She thought about it for a second, then gave him her hand. Though she wasn’t a small woman—only a few inches shorter than he and nicely curved—he easily pulled her up to her feet. She stood there, amber gaze taking him in, while he did the same. Pale skin, wide-spaced round eyes, high cheekbones, strong chin, full lips—a mix of the people in this state.

She was the most fascinating-looking lass he’d ever met.

“Thank you,” she said. “Ella Thunder.”

He grinned. “Powerful name. Tiernan McKenna. I would be a cousin to Rose Farrell.”

“Farrell.” As if suddenly realizing he hadn’t let go of her hand, she pulled hers from his grasp and slid it behind her back. “They have a ranch a couple miles from here, right?”

So she didn’t know them. “That they do. The MKF—stands for McKenna-Farrell. Aren’t you from this area?”

“I used to be,” she said. “I was on my way to visit the grandparents.”

“On refuge land?”

“On the rez. This is a shortcut.”

He could see it in her—she was definitely part, though not all, Native American. “You stopped for some reason.”

“Just to look around. It’s been a long time,” she admitted. “I was here maybe five minutes.” She checked her watch. “I must have only been out for a few minutes.”

“So, in the five minutes you were here just looking around, someone decided to hurt you?”

She frowned at him again, her thick dark brows nearly pulling together. “You don’t believe me?”

“Nah, nah, that’s not what I was saying.”

“Then what did you mean?” she asked.

“Just trying to make sense of it all. Wondering if the thing that spooked the herd was human rather than something four-footed.”

“I thought it might be a cougar, too.”

“So if the culprit was human, he could have done something to scare off the herd and then didn’t want you to see his face. The question is…what was he up to?”

“I don’t know. We could look around to see.”

“I’m thinking you shouldn’t be walking around. Or driving. You could have a concussion.”

“What I have is a headache.” She gave him a fierce look. “Of the human kind.”

He stared down at her, tried to read her for anything unusual. Oddly, he didn’t get much off her, as if she were somehow blocking him mentally. Now how was that possible? he wondered.

“Are you dizzy? Any ringing in the ears?”

“I’m a little off-center. Not exactly dizzy. More like light-headed. No ringing.” Her voice rose with her irritation. “Are you a doctor?”

He shook his head. “Working around horses, I’ve seen enough accidents—had a couple myself. I know the signs of a concussion. Let me get a better look at your eyes.”

Before she could deny him, he lifted her chin. The contact was potent and he froze like that, not daring so much as to breathe. What was it with this woman? What was she doing to him? It took all his concentration to suck in some air and do what he meant to do. He checked her pupils—both equal in size and therefore normal—and gazed right through them, searching…searching…

A quick flash of light accompanied sharp pain and disorientation and finally the sensation of falling.

Tiernan blinked and shook his head to clear it. “I don’t think you were hit at all—not enough to knock you out, that is.”

She stiffened. “I thought you believed me.”

“Turn around. Let me look at the back of your head. Please.” With that she turned and he asked, “Where does it hurt?”

“Here.”

Inspecting the area she’d indicated, he saw a tiny pinprick. “Just as I thought. You were darted.”

“What?”

Ella flipped around to face him. A little flustered but steady enough.

“We do it with horses when necessary,” Tiernan explained. “The dart contains a small explosive charge that detonates on impact and injects the drug. The dart itself often bounces off the animal.”

The reason she’d recovered so quickly was that she’d barely gotten any of the drug. He inspected the ground and spotted a hint of yellow in the crushed pine needles that had been under her body. He stooped and dug out the dart, held it up with the tips of two fingers, then carefully pocketed it in his vest. Hopefully, he’d recover the attacker’s fingerprints, as well.

Unarmed but for a knife sheathed on his belt, Tiernan surveyed the area, demanding assurance that the danger was over. He sensed nothing but he wasn’t at ease, either.

“In a shady spot like this, the dart will flash when the explosive detonates,” he went on. “That was the flash that accompanied the pain.”

“I didn’t tell you I saw anything.”

“Of course you did or how would I know it?”

Though Ella didn’t argue further, she gave him a suspicious expression. “Well, do I check out, McKenna? Can we look around now?”

Feeling only that she was slightly out of sorts, nothing more serious, Tiernan grinned and said, “Just take it slow and yell if anything doesn’t feel right, Thunder.” She did remind him of a thunder cloud, ready to rumble at him. “Could you tell the direction your attacker came from?”

Reorienting herself with the valley, Ella turned to the area behind her and said, “Somewhere over there.”

Tiernan scanned the ground until he found some needles trampled on the forest path, no doubt by the attacker’s feet. “This way. Stay close.”

They moved through the trees, following the faint impressions.

Ella was the first to say, “Wait. Here the tracks go in two directions.”

“Hum. I would guess the way we’ve been going is the way he retreated, but he came from the northeast. Must’ve seen or heard you and decided to investigate.”

“For someone who isn’t from here, you have a good sense of direction.”

“Internal compass.”

“Because you’re fey.”

Tiernan merely grinned at her and moved along.

The grin didn’t last long. As he stepped through the trees onto red earth and rock, his senses picked up once more. Something had happened here. Something bad. Foreboding filled him as he scanned the ground, noted that there were no footprints. Had whoever walked here purposely obliterated them? Someone had been here, of that he was certain. He felt remnants of the human presence.

“Dead end,” Ella said, coming up behind him.

“I don’t think so.”

Stepping forward, he looked across the valley, trying to find the spot he’d been in when the horses had fled. But it wasn’t visible. So whatever had happened here, he wouldn’t have been able to see.…

“What are you doing?” Ella asked, her hand suddenly grabbing his arm.

Tiernan stopped just short of the cliff’s edge. He hadn’t even realized how close he’d gotten. What he did realize was that his pulse was humming, his gut was tightening. He simply couldn’t decide if it was because of whatever happened here…or because of Ella touching him.

He removed his arm and the humming faded, the tightening eased.

And then, disturbed by the sensations he’d just experienced, he took that last step forward and looked down only to have the nightmare of his past flash back at him.

Chapter Two

Tiernan’s back straightened and he removed his hat—crushing it to his chest—and lowered his head, causing Ella to hesitate from stepping forward.

“What is it?” she asked.

“We need to get back to refuge headquarters, call the authorities.”

He turned from the edge of the cliff and indicated they should go back the way they came. His movements were stiff, his face pale. There was something deeply wrong here, she could sense it. Tiernan McKenna was an attractive man—dark reddish brown hair framing a handsome, boyish face. The tight line of his wide, unsmiling mouth and the shadowed expression in his thick-lashed green eyes told her it wasn’t good…but she wasn’t leaving until she saw for herself.

When Ella stepped forward, he put an arm out to stop her. She didn’t say anything, just met his gaze, making her intent clear by staying fast. He changed his stance, moved away from her, and she was about to take that last step when she glanced down and saw the scratching in the earth—a long line with an inverted V halfway through it.

The last time she’d seen that sign had been on Father’s forehead right before he’d died.

Her chest suddenly squeezing tight, she couldn’t move for a moment. Someone had scratched the raven’s track purposely as a warning.

Someone malevolent.

Reluctantly now, her stomach clenching, she looked over the edge, her gaze going straight to the body sprawled on a ledge thirty or so feet below.

He lay so still he almost looked like he was asleep—a man, young, copper-skinned, probably Lakota—but his head was twisted unnaturally and his dark eyes were open, vacant. Though she couldn’t see from such a distance, she instinctively sensed his eyes were already clouded with death.

She closed her own eyes and said a silent prayer for the poor man’s soul.

“Do you know him?” Tiernan asked.

“I—I’m not sure.” She blinked her eyes open and looked again. “It’s been too many years.”

She focused on the man, opened her mind, calling in vain to the elements to guide her. No matter how hard she tried, the power remained unresponsive. It had been too long since her father had taught her…

Tiernan broke into her thoughts with a soft, “Hey.”

Suddenly the summer day seemed cold and the fitful wind iced over her. As if he could sense that, he wrapped an arm lightly around her shoulders; this time, she accepted his touch and, despite herself, leaned into his warmth.

That she’d nearly witnessed a murder, nearly had seen the killer, made her shudder inside. It scared up too horrible a memory.

“C’mon, let’s get you away from here,” Tiernan said, leading her back the way they came. “I’ll get you to headquarters, then call the authorities. Let them handle this.”

“I—I have a cell—”

“As do I, for all the good it’ll do us in this area. I’ve never been able to scare up a signal in this part of the mountain.”

“The grandparents—they’re expecting me.”

“You can call them on a land phone, can you not?” When she nodded, he said, “The authorities will want to take our statements.”

Ella knew that to be true, even as she knew she couldn’t be completely truthful. If she told anyone other than the grandparents about the raven’s track she’d seen in the earth, they would laugh at her, treat her like she was primitive. Foolish.

Maybe, but memory told another story.

The last time she’d seen that sign Father had been burned to death!

Despite Tiernan’s trying to take care of her, Ella insisted on driving herself to refuge headquarters. She hated feeling out of control. When they arrived at the refuge, he jumped out of his truck and was at the door of her SUV practically before she could open it.

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” he said, trying to take her arm.

This time she avoided him. “Thanks anyway, but I’m fine on my own.”

Reception was a large room that held a seating area on one side, a work area on the other. The place was empty, so Ella crossed the planked floor and threw herself into one of the chairs with a leather base and upholstered cushions just to steady herself.

“Are you all right?”

“As all right as anyone can be after finding a body, I guess.” She looked over to the desk and noted the telephone. “Do you want to call the authorities or shall I?”

“A deputy and an ambulance are already on the way here. I was able to scare up a signal on my cell a half mile back and so called it in.”

“The sheriff’s office?”

“Who else?”

He hadn’t been around long enough to know the politics of crimes dealing with the Lakota. The tribal police would be called in when one of her own was involved, the FBI when it involved murder.

Let the sheriff’s deputy sort it all out, she thought, wishing she had never stopped to take in the scenery. All she needed was to be involved with another murder.

HOURS LATER, AFTER the body was retrieved, after they both gave their stories to a sheriff’s deputy who’d sounded skeptical when Tiernan suggested murder, after a medic had checked over Ella and had drawn her blood to test for drugs, Ella was then free to head to her grandparents’ home.

Tiernan was sorry to see her go. Though he didn’t reason it out, he watched her SUV drive off until it disappeared in the distance.

At which point, he realized Kate was studying him. She balanced her little girl—eight-month-old Maggie, otherwise known as Magpie—on her hip and just gave him a look that went right through him.

“What?” he asked, concentrating on Maggie, who was cooing at him and staring, too. Smiling into her bright green McKenna eyes, he brushed her chubby cheek with his thumb and got a peal of laughter from her.

“You have a thing for Ella Thunder,” Kate stated.

Tiernan sobered. “And here I was thinking your psychic abilities were reserved for your horses.”

He turned away and went inside, planning on getting himself a mug of coffee.

Headquarters was really part of Kate and Chase and Maggie’s home. Their living quarters, other than the kitchen, took up the second floor, a log addition to the original stone single-floor building. A balcony fronted the second floor, an enclosed porch and patio backed the first. The spare room and bath that would be his for the summer were just off the kitchen.

Kate and her family had to come downstairs for meals, which was just as well since Kate and Chase ate, slept and lived their jobs anyway. Maggie spent as much time with her grandmother as she did at home. Though Chase had been here, as soon as the sheriff’s men left, he went to check on the herd, to make sure no one had messed with his mustangs.

Kate caught up to Tiernan. “I don’t need to be psychic to see the way you were looking at Ella the whole time she was here.”

Heading across the reception area, he said, “I felt sorry for her is all.”

“Maybe. But there’s something else.”

