Capturing the Cavedweller's Heart Read online

  “Did you put this in my hand?” he asked, holding out the light.

  She nodded. “I did. It’s scary to wake up alone in the dark.”

  The kindness in her tone was at odds with what he imagined her to be like, so he ignored it. “What did you do to my home? My people?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” She waved a hand around her. “This is how the landscape here has looked for a long, long time.” She tipped her head to one side and studied him before taking a step closer. “What is it supposed to look like?”

  “A lake, there,” he said, sweeping his hand toward the sea of brush and dirt. He turned and motioned to the base of the hill directly behind them. “Our homes should be there. My people should be there.”

  “Your people? Who are your people?” she asked, looking truly interested.

  Thor knew she wasn’t, but he answered anyway. There was no word in her language that matched that of his clan, so he spoke it in his own tongue.

  Confused, she frowned and took another step toward him. “How many people should be here?”

  “Twenty-four men, twenty-two women, eleven children.” Thor sighed. “And two babies.”

  “And they are your people. You are their leader?”

  He nodded. “I am Thor, leader of our clan.” His gaze narrowed. “What are you called, witch woman?”

  “Not witch woman, that is for certain,” she said with a huff. “My name is Hannah, and I’m no more a witch than you are a man who lived thousands of years ago. Where did you come from?”

  “Here!” Thor said, losing patience with the woman, even if she was a witch.

  She pointed to a log and sat down on it. “Tell me how you came to be in the cave,” she said as though she had nothing but time to offer him.

  Exasperated, but with no other means to bring back his family and their home, he took a seat on the log and glowered at her. “We’d just returned from a hunt. The women worked to prepare a feast to celebrate. I bathed in the lake, dressed, and decided to go for a walk before the meal was ready.”

  He stopped and gazed over the arid, desolate area. “I noticed the cave and climbed up to explore. It is good to have a safe place for shelter if we need it. I found the tunnel and followed it, then I heard a woman singing.” He glared at her again. “Your song was nonsense, but it drew me to you, which is what you intended all along. You wove a spell over me and left me in a deep sleep while you made my people and our homes disappear and poured your hideous language into my head. How did you hide the lake?”

  The woman shook her head. “I didn’t hide anything, cast any spells, or cause anything to disappear. Do you take medication, sir? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

  Thor’s scowl deepened. “I do not know these words. Medication, is that medicine?” He scoffed. “I am the healthiest man in the clan, in fifty clans!”

  She gave him an assessing look then another calming smile. “Okay, so no to medication and the hospital. Do you have a wife somewhere waiting for you to come home? Do you need a ride?”

  “Wife? What is a wife?” he asked.

  The witch appeared to search through her thoughts for another word. “Mate? Spouse?”

  “No. My mates are dead.”

  “Mates? As in more than one?” She shook her head. “Figures.” She stood and looked down at him for a long moment. “Well, Thor, as fun as this has been, it’s getting late, and I need to go. You can’t stay here, so you better be on your way. Are you sure you don’t need a ride?”

  “A ride? What is that?” he asked, uncertain of what she spoke.

  “Where’s your car? I know you didn’t walk all the way out here.” She looked around, holding her hand up to shield her eyes from the last rays of the dying sun.

  “We walk everywhere, woman. How do you think I got here?”

  “I have no idea how you got here. In fact, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. My brain is too tired to keep up with your charade, so I’m going to bed.” She gave him another long look that made something in his stomach flutter. “Last offer if you need a ride somewhere.”

  “No.” Thor didn’t know exactly what he was refusing, but it seemed better than agreeing to anything the witch suggested. He followed as she walked over to a shiny beast and climbed inside it.

  “What do you call this?” he asked, slightly awed and intensely curious. Tentatively, he reached out and ran his hand along the smooth side of the beast. It felt like the magic light she’d placed in his hand, the same sort of material.

