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“I’m betting the electromagnetic vortices are the sexiest, right?” Tess sat up and leaned over the front seat.
“I never really thought of it that way,” Durango said. “But, yeah, I suppose those would be considered the sexiest vortices. Concurrent flow and all that.”
“Do you really believe the vortices have such influential power?” Abby asked.
“Not at all,” he said. “The power is within you. The vortex is just a channel, funneling energy into whatever you bring to it. Positive or negative. Light or dark. Passionate or dispassionate.”
Abby swallowed. “All this sounds pretty out there. New Agey. Weird.”
And not at all like the old Durango she used to know. That young rebel had been full of torment and anger. He was different now. More relaxed, more philosophical, more sure of his place in the world. Plus, he didn’t seem to hold the slightest grudge against her for turning against him all those years ago. That was really nice. She approved of the changes in him.
Durango leaned over and placed the flat of his broad thumb in the center of her forehead. “Open your mind, Abby. The world is a much bigger place than your father’s circle of influence.”
She stared at him, her forehead tingling from his touch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You figure it out.” Durango’s enigmatic black eyes challenged her to go beyond the tried-and-true. He was so busy watching her that he missed his turn-off and had to corner quickly.
The tires squealed. Abby sucked in her breath and clutched the hand rest.
The credo medallion flew off the rearview mirror and dropped into her lap.
Freefall.
With shaky fingers, Abby slipped the medallion back over the mirror.
“Yee-ha!” Tess said from the back seat. “That was fun.”
“Just checking to see if you were awake,” Durango joked.
They turned down Back O’ Beyond Road. It seemed an appropriate name encircled as they were by miles and miles of the majestic red rocks. Abby had to admit there was something incredibly special about those rock mesas. No matter what you were doing, you invariably felt your eyes drawn to them.
There were other Jeeps on the road. Other tours. They drove for a while longer and then Durango found a place to park.
“We walk from here,” he said, strapping on his backpack.
The weather was temperate. A good fifteen degrees cooler than in Phoenix. The sun was bright but not overpowering. The air was peaceful. Quiet.
Abby couldn’t believe that she had lived out her entire life in Phoenix and had never once made the short two-hour trek to Sedona. She didn’t have much time for vacations. She stayed too busy with her job and running her father’s household and helping out with his political campaigns. And whenever she did take time off, she usually preferred cruising the Caribbean to checking out local hot spots.
Just think, all this time, Durango was only two hours away and you never knew.
Her heart lurched oddly. Why did that realization make her feel so sad?
The world is a much bigger place than your father’s circle of influence. Durango’s words echoed in her head.
He led the way up the trail. They’d only gone half a mile before Tess started bitching. “How come nobody told me there’d be so much walking.”
“I did suggest you might not want to wear high-heeled sandals.” Abby shook her head.
“But hiking shoes blow my sexy image.” Tess pouted.
“It’s not too much farther,” Durango said.
“Why don’t they build roads right up to the vortex?” Tess whined. “For us couch potatoes.”
“That would kinda ruin the whole point of nature,” Abby pointed out.
They passed a few other hikers on their trek up the rock. Tess finally ended up pulling off her shoes and padding after them barefoot. The sound of her feet slapping against the red sandstone echoed softly throughout the canyon.
When they came to a large flat rock in the middle of the path, Tess plunked herself down on it.
“You guys go ahead.” She waved a hand. “I just wanna sit here and rest a minute.”
“We’ll wait with you,” Abby said and perched beside her. The last thing she wanted to do was be alone with Durango.
“I really want to be by myself. To meditate.”
Abby stared at her. “Since when do you meditate?”
“Since I found out Colin Cruz is deep into Eastern philosophy. Now, do you mind?” Tess made shooing motions at them. “Scram.”
She knew what her friend was up to and, while Tess thought she had her best interest at heart, Abby wasn’t the least bit grateful.
“Abby?” Durango raised a questioning eyebrow and cocked his head in the direction of the summit. “How ’bout we give Tess some space.”
Okay, fine. Blowing out her breath, Abby slid off the rock and reluctantly followed Durango up the trail. So much for the quiet, tranquil buttes of Sedona.
“You and Tess are total opposites,” Durango said to Abby when they were out of earshot. “How have you stayed friends for so long?”
“Tess is something of a character,” Abby conceded. “She’s a lot of fun to be around.”
“And you’re the ground wire.”
“I guess you could say that.”
They reached the top and, just as they were going up, a camera-wielding, balding, paunchy, middle-aged man wearing Bermuda shorts, a Van Halen T-shirt and black sandals with plaid socks was coming down.
“I looked all over this damned rock and couldn’t find hide nor hair of that stupid vortex,” he was muttering under his breath.
