Echoes of the Past Read online

  ECHOES OF THE PAST

  Susanne Matthews

  Sensual Romance

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

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  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Sensual Romance

  Echoes of the Past

  Copyright © 2014 Susanne Matthews

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63105-247-7

  First E-book Publication: July 2014

  Cover design by Dawné Dominique

  Edited by JB George

  Proofread by M.S. Daniels

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2014 by Secret Cravings Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  Dedication

  For Michelle, you’ve touched our lives in so many ways, and for that we’ll be forever grateful.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank The Lake of the Mountain Resort for the ability to use the location in this novel.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, and locales in this novel are either a product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

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  *Trouble With a Cowboy, a western, erotic romance:

  18 wheels had her heart until one hard-up cowboy found her kickin' up her heels and propositions her to take his bull to Vegas.

  Jacie Hawkins drives big wheelers for a livin'. Something not a lot of women do. Littleton Oklahoma is just a dry stopover for a few hours of rest and relaxation at the nearest bar. Jacie needs to find a hot cowboy to release some of her pent up frustrations on for the night, but wannabe's aren't her style.

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  ECHOES OF THE PAST

  Susanne Matthews

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  He lays on his side on the animal hide, his head propped up on his elbow, watching her sleep. How long does she think her excuse of gathering roots and snaring rabbits will last, especially when she has so little to show for the time she’s been away?

  The naked woman beside him stretches in her sleep. Her copper skin glows even in the dimmest light. Her ebony hair spreads fan-like around her head. Her features are fine, her lips lush, begging to be kissed. When open, her almond-shaped brown eyes, flecked with gold, add to her exotic beauty. She’s unlike any woman he’s ever known, and he’s known many despite his mixed blood. It’s craziness to stay here like this, but he can’t leave without her. The odds of getting caught increase with every visit she pays to his secret grotto, but he loves her more than he’s ever thought possible.

  He reaches for her, runs his calloused hand down the side of her warm, silky torso. Her nipples pucker at his touch. Her eyes open, and she smiles. She raises her arms and pulls him down on top of her. His lips meet hers with an insatiable hunger. His tongue delves into her warm, willing mouth, feasting on her sweetness, and he hardens painfully.

  Without any warning, the dreamscape shifts, and he runs through the brush, fleeing for his life. Twigs and branches tear at his buckskin garments. A thorn bush rakes his face. If he’s caught, it’ll mean torture and death, but he isn’t worried about himself. He worries about her. Has she gott
en back safely? He slows his pace. Through the trees, he looks over at the far side of the lake and sees her tall, lithe figure standing on the beach. Her beauty, grace, and majesty set her apart from the other squaws. Those harridans point and scream, but she stands still, wrapped in the woven, quilted blanket she showed him not two hours ago. He doesn’t dare stop for a better look. His heart thunders in his ears, his side aches, but he increases his speed, pushing his painful muscles beyond their limit. The enemy approaches, but she’s safe, and that’s all that matters. He doesn’t see the log across the path. He stumbles and falls…

  Tony Steele awoke with a start. His heart pounded, and sweat covered his body. His ragged breathing dragged air into his oxygen deprived lungs. His muscles screamed and cramped the way they did after a particularly grueling cross-country race. Not again. For weeks now, these strange dreams had haunted him. Dreams? Hell. These memories lingered as if it he’d actually done these things.

  He shuddered despite the heat emanating from his body. He rose, went to the window, and opened it slightly. He breathed deeply, hoping to calm himself, knowing it wouldn’t happen any time soon. He glanced into the parking lot. Through the curtain of rain, he noticed Aaron’s car parked once more in the lot, but not in its regular spot.

  Somewhat cooler, he shut the window. He raised his hand to his stinging cheek, surprised to feel wetness there. He padded into the bathroom, turned on the light, and stared in the mirror. Blood seeped from the ugly red scratch on his face.

  Damn! That’s a hell of a scratch. I need to cut my nails.

  Using a tissue, he sopped up the blood and touched a septic pencil to his cheek to stop the bleeding. He cursed at its sting, tossed the tissue in the garbage can, and left the bathroom. The stairs creaked under his heavy footsteps. He entered the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out a bottle of water. Half of it disappeared in one gulp, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. These dreams disoriented him and had taken on a life of their own. Like a voyeur peeking through a window, he watched the carnal scene unfold night after night. He recognized himself as the man in the dreams despite the longer hair and the scars and tattoos marring his body.

  He wandered out onto the screened-in porch and looked out at the lake. The strong night winds whipped it into a frenzy as if the water boiled with anger. He checked his watch. Two in the morning again. He needed to break this habit. These unusually vivid dreams had started the first night he’d arrived at the resort. Most of them, exquisite, erotic fantasies, left him dissatisfied, but tonight’s dream had transitioned into a flight for his life. From personal research, he knew a dream’s meaning rarely had anything to do with its contents. This research project into the source of the water in the lake meant everything to him personally and professionally. He was afraid something would happen to ruin it. That explained being chased, but it didn’t explain the sexual fantasies. Those he understood easily enough.

  He recognized the woman in his dreams as the shawl-wrapped stranger who walked along the beach every now and then. Beautiful and exotic, something about her called to his soul. He preferred women who didn’t look like carbon copies of others, and this one intrigued him. He thought about her now.

  He’d noticed her the night he’d arrived. He never slept well in a new bed. Unable to settle, he’d stepped out onto the porch and noticed someone else apparently suffering from insomnia. A woman, a blanket wrapped around herself, her hair in a long braid down her back, strolled along the edge of the sandy beach. She’d moved southeast toward the edge of the lookout. He’d stepped outside to get a better look at her, but she’d vanished.

