Montana Mavericks, Books 1-4

by Diana Palmer

  Twenty feet away, two sleek, nylon-covered legs came into view, followed by a full, bright red skirt. Lifting his gaze, he saw a narrow waist cinched by a belt of silver and turquoise conchos. The fitted bodice of a sundress covering full breasts came next. And finally, a graceful neck and Maggie’s face. If this was a hallucination, it was so beautiful, he hoped it would stick around a while.

  Maintaining eye contact, he straightened to his full height. “Are you real?”

  “Of course I’m real.” She squinted at him, then raised one hand to shade her eyes. “Jackson, are you all right?”

  “If you’re really here, I’m fine. If you’re not, it’s time to call the guys in the white coats to come and get me.”

  Maggie walked over to the patio and shut off the radio. Then she came back to the garden and carefully made her way between the rows of plants, stopping two feet away from him. “I’m real, and I’m here, Jackson. I need to talk to you.”

  Turning to face her directly, he slowly raised one hand to touch her, halting in midair when he heard her gasp.

  “Good Lord, haven’t you been eating anything?” she demanded. “You must have lost twenty pounds!”

  Jackson shrugged. “I haven’t been very hungry.”

  Lifting her right hand, she traced his Sun Dance scars with a butterfly-soft touch. Every nerve ending in his body jumped to full alert. God, she was real.

  “You’re not going to have your chest pierced again this year, are you?”

  “Yes, I am. It’s an act of gratitude and sacrifice for the tribe’s continued survival.”

  “Wasn’t it awfully painful?” she asked.

  “That’s what a sacrifice is all about. It’s an old, old tradition for our people and the other Plains tribes. The scars are considered marks of honor.”

  She gulped, then raised her gaze to meet his. “The tribe means everything to you, doesn’t it?”

  “The tribe and my family,” he agreed. “Since I killed any hope of a future with you, they’re all I have left.”

  “Could we talk for a little while?” she asked.

  He studied her, desperately wanting to believe she’d come for a reconciliation, but fearing another failure with equal desperation. “What do you want to talk about?”

  Clasping her hands in front of her waist, she looked down at them. “I saw your Uncle Frank at the party. He, um, helped me to see you weren’t the only one who made mistakes. I’d like to try to work things out if we can.”

  “Why, Maggie?”

  “Because I miss you.” She looked up at him again, hesitating for what seemed like an excruciatingly long time before adding, “And, because I can’t seem to stop loving you.”

  Jackson exhaled his pent-up breath, feeling the same wonderful sense of release he’d felt at the Sun Dance, when the leather thongs, threaded under his skin by the holy man’s skilled hands finally tore loose. That moment had held a promise of freedom from agony, as did this one. Please, Maheo, give me the right words this time, he thought. Don’t let me screw up again.

  He cupped the side of her face with his hand, smiled at the grubby swath his dirty thumb left on her soft cheek, then motioned for her to precede him from the garden. Her skirt swirled around her knees as she turned away from him and hurried toward the grass. His gut knotting with a combination of anxiety and hope, he followed her to a shady patch of grass under the old cottonwood tree.

  She sat cross-legged, skirt spread around her, elbows propped on her thighs, fingers tangled in a nervous little ball that dangled between her knees. He sat facing her, with his legs stretched out in front of him and his hands braced on the grass behind him. He wanted to erase the worried wrinkles from her forehead, but he had no idea where to start. So he waited in silence and enjoyed the simple pleasure of looking at her.

  Finally, she said, “I lied about something, Jackson.”

  “What was it?”

  “I said I’d already forgiven you, but I really hadn’t.”

  “I don’t blame you, Maggie. The things I said were pretty unforgivable.”

  She nodded. “They hurt me a lot. But your uncle seems to think you might not have said them if I had agreed to marry you. That, um, maybe if I’d given you the commitment you needed, it would have been easier for you to trust me. Is that true?”

  “Aw, Maggie…” Jackson sighed. “You’re not responsible for my lousy temper. I am.”

  “I agree. But if you were always afraid I would leave, I can see how my refusal to give you a commitment might have helped confirm your worst fears about trusting me.”

  “Yeah, it did that, all right,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to believe you would betray me or the tribe, but when I got that call, I panicked. I could have handled it for myself, but the thought of all those other people paying such a high price for my bad judgment was almost more than I could take.”

  “I understand that now.”

  Leaning forward, he raised his knees and propped his elbows on them. “You know, one thing you said has haunted me. It was something about your not being Indian enough to suit me.”

  “I remember,” she said. “It frustrated me half to death. You didn’t trust me because I grew up off the reservation. Since I couldn’t change that, I couldn’t figure out what it would take to win your trust.”

  “You want to hear something funny? One of my big worries about getting involved with you was the fear that I might be too Indian to suit you.”

  She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Oh, Jackson…”

  “I’m serious. You grew up in the same society my ex-wife did. Nancy liked me just fine, as long as I was a yuppie Indian. But when she saw how my family lived and I stopped pretending I was as white as the next guy, she didn’t want me anymore.”

