Tribal Blood
Tribal Blood
Jenna Kernan
He will never stop fighting.Colt and Kasey share something that goes deeper than tribal blood. Colt’s time as a marine left him with nightmares, but his training also gave him a certain set of skills. No one is taking this woman…or his child.
He will always fight to protect
those who cannot protect themselves.
In the throes of labor, Kacey Doka escaped her captors and their underground surrogacy ring to find Colt Redhorse. Though he’d sought seclusion on the Apache reservation for months, Colt and Kacey share something that goes deeper than tribal blood. Colt’s time as a marine left him with nightmares, but his training also gave him a certain set of skills. No one is taking this woman...or this child.
JENNA KERNAN has penned over two dozen novels and has received two RITA® Award nominations. Jenna is every bit as adventurous as her heroines. Her hobbies include recreational gold prospecting, scuba diving and gem hunting. Jenna grew up in the Catskills and currently lives in the Hudson Valley in New York State with her husband. Follow Jenna on Twitter, @jennakernan (https://twitter.com/jennakernan?), on Facebook or at www.jennakernan.com (http://www.jennakernan.com).
Also by Jenna Kernan (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
Surrogate Escape
Tribal Blood
Turquoise
Guardian Eagle
Warrior Firewolf
The Warrior’s Way
Shadow Wolfy
Hunter Moon
Tribal Law
Native Born
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Tribal Blood
Jenna Kernan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07877-1
TRIBAL BLOOD
© 2018 Jeannette H. Monaco
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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For Jim, always
Contents
Cover (#u23343bdc-ebaa-59f9-8b20-c52d66c97a52)
Back Cover Text (#u1faaaf41-ae82-5d0e-86ac-bd95399f8471)
About the Author (#u6033f094-b343-548d-a753-ee3c51c5b5bc)
Booklist (#u9d9ee83b-7180-547e-84fe-2f39d4908fc3)
Title Page (#u6527ccd3-3242-5ca5-b183-5da98be26865)
Copyright (#u989aae15-8b1c-5c09-8727-bd5f9bd24c85)
Dedication (#u7fe1a5aa-533e-5b72-a0f9-f80b5ad16080)
Chapter One (#ue7eec7f5-2f64-558f-a0d6-48e78cd72544)
Chapter Two (#u7bbbb8d3-3bce-5717-ad1c-143b1f347032)
Chapter Three (#u63f34429-8b71-5ee9-a29f-bc0f1da655ea)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
Kacey Doka felt the warm gush of liquid surge down her thighs as her water broke. She knew what it meant, knew she must alert the guards. After eight months of captivity, she would be the first to see what happened next.
She didn’t know what frightened her more, the prospect of giving birth or what they would do to her when she was finished.
“Don’t tell them,” said her friend Marta, her eyes wide with terror. Marta Garcia was also nineteen and had been taken before Kacey. She was bigger around the middle, so all the girls trapped with Kacey in this dusty basement thought that Marta would go first.
“They are going to notice a baby,” said Brenda Espinoza, who was two years younger, was well into her second trimester and no longer able to deny the child that moved within her.
Brenda was the third to arrive. In May, according to their floor calendar, three months after Kacey.
“And that you’re no longer pregnant,” Brenda added. “How do you expect to hide that?”
She didn’t. Kacey knew that she had no alternative but to alert the guards. She glanced to Maggie Kesselman, the newest arrival here, just over a week ago. Kacey felt so sorry for her. Maggie was the youngest at only fourteen and still grappling through tears and disbelief at what had happened to her.
“Call them,” said Kacey.
Marta walked laboriously up the wooden steps from the basement to the metal door that opened exactly twice a day. Marta glanced back with wide, troubled eyes and Kacey nodded. Marta knocked and then retreated down the stairs. All the windows were covered from the outside and barred from within, so the only light was the single overhead bulb that never went out and that now cast Marta’s shadow before her as she descended. Marta hurried along with a heavy, rocking tread, gripping the banister for support, anxious to be back on the cold concrete floor before that door swung open because they didn’t like them hanging by the door when it opened.
Kacey did not know where they were being kept. But she did know that screaming for help brought only the guards. Vicious, heartless guards who spoke in a thick foreign accent.
“They’ll find us soon,” said Kacey to the other three. “They’ll come and rescue us.”
She kept saying it, believing it until the others believed it, too. Their families, their tribe, the authorities were all searching. They’d come for them.
“If I don’t come back, I’ll send help. I promise.”
Marta hugged her. Maggie started to cry again. Brenda stared at the floor with an unfocused gaze, her hands laced, locked and pressed to her mouth.
Kacey knew the guards did not like being disturbed between feedings. Whatever they were doing, interruptions resulted in blows.
The door banged open and two men descended the stairs with clubs. The girls screamed and fled to the corners of the large empty basement area. Only Kacey remained at the bottom of the stairs.
Their captors had provided them each with a blanket and mattress. They also had a sink and toilet behind a partition. The toilet smelled of bleach and soap, both provided, but the basement held the musty scent of wool, dirt and decay. An appearance of a new mattress always signaled the imminent arrival of a new girl. Yesterday, the fifth mattress had appeared. To date, four had entered through that metal door and none had left. Kacey was about to leave their prison.