  “A vehicle, more specifically a Jeep. That’s enough, Thor. Really, you can drop the act. You played the part to perfection, and I hope whoever talked you into doing it paid you really well.” She turned something inside the beast, and it roared to life. He could feel it vibrating beneath his hand and jumped back.

  “Sure you don’t want a ride?” she asked.

  “No. No ride,” he said, taking another step back. Lights glowed from two globes in the front of the beast. The witch had to possess horrific, dark powers to harness it in such a way. “Be gone with you.”

  “Gladly, but you better be gone, too. I don’t want to come back and find you’ve destroyed anything in the morning.” With that, the beast circled around and left.

  Thor watched until the red glow of the lights on the back of it, like smoldering ashes, disappeared from sight.

  Alone and fearful of what the witch had done, what she might yet do, he curled up on his side in the place that had once been his home and mourned the loss of his people.

  Sunlight barely streaked the sky the following morning when odd smells assaulted his nose, wrenching him from dreams of walking along the lake with Tilia and Lusk.

  He jolted upright and found four sets of eyes staring at him. The urge to yelp in fear and run surged through him, but years of serving as a confident, brave leader kept him strong. Thor jumped to his feet and faced them in a widened stance, hands fisted at his sides.

  The witch was back with her friends. Would they tie him up? Torture him? Use him for their evil sorcery?

  “Are you hungry?” the witch asked, holding out something toward him that crinkled.

  Nearly as brown as the dirt beneath their feet, the object was longer than it was wide and appeared to hold something inside it. One of the scents invading his nose made his stomach clench with hunger.

  Hungry. The witch had asked if he was hungry.

  He nodded and took the offering. She motioned for him to open it. Half afraid to follow her direction, he worried about what he might find. Too proud to allow any fear to show, he opened the top and breathed deeply when a delicious fragrance wafted around his face. He lifted out a warm, squatty object. The aroma it emitted made him think of the berry cakes his sister sometimes made.

  “It’s okay. You can eat it.” The witch smiled at him, holding her fingers in front of her mouth, and pretending to take a bite.

  He broke off a piece and popped it in his mouth, hoping she hadn’t poisoned it. The cake was moist, tender, rich, and bursting with the flavors of a berry he didn’t recognize. He swallowed and took another bite.

  “What is this?” he asked, casting the witch a quick glance.

  “A blueberry muffin,” she said, reaching out and peeling something away from the bottom of the muffin. “You shouldn’t eat the paper.”

  “Paper?” he asked, looking at the limp, crumb-covered glob in her hand.

  “You can write on it, wrap stuff in it, or carry things in it, like this paper bag,” one of the men said, wiggling the brown crinkly thing Thor still held between two fingers.

  “Paper?” he asked again, holding up the bag.

  “That’s right. Paper,” the second, older man said. “Would you like some coffee?” He held out a strange-shaped object.

  Thor took it and felt heat against his fingers.

  The older man took a similar object he held in his hand and lifted it to his mouth. “You drink it. This is a cup. Coffee is the liquid inside
.”

  Thor tipped up the cup, and a hot, bitter-tasting liquid flowed over his tongue. He couldn’t decide if he liked it or hated it, but the more he drank, the more he felt awake and alert. He finished his muffin and ate the second one tucked into the bag, grunting in satisfaction, while the witch and her friends watched him.

  “He’s either certifiably insane with unbelievable delusions, suffered a brain injury, or is an incredibly talented actor,” the other woman whispered to the witch.

  The witch scowled and hushed her.

  Thor had no idea what delusions or actor meant, but neither sounded like a good thing. “The food was not bad, witch.”

  The younger man laughed. “I guess that’s his way of saying thanks, Hannah.”

  The witch ignored the younger man and smiled at Thor. “These are my coworkers. Erik, Sam, and Jen. And my name is Hannah, not witch.”

  Thor worked the names over his tongue and said each one, saving Hannah for last. He thought he’d imagined how beautiful she looked in the fading light last night, but he hadn’t been dreaming.

