Surrogate Escape
Jenna Kernan
Saving her is his number one priority!Branded a traitor, Rikki Taylor is in the sights of sniper Quinn McBride’s rifle. Yet the navy SEAL knows this woman intimately, and there’s no way she’d betray her country…or him. Discovering her real secrets can wait – first, they must make it out alive!
Enter the world of Apache Protectors: Wolf Den
A riveting new series begins!
A newborn abandoned in his truck? Tribal policeman Jake Redhorse immediately summons nurse Lori Mott—his former fiancée—for help. But Jake jilted Lori and now must regain her trust while fighting awakening desires neither can deny. The infant they adore offers them a second chance...if they can discover why she’s the target of kidnappers.
Apache Protectors: Wolf Den
JENNA KERNAN has penned over two dozen novels and has received two RITA® Award nominations. Jenna is every bit as adventurous as her heroines. Her hobbies include recreational gold prospecting, scuba diving and gem hunting. Jenna grew up in the Catskills and currently lives in the Hudson Valley in New York State with her husband. Follow Jenna on Twitter, @jennakernan (http://twitter.com/@jennakernan), on Facebook or at www.jennakernan.com (http://www.jennakernan.com).
Also by Jenna Kernan (#u5f0a71c4-4a64-547a-adba-51d50d785266)
Surrogate EscapeTurquoise GuardianEagle WarriorFirewolfThe Warrior’s WayShadow WolfHunter MoonTribal LawNative BornGold Rush Groom
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Surrogate Escape
Jenna Kernan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07867-2
SURROGATE ESCAPE
© 2018 Jeannette H. Monaco
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Jim, always.
Contents
Cover (#u84d867f9-4c3f-50f1-bef9-58f7df8cc701)
Back Cover Text (#u4685b80e-43c6-5624-b933-e47e7f5352c2)
About the Author (#ucd8967b9-be8b-5e2c-8a64-7878812ea3dc)
Booklist (#u7e626d0d-3437-5d06-8132-19cb4e2986ea)
Title Page (#ub7ca73ad-a965-53c3-ae31-4f862b38145c)
Copyright (#u0b1e2ff8-d80c-52c2-8583-853e048ee52f)
Dedication (#u130abaab-b362-5fa2-bdd0-b19d89f16e2f)
Prologue (#ube5c8a48-6f9c-5b44-818c-9e6669f5d1a1)
Chapter One (#u5a3a5b38-f655-53c7-b21a-cc658239a54d)
Chapter Two (#u3b3546e5-494e-57e9-a785-9736a6a3eb43)
Chapter Three (#ub8c5e273-4080-5cb6-9415-f9c5f47bef29)
Chapter Four (#u7d665d99-b010-59a8-9a73-7b5dcc3db3ad)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u5f0a71c4-4a64-547a-adba-51d50d785266)
Why did the cramping continue even after she had delivered the baby? She waited out of sight, watching the road for the return of Officer Redhorse. It was cold, so she kept the wiggling girl inside her jacket against her skin, allowing her to suck. That was what babies liked, to be on their mother’s skin. Only, she wasn’t its mother. She’d seen enough of her brothers and sisters come home from the hospital to know that Apache babies did not have blond hair.
Finally, she spotted his squad car as he made the turn toward their street. Even in the predawn, she could make out the familiar dark, round image on the white panel of the door that she knew was the tribe’s great seal. There was no time to reach his front step now. He was driving too fast, and she’d never make it back to cover before he spotted her. So she rushed from the tree line only as far as the back of his pickup, intending to wrap the baby in her own coat.
Climbing up onto the bumper was difficult with the use of only one hand. She glanced to the road. He was nearly here. She saw something in the truck bed, a garment, and she snatched it up, then bundled the little girl inside the fleece and laid her gently on the bed of the truck. If he didn’t see the baby, she’d come back and get her, leave her on his doorstep, knock and run.
Why hadn’t she thought of that before?
She draped one sleeve of the men’s fleece jacket over the gate of the pickup bed and jumped down. The jolt of the landing made her hurt all over and she gave a sharp cry. She grabbed her middle with both hands as she hurried back to cover just as he made the turn into his driveway.
In the brush between the two houses, the girl pressed a hand to her mouth. Something was happening. Her body was clenching again as if she were still in labor. The cramp went all the way around her middle.
The door to Officer Redhorse’s squad car opened and he stood, glancing around and then straight at her. She sank back. He’d seen her. Any second now he’d come over here and arrest her. She whimpered, choking the pain back far in her throat. Something issued from between her legs. She glanced down at the quivering purple thing. What was that? She poked at it and then stood. The umbilical cord that had still been attached to her body between her legs was fixed to the thing. It looked like her liver. She wondered if she would die without the organ. Clearly something inside had torn loose. But the bleeding was slowing.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew how girls got pregnant, and she knew she’d never done anything like that with a boy. Yet she’d given birth to a baby. Could someone have done that to her while she was sleeping?
No, that just wasn’t possible. Was it?
She looked back toward the driveway. Redhorse carried something in his arms as he disappeared into his home.
The girl staggered out once more and checked the truck. The baby was gone. She breathed a sigh and then turned toward home, her insides cramping, her legs trembling from the effort of bringing the baby into the world.
She crept away, holding her aching, sagging middle with both hands. No one was awake yet when she reached the bathroom to clean up. She was careful not to get blood on any of the towels. It was likely that her mother would not notice, or would blame the stain on her monthly cycle. Still, she could not take the chance.
With the amount of beer her mother had consumed, she knew that she wouldn’t be up for hours. But her brothers and sisters would need to be fed. She’d stay long enough to do that, at least.
After removing her coat and shucking out of her shirt, she noticed the bloody imprint of the infant on her side. She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She couldn’t keep the baby. Not when someone wanted it badly enough to come to her house looking for her.
She had hidden the pregnancy and escaped the creepy pair who stalked her, even dropping out of school to avoid them. But they knew. Somehow, they knew about the pregnancy even before she did. Would they stop now?
Maybe if she showed up somewhere in something that proved she was no longer pregnant—but then they might wonder where it had gone. She finished washing and then headed back outside. The newborn was not her flesh. But she still needed to protect her. She would go see what Officer Redhorse was doing and make sure the baby was safe.
She’d stay long enough to do that, at least. Then she would run like Elsie. She had to, because they would come back. They always came back.
Chapter One (#u5f0a71c4-4a64-547a-adba-51d50d785266)
Officer Jake Redhorse turned into his driveway and caught movement in his periphery by the line of pine and sticker bushes to his left. The fatigue must be affecting his vision, because when he turned toward his neighbor’s yard, there was nothing there.
Jake put his police unit into Park in the usual place, behind his silver F-150 pickup. That was when he noticed the red cloth hanging out of the back of his truck bed. That had not been there when he’d pulled in from his last shift sometime Thursday night, which was two days ago. Shifts had been unpredictable since the dam breech.
He stared at the red fleece. Someone had been messing with his truck.
“They better not have busted into my tools,” he muttered and left his police unit, using his fob to lock the car. He needed to remove the shotgun and his personal gear from the trunk and take them inside, but first he had to see what the vandals had done to his vehicle.
Since the collapse of the Skeleton Cliff Dam just this week, there was an uptick in petty crime, including a number of break-ins of the houses left behind in the ongoing relocation effort, and apparently being a cop did not exempt him from vandalism.
His small police force of seven struggled to keep order and so, five days after the explosion, his tribal council voted to accept the help of the National Guard to keep order in the tribal seat in Piñon Forks. The council also agreed to allow FEMA to provide temporary housing for the low-lying communities along the river. And now the Army Corps of Engineers was helping plan a more stable temporary dam to support the pile of rubble that had stopped the water and saved his people. But the outsiders were not allowed to venture past the river town. So his small police force was stretched over the two remaining communities of Turquoise Ridge and Koun’nde, on the Turquoise Canyon Apache Reservation, where he lived. Even with outsider help, his shifts were still way too long.
“Ah, not my drill,” he said, hope butting up against apprehension.
