Eagle Warrior

by Jenna Kernan

  She caught movement to her left and shifted her gaze. Two men stood in a silhouette against the blue glass of the window. They stepped forward into the light. Ray Strong and Detective Jack Bear Den, she realized.

  “Keep that arm straight, darlin’,” said Ray.

  Darling. She smiled and complied then closed her eyes. Was she his darling? That was good, wasn’t it? But no. Her smile ebbed. He brushed away the trails of the tears that fell from the corners of her eyes to soak into the hair at her temples. His touch was so gentle and so sincere, or was that just her trying to see only what she wished to see instead of what was.

  She opened her eyes and stared up at Ray.

  With Lisa’s father, her love had been as foolish and childish and immature as the bud of a rose. An infatuation that would not have lasted even if he had been all he had claimed. But for Ray she had the love of a woman, full and lush and blooming. Despite what she knew of him and his flaws, she had tumbled into a love so strong that it ached to look at him. But now she was faced with a terrible choice. She could love him and protect him, even from his friend who was a detective. Or she could love him and do what was right for her tribe and reveal what he was, a man working for BEAR.

  “Hi,” said Ray, lifting her hand as if she were made of glass. She felt like that, somehow. Fragile with a heart cold and yet still beating. “You gave us all a scare. But you’re doing better. And your core temperature is dropping.” He motioned to one of the monitors. Then he drew up a chair and sat on the edge.

  Core temperature? She shifted and decided that was one of the intrusions she felt.

  Ray seemed so concerned and attentive. She stared at his handsome face. The money was gone. So why was he still here?

  Hope flared like a shooting star and just as quickly winked out. The words of her abductor bubbled up like road tar. “Your boyfriend was working for us all along. You really think we’d leave you for the FBI to question without knowing what your dad told you?”

  She looked at him and wondered if she could just pretend. Pretend she didn’t know he had deceived her. Pretend he would stay. Her gaze shifted to the form looming behind Ray. Detective Bear Den loomed like a menacing dark angel, his thick brows sinking over his green eyes.

  “I’d like...” She stopped speaking because her voice was nearly unrecognizable, just the scratching of dry sticks against each other, more rasp than speech.

  “Just rest,” said Ray. “You’re safe. Lisa’s safe. I’m so relieved. I was afraid I was going to lose you there.”

  Either Ray was deceiving her or someone close to him was using him. Our man, Gifford had said. Who was close enough to Ray that he would trust him implicitly? Her gaze turned to Detective Jack Bear Den, his grim visage now suddenly seemed a threat.

  “Water,” she said.

  “Not yet. They said they have to be sure you are fully conscious.” Ray lifted the call button someone had tied to the raised rail of her bed and depressed the plastic button. In a few minutes, the nurse appeared. Her gray hair was pulled back from her fleshy face and her hot-pink top was covered with Disney princesses in a rosy color repeated in her scrub bottoms and again with her rubber-soled clogs, also pink. Her stethoscope dangled from her pocket and held her ID card.

  “Well, look who’s awake,” said the nurse. “I’m Kathy. We met when you came on my floor.”

  Morgan didn’t remember. Kathy asked the men to step out. Ray refused.

  The nurse put her hands on her wide hips and made a face but seem resigned. It seemed to Morgan that they had had this conversation before.

  “Ray, please,” Morgan whispered.

  His eyes widened and his expression changed to something close to pain. She felt the stab of guilt. He was tired, dirty and needed a shave. His clothing was rumpled and he had circles under his eyes. He looked as if he’d been dragged all the way down the canyon behind his horse. But what she saw most clearly was the shock of her wanting his absence.

  “Just for a minute,” she said, her voice still not seeming her own.

  He pressed his lips together and nodded. Then he trailed his friend from the room.

  Here was her chance. She could ask the nurse to call Luke Forrest and tell him all that Gifford had told her. She could point her finger at Ray and tell them that he was no better than her father, helping those extremists. Or she could trust her heart.

  That heart had been wrong before and disappointed so often. She barely had the courage to listen. But she closed her eyes and tried. And there it was. Against reason and against evidence to the contrary, she believed in Ray and what that horrible man had said changed nothing. She loved Ray and she would give him his due. Love and trust were two inseparable entities. You could not have one without the other.

  Kathy checked the monitors and listened to Morgan’s heart. Then she raised the bed so Morgan was sitting up.

  “Your husband is as stubborn as a potbellied pig I once owned,” said Kathy.

  “My husband?”

  The nurse glanced toward the empty door. “I knew it.” She turned pale blue eyes back on Morgan. “Between the FBI and that detective and Mr. Strong, I just didn’t have the energy.” She snorted. “He’s cute though and very devoted to you. I think he’d like to be your husband. You could do worse. That’s certain.”

  Kathy returned her attention to her patient. When she finished, Morgan had been thoroughly mauled but she now had nothing but the IV and heart monitors attached to her body.

  “They won’t tell me anything, of course. No one ever does. But I have to tell you that I could not get that other one, Mr. Strong, to leave the room. My friend in the ER said that he was impossible in the ER and ignored the Critical Care Unit ICC rules about visiting hours.”