Would they bring her to a hospital to deliver her baby? No, of course they couldn’t do that because she could speak to any of the medical staff and alert them that she was a prisoner.
“What is dis? Why you are knocking?” The one they called Oleg spoke to the group. His English was best but still difficult for them to understand.
The girls looked from one to the other, none willing to speak to Oleg because although his English was the best, his temper was the worst. Kacey’s insides seemed to have a will of their own and began squeezing so hard that she cried out.
“Her water broke,” said Marta, pointing to the wet spot on the concrete floor.
Oleg turned his pale blue eyes on Kacey. Then he glanced to the large pool of water darkening the concrete. He motioned his head toward Kacey, and the second man, Anton, stepped forward and captured Kacey by the arm, hurrying her toward the stairs.
She glanced over her shoulder to see the girls coming together in the center of the room, huddling tight as they stared after her. Oleg grasped her opposite arm and she was thrust up the stairs before them and through the prison door.
On the floor above the basement, she saw an office with tight dark carpeting and three desks with computers and phones under harsh fluorescent lighting. A television had been mounted on the wall, and a mini fridge sat beneath it with a half-full coffeepot resting on the top. The shape of the room and the two doorways made Kacey think she was in a large house. The normalcy of the layout clashed with the terror below her feet where the others huddled in near darkness.
The windows furnished views of a busy road where cars buzzed past trying to make the light. Beyond that squatted a strip mall, housing a Chinese restaurant, nail salon and pet grooming. The sunlight seemed especially bright and she used her hand as a visor.
“Call the boss,” said Oleg.
Anton released her to move to the phone. The third guard, whom she had never seen, watched her intently as her eyes moved from Anton to the door and then to his face to see the wicked smile challenging her to go for it.
Kacey wrapped her arms around her squeezing stomach and clenched her teeth. Anton lowered the phone.
“The boss said he’ll call the doc.”
Oleg thrust her into one of the office chairs. Kacey’s eyes went from the computer to the phone as she calculated her chances of using either. The big unfamiliar guard stalked forward and sat on the edge of the desk. Then he folded his arms across his wide chest. He looked so smug and superior that instead of feeling defeat, Kacey felt rage.
“Not there,” said Anton. “She’ll bleed all over everything. Take her to the exam room.”
She was lifted by the upper arms with such force she momentarily left the floor. Kacey soon found herself in a small windowless room dominated by a short black examination table with two metal gizmos that reminded her of small riding stirrups. Her flesh began to crawl.
The pain ripped across her back and she doubled over.
“It hurt?” asked Oleg.
She nodded, blowing out a breath as sweat beaded on her forehead.
“Good. That mean baby is coming.”
The door closed but not before she heard Anton ask Oleg, “What about her?”
Oleg’s answer was not in English, but Anton’s reply was.
“Dump her or sell her?” asked Anton.
She could not understand the reply but did not need to. She had her answer. After the baby was born, she would be sold or killed.
Kacey held her throbbing middle. She knew the child she carried was not hers. But somehow it did not matter. She loved it and would protect it. That meant staying alive.
She pounded on the door. “I need to use the toilet.”
“Use the sink in there.”
“I can’t climb up on that sink!”
The door opened and Anton entered. He took her arm and hauled her up another flight of stairs to a very nice, clean bathroom with a claw-foot tub, white shower curtain, shampoo, conditioner, soap and clean towels. She scowled at the bounty as the anger built inside like lava. She and her friends had one bar of soap among all of them, worked down to a thin wafer. Meanwhile the guards had this. She glanced from the toilet to the small window.
“So go,” said Anton.
He wanted to watch? Fine. She drew up the sheath dress they had provided and sat. After several minutes, he urged her to hurry.
“I’m not done.”
“You better not have that kid in that toilet.”
She had her weapon. Kacey closed her eyes and pushed, crying out. She peered at her captor. He was glancing back toward the hall.
Kacey cried louder.
“Oleg! Get up here.” He stepped out of the door and vanished.
Kacey had the door shut and the bolt thrown in a moment. Anton pounded on the door as Kacey opened the window and scrambled out onto a flat roof overhanging the first floor. She ran to the edge and glanced to the lawn. It seemed a long way down. Then she turned back toward the house. How long did she have?
She threw one of her princess slippers off the roof. Then she threw the other one. The roof coating was so hot, it burned her feet. Kacey ran along the roof to the other side of the house, where she found a half-open window. She could see Oleg and the third man rush down the hall toward the bathroom.
Kacey was sliding the window open the rest of the way when she heard a crash. The bathroom door, she thought. Kacey slipped inside the house and down the stairs to the first floor as the men shouted from the bathroom. She hurried through the office and to the entrance hall. There on the stand beside a hat rack were three sets of car keys. She grabbed all three and was turning toward the basement door to release her friends when she saw Oleg through the dining room window as he passed by on the outside of the house. How had he got off the roof so fast?
They made eye contact and he shouted to the others, breaking into a run. She glanced to the locked basement door. If she went that way, he’d have her.
Kacey made her decision and charged out the front door. She descended the porch stairs, hitting the unlock button on one of the car fobs. A car beeped. But that one was trapped behind the others. She tried again, reaching the drive as Oleg made it to the walkway.
The next car was the one she wanted. It looked new and fast. More important, it was closest to the road. She dived into the car as Oleg pounded both open hands on the hood, denting the metal.
