Spirit Flight by Jory Strong

Author:Jory Strong
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: native american romance

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Chapter 4

Marisa woke cocooned in warmth. Ukiah.

Her fingers ached to touch him, to trace eyebrows and nose and lips, to explore line and shadow, to glide over muscle and commit every inch of him to sensual memory and then translate the memory onto paper and canvas.

She wanted to wake him, assure herself he was real and not a fantasy she'd conjured up in a hallucination. She wanted to make love and afterward lie content in each other's arms, intermixing conversation with kisses.

Her bladder insisted on relief.

She got up. But a quick check of the cave revealed there was no natural opening to serve as a bathroom.

Heat climbed into her face with thoughts of squatting in a corner. Maybe outside?

She moved to where her clothes hung on a wooden peg. Reaching for her shirt, a chill swept across her naked back.

Where were his clothes? Not that she wouldn't forever savor the first sight of him wearing nothing but a loincloth, but it was cold outside and she didn't think he'd been out hiking in only a strip of suede.

Her heart tripped into a faster beat.

This is real. I'm not out in the storm, lying on the ground and slowly dying.

She put on the shirt stiff with dried mud and blood. And then the jeans.

Her heart thumped harder, faster.

Maybe Ukiah had been out hiking in just a loincloth. Maybe it was a test of endurance for him, or some kind of purification ritual.

Maybe she hadn't been as badly injured as she'd thought.

The pulse in her throat pounded in time to her rational mind saying, lie, lie, lie.

She'd been broken. She'd returned to consciousness in the cave with the sound of drumbeats and masculine words.

A healing ceremony? He'd said she was on thunderbird lands.

Hadn't she thought there was a mystical quality to this area when she'd first arrived?

She looked at the fire. How could something so small put out so much light and heat and last so long? How could it battle so successfully with the cold air that had to be coming in through the cave's opening?

Then again, what did she actually know about campfires? Until this trip she'd had zero experience with camping that didn't involve an RV or a cozy cabin.

She put her shoes on and tied the dirt-encrusted laces. With one last glance at Ukiah, she walked into the shallow anteroom and stopped just beyond the cave's mouth.

Deep gray clouds filled the sky. Cold, wet air hit her face—the force and sting of it making her want to retreat. She shivered, looked down into the canyon and for an instant was scrambling, sliding, falling.

Her chest tightened. Her throat locked and throbbed. Sweat trickled down her sides.

She glanced up and could see the canyon rim. It wasn't too far away. The climb didn't look too hard.

I can do this. I need to do this.

She couldn't let fear paralyze her. She was okay. She would be okay.

She reached for an exposed root and placed her foot on a small cluster of rock.

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