When Jake left his vehicle and approached the tailgate of his truck, he had the distinct feeling of being watched. A sweeping search of his surroundings showed no one. But the hairs on his neck remained raised like the scruff of a barking dog. He could still see his breath in the cool mountain air. Late September was like that here. Cold nights. Warm, dry days.
“Hello?” he called and received no answer but the autumn wind. Jake turned his collar up against the chill.
He glanced over the tailgate into the truck bed, now recognizing the red cloth. It was a polar-fleece jacket his mother had given him. He disliked red for several reasons—for one, it reminded him of a target, which, as a police officer, he already was, and for another, it reminded him of the iconic red trade cloth his people, the Tonto Apache, had once tied around their foreheads to keep the Anglos from shooting them by accident during the Apache Wars. His tribe had fought with the US Army in that one. Finally, the cloth reminded him of Lori Mott, as it was her favorite color.
The jacket was wet. He glanced down at the fabric, which was wrapped around something. At first he thought it was a child’s doll. Then the doll moved.
Jake jumped back, hand going automatically to his service weapon, a .45 caliber, as his brain tried to make sense of what he had seen. He had his flashlight out in a moment and shone it on the bundle.
The tiny forehead wrinkled. It was a baby, ghastly pale, its skin translucent with something that looked like a sheet of white tissue hanging from it. The baby’s mouth opened, and a thready sound emerged.
Jake jumped back again. Someone had left a baby in the bed of his truck. A baby!
He lifted his radio from his hip and called for an ambulance. The reply came from the volunteer fire station back in Piñon Forks, who answered calls after-hours. Unfortunately, the tribe’s one ambulance was currently out on a run all the way up in Turquoise Ridge, so they told him to call the urgent-care clinic.
At twenty-one, Jake was the tribe’s most recent hire, and his utility belt was so new that the leather squeaked when he replaced the radio to the holster. He drew out his mobile phone and called his brother Kee. The eldest of the family, Kee had been recently certified in internal medicine—the first board-certified physician in many years. The phone rang five times and then flipped to voice mail. Jake left a message before disconnecting. There was always the chance that the clinic might still be open. If any of the women of his tribe had given birth last night, the maternity ward and nursery would be staffed. If not, they wouldn’t open until nine o’clock in the morning. Jake’s emotions warred with one another. He needed help. But there was a possibility that his help might be Lori Mott.
She’d come back last September and had done a very effective job of letting him know that bygones would not be bygones. She seemed mad at him, though he didn’t know why. Their one encounter had been consensual, though they had both been underage at the time. The resulting unplanned pregnancy was certainly both of their faults. He’d done the responsible thing. Everyone said so.
Jake blew out a breath and dialed the number.
Not her. Not her. Not her. He chanted the words in his head like a prayer, hoping to will Lori from answering his call.
Lori worked at the clinic most days and nights as needed, along with Nina Kenton, Verna Dia and Burl Tsosie. Everyone was working long hours since the dam collapse. But even after all this time, speaking to her roiled up his emotions and made his stomach flip. The quicksilver attraction to Lori was still there, at least for him, but it was tempered by her obvious dislike of him. He didn’t understand it. Everybody liked him—everyone but Lori.
His heart rate increased as he clutched the mobile phone, scowling that his body reacted to just the possibility of speaking to her. How many times did a man have to stick his finger into a light socket before he figured out what would happen next?
“Jake?”
Lori Mott’s familiar voice came through. His number would have displayed his name, giving her fair warning, yet he was rattled at the control in her voice. His body flashed hot and cold, the desire that lived just beneath his skin and the regret that clung to him like pine pitch.
His heart beat faster.
The surprise was gone from her voice, and her tone now held an edge of warning. “Jake.”
“Hi, Lori.” He felt as if his mouth were full of pebbles, and he couldn’t quite speak past them. Instead, something like a gurgle emerged from his throat. He stared at the newborn lying in his truck bed and plunged on. “I found a baby, and the ambulance is out at Turquoise Ridge.”
“Possible heart attack,” she said. “They’re going to Darabee.”
She tied his stomach in knots quicker than a Boy Scout going for a merit badge. He could picture her, standing in those scrubs she always wore, with her long hair scraped back in a high ponytail for work. Often she wore no makeup. Not that she needed any.
“Did you say you found a baby?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Where? When?” Her voice took on a breathy air that made his skin tingle.
“Just now. Someone left it in the bed of my pickup.”
“Outside?” Her voice rang with alarm. “Is it breathing?”
“Crying.”
“Is it cold?”
“I haven’t touched it.”
“Jake. For goodness’ sake, pick it up.”
He closed his eyes, recalling the last infant he had held, cold as marble and gray as a tombstone. He started sweating.
“I don’t know how to pick up a baby,” he said.
“I’m on my way. I’ll bring my kit. Is it a newborn?”
“It’s really small. Like the size of a doll. And wet.”
“Wet?” She told him how to pick it up. He lifted the infant and the red fleece all together, supporting the baby’s tiny head.
“It’s warm,” he said, juggling the phone as he cradled the newborn. “It’s got blood on it and some skin or something.”
“Take it inside. Wrap it up in something dry and wait for me. Did you call Child Protective Services?”
At her question, he recalled that his training included instructions to call the state agency, and that he had the number saved in his contacts on his phone.
“Not yet.”
“I’ll do it.” The phone went dead.
Jake held the still bundle and the phone. He glanced around one last time.
“Hello?”
The morning chill seeped under his collar as he stood holding the infant before him like a live grenade. He thought he might be sick as past and present collided in his mind. Lori was coming. Sweet Lord, Lori was coming. He squeezed his eyes closed. The sound of movement made them flash open, and he turned toward the rustling.
“Is anyone there?”
Nothing moved but the little baby pressed against his chest.
* * *
LORI DROVE TOWARD Koun’nde in the rising light before dawn. Burl had arrived quickly to relieve her, and so she was only a few minutes away from having to face Jake Redhorse. Since her return, she had mostly avoided him. It was infuriating how he could still make her tremble with just a smile. One thing was certain. She was not falling for his charm twice.
As she approached his home, the anxiety and determination rolled inside her like a familiar tide. If she had not been good enough for him then, she was now. Only, now she didn’t want him, the jerk.
She’d learned what he really thought of her after the baby had come. Not from him, of course. Oh, no. Mr. Wonderful would never insult a woman. He’d left that to everyone else.
Damn him.
Her face heated at the shame of it, still, always.
She pulled into the drive, wondering if she had the courage to make the walk to his front step. As it turned out, she didn’t have to. Jake hurled himself out the front door without his familiar white Stetson or uniform jacket and charged her driver’s side like a bull elk.
“Hurry,” he said.
Lori grabbed her tote and medical bag and followed as Jake reversed course and dashed back into his home. Lori ran, too, her medical bag thumping against her thigh as she cleared the door. Once inside, she heard the angry squall of a newborn.
Jake stopped in the living room before a dirty red polar fleece, which sat beside a couch cushion on his carpet. On the wide cushion was a baby wrapped in a familiar fuzzy green knit blanket, its tiny face scrunched and its mouth open wide as it howled. Lori’s stride faltered. She knew that blanket because she had knit it herself from soft, mint-colored yarn. She glanced at Jake. Why had he kept it?
Jake pointed at the baby. “It’s turning purple.”
Chapter Two (#u5f0a71c4-4a64-547a-adba-51d50d785266)
Lori scooped up the infant and cradled the tiny newborn against her chest. The sharp stab of grief pierced her heart. She’d held dozens of newborns since that day, but none had been wrapped in her blanket and Jake had not been standing at her side. It was all too familiar. She tried to hide the tears, but with both hands on her charge she could not wipe them away.
Jake stepped up beside her and rested a once-familiar hand on her shoulder. His touch stirred memories of pleasure and shame, and her chin dropped as she nestled her cheek against the fuzzy head that rooted against her neck.
She turned and allowed herself to really look at Jake. Oh, she had seen him since her return, often in fact, but she’d refused to let herself look, refused to allow the emotional gate to swing open. But the baby and the blanket had tripped some switch and she wanted to see him again, if only to remember why she had once loved him. Permission granted to herself, she braced for the pain. His brow had grown more prominent, and his broad forehead was made wider because his hair was tugged back in a single pony at his neck, which was dressed with blue cloth. He always wore blue now.
