by Cindi Myers
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was small but neat, decorated in red and yellow. She was opening a can of cat food when he entered the room. “I’d better feed Muffin before he starts complaining,” she said.
At the sound of his name, the cat came into the room, again glaring at Jake as he passed him. Jake liked that the cat saw him as a threat. Animals were supposed to be sensitive to emotions, right? So maybe he was picking up on Carmen’s feelings for this intruder. Or maybe that was Jake’s wishful thinking.
Cat fed, she moved to putting ice in glasses. “Would you rather have a beer or something?”
He put his hand on hers to stop her. “I don’t need anything,” he said.
She looked up, her eyes big and dark. Her hand trembled a little. “You’re nervous,” he said, the idea shocking him. He moved his hand away and stepped back. “Why?”
She ducked her head, her hair falling forward in a silken curtain that hid her expression from him. “I guess I’m feeling a little...vulnerable, having you here.”
“Do you want me to go?” His stomach knotted, but he forced himself to keep his voice even.
“No!” She turned away from the counter and reached for him.
He slipped two fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up until he could look into her eyes. It bothered him a little to see the one eye swollen shut. “We forgot the ice for your eye,” he said.
“A little late for that now. It’s okay.”
“Then want to tell me what the problem is? Why do you feel vulnerable?”
She blew out a breath. “I’m a cop. And I work with men all day. The criminals I deal with are mostly men. To deal with that—to fit in and do my job—I’ve learned to be tough. A little hard. And it’s a side effect of the job that I tend to deal with all people that way. Makes it hard to date but, I figure, if a guy wants to be with me, he’s got to accept that.”
“You don’t seem hard to me.” He traced his finger along the underside of her jaw, and the soft, satiny skin there. She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand—not unlike her cat had done with her earlier.
“That’s just it—you’ve made me let my guard down. Something I didn’t see coming. I’m not sure I know how to handle it.”
“You’re doing a good job so far.” He kissed her cheek, and then her smooth, warm throat, slipping one hand around her back to draw her snug against him.
She looked into his eyes, searching. “Part of me says not to trust you.”
That hurt to hear, but he wasn’t going to run from it. “Why is that?”
“Because you’re not like any other man I’ve known. You don’t have ties to a group of people or a certain place. You have your mother and sister and your job, but you still seem so alone.”
“I am alone, but I’m trying to change that. I came to get my mother and sister to change that. I think I’m attracted to you because I want to change that.”
“Can you change?” she asked. “Can a loner become part of a group? Part of a family?”
“If it’s the right group. The right family.” He kissed her temple, and she closed her eyes, then stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.
“Then I want to help you try,” she whispered. She took his hand in hers and tugged him away from the counter.
She led him out of the room and down a short hallway to her bedroom. He had an impression of soft blues and muted light before she closed the door behind them and gathered him in her arms.
“Just so you know, your being tough never put me off,” he said. “It’s one of the things that attracted me to you from that first day.”
“I figured most men like to play Big Strong Rescuer.” She smoothed her hand down his back. “More than one man has told me I’m too intimidating.”
“It can be an ego stroke to save someone but, you know, I did enough rescuing of my mom. I like a woman who can stand on her own feet—or who could rescue me, if that’s what I needed.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Or, as my mom pointed out, one who can keep me in line.”
He liked the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled. She grasped the pull of his zipper. “I like keeping you in line,” she said as she slowly lowered it.
He caught his breath as she freed him from his jeans and underwear, then he began undoing the buttons of her shirt. “Can’t let you have all the fun,” he murmured.
Their first lovemaking had been hurried, almost frantic in the rush to satisfy their pent-up need. This time, they savored the experience, undressing slowly, becoming acquainted with the curves and planes of each other’s bodies. He measured the weight of her breasts in his hands and the curve of her hip against his palm, savored the taste of her skin and the sound of the breathy moans she made as he kissed his way down her body.
In turn, she skimmed her hands along his shoulders and down his back, her touch sending shock waves of sensation through him. He focused all his attention on her, on her pleasure. Some of the urgency of that first time returned. Her climax was still shuddering through her when he levered himself over and into her. She wrapped her long legs around him and rocked with him in a rhythm that soon had him panting and on the edge of losing control.
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “Let go,” she whispered, and he did, waves of pleasure rocketing through him until he was utterly spent.
Afterwards, they lay together, his head resting on her shoulder, her fingers idly combing through his hair. He had never felt this close to anyone before—maybe he hadn’t allowed himself to be this close. “Thank you,” he said.
She rolled toward him and looked into his eyes. “What are you thanking me for?”
“For trusting me enough to let me into your life. I know it isn’t easy. It isn’t easy for me, either.”
She rolled back. “You’re tough to resist,” she said. “And I usually have a lot of willpower.”
He was trying to think of the right response to this when his phone rang. “Is that yours?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Reluctantly, he got up and found his pants on the floor and retrieved the phone. “Hello?”
