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  Skinwalker’s Woman

  Fran Lee

  Running away from heartache is easier than facing it. But when Chellie runs from a bad relationship with a cheating ex and lands smack-dab in the arms of a hot and sexy stranger who thinks she was born to be his mate, could things get any weirder?

  They sure can…especially when she discovers she’s a closet nymphomaniac and he’s a shape-shifting explosion of animal magnetism she simply can’t resist.

  A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Skinwalker’s Woman

  Fran Lee

  Dedication

  To women everywhere—may all your fantasies come true.

  Acknowledgements

  My deepest thanks to the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Dorothy Bray, editor of the Western Apache-English Dictionary.

  Any inconsistencies or errors in the translation of Native languages are my own.

  Chapter One

  How the hell could she have managed to turn the wrong way? There couldn’t possibly be two different roads in this desolate, God-forsaken place. The old man had even drawn a rough map for her on the back page of her notepad. It was totally “duh”-proof. She ticked off the instructions one by one to reassure herself that she hadn’t made some gross blunder.

  Follow the highway to the first ranch-road cutoff just beyond the forty-five-mile marker, then swing right. Twenty-three miles north along the nearly invisible two-rut track that led into the hills. Drive past the two abandoned shacks and the “no trespassing” sign that signaled that she was on private land. Then take the first right-hand fork that came along. All she was supposed to have done was follow it to the cabin. The landmark he had drawn, a tall sandstone monolith to the right of the narrow track, had been right where he had said it would be.

  So where’s my frigging cabin? And how the hell can I possibly be lost?

  Michelle Abernathy lifted her gaze from the rough sketch and the shakily written instructions and heaved a weary sigh, shoving her oversized sunglasses up onto the top of her sweat-straggled hair. She lifted the heavy mass off her neck for a momentary respite from the sauna-like heat inside the car. Her dry, stinging eyes searched for any possible sign of the small cabin she had rented for the next two months.

  She couldn’t have made a wrong turn, damn it. There weren’t that many turns around here. She’d already back-tracked twice to the boulder and had watched carefully as she drove. It was getting late, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be alone out here after dark.

  She could see nothing but tall-growing sage brush, scrub pines and cedar and gigantic piles of red rock. She got a sick feeling of disorientation inside. She checked the screen of the state-of-the-art GPS on the dash and cursed once again at the “unable to process request” that still glowed benignly on the screen. You piece of shit. The GPS satellite system didn’t seem to work at all out here, despite what the agent at the car rental office had spouted off to her. “You can’t possibly get lost with this baby!” he’d bragged.

  Well, la di dah! Apparently the car doesn’t believe its own hype.

  She pulled her cell phone out of the laptop bag next to her and flipped it open, ready to ask if she’d misunderstood the elderly Native American man who had rented the place to her.

  He seemed so nice.

  With a loud, very unladylike curse, she closed her eyes and barely stopped herself from throwing the offending phone as far out the window of her car as possible.

  No service. Not even one tiny little bar…maybe it was on the same frequency that the car’s GPS used.

  Chellie—she hated her given name—clenched her teeth and prayed for patience, resting her forehead against the leather-covered steering wheel. Wayward strands of dark hair clung to her sweat-damp cheeks. Even the hardworking air-conditioning couldn’t make much of a dent in this damn oppressive heat. It had to be at least a hundred and ten outside. Could anything else possibly go wrong in this hare-brained scheme of hers to find a secluded, remote place and get away from all the stress of her life for just a few frigging weeks? All she had wanted to do was read, maybe watch some TV and kick back and…okay, so she was running away. Just admit it, girl. It’s no crime to run.

  Murphy’s Law was always alive and well in Chellie’s life and daring it to make its move had obviously not been the wisest thing. Ya think?

  She drew a deep, cleansing breath and blew it out slowly as she climbed out of the dust-covered Escalade she’d rented in Phoenix. She scrambled onto the front bumper to see if a higher vantage point might reveal what she couldn’t see from the road. Her eyes skimmed the low-growing trees and rocks. She pulled her sunglasses back down to shield her eyes from the merciless sun. Nothing. Maybe just a bit higher?

  Another couple of cautiously wobbly steps carried her onto the hood, then up over the windshield to the luggage rack, her vantage point now several feet higher than before. She lifted her hands to shade her face from the late afternoon glare and scanned the surrounding brush and rocks for any sign of the promised cabin. When she strained onto her tiptoes to gain another couple of inches, she thought she could just barely see the slanted roofline of a building nestled in a stand of gnarled junipers and cedars several hundred yards off to the right of the track.

  “Oh thank God!” she whimpered. Getting a visual fix on the cabin, she carefully stepped down off the luggage rack and her steamer trunk, which was strapped on top of the SUV. As she began to gingerly ease herself backward over the windshield onto the hood, a loud screech from overhead made her jerk her head up to see a very large bird wheeling in a wide, lazy circle in the sky, seemingly floating on currents of air above the red stone monuments that stood as ancient sentinels to the wonders of nature—at least, that was what the rather poetic travel guide book had said.