“A vortex isn’t something you see,” Durango told him. “It’s an energy field. You have to feel it.”
The guy snorted, mumbled something about New Age fruitcakes and took off down the trail.
“Well, he was friendly,” Abby said. “Not.”
“People like him show up all the time. They’re usually from a big city. Rushed, in a hurry, looking for a short cut to inner peace. They hear about the restorative power of the vortex and they think it’s a ticket to instant enlightenment. But there’s no such thing.”
Abby cocked her head and studied him. He looked at peace and she was happy for him. “You seem to have come a long way in the enlightenment department.”
“Hey, it was either get peaceful or drive myself nuts holding on to grudges.”
“Did you have a grudge against me?” she dared to ask him.
“What do you think?”
“I’m thinking yes.”
He nodded. “I was pretty hurt at the time. I thought we were working on something special, but it turned out I was wrong. Just goes to show you how foolish teenagers can be.”
“Not totally foolish,” she said huskily.
“No?”
“I thought we were working on something special, too.”
He eyed her speculatively. “But when the going got tough and you got going…”
“What can I say?” She shrugged and tried not to let him see how much her lack of faith in him still bothered her. “I was a scared kid.”
“You’re not a kid anymore.”
“No.”
“But you’re still scared.” There was that grin of his again, more wicked than ever.
The sun beat down. The air was alive with electricity. Abby felt something then. She didn’t know if it was the famous vortex energy or if it was energy of a much more tangible kind, but her skin prickled and her nerve endings tingled.
Durango’s chest was rising and falling in a rapid rhythm that matched her own edgy breathing.
A tangle of complicated emotions skirled inside her, spiraling outward in an expanding circle, drawing her to him.
Their eyes met and the moment was straight out of some romantic movie. His gaze locked with hers and Abby couldn’t catch her breath. Her chest literally hurt with the intensity of wanting him.
The vortex was sucking her in. Pulling her down into a place she wasn’t so sure she wanted to go.
Run! Run! cried the cautious side she’d inherited from her father.
Stay, stay, inveigled her mother’s Gypsy blood.
“Durango,” she whispered.
“Angel.”
He reached for her.
She walked toward him.
He wet his lips.
She pursed hers.
He took off her hat.
She looked into his face.
Oh wow, oh boy, oh no.
And Abby just knew he would have kissed her if she hadn’t picked that moment to start sneezing.
3
WHAT IN THE HADES do you think you’re pulling, Creed?
Oh, he knew what he was doing and it wasn’t good. In fact, he had very, very bad intentions.
When Durango had first realized that the sleek-haired brunette on the steps of the Tranquility Spa was none other than Abby Archer, the teenage crush who had busted his heart by siding with their snobby, high-society community against him, his first despicable thought had been—I’ve gotta get even.
His second, more mature thought had been—I’ve gotta let it go.
Ten years had passed. He rarely thought about her anymore and he’d made a great life for himself here in Sedona. And yet a touch of that young rebel remained. A bit of his heart was still hardened against her and the collective of Silverton Heights.
He wasn’t proud of his feelings but neither could he dismiss them. He felt what he felt. Good or bad.
Yet how could he blame her for what had happened? Abby had done what she had to do in order to live with herself. She’d been a suppressed seventeen-year-old girl with a powerful father. She’d had little choice but to accept his edict. Rationally, Durango understood that.
But deep down inside he was still the vulnerable kid who didn’t quite comprehend why he hadn’t been enough for her.
Besides, his real beef had been with her old man.
And his own.
Durango grit his teeth at the memory. Although he had long since gotten over being disowned in favor of his father’s calculating trophy wife, he still couldn’t fathom why Phillip Creed had chosen to believe his stepmother Meredith’s outrageous lie that Durango had attempted to force her to have sex with him, when it had been the other way around.
Meredith had come on to him.
Durango tried telling his father the accusation was a ruse on Meredith’s part because he’d discovered she was hiding illicit business dealings at her company where his father had just bought part interest.
But his father had sunk even lower, allowing Meredith to intimidate him into involving his buddy, Judge Archer, in the private family matter. His father persuaded Abby’s dad to jail him for a week, when in a desperate bid to be heard, Durango had lashed out and vandalized one of Meredith’s warehouses.
The memory of those seven days behind bars would stay with him forever.
Let it go. Water under the bridge. He was happy now and that’s all that mattered.
Then Durango’s third and most compelling thought had been—Damn, but Abby’s hot. I’ve gotta find a way to get her into my bed.
Now, standing here atop Cathedral Rock, gazing into her soulful hazel eyes and lusting after those full cherry-colored lips, he was thinking—You still haven’t found your passion, have you sweetheart?
He could see she was lost and she didn’t even know it. His heart literally ached and his weakness for her bothered the hell out of him.
