by Jenna Kernan
She sagged against him and rested her head on the hollow between his shoulder and collarbone. Funny, the rocking and the warmth of her little body against him made him close his eyes to savor the sensations. And suddenly she was comforting him.
This was what it must be like, he thought, to have a woman not just to sleep with but to hold. The awkwardness eased and they sat there quietly. When she pushed away he felt the tug of regret.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
He wasn’t sorry but how could he say so?
“That’s okay. Happens sometimes.” It never happened, actually.
She stared up at him and, bang, there it was again, that ache in his chest and the zing of attraction that crackled. Ray dropped his arm from her shoulder and down to her waist.
“Oh,” she said. Morgan inched away and met with the resistance of his arm as he tightened his hold.
“My daughter is in the other room,” she said.
That broke his concentration. His arm fell away and Morgan rose to her feet, perhaps belatedly realizing it is always unwise to enter a tiger’s cage even if it appears docile. She backed toward the door, pausing just inside the threshold with one hand on the doorknob, as if preparing to slam it shut and flee. It was the kind of chase he’d enjoy, but only if she would, too. He smiled as images of Morgan, playful and laughing, danced in his mind. They’d roll on the couch and onto the floor, where he’d let her sprawl on top of him, pink cheeked and giggling.
“So...we’ll go see my dad tomorrow at the jail? Ask him about the money.”
Ray let the daydream end as reality encroached. He wanted to go right now but he could see that Morgan was done in. And he knew that Lisa’s bedtime varied only slightly on the weekends. And federal authorities were very strict about rules like visiting times for prisoners.
“Yeah. First thing.”
Morgan looked scared all over again but there was no helping it.
“I have to put Lisa to bed.”
He heard Lisa complain and the television snap off. Lisa slowed at his door and stared at him before her mother pushed her along. Lisa’s room and his shared a wall and hers was at the end of the hallway. A few minutes later Lisa walked past his room again wearing pink pajamas that made her look about seven instead of ten. Who was that girl’s father?
Had he died like Ray’s or simply slipped away? He couldn’t imagine having a child...or a woman like Morgan. They seemed so normal and unprepared for the chaos that had swept them up. Why would Karl do this? Money didn’t seem like enough reason to leave these two to the wolves. He hoped like heck that Karl hadn’t planned on abandoning them and taking the cash. It would be hard to keep his temper if that was the case. Ray had always been in loose control of his temper and there were many places to lose it. One place he had never lost his temper was with a woman or a child. Never had. Never would. Was that why Kenshaw had chosen him?
Ray checked his mail and texts. Lisa appeared in the door with her mother at her back.
“Good night, Mr. Strong. Thank you for saving my mom tonight.”
Ray stood to face the child, feeling as out of place as a war club at a child’s tea party. He shrugged by way of a reply.
“Mom says you were an army man.”
Ray winced. “Marines.”
“I’m glad you know how to fight. Do you have a little girl, too?”
Ray glanced at Morgan whose expression told her that Lisa had gone off script.
“No. I don’t.”
“A wife?”
“Not one of those either.”
Lisa’s smile seemed satisfied and her eyes glittered with devilment. Ray knew when he was being set up. Normally he’d be saying good-night, which he was, but this time he’d be staying under the same roof with Morgan right across the hall.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” Lisa strode forward and offered her hand.
Ray hesitated. She was thin and tiny and her hand was so very small. But he shook hers as if sealing some deal.
Then she surprised him again by thanking him formally in perfect Tonto Apache.
“My grandfather taught me that,” she said.
He watched Lisa pad from the room on bare feet and wondered what else Karl had taught her.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Ray woke to the sound of a shovel rasping against gravel and earth. He headed for the window that faced the backyard. The sun wasn’t even up and there was Guy Heron digging up the tire planter in the backyard. The ceramic toad lay on its side next him, one eye staring up at the sky. Ray swore and then tugged on his jeans. He hoped the guy didn’t have a job that required him to see out of both eyes.
Ray was out the door a moment later. The day was gray and the air temperature lower than crisp. Heron took another shovelful of earth and dumped it on the ceramic frog. Then he knelt to check inside the hole.
Ray’s approach was soundless, not just because of his bare feet whispering over the ground but because of his training here on the reservation and with the US Marines. But still Heron spotted him before he reached him. The man sprang to his feet, gripped his shovel and ran across the driveway that separated the Hooke territory from the Herons’, but there was no distinction as all land here was communal. There Heron stopped as if protected by some invisible boundary, the kind that Anglos drew all over the earth. He expected better from a member of his own tribe.
“I didn’t find anything.”
Ray kept coming. Heron made his second mistake of the day. He held his ground.
“This here is my property.” He motioned with the shovel at a line that was not there and then lifted the shovel as if he intended to use it like an ax.
Third mistake, thought Ray as he came to a stop.
“This here?” he asked, marking the line that didn’t exist with an index finger.
Heron nodded.