  She watched the bird for several minutes, captivated by the sheer, amazing power and beauty of the wide-spread wings and the fan-like tail that seemed to keep the magnificent creature aloft without having to work. The bird seemed to be watching her too. After a while, it wheeled off, seemingly losing interest in her. As she followed its progress toward the spires and arches to the west, she realized that she’d been holding her breath and exhaled explosively.

  So beautiful!

  Being a city girl, Chellie had never before seen a bird that large and majestic outside a zoo or a movie. Had it been a hawk? No. She’d seen hawks. It had seemed way bigger than that, even from this distance. Most likely a golden eagle. The guide book said that they nested in the high, wind-carved spires in the red rocks of the ancient valley.

  Goose bumps ran over her skin as she rubbed her arms and slid the rest of the way down from the hood to dust off her slacks and climb back into the high seat of the Escalade. Shifting out of park and swinging to the right, she followed a barely discernible track in the windswept grass that would—hopefully—lead her to the well-hidden cabin she’d caught sight of moments ago. A giddy wave of excitement ran through her as she drew nearer to her destination.

  A sense of something about to happen trickled over her. Hopefully something good.

  Maybe her life was taking an upswing—at least, she hoped it was. Her inner voice kept telling her that things would be okay. And the fact that it was stirring once again, deep inside, filled her with relief. Chellie was utterly thrilled that her severely repressed sixth sense was beginning to reassert itself. Happily, it was still alive and well after having been shoved down deep and totally ignored for the past couple of years.

  And whose fault was that? her inner voice asked huffily.

  You can only blame your own pathetic stupidity for that, girl. She could only agree.

  Usually she was calm, collected, and prided herself on being rational and respo
nsible.

  Her actions over the past week could only be described as totally irrational. Irresponsible. Desperate, even? She’d amazed herself with her decision to run away. Chellie had never done anything so shockingly unplanned before. But something had snapped inside her when she’d read the “Dear Joan” letter from Karl, her now ex-fiancé. That rat-faced bastard! After sitting numbly on her sofa for hours, tears streaming down her face as she wallowed in feelings of total inadequacy, she had made a rather abrupt decision. She’d decided that she wouldn’t just sit around, numbly accepting the utter disappointment that she had felt as her perfect, well-planned future had come tumbling down around her ears. Obviously she had been the only one planning it. It was apparent now that he never had been involved in more than a cursory manner.

  And no way was she going back to the closed-up house in Albany where he could so easily find her when his new flame dumped his sorry ass. She had no illusions about what he would do when his new bed-pal found out he had feet—and brains—of clay.

  He’ll come hunting for me. Gullible, love-starved Chellie.

  Not if I can help it!

  So she’d made a split-second decision to cut and run. Self-preservation. Yep. That was one way to put it. Her inner voice had called it being a chicken-shit. She had paid to have her things professionally packed and placed in storage, moving everything out in one day, leaving his expensive East Central Park apartment as empty and bare as it had been when she’d moved in with him two years before.

  She’d even given the canned goods she’d bought and the frozen food she had purchased to the food bank as a donation. He could bring his new lady friend home to a totally empty apartment with no food or furniture—not even toilet paper. Just the way it had been when she’d moved in. In a final fit of pique, she had taken a bottle of white shoe polish and written a farewell note on the antique marble fireplace—“Have a wonderful life. I hope your new friend has enough money to keep you in the style to which I have accustomed you”.

  Was that proper grammar? Aw, who the hell cares?

  Oh how damn…used she felt. Yes, that was definitely the word. But she’d walked into that mess with eyes wide open. No one to blame but yourself, girl. She should have realized two years before that a man living in a fancy upscale Manhattan apartment with not a stick of furniture except a ratty recliner and a TV set would be a poor risk. For Pete’s sake! She’d even provided the bed, since he’d been sleeping on an old air mattress. He hadn’t even owned pillows. Her inner voice had repeatedly warned her, but of course, being stubborn and believing him to be what she wanted and needed him to be, she had ignored it and shoved it deep, forbidding it to emerge again.

  His story, of course, had been that he’d just moved in and was still a student and didn’t want to impose further on his parents. Right. Because I was stupid enough to provide everything he needed. Chellie winced at her dimwitted acceptance of his excuse for living like a transient in his own apartment. One look at a chiseled face and a hot, gym-toned body, and she’d fallen all over herself to believe him. She had paid his lease payments, bought their food, their laundry soap, their toothpaste and even his underwear—all because he’d professed his undying love. Yeah right. How utterly stupid could one woman be? How damn pathetic?

  Stop it, Chellie! Don’t you dare take the full blame for this.

  How could she have known? She’d had little to no experience with men. He had been what smarter people called a “professional student”. He’d never worked a day in his entire thirty-six years. He had enough inconsequential degrees to fill a large garbage can. When his folks had finally cut off his cash flow, he’d needed a fresh source. And I looked like the perfect patsy. Glowing with fresh-from-the-farm naïveté and smelling of loads of delightful cash, she had been easy pickings for the handsome, suave, smooth-talking creep. She had supported him through his studies at NYU, but the minute he’d gotten that out of the way, he’d told her he needed to continue his master’s studies in England. Chellie gave a short bark of laughter. He’d already been a master—at conning people. A wiser, more self-confident woman would have realized that early on.

