Chapter Nine

Dawn wished the night would never have to end. But there was no ignoring the sun shining through the bedroom window and hitting her smack in the face with its bright rays. She felt a smile touch her lips; lips that still clung to Mateo’s demanding kisses. Her hand impulsively rose up to touch the area at the back of her neck where she had been bitten in those bizarre dreams. Don’t start with that crazy stuff again. She sighed with relief to discover that—of course—there were no new wounds.

Before opening her eyes, she reached over to the side of the bed where she was sure he would still be sleeping. The feel of cool sheets greeted her hand. Her eyes flew open. She was alone among the tangled mess of sheets.

One night stand echoed through her mind. Then she noticed the note lying on the empty pillow beside her. As she grabbed the piece of white paper, she was growing more anxious by the moment. The note was written on a piece of paper torn out of the tablet she kept in the kitchen for writing her shopping lists and notes.

She grunted with aggravation. She knew how men usually were when they first got up in the morning. Mateo had most likely gotten up from the bed and sauntered into the bathroom to take a pee. Flushing the toilet was optional when it came to men, which probably explains why she hadn’t heard him in the bathroom. Then, he must have dressed, roamed through her tiny apartment looking for pen and paper, written a note, and placed it on the pillow before leaving. And she hadn’t heard one damn thing?

Well, they hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, so she was obviously exhausted. She couldn’t stop the silly grin that claimed her lips. Oh, it had been so worth the loss of sleep.

She pushed up to a sitting position, aware of the slight tenderness between her legs from their exuberant night of making love; it was a pain she didn’t mind at all. Her goofy grin widened. The way this man made her feel was unreal. She rubbed her sleepy eyes and tried to focus on the note. Please don’t let it be filled with bad news like, ‘Dear Easy One-Night Stand, Wish you had higher morals, but you don’t, so I won’t be seeing you again. Bye Bye.’ Ugh. She forced herself to look down at the carefully written words on the note paper.

My beautiful Dawn,

There is nothing I would like more than to wake up this morning with you in my arms. Unfortunately, I have commitments I am unable to ignore and had to leave early. I didn’t want to wake you. Please forgive me for not saying goodbye. I will count the minutes until I can see you again. I will call you tonight and I hope you will be looking forward to it as much as I will be.

Love,

Mateo

Love? Love. Love Mateo? Damn.

This was crazy. She barely knew anything about him, other than he was gorgeous to look at, and a magnificent lover and just about perfect in every way, but she knew without a doubt that she loved him. She pressed the note against her bare breast. It was the closest she could be to him right now. She would be counting the minutes until she heard from him tonight.

“Mateo Two Moons, I love you, too,” she said softly.

Since there was no need to get up yet, she leaned back on her pillow. She hugged the note a few minutes longer then put it back on the pillow in the exact spot where he had left it earlier. A fleeting thought passed through her mind and made her gasp out loud.

They hadn’t used any protection last night. She vaguely remembered thinking about that very important issue as he had been carrying her to the bedroom, but it passed through her mind as no more than a nonexistent whisper and she had completely forgotten to mention it to him. So why hadn’t he said something? No one made love for the first time without talking about that stuff these days.

But they made love last night over and over and over again without even thinking about it. Oh well, too late now. Damn.

Her brows drew together as a heavy frown settled on her face. She tried to care more about the fact they had been so careless, but for some reason it just didn’t seem all that important in the big scheme of everything else she felt when she thought about that man. The panic she knew she should be feeling was nothing more than a minor aggravation. Next time they would have to talk about using protection. And she was fairly certain there was going to be a next time.

Another grin came to her lips before a huge yawn reminded her of how tired she still was. She thought she’d just rest in bed for a bit longer before she got up and did something to pass the time before Mateo called her tonight.

But it was barely seconds before she was sound asleep, and lost to another strange world of dreams…real dreams.

She was following a trail on the Superstition Mountains. How odd she was not afraid at all this time. Instead, she was trembling with excitement. Ahead, she sensed there was something so amazing she couldn’t wait to see it.

