“Are you telling me Billy Starr is my father?”
“Isn’t that what you want to know? I was only a few weeks pregnant when he shipped out.” Her mother’s anger disappeared as if someone had flipped a switch. “I had no idea at the time. I thought if people knew you were mixed race…”
No! Reeling, Jolene tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. The room receded. Everything she’d ever known to be true…
“Does…does Daddy know? Or maybe I shouldn’t call him that anymore?”
“Yes, he knows. He took the two of us in without batting an eye and he’s loved you like you were his own.”
Like you were his own. The words couldn’t have hurt more if Margaret had stabbed her with them. Hands shaking, she stumbled toward the door.
She had no idea where she was going or what she’d do.
The only thing she knew was that life would never be the same again.
Dear Reader,
From earliest childhood, most of us get our clues about who we are from our families. We create our own identity based on the way our parents, siblings and grandparents look at us. Some of us come to believe things about ourselves so deeply, we never stop to question whether they’re true or not. We become the quiet one, the smart one, the shy one or the silly one because that’s what we’ve been told we are.
Jolene Preston has accepted what she’s been told all her life. So when she stumbles across evidence that the “truths” she has always accepted about herself aren’t true at all, it throws her into turmoil.
Her Secret Family is the story of Jolene’s struggle to discover who she is after all the comfortable childhood labels are ripped away. It is also a story about finding, recognizing and keeping love when it finds you. Along the way she meets Mason Blackfox and his twelve-year-old daughter, Debra, who are facing struggles of their own.
I’ve come to care a lot about all three of them. I hope you will, too.
Sherry Lewis
P.S. I love to hear from readers. You can reach me through my Web site at www.sherrylewisbooks.com or by e-mail at [email protected].
HER SECRET FAMILY
Sherry Lewis
Books by Sherry Lewis
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
628—CALL ME MOM
692—THIS MONTANA HOME
744—KEEPING HER SAFE
816—LET IT SNOW
826—A MAN FOR MOM
883—FOR THE BABY’S SAKE
974—THAT WOMAN IN WYOMING
1072—MR. CONGENIALITY
1169—THE CHRISTMAS WIFE
1237—THE CHILDREN’S COP
1275—HIGH MOUNTAIN HOME
For Carol Peterson,
a hero in every sense of the word
Acknowledgments
With grateful thanks to the many members of police and fire
departments who have answered my questions on gender
bias in the workplace with honesty and integrity, most
especially to Captain Bill Stoddard of the South Ogden Fire
Department.
To Choogie Kingfisher for his helpful answers on clan lines
and for directing me to places where I could find more
information on the Cherokee people. Wado.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS FRIDAY NIGHT. Date night. For most women, that meant Manolo Blahniks, slinky dresses and fine dining. For Jolene Preston, it meant steel-toed boots, her trusty 9 mm Beretta and a cold hot dog wolfed down on her way to a stakeout in one of Tulsa’s older neighborhoods. Just the way she liked it.
Her back against the cold brick wall of an abandoned store, she tried to see through the late-night shadows. Fifty yards away, a single light burned in a fenced-in yard, just bright enough for her to see people milling around.
“Hey, Jo-Jo. You in position yet?” Her partner’s voice was little more than a breath in the earpiece she wore.
“I’m here,” she whispered, “but it’s black as pitch. I can’t see much.”
“Yeah? Well maybe you should have stayed out here and let me take the back.”
Coming from anyone else that suggestion would have felt like a challenge, but from Ryan Fielding it just made her grin. She and Ryan had been working together since she transferred into the Special Investigations Division eighteen months earlier. He was a good cop and a decent guy—one of the few men in the department who didn’t feel threatened by women on the force. Jolene inched around a stack of rotting cardboard boxes. “Forget it, old man. You’d hurt yourself trying to get through the obstacle course back here. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
Ryan chuckled as she’d known he would. The five-year difference in their ages had been a running joke between them since the one-and-only time he tried to cushion her from a harsh situation. She’d accused him of gender bias. He’d denied it, claiming instead that he thought she was too young to handle the job. It was as close to an apology as she was likely to get. Afterward, they’d settled into a working relationship that suited both of them.
“Any sign of Zika or his boys at your end?”
Jolene took another look at the men behind the warehouse. Two years ago, Raoul Zika had moved into Tulsa and set up a drug operation, which Tulsa’s finest hadn’t been able to shut down. “There are a few of them back here. Can’t tell what they’re doing yet. How close are you?”
“I’m there now, but it’s like a morgue out front.”
Gauging the distance between her position and the fence, Jolene whispered, “I’m still about fifty yards away. Give me a few minutes to get closer.”
