Jeanne Stein - Crossroads

Frey pul s off the road so I think I’ve convinced him.

Instead, he adjusts his seat back and stretches his legs. “We should both take a nap,” he says. “Thirty minutes or so and we’l hit the road again.”

I give hime evil eye. Jesus. What a baby. I adjust my seat, too, and stare into a cloudless, cerulean sky. Then it hits me,

“Frey, are you stal ing?”

His eyes are closed. He huffs out a breath. “That’s a ridiculous assumption.”

“Is it? You sounded like your ex wil not be happy to see you. Could it be that you’re a little skittish about seeing her, too?”

I’m teasing, but there’s nothing amusing in the way he snaps back at me. “The roads we’re going to travel once we get to the val ey are not wel marked or lit. And there’s no moon tonight. It won’t be easy navigating in the dark.”

“You’re joking, right? You have the vision of a cat. And I’m a vampire. My eyes are better than night-vision goggles.”

He turns at that. “Jesus, Anna. Do you always have to argue? Thirty minutes. Is that too much to ask? Just close your eyes and shut up, wil you?”

Wow. He really doesn’t want me to drive his Jeep. “Okay, okay. It’s what you get for carb loading at that Carl’s Jr. but I’m not sleepy. I’l just lay here and watch you sleep off that ten-thousand-calorie meal. It won’t bother you, wil it, if I stare at you while you nap?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s already asleep.

I humph an irritated breath. Stare around. Close my eyes.

Just for a minute.

THE DREAMS COME IN DARK FLASHES. THE CHAOS of the last three days. Kil ing. The gunman in the store. The vampire in the desert. Always the blood is what stands out most vividly. Starkly, like a retouched photo where the background is shades of gray, but not the blood. It’s crimson, fragrant, sweet — sexual in its al ure. My body responds to the images and the first stirrings of arousal send heat rushing to warm my skin. I lose myself in the sensation, let the excitement build, yearn for release.

A hand on my shoulder. A voice.

I’m pul ed from exquisite pleasure. Pul ed unwil ingly back into reality at the moment before climax. I react with frustration and anger, batting the hand away. “What the—?”

We’re on the road. Frey glances over. “Jesus, Anna.

You’re moaning. Were you having a nightmare?”

Shit. I scrub a hand over my face, partly to recover from the effects of the dream, partly to hide the embarrassment.

I struggle upright in the seat. I’m stil groggy and disoriented. “How long have I been out?”

“Maybe three hours.” He shoots me a look. “You weren’t sleepy, huh?”

Three hours . It couldn’t be.

He’s stil talking. “But you’ve been moaning and thrashing around on that seat for the last fifteen minutes. I was afraid you’d hang yourself in the seat belt. What were you dreaming about?”

If I told him the truth, that I was just about to have an orgasm and he interrupted not a nightmare, but a real y, real y good dream, I’m not sure who would be more mortified. Frey for mistaking moans of passion for groans of terror or me for admitting it. I decide to save Frey the humiliation.

“I can’t remember what I was dreaming. You know how it is.”

Frey doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “Must have been awful.”

There’s an undertone of sarcasm that makes me swivel in the seat to search his face. Is he screwing with me? Is the only misinterpretation going on here mine? But it’s dark in the Jeep and in profile, only a hint of a smile plays at the corner of his mouth. He’s not giving anything away and I’m certainly not going to pursue the subject.

I turn my attention back to the road. The Jeep is bumping along and I realize we’ve left the paved highway. I remember Frey mentioning unpaved and unlit roads. He wasn’t kidding.

There’s no moon, either. But when I look up, the sky seems closer than I’ve ever seen it, the stars so bright, I have to fight the impulse to reach up a hand and pluck one down. As I watch, one of them separates from the rest and tracks slowly across the sky, blinking at me as it goes.

My breath catches. “What is that? An airplane?”

Frey fol ows my pointing finger. “No, too high. It’s a satel ite. You don’t see many of those in the city, do you?”

I watch until it disappears out of sight. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Frey shoots me a sideways glance. “You have, you know.

The night we went after Belinda Burke and stopped the demon raising. You don’t remember?”

The memory floods back. Frey and I racing across the desert. Panther and vampire. The sky as bril iant and close as it is now. I nod. I remember.

Frey pul s the Jeep to a stop. “Put your seat back. Let’s watch the show.”

We both recline the seats once more, mesmerized by a sky that moves and shimmers as if it were alive. Within minutes, we see two shooting stars, one right after the other, meteors trailing bits of rock and dust that disintegrate into fiery bal s when they hit the earth’s atmosphere. The Milky Way, a soft blur of hazy white light, divides the sky.

Constel ations form patterns that I can actual y distinguish. I feel like a kid, lost in awe and trembling with delight. It’s so beautiful.

“Is it like this out here every night?”

I’m whispering. Somehow to speak out loud might break the spel.

Frey whispers, too. “Is it any wonder the Navajo consider this a sacred place?”

My heart pounds in my chest. Why have I never been here before? How could I not know of such wonders?

Frey turns toward me in the seat. “Wait until sunrise. This val ey is one of the most breathtaking on earth.”

I glance at the clock on the dashboard. It’s almost four—

and to the east, a faint line of pink blossoms on the horizon.

Not an unbroken horizon. Jagged rock formations rise from the desert floor like the ghostly abodes of long dead gods.

One rises straight and narrow to the sky. It towers over the rest like some giant navigational pylon aimed at the stars.

Frey fol ows my gaze. “That’s cal ed the Totem Pole. It’s four hundred fifty feet high but only a few meters wide. It’s one of the most photographed spots in the val ey.”

I glance over. “You know a lot about this place. How often do you come?”

“Not often.” His tone is regretful. “I should come more.”

“Why don’t you? You obviously love it.”

“It isn’t a good idea for me to spend a lot of time in the val ey.”

He’s answering my questions, but he may as wel not be.

The closeness we’d been experiencing shatters into a mil ion hard, brittle pieces. “For god’s sake, Frey, spil it. What keeps you away?”

When the silence lingers on too long, my temper flares. I reach over and punch him in the arm.

He yelps and grabs at his bicep. “What was that for?”

“For being a jerk. You know every fucking thing about me.

Every bad thing that’s happened, every man I’ve ever slept with, every body I’ve buried. And you won’t share with me one single detail of your personal life? After al we’ve been through together? You’re real y beginning to piss me off.”

Frey grips the steering wheel. “Why would you be interested now?”

His voice is rough, whether with suppressed anger or guilt I can’t tel. It hardly matters. My own suppressed anger boils to the surface. I slam my seat back into its upright position.

Jerk around to look down at him.

“I’ve had a bitch of a week. In the last three days I had Max, David and Harris in my face. Then Chael showed up. I’d like to think you have some appreciation for that since I came to you out of concern for your son.