This trail was familiar. The setting sun was shining along the tops of the mountain, and on the shapes of jagged rocks and scraggily pinion trees along the sides of the trail. She remembered all this from the hike she had taken with Chloe.

As Dawn approached a towering expanse of the mountain, a small opening became visible at the base. She did not hesitate to kneel down on her knees and crawl through the dark hole.

Rising up to her feet, she realized she was in another familiar area. She had been here with Chloe, too. The Old Military Trail. But they hadn’t been on this high of a ridge when they were here before. The lower ledge where she had been standing with Chloe last weekend was barely visible and she had no idea how she had gotten up here on this higher ledge. From here she had a clear view of Weavers Needle. The tall pointy sphere was glowing red in the fading sunlight. Still, she wasn’t frightened at all.

She glanced down and noticed a shape began to form on the desert floor below the Needle in the dimming light. The last rays of sun sparkled along the edges of the silhouette spread out below her. The outline highlighted by the fading sunlight began to take on a recognizable form. It resembled the profile of an old man’s face. Indentations along the barren ground clearly outlined his features, and rocks formed his nose, mouth and eyes. The eyes appeared to be staring at a particular spot on the mountain behind her.

Turning slowly her gaze followed the same path as the unmoving stone eyes. A gasp caught in her throat as her disbelieving mind fought to comprehend what she was seeing. The entrance to the cave was massive and resembled a gaping mouth. Dawn was sure this was the jaws of Hell. Although she was afraid to see more, she couldn’t look away. Her gaze was drawn past the terrifying image of the heinous gateway, to the interior of the enormous cavern. She gasped and drew in a trembling breath.

The walls of the cave were filled with glistening veins of gold and the fading rays of the setting sun made them cast blinding spheres of light across the land. Dawn threw her hands over her eyes to block the piercing glare of the gold. She shook with a mixture of awe and disbelief. It really did exist.

The Lost Dutchman’s Mine was no longer lost. She had just found it.

The sound of someone knocking on her door woke Dawn from her most recent and extremely detailed dream. For a moment, she was still mired in the vivid images of finding the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. This dream was so detailed. Maybe not as intense as the others—the kinky ones—but all her dreams lately had been a bit too real. She glanced at the clock on her night stand and was shocked to see it was almost three-thirty in the afternoon.

Another knock sounded from the front door. “Coming,” Dawn called out and jumped up to grab her blue satin robe from the hook on the bathroom door. What if it was Mateo? She probably looked like crap. She haphazardly ran her fingers through her tangled hair as she rushed toward the door.

“It’s Chloe. Are you okay in there?”

Whew. As much as she couldn’t wait to see Mateo again, she would prefer to not look like something the cat drug in when he came back. Pulling the door open, she was immediately aware of how she must look by the knowing expression on Chloe’s face.

“I was worried you were sick again. But damn. That must have been one super-hot all-nighter. Is the Apache stud still here?” Her gaze moved past Dawn toward the open bedroom door. Her eyebrows rose up as she whispered, “In there?”

Dawn had to giggle at the way Chloe was acting. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and there was an asinine grin curving her lips. Not that she could blame her. Mateo Two Moons would cause any woman to get excited at the thought of him lying in her bed. “Nope. He had something to do today and left early this morning.”

Chloe walked into the apartment and snickered. “And you’re obviously still trying to catch up on sleep. He must have worn you out, big time. Seriously, you look like hell. But in a good way, of course.” She smiled and shook her head. “Wet dreams. Pizza Porn. And now this.” She gestured toward Dawn’s tangled hair and scantily-clad body.

“I can’t even believe any of this is really happening,” Dawn replied. She pulled the tie around her waist tighter and smoothed down the front of her short robe as she motioned for Chloe to have a seat at the kitchen counter. “Coffee?”

“Thanks, but it’s kinda late in the day for coffee, and I have no reason to be up all night.” She chuckled dryly. “Okay. Details.” She climbed on one of the two bar stools at the small kitchen counter.

