughts. He’d never been good at keeping his emotions off his face. “So you came here after you became so concerned about the deaths.”

He didn’t return her look. “After Grandad asked me to.”

“He wanted you here to keep an eye on things,” she guessed.

He glanced through the glass doors into the cafeteria. “And that didn’t work, either. Three died under my watch.”

“And the Hunts were also former students,” she said.

“All three were former students. Bob Jaffrey was, as well.”

“You’re desperate to find out what’s going on.”

He nodded.

“Tell you what, I’ll keep a close eye on your work next week, and give you a critique on Friday.”

“Just what I need,” he said dryly. “Another critic.”

“I’ve heard there’s been quite a turnover of principals in the past few years,” she said.

“Seems that way.”

“I’m not getting myself into the middle of a mess, am I?” she asked. “You know, student pranks, stuff like that?”

“No pranks. Nothing we can’t handle.”

“But there is something.”

He turned to look at her for a long moment as his hand went to the cafeteria door. He grasped the handle, then stood still. “Do you remember when we were kids, we used to try to help Granddad’s neighbor herd his sheep?”

“And we spooked them every time.”

“Right. The kids remind me of those spooked animals.”

“How?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, shaking his head. “I’m afraid you’ll see what I mean when you start talking to them.” He pulled open the door. “If you do, will you tell me?”

“I’ll add it to my critique.”

Sheila took a deep breath and preceded Canaan into the noisy cafeteria. The huge room, as modern and clean as the exterior of the building, had been designed with children in mind. Bulletin boards held beautiful drawings and collages. She wondered if Canaan had a hand in the inspiration for some of the masterpieces.

The aromas were the same as they had been nearly a lifetime ago. Sheila knew if she closed her eyes, the smell of yeasty rolls and bubbling stew would draw her back to the days when Betsy Two Horses had stood at the serving line, teasing and laughing with the hungry children.

Recognition and remembered affection warmed Sheila as she caught sight of the Navajo woman. Funny how she could remember Betsy and Canaan and the ruggedness of the land surrounding the school so very well, but she could barely remember her mother’s image.

No, not funny, but certainly sad.

From across the length of the large cafeteria, Betsy didn’t look more than fifty, though she must be past seventy. Tendrils of her hair, still as black as Sheila remembered, had escaped the ponytail that emphasized her thin, angular face. As she reached up to push the strands back, her dark eyes met Sheila’s.

For a moment, Betsy stared. Her thick, dark brows gave her a glowering appearance, until a gleam of recognition lightened the woman’s expression.

Canaan touched Sheila’s arm and led her forward, past the chattering kids holding their trays and the dorm parents who monitored to make sure their charges behaved while the principal was in the room.

“Well, Betsy?” Canaan said. “You told me you’d recognize her.”

Betsy looked at Canaan, then at Sheila. In the light, the deep lines of her face belied the youthful blackness of her hair, but the warmth in those eyes welcomed as it had so long ago.

“I knew her,” Betsy said, then directed her gaze to Sheila. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“It’s been a long time,” Sheila said.

Betsy studied Sheila more closely. “You’ve always looked like Evelyn.” She explained to Canaan, “Sheila’s mother.”

“I know,” Canaan said dryly. “I was here, too, remember?”

Before they could talk further, a group—Sheila guessed they were teachers—entered the cafeteria, talking and laughing as energetically as students…until they saw Sheila.

Silence descended, amusement disappeared and the expressions on various faces ranged from curiosity to resentment.

For the first time, Sheila became aware of the paleness of her skin. It felt strange. She couldn’t remember ever feeling out of place at this school when she was a little girl. Always, when she’d been here, she had belonged.

Canaan touched her arm and addressed the new arrivals. “Come and meet Sheila Metcalf, the nurse Johnny Jacobs has hired to help me in the clinic. She and I attended school together here when we were children, which means she’s one of us.”

Sheila felt only slightly relieved when a few of the expressions lightened. One heavyset woman who had passed them earlier with a group of children stepped forward and picked up her tray, interest sharpening her delicate features.

“I hear you’re going to examine my kids,” she said, selecting her silverware. “I have first-and second-grade girls.”

“This is Jane Witherbe,” Canaan told Sheila, putting an arm on the woman’s shoulder. “She’s been a teacher and dorm mother here for a lot of years.”

Jane nodded, dark eyes friendly, and the smile revealed she was older than she first appeared. “I remember you, Sheila. My first year here was—” the smile disappeared “—it was the year you left.”

“You’ll like her kids,” Canaan said smoothly. “They’re well behaved.”

Another of the women spoke up. “They’re all good kids. They mind their teachers and dorm parents.”

One of the men snorted, his expression still grim, his gaze most unwelcoming as he studied Sheila’s face. “That’s because they’re all Dineh. ”

Sheila knew that word. It was what the Navajo called themselves. It meant The People. The man looked familiar, and for a moment Sheila held his dark gaze. She remembered his name without having to be told. Kai Begay. He’d been a teacher-parent when Sheila had lived here. But he hadn’t been unfriendly then, had he?