  He had left for London. His great opportunity. Hah! He would get his PhD from Queen Mary University and would return to a highly paid administrative position in his uncle’s company. At last he would be self-supporting! An unladylike snort managed to get past her tightly clenched teeth. Sure…more like he’d wanted a fully paid twelve-month European vacation. And I so kindly obliged.

  When she’d finally grown a brain and begun to seriously question his need for yet another degree while she was stuck in New York paying all the bills and his tuition and expenses there, he had reassured her that this would be the final important step in his journey to financial independence. After all, he owed her more than merely a living. A woman like her deserved the high life. He would come home with an education that would assure them a wealthy, happy future.

  She had swallowed that load of crap hook, line and sinker—until he’d written to her a week ago telling her that he had found someone he truly loved. That he couldn’t go on with their “travesty of an engagement”. And oh, by the way, he wanted her to be out of his apartment by the time he and his new love arrived home in two weeks. Would she mind?

  What. The. Hell?

  After a few hours of numb shock and a lot of pirate-worthy cursing, Chellie had fallen asleep next to the three empty bottles of outrageously expensive Cristal she’d been saving for his triumphal return, and had woken with the hangover from hell. Stupid much? And she had somehow managed to hear her inner voice, which had forcefully poked its head out of hiding at last to kick her in the very deserving ass. She had welcomed it back and dusted it off. It had been that inner wisdom that had driven her to jump headfirst into this totally ridiculous journey. Made her pick up the phone and call her travel agent.

  Maybe I should call it inner stupidity?

  So here she was, driving across rutted, bumpy, rocky cow trails, scraping over rocks the size of bowling balls, swishing through dead grass and brush to a rustic cabin in the total middle of nowhere. It had made her drop everything and hare off to BFE without a single rational thought. She had simply called the office and told them she was going on “sabbatical”. No one had questioned her. That was okay, because she didn’t have to go to work, not really. Her position with Abernathy, Inc. was mainly that of a figurehead. Her adoptive parents had left her the whole ball of wax, along with capable managers, honest accountants and the works. All she had to do was walk in, sign the necessary papers when required and present a façade of leadership to a company so well-oiled and smooth-running that it required virtually no work at all on her part.

  That was obviously what my ex found so attractive about me. Now that she thought about it, he had never seemed to find anything else attractive about her. He’d always been telling to her to stay out of the sun, thinking that her natural coppery skin tone would “lighten up”. No such luck, buddy. It came with the original package. He had even asked her to try bleaching her nearly-black hair. And he’d wanted her to lose weight. That should have made her realize that a brown-eyed, copper-skinned Amazon with dark hair wasn’t his type. And now that she was listening to her sadly neglected inner voice again, she could almost picture the woman he had fallen for in London. Delicate. Petite. Golden hair. Rich.

  Aw, stop it, okay?

  She gave a growl of disgust.

  Chellie was no delicate beauty and she carried an extra ten—okay, closer to twenty—pounds of impossible-to-budge adipose tissue on her fanny, hips and thighs, not to mention her over-generous breasts. At first Karl had seemed to accept her as she was, and perhaps that had been the clincher. How totally pathetic that made her feel right now. What a damn simpleton she was. Oh stop with the self-flagellation, girl. Get the bastard out of your head.

  As she swung the big vehicle along the rocky, rutted trail toward her new temporary refuge, she swore at herself for allowing the disastro
us affair with Karl to go on for so long without calling it off. She had simply decided that any relationship was better than no relationship at all. She should have seen it coming. Like a Mack truck flying at her down a deserted highway.

  Like the leaping rabbit that popped in front of her wide eyes an instant before she swerved to miss it. She screamed as the SUV slammed through a deep hole at the side of the dirt road and she prayed that horrible thunking sound wasn’t because she had just broken the damn thing. Despite the groaning and growling sounds and the slightly jerky steering, the car managed to make it to the little flattened dirt area in front of the rental cabin.

  And she sat there staring in horror.

  Oh. My. God.

  Shutting off the faltering motor, she tossed her designer sunglasses onto the passenger seat and slid out of the car to stare in dismay at the sight of the log cabin standing before her.

  What have I done?

  Had she truly thought this would be a restful, wonderful rustic vacation in the desert? Her eyes slid over the old-fashioned hand-pump that stood in front of the cabin next to an ancient bathtub with claw feet. This must be the full bath. At least in New York she’d had running water. And a toilet. The outhouse she could just see to the far left of the area was the last frigging straw.

  Oh no, no, no!

  With a fastidious shudder, she decided that she would much rather turn right around and drive back to the nearest town. They’d had decent motels, at least. With indoor toilets.

  When she saw that old man again, she was gonna give him a piece of her mind. Damn if she hadn’t instantly trusted the guy. He had seemed so honest and so nice. But then, con men came in all shapes and ages. She should have realized when she’d paid him the pittance he’d asked that the place would be a total disaster. You get what you pay for…