  In the shadows, her hair looked brown, but in the sunlight, it glowed with streaks of light and dark red, like flames in a low-burning fire. She wore it woven into a three-strand twist down her back. Her eyes glowed and sparkled, similar to the depths of a clear green pool where he’d once caught fish. She had high cheekbones, and a hole that popped out in her cheek when she smiled. And her lips, particularly the bottom one, were full and pleasing.

  She was tall, too. Taller than the younger man and the other woman. Almost as tall as the older man. Women in Thor’s clan were not tall. The men wouldn’t be as tall as her either. In fact, Thor was taller than any other man he’d met or encountered in his clan’s travels. He’d certainly never seen a woman as tall as Hannah.

  He looked over the four people. Their clothing was as odd as their talk and mannerisms, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

  “Who are you, exactly?” Erik asked.

  “I am Thor, chief of the Lake Clan,” he said with pride in his voice.

  The four of them shared a look that left Thor both annoyed and dismayed. Did they not believe him? What did he care, anyway? The witch had somehow made his people and his entire world disappear. Maybe she’d somehow transported him to a different place. Yet, some of the hilltops looked familiar. Perhaps it was all a trick or a dream. Maybe he yet slept. Perhaps he’d eaten something bad at the feast that had given him terrible dreams and he’d wake up, back in his home, with everything right in the world.

  “Let’s go explore your cave, Chief, or shall we call you Thor?” Sam asked.

  Thor scowled at the young man, who seemed untested and untried. “Thor.”

  He fell into step beside the witch as the five of them walked in the direction of the cave. Only the cave had disappeared, too.

  “I could have sworn it was right around this bend,” Erik said, glancing at the surrounding hills.

  “It should have been there,” Hannah said, pointing to the nearby hillside. “Right behind that big sagebrush.”

  Thor distinctly recalled climbing up the hill yesterday and then rushing down it last night when the witch had returned.

  “Did you work your sorcery on it, too?” he asked, convinced she’d made it disappear.

  “I am not a witch, sorceress, medicine woman, or worker of voodoo magic,” Hannah said, glaring at him with her hands on her hips. “And if you call me a witch just one more time, I’ll taser you again.”

  Ruefully, he concluded women shared certain similarities no matter the time or place. In no hurry to repeat the painful experience he endured the previous evening, he shook his head and took a step away from her.

  The two men grinned at him while Jen worked to subdue a laugh.

  “We should have drawn a map,” Erik said, returning to his search for the cave.

  “I know where it should be, and it’s right there,” Hannah said, pointing again to the hillside where Thor knew the cave had been.

  “Well, we can’t spend all day searching for something we can’t find. Let’s finish what we need to do today, and worry about the cave next week,” Jen said, turning back the way they’d come.

  “What about Thor? What are we going to do with him?” Sam asked as he and Erik fell into step with Jen.

  “I guess he’ll just have to stay here until we’re ready to leave tonight,” Erik said, glancing back at him. “But we’ll all have to make sure he doesn’t mess up anything.”

  It irritated Thor they spoke of him as though he was a brainless child. He tamped down his anger and followed them back to where he’d noticed sticks and pale strings marking off an area.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, staring at the trenches where they had been digging.

  “Removing artifacts.” Hannah looked at him as she took a pack off her back and set it on the ground.

  “Artifacts?” he asked, squatting down and studying the earth they’d disturbed.

  “Artifacts are things we study from ancient civilizations. From a time when mammoths roamed the earth,” Hannah said, moving into the trench with a tool in her hand Thor found interesting. She used it to lift the earth and move it from one place to another.

  “Mammoths still roam, although we don’t hunt them as often in the summer. The best time is when the summer breezes are gone but before the winter snows arrive.” He pointed southwest. “There is a herd of them in a valley about three days’ walk from here.”

  Four faces turned toward him, mouths gaping in astonishment.

  “You’ve killed a mammoth before?” Eric asked from his place on the far side of the trench.

