Chapter Forty
Steel stopped atthe base of Mt. Hesperus and helped Breanna off his Harley. He’d been wanting to take her to the sacred mountain for a long time, but he had to wait until she was completely healed. He took her hand and led her up to the peak.
“It’s so quiet here,” she said. “It’s simply beautiful.”
“It’s where the sky and the earth meet. You can hear the whispers from your ancestors, from your loved ones.”
She leaned into him. “Do you hear Chenoa up here?” she asked softly.
He nodded. “Not just here. When I ride hard, the wind cries her name.”
The stillness wrapped around them as the landscape of snow-peaked mountaintops, vibrant evergreen, and ribbons of streams down below surrounded them.
“She’s always with me. She’s in every snowflake, every raindrop, and every ray of sunshine that touches my face. She’s gone but so alive.”
“Oh, Steel,” Breanna said as she curled her arms around him and kissed him. He tugged her closer, loving her warmth against him.
She’d been his strength since he’d lost Chenoa. He never would’ve believed that she’d end up being his life, his love, and his salvation when he’d first seen her at the hospital what seemed like a lifetime ago. He’d never loved a woman so completely. He’d fought falling for her, but when he’d finally let it happen, it’d been so simple.
Losing Chenoa had hit him hard. For a long time he’d lived on anger, pain, and emptiness, until Breanna had made him realize through her words, her love, and her support that he had to let his daughter go. It was the ultimate sacrifice asked of a father, but he let her go to fly among the angels and mingle with the spirits of his ancestors.
Breanna was always there for him even though she was going through her own hell with Nicholas. After smack dried up in the county, he’d left, wandering like a nomad in the desert for the next hit. By that time, she’d told Steel that her brother was up to twelve shots a day. He felt helpless, like he had with Chenoa, in helping Nicholas. He’d offered to pay for rehab, but the two times her brother tried it, he didn’t last more than a week. All Steel could do was hold her close when the fear and worry became too much for her and let her cry.
“What’re you thinking about?” she asked.
“You. How happy you make me.”
“Do I?”
“You know it. You’ve had my back.” He kissed her gently.
“I’ll always have your back. You’re the love of my life.” She buried her face in his chest and he lowered his head and kissed her, inhaling the scent of gardenias in her hair.
“We should get back. It looks like a storm’s moving in.” Gray clouds hung low in the distance. “We don’t want to be caught in a blizzard, especially on a Harley.”
By the time they arrived home, snowflakes danced in the air.
“Brrr… I’m freezing. Make a fire for us, and I’ll make us some coffee.”
“Put some brandy in mine.” Steel chuckled. It seemed that the only thing she was good at making was coffee. He didn’t mind that she couldn’t cook; she pleased him more than fine in other areas of their life together. His mother minded a lot though, and she’d taken it on herself to give Breanna cooking classes two times a week. She was a good sport about it, and it gave Steel a chance to hang with some of his old buddies on the rez who he’d gotten back in contact with.
“Here you go.” She handed him a steaming cup and curled up next to him. “What should we order for dinner?”
“I thought you had some of that stew you made with my mom.”
“Correction—I made it on my own. Your mom gave me instructions, but it didn’t work out. You know it’s crap. Am I lying?” She poked him with her index finger.
A smile filled his face. “Yeah, it’s shit. But you’ll get better.” He laughed when she rolled her eyes. “Maybe you won’t. I don’t give a damn. I’ll love you whether you know how to cook or not. Let’s just do a pizza, but not frozen. I draw the line on that.”
She laughed. “That works for me.” She sipped her coffee. “I ran into Mika at the rez the other day when I was at your mom’s. She still seems pissed about Roy.”
“In some fucking bizarre way, she blames me that he ended up in the pen for fraud.”
“I can’t believe she thinks it’s your fault. Roy’s the one who put himself there. You finding out about Raley didn’t get Roy in trouble. Raley had it set up already to frame Roy for everything, including the drugs. The other agent, Powers, figured it all out when Raley skipped town. I still can’t believe he didn’t take his computer with all the incriminating evidence on it. And the ledgers for all the drug sales. I find it incredible that he’d leave that all behind, don’t you?”
“He was desperate to get away since he knew we were all on to him. Desperation makes people do some crazy stuff.”
“So after you roughed him up, you just let him go?”
