Hot for the Holidays

  “I never trusted you,” the Alpha hissed.

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

  “Changers have a pack. Skinwalkers are alone.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “They could be an army.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  NINE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Why don’t you just die?” he growled.

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

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

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

  “Done,” Coyote said in a deep voice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “They’re coming. Look.”

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

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

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

  “Who are they?” Naomi asked.

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

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

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

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

  Coyote chuckled. “Naomi the Unbeliever.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “We who?” Naomi asked, mystified.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Yes,” Jamison said slowly.

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

  “Yes to everything, Grandfather.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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