Medicine Man. Cheryl Reavis

family issue. The Meehan sisters tended to each other’s business. She herself had been an all-too-willing participant in the Grace-led sister alliance to keep Kate from making what they had all thought was a huge mistake in becoming involved with a disabled paratrooper—a man younger than she was, no less. And Kate was considered the “sensible” one. Heaven only knew what would happen if it even looked like Arley the Handful might follow Kate’s example with another member of the military, especially if it might cause problems with Scott.

      But she was too tired to worry about it.

      It was late when she finally arrived at her apartment, and it was still raining. As she carried the sleeping Scottie to the door, a white car she didn’t recognize crept slowly past and turned around.

      Maybe we’ll run into each other again.

      It wasn’t an invitation. Will wasn’t quite sure what it was—except another reason for his disharmony, which had more to do with his current state of mind than with the postwedding raucousness of the barracks tonight. Everybody was wound tight. Music seemed to be coming from behind every closed door, all of it different and all of it meant to effect the same end. He and his fellow soldiers were expecting to travel—sooner instead of later—and they were all looking for the right mind-set, the pumped-up killer high that would get them through it. He understood the dynamics perfectly. He’d never made a jump without doing the warrior chant all the way to the ground, in spite of his recent cynicism about following the Beauty Way.

      He lay on his bed in the dark and tried to disengage himself from the thoughts swirling in his mind. Harmony was essential for anyone who intended to follow Navajo teachings. If he were still a hataalii….

      If.

      He wasn’t certain if the family knew that he’d all but lost the vocation he’d fought so hard for the privilege of learning. He had dedicated years of his life to becoming a Navajo healer, to learning the complexities of the mindset and the chants and rituals to achieve a kinship with Mother Earth and Father Sky. But what little “serenity” Arley had accused him of having completely eluded him now and had for a long time. He had had such big plans—once—assuming that he managed not to suffer any unfortunate consequences from being posted in harm’s way and that his enlistment ended as scheduled. He was going to return to the reservation in triumph, where he would meld all the knowledge he had gleaned from both his worlds. He would use the medical skills he had acquired in the military to be a true help to Sloan, the aunt who had raised him and who was a nurse in the tribal health clinic, and he would continue to be a hataalii. He would skillfully practice both disciplines, all for the betterment of The People.

      There had been a time when he’d been so sure, when he had actually thought that he could be both an army medic and a practitioner of the Navajo healing arts. He had told Arley the truth. He really could remember things—the chants and the details of the sand paintings necessary for the healing ceremonies with the precision the Holy People required. And he could remember all the medical procedures he’d been taught. He could even manage a high-powered weapon and urgent wound assessment on a computerized dummy in the dark and not let it go into cardiac arrest or bleed out. As far as he knew, no patient in either venue had ever suffered from a misstep that he could recall—except for the dummy, and that was early on. He had believed that all he had to do was not let himself get distracted. His desire to make all four of his “mothers” proud of him was strong, and so was his sense of obligation.

      But somewhere he had lost his way, lost something integral he couldn’t name; in the process, he had lost himself. He couldn’t blame the army. He couldn’t blame anyone. He had felt his sense of purpose and understanding, of belonging, slipping away from him long before he’d enlisted.

      All he had left was a kind of perpetual discord in his heart and in his mind—and an unwelcome and unwise interest in Arley Meehan.

      And he was definitely interested. He had been interested the first time he saw her, and he was still interested enough to want to go to a wedding on the outside chance that he would at least catch a glimpse of her, in spite of having no place in his disjointed life for personal involvements, especially the kind she represented. She had a child, and he was only passing through, regardless of his own tenuous family tie to the state. She was so pretty, so lively. Of all the guests at the wedding, she was the one he had wanted most to talk to, but it wasn’t just that. She wasn’t like anyone he had ever met. Aside from her obvious attributes, she was…astute. Right away, she had seen the advantage of his being posted in the state where the father he knew practically nothing about had been born. He doubted that anyone in his family had guessed that he had signed his enlistment papers thinking that he could eventually end up in central North Carolina.

      He drew a sharp breath. If he were more like his half brother Patrick, he wouldn’t let himself get all strung up in the reasons for, and the potential consequences of, his behavior. He would just go for it. He would see Arley Meehan as someone to help him pass the time—period. He would do something about it and not be concerned about anything but the pure pleasure of it.

      But he wasn’t like Patrick. He wasn’t even like himself anymore.

      I don’t know who the hell I am or where I belong, he thought.

      And he was running out of time to find out. He’d made all the arrangements he was supposed to make—his affairs were in order. When he’d been home last Christmas, he’d even allowed the Blessing Way to be performed on his behalf, an all-night Navajo ceremony that was supposed to make it possible for him to go to war with the blessing of the Holy People, even if he didn’t actually believe in them anymore.

      But he hadn’t gone looking for the better understanding of his long-dead white father he used to think he wanted.

      The Baron home place, the big house with a rambling front porch he knew only from photographs, still belonged to Sloan, and it was perpetually rented. He hadn’t wanted to see it for the first time under those circumstances—with strange people living in it—or so he told himself. Besides that, it was located at the far end of his travel limit, and he had used that as an excuse, as well. Somebody in his squad would probably know a short cut, even if it involved driving through a surprised farmer’s corn field, but he hadn’t asked. Clearly, standing in the middle of his father’s past in theory was very different from actually doing it. If he were completely honest, he would admit that he hadn’t delved into the Baron family history because he was afraid to. He was unsettled enough as it was and not ready to find that his white heritage fit him no better than his Navajo heritage did.

      A memory of Arley’s young son suddenly came into his mind. He had immediately recognized the look in the boy’s eyes. It came for being caught up in a whirlwind of uncontrollable adult events and being afraid to deal with it alone. He had seen the same expression all too often in the mirror when he was a boy, when Sloan and the tribe were squabbling over who he belonged to and who could raise him.

      He sighed again in the dark. He had to stop thinking about Arley Meehan and her little boy and the problem she was apparently having with the man who had once been her husband. He had troubles of his own. He had to keep the family from worrying. It was natural that they would be worried about his likely imminent deployment, but they didn’t know about his loss of direction. He’d told them nothing of his misgivings, and there was nothing he could do to reassure them.

      So how homesick are you?

      Maybe more than he had realized, he thought as he felt his harmony dissipate even further in a sudden wave of longing for home. He missed his patched-up, mismatched family. He missed the desert, the place where he almost belonged. He missed…something unnameable, something a brief conversation with a pretty young woman had made him suddenly aware might be unavailable to him.

      He took a quiet breath, trying to concentrate on the calm place deep inside him, the one he was only able to find after he had decided to be truly Navajo. The words of the Hozhonji song swirled in his mind. The song had great power. It spoke of helpmates and pairs and beauty.

      The happiness of all things.

      It was a blessing he would have said for Arley’s sister and