She pressed the lock on the fob as his hand slipped onto the latch and tugged. Kacey looked for a key, but there was none. Just a button beside the steering wheel that said START. She pushed it and the engine turned over. There was no gearshift, just a knob. She rotated it to R as Oleg shattered the driver’s-side window with his fist.
“I rip dat baby from your belly!” he bellowed.
His hand extended toward her, his fingers forming a claw. Kacey screamed and threw herself sideways across the console. Then she jammed her foot down on the gas. The car sailed backward down the drive, over the curb, hitting something that flew over the roof before she righted herself. She could barely reach the pedals because the seat was so far back, but she managed to get the car into Drive and turn the wheel so the tires were back on pavement as she raced away. She saw Anton running after her in the street. She thrust her arm out the open space where the window had been and extended her middle finger, giving him a gesture of farewell.
She had all their keys and she knew where they were keeping her friends. All she had to do was get to the police and tell them what had happened.
But Marta told her that she had heard Oleg say the police were on their payroll and that they knew about the house and did nothing. Not the police, then. Her tribe—tribal police. She had to get home to Turquoise Canyon.
Where was she? Sweat beaded on her forehead and her stomach muscles cramped. She slowed as she made a turn onto a strange road. The landscape was familiar. She looked around and then into the rearview at the way she had come. She knew they hadn’t taken her far from home because of the amount of time she had ridden in the back of the van. Soon she had herself oriented.
She was in Darabee, Arizona. And everyone in her tribe knew that Darabee was the police force who had set the stage for the Lilac Shooter to be assassinated right in the station. The investigations were ongoing. The police chief had been replaced, but she believed what Marta had told her. This police force could be on the Russians’ payroll, so she was not going there under any circumstances. Kacey was halfway to her home in Turquoise Canyon when she realized that this would be the first place they would look.
Her mother couldn’t protect her, assuming she was even there. And going there would only put her brothers and sisters in danger. Her best friend, Marta, was still a captive. Kacey needed to get the girls out of there before they did something terrible to them all.
The tribal police, she trusted them. They could find the house. She drove to Piñon Forks, past the activity at the river, construction mostly, with dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes. She ignored them as she drove to tribal headquarters. The parking lot was eerily empty. There were no police cars and no tribal vehicles. She drew up to the fire lane in front of the station, peering at the dark empty building.
Something was very wrong.
She craned her neck. Why were there no pickup trucks on the road? She had passed no one and seen not one soul since arriving on the rez. The town looked deserted. Where was everyone?
A car appeared in her rearview and she jumped. Was it Oleg?
The man who stepped out of the vehicle was white and wearing some sort of uniform. Her heart hammered as she considered fleeing before he reached her. But she needed information.
He approached from the driver’s side. Kacey prepared to shift her foot from brake to gas. He stood before her window. She meant to lower it only a crack, but the window was gone, leaving her vulnerable. Her heart pounded in her throat.
“You looking for tribal headquarters?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her voice sounded strange to her ears. Barely a squeak.
“They moved,” he said.
What? Why? That didn’t make any sense at all. “Where?” Her voice was all air and very little sound.
He cocked his head and gave her an odd stare as if she should know this.
“Up to Turquoise Ridge.” He glanced at her distended belly. “Oh! Clinic is up there, too. They’re in trailers, one beside the other. Can’t miss it. You need me to drive you?”
“No. Thanks.” She did not wait for a reply before accelerating away.
They’d moved? Why would tribal government ever leave their main community for the rough mining settlement of Turquoise Ridge?
The women’s health clinic was right next to the police station, looking just as deserted. But she couldn’t go to the clinic, even if it were open, because the Russians would probably look for her there, because someone there had done this to her. She and the other girls had compared memories. They had all been to the tribal health-care facility shortly before capture. But what had happened there was a yawning blank, for her visits and theirs. Why couldn’t they remember?
She had to get word to tribal police.
It was several minutes before Kacey became aware of her surroundings again. She was already in the tribal community of Koun’nde and heading for Turquoise Ridge. She should turn around.
And go where?
Where could she go where she would be safe and where they could not find her? Somewhere she could find help for her friends but not endanger her sisters and brothers?
And then she knew. She would go to him, the boy who had promised to go away with her and instead left her behind. Kacey knew he was scheduled to come home from Afghanistan. His brother Ty had told her so and that he was changed. He had been discharged after something that had happened over there. Ty said that Colt had been captured with comrades in an insurgent attack and then recovered.
Afterward Colt had spoken to Ty from Maryland and said he wasn’t ready to come home. Ty talked him into coming back anyway. Colt agreed but only if he could live up in the family’s claim off Dead Horse Road beyond the community of Turquoise Ridge.
Ty had told her Colt wanted to see her after he got his act together. But she’d been taken before he came home. She knew Colt’s plan had been to make over an old cabin. Colt had shown it to her once. She knew where it was. It was a good place to hide, and if Colt was there, he could help her rescue her friends.
What she didn’t know was if she had the physical strength to reach it. Her middle began to squeeze again and she bucked back in the seat, swerving dangerously. She had to reach him before her body forced her to stop, before the men pursuing her captured her again.
I rip dat baby from your belly.