“It’s Lance. I thought you’d want to know the results of my interview with Werner Altbusser.”
The fog cleared and he tensed. “Tell me.”
“About what you would expect—he doesn’t know anything, he didn’t see anything. But it’s clear he’s terrified of something. He was packing to leave when I got there. I told him that we needed him to stick around for a few days as a potential witness. I didn’t come out and say we wouldn’t let him leave, but I gave the strong impression, so I think he’ll stay put. Just in case he decides to bolt, I alerted all the airports in the area, and the Amtrak station in Grand Junction. If he tries to leave that way, they’ll hold him for us.”
“Thanks,” Jake said “Did anybody else see the guy who did this?”
“No. Most of the rooms on that side of the motel are empty, or the occupants were out. No security cameras focused on that area, either. We’ve got an APB out with the description you gave us, but so far no one has spotted him.”
“Werner mentioned this guy was camping in the wilderness area,” Jake said. “If he wants to hide, it would be easier to do it there.”
“We’ll do some extra patrols and alert the park rangers and Forest Service people, too.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. We want this guy as much as you do.”
Jake ended the call with Lance and hit the number for his boss. Ron Clark answered on the second ring. “What have you got for us?” he asked.
He gave him a summary of Lance’s report. “I was hoping you would have something,” he said.
“We have a tentative ID on the Russian.” Jake heard the tap of computer keys. “Karol Petrovsky. Originally from Vladivostok, but he’s lived in Tokyo for the past ten years. We suspect he was Werner’s Asian dist
ributor. As far as we can determine, Petrovsky has never traveled to the United States before—he left that side of the business to Altbusser.”
“So what is he doing in the States now?” Jake asked.
“We don’t know. Maybe he wanted a bigger cut of the profits. Or maybe he suspects Werner has been cheating him.”
“Werner seems afraid of the guy,” Jake said. “Like maybe they aren’t friends anymore.”
“Maybe he wants to eliminate Werner and get all the business for himself,” Clark said. “It’s a profitable market, but a relatively small one—not room for a lot of players.”
“He must have killed Tony because he made him as a cop,” Jake said. “And he probably killed Reggae as a warning to Werner, or maybe he thought he was eliminating more competition.”
“Apparently, he did time in a Russian prison for knifing a guy he thought had crossed him in a different business deal,” Clark said.
Jake’s stomach churned. “We’ve got to stop him.”
“Watch your back,” Clark said. “Clearly, he’s ruthless. Keep tabs on him, but don’t be a hero.”
“Right.” That was the sensible way to approach this. But anyone who knew Jake would vouch for the fact that he wasn’t always sensible, especially when it came to righting a wrong or protecting those he loved.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, Sophie set out with Starfall to look for cactus. Starfall led the way toward the canyon where they had picked raspberries. “I thought we were going over by Jake’s camp,” Sophie said as they trudged along.
“That was too far to go this morning. We’ll go tomorrow.”
“I’m hoping tomorrow Jake will take Mom to the doctor.” Phoenix was out of bed and said she felt better today, but Sophie didn’t think she looked much better.
“We’ll go the next day, then. Now hurry up.” Starfall marched along the edge of the canyon, whacking berry vines out of her way with a machete she must have taken from the communal tool shed.
“But we already looked here,” Sophie said. “That day we picked berries.”
“We didn’t look very long,” Starfall said. “We were interrupted, remember?”
“Yeah.” Sophie wasn’t going to forget that. “Why do you think someone was shooting at us?”
“Your brother’s the cop. Doesn’t he know?”
“If he does, he didn’t say.” She bit her lower lip. “I wonder if it’s the same guy who killed Reggae.” She shivered, the thought both horrifying—and a little exciting.
“Well, he’s not going to care about us.” Starfall nudged her. “Don’t worry about that. Look for cactus.”
Sophie focused her eyes on the ground, searching for the little spiny plants. The sheet of paper Starfall had shown her earlier indicated they could be as small as a quarter, and almost the color of the soil. No wonder they were hard to find. “What are you going to do with the money you get for selling the cactus?” she asked.
Starfall shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I thought maybe you were saving up to leave the camp.”
Starfall crouched to examine the ground more closely. “Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know.” She turned over a fallen branch with her foot and studied the beetle that crawled from beneath it. “You’re not like some of the others, making such a big deal over the Prophet. You seem more, I don’t know, independent.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Starfall said. She rose and walked on. “Sometimes I think about traveling, or maybe starting my own business. But for now, I have it pretty good. I always liked camping, and the Prophet leaves me alone. He knows I’m not one of his groupies.”
Sophie guessed that meant her mom was one of the Prophet’s “groupies.” It made Sophie feel a little icky to think about it. “Mom says he wants to marry me when I’m older.” It was one of the things her mom had said when she was delirious after the last time she fainted, so Sophie didn’t know if it was true—she hoped not.