“Sheila was with us for several years, Kai,” Canaan said. “You should remember her, since you were here at the time her parents came. Her mother was our nurse, and her father helped the local farmers to utilize their land more efficiently.”

Kai Begay’s chin came up as he met Canaan’s gaze and held it for a moment. Canaan returned the look. Kai cleared his throat and looked away.

Something relaxed inside Sheila. Canaan might not feel as if he would make a good principal, but he was obviously making an effort to retain control of the staff, no matter how unpopular that might make him.

Betsy Two Horses returned her attention to the steam table in front of her.

As the talk increased and the tension eased, Sheila pushed her tray along the counter.

Betsy gave her a quick once-over. “You’re starving yourself,” she said, her voice brusque as always, but her eyes still warm.

“I’ve actually gained some weight,” Sheila told her.

“Well, gain some more.” Betsy held up a ladle of stew. “Mutton.” Her dark eyes gleamed with the barest touch of humor. “Your favorite.”

Sheila nodded and enjoyed the look of surprise on Betsy’s face. She’d never developed a taste for the stew as a child, and she’d been teased about it a few times. But who was to say her tastes hadn’t changed in twenty-four years?

When Canaan turned with his tray toward a far table, Sheila glanced at Betsy wistfully. When the glass door opened and more people entered, Sheila turned away and wove between the tables to where Canaan waited. Later. She and her old friend would have time to become reacquainted soon.

In spite of what she’d told Canaan, Sheila had no appetite. In fact, she hadn’t felt hungry all week. Now, as she glanced into the bowl of thick stew, nausea bubbled in her stomach. The reaction of the dorm parents, especially Kai Begay, concerned her. It didn’t help that she felt as if time had shifted, as if she were a child again.

Canaan held her chair out for her.

He sat down after she did. He bowed his head, said a brief prayer softly, as if to himself, then tore off a corner of his bread and dipped it in his stew.

“Fry bread?” Sheila asked. “I didn’t see that.”

He chewed, swallowed. “You were so busy watching Betsy, you pushed your tray right past it. She was always good with us kids, wasn’t she?”

Sheila nodded, fingering the cross at her throat. “She gave me this.” She glanced toward the serving line, where Betsy was greeting incoming diners with a quick word or nod.

“That necklace?” Canaan bent forward and examined it more closely. “Did she make it?”

“No, her husband made it for her a few years before he died. She gave it to me after my mother died.”

“It’s skillfully made. Do you wear it often?”

Sheila nodded. “Almost all the time when I was growing up. Every time I touched it, I could remember that someone loved me enough to give me something that meant a lot to her. She told me that she had worn it constantly after her husband’s death, until her fear of life went away and she no longer felt alone.”

“Do you still feel alone?”

She gave him a wry look. “I’m thirty-four years old, I have plenty of friends in Hideaway, my father is whole and healthy and Preston…” She smiled.

“Yes? Preston…?”

“A good friend.”

“Is that a euphemism for a person of consequence in your life?” Canaan asked.

“Let’s just say my life is full and very interesting at the moment.”

“Because of Preston?”

Though Canaan watched her intently, she didn’t elaborate. Best not to get into a discussion about other difficulties in her life right now.

Obviously curbing his curiosity, Canaan gestured toward the teachers and dorm parents who were making their way to a long table set apart from the children. “Most of the staff are warmhearted, good people. There will always be a certain percentage of people who have trouble accepting newcomers, no matter who they are, or what color.”

“I’m no newcomer to Kai Begay,” Sheila reminded him. “He knew me when I was a child, and I don’t remember any resentment from him then. I don’t remember the problem being so prevalent here before.”

“You were a child then.”

“Children can sense things, and I would have sensed that brand of prejudice.”

“But Kai is not antagonistic with children,” Canaan said. “He loves them, which is why he’s remained here all these years. This is his life.”

“Did he treat my parents the way he’s treating me now?”

Canaan pulled off a section of his fry bread and set it on her plate. He drizzled honey from a plastic container on the table on the other piece. “Kai has always been outspoken, but he loves the children.”

Sheila watched him take a big bite of the bread. “You didn’t answer my question, and you’re just repeating yourself. Does he pass his prejudice along to the children?”

Canaan chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed, giving her a disgruntled look. “You never broke that habit, did you?”

“Of what?”

“Asking me a question as soon as I put food in my mouth.”

“You’re doing better, though. Now, at least, you don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Canaan gave his sweetened bread a loving look, then set it back onto his plate. “Kai eats with the kids and spends a lot of his free time with them. What do you think?”

“It’s a shame he feels the way he does. The children need to learn to get along with people of every race if they’re to function in the world outside the reservation.”

Canaan nodded, picking up his bread again. “You’re right. Absolutely. Now let me eat.”

Sheila sighed and picked up her fork, faking an appetite, though she didn’t expect to fool Canaan. He seemed to remember a lot of things about her, and his memories intrigued her.

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