She shivered at the memory of Oleg’s words. The tears she had held for months now poured down her cheeks, blurring her vision. But she ignored the tears and pain in her middle and the ache in her heart as she pressed down on the gas.
Time had become the enemy.
* * *
COLT REDHORSE HEARD the screeching of brakes and the slide of tires on gravel as someone made the turn leading to his cabin way too fast. His brother Ty was known to drive like that in his youth, trying out the various cars he was improving. But lately he always approached Colt’s retreat slowly and with proper notice. Often he sent his dog, Hemi, in first as envoy.
So it wasn’t Ty.
Colt collected his rifle. The pistol was always on his hip or beside his head on those few occasions when he slept. He didn’t sleep much. Too many ways for his enemies to reach him in dreams.
He moved between the trunks of the trees quickly and without much sound. Whoever it was would not hear him coming. He was like death itself—silent and without mercy.
Since he’d returned from Afghanistan, Colt’s emotions boiled down to only two—fear and fury. Right now, it was just fury. No one came up here uninvited. His brother Jake had tried more than once. Colt hadn’t shot at him, but it had been hard hiding while Jake violated his personal space. The mining cabin belonged to all of them, as did the claim. But the way he figured it, it was his by occupation and because he just couldn’t stand to be around anyone yet. His skin itched like that of a junkie coming down from a high. He checked to see if a bug was crawling up his arm and saw only smooth brown skin.
He wasn’t back in Afghanistan anymore, he told himself. He was home. This was Apache land. Safe land. This settlement lay tight against the turquoise-bearing ridge from which the town got its name.
Turquoise Ridge, the most remote of the three settlements on the Turquoise Canyon Reservation. Most folks here were miners. Living up on the ridge required a person to tote water and live without electricity or plumbing. Other than the miners, there were a few recluses, like him, he supposed. His closest neighbor was a Vietnam vet, former army, who went off the rez hoping to be a code talker like the Navajo and came home as crazy as Colt felt he himself was rapidly becoming. Randy Hooee hung tinfoil around his cabin to keep the CIA from listening to the thoughts in his head. As far as Colt could tell, it seemed to be working.
Colt’s breathing slowed and his skin now only buzzed with adrenaline, not the flesh-crawling fear that threatened daily to have him hanging out bits of tinfoil, as well.
He had a purpose. Find the identity of the intruder.
He resumed his operation, moving close enough to see the road. The car was black and unfamiliar. A sedan, dust-covered with a dented hood. Parked at an odd angle and stationary now as the dust continued to settle back to earth. The tinted windshield showed him nothing. His eyes narrowed.
Why didn’t they all just leave him alone?
The door opened and a hand appeared on the top of the driver’s-side window. Small, slim and gripping hard as if the driver had to haul himself out of the car. Colt lifted the rifle, using the scope to aim at where he knew the center of the driver’s torso would be in just a moment. Should he kill the bastard or just shoot out the windshield beside his head? He shifted between his two targets. This or that? That or this? A smile twisted his lips. He’d learned a lot from the US Marines but even more from the insurgents who had held him for three days.
And then the target’s head popped up above the door frame like a fox leaving its den. Colt’s hands went numb and he dropped his rifle.
It had been eighteen months, but he knew he would never forget that face. That was his former girlfriend, Kacey Doka. She’d tried to convince him not to join up after he graduated. Not to leave her behind. He had explained that if she wanted to get off the rez, this was their way. He hadn’t wanted to go because he loved it here, couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But Kacey could and he loved her enough to try to give her what she wanted. It had cost him, deeply.
He had planned to give the signing bonus and his pay to her, but she wouldn’t take it. She wanted them to go together, but he had committed himself. How had he messed that up so badly? She had not answered his letters. When he’d finally made it back home on a psych discharge, her home was the only place he’d stopped before coming here. Kacey had left, her mother said, months ago. She hadn’t been back, wasn’t expected back. But she sure was back now.
Kacey glanced up the hill toward his position, the sunlight highlighting her black hair blue. Colt flinched. Had she heard him drop his rifle? He watched her glance back the way she had come. From here, he could not see much of the road because of the trees. But she would have a clear view.
What was she doing here after all this time? He’d been home for months. Had Ty called her? That thought made his stomach flip. The only thing worse than being a walking basket case was having Kacey Doka know about it.
“Colt?” she called to him.
He pressed his back to the flaking bark of the ponderosa pine and squeezed his eyes shut.
Go away, Kacey. Please.
“Colt, it’s Kacey!” She was shouting now. Judging from the sound, she was cupping her hands to her mouth to amplify her voice. “I need to see you.”
No, you don’t. Not like this.
Ty had sent her. Damn his meddling older brother. Colt had told him he didn’t want to see anyone. That he wasn’t ready. Had Ty given up hope that he was improving? But he was. He made it through more than one day without a panic attack. But the nights were very long. He knew his lack of sleep wasn’t helping. But he wouldn’t take anything that Ty had offered.
“I’m in trouble, Colt. Please, please answer me.”
Trouble?
Colt’s eyes opened as he pushed himself off the tree. What kind of trouble could she be in?
Was this a trick?