No, not always, she remembered. Once, he’d worn his hair wrapped in red cloth. Jake’s ears showed at each side of his head and she noticed they seemed tucked back, as if he needed to hear something behind him. He wore a silver stud in each ear. Police regulations required that he wore nothing dangling, but she preferred the long silver feathers she’d given him. Did he ever wear them?
His jaw was more prominent now, having grown sharp and strong. The taut skin of his cheeks seemed darker than the rest of his face due to a day’s growth of stubble. She traced the blade of a nose with her gaze, ending at his mouth, and watched his nostrils flare and his lips part. Their eyes met and she went still, seeing the familiar warm amber brown of his eyes. He still made her insides quake and her heart pound. Memories swirled as he took a step forward. He rested his hands on her shoulders and angled his jaw.
Oh, no. He’s going to kiss me.
Instead of revulsion, her body furnished blazing desire. She told herself to step back but found herself stepping forward. The newborn in her arms gave a bleat like a baby lamb, bringing her back to her senses. Had she been about to stroke that familiar face?
She stiffened. Damned if she’d give him the chance to hurt her again. She was through with men who treated her like she wasn’t good enough. There were men out there who judged you by yourself instead of by your family. Jake Redhorse was simply not one of them.
“I’m sorry, Lori.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and made a disbelieving sound in her throat. Was he sorry that she’d come, sorry that he’d nearly kissed her or sorry that anyone else in the world was not here to help him?
His mother would have been an option—his mother, who had called her an apple, red on the outside and white on the inside, because her father had been white. Then she’d called her siblings pieces in a fruit basket. Lori was well aware that none of her siblings shared the same father, because no one ever let her forget it.
His mother had disliked her right from the start, but after May Redhorse learned about Lori’s condition and that Jake planned to marry her, her dislike solidified to distain. Mrs. Redhorse was a good Christian and a bad person.
Finally, belatedly, Lori stepped back. Jake’s eyes still had that piercing look of desire. She drew a breath as she prepared to throw cold water on him.
“You could have called your mom,” she said. Bringing up his mother was a sure way to douse the flame that had sprung from cold ashes between them.
His mouth twisted. “She can’t get around very well right now.”
Lori recalled the diabetes and the toe amputation—more than one. His mother had always been a big woman, and the disease had only made her less mobile. Some of her anger leaked away.
“Yes, of course.”
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Jake, pointing to the fussing infant.
“Hungry, maybe. Let’s have a look.”
Lori found Jake’s kitchen and laid the baby on his dinette. Then she peeled back the blanket and stroked the knit edge.
“You kept it,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Just reminds me of her.”
Lori didn’t need a reminder. She carried the memories in her heart like a spike. The baby girl she’d lost. Jake’s baby. At the time she thought the miscarriage was her fault, that she must have done something wrong. She knew better now.
The baby before them had ceased fussing and stared up at them with wide blue eyes. The infant was pink and white, with skin so translucent you could see the tiny veins that threaded across her chest and forehead. She was clearly a newborn, still streaked with her mother’s blood.
Lori shrugged out of her coat and Jake stepped forward to take it. Always the gentleman, she thought. Perfect as Captain Freakin’ America. Captain of the soccer team, basketball team and track team. Fast, smart and somehow once interested in her. The world made no sense.
“What’s that white stuff?” he asked, peering over her shoulder, his breath warm and sweet on her neck.
“That’s the caul. It’s the tissue sack that surrounds the baby in the womb. I hear that some Anglos believe that wearing the caul is lucky.”
“What Anglos?”
“The Irish, I think. Maybe Scottish. I can’t recall. My granddad was a Scot.” Why did she feel the need to remind him her father had not been Apache?
* * *
JAKE GLANCED AT HER, letting the desire build again. He knew her grandfather had been a Scot. He even remembered her father. He’d been a redhead who worked for the oil and gas company in Darabee for a while. He was the reason that Lori’s hair took on a red gleam in the sunlight. She’d taken a lot of teasing over that in grade school. She even had a light dusting of freckles over her nose. Or she had as a child, anyway. It made her different. Jake thought those differences made her more beautiful, but he’d been one of the worst in middle school. Anything to get her attention, even if it was only to see her flush and storm off.
Lori had changed over the five years of separation, and at age twenty-one, she had grown into a woman’s body. Her skin was a healthy golden brown and her mouth was still full but tipped down at the corners. Above the delicate nose, her dark brows arched regally over the deep brown eyes. The sadness he saw there was new. Today she wore her long, thick hair coiled in a knot at the base of her skull, practical like her uniform. And the hairstyle disguised the soft natural wave in her hair. Lori worked with children and babies, so her top was always alive with something bright and cheerful. Today it was teddy bears all tumbling down her chest with blocks. The bottoms matched, picking up the purples of the top and hugging her hips. The shoes were slip-on clogs with rubber soles. White, of course.
But beneath the trim medical nurses’ scrubs, he knew her body. Or he’d known the body of her youth. His fingers itched to explore the changes, the new fullness of her breasts and the tempting flare of her hips. They were children no longer, so before he went down this road again, he needed to think first. He hadn’t thought the last time.
Actions had consequences. He knew that well enough by now.
She had been a pretty girl but had become a classic beauty of a woman. When she danced at powwows, she drew the photographers like a blossom drew bees. The camera loved her, and he had a copy of a magazine where she’d been chosen as a cover model back in their senior year. Dressed in her regalia, she had a poise and intelligence that shone past the bright beads around her neck and white paint that ran down her lip to her chin. The cover that should have been a coup turned into another source for teasing as the lighting highlighted that her brown eyes were more cinnamon and revealed red highlights in her hair. Where was that magazine? His eyes popped open and he glanced about his living space, hoping she wouldn’t spot it before he could tuck it away.
Lori continued on, “My grandmother, my dad’s mother, told me once to look out for a baby with a caul. It means the baby is special.”
“All babies are special,” he said, thinking of one in particular.
* * *
LORI GLANCED AT the newborn, a little girl, checking her toes and fingers and finding her perfectly formed, if somewhat small.
“Do you have a kitchen scale?”
“A what?”
She smiled. “No way to check her weight, then. Grab my medical kit.”
Jake darted away as Lori examined the umbilical cord. Someone had tied it with a strip of green bark over a foot from the baby and then sliced the cord cleanly through. It was not the sort of cut a midwife would make, and it was not the sort of twine you would find in a home. More like the materials someone who had given birth outdoors would use.
Her mind leaped immediately to a teenage mother. Lori checked the baby and found nothing to indicate where the child had been born, but by the look of her, she was white.
“Here it is.” Jake set the kit down on the chair with a thump.
“Hold on to her so she doesn’t fall,” said Lori.
“Hold on how?”
Lori wrapped the baby again and then took his big, familiar hand and placed it on the baby’s chest.
“Easy. Don’t press.”
Then she retrieved a diaper from a side pocket. When she returned, it was to find him using a piece of gauze to wipe the blood from the infant’s face.
“We’ll do that at the clinic,” she said.
“It’s a blood sample,” he said. “Mother’s blood, right?”
She stilled. What she had seen as a childcare issue he saw as a crime scene.
“It’s probably some scared kid,” she said.
“It’s a felony. There are places to bring a baby. Safe places. She left it outside in my truck.”
She looked down at the tiny infant. Someone had given birth and then dumped her on a windy, cold September morning. She had treated babies abandoned by mothers before. They did not all survive. This little one was very lucky.
“Fortunate,” she said.
He met her gaze.
“To be alive,” she qualified.
Jake nodded. “I think she was still out there, watching me.”
“The mother?”
He nodded.
“That’s likely. She would have been close. Any idea who?”
“I need to take a look around the house.”
She nodded. “Go on, then.”
Jake tucked the gauze into one of the evidence baggies he had on his person and then slipped it into one of the many pockets of his tribal police uniform.
“Done with your evidence collection?” she asked.
He nodded. “For now.”
“Then I’ll get the little one fed and ready to transport while you have your look around.”
