Rider on Fire & When You Call My Name: Rider on Fire / When You Call My Name

The rider leaned slightly forward as she took off the helmet, and as she lifted her head, a long, black sweep of hair fanned out, then fell loosely down the back of her neck. Even though she had yet to face him, Franklin felt an odd sense of familiarity.

“Adam?”

“Just wait,” Adam said.

In that moment, Sonora Jordan turned, and for the second time today, found herself face-to-face with the other man from her dreams.

“This is too weird,” she muttered, and refused to let herself be overwhelmed by the fact that this man claimed he was her father.

Franklin was shaking. He couldn’t quit staring at her face.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Sonora looked at Adam, then frowned. “I thought you said he knew I was coming.”

Adam decided it was time for him to intervene. “Franklin, the Old Ones have delivered what you asked for. This is Sonora Jordan. She’s an agent with the DEA.”

Sonora frowned. “What Old Ones? What are you talking about?” She backed up and laid her hand on the storage compartment behind the seat of the Harley. It made her feel safer to be close to the gun. “Is this some trick Garcia has pulled to get me alone, because I warn you, if it is, I won’t—”

“No. No,” Franklin whispered. “It’s no trick. It’s a miracle. I asked Adam to find my child. And you have come.”

Sonora looked at Adam. “I don’t get it. You didn’t find me. I found you.”

“Actually, it was neither,” Adam said. “The Old Ones found you. They are the ones who have guided your path. They are the ones who have brought you to this place.”

“What are you talking about? Who are these Old Ones you keep talking about?”

Franklin waved her question away as he took her by the hand.

“Forgive me, but I just had to touch you. You are so beautiful. My heart is full of joy.”

“Look,” Sonora said. “I appreciate your kindness, but how can you be certain that—”

“Come into my house. I’ll prove it to you,” Franklin said, and then turned and strode to the porch and up the steps without waiting to see if she was behind him.

Sonora glared at Adam. “I’m not falling for all this ghost and spirit crap.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But consider this…how else did you come to be in this place?”

She flashed on the hallucinations and dreams she’d been having and glared even harder.

“My boss told me to get lost for a while. That’s how. I’ve got one man already on my back trying to kill me. So if you’re in mind of doing anything similar, you need to get in line.”

Adam froze. His voice deepened as his eyes went cold. “You are in danger?”

“Oh, Lord… I don’t know…. Yes, probably. At least enough that my boss told me to leave Phoenix.”

“Come, come,” Franklin called from the doorway. “You must see to believe.”

Sonora gave Adam one last warning glance. “Just don’t mess with me, okay?”

Adam didn’t answer.

Sonora exhaled angrily, took her gun out of the compartment and put it in the back waistband of her pants, beneath her leather vest, then stomped into the house.

“So what do you have to show me?” Sonora said.

Franklin handed her a photo that he’d taken from the mantel over the fireplace.

Sonora eyed it casually, then stifled a gasp.

“Who is she?” she asked, pointing at the woman in the photo.

“My mother, and he is my father. It was taken on their wedding day.”

“Good Lord,” Sonora whispered, then carried it to a table in the hall and the mirror that hung above it.

She kept looking from the photo to her face and then back again until Adam took it from her hands and held it up beside her. Were it not for old-fashioned hair and clothing, and the man in the picture, she would have sworn the picture was of her.

“I look like her,” Sonora said, and then bit her lip to keep from weeping. In all of her twenty-nine years, she’d never had the luxury of saying that before.

Franklin walked up behind her. Adam stepped back. Now Sonora was seeing herself, and Franklin Blue Cat, and seeing the similarities in their features. Her emotions were out of control. They went from jubilation, knowing she’d found a family, to hurt and anger that he’d never come looking for her. She wanted to cry, and settled for anger.

“Why?” she muttered.

“Why what?” Franklin asked.

“Why am I just learning you existed?”

Franklin took her by the hand. “Please, may we sit down? I’m not feeling very well.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he led her to a sofa.

Franklin shrugged. “I have leukemia and the medicines have quit working. I am dying.”

Sonora reeled from the news. She’d known he wasn’t well, and had even had the thought that he was dying, but to hear her suspicions were actually true made her sick to her stomach. This wasn’t fair. She’d spent her entire life alone. Why would she be reunited with her only living family only to have him snatched away? How cruel was this?

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, and bit her lip to keep from wailing.

Franklin nodded. “Such is life,” he said, then brushed the topic aside. “Did your mother ever mention my name?”

Sonora smiled bitterly. “My mother, as you put it, dumped me on the doorstep of a Texas orphanage when I was less than a day old. I was named by a priest and a nun and dumped in a baby bed with two other babies. My earliest memory is of sitting in the corner of the bed and bawling because one of the bigger kids had taken my bottle and drank my milk.”

Franklin reeled as if he’d been slapped. “You’re not serious?”

She laughed to keep from crying. “Oh, but I am. She didn’t want me and that’s okay. I can take care of myself.”

Franklin shook his head as tears unashamedly ran down his face. When she would have moved away, he took her hands, then held them fast against his chest.