Despite her mother’s neglect, Kacey had done well in school, missing only when her mom took off, leaving Kacey to take care of her siblings. Ty told him that Kacey had been accepted at Phoenix University and planned to use her Big Money for as long as it lasted. Big Money was what they called the allotment of the tribe’s revenue distributed annually, but kept in trust for members under eighteen. The distributions often went for vehicles, something big and flashy. Colt noticed that there never was another new truck after that first one. He knew thirty-year-olds still driving that Big Money truck. So he had not spent his on a vehicle. Instead he kept his for them, him and Kacey. He figured his pay, his bonus and Big Money could get them a house right here on the rez.
He was certain that if he could get them their own place and provide her a real home, she would change her mind about leaving. To do that, he’d enlisted in the Marines. That was when she’d ended it between them. When Ty told him she’d gone, Colt had been expecting it.
Had she used her Big Money to run away?
She’d loved him once. He knew that. And he had loved her, which was why he wasn’t going to let her see him now. It would kill those feelings she’d held as surely as a snake crushes a baby bunny.
But he could see her. He’d give himself that at least. Just for a minute and then he’d go.
“I’m coming up there. Don’t you shoot me, Colt Redhorse, or so help me, I will tell your mother.”
His mother liked Kacey and she was worried about him. Ty had said so. And his mother wasn’t well. Why didn’t Ty tell him that Kacey was back? He could have used a little warning to prepare.
He heard the crunch of her footsteps as she crossed the gravel on the road. Her tread was slow and heavy. And she gave a cry as if she was in pain. Colt popped his head around the trunk of the tree. What he saw made his jaw drop.
Was Kacey pregnant?
She was! Very, very pregnant and she was holding her swollen belly as her face twisted into a mask of pain. His eyes widened. He’d seen that same expression on his mother’s face when she went into labor with his little sister, Abbie. He’d only been six, but the fear made the memory stick.
Was Kacey in labor?
That was impossible. You’d have to be crazy to come up here to deliver a baby. He craned his neck to see her as she momentarily disappeared from view behind the trees. She was heading for the trail they had used to climb up to his family’s cabin. She knew the way.
Kacey had been a part of his family, had spent more time living in his house than in hers. Not that he blamed her. But she’d go home when her sister Jackie or Winnie would come and tell her that their mom was gone again. Running drugs for the Wolf Posse, Ty said, taking her cut in either money or product.
Colt moved parallel to Kacey as she walked along the road toward the trail, catching flashes of Kacey between the tree trunks. She looked thin, despite her swollen belly, and pale as if she had not been in the sun in months. Her gait was a scurry that combined the side-to-side rocking motion of a woman far along in her pregnancy with a girl in a hurry. She held both hands under her belly. Why did she keep looking behind her?
Kacey stopped, hunched and turned toward the road. What could she see that made her eyes round and her mouth swing open like a gate? Kacey ran now. She ran to the woods and rock outcropping with a speed he would not have believed possible.
“They’re here! Colt, do you hear me? They’re going to take me again.”
Again?
Oh no, they are not.
Colt didn’t know who they were or why they were after Kacey. What he did know was that they wouldn’t succeed in reaching her. He had the high ground, a rifle with extra rounds and the will to kill anyone who threatened Kacey. He might be a mental mess, but he remembered what it felt like to be in love with her. But now that memory only made his chest ache and his breathing hitch. Whatever part of him that understood how to love a woman had died back there in Afghanistan. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t protect her. He would, with his life.
Colt moved to a position that gave him a good vantage of her car and waited as the second vehicle approached. Colt lifted the rifle, pressing the familiar stock to his cheek and closing his left eye. The crosshairs fixed on the gray sedan.
He felt centered, calm, relaxed.
The first shot sent a bullet at the driver’s side of the windshield. The glass should have shattered into tiny cubes but instead remained intact. The second shot went to the passenger’s side. If there was a passenger behind the windshield, he should now have a bullet in his head, but instead the glass showed only a tiny nick. Colt was using .38 long-range ammunition. That windshield should be compromised. But it wasn’t and he knew why. The glass was reinforced.
“Bulletproof,” he muttered.
He had not seen that since Afghanistan. This was a very expensive vehicle. From within the luxury auto, someone shifted the sedan’s gears and the car reversed direction with a spray of gravel.
Colt marched down the hill. When he reached the road, the car was turning around. He got two shots into the side of the vehicle with nothing but damage to the paint. He missed the shot at the rear tire. The next shot pinged off the rear window of the retreating sedan. Who the heck was after her?
Whoever it was, they had money—lots of money.
He put a hole in the license for no reason except as a final farewell and a good riddance. If they came back, he’d use a hand grenade on their asses.
Colt turned to the woods, where Kacey now stood beside the outcropping of rock she had used for cover. She bent forward at the hips, clutching her belly with one hand and the boulder with the other, eyes pinched shut. Colt had a sickening feeling that while he had been up here brooding over Kacey’s departure and collecting the bits and pieces of his mind, Kacey had been in real trouble. He was equally afraid she was going to have that baby right here and right now.
Chapter Two (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
“They’re gone,” Colt said, his voice slightly deeper than she remembered. He was at her side in an instant, rifle slung over his shoulder. His long black hair hung straight and loose past his shoulders. She met his stare, seeing the familiar espresso color of his irises, just slightly lighter than his pupils. His skin was bronze from the sun and his brows were thicker than she recalled, balancing the rich brown of his eyes and the symmetrical nose that seemed small by contrast to his wide mouth and full lips. The cleft in his chin looked deeper and his face leaner. He’d lost weight but gained muscle, she realized, making his body look harder and more dangerous.