“Did you call Protective Services?” he asked.
“Betty called while I got my kit.” Betty Mills was her boss and the administrator of the Tribal Health Clinic. “She said they have to contact whoever is on call in our area. It could be a while.”
“Do you have a car seat for a newborn?” he asked, the unease settling in his chest.
Lori readied the diaper. “Yes. In my trunk. I’ll bring her to the clinic for a checkup. Unclaimed babies always come to the clinic now. Do you think the mother could still be out there?”
“I’ll know soon.” He zipped his police jacket and replaced the white, wide-brimmed Stetson to his head. Then he cast her a long look that made her stomach quiver. She pressed her lips together, bracing against her physical reaction. Fool me once, she thought. “Thanks for coming, Lori.”
“You want me to wait?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She nodded and watched him go. Jake Redhorse was her poison, but she was not going to be the tribe’s source of gossip again. She couldn’t go back and fix what was broken between them. Only he could do that, and it would mean admitting he had protected his reputation at the expense of hers. Left her out in the storm that never reached him. His luck, his reputation, his honor and his willingness to do what was right had all played in his favor. While her family legacy had cast her in the worst light. The natural scapegoat for daring to taint the reputation of the tribe’s golden boy.
So, you’re saying it’s mine? That was what he’d actually said to her. He wasn’t the first to suspect she’d pulled a fast one. How could they be so willing to think so little of her? After the gossip flew, she became the target of disdain. Her appearance in the classroom drew long silences, followed by snickering behind raised hands. Meanwhile, everyone felt sorry for Jake. Forgave him instantly. Who could blame him? He’d been tricked. Swindled. Seduced.
During junior year, Jake was still playing soccer and planned to play basketball but was already planning to get a part-time job moving cattle when the baby came.
When she mentioned her intention to work at the Darabee hospital as a health care aide, he’d scoffed.
“Finish high school, Lori,” he’d said. “So you don’t end up like your mom.”
So he’d planned to drop out and have her stay in school. More fuel to make him the hero and her the parasite.
She had glared at him. “You could still go to college.”
“No. I’ll be here for my child.”
Yes. Of course he would. But he had never had to.
Instead, he had accepted condolences first for the unplanned pregnancy and later for his loss. His loss. Never their loss. She clamped her teeth together as the fury spiked. Instead, he had finished high school and gone to college and she had gone. too. Become a nurse. Shown them all. Only, no one had really noticed or cared.
Yet one look at the wiggling, smiling baby and her temper ebbed. As she looked down into her eyes, she felt a tug in her belly and breasts.
She knew this feeling, had felt it once before, even though her baby had already left.
Uh-oh, she thought. Pair bonding, her mind supplied, as if reviewing for one of her tests in school. That magic thing that made a baby uniquely yours.
“Don’t do this, Lori,” she warned herself. But it was already too late.
* * *
JAKE WALKED AROUND the truck. The wind had picked up so much that it whistled through the trees. Cold sunlight poured in golden bands through the breaks in the tall pines to the east. Behind the truck, he found a bloody palm print on his tailgate and pine needles beside the hitch. It looked as if someone had stepped on the bumper and then hoisted up to place the baby in the bed of the truck. She was small, then.
Had she arranged the red cloth so that he would notice it immediately against the silver of the F-150’s body?
He could see no blood on the ground and no tracks on the earth on either side of the driveway. He cast his gaze about, looking for a place where she could have watched his arrival and still have been shielded from discovery. Then he walked to the most logical spot. There in the eastern row of piñon pine, at the base of one of the large trunks, was a spot where the needles had been disturbed. He squatted and saw that someone had been here, waiting, evidenced by the sweep of a foot back and forth, creating two little mounds of needles and a swath of clean dark earth in between. He could not stand in the spot without hitting his head on the branches, but if he crouched down, he had a perfect view of the road and his driveway and the back of his pickup.
So she’d waited here, holding the infant, and then seeing his police cruiser make the turn onto his road... He checked the distance and imagined the timing. She, this brand-new mother, must have hurried out to the drive. He could see it now, the soft indentation of her foot. No boots. A sneaker, maybe. Small with little tread. She would have had to be quick, her hands likely still covered with the blood of the birth. Who had helped her bring the baby? He could find no evidence of a second person.
Did the father know she had left his child? The ache in his heart hardened in his belly.
He walked the perimeter of his property. Farther back, between his home and the pasture beyond, was something purple and bloody. He slowed his steps, approaching carefully. It was a placenta; he knew that from calving. The flies had found it already. He lifted his radio and called it in.
Carol Dorset, their dispatcher, was in the office now and picked up on the first ring. Carol had been on dispatch back before Jake could even remember and had been the one to answer the phone the night Jake had to call 911 on his daddy.
“Chief’s not here yet.”
He glanced at his watch and noted it was 9:05 a.m. The shifts started at 7:00 a.m. and were staggered throughout the day. Since the explosion, they rotated covering nights. They were expecting two new hires, one patrol and one detective, but they had not started yet.
“Should I call the chief at home?” asked Jake. Since he hadn’t been on the job very long, he wasn’t sure what to do.
“I wouldn’t,” said Carol.
“What about Detective Bear Den?” he asked.
“He just left about thirty minutes ago. You can call him. I won’t.”
Tribal Police Detective Jack Bear Den had been out with him last night on the fatality involving a car and a tree. An outsider leaving their casino too late and too drunk. Jake had been first on scene and then Bear Den. Arizona Highway Patrol was next, and then the meat wagon.
He signed off the radio and replaced it to his side, then he retrieved his phone and hesitated, debating whether to call. If he waited, Bear Den might be asleep. He might even be already.
The dam breach and the aftermath was more than they could handle, which was why Bear Den had asked Jake to interview the family of the latest runaway, Maggie Kesselman. She’d be gone a week tomorrow. Girls had been disappearing since last November. There were always runaways among their tribe, but Bear Den had a hunch these girls had not taken off for Phoenix or Vegas. He said that there was something different happening, and he’d had Jake do some initial legwork when he’d been tied up with the dam breech.
Jake considered calling Ty. His older brother had a very good tracking dog who could find this new mother. He stared down at his phone.
He had not spoken to Ty in a long time. Too long. But since Jake had become a tribal police officer seven months ago, Ty was even more distant. Jake wondered what Ty would think if he asked him to chase down a criminal. He’d laugh, if he decided to pick up his phone.
Ty had gotten the worst of it from their dad, no doubt. He just couldn’t shut his mouth or back down. Jake admired that, even though it brought Ty trouble more often than not.
Jake now felt a cold that had nothing to do with the wind. The blood trail from the placenta vanished in the tall grass. It occurred to him that if he’d walked to his back window with the baby, he might have seen the infant’s mother escaping through the pasture behind his place. But he hadn’t.
Had she paused here? Had she crept up to his window to peer inside?
Jake lifted his cell phone and called Detective Bear Den. This was a crime scene and he didn’t want to screw things up.
Bear Den picked up on the second ring, his voice gravelly. Jake’s stomach dropped because he was certain Bear Den had just gotten to sleep. Jake explained the situation. Bear Den gave him instructions and told him he’d be there soon. The line went dead. Jake returned his phone to his pocket and finished circling the property, finding no further evidence.
The wind pushed at him, and he turned back to the house and the infant—and Lori. She seemed mad at him. But she had no reason to be. He’d asked her to marry him, hadn’t he? He’d been willing to go through with it, too.
Ironic, he thought. An unexpected pregnancy had torn them apart and now, it seemed, had brought her back to him again. Well, he wasn’t sixteen this time. Back then, he’d actually thought he loved Lori. But then they lost the baby and she acted as if he’d done something wrong, instead of everything right. He didn’t understand her. It was as if she’d gone crazy. Even as he saw his dreams collapsing. Even knowing that he’d never become a police officer. He’d been willing to drop out of high school, give up college and marry her. He would have done it, against his mother’s wishes, against his brother Ty’s advice, he would have given his baby his name. And after they told him she had lost the baby, he hadn’t left her. He’d gone to see her, to comfort her, and when they finally let him in to see Lori, she’d yelled at him. He remembered exactly what she had said. The only mistake I made was saying yes.
