Page 13 of Shadows of Eternity

“Noon!” Leia bolted upright. “I missed church.”

“I know. I was there. I thought I’d better call and see if you were still alive.”

“Very funny.” Yawning, she tucked the covers under her arms. “How was the service?”

“I don’t know. I kept worrying about you. I haven’t heard from you lately. Something tells me you’re still seeing that gorgeous Indian.”

Just thinking of him made Leia smile. “Guilty as charged.”

“So, I guess he’s not a serial killer or anything.”

“Janae! What a thing to say!”

“Sorry, but I’m worried about you. I’ve never known you to fall so hard, so fast.”

“I know,” Leia said dreamily. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Janae snorted in a most unladylike way. “I don’t know, is it?”

“I’ve never known anyone like him. And yet … ”

“Go on.”

“Like you said, there’s something about him. I don’t know what it is. He hasn’t said or done anything the least bit suspicious. He’s polite, he treats me like a lady … I don’t know.”

“My advice is to follow your instincts. My mother always said any man who seems too good to be true usually is.”

“I’ll be careful. All we’ve done is kiss.” Leia grinned inwardly, thinking his kisses were dynamite.

“Well, all right, I’ve got to go. The twins are clamoring for lunch. Keep in touch, hear?”

“I will. Hug Mark and Mike for me.”

Leia was still smiling when she said goodbye, but Janae’s words kept echoing in her mind:Any man who seems too good to be true probably is.

Time would tell, she thought. Padding to the kitchen to fix a late breakfast, she thought it odd that she was always so hungry and thirsty the mornings after a date with Rohan.

After breakfast, Leia turned on her computer and typed in Shadow Dancer’s name.

There wasn’t much to find, other than he was a well-known Native American dancer who had won many awards and prizes. He had never been married. His age was listed as thirty, birthplace, South Dakota. Several photographs accompanied the info. The photos went back ten years. She couldn’t help noticing he looked exactly the same at thirty as he had at twenty. Good genes, she mused.

She played a couple of games of Free Cell, read her email, and shut down her computer.

She spent an hour on the phone with her parents. Her mother was excited about being hired by Marvel Studios for their next superhero movie since it featured two of her favorite actors. Leia laughed when she heard her father in the background muttering that his wife was too old to be so star-struck over a couple of guys young enough to be her sons.

“You’ll be sorry you said that, Brian,” her mother warned.

Leia grinned. She loved the way her parents kidded each other. She said goodbye a few minutes later.

The evening stretched before her. She wished it was Monday so she could see Rohan, then chided herself for being so smitten with a man she hardly knew. Sitting at her desk, she planned her activities for the next week, then leaned back in her chair and fell asleep …

She was in an Indian village. Conical hide lodges stood along a fast-moving river. The sky above was a bright, clear blue. Men clad in breechclouts and moccasins wandered through the camp, talking and laughing. Teenage boys stood near the river, shooting arrows at a distant target. Children ran and played near the lodges, while their mothers looked on. She saw other women stirring large pots, or skinning game. The smell of smoke and roasting meat hung heavy in the air.

And then she saw Rohan. He, too, wore only a breechclout and moccasins. His hair, adorned with an eagle feather, shone blue-black in the bright light of the sun. He rode into the village on a paint horse, a deer carcass slung over the animal’s withers. A quiver filled with arrows was slung over one shoulder. There was a knife in a sheath at his side. He looked wild and magnificent as he slid from the horse’s back.

And then he looked at her.

Leia woke with a gasp. “Only a dream,” she murmured. And yet she would have sworn he had really looked at her.

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