She was safe. For the first time in months and months, she was safe and she was home. The joy bubbled up inside. She threw her arms around his neck, kissing him full on the lips. The warm familiar scent of pine and warm male skin enveloped her. He stiffened as their bodies met, his hands coming up to her shoulders, and for a moment she thought he would push her away. For another heartbeat, he hesitated and then he gathered her up and held her as his mouth took hers, deepening the kiss. She was home in his arms and everything would be—
He gripped her shoulders, increasing the tension as he pushed her to arm’s length. He stared at her, panting and feral, like a mad dog. Then he pressed his hand over his mouth and wiped away her kiss. The pain in her stomach morphed from sorrow at his rejection to another contraction. She grimaced and groped behind her for the solid security of the rock, seating herself as the contraction gripped her.
He was not the boy she recalled, the one who kissed her and told her that he’d come back for her. That boy had been joyful and optimistic. But the man before her was taller, leaner and harder than Colt Redhorse. There was a wildness around the whites of his eyes that reminded her of a mustang the instant he feels the rope cinch around his neck. Colt’s nostrils flared and he stepped back, his gaze sweeping down to her bare feet and then back up to her face.
She imagined what he must think, and the shame sent a guilty flush into her face, making it burn with heat. Kacey placed a hand on her distended belly and the other on the hollow below her cheekbone. Somehow in just over a year, everything had changed between them and they were strangers.
Beneath the skin, her muscles were contracting, sending pressure all the way around to her back. This one was worse. She hunched and groaned, squeezing her eyes shut.
“You shouldn’t do that. I’m not... I can’t.”
She heard the blast of air as he forcefully exhaled.
“They’ll come back for the baby.”
Colt glanced down the road in the direction of their retreat.
“Should I bring you to the clinic?” he asked.
Her reply was a shout. “No!”
Colt flinched. “All right. Where, then? Your mom’s?”
“They’ll look for me there. My sisters and brothers, I don’t want anything to happen to them.” Finally the pressure in her back eased and she could straighten. That was when she noted that Colt had one arm around her. The other she gripped, squeezing with a force that matched the contraction. She released his arm and saw the white print of her hand disappear as the blood returned to his forearm.
How long would this go on? It had been over an hour already.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Ty said you agreed to come home after your discharge if you could come here.” She didn’t mention the reason for his discharge. Had Ty told her that his kid brother had been a POW, rescued and returned stateside?
“So you came here looking for me?” Colt asked.
She lowered her gaze. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
He made a sound in his throat and then said, “I’m honored.”
Kacey’s mouth dropped open and her gaze flashed to him. Colt smiled down at her and for a moment everything was good again. He was here with her and she knew he would protect her.
She looked up at him, noting the unfamiliar breadth of his shoulders. His hair gleamed with good health. She reached up and fingered a strand, placing it on his chest and pressing it into place.
“They didn’t make you cut it,” she said. His hair still reached to his chest and she was so glad.
“Nope. Just made me wear it tied back and under my shirt or in a bun.”
“A bun?” Imagining that made her smile. He smiled, too.
His wide mouth drew back to reveal white, even teeth. He’d had the chip in the front repaired and now she could not even remember which tooth he had damaged. His jaw was more prominent, as were his cheekbones.
“You’re too skinny,” she said.
He pressed his mouth closed, still smiling as he nodded. “That’s what Ty says, too.”
“You see him? How is he?”
Colt shook his head. “I don’t talk to him.”
Her brow wrinkled. “But you said—”
“He comes sometimes. He talks to me. I let him see me. But I don’t speak to him. I don’t speak to anyone.”
Her frown deepened.
“But me?” she asked.
He blew out a breath through his nose. “I guess so.”
“How long have you lived like this?”
“Since they released me.”
“Released?”
Didn’t she know? But she didn’t. He could see it in the wide earnest expression that showed nothing but confusion. Well, he sure wasn’t going to tell her.
His lips went tight. He led her down to the car. “Let’s get you out of here.”
She took a few steps and then stopped. “I can’t go to one of the settlements or the police.”
“Why?”
“They’re looking for me. They’ll take me again.”
His eyes shifted and one hand went to the strap of his rifle. “Who?”
“Those two and I don’t know who else. I heard more of them. But I’ve only ever seen Oleg and Anton. Oh, and one other guy. I don’t know his name.”
“Oleg?”
“Russians.”
He looked back toward the road. “They have an armored car.” He swung the rifle before him, lifting it to his shoulder. “Plug your ears,” he said.
She did and he took a shot. The bullet punched a hole in the rear door of the car she had stolen.
“That one isn’t armored.” He swung the rifle so the strap held it behind his back. “Okay. Let’s go farther up into the ridge. There’s a second cabin.”
“Anyone know that?”
“Ty.”
“Let’s go.” She allowed him to help her to the car and flushed as he pulled the safety belt over her distended belly and clipped it in place. She sank into the seat, closing her eyes.
“How long did they have you?” he asked.
She turned to him, opening her eyes. “Since February.”
“February!” He straightened, his brow sweeping down over his dark eyes. That was eight months.
“Yeah.”
“Everyone said you ran away.”