  “How long have I been here?” asked Morgan.

  She glanced at a digital watch with a wide pink strap. “You came in yesterday and onto my floor a few hours ago. It’s 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday and you’re in Phoenix.”

  “Phoenix?” She had assumed she was in the small community hospital in Darabee.

  “Yep. If you are in pain, I can give you something,” said the nurse.

  Morgan shook her head. This was not the sort of pain she wanted numbed. It was more a confusion over her feelings for Ray. She knew his reputation and what he thought of himself. But that man and the man she knew were two different people. She drew a breath, filling her lungs with sweet cool air and a sense of hopeful optimism that most would think foolish and others would call reckless. She wanted to tell Ray how she felt and see if she could convince him to stay with her and Lisa, to see if they might grow into a family.

  “I need to speak to Ray. Alone,”

  The nurse paused and lifted her thin brows.

  “I do not want the detective or the FBI back in here,” said Morgan.

  Her nurse could not have been much over five feet tall but the iron in her expression and the confidence in her smile made Morgan believe that she was up for that challenge.

  “I’ll have that detective get some ice chips. You have FBI outside your door, too. They might be able to hear you talking.”

  Kathy offered Morgan ice water from a plastic cup with a straw. Nothing had ever been quite as welcome as that first sip. It soothed her raw throat. She felt it glide down her esophagus and all the way to her stomach.

  “Slow at first,” said Kathy. “Let’s see how that sits.”

  It seemed to arrive in her stomach like moisture to a dry sponge. She felt no discomfort so Kathy let her have the rest.

  “You’ve had a lot of intravenous fluid, so you should be feeling much better. Are you hungry?”

  Morgan nodded.

  “I’ll see about getting you something to eat. I have lemon ice at my station. Best start with that.”

  Kathy spun with military efficienc
y and reversed course past the empty bed beside Morgan’s and out the door. Her voice was clear as she ordered Jack Bear Den to follow her.

  A moment later, Ray appeared, peeking in at her and then casting her a welcome smile that was as cheerful as a spring bouquet. His eyes sparkled and the smile masked the fatigue on his features.

  “How you feeling?”

  She motioned him forward, causing the IV in her arm to throb. He moved to her side and took hold of her hand, his thumb stroking her skin. The tingle that followed the simple touch was unexpected and as welcome as July rain.

  “That man who took me?” she whispered in Tonto Apache.

  Ray’s smile vanished and he looked suddenly forbidding and fierce.

  “He’s dead, Morgan. He can’t hurt you ever again.”

  “I know. I saw those men kill him.”

  Now his thick brows sank low over his dark eyes. “You saw them?”

  “Did they catch them?”

  He shook his head and leaned closer, matching her quiet tones. “No. The FBI pursued them to the end of the canyon. They found a lean-to with their horses and a half-full plastic water trough for their livestock but no sign of the men. They asked Jack to go up there with Chief Tinnin to have a look. Best they can figure from the tracks and the spikes they found was that those two had a hot-air balloon waiting. With it, they just drifted up into the hot-air-balloon festival and floated to Phoenix with the rest of the participants.

  “Could you identify them?” asked Ray.

  She shook her head. “They wore gloves and masks.”

  His shoulders sagged with visible relief. “Thank God.”

  “The one who took me.”

  “Gifford Journey,” Ray spat the name. Then he called him a name that made Morgan’s ears heat. “May he find no peace in the grave.”

  “He wanted me to show him where we put the money,” she said.

  “That’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? The FBI? To use you to get to them. You could have died.” Ray’s face flushed and his free hand gripped the bed rail so tight his knuckles turned white.

  He’d been against her working with the FBI. She’d shut him out. She hadn’t trusted him and as a result she’d almost left her precious daughter an orphan. She might have been just like Ray had been, alone, vulnerable and left to the tribe to place.

  “I’m so sorry, Ray.”

  He sank to his knees. “No. Don’t be. You’re safe. Lisa is safe.”

  “But they didn’t catch them. It was all for nothing.”

  “They have their horses. Maybe some physical evidence. They have the Gifford connection. He’ll lead them somewhere. They’ve called in his father, Renzo Journey, for questioning. His father owns a stone and gravel business in Carefree.”

  Now Morgan squeezed Ray’s hand. The weariness dragged on her as her body demanded rest. But she had to tell him the rest.

  “Ray, the man who took me, he said that they had a man on the inside. He called him ‘our man.’”

  Ray loomed over her. For just a moment she reconsidered telling him what Gifford had said to her. What if the inside man was Ray?

  “Where?” Everything about him had turned hard and dangerous.

  She swallowed back her trepidation but her heart monitor betrayed her, beating at a faster pace. It was not too late to turn back, but she wouldn’t. She had to know the truth.

  “I don’t know who. He just said, ‘Our man.’ He said something like that you could be trusted because ‘their man’ told them to trust you.”

  “Me?” He pointed a finger to his chest. “I could be trusted?” He glanced past the empty bed beside her to the open door. “We have to tell Jack,” said Ray.