“What the hell have you been doing? Your nails?”
“Yeah, well, you know me, always dolling myself up.” Jolene checked the ground in front of her with one foot and moved carefully around a stack of old newspapers. “I stopped off to do a little shopping at that secondhand store on the corner.”
“Figures. It’s awfully quiet around here tonight,” Ryan said as she slid behind a battered white van parked in back of Capriotti’s Sandwich shop. “You think Big Red gave us the wrong information?”
“I don’t know.” Jolene didn’t trust Red, but who did? He was a junkie who’d do anything for a fix. “He sounded pretty sure that Zika would be moving the shipment tonight.”
“Yeah, well, he might just have been playing us,” Ryan said, voicing her own thoughts. “He’d give up his own mother if he thought it would save him.”
Jolene started to agree, when she heard something. The response froze on her lips. “I think there’s somebody back here,” she said, dropping her voice. Clouds covered the moon and stars, making it hard to see, but she heard something again, and this time she identified it as someone talking.
“Come on.” It sounded like a young male. “Just try it. What are you worried about? Your dad’s never gonna know.”
Kids? Here? Now?
A second person spoke, the voice high-pitched and feminine. “He might be
able to tell. He’d probably see it in my eyes or something.”
“If you’re that worried,” the boy said, “just hang with me for a few hours until you come back down again.”
“He’s not going to let me stay out late. He barely let me come to the party at all.”
Smart father. Jolene tried to guess how far the kids were from Zika’s operation, but the way noise echoed in the alley made it hard to judge. Wherever they were, they weren’t far enough.
Jolene could almost see the case they’d been slowly building against Zika—late nights watching his operation, uncomfortable interviews and countless hours spent with the scum of the earth—swirling down the drain.
“So call and tell him you want to stay longer,” the boy bargained. “You can talk him into it, can’t you?”
“You don’t know my dad.”
Something or someone banged into metal and Jolene decided they must be near the Dumpster not far ahead.
“C’mon,” the boy taunted. “Your old man can’t be that smart.” His voice dropped, and Jolene missed whatever he said next. Then she smelled the stench of burning marijuana.
Frustrated and angry, she searched the shadows for the telltale red glow that meant somebody was inhaling. Every time a kid lit up, swallowed a pill or used a needle, someone like Raoul Zika was responsible. She ached to get him off the streets, but if he and his men were moving a drug shipment tonight, they’d be heavily armed, probably high and definitely edgy. Ignoring those kids would be reckless and irresponsible.
Biting back her disappointment, she spoke into the mouthpiece. “Hold on, Ryan. I’ve got a couple of kids back here.”
“Say again?”
“Kids—smoking up, by the sounds of it. Two. Maybe more. Not very old, either. I need to get them out of here.”
Ryan swore. “How close are they?”
“Too close to ignore. If something goes wrong, they’ll be right in the line of fire.”
“Well, get ’em out of there fast, before Zika and his boys figure out something’s going on.”
That might be easier said than done. A couple of kids with a joint weren’t likely to lie down and give themselves up if they saw her. Wiping away a trickle of perspiration, Jolene stepped carefully around a recycling bin, but she wasn’t careful enough. Her toe hit a loose board and the clatter echoed up and down the alleyway.
The kids froze, the red glow disappeared and one of them took off at a dead run toward Zika’s warehouse.
Damn! Tossing a warning at the girl to stay where she was, Jolene set off after him. She raced full-out, but the kid had the advantage. Halfway down the alley, she rammed into a garbage can and crashed to one knee. As she hit the ground, she heard the rattle of chain link, which meant the boy had reached the fence surrounding Zika’s warehouse.
Shouts from a couple of men went up as Jolene staggered to her feet again, and she knew their chances of catching Zika doing anything tonight had just gone up in smoke. Why couldn’t the kid have run the other way?
“Jo?” Ryan’s voice sounded urgent in her ear. “What’s going on?”
“The kids heard me and one of them took off,” she panted. “He went over the fence into Zika’s turf.”
“Dammit! Have Zika’s men seen him?”
“He ran right into their arms.” Jolene took a second to catch her breath, then muttered, “We might as well shut down and get out of here. There’s no way Zika will move that shipment now.”
“Eisley’s not going to be happy,” Ryan grumbled.
“Tell me about it.” And he’d blame Jolene. He always did. Captain Eisley had been trying to get Jolene out of his previously all-male unit since the day she transferred in—but he flew just under the radar, making it impossible for her to prove.