Then she’d sent him off. Him!
Ty had called from boot camp just before Lori delivered and told him that Lori’s older sisters Amelia and Jocelyn had each tried the same thing on Kee the minute he’d been accepted to college. Jocelyn had been only thirteen at the time. Amelia had moved on to Kurt Bear Den but ended up snagging Kent Haskie. Kent had married Amelia senior year and then gone to trade school to learn to fix air and cooling systems. They were still married and had four kids. Jocelyn had married Doug Hoke after their child was born in Jocelyn’s junior year. Ty had told him Doug didn’t know if he was the father, said it was hard to tell without a test and Jocelyn had been a popular girl. Kee had said Lori had targeted the best, just like a hunter assessing a herd of elk. That comment still chafed.
He didn’t like being used, and he was not going to let that happen ever again. Still, he had never blamed Lori. He knew he’d made a mistake and had accepted responsibility. What more did she want?
Everyone thought he’d broken it off. Oh, no. She had. Firmly and irrevocably. He didn’t understand it or her. And he didn’t trust her. His confusion had kept him at a distance.
He didn’t date women he didn’t trust, and he did not trust Lori.
So why had he almost kissed her?
Chapter Three (#u5f0a71c4-4a64-547a-adba-51d50d785266)
“Any idea who left the baby?” asked Detective Bear Den.
The questions came more quickly when his boss, Wallace Tinnin, had arrived in a walking cast and come to a halt in Jake’s driveway, wincing. The chief of tribal police had broken his ankle in the dam explosion and flat-out refused to use crutches. Judging from his sour expression and the circles under his eyes, he needed them—along with about ten hours of sleep.
This man had been a police officer for as long as Jake could remember and had come to his childhood home more than once. On one memorable visit, Tinnin had arrested both Jake’s father and Ty in the same day.
Jake answered all the questions and Bear Den went off to examine the crime scene, otherwise known as Jake’s home.
“You did a good job today, son,” said Tinnin.
The praise was like a balm to his spirit and made his throat tighten. Tinnin had been the father figure Jake had chosen, a kind, decent man with an even, predictable temper. He was sparing with praise, which made it all the more precious when it was doled out.
“Thanks.”
“You two getting back together?”
Tinnin knew all about them, of course. The entire tribe did. For a time there, he and Lori were the favorite topic of gossip, a cautionary tale and then a sad story that made folks shake their heads.
Isn’t that a shame about Jake Redhorse? I’m not surprised about the Mott girl, but Redhorse...you’d think he’d know better.
He unlocked his jaw to speak. “No, sir. I just called her because both the ambulance and my brother Kee were unavailable.”
“I see. Last choice, huh? Funny, though. You two losing a baby girl and then you two finding one, what, three years later?”
“Five.” March sixteenth, just two days after his own birthday. And the wedding was exchanged for a funeral. The white dress stored and the black dress purchased. Jake’s mother had been relieved that he would not have to marry “that girl.” He’d worn his first suit, his wedding suit, to his daughter’s funeral. His upper and lower teeth collided again, and he ground them side to side.
Jake looked away. He’d been a good kid and made his mother proud, mostly. And he’d always tried to give her something, anything to bring her joy. His dad had been in prison, his oldest brother in medical school, and Ty was shipping out on his first tour. He’d been the man of the house at sixteen, and he’d made a mistake with Lori.
“Have you seen the baby yet?” asked Jake.
Tinnin’s thick brows lifted, and he gave a shake of his head. His boss was thin to the point of being gaunt. Gray streaked his collar-length hair in a way that made it look as if he’d accidentally leaned into a freshly painted wall, the white clinging to just the top layer of his scalp. The bags and circles under his eyes were perpetual. His jeans and denim coat made him look like a cowboy, unless you noted the shield clipped to his belt and the bulge where he wore his .45 caliber pistol.
“Why would I need to see her?”
“She has blue eyes,” said Jake.
“All babies have blue eyes. No pigment yet.”
“And blond hair.”
Tinnin shifted, taking the pressure off his injured foot. “You think that baby is white?”
“Seemed so. I was there when Mom brought Abbie home, and I’ve been on a call for a woman delivering.”
“Genevieve Ruiz,” he said.
Jake nodded. “I’ve seen newborn Apache babies. This one is different.”
“Might go see for myself.”
“I’ll come with you.”
They headed to town in separate vehicles. Tinnin followed Jake to the tribe’s urgent-care facility. Tinnin parked in a handicapped spot, and Jake walked slowly beside him through the emergency intake area. They passed Verna Dia heading for her car. She cast them a wave and tossed her bag into her passenger seat.
Inside the urgent-care area, they were greeted and waved on by another nurse, Nina Kenton. There was staff on duty now and patients already waiting. The clinic wasn’t open overnight, though they did have a few rooms if they needed them, but that meant one of the staff had to work overtime, which cost money. The clinic was only six years old, furnished by casino profits, and it ran a deficit every year.
They waved to familiar faces as they headed to the baby wing, as Jake called it. This was a unique section of the facility, the women’s health clinic, and included birthing rooms, exam rooms and a nursery. They found Lori with the chief physician, Dr. Hector Hauser, in the nursery, both wearing surgical masks over their faces. The bassinets were lined up but mostly empty. Jake spotted only two tiny sleeping faces.
This, then, was why Lori had been at work so early. She had become the favored delivery nurse because, according to their dispatcher, Lori was gaining clinical experience in preparation for taking the certification exam to become a neonatal nurse. She spent her life trying to bring healthy babies into the world, and Jake had to wonder at that. He also wondered why she had not married. Of the Mott sisters, only Lori and Dominique were single, and Dominique was still in high school. The Mott girls had a family history of marrying young and filling the tribe’s rosters with new members.
Tinnin paused at the locked door to the nursery. They could go no farther without access. This area remained locked to keep unauthorized people from doing something stupid, like snatching a baby, but they could see in through the viewing window.
Dr. Hauser had the tiny girl on a digital scale as she kicked and fussed, with Lori standing watch. Hauser’s jowly face made him look both sad and serious. Unlike many in their tribe, Hauser kept fit and trim, but the lines at his eyes and the flesh at his neck told that he was well past his middle years.
The doctor leaned in, speaking to Lori, who recorded something—the weight, Jake assumed—in the chart neatly held to the metal clipboard.
Lori then set aside the chart and expertly lifted the tiny pink girl and bundled her in a soft-looking flannel wrap. She placed the girl on her shoulder and did a little bounce to comfort the infant. She seemed completely relaxed with a baby on her shoulder. Jake found himself smiling. It was at that moment she turned and noticed him there. Their gazes met, and she smiled back. He knew this by the crinkling of her eyes at the corners. She turned the newborn so he could see the tiny face, as if he were the nervous father coming to see his baby girl. Lori nodded at the baby and then glanced back to him. Look what we did, she seemed to say. We saved this little one.
He nodded, his smile broadening as a familiar warmth welled inside him. This was how she had once looked at him, and he missed it.
The warm welcome in Lori’s eyes as she continued the rhythmic bounce made her look so different from how he usually saw her. They’d begun a routine of her spotting him when he had business at the clinic and him pretending not to see her, his eyes shifting away as he searched for an escape route. The only time he allowed himself to look at her was when she didn’t know he was there. Until today. Now he saw her and she saw him. Something inside his chest tightened.
Tinnin made a sound in his throat. “That baby is white.”
“I think so,” said Jake.
“All white, I mean.”
“Agreed.”
“So, if the papa wasn’t Apache, why would a white girl come up here to have a baby?”
* * *
LORI SET THE sleeping baby into the bassinet and then let Chief Tinnin and Jake Redhorse into the delivery room. Hauser lowered his mask to offer a greeting as he stepped past them. Then he headed down the corridor toward the urgent-care area and the patients already waiting. Lori offered her two visitors both a mask. Tinnin’s limp was growing worse by the minute.
“How is she?” asked Tinnin, holding the mask to his face.
“She’s perfect. A little small but otherwise healthy.” She glanced at Jake, keeping her distance. The joy had fled, and now her steady gaze held a familiar caution.