  The next night, his imagination and libido had taken over, and in his dreams, she’d entered his leafy grotto, and they’d had mind-blowing sex. The things they’d done to one another. Thank God he’d awakened before his body had finished responding to his fantasy.

  He’d gotten up, frustrated as old hell, and had gone downstairs. Standing in the screened-in porch, he’d looked out at the lake. Unlike tonight, the water had resembled a mirror reflecting the stars on its surface, and he’d been suspended between the water and the sky—everything brighter, crisper, and clearer than he’d expected. Animals scurried in the brush nearby. Bats swooped overhead. An owl hooted, and he’d shivered. Didn’t some of the Native American tribes believe death followed the cries of an owl?

  He’d turned to go back inside when he’d glimpsed his mystery woman coming along the beach from the marshy area to the north. He’d called out to her. She’d turned at the sound of his voice and stopped. In the moonlight, he’d seen the sparkle of silver tears on her cheeks. Naked, he’d hurried into the kitchen, grabbed his damp swimsuit off the drying rack, and rushed out, but she’d disappeared.

  He blinked, and the memory passed. He’d never seen a storm as vicious as tonight’s. The rain came down in sheets. Thank God the kids had made it back safely. He turned to go inside when a flash of lightning, the first he’d noticed tonight, illuminated the beach.

  What the hell?

  The woman, wrapped in her blanket, walked along the beach as if all hell wasn’t breaking loose around her. He ran to the door and raced across the short expanse of grass. He stopped at the edge of the water. Where had she gone? As she’d done every time he’d tried to catch her, she’d vanished. Wet through, he hurried back inside. He saw the light go out in Jackson’s room.

  Tony entered the cabin, stripped off his wet clothes, and tossed them in the kitchen sink. Naked and shivering, he climbed the stairs and went into the bathroom. He took a hot shower and then dried his shoulder-length hair. He needed to get it cut. He grabbed a clean T-shirt and a pair of boxers out of the drawer. Exhausted, he fell into bed hoping for sleep.

  * * * *

  Naked, she lies on her back inside the green, leafy grotto, which meshes seamlessly into the landscape. It’s late morning, and after last night’s storm, everything smells clean and fresh. She stares up at the man she loves, but darkness and his long, honey-brown hair shadow his face. Her body hums in anticipation of his touch. Her nipples harden. His large, calloused hands caress her, and where they touch, her flesh burns with desire.

  He runs the fingers of one hand through her unbraided hair. His lips capture hers in a searing kiss, branding her his. She reaches up to him. She opens her mouth, and a deep moan escapes her as his lips meet hers.

  The scene changes. He runs along the edge of the forest across the lake. Run, my love, she screams silently as all around her the women urge their men to hurry, pointing at him, screaming instructions. He stops, and once she knows he’s seen her, she turns away. They’ll catch him, and she can’t bear to watch him be killed. She pulls her marriage blanket tightly around her shoulders. Everyone thinks she’s made it for another. Sobbing, she hurries away from the beach…

  Michelle Thomas awoke in tears as she had so many nights since arriving in Thunder Bay. Bathed in sweat, she shivered with need and a bone-deep cold invaded her body. The nightmares, usually terrifying, realistic visions of her watery death, exhausted her. Recently the dreams which had plagued her most of her life had changed, and these new ones in which she was both participant and witness, frustrated and grieved her. She preferred those old night terrors to these out of body erotic fantasies with a man whose face she never saw, but loved with every ounce of her being. Tonight, the thought of his capture and death made the pain of loss worse than ever. How could she go on like this?

  Her wild weeping slowed to sobbing. She got out of bed and padded into the motel room’s washroom. She turned on the light and gasped at the mirror’s reflection. The face of a woman who closely resembled her—the Mohawk woman in braids she’d been seeing off and on for weeks now—glared accusingly at her.

  “What do you want from me?” She yelled at the face in the mirror, anguish loud in her tear-filled voice. “You’re dead. He’s dead. I don’t have any answers for you. Go away. Leave me in peace.”

  She’d be glad to leave this cursed place
in the morning and get back to her own neglected apartment in Toronto. With luck, the ghost would stay here and let her get on with her life. Tonight, as it did every time it manifested itself, the spirit stared reproachfully at her, tears running down its cheeks. The specter had first appeared shortly after her arrival in Thunder Bay. As much as she’d like to ignore the manifestation, she couldn’t.

  Michelle turned on the tap, and the image vanished replaced by her own. With trembling hand, she held a glass under the spigot and filled it with water. She opened her cosmetic case and took out two acetaminophen tablets to ease the headache pounding in her skull.

  She returned to the bedroom, turned up the heat, sat on the bed, and wrapped herself in the comforter, searching for solace, knowing she’d find none. Ghosts didn’t frighten her, but something about this manifestation unsettled her. Madam Mohawk, as she referred to the spirit, represented her past, an ancestry she denied vigorously. Her birth mother may have been Mohawk, but those people had tossed her away as an infant. She’d been “reborn white” to kind and loving adoptive parents she missed terribly, and by God, she’d stay “white” no matter what.

  She’d recently investigated reincarnation, and while skeptical about what she’d read, there were aspects of the haunting which fit the pattern more than she’d like to believe. She’d also taken time to study mental illnesses, which might present the same way. She didn’t have Multiple Personality Disorder, but the ghostly presence and her increased aversion to water disconcerted her. Something was wrong, and she needed to fix it before it drove her crazy.