As she turned back, pain shot through her leg and nearly knocked her off balance. Her palms burned where bits of dirt and gravel had embedded in her flesh, but none of that came close to matching the irritation she felt. He was a skinny kid, she should have been able to catch him.
To her surprise, the girl still hovered behind the recycling bin. Too high to know she was in trouble, or too frightened to move. Either way, Jolene planned on having a few words with her.
Brushing wind-tossed hair from her eyes, she radioed Ryan to let him know what was happening, then strode to where the girl was hiding. “Hey—are you all right?”
“M-me?”
“Yes, you. Why don’t you come on out of there?”
“That’s okay. I’m fine right here.”
Jolene glanced toward the warehouse and moved in closer. “Well, I’m glad to know you’re okay, but I really need you to come out where I can see you.”
The girl hesitated then sidled out from behind the bin, eyes wide, one corner of her lip clamped in her teeth. She couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve—a mere wisp of a thing with wide eyes and long dark hair. “Am I in trouble?”
“Well, that depends. What are you doing out here at this time of night?”
The girl raised one thin shoulder. “I was at a party with some friends.”
“Yeah. I saw the party you were having.”
“Not that one!” Somehow, the girl’s eyes grew even wider. She nodded toward the apartment building at the end of the alley. “My friend lives over there.”
“Then what are you doing out here?”
“Just taking a walk.”
“Yeah, me, too. Why don’t we get out of this alley? You can tell me your name while we walk.”
Those big wide eyes narrowed in a hurry. “Do I have to?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
The girl shifted from one foot to the other, glanced at her only escape route, then lifted her chin defiantly. “You can’t get me in trouble if you don’t know who I am.”
“You don’t think so? You might be surprised what I can find out.” When the girl didn’t say anything, Jolene pushed a little harder. “Look, sweetheart, you have two choices. You can tell me yourself, or let me find out on my own. I’ll be a lot happier if you just answer my questions.”
The girl stared at her for a long moment, then let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. Fine. My name’s Debra. Blackfox.”
Blackfox, huh? Jolene could tell at a glance the girl wasn’t full-blooded. “You just made a good decision, Debra Blackfox. Did you smoke the weed?”
“I don’t have to tell you that.”
“You’d rather have us run tests down at the station? Okay. That’s fine with me. Now come on out of there.”
Debra pulled back sharply. “Why? Are you going to arrest me?”
For what? Being too young, too naive, too trusting and too needy? None of those were crimes, although judging from the number of lives Jolene had seen ruined by the combination, they ought to be. She shrugged. “If you won’t cooperate, I’ll have to take you in for questioning.”
Debra slowly sidled out from behind the Dumpster. “I never said I wasn’t going to cooperate.”
“Well, that’s good.” Aware of how much time had passed, Jolene took her arm and started walking. “So did you smoke the weed?”
“No.”
Jolene couldn’t see any obvious signs of intoxication, so maybe she’d interrupted in time. “Then that’s your second good decision of the day. What’s your friend’s name?”
“I—I dunno. I just met him.”
“Then what are you doing out here with him in the middle of the night?”
A blast of warm wind tousled the girl’s hair. She brushed it from her cheek and frowned. “He wanted to take a walk.”
And she’d been so flattered by the attention, she’d jumped at the chance. What was it with some girls? Their mothers ought to teach them not to be so needy, and somebody ought to care enough to keep them off the streets. “How old are you, Debra?”
“Sixteen.”
Right, kid. And I’m M
other Theresa. “Sixteen, huh? Do you have your driver’s license with you?”
“No, I—I left it at home.”
Jolene was in no mood for lies and evasions. “Listen up, Debra. You and your friend just caused big problems for my partner and me. Understand? So now tell me, how old are you really?”
“Fourteen.”
“You don’t look fourteen.”
“I look young for my age.”
“Apparently. What happened to the joint?”
“What joint?”
“The one your friend was trying to get you to smoke. Did he drop it?”
“I don’t know.”
Jolene thought about going back to search for it, but decided to let it go. Even if she found it, she couldn’t prove Debra had ever been in possession, and they already wasted too much time in the court system, prosecuting cases against the little guy while the real criminals went on about their business. “Where will I find your parents?” she asked.
“My parents? Why do you want them?”
“Because I’m not leaving you here alone and I’m not taking you back to that party. You’re a minor, so that leaves just two choices—the police station and then your parents or straight home. Which would you prefer?”
“But you can’t—” Debra broke off and wrapped her arms around herself. Tears pooled in her eyes, but Jolene couldn’t tell if they were genuine or just very convenient. “Let me go back to my friend’s house, please. I promise I’ll stay there.”
Sherry Lewis - Count on a Cop Page 1