  “But I’m not like that,” Maggie protested. “I may not always understand your traditions and beliefs, but I respect them. Your willingness to share them with me was one of the things I loved most about you.”

  He smiled at that.

  “Hey, intellectually, I know you’re nothing like Nancy. Emotionally, it was a whole different story. When someone you love sees who you really are inside, and decides she can’t love you anymore because of that…”

  “It’s pretty hard to trust anyone else,” Maggie said. “I didn’t trust you, either. And my reasons weren’t any more rational than yours.”

  “Yeah? What were they?”

  “If you think you denied you were Indian, you should have seen my mother. The only way I could win her approval was to be what you’d call an apple, but I always knew I really wasn’t white. I guess, like you, I never believed the real me was very lovable. And then there was all that stuff with my biological father.”

  “What did that have to do with not trusting me?” Jackson asked.

  She smiled. “He was a man. You’re a man. My mother’s attitude about men was, don’t count on them, you can never trust them to be there when you need them the most.”

  “I thought she had a happy marriage with Cal Schaeffer.”

  “She did. But she always insisted I should never forget Cal was the exception to the rule. It’s made it difficult for me to go beyond casual friendships with men.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “I suppose it is. Daniel Speaks Softly let her down when she was as vulnerable as any woman can get. That hurt never healed for her, and I accepted her ideas without questioning them.”

  “You were just a kid, Maggie. That’s what kids do.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s also how nasty things like racism and sexism get carried on from one generation to the next.”

  She shook her head and laughed without humor. “While I was accusing you of bigotry for lumping all white people together, I was equally guilty of lumping you with every man in the world who ever let a woman down. I’m sorry, Jackson. I should have known better, and I’ve hurt you because of it.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  He took one
of her hands in his so that she’d stop torturing her poor fingers. They sat there, enjoying a peaceful moment of silence. She turned her hand over and clasped his, palm to palm. A deep sense of contentment bloomed in his chest. With it came a feeling of confidence that, at long last, they finally understood and accepted each other.

  “Well, we’ve got some learning to do,” he said, smiling because he simply couldn’t help it. “But it sounds to me like we’ve been carryin’ around a lot of baggage that belongs to other people, and it’s been gettin’ in our way. What do you think we should do with it?”

  Maggie’s eyes glinted with the playfulness he loved as much as he loved her tender heart. She tipped her head to one side and scrunched her face up, as if she were taking his question quite seriously. “We could bury it in the garden.”

  Jackson shook his head. “It’d kill off all the plants. We’re dealin’ with poisonous stuff here.”

  “Yeah, it’s like toxic waste,” she said. “We can’t hurt Mother Earth. How the heck do we get rid of it, then?”

  “It’s not easy. But this wise old Indian I know told me that if you love somebody enough, just the way they are, and you keep on tryin’ to work problems out, even when it’s really tough, sometimes this kind of toxic waste will evaporate.”

  He noticed a subtle quivering around her chin, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “How much love is enough, Jackson?”

  “I don’t know.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s one of those spiritual things, you know? Where you just have to close your eyes and take what they call a leap of faith.”

  A fat tear rolled down her cheek, and her smile looked pretty crooked, but there was suddenly a light in her eyes he’d never seen before. She cleared her throat, as if it felt as tight and scratchy as his own did.

  Then she said, “You know, I’ve always wanted to take one of those leaps, but I always needed a best friend to jump with me.”

  “I’ll jump with you, Maggie. Anytime. Anyplace. You just tell me, and I’ll be there.”

  One second she was sitting in front of him. The next she was a red blur. And, finally, she was in his arms, laughing and crying, kissing him with so much enthusiasm, she literally bowled him over. Flat on his back, he pulled her on top of him and held her sweet face between his palms.

  “I love you, Maggie. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  “I won’t. Not even when you’re being a pigheaded turnip-brain.”

  Jackson groaned, then had to laugh with her. “You and Uncle Frank must have had one hell of a talk.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Oh, we did. I guess I’d better do what he told me to, or he’ll call me something even worse.”

  “What did he tell you to do?”

  “Give you a commitment, of course.” She leaned down and kissed him. When she pulled away, the expression in her eyes was warm, but serious. “I love you, Jackson Hawk. Don’t ever doubt that. Will you please marry me?”

  “Anytime. Anyplace, honey.”

  “A week from today, at my grandmother’s house. I want my father to be here.”

  “June 25 it is. And you won’t ever have to worry about choosing your father or me. I’ll get along with him if it kills me.”

  “You’ll do much better than that,” she scolded, poking his chest with her index finger. “Dad’s going to love you, and you’re going to love him.”

  “We’ll see. But I guess any guy who had a hand in raising you can’t be all bad.”

  “Thank you.” She gave him a playful smooch. Then her eyes took on a dreamy, wistful expression that somehow managed to be sexy as hell. “Will you give me those pretty babies my grandmother said you would?”