“I didn’t.” She reached and gripped his hand. “Colt, there are more of us. More like me and they’re all from Turquoise Canyon.”
Now he was staring down the road where they had gone. “I could call Jake. Maybe he could pick them up.”
“You have a phone?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“They’ll kill Jake.” The next contraction built across her middle.
He gripped her door frame and glanced down the empty road. “But you said there were others.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes. Three others. They have Marta Garcia. She was in my class in high school. They took her before me. And Brenda Espinoza. She’s five months pregnant. And Maggie Kesselman. They’re all like me.” She motioned to her belly. “Marta’s due any day.”
“What will happen to them now that you escaped?”
A cold shot of terror ripped through her. “I don’t know.” But the possibilities terrified her.
“We have to tell Jake,” said Colt.
His brother was the newest hire on the tribal police force and she knew he could be trusted.
“I think so.”
Her back cramped. “Oof!” she said and clutched her middle.
“We’re getting you somewhere safe. But I need to find a woman to help you.”
“No. Anyone who sees this baby is in danger. Colt, I wish I could have thought of a way by myself. But I’m scared. I need your help.”
“But I’ve never—”
“Neither have I.”
He shook his head and she saw something she had not seen before in him: fear.
“Colt Redhorse, you left me once. Don’t you dare do that again.”
She’d told him not to go. She’d felt something terrible would happen to him. As it turned out, something terrible had happened to both of them.
“I promised to come back.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. But you were gone.”
She glowered at him.
“I’ll get you somewhere safe, Kacey. I promise.”
Kacey sighed. The air here was so sweet and clean. She thought of the musty basement where she’d been kept for months and shuddered.
“So, call Jake. All right?” he asked.
She nodded.
He rounded the hood at a run. A moment later, they were in motion on the rough road, heading back toward the center of Turquoise Ridge.
* * *
COLT HEADED FOR David SaVala’s claim. It was close and David could be trusted to deliver a message to Ty. Ty could get to Jake. Then Colt was going to take Kacey to his cabin and help her bring this baby into the world. Colt planned on keeping this car hidden but close in case he needed to get Kacey to a hospital. With luck, Ty would be here soon.
Colt had three older brothers and his younger sister. The oldest brother was Kee, newly board certified as a doctor. Colt wished he could bring Kacey to him, but she would not go near the clinic. He planned to find out why. His next oldest brother was Ty, who, unlike Colt, had made it through his service in the US Marines to be honorably discharged. His tales of the service had convinced Colt to join.
But Ty had not chosen to enlist. He had signed to avoid federal prosecution after he and their father were arrested for armed robbery. Ty had already been in the Wolf Posse, the tribe’s gang. The tribal leadership felt he needed discipline, so a deal was struck. Charges dropped if Ty enlisted. His father had previous arrests, so the tribe allowed federal prosecution. Now Ty lived between the gang who had claimed him and the family that couldn’t keep him from choosing that life. Ty had often said it was easier to leave the military than a gang.
Finally there was Jake, the newest member of the Turquoise Tribal Police and six years Colt’s senior. Jake had looked after him when their father went to prison. Colt had been lucky. He’d sort of had three fathers.
“Ty lives in Koun’nde. He has a phone. If I can get SaVala to lend me his phone, we can take it far enough to get service and call Ty and Jake. Then I can call Kee and ask him to come deliver this baby.”
She had her eyes closed again and was blowing through pursed lips. Sweat beaded on his brow.
“Kacey?” he whispered.
She turned her head to look at him, her cheeks puffing out and in as she blew.
“They won’t get you,” he promised.
Her head dropped to the headrest. He knew she was already nineteen, but she still looked like the girl he’d first loved, still loved. Why had he left her? She’d been right about everything. Something terrible had happened to him and to her. He’d been so sure that the Marines would be a shortcut to what she wanted, with money to provide the life away from her mother and the shadow of his father. He’d been trying to prove he was strong like his brother Ty and smart like Kee and good like Jake. But he wasn’t any of those things. He was a fragile wreckage of a man who couldn’t even talk to people since...well, since everything that had happened over there.
He hadn’t had the chance to be a hero. He’d just been taken like a sheep from a pasture to the butcher truck. Fate had made him the last lamb in line.
He pressed the web of his hand between his thumb and index finger to his forehead, trying to ease the pounding. He was in a car again and there was not enough air. He released his head to grip the wheel, bracing for the blast, waiting for it.
This time he’d be ready.
Colt was not going back there now. Kacey needed him. He was here on Turquoise Canyon and he had to stay focused. But he knew he wasn’t keeping the panic attack away. He was only postponing it. The doc at Walter Reed in Maryland said he needed counseling and put him on the list. With luck, it would be decades before they would get to his name, because he wasn’t talking about that with anyone ever. No one who wasn’t held by insurgents could possibly understand.
His gaze flicked to Kacey, who sat with her head dropped back on the headrest but turned toward him. She smiled at him, her face relaxed and her hands laced over her belly. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose braid that lay on her shoulder. Her once soft, round face had changed. Her deep brown eyes were still bright, but there were dark smudges beneath them. Her lips were full and pink, but her jaw and pointed chin seemed too prominent in her thin face. How much weight had she lost? Kacey had always been slender, but now she was skinny, way too skinny. How much had they given them to eat?