Starfall gave her a hard look. “No offense, but your mom is dreaming,” she said. “Daniel Metwater has no reason to marry one woman when he can have all the women he wants.”
“I think it’s creepy that a man as old as he is would even be interested in a fourteen-year-old,” Sophie said, relieved to be able to say the words out loud. “But Mom doesn’t see it that way.”
“Your mom is a dreamer,” Starfall said again. “Some people are like that. Maybe real life is too hard for them, so they make up a better one in their head. And I don’t know—maybe she has the right idea. Everybody copes in her own way.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Starfall nudged her. “Your brother, now, he’s the practical sort,” she said. “He’s not going to let the Prophet marry you, no matter what your mother says.”
“Yeah. Jake is pretty great. I like Carmen, too.”
“I don’t trust Carmen, but then I don’t trust most people.”
“You don’t trust her because she’s a cop,” Sophie said. And maybe because Carmen and Jake were a couple—or, at least, Sophie was pretty sure they were—and Starfall was jealous. Even a fourteen-year-old could see that.
“Whatever.” Starfall looked at her. “What about you? What are you going to do with your share of the cactus money?”
“I need the money to help pay for Mom’s doctor bills.” She knelt and pointed to the ground. “And there’s our first one.”
Starfall took a trowel from the bag she had slung over her shoulder and handed it to Sophie. “One down, more to go.”
In the next hour, they found only one more of the kind of cactus the German wanted. “I don’t see what difference it makes what kind we get,” Starfall said when they sat to rest in the shade of a rock. “They all look pretty much the same to me—ugly.”
“I guess it makes a difference to whoever he’s selling them to.” Sophie tugged on the end of her braid and squinted across the empty landscape of rocks and juniper. “It’s kind of creepy out here, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It feels like someone’s watching us.” She shivered and rubbed her shoulders.
Starfall looked around them. “I don’t see anyone,” she said.
“If someone is spying on us, he wouldn’t want us to see him, would he? It just doesn’t feel right out here today.”
“You’ve been listening to too many ghost stories around the campfire.” Starfall stood and patted Sophie’s shoulder. “Come on. We only have another half hour or so before we have to get back to camp, and we’ve only found two cactus. If we’re going to make any money, we’d better get busy.”
She started to tell Starfall that, if they wanted to make any money, they needed to get lucky, but she kept quiet. After all, it wasn’t as if either one of them had hit the jackpot when it came to luck in their lives.
* * *
CARMEN HAD BEEN sure that by the next morning she would be over having a man in her house—making a mess in her bathroom, spilling coffee grounds on the counter, pacing her bedroom naked while he was on the phone. Okay, maybe that last part wasn’t annoying at all, just incredibly distracting. But, except for the fact that Muffin hissed and headed the other direction anytime Jake came within view, having him around hadn’t been a bad thing at all. Was it a haze of sexual attraction making her overlook the disruptions to her calm little world—or was it that part of her recognized she might be overdue for a little disruption?
She was pondering this over the remains of the omelet Jake had cooked for her (the man had mad kitchen skills—who knew?) when her phone rang. Did mothers have some kind of Mom Radar, that she was calling on this particular morning? “Hi, Mom,” Carmen said, prepared to lie and say she was alone if her mother asked. She wasn’t ready to be that revealing about her private life.
“Oh?” Carmen laid down her fork and looked across the table at Jake, who had picked up on her shift in attitude and was watching her intently. “Who?”
“A Russian man made an appointment with the chairman,” Wilma said. “He said he had a business proposition for the tribe. We get that from time to time, especially from Europeans who are looking for new places to invest their money. Most of the time nothing comes of it, but the chairman has a policy that he will hear everyone out.”
“What was the business proposition?” Carmen asked.
“He wants to grow cactus. Some kind of rare cactus that other Europeans and Asians will pay a lot of money for. He wanted permission to survey tribal land for the presence of rare species—which I’m thinking means he wants to see how much he can steal out from under our noses.” She made a snorting sound. “Not that I’m cynical or anything.”
“What was this Russian like?” Carmen asked. “What was his name?”
“He gave me a card. Let’s see...his name is Karl Petrov. Big guy—looked a lot like your uncle Ed. As for what he was like—you know the type. Someone whose only knowledge of Native Americans is from bad western movies.” She chuckled. “You could tell he was seriously disappointed when the chairman came out of his office and was wearing a suit instead of a loincloth and feathers.”
“What did you tell him?” Carmen asked.
“We told him no. We don’t do joint ventures. We have our own businesses. The chairman also let him know that, if he is caught trespassing on tribal land, he will be arrested and prosecuted. He muttered something in Russian that sounded like curses, but then a lot of foreign languages sound like that to me.”
Carmen gripped the phone tightly. “Does his card have any contact information on it?” she asked. “A telephone number or email? Did he mention where he was staying or how to get in touch with him?”
“No. It’s just a plain card with his name in English and Russian lettering. We didn’t have any desire to talk to him again, so we didn’t ask.”
