Shadow Dreams Read online

  James nodded. “Oh yes I did. Did the trick, too. I think your ex might’ve wet his pants a little.” He frowned, an expression that tightened his hawk-like features and centered in the deep brown eyes. “Of course, after I smelled how upset they made you I wished I’d roughed ‘em up a little more.”

  “Um … smelled how upset I was?”

  “Yeah, when you’re a dog, you live through your nose. That was one of the things that attracted me to you in the first place.” He put down his coffee mug and with no warning pulled me close. “Do you know you smell great, Angelina?” He planted a soft, hot kiss on my cheek. “You taste great too, as I recall. Not that I’d mind refreshing my memory…”

  Epilogue

  James sold his home in Scottsdale and moved in with me. We began restoring my Grandmother’s house to its former cozy pre-Douglas state. We settled well together and it wasn’t long before he presented me with a beautiful engagement ring I was happy to accept. It was turquoise inlaid with silver, beautiful Navajo craftsmanship and he admitted to searching for nearly a month to find what he thought was just the right one.

  He had told me the whole story of his Grandmother’s curse, but we decided to keep it to ourselves although Barb and Patty had to be told. Barb was fairly skeptical at first but Patty ate it up and began thinking about adopting a dog from the local Animal Shelter herself. Not, she admitted, that she really expected to have the same amazing luck I’d had but a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

  After he told me about his Grandmother’s order to find a Navajo woman to settle down with, I explained to James that I was only an eighth Navajo and I knew nothing about the culture, having been raised completely white except for a few stories from my Grandmother. He said that was all right with him, he was only half Navajo himself even though he looked full-blooded. But he did ask me to take some night classes on the Navajo language with him at ASU, which I readily agreed to.

  “I’ve ignored my culture, tried to put it out of my mind for too long,” he told me one night after dinner. We were sitting at the polished oak dining room table I’d found at a furniture consignment shop—it was almost exactly like the one my Grandmother had owned. James frowned and I could see the sadness in his hawk-like features as he spoke.

  “When I was a kid growing up on the Rez, all I could think about was getting off of it. Getting out of there. I ran as far as I could, all the way to Law School, just trying to get away and make a different life for myself—away from all that dust and poverty.”

  I reached across the table and took his hand, squeezing to let him know I understood.

  He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles gently, in a way that made my heat beat faster.

  “I don’t feel that way anymore,” he said softly. “I want our children to understand their back ground. Their heritage. It’s important.”

  I had to agree.

  * * * *

  I had figured that my job was pretty much a lost cause so I was surprised when the head of the Ad department called me and begged me to come back. Apparently, Ronald Phelps had plenty of complaints against him and the general consensus was that a knee to the balls was just about what he deserved. I told them I’d think about it, but I knew deep down that writing Ad copy wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

  I told James about it one night when we were lying in bed. I was feeling warm and drowsy and utterly satisfied in a way I’d never felt with Douglas. James continued to be a very attentive lover, amazing me with his stamina and single-minded pursuit of my pleasure.

  I was wrapped in his arms after a very thorough loving, feeling safe and happy in a way I hadn’t since before my Grandmother had died. James had a successful law practice which he was slowly getting back on track after his three month absence and he had insisted on paying half the bills and groceries while I took an extended leave from my job. But now my savings were running low, and I knew I had to do something.

  “Why go back if you don’t want to?” James asked reasonably enough. “Why not let me pay the bills the way I want to and you do something you want for a change?”

  “I don’t know,” I shifted in his arms to look into his true brown eyes. “I just … it doesn’t feel right somehow, letting you pay.”

  “Jelly,” he said, having picked up my nickname from Barbara and Patty. “Don’t be such a stiff-necked stubborn woman.” A smile and an affectionate kiss on my cheek took the sting out of his words. “We’re going to be married next month, anyway, if you and the two other musketeers can finally pin down all the details. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work at all but why not try something you like? Don’t worry about the money. Think about it, what have you always wanted to do and never had the chance?”

  “Well…” I cuddled close, pillowing my head on his broad shoulder, enjoying his warm, masculine musk that filled my senses. He still smelled like warm fur to me. “I’ve always wanted to write,” I told him, feeling shy.

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” he said, smoothing one large hand over my hair. I listened to the steady thump of his heart as he spoke, his voice deep and soothing.

  “I don’t know,” I sighed and cuddled closer, not wanting to look him in the eyes. “Douglas always thought it was silly. A pipe-dream, you know?”

  He made a rumble of disapproval. “I think you know what I think of your ex-husband and his opinions by now.”

  I couldn’t hold back a grin. “At least he dropped his ‘pain and suffering’ suit when he found out you were a lawyer.”

  “Mmhm.” He rubbed a slow, gentle circle between my shoulder blades with one large palm. “What kind of things would you like to write?” he asked, not letting me change the subject.

  I shrugged awkwardly. “Oh, you know. Stories. Maybe even a novel.”

  “That’s great.” He shifted so that we were eye to eye and gave me a soft kiss on the mouth. “You got any ideas?”

  “A few,” I replied, kissing him back. “But nothing I want to write down. Got a few I wouldn’t mind acting out though.”

  “Mmm, I was hoping you’d say something like that,” he murmured, rolling so that he was straddling my body. I could feel his thick shaft pressing against my lower belly as I had that first night. His eagerness for me and the pleasure he found in my body, and I in his, never failed to excite me.

  “Of course this doesn’t help me get ideas for my book,” I told him, spreading my thighs to feel his cock rub against my hot, wet sex and moaning as he found my clit and tortured it sweetly.

  “’Course it does,” he whispered back, raising my hands over my head and pinning me securely to the mattress as he began to lick and suck my throat. “You can write our story. Just leave out all the sex or it’ll be to hot to print.”

  “Don’t wanna leave out the sex,” I whispered and then moaned as I felt his thick shaft spread me open and slide deep into my willing wet sex. “That’s the best part.”

  “You think so?” he murmured in my ear, beginning to thrust.

  But I found I couldn’t answer him except to moan. The delicious drive and pull of his cock in my body drove every thought but the pleasure he was giving me out of my head.

  Needless to say it was yet another happy ending.

  The next day, after he had gone to work, I thought about what James had said the night before. Of course if I wrote his story—our story, it would have to be sold as fiction. Who would every believe it? Why let that stop me?

  I sat down at my laptop and thought for a moment, fingers on the keyboard at the ready…

  Then, I began to type:

  Once there was a boy of the Bitterwater Clan of the Din`e, the Navajo People. He lived with his ma`sani, his grandmother in the Four Corners in the Navajo Nation on the reservation…

  The End

  About the Author:

  Evangeline Anderson is a registered MRI tech who would rather be writing. She is thirty-something and lives in Florida with a husband, three cats and a college
-age sister but no kids because enough is enough already. She had been writing dirty stories for her own gratification for a number of years before it occurred to her to try and get paid for it. To her delight, she found it was actually possible to get money for having a dirty mind and she has been writing steadily ever since.

  Meet LSB authors at http://lsbooks.net

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