Dawn began to dump scoopfuls of ground coffee into the coffeemaker. “Well, we met in front of the pizza parlor like planned, but he suggested we go to this place at the edge of the reservation. It was perfect, and he looked so seriously hot. And he’s, um, he’s just about the most wonderful man ever.” She poured water into the top of the coffee pot. “I think I’m totally, madly in love with him.” There, she admitted it out loud to someone else. There was no denying it now.

A loud gasp escaped from Chloe. Her blue eyes widened as she stared back at Dawn and shook her head slightly. “You barely know him.” A worried frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You’re moving way too fast. You know that, right?”

Turning away Dawn stared at the coffee dripping into the pot. “I know.” She shrugged. “Two days ago I didn’t believe in love at first sight, either.”

“Two days?” Chloe repeated in a stunned voice. “So, you were feeling like this since Friday night when you first met him, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Crazy. I know.” She opened an overhead cupboard and grabbed a large white coffee mug with the words Colorful Colorado written around its circumference in a rainbow of colors. “Sure you don’t want some?

Chloe gave her head a negative shake. “I need a beer.” She headed to the refrigerator to help herself. “Sure you don’t want one of these instead?” she asked as she grabbed a bottle.

Dawn laughed. “After the coffee I might.” She pushed a long strand of loose blonde hair back from her forehead. “I can’t believe I’ve practically slept all day.” She smiled when she noticed the knowing smirk on Chloe’s lips. Their gazes met, and Dawn giggled as she looked away, feeling once again like a teenager who had just had her first sloppy wet kiss. “He’s just, well, amazing in every way.” The words just fell out of her mouth without conscious thought.

“Okay, I’m officially jealous now,” Chloe said as she plopped back down on the stool. She took a big gulp of the beer she just opened. “So—think he feels the same?”

Wrapping her hands around her coffee mug, Dawn took a sip of coffee, then slowly nodded her head. “Yeah—yeah, I really think he does.” She looked directly at her friend again and added, “This is going to sound really insane, but I have no doubt I am going to be with him forever.”

Chloe took another big drink then sat the beer bottle on the countertop. “You’re right. It sounds so insane. It’s only been two days since you met him. One spilt beer on his feet. One display of public porn. One perfectly hot date. One all-night fuck.”

Another giggle escaped from Dawn. “Oh, trust me, it was so much more. It was making electrifying love over and over like I’ve never done befo—”

“Okay, enough,” Chloe interrupted and held her hand up in front of Dawn’s face. “I was just jealous before, now I’m getting sort of pissed.” She smiled to counteract her words. “You really do have it bad.” She shook her head from side to side in a slow gesture. “So, when are you seeing Mr. Perfect Everything again?”

She shrugged as a childish smirk curled her lips. See? Even Chloe had noticed Mateo Two Moons was perfect, she thought smugly as she sat down on the other stool.

“He’s supposed to call tonight. So, maybe later? I hope.” She turned and grabbed Chloe’s forearm. “Oh, I almost forgot. I had the craziest dream about your gold mine right before I woke up a little while ago.”

“My gold mine?”

“The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine,” Dawn retorted with a roll of her eyes. “I found it. Well, in my dream, anyway.”

“You and your crazy dreams.” She glanced down at her beer and began to chip at the label on the bottle with the nail on her forefinger. “You didn’t mention anything to the Apache stud about the gold mine, did you?”

Dawn shook her head, aware of Chloe’s strange tone of voice and obvious change of demeanor. “We talked a little bit about the legend, but I didn’t tell him anything about you or your family’s quest to find the mine. Why?”

Chloe rolled her eyes this time, and attempted to sound nonchalant when she spoke again. “Oh, I’m just being paranoid. I don’t want people to think I’m one of those totally obsessed gold seekers that really think the mine and the gold exists.”

Confusion clouded Dawn’s thoughts. She had no doubt Chloe really did believe the Lost Dutchman’s Gold mine existed. Her entire family was dedicated to finding that mine. So why was she denying it all of a sudden?

“Okay, tell me about this dream?” Chloe asked as she pulled the label all the way off the face of the beer bottle and wadded it up in her hand. She turned to face Dawn and downed the last of her beer with one huge gulp. “So, since you had a dream about the gold mine after making wild savage love to Mateo Two Balls all night long, did your dream involve gold dildos?”