  “We’ve gotta do our part to keep the tribe alive, don’t we? In fact, why don’t we get started on those babies right now?”

  Wrapping one arm around her waist, he rolled over, reversing their positions. She linked her hands behind his neck and pulled him down for a kiss that was hotter than the sun overhead.

  Her eyes held a lusty gleam, her voice was a sultry purr, and her hips moved under his with an unmistakable promise. “You should know I’ll expect you to share the child-rearing, Mr. Hawk. I’m going to be very busy with my new job.”

  “You’re gonna work for the tribe?”

  “Uh-huh. It’s what I’ve wanted all along. Do you know, this is the first place I’ve ever really felt that I belonged?”

  “At Laughing Horse?”

  Her eyes misted over. “At Laughing Horse, and with you. I feel incredibly…safe here. As if I’ve finally come home.”

  “You have, Maggie. No matter where we go or what we do, if we’re together, we’ll always be home.”

  He kissed her. Gently. Tenderly. Reverently. And then there were no more words. Because, as a wise old Indian had once told him, there was a time for talk and a time for action. Jackson Hawk, tribal attorney, was smart enough to know the difference.

  The Once and Future Wife

  Laurie Paige

  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

  One

  Tracy Roper parked across the street from the police station. She sat in the car, her hands locked on the steering wheel as she let her gaze drift along the busy avenue, past the mayor’s house on the corner; past the Roxy Theater, where she’d gone to summer movies with friends; past the real-estate office where she was to pick up the key to the rental house.

  From where she was on Center Avenue, it was only a couple of blocks, then a left turn onto another street and a short drive to the last house on the right before the county-road intersection….

  A tremor ran through her as she realized where her thoughts were taking her. Once upon a time she’d lived in that house on Stoney Ridge Road…so long ago it sometimes seemed like a dream.

  Or a nightmare.

  Squeals of laughter reached her through the closed windows of her compact car. She glanced down the block toward the town park, where three children played on the swings. Their mothers sat on the wooden benches that lined the play area, chatting and laughing while they kept an eye on their young charges.

  For a minute, Tracy’s eyes lingered on a toddler, a busy little boy whose dark hair gleamed with auburn highlights in the morning sun. When he fell in the sand, her heart lurched and her hands tightened in a painful grip.

  The child’s mother scooped him up in a soothing embrace and dried his tears. Tracy glanced away.

  Pulling down the sun visor, she checked her face in the mirror. She looked okay, she decided. Her makeup seemed fresh enough from when she’d put it on at six that morning at her father’s house in Missoula.

  She’d visited him over the weekend before driving down to Whitehorn to begin her latest task—checking out some bones found on the Laughing Horse Reservation.

  The tribal police and the county sheriff’s office were in contention over who was in charge of the case, so the federal government had been called in. As a forensic anthropologist for the FBI, she would have full control of the investigation.

  Sighing, she admitted she was putting off the moment she would have to face Judd Hensley, the county sheriff—the man who’d been her husband…the father of her child….

  She picked up her purse, opened the car door and climbed out into the hot late-June sunshine. The breeze was crisp, blowing off mountains where clouds were gathering for an afternoon rain.

  Before she could cross the street, a couple came out of the station and stood on the steps. She stopped as if struck by lightning.

  Judd.

  The sun glanced off his shining black hair with its smooth wave brushed b
ack from his forehead. His skin was evenly, darkly tanned. The first time she’d seen him she’d thought he was an Indian.

  So long ago…that magical summer when she’d been nineteen and thought all the world was in love. Seventeen years…

  He’d been kneeling by the creek when she’d rounded a bend in the trail and spotted him. She’d stopped, surprised, alarmed and fascinated as he scooped up water and drank it from his hand. It had dribbled over his chest and belly.

  He’d been buck naked.

  She’d thought he was a savage or a character from an ancient fable somehow transported through aeons to this moment. She’d known in an instant that she’d never forget him.

  He’d whipped his head around, sensing her presence. His eyes, as dark and alluring as forbidden knowledge, had taken in all aspects of her, including her soul, in one glance. He’d stood and turned in one smooth, sinuous movement.

  His body had been fully erect, a symbol of the power and creative force contained within him.

  Pagan, she’d thought, spellbound by his special magic.

  She’d stood very still, as if in the presence of a mythical creature, not wanting to startle him into disappearing. They’d stared into each other’s eyes for an eternity.

  Then he’d spoken, his voice a deep rumble of concern and assurance. “Don’t be afraid,” he’d murmured.

  He’d said the same thing two weeks later when they’d made love for the first time…

  Laughter broke into her memories.

  Judd’s teeth gleamed strong and white against his tan while he laughed at something his companion said. The woman—Maris Wyler, Tracy decided, delving into her memories for a name to go with the face—reached up and caressed his cheek before running lightly down the steps and climbing into a truck at the curb.