Ray did a fair impression of a mime meeting an invisible wall. Heron’s brow knit as Ray seemed flummoxed by the barrier. His big finale was jabbing Heron in the eye.
Heron’s knees buckled but Ray grabbed him by the collar before he fell to his face. Then he dragged him back across the driveway and to the hole he had been digging.
“You taking up horticulture?” asked Ray.
Heron struggled, choked and dropped his shovel.
Ray threw him onto the freshly dug soil.
“He just planted these,” said Heron. “Right before the shooting.”
Ray placed his fists on his hips and admired the speed with which Heron’s eye swelled shut.
“Last night I told you that you should stay away from Morgan and her girl.”
“And I didn’t go near them.”
Ray pointed at the ground. “This counts.”
“I just thought, you know, maybe I could help her find it.” He motioned toward the hole.
Ray grabbed Heron’s wrist. A moment later he had that wrist behind Heron’s back and the man’s cheek pressed into the earth to the edge of the hole.
“Don’t help her anymore because if you do, I’m going to use your shovel to bury you in this hole.” He forcibly turned Heron’s head so he got a mouthful of the dirt. “Do we understand each other?”
Heron spat and wiggled but stopped when Ray increased the pressure on his wrist and shoulder.
“All right!”
Ray held him a breath longer by pressing his knee in his back, using it to stand back up. Then he offered his hand to Heron who ignored it as he drew himself up, glared at Ray and moved toward his home in a gait that was as close as a man can come to a jog without jogging.
Ray followed him to the driveway, carrying the shovel Guy had abandoned in his haste. When Guy turned back, Ray sent his shovel after him. The man made a squeak of alarm and broke into a run. The
re was nothing like the satisfaction that comes from doing what you love, thought Ray.
When he turned toward the house, he saw the shocked faces of both Morgan and Lisa in the window of Lisa’s bedroom. He dusted off his hands and headed toward the house. He tried not to let their looks of shock and horror affect him. He was doing what he’d been sent here to do, but frightening Lisa didn’t sit well and Morgan now looked at him as if someone had let a wild animal loose in her home.
In fact that was exactly what had happened, but until someone found that money that was just the way it was going to be.
Chapter Eight
Morgan gasped as Ray pursued Guy to the driveway and tossed his shovel after her neighbor like a spear. The blade bit deep into the earth and the handle vibrated. Morgan blinked at the bunching muscles of Ray’s back and the ease with which he tossed his captive aside.
He turned toward the house and his gaze flicked to hers. He stared at her and then stalked toward the kitchen door.
“Get dressed,” Morgan ordered Lisa as she headed to the kitchen.
A moment later Ray was there, filling the room, and the sight of him, shirtless and glistening with sweat, was enough to make even the weakest heart pulse faster.
Earlier, while she’d been making coffee, she couldn’t help reliving Ray’s embrace. Just his arms about her caused lightning strikes of excitement to rip through her. She’d never felt anything like that. Not even with Larry, Lisa’s father. She tried not to think of Larry but Lisa sometimes reminded her of him, affecting a mannerism she could not know her father had used. Morgan admitted she had been crazy in love with Larry, foolishly, wholeheartedly, but even when they had been intimate, her body had not churned and trembled as it did with Ray Strong, whom she barely knew. How was that even possible?
She wasn’t the sort of woman who took chances, especially on a man as compelling and dangerous as Ray. But she wished she’d let him kiss her, just once. Just for herself. She knew that he was the complete opposite of the sort of guy she and Lisa needed. She needed safe, steady and solid. Ray was none of those things. But he was sexy as all get out. And the truth was that she was attracted to him.
“What are you doing?” she asked now, trying to stop the direction of her thoughts.
He explained what had happened.
“Dad’s hummingbird garden?”
She managed to tear her gaze from all that naked male flesh and retreat to her bedroom for a view of the backyard. Sure enough, the bushes were lying on the ground.
“Why that...” She didn’t say the word, but she thought it. She turned back to see Ray, now wearing an olive green T-shirt, thank goodness, filling the gap in the open door.
“He was looking for the money,” he said.
Her mind flashed her a perfect image of Guy holding Lisa by the shoulders with that guilty look on his face. Morgan found her own fists clenching as the urge to protect her daughter ripped through her like a wave.
Ray glanced toward Lisa’s room.
Lisa had told the Herons and that was enough to make the man she had known all her life dig up her dad’s newly planted butterfly garden. She’d thought she knew her neighbor and it seemed she didn’t know him at all. She felt adrift without the anchor of her father’s presence and with the lost money making friends unrecognizable, she did not know who to trust. And poor Lisa had just lost her best friend because Morgan was not letting her visit the Herons any time soon. It was just devastating all around.
“He thought it was out there,” she said. “I need to see Dad.”
“Visiting hours are nine to three today. I checked.”
“I should call ahead.” Morgan noted that Ray was now staring at her freshly made bed. His gaze flashed to her next. He didn’t say anything, just performed a military-style turn and disappeared down the hall.
With his disappearance, Morgan found she could breathe again. She checked on Lisa, already dressed, and quickly braided her hair as Lisa fired questions at her. Morgan left Lisa in the bathroom before returning to the kitchen to make a call to the corrections facility in Phoenix. It had taken over a month for her to get their names on the approved visitors list for her father. Now she told them she would be visiting and gave them her father’s name. She’d learned that sometimes her dad was not available and once he had been moved temporarily before seeing the grand jury.
She had been prepared to hear he was unavailable, but when they told her why she would not be seeing him at the facility, she felt sick. Morgan pressed a hand on the counter for stability.
Ray set aside his coffee and moved to the opposite side of the counter. Morgan had gone pale and he knew something was very wrong.
“But why?” she asked.
Ray was beside her, clasping her elbow. She used her free hand to clutch his, her grip tight and her fingers cold.
“And the reason?...Yes.” She nodded. “I can find it. May I see him?”
She listened, thanked the speaker and then disconnected. Her eyes were tearing up when she looked at him.
“He didn’t tell me,” she whispered.
“Tell you what?” asked Ray.
“The cancer. He said he was in remission. But it’s back. It’s been back but he never said. And it’s really bad now. He’s in the hospital.” She sagged against him and he gathered her up, trying to feel guilty that Karl’s illness had brought Morgan into his arms and failing.
“Shouldn’t they have called you?” asked Ray.
“He told them not to. They said it was up to him.”
Ray found himself in the unfamiliar position of organizing what needed to be done. Lisa would spend the day with Morgan’s uncle, Agustin Tsosie, and his wife, Melouise. Ray called Kenshaw, who encouraged him to go visit Karl and report back on anything he might tell his daughter. He told Morgan to pack an overnight bag and any cash she had on hand.
Then he drove them to the hospital in Phoenix. On the drive, Morgan told him that her father had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. But he had been treated and had been in remission for six years. She had lost her mom, Adril, in a single-car accident with a deer. Lisa was only seven when she lost her grandmother.
Ray thought of his own accident, completely his fault, in Darabee when he’d been so drunk he’d totaled his car. Thank God he’d been the only one hurt. Living with a criminal record was preferable to causing injury or death to someone like Morgan’s mom. He’d always felt stupid for his recklessness. Now he felt lucky. He hadn’t killed anyone and he’d survived to learn something. Still, he wasn’t proud of his behavior. He’d just been so angry.
It had been the day after they heard Hatch’s body had finally been found and that he had likely died while being tortured in Iraq. He thought of his own parents’ deaths. Was it better to have time to say goodbye or to be torn from this world without warning? Ray somehow thought that Morgan was lucky. At least she had time to tell her father goodbye.
What was a good death, anyway? He didn’t know. But he knew a bad one. Hatch Yeager’s death had been long and painful. Ray bore his part in that death on his soul.
They reached the hospital in Phoenix and were shown to her father’s room to discover him recovering from surgery. He was unconscious and restrained, his wrist punctured with an IV and fixed to the metal bed rail with a thick plastic zip tie.
The nurse on duty suggested they step outside and explained that they had believed he was suffering from a gallstone until they went in and saw that the systemic cancer from his prostate had spread. Metastasized they had called it. Hospice care had been considered and rejected because her father was in his final days.
Morgan was a weeping mess when they went back into her father’s room. She sobbed on her father and he did not rouse. The nurse came back in to check on him and said they had given him something for the pain.
&
nbsp; Ray leaned against the window frame as Morgan settled in a vinyl chair at her father’s side.
“I don’t understand any of this,” she said.
“Why he did what he did and why he never told us he was so ill.” Morgan pressed a hand to her forehead. “I’d been after him because he was losing weight.” She stroked her father’s arm and Ray wondered if anyone would be there to sit with him as he passed from this world to the next.
The room was quiet except for the blip and beep of the machines monitoring Karl’s IV and his heart. Karl had a strong heart, Ray knew, and a good one. But he’d miscalculated when it came to the payoff. Perhaps he had thought no one but Morgan would know. That he would have time to tell her where it was hidden.
“He took the job because he was dying,” said Ray.
Morgan glanced back at him, the frown forming a line between her brows.
“He’s the perfect choice. Dying and with a family to support.”
“So you believe he was paid to shoot Sanchez and he did it for me and Lisa.”
Ray nodded.
“Who paid him?”
That was what everyone wanted to know. Ray shrugged. A better question was who knew her father was so ill? That person might be the link between her father and whoever hired him. Ray thought a man like Karl might tell his army buddies or possibly his shaman. Ray decided to call Jack about that one.
“This makes no sense. Ovidio Sanchez was already in custody. He was going to prison, probably to get the death penalty, so why bother to kill him?”
Ray wondered how anyone could be so innocent and yet a mother. She ought to know something of how the world worked. Sometimes he wished he didn’t.
“He was going to be interrogated by the FBI. They were there to take him into federal custody,” said Ray.
Morgan blinked at him and he saw the moment she understood.
“The mine shooting. It wasn’t a random act of violence. Was it?”