Her attention flicked back to the chief.
“We need a blood type,” said Tinnin.
“We do that routinely. I’ll be sure you get a copy of the results.”
“What about the baby?” Jake interjected.
“I’ll be here until Burl arrives.”
Burl Tsosie was one of the four nurses here, along with Lori, Nina and Verna.
“Any word from Protective Services?” asked Tinnin.
“Not yet, but they usually make us the temporary guardians. That gives them time to secure placement, if the mother isn’t found.”
“She’s not getting that baby even if she is found.” Jake’s outrage crept into his voice. “Because I’m placing her under arrest.”
Lori’s eyes rolled up, and the breath she let out was audible.
He glanced at the baby, sleeping peacefully, her tiny eyelashes fanning her pink cheeks. She’d be placed and adopted, he realized. Why did that eventuality make his chest ache? He met Lori’s gaze and saw she also looked troubled. They’d found her, and somehow that gave him a personal stake in what happened to this baby girl.
“When?” said Tinnin, referring to the arrival of a Protective Services representative.
“I’m not sure,” said Lori. “They have an office in Globe and one in Flagstaff. Depends on what other business they have.”
“I’ll stay,” said Jake.
Lori’s brow wrinkled. “It might not even be today.”
Jake set his jaw but said nothing.
Tinnin cast him an odd look.
“It’s a lock-in area,” Lori said to Jake, offering her upturned hands with her explanation. “No one but the parents get near one of our babies.”
“I’m still staying.”
It was clear from the placement of one hand on her hip that Lori did not appreciate his intrusion into her territory.
Jake and Lori squared off.
Tinnin turned to hobble toward the door, pausing to look back at Jake. “Suit yourself, Redhorse. You’re off duty. But try to get a few hours sleep.”
The door closed behind him, and the chief wobbled past the viewing window and out of sight.
Lori returned her attention to Jake.
“Mask,” she said, pointing to the mask he now held at his side.
He tied the top string around his head, then looked down at the newborn he’d found in his truck. She was very pale, but beautiful. He’d never thought babies were beautiful before. His chest ached again, and he itched to hold her. He reached out with one finger to stroke the infant’s cheek.
“Don’t touch the babies. You’re not clean.” Her crisp tone let him know that this was very definitely her dominion, and she did not appreciate him inserting himself here.
He wished he could keep the baby. Jake frowned. Of all the stupid ideas in his life, that fleeting thought was second only to the idea that he could control himself in the bed of his new pickup with Lori Mott back on that long-ago summer night when they were both sixteen. He never had been able to control himself around Lori. Still couldn’t. She riled him up. It was one of her special talents—making him crazy for her without seeming to do anything at all. He’d been young and dumb. They both had been. Everyone was mad at Lori for trying to snare him. He didn’t know if that were true. He did know that the idea of getting married so young had scared him. He was afraid they’d have a kid and then another until maybe he’d end up robbing a store out of sheer desperation, just like his father. During his junior year, he had carried the scholarship offers around with him, but he had known he wouldn’t use them. He had believed that he’d never get a four-year degree or come back to wear the uniform. Instead, he had thought that he’d marry Lori and live on the rez in public housing and work for the lumber mill or with the tribe’s cattle. His mother and her mother wouldn’t speak to one another. Still didn’t. And his mother had said she would not attend the wedding.
But he had been the one who had driven them out to the reservoir and afterward let Lori take the fall for what they had both done. It was his fault as much as Lori’s. That made him most angry of all.
Ty had told him that her older sister had tried to pin a baby on him because of his reputation, but he’d been smart enough to never sleep with Jocelyn. Ty said Joceyln had slept with so many boys in high school no one knew whose kid it was. Had Lori done the same to him?
Jake blinked, but his vision remained blurry. He rubbed his burning eyes and swayed. When had he last slept?
* * *
WHEN LORI CAUGHT Jake weaving with fatigue, she convinced him to sit down at the nurses’ station. It was a mistake, because in pressing him into a stool, she felt first the taut muscles that offered resistance, and then the warmth of his skin. Now her palms prickled. But she tore herself away from temptation and brought him something to eat and drink—yogurt, applesauce and orange juice, everything served in tiny clear plastic cups.
“Aren’t you tired?” he asked.
“I only came on duty at six a.m.”
“I called before six,” he said and blinked wearily at her.
“I was early.”
“Better than being late.” He grinned.
Was that a reference to when she had missed a period and had told him using those very words? She narrowed her eyes on him as her attraction warred with bitter memories.
“Go home, Jake. I can take it from here.”
He shook his head, reminding her of a hound. His eyelids drooped, making him look sexy as hell. Her stomach muscles squeezed, and she clamped her jaw against the tingling arousal threading through her body. Not this man.
Being seen with Jake Redhorse would only start tongues wagging and again make her a target for mockery. She acknowledged that not acting on the intense jolt of desire that grew with each moment she spent in his company was not the same as not feeling that desire. Lori accepted that her attraction for Jake Redhorse might be ever-present, a condition from which she would never recover. Just like when faced with the common-cold virus, avoidance was the best option.
The longer he hung around, the more difficulty she would have not succumbing to those come-hither stares and his sexy, lazy smile. It tore her up like shards of glass.
His mouth quirked, and she realized she’d been staring, remembering their night together. Had it really been that good?
“Go home, Jake. Seriously.”
“Naw,” he said at last, pushing his hat far back on his head and yawning. “I’ll stay till you hear from Protective Services. I want to be sure she’s staying on the rez.”
She didn’t say that there was a possibility they might take the baby to a different placement. She gnawed on her cuticle.
“I know that look,” he said. “You’re worried about something.”
She lowered her hand from her mouth, flicking the bit of ragged cuticle on her thumbnail with her index finger.
“We’ve never taken custody of a baby like this one.”
“You mean white?”
She nodded. “We keep and place all Apache infants within our tribe, but she has no protection under ICWA.”
He nodded, obviously familiar with the Indian Child Welfare Act, the legislation that sought to keep Indian children in Indian homes in response to the horrific number of indigenous children who had once been adopted away.
“She might be Indian, a member of the Turquoise Canyon tribe.”
Lori made a face. “It’s possible. Hard to say without knowing the identity of her parents.”
He nodded. “Working on that. Until then, I’ll stay here to keep an eye on little Fortune.”
“Fortune?”
He shrugged. “That’s what you called her. Said she was fortunate.”
“She’s not a puppy we found, Jake. She’s a baby. You can’t name her.”
His face was strained, though from the pain or the subject matter, she didn’t know.
“A baby, all right. A baby girl,” he said.
Like the one they had lost. Same size, same big blue eyes. But this was not their child. Whose was it?
“When will they be here?” he asked.
“Well, since we’re a Safe Haven Provider, they might not even come. May just give us directions by phone.”
“But they can’t put her in temporary placement until we investigate for a missing child,” said Jake.
“She’s not missing.”
“I agree. Still have to run it through the system, though.”
He knew the law. She knew this particular bit, as she had been here when one teen mother appeared at the clinic to relinquish her child. The father had been contacted, and the young man had signed away his rights to his baby before the infant was placed. The Turquoise Canyon tribe had a 100 percent adoption rate of their children. Their tribe’s history of losing their youth to the training school that had once taken over the education and raising of Apache boys and girls made the tribe diligent in raising their own children.
In the past, parents did not have to agree to send their children, but once their people were resigned to the reservations, they faced a devil’s choice. They could keep their children home and lose their government subsidy and the only way to feed their families. Or they could send their children, receive the subsidies but lose the ability to teach their young their language and their heritage. The choice and the deep wound that remained made the tribe fiercely protective of its youth.
“What if she comes back?” he asked. “The mother, I mean.”
“She has parental rights,” said Lori.
“She shows up here and I arrest her. Glad to. Leaving Fortune out in the wind. Just wrong.” He wasn’t even using complete sentences now. This was bad.
“She might be young, Jake. Young people don’t always make the best decisions.”
He met her gaze, knowing the subject of the conversation had shifted.
* * *
HE LET THE fatigue drag at him, rounding his shoulders. His ears were ringing.