Not enough—clearly.
The rations that he’d been given during his captivity rose in his mind and he pushed the memory of that down. One sure way to be of no help to her was to think about that.
No one understood that the captivity wasn’t as hard as the memories that just would not go away. It wasn’t getting better with time. It was worse. Colt gripped the wheel. He hated cars, trucks, anything that rolled. No one in his family understood. They were worried, but they didn’t get it. He could not think about it, but he was stuck somehow. Afraid all the time.
Kacey was now looking in the side mirror, watching for trouble. Perhaps she could understand, he realized. Because she’d been a captive, too. But then she’d also understand that he was the very last person capable of helping her. That was why he was leaving her with his brother. Any one of his brothers was a better choice than him.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Almost there,” he said to himself as much as to her.
Chapter Three (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
Kacey’s body relaxed. The contractions were not as strong now, fading as if taking a pause. How long did labor last? Hours? Days? She didn’t know. Her mother just went to the clinic and came home the next day with a brother or sister. Kacey assumed that by tomorrow at this time, she would have a baby. But exactly what happened in the meantime was vague.
She’d learned about childbirth in high-school health class. At the time, the lesson seemed theoretical. The abstract phases of birth just one more thing to be memorized and spit back on a quiz. Stage I—Early Labor. Stage II—Active Labor. Stage III—hand the baby to a nurse and take a nap.
Colt pulled off the road and up a short turnoff that was composed of two ruts in the yellow grass. A cabin came into view against the ridge, sitting up on concrete blocks. The step before the front door was clearly slag rock from a turquoise vein. She was Turquoise Canyon Apache, so she recognized what base rock surrounded a vein of the precious blue stone.
Colt barely had the car in Park before throwing himself against the driver’s-side door in his hurry to be out of the cab. He scrambled out onto all fours. It took him a moment to right himself before he straightened and returned to the car.
“Colt?”
He was sweating as if he’d run from his claim to this one. He peered in at her through the open door.
“Call him,” he whispered.
Kacey opened her door and swung her legs out, bare feet touching the long yellow grass as she inched forward on the seat. Colt retrieved his rifle and then rounded the car to stand beside her door.
She called a greeting. They were met first by a skinny white dog. The muck on his shoulder showed he’d been rolling in something, and the stench said it was something dead.
The claim holder arrived shortly afterward, dressed in coveralls coated with a fine white layer of rock dust. All claims belonged to the tribe, but families worked them and passed them along. Her family’s claim was worked by others, leased for a period of five years at a time.
David SaVala tried to shake Colt’s hand, but Colt chose to place his hand on the shoulder strap of his rifle. David greeted her instead, peering at her from beside Colt, but his smile was gone.
“Good to see you two back together.”
She smiled and nodded. That seemed easier than explaining.
David took another step toward her, moving beyond the open car door, and his step faltered.
“Oh.” He glanced from her swollen belly to Colt. “Oh, I see. Congratulations, you two.”
Kacey used the door and the frame to heave herself up. Colt rubbed his neck but said nothing. He backed toward the woods, but Kacey gripped his arm to prevent his escape.
She told David what they needed and he retreated to his cabin with his dog for the phone and handed it off to her with the pass code and instructions on where she would first find a signal. The distance and her condition required another car ride. They headed out with the dog trotting with them as far as the road. Colt was shaking by the time they reached the high point of Dead Elk Dip and the place that allowed a weak cell phone signal.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Don’t drive anymore.”
“Claustrophobic?” she asked. This was new. Ty had told her of Colt’s capture but had been short on details. She just now understood what helping her was costing him. Was it leaving his claim that upset him or the driving?
His skin was pale. He retrieved David’s phone. Colt placed the call and gripped his hair in one fist as he waited for the phone to connect.
Kacey heard a male voice issue a greeting.
Colt squeezed his eyes shut. His fist tightened in his hair.
“Who’s this?” came the voice on the other end of the line.
His jaw clamped shut and he thrust the phone at her.
“Hello?” she replied.
“This is Redhorse.” She recognized the voice of Officer Jake Redhorse, one of Colt’s older brothers. Kacey identified herself and relayed the high points. Escape. The stolen car. The gun battle. Her condition and the location of the missing girls.
“You’re with Colt?” Disbelief resonated in his voice.
“Yes. He’s the one who called you.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Where are the girls?”
“I don’t know exactly. I just drove until I figured out where I was.”
“I need the exact address,” said Jake. “And if it’s in Darabee, I need to notify their police department.”
“No. They might be connected. Like they were with that assassination in their station. Karl Hooke and the Lilac Mine Mass Shooter,” said Kacey.
“How do you know that?”
“Marta Garcia overheard our captors say so before I got there.” Kacey knew that the Darabee police were being investigated by the federal and state government for corruption. Several of the force had been suspended and charges filed.
“Can I speak to Colt?” Jake asked.
She relayed the request and was met with a firm shake of his head.
“He says no.”
“I’m calling my chief for instructions and en route to you. Head toward Turquoise Ridge. Okay?”
“Yes. I understand.”
“I’ll need you to identify the house, Kacey. Can you do that?”
That meant going back. She gripped her free hand to her throat. “I’m in labor and those killers are still out there.”
“So are your friends,” Redhorse reminded her.
That hit her harder than the contