Rider on Fire & When You Call My Name: Rider on Fire / When You Call My Name. Sharon Sala
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had been happening to her, now she knew it was a dream.
“I don’t have a father,” she said angrily.
“But you do,” Adam said. “Have you ever heard your mother mention a man by the name of Franklin Blue Cat?”
She snorted in a very unladylike manner, and added a succinct curse word to boot.
“Mother? I don’t have one of those, either,” she said. “I was dumped on the doorstep of a Texas orphanage. The details of the ensuing years are hardly worth repeating. And now that this little mystery is over with, I’m out of here.”
Adam winced. Franklin would be devastated by this news, and he couldn’t let her leave. Not until they’d met face-to-face.
“You’ve come all this way. Don’t you at least want to talk to him?”
“Why? He never bothered to look me up.”
Adam heard old anger in her voice. The story wasn’t his to explain, but if he didn’t convince her of something, she would be gone before Franklin got a chance to state his case.
“Franklin didn’t know about you. He still doesn’t.”
Sonora shook her head. “You’re not making sense. And by the way, who the hell are you?”
“Adam Two Eagles.”
She tried not to stare, but it was surreal to be standing here having this conversation with a specter from her dreams.
“So, Mr. Two Eagles, what do you do for a living…besides haunt people’s dreams?”
Adam stifled a gasp of surprise. He’d been in her dreams? This he hadn’t known. The Old Ones had really done a job on her.
“I haunt nothing,” he said quietly. “I used to be in the army. Now I’m a healer for my people, the Kiowa. I know you’re Franklin’s daughter, but I don’t know your name or what you do.”
“Sonora Jordan is my name. I’m an agent with the DEA.” Then she turned the focus back on him. “So… Adam Two Eagles. You call yourself a healer.”
He nodded once.
She reached behind her, felt the seat of her Harley and clung to it as the only recognizable thing on which she could focus.
“Healer…as in medicine man or shaman, or whatever it is you people call your style of voodoo?” she asked.
“Healer, as in healer,” he said. “And my people are your people, too. Whether you accept it or not, you are half Kiowa.”
The words hit Sonora where it hurt—deep in the old memories of childhood taunts about being a throwaway child with no family and no name. She’d lived her entire life branded by two words that a priest and a nun had chosen out of thin air and given to the latest addition to their orphanage. Sonora because it was the priest’s hometown, and Jordan for no reason that she knew other than that they felt by not giving her a Latino name, she might have a better chance at a decent life. A quixotic thought for two devout Catholics who believed that everyone was equal in the eyes of God.
“You can’t prove that,” she muttered.
“Well…actually, I can,” he said. “You’ve come all this way. You don’t have to believe me. Follow me if you dare, and see for yourself.”
Sonora thought of the handgun tucked into the storage behind the seat and then of how far she’d let herself be guided by a whim. What could it hurt? If she had to, she could take him. Besides, maybe this would finally put an end to being a walking nightmare just waiting to happen.
Adam watched her eyes, only guessing at the jumble of thoughts that must be going through her head.
“I won’t hurt you,” he added.
She fixed her gaze on his face, remembered the last thing he’d said to her in her dream, and then sighed. “I know that,” she said.
Her assurance was startling.
“Why do you say that with such confidence?” Adam asked.
“I’m here because I fell into some sort of twilight zone. I’m here because I keep dreaming of a man who’s either sick or dying. And I’m here because you keep haunting my dreams.”
Again she mentioned seeing him in her dreams. Intrigued, he had to ask. “What am I doing in your dreams?”
“Trying to seduce me… I think.”
He wondered if he looked as startled as he felt.
“Indeed,” he drawled. “And did I succeed?”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Sonora glanced up at the sky. Either she holed up in another motel until this storm passed, or she followed this man. Despite the fact that she’d seen his face in her dreams, she didn’t know him. For all she knew, he might try to harm her. Then she sighed. Miguel Garcia wanted her dead. So what was new? It was either the devil she knew or the one she didn’t.
“I have one question to ask you,” she said, ignoring the fact that she had not answered his.
He shrugged. “Then ask.”
“This man you claim to be my father. Does he have a wind chime on his front porch that looks like a dream catcher?”
Despite the depth of his tribal beliefs, Adam was taken aback by the question.
“Yes.”
“And does he have a hobby of carving things out of wood?”
Adam thought of his friend’s fame that was known all over the world by those who indulged in his particular brand of art.
“Yes, you could say that,” he said.
“And…a few days ago, was he taken ill?”
Now Adam was feeling off-kilter.
“You have seen all of this…in dreams?”
She shrugged, then nodded.
“The Old Ones have been playing with you,” he said softly.
“Who?”
“Never mind,” he said. “If you want to meet your father, then follow me.”
“I need gas.”
“I will wait.”
She reached for the nozzle to the pump, quickly filled the tank and then dashed into the station to pay.
Adam saw Franklin in every movement she made, from the cut of her features to the way she moved when she walked—with her toes pointed inward just the tiniest bit and with the grace of a young filly at one with the world. She was a woman with copper-colored skin and long legs that life had saddled with a hefty portion of defiance. She and Franklin would get along just fine.
When she came out and mounted her bike, Adam was already rolling out of the station and onto the street.
She stuffed her hair back beneath her helmet, then fired up the engine. She was on Adam Two Eagles’s tail before he passed the city-limits sign.
Chapter 6
Sonora was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that not only was the man she’d dreamed of actually real but that she was following him up a mountain without knowing where she was going. It was against every safeguard she’d been taught, and against every instinct she had. And yet she was doing it.
It was the first time in her life that she’d questioned the wisdom of having no personal ties. Before, it had been not only convenient but wise. Without family, bad guys had no leverage against agents like her. But she’d never been faced with this particular situation. She wanted someone to know where she was and what she was doing,