Jake’s head drooped and his words slurred. “Should be out investigating. Find who left her.” He gave a dull shake of his head. “Not right.”
“Detective Bear Den is at your house. They’re investigating.”
Which meant he’d drawn their only detective away from his other investigations, including a recent murder, the growing list of runaways and the relocation of the entire tribal headquarters to a temporary facility away from the river. He closed his eyes, swaying slightly on the stool.
“Come on, Officer Redhorse. Bedtime for you.”
Lori held his arm as she walked him to an empty birthing room with a comfortable bed and waited while he removed his open jacket and utility belt.
“Want me to lock that up?” Lori asked.
“Where?”
“Right there in the closet.” She pointed at the combination bureau and closet unit that backed up to the bathroom near the entrance. He judged the strength of the particle board and figured he could break it if he needed to.
“It’s safe,” she repeated. “But it’s a maternity wing. That—” she pointed at his gun “—needs to be locked up. So here or the nurses’ station.”
“Here. Leave the key.”
She opened the closet and he accepted her help to remove his jacket, mainly to feel her cool fingers brush his neck. Now the ache in his chest had more to do with regret than arousal. She’d taken a lot of crap back in high school, after word got out. It had been worse for her than for him. He didn’t know why, but, at the time, he’d been relieved.
He considered taking off his flak jacket but was just too tired.
He sat on the bed and she knelt to unlace his boots, placing them with his jacket, hat and belt. Then she locked the closet and handed him the key on a lime-green plastic accordion-style bracelet that he looped around his wrist.
He settled back into soft pillows and a mattress covered with something plastic beneath the white sheet.
“We’ll take care of her,” she assured him and stroked his forehead.
He was shaking his head again. “My job.”
“Why is it your job?” she asked, smiling down at him.
“Because I found her.”
She straightened and drew back, her smile gone. She sighed. “That is not how this works.”
“Lori? Does this mean that we’re talking again?”
He waited while she blew away a breath and then crossed her arms protectively before her, the shields coming up again.
“Maybe. But it’s hard, Jake. When I see you, I remember...”
“Our daughter.”
She dropped her chin and nodded.
“Yes, and everything else.”
Jake opened his arms and gathered her up as she rested her forehead on his shoulder. She kept her arms crossed but let him hold her, rub her back. He hadn’t held her since they’d lost their own baby, and that had not gone well. The time before that had been in his truck. She’d said yes, yes to everything. And that was her fault as much as his.
Lori drew back first, of course, and he let her go. It seemed that was all he ever did.
“I’d like to be able to talk to you, Lori. And not just about what happened.”
Her eyes were cautious. She had reason to be suspicious, but not as much reason as he had to be suspicious of her.
“Talk, huh?” She gave him a look that cut through the bull. He wanted many things, but talk wasn’t exactly one of them.
She changed the subject, dismissing him and the topic.
“Your captain said you were on patrol last night, that you covered the traffic fatality and who knows what else. So, bed. Now.”
He stroked a strand of her hair that had escaped the tight knot. Instead of drawing back, she let him cup her head in his hand. He met her gaze, letting her know what he intended and giving her time to step away.
It was a bad idea, but he was still going for it. No stopping himself, just like the last time they were alone. But he was older now. His control was better.
Liar. She still stripped away all control. There was no containing the fire that burned within him for this woman. His brain shrieked a warning as he pulled her in tight.
Her eyes widened as she sucked in air through flaring nostrils. The small gesture made his chest constrict. He flexed his arm, bringing her in closer. Her fingers slipped into the opening of his uniform at the collar, nails raking his chest. His blood surged and he took the kiss, his mouth hungry. Her arms threaded around his neck as he deepened the kiss, tasting the sweetness of her mouth. She was like a drug for him. The habit he thought to break, and all the while it had lingered inside him, waiting for a chance to have her again. If she had learned anything, she should be running for the door because they were alone again, and there was a bed right beside them.
He turned her in his arms and brought her to the mattress. She stiffened and broke the kiss. He lifted to his elbows to give her a questioning look. She gaped at him and then shoved away, slipping from his grasp. He sat on the bed while she stood panting beside him. He’d dragged the forked comb from the tight bun and let her hair fall. Then he raked his fingers through the strands until her hair fell about her shoulders in soft waves.
“Jake, you can’t do that.”
But he just had. His mouth quirked.
“That so?”
“Yes, that is so, Jake Redhorse. You might be the golden boy to everyone else, but you and I know better. Don’t we?” She reclaimed her hair fastener.
That stung. He drummed his fingers on his thigh.
“I said I’d marry you, didn’t I?”
She gave a sharp, audible exhale and folded her arms over her chest. “My hero,” she said, her tone mocking. Then she spun on her heels and marched out of the room.
He had half a mind to follow her.
Jake flopped back onto the bed. And what was that “my hero” gibe about? She’d gone with him, let him do what he liked. They’d both been there, both been stupid kids. It wasn’t his fault. At least not all his fault. His mistake had been thinking he could control himself with Lori. He’d even had the damn condom in his pocket. But that wasn’t how a condom worked, was it?
He hadn’t used protection and she had never asked about it. Thinking a Mott girl would use protection was like expecting a cow to wear pajamas. That was what his brother Ty had said. Kee had said it was an unfortunate but predictable occurrence given family history. The whole thing still made him burn deep inside, shame and hurt and desire all firing at once. But he would admit that whatever appeal Lori had for him had only grown stronger with time.
What was it about Lori Mott that drew him like a lamb to slaughter?
“No,” he promised to the empty room and settled down in the bed alone. The pillow smelled like Lori. He breathed deep and then growled, rolling to his side, ignoring the stirring of his body for her.
Not again.
Chapter Four (#u5f0a71c4-4a64-547a-adba-51d50d785266)
Lori stomped away to the nurses’ station. She was so mad she could spit nickels. She plunged into work, muttering to herself. Officer Redhorse was no white knight. She knew it even if no one else did. But somehow he always came out of every situation smelling like a rose. It burned her up inside.
Did he actually believe what everyone had said about her? He’d been there, for heaven’s sake. He knew exactly how it had played out. But in the days and weeks after the miscarriage, Jake had disappeared. Bolted like a branded calf. She’d learned from her older sister Rosa that Jake had been congratulated on his escape.
And she’d just kissed him again. She must be out of her mind. Lori gave Fortune a bottle of formula and brought baby Leniix to her mother for feeding. She spoke to Betty Mills briefly about the new arrival. When she finally felt herself again, she returned to give Jake a piece of her mind and found him puffing softly in slumber. Lori permitted herself the pleasure of looking at the handsome boy who had grown into an even more handsome man. You just couldn’t tell from the outside what lay inside. Sometimes you learned that only when it was too late. When her throat began to ache, she crept out.
She was in the women’s health clinic with Dr. Redhorse all morning and was called to the urgent-care unit twice when they became swamped. Midmorning, Lori noticed Jake’s mother at the clinic, accompanied by her new husband, Duffy Rope. May Redhorse Rope never liked Lori after what had happened and had been strongly in favor of letting the baby go to adoption within the tribe so her precious son would not have to be encumbered by a marriage to the likes of her. When Jake had announced that he planned to marry Lori, May would not speak to her, but she made sure Lori heard what she thought. May’s words were engraved in Lori’s memory like letters on a tombstone.
He shouldn’t have to spend a lifetime tied to a girl like that because of one simple mistake.
Lori and May made eye contact, and May glowered. Lori went to fetch Dr. Kee Redhorse. She didn’t need any extra rancor this morning.
She later learned that May had a new ulcer on her foot above her big toe amputation and needed special wound care twice a week. Kee had made an appointment in Darabee with a specialist. Lori did not like Jake’s mother, but she would not wish her troubles on anyone.
Dr. Kee left for lunch and Lori ordered in, then returned to the computer to code entries while she waited. They didn’t have a proper cafeteria, but they had a break room and a standing arrangement with the diner across the street to have food delivered when needed.
Her order arrived with a familiar deliveryman. Bullis had left the grill to hand-deliver her meal. He’d been after her for months for a date, but she had put him off. He owned the diner and was a nice guy. But he just didn’t make her tingle all over—like Officer Redhorse. More was the pity. Nathan was the better choice because he gave her something Jake never had—respect.