Dawn nearly spit out her mouthful of coffee at the image Chloe’s suggestive words presented. “Oh yeah! Massive ones of rare metal...rock hard,” she answered through her laughter after she was able to gulp down the coffee without choking. “Now, I think I’m beginning to understand what you’re looking for up there on that mountain.”

“Okay, well I’m totally horny now,” Chloe said as she joined her in a round of giggling. “I think I need to go home and dig out the old faithful vibrator, Mr. Peter. He’s not made of gold, but he is rock hard.”

Dawn laughed as she shook her head, not wanting to envision Chloe with her battery-operated friend. “You’d be really turned on if you found the massive cave filled with gold I dreamt about,” she added.

Chloe grew more serious immediately and her voice held a note of suspicion when she spoke again. “A cave? With chests of gold? Or with veins of gold? You know, it was rumored by some that Jacob Walsh might have actually found a cache of gold hidden in the Superstitions by Apaches after they massacred a group of Spaniards traveling through the area with bags of treasure.”

Dawn gave her head a negative shake. She briefly recalled Mateo’s comment about a cache of gold supposedly left up there by Spanish Conquistadors hundreds of years ago. “No, not chests of gold. It was, well, let me start from the beginning.” As she began to recount all the details of her strange dream, Chloe remained silent until Dawn was finished telling her everything she remembered from her dream.

“Don’t you think it’s a pretty vivid dream considering I’ve only been to the Superstition Mountains once, and I was scared shitless the entire time, so I really wasn’t noticing much of anything except the imaginary images of Count Dracula lurking in the shadows?”

For a moment, Chloe didn’t reply. She stared at her with a deep frown drawing her brown brows together to the point they were nearly touching in the middle. Finally, she exhaled heavily as if she had been holding her breath. “Count Dracula? Really?”

A sheepish grin touched Dawn’s lips before she opened her mouth to speak again. But Chloe didn’t give her a chance to respond.

“Yes—yes, that is really detailed. Um? I’m guessing it’s just a result of all the clues I told you about when we were camping.”

“Oh, for sure,” Dawn agreed. “I’m sure that’s why I even dreamed about the gold mine in the first place.” She remembered Chloe telling her about the confusing clues the old miner, Jacob Waltz, had left regarding the location of the gold mine. “You have to crawl through a hole in the rock. From here you can see the Old Military Trail. You can’t see the mine from the trail. If you climb up a short distance you can see Weaver’s Needle. The setting sun shines on the gold in my mine. A rock face looks at my mine.” Just like in her most recent dream.

Chloe’s expression remained serious. “Was there anything else you remember from the dream? You said you crawled through a hole, but I remember my dad also mentioned another clue from one of the old miners who searched for the Lost Dutchman mine suggesting the sun shining through the hole in the rocks reflected off the gold in Waltz’s mine. Did you see anything like that?”

“I don’t recall seeing anything like that in my dream. But the reflection of the setting sun shining through the cave opening and hitting the veins of gold around the entrance was blinding.” She shook her head as she tried to recall more of the details she had seen in her dream, but there wasn’t anything else she hadn’t already told Chloe.

“As crazy as it sounds, do you think I had some sort of weird premonition and saw the real location or something in my dream?”

Chloe gave a careless shrug. “Oh, of course not. It’s just curious you would have such a detailed dream about the gold mine. The location of the face on the desert floor is an interesting theory.” She drew in a heavy sigh, adding, “Hey, I’m sorry if I involved you in my family’s harebrained obsession.” She added a weak chuckle that sounded forced.

“If I get a cut in the proceeds, I will keep those dreams coming,” Dawn joked. Chloe’s weird mood was not lost to her, so she attempted to change the subject. “But truthfully, I would rather just dream about Mateo.”

“Okay. That’s my clue to leave,” Chloe retorted. “Any more of this mushy love stuff and I might puke.” She pretended to poke her finger down her throat and gag as she jumped from the stool. She leaned over and hugged Dawn, adding, “I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow if you don’t decide to run off into the sunset with the Apache stud.”