“I have no interest in women.” Realizing what he’d just said, Tiernan stopped dead in his tracks and clarified. “That is, in pursuing a relationship with one.”

“Because you’ll go back to Ireland and you fear she won’t want to go with you?”

“Because I cannot ever fall in love.”

Kate snorted. “Is this some kind of impairment you’re claiming?”

“More like a dark legacy. You should understand that since your side of the McKennas have had to deal with a legacy of your own.”

He entered the kitchen. Kate followed, quickly set Maggie down in her corner playpen, then got in front of him.

“Whoa.” Green eyes wide, red hair seeming electrified, she said, “You can’t just make such a provocative statement and then walk off. Explain!”

Now he’d gone and done it. Tiernan hung his head. He’d only ever discussed the secret with immediate family, his brothers mostly, because they were all at risk. He supposed Kate was family and it wouldn’t hurt to tell her.

“Can I at least get coffee first?” He needed something to bolster himself before getting into it.

Kate stepped aside. “Pour one for me, too.”

As Tiernan picked up the pot, he said, “My great-grandfa-ther Donal was something of a ladies’ man. He involved himself with the wrong woman, then left her to marry the one he fell in love with. The wrong woman claimed to be half faerie and all witch. And it must be true, because she put a love curse on all Donal’s descendants. We are destined to love…but if we act upon our feelings—physically, that is—we will somehow put the one we love in mortal danger.”

“Sounds like the ravings of a woman scorned.”

“Except ’tis a prophecy that’s come true many times over the decades.”

“Oh, come on,” Kate said, though she didn’t sound as skeptical as one might think she should be.

“Truly. My grandfather lost my grandmother to a horse-riding accident soon after she gave birth to my da. My great-aunt lost her beloved in a bank robbery. My uncle lost his new wife to a speeding car…”

Though he’d only been seven at the time, Tiernan could still see the whole incident in his mind, a scene that he couldn’t erase, because he’d been with Aunt Megan—she’d traded her own life for his. Nightmares of her death had followed him all his life. That he couldn’t put the incident behind him after so many years made him think it was because he needed to atone for what happened. This more than anything had convinced him the prophecy was true.

“And the list goes on,” he said through the lump wedged in his throat. “I can do without that kind of doom hanging over my head.”

“But those could have been coincidences,” Kate argued. “They all had children, right?”

“Eventually, because they settled for someone who wouldn’t invoke the witch’s curse. Unfortunately, though the spouse may survive, the prophecy doesn’t depend on love to infect the next generation.”

Kate frowned. “Sounds really sad to me, Tiernan…whether it’s settling…or living alone out of fear—”

He interrupted. “There are worse things.” How could a man live with himself if he caused his woman’s death? he wondered, knowing how his aunt’s death had crushed Uncle Ross. Better never to love at all. “Now, I would appreciate your telling me about the new job with the film company.”

Even as he changed the subject, Tiernan remembered that moment on the cliff when Ella had grabbed his arm and something disturbing had passed through him. Just his response to an attractive woman, he told himself. After the tragedies he’d seen happen to love-happy people he cared about—after seeing Aunt Megan lying still and cold and broken on the pavement and knowing there would be no justice for her death—he could never let it be more.

Not a problem since he probably would never see the lovely Ella Thunder again.

TRYING TO KEEP herself relaxed and entertained by thoughts of Tiernan McKenna with his mesmerizing green eyes, seductive Irish lilt and fascinating way of getting to her with just a touch, Ella drove through the rez. Despite her determination, a memory of her father in his last moments came back to her, cramped her stomach and pushed Tiernan out of mind.

Ella took a deep breath and shook away the vision as she drove past sad-looking houses and trailers, kids shrieking as they played in the dirt, their imaginations turning junk into toys. Though the rez was small in size, with residences mostly scattered far and wide over the land—only a few dozen had been built around the center of town—Grandmother had written that the houses and trailers were overcrowded, that there were too many people and not enough money.