“Extra sandwich,” said Nathan, lifting a bag. “Roast beef with mustard, lettuce, tomato, with potato salad and a bag of chips. Plus one sixteen-ounce iced tea.” He glanced around. “This for Nina? She usually drinks diet.”
“No. A, er, visitor. Jake Redhorse. Sleeping in there.”
Nathan frowned. “Why?”
News would get out anyway. It always did. “He found a baby in his truck.”
“A baby? No way. Can I see it?”
She held her smile and handed over a twenty. “Family only, I’m afraid.”
Nathan expertly made change. “Just found it, huh?”
“Yes. She’s doing well.”
“Ain’t that something.” He just stood there staring at her, and she felt sure he was going to ask her out yet again.
“Well.” She glanced at her computer. “Better get back to work.”
Nathan nodded and finally left, looking back only once this time.
Lori resisted the urge to check on Jake, but instead sent Nina to pop her head in. She returned a few minutes later with her report. “Still sleeping. Still cute. I left him a pitcher of ice water by his bed.”
Lori sighed as she returned to seeing patients and finished up the afternoon paperwork. The women’s health clinic closed at two o’clock on weekdays. The urgent-care unit stayed open until four from Monday to Saturday. After that, the tribe knew to wait until morning or call the volunteer fire department, now relocating until Piñon Forks was safe again. This week was unusual for them, too, because they’d be moving lock, stock and barrel to Turquoise Ridge tomorrow.
Baby Leniix and her mother had been discharged, leaving only baby Fortune, as Lori was now thinking of her. Lori and Nina packed boxes until nearly six.
“I’m going to wake up Officer Redhorse and see about getting him home,” said Lori.
“Okay,” said Nina, casting her a smile that showed much pink gum above her teeth before she returned to the computer and the records.
Lori retrieved the bag lunch and carried it to the room where Jake rested.
The golden September sunlight stretched across Jake’s bare arm and chest. At some point he’d removed his vest and his shirt now flapped open, giving her an eyeful of his heavily muscled torso. Her breath caught and she worried her lip as she considered turning tail.
Instead, she stepped closer.
You can do this, she thought. He’s just a man. Like every other man. But he wasn’t. He was the one man who short-circuited all her wiring, and he did it while asleep. That irritated her, but not enough to tamp down the unrest. She clenched the fist of her free hand to keep herself from stroking down the centerline of his body.
She stared at him, her body as tense as his was relaxed. It was safe now, since he was asleep.
But it wasn’t. Not really. Lori stretched her fingers and reached, unable to stop herself. She only just managed to redirect her touch to his forearm. His muscles twitched as her fingertips registered warm skin and the texture of the dark hair. His eyes flashed open as he reached with his opposite hand to his hip where his gun usually sat.
“It’s me,” she said and stepped away, clutching the bag before her.
The tension left his body. He squeezed his eyes shut, scrubbing his closed lids with his fingertips before forcing his eyes open again.
“Sorry. You startled me.”
He pushed himself to a sitting position, and her gaze slipped to his abdomen and the ribbed muscle there. She swallowed down the gnawing hunger.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“Yes.” She forced her gaze upward to his face. Thankfully, he was looking toward the hallway.
“Who’s with Fortune?”
“Nina.”
He nodded and scrubbed his hands over his face.
His shirt flapped opened, giving her an unimpeded look at flexing chest muscles as he stretched. Her throat went dry and her eyes widened. He was making her sweat and he’d barely looked at her.
He noticed the water and poured a plastic cup full. She watched in silence as his Adam’s apple bobbed with each long swallow. Her stomach fluttered and she closed her gaping mouth.
She resisted the urge to step closer. Oh, no, you don’t, she told herself.
He wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand and then met her gaze. Did he see the raw desire there?
Jake’s mouth quirked. “What time is it?”
She glanced at her watch. “A little after six.”
His brows lifted. “Really? Seven solid hours. Can’t believe it.”
No one had gotten much sleep since the dam collapse. Everyone at the clinic was working long hours. They’d stayed open around the clock for the first three days to treat all the injuries resulting from the explosion and evacuation.
His gaze dipped and her skin flushed as his eyes roamed over her body and then settled on the bag she had forgotten she held.
“Do I smell food?” he asked.
She nodded and dropped the bag onto the mobile table. In a moment she had the table wheeled in place beside the bed, automatically adjusting the level to suit him. He ignored the food and instead stared at her.
She didn’t know what to do with her hands. Should she leave him to eat or stay? Lori glanced toward the corridor with longing.
Despite how it had ended, Jake had been kind to her after he got over the shock. He’d also stood by her and defended her from his mother, who’d opposed the marriage so vehemently. Her mother had been for it, delighted, in fact. But things had changed after she’d lost their baby. The distance between them had yawned as they drifted further and further apart. Lori laced her hands across her flat stomach, feeling a hollow ache that reached all the way to her heart.
“Any word from Bear Den?” asked Jake.
Lori shook her head. “No one from the force has been here all day.”
Silence stretched as the tension between them crackled like ice cubes meeting water. Jake pushed away the table that separated them and rose to his feet. Lori’s brain signaled danger, but the message never reached her motor centers because she remained frozen in place. Jake lifted a hand and gently cradled her elbow.
There was a knock, and Lori glanced up to see Dr. Kee Redhorse standing in the door with his perpetual generous grin and warm brown eyes. He’d been in the clinic much of the afternoon.
“So Sleeping Beauty is finally awake,” said Kee. “Doesn’t seem to have improved your looks any.”
He strode in and gave his brother’s shoulder a firm pat.
“Anything happen while I was out?” asked Jake.
“Had a few more injuries related to cleanup. Seeing those every day since the explosion. Today it was Lawrence Kesselman.”
Lori had helped close the gash on Mr. Kesselman’s leg. The man had been gaunt, with deep circles under his eyes. Lori knew the reason. His daughter, Maggie, had run away last Sunday.
“And our mom was in,” said Kee. “She’s got another sore on her foot.”
The men shared a silent exchange that Lori read as worry. May was still able to walk, but if the ulcer did not heal, her condition could change.
“I’ve been with patients all day except for lunch over at the diner. Not sure which is bigger news, that you two found a baby or that Lori will finally speak to you again.”
“Speak to me?” Jake sounded incredulous.
She narrowed her eyes at the implication that he’d had reason to avoid verbal exchange with her. If he said another word on the topic, she was going to finally tell him what a complete jerk he was. Why had she let him kiss her?
Lori wouldn’t marry him now if he got down on his belly and groveled in the dirt. Redhorse was off the menu and he was not stealing any more kisses, either. Not today or ever.
“Whatever you say, Officer,” said Kee, and he gave Jake a playful push.
Jake’s mouth twisted as he allowed the shove to rock him and did not offer an insult back as he was likely to do with Ty or Colt. Kee had always been treated differently because of his leg-length discrepancy. His younger brothers looked out for him, his fiercest defenders. Even now, after the corrective surgery, the Redhorse men persisted as if their eldest still required special handling.
“How did Lawrence look?” asked Jake, wisely changing the subject.
“Just as you’re imagining.”
“Bear Den had me do that initial interview with him.”
“A tough place to start. A missing child, I mean.”
Jake did not disagree. “He also had me check back with the families of the others. A follow-up interview.”
“What others?” asked Kee.
“We have five missing girls since last November.”
“What? I didn’t know that,” said Kee. “Who?”
Jake listed the names, and Kee’s frown deepened. He turned to Lori. “Didn’t we see Maggie here last week?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. But the hairs on her arms were lifting as she considered the possibility. She was not sure about Maggie. But she was positive they had recently seen two of the other girls Jake had just mentioned.
“What’s wrong, Lori?” asked Jake.
“Maybe nothing. Excuse me, gentlemen.”
She stepped out, leaving Jake and Kee to watch her abrupt exit.
“What was that about?” asked Kee.
“Don’t know.”
“So...” Kee rocked back and forth from heel to toe. “You two back together?”
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