That image was really appealing to Dawn…sitting next to Mateo in his big shiny black truck, driving West down the open highway toward the setting sun, while the hauntingly beautiful songs of Joseph Red Feather filled the cab. Yeah, that might even be preferable to sitting in front of a classroom full of twelve-year-olds who thought History class was the most boring subject they had ever been forced to learn.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said in a resigned tone as she followed Chloe to the door.

Chloe waved as she headed down the sidewalk toward her older model SUV. “Have fun tonight,” she called out without looking back.

Dawn smiled as she watched her drive away. With her long shiny brown hair, deep blue eyes and tall, slender figure, Chloe was a stunning woman. She was almost always happy and seemed to attract positive attention wherever she went.

There were a couple of the men teachers at the middle school who were completely smitten with her and flirted shamelessly whenever they were all in the teacher’s lounge together. Chloe flirted back, but never encouraged anything more. She told Dawn she had been engaged when she was in college to a grad-student whom she was madly in love with at the time. The engagement ended horribly when her fiancé slept with one of their college professors.

That traumatic experience seemed to have left Chloe pretty jaded about getting seriously involved with anyone again. She did date, though. Just in the past few weeks since they had been friends, she mentioned a couple of different men she was seeing on a casual basis. Still, at other times it seemed as if Chloe wished she could let go of her painful past, and fall in love again.

Dawn closed the door and sighed. Enough sleeping for the day. She had to get a shower, get dressed, and be ready for Mateo’s call; a thought that made her squeal out loud, again, just like one of her students. She sighed. It was useless to resist. She loved that gorgeous hot perfect Apache stud. And she could not wait to see him. Hopefully, he would want to get together with her tonight. He only said he would call. But a simple phone call just didn’t seem like enough after what they discovered in one another last night.

After grabbing a banana to ward off the growling noises coming from her stomach, Dawn headed to the bathroom to take a shower. As the hot water washed over her, the air grew fragrant with a heady mixture of Mateo’s earthy cologne, and her own rich floral fragrance combined with the undeniable scent of body odor still lingering from their night of heavy sex. It filled her nostrils and made the area between her legs grow wetter than the water flooding over her body from the showerhead.

Sensuous memories of the previous night and thoughts of what she wanted to do with him in the future claimed her mind while she slowly washed her hair and body with her soapy hands. This shower would be absolutely perfect if Mateo Two Moons was taking it with her.

Her fingers tingled with the thought of how she would run them through his long hair, and down over his sleek muscled body. She imagined how the little droplets of water would hang from the pointed tips of his thick hair cascading over his muscled shoulders. The water would trail down his bronzed skin, still glowing from making love to her all night. Her loins throbbed ruthlessly with eager anticipation of what they would do the next time she would see him. They definitely needed to take a shower together.

Hopefully, he would call soon. Maybe she should wash her sheets to pass the time? Maybe she would just put clean sheets on the bed and save those purple flowered sheets forever without washing them. Then, when he wasn’t here with her, she could just roll herself up in them and get turned on all over again to the clinging smell of their hot sex last night. Wow, kinky. These kinds of thoughts had to be Mateo’s fault.

Once she dried her hair and pinned it loosely to the top of her head with a brown hair clip, applied minimal makeup and dressed casually in a pair of faded blue jeans, black flip-flops, and a white T-shirt with a picture of one of her favorite rock bands on the front, she waited impatiently for Mateo to call as she paced back and forth in the limited confines of her small apartment. The beer she refused when Chloe was here earlier was now accompanying her relentless prowl from wall to wall. But she drained it of its contents on the first few strides.

If he didn’t call soon, she would surely have a panic attack and die. She was once again being reduced to acting like one of her middle school students. This was definitely Mateo’s fault.

Another agonizing thought came to mind. Her heart began thudding frantically against her breast. He said in his note he would call, so she must have given him her cell number. Why was it she could not remember anything lately? Like birth control for one thing…one really important thing. Oh right, it was all because of sexy Mateo Two Moons, and the way he made her lose control of every rational thought and reaction with just the mere thought of him.

So, why hadn’t he called yet? She was seriously going to die here.