Blackwolf's Redemption

“Jesse. What you said about how the truth can change things…”

His eyes grew dark. She could see him withdrawing from her emotionally even as he let go of her hands.

“It’s all right. I understand. You don’t have to ex—”

“Damn it,” she said, her voice ragged, “do you think anything you just told me could change what I feel for you?” She grabbed his hands, held on tight. “It’s the truth about me that will change everything.” She drew a deep breath, expelled it, then looked directly into his eyes. “I’m not a thief. I’m not some leftover sixties flower child.”

“I know that, baby. Besides, I told you, whatever, whoever you are—”

“I’m Sienna Cummings,” she said, hurrying the words because if she didn’t, she knew she’d lose courage. “I live in Brooklyn, go to school in New York City. I’m a graduate student in anthropology at Columbia University.” She stopped, voice and body shaking. “And two days ago, when I first set foot in Blackwolf Canyon…”

Oh, God! She couldn’t do this but she had to, it was time, it was past time….

“Sweetheart?”

Sienna wound her fingers tightly through his.

“Two days ago, when we met… Two days ago, Jesse, the year wasn’t 1975. Not for me. For me, it was—it was the year 2010.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

SHE’D stunned him.

No surprise there.

How else could she expect him to react when she’d pretty much said, I’m not a thief, not a late-model hippie, what I am is a woman from the future.

Maybe a better description was that Jesse looked like a man waiting for the punch line to a bad joke.

“The year 2010,” she said. “That’s thirty-five years from now. Well, thirty-five years, fourteen hours and—and—” She looked at the face of the small clock on the wall. “And I’m not really sure how many minutes. Unless you figure in the time difference between here and Mont—”

“We need to get you to a doctor.”

“No!”

“Yeah. We do.” Jesse’s voice was rough, filled with urgency. “Which is better? To see someone here or in Montana? Montana. I know people there—but this is a big city. Lots of hospitals and doctors and—”

Sienna shot to her feet. “A doctor will put me away! And I’m not crazy. I’m not, I’m not, I’m—”

Jesse cursed. Grabbed her. And kissed her. Kissed her hard, kissed her deep, as if the force, the power of his kiss could chase away demons.

Or could, at last, finally force him to acknowledge the truth.

He had refused to admit that truth these past years. Hell, he’d denied it much of his life. Now he had to face what he’d always somehow known.

For all his anger, all his defiance, some of the old ways were true.

Why hadn’t he seen it from the start? The ledge. The sacred stone. The solstice. The green lightning. And Sienna, suddenly appearing where nobody had been before. The truth had been staring him in the face, but he’d been too pig-headed to see it.

“I’m not crazy,” she said in a shaky whisper when he took his lips from hers, and he gave a gruff laugh and drew her against him.

“No, baby. You’re not.”

She raised her head and looked up at him. There was such certainty in his voice….

“I should have known,” he said. “Right from the minute I first saw you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The sacred stone…” He framed her face with his strong, work-roughened hands. “My father told me stories, sweetheart. Ancient stories about what could happen on that ledge when the sun or the moon was just right.”

She stared at him. “You mean—you mean, others have—have…?”

Her knees turned to rubber. It was one thing to assume you’d traveled through time and another to hear someone say that you had. She felt herself falling, heard Jesse say her name. Then she was in his arms and he was carrying her through the suite, to the bed where he lay her gently back against the pillows.

“I was right,” he said, sitting beside her, taking her icy hands in his. “You do need a doctor.”

“No! Please, no doctor. Didn’t you just say that I’m not—I’m not—”

He kissed her. Tenderly. Sweetly. A sigh trembled on her lips as he drew her head against his shoulder and enfolded her in his strong arms.

“You’re not, sweetheart. But you’ve been through one hell of an experience. I just want to be sure you’re all right.”

“I will be,” she said, drawing back and meeting his eyes, “once I understand what happened.”