  “Of course. I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I hadn’t.” Thor scoffed at the man.

  Erik gave Hannah a look then turned his gaze back to Thor. “What else have you hunted?”

  “Bison, elk, sheep, deer, camels,” the words rolled off his tongue as he pictured the animals that accompanied them. “We’ve killed bear and lions, not for their meat, but because they attacked us.”

  “And the pouch you wear is from a lion you killed?” Sam asked, pointing to the paw hanging from the leather strap around Thor’s waist.

  Thor’s hand brushed over the soft fur, and he nodded. “Yes. I killed this lion, with the help of Lusk.”

  “And who is Lusk?” Erik inquired.

  “My sister’s mate. If something happens to me, he will lead the clan.”

  “Do you have a mate?” Jen asked, giving Thor a look he didn’t appreciate.

  “Not now. Beena and my son died when the earth shook five summers ago, and Una died birthing my daughter not many moons ago, when winter was leaving.”

  Hannah’s eyebrows shifted upward. “You have a baby daughter? Where is she?” She glanced around, as though Thor had left the infant in the bushes somewhere.

  The woman was stupid — yes, that was the word — if she thought he’d leave little Ilee anywhere but with Tilia. “She is with my sister, wherever that might be.” He still wasn’t convinced Hannah hadn’t somehow made them disappear.

  “Here we go again,” Jen muttered under her breath, but Thor heard her perfectly.

  He held his lips pressed together and continued hunkering near the place where Hannah dug in the soil.

  The rest of them remained silent as they set to work. Thor still didn’t understand what they were doing, what they were looking for, until Hannah held up an earth-covered lump and examined it.

  “Oh, my goodness! It’s a shoe! A shoe!” she exclaimed.

  Erik, Sam, and Jen hurried over, looking as though Hannah held a treasure.

  “That’s incredible,” Erik said, gently using something he called a brush to remove the dirt.

  “It looks like this, doesn’t it?” Thor asked, holding out his foot.

  Hannah’s mouth dropped open, and she grabbed his foot, throwing him off-balance. He fell back on his rump with a thud. She paid him no mind as she continued to turn his foot this wa
y and that, comparing it to the shoe Erik held.

  “How is this possible? Why…? Did he… Could it…?” Hannah stammered, glancing from Jen to Erik then back to Thor. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Thor, chief of the Lake Clan, as I’ve told you many times, wi…” Thor caught himself before he called her witch again. “Woman. Hannah.” He sighed. “I live in the time of mammoths and great bison, and cave lions. There is a beautiful, deep lake surrounded by lush plants where we make our home that was right here just yesterday. We live in dwellings back against this hill. And now it is all gone.”

  “Tell us all about where you live, Thor,” Erik said in a friendly tone that belied something else, something that bordered on demanding.

  “No. I don’t think I will right now.” Thor yanked his foot away from Hannah and rose to his feet. “I’m going to look for the cave again.”

  “You do that, Thor. That’s a great idea,” Jen said, offering him an encouraging smile.

  Thor had a feeling they just wanted to work in peace, so he’d let them. He could hear them quietly talking about him as he walked away. He didn’t hold any hope of finding the cave any more than he did walking around the curve of the hill up ahead and having his people and his lake suddenly reappear.

  But until he could figure out how to convince the witch to return everything to normal, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.

  Chapter Four

  “Either he’s off his meds and thinks he really is a caveman, or that dude is just nuts,” Sam said as he sifted a shovel full of dirt through a fine screen.

  “Agreed,” Jen said without looking up.

  “I feel sorry for him,” Hannah said, aware her coworkers all stared at her in disbelief. “I mean, what if he really, truly believes something happened to his family. And how do you explain his clothes, those shoes?”

  “He could have read an article about the dig here,” Erik said, brushing dirt off what appeared to be a spear tip. “He could have made the costume, had someone make it for him. It’s easy enough to play dumb about modern things like muffins and paper and coffee.”