Looking around, Ella could see it for herself. Though she didn’t remember the rez looking so worn, she supposed it always had been. Things always looked different through the eyes of youth.

Other than work provided by the casino or general store or gas station, or for the tribal police or council, there simply weren’t enough jobs on the rez. People had to drive into Bitter Creek or Custer or to one of the farther towns or cities to find work. She knew the film company was not only paying the rez for using their land and horses, but hiring many of the Lakota to do odd jobs or to be extras in the movie. A few had even been given speaking parts. Hopefully enough money would be infused into the rez to kick-start the economy here.

The first building of any notable size that she passed was the casino. And then the government offices. A few dozen homes were scattered around the rez’s center.

Ella drove straight to what used to be her own home and left the SUV, her stomach in knots. The air outside was thick, hard to breathe, her mounting tension no doubt the cause.

Then the door opened, and a small woman in long skirts and a bleached cotton shirt shuffled out. Her hair was pure white now, her skin like elephant’s hide. Dina Thunder was an old seventy-one. And seventy-one was old for the rez, where people rarely survived their sixties. The smile that curved Grandmother’s lips and lit her eyes exactly as Ella remembered made her a welcoming committee of one.

“My Ella!”

Grandmother held up her arms and Ella couldn’t help but notice the arthritic joints in her hands. When she stooped to hug Ella, Ella was aware of how fragile the elderly woman had become despite the roundness of her figure. Grandmother held on to her as if she might never let go.

A white-haired man stood in the doorway—Grandfather. Samuel Thunder was still an imposing figure, his face a carved reminder of her own ancestry. His eyes were unfocused, his head cocked slightly as if he were trying to get a sideways look at her.

Ella knew eye disease hampered Grandfather from making out details, such as her features, but he could get impressions, and whatever he did see made him smile, showing off his gold tooth. She went to him and hugged him, too. She used to think Grandfather was so tall, like Father, but now she was nearly his equal.

“Grandfather, I missed you.”

“You are a woman now, Ella. Strong and beautiful, Joseph’s true daughter.”

“I hope this is so.”

“Can you eat?” Grandmother asked.

“I’m starving.”

“Inside with you.”

The walls were painted white, better to show off the collection of woven baskets that surrounded the combination living and dining room. A threadbare rug covered part of the planked floor, and a bow and arrow perched over the stone fireplace.

Ella inhaled the luscious aroma coming from the stove and sighed—the memory of Grandmother’s cooking kicking in. “There’s no bison stew as good as yours.” Her mouth was already watering.

“I made a corn pudding and baked pumpkin, too. And blueberry Wojapi to go with the fry bread.”

As they ate, they caught up on the missing years, concentrating on the positive rather than dwelling on the dark past that sent Ella, her mother and sister, Miranda, fleeing to the white world. A past from which her mother had never recovered. The grandparents wanted to know every detail about Ella’s work as a teacher of history, especially of their history.

“We have your book on the table by the couch so everyone who comes here can see it,” Grandmother told her.

“Your father would be proud of you,” Grandfather said. “Your returning to us shows that you are as fierce a warrior as he was.”

Ella’s pulse fluttered and her chest tightened. “Not fierce. The movie interested me…I couldn’t resist. A couple of weeks here seemed perfect.”

The grandparents exchanged looks that told Ella they didn’t accept that. Believers in fate, they would assume her presence had been guided by her animal spirit. While the film had delivered her, they would be convinced she was here for something more.

When they finished eating, Grandfather went outside to sit and to puff on his pipe, and Ella began clearing the table.

“It is so good to have you home, Ella.”

“Only for a few weeks, Grandmother. Only for the movie. This isn’t my home anymore.”

“This is where you are needed.” Grandmother hesitated only for a moment before saying, “We have no shaman. No one will practice here after what happened to Joseph.”

“I’m not a shaman.”

It is time…whispered through Ella’s head, but she instantly denied it.

Time for what? To give the people hope? Or to give hope to herself?

Ella pushed back the confusion. She reminded herself that she was just here for a summer job.

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