  Morgan shook her head. “What if it’s him, the one they called our man?”

  Ray’s eyes narrowed. She knew what he was thinking. He trusted Jack with his life. But Morgan barely knew him.

  “It’s not Jack.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The same way you know it’s not me.”

  She stared at him in silence as her skin prickled with apprehension.

  “What else did he say?”

  “That you had been working for them all along. And that they were not stupid enough to leave me alive to talk to the FBI without knowing everything my father had told me first.”

  His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open for a moment before he clamped it shut so tight the muscles at his cheeks bulged. Then he took a step closer before pausing to glance back at the door. In the hallway, his friend Jack waited with the FBI agent stationed to guard her.

  “Morgan, I’m not the inside man and if they have one, I don’t know who it is.” He waited in total stillness as she met his gaze.

  She didn’t have any special powers to divine the truth. She knew only that she wanted to believe him. But her daughter’s safety was also at stake. That made her hesitate.

  “I know that you have had some men lie to you, trick you and even use you. Kenshaw Little Falcon did ask me to discover what you knew of your father’s dealings with the eco-extremists. He’s my shaman, Morgan. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  She wanted, no longed, to believe him.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Believe me,” he begged. “Believe in me. You won’t be sorry.”

  She wouldn’t survive it, another deception, because this time she knew that she loved Ray foolishly and totally. If he broke her heart, there would be nothing left. Before, with that married man who had deceived her, it was her pride that had suffered. She had lost an infatuation and a fantasy. Now she faced much greater stakes. If she didn’t believe him, she would lose him. If she did believe him and he was deceiving her, she would lose him, too.

  She nodded. “What should we do?”

  His eyes closed and he placed his hand over them rubbing outward as if to eradicate the memory of this near miss.

  “You believe me?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  He lifted his head from his hands and watched her. “Why?”

  She couldn’t tell him it was because she loved him. She knew Ray was fond of her and was attracted to her. But neither of those meant that he loved her or that he planned to stick around after this was over.

  Morgan cleared her throat and went halfway there. “I believe you because I believe my heart. I have to.”

  He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers. “Thank you. I’ll see that you never regret it.”

  “But if you didn’t know, then that means someone very close to you is using you.”

  The growl began in Ray’s throat and leaped out as a roar.

  “Jack!” he bellowed.

  “No, wait,” she said. But it was too late because the big man entered at a fast walk, one hand on his pistol as he swept the room for signs of a threat.

  If Ray was wrong and Jack was the inside man, then Morgan was now facing the person that the eco-extremists had placed on the inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Morgan blew out a breath, refusing to let the fear gobble her up. She had to trust Ray’s belief in Jack because if she didn’t, this nightmare might never end.

  And once it did, well then she could keep Ray.

  Morgan sank back in her bedding. That was it. Her stupid, deluded attempt to keep Ray meant that she couldn’t ever be safe. Because once she was, his mission from their shaman was complete and he could leave her.

  Morgan squeezed her eyes shut, ashamed at the coward she had become.

  Ray met Jack at the door and the two stepped out in the hall before her door. She could hear outside Ray’s voice speaking Tonto Apache and Jack’s reply, a low gruff whisper. What were they saying?

  She needed to tell her tribal poli
ce everything. Tell the FBI everything. Help them catch these men, whose plans were unknown but involved a great deal of explosives. Then she would get Lisa back and have to tell Ray goodbye.

  The nurse came and went, bringing a tray with Italian lemon ice, gelatin, coffee and apple juice. Morgan closed her eyes to savor that first spoonful of ice.

  “How’s that?” asked her nurse.

  “Mmmm... Thank you.”

  “I’d like to have you take a walk around the floor in a little while.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The nurse promised to order her some real food and left, passing Ray at the foot of the empty bed beside Morgan’s. Behind him came Detective Bear Den. Morgan told the detective just what she had related to Ray.

  Jack Bear Den cleared his throat. “If it’s not you, Ray, or me, then there are only two other possibilities.”

  “Dylan and Kenshaw Little Falcon,” said Ray. “It can’t be Dylan.”

  Jack nodded. “I agree. But if it is not Dylan, then it means that our shaman and the leader of Tribal Thunder is working for these extremists and it’s my duty to arrest him.”

  “I need to speak to field agent Forrest,” said Morgan.

  “Already on his way,” said Bear Den. The detective glanced to Ray. “I’ve got to go. This is my best shot to bring him in before the FBI gets to him. If they take him while he’s not on reservation land, I might never get a chance to get to the bottom of this.”

  Ray nodded and Jack turned to Morgan. “Thank you for your help, Morgan. I’ll be in touch.”

  Ray walked him out but returned in a few minutes and took a seat beside her bed.

  “You’re staying here?” she asked.

  “Until I know you’re safe.”

  “But the man who sent you to watch over me might be the man they’re all after. In which case, you don’t have any obligation to stay here with me.”

  “You’re wrong there.”

  “Am I?”

  He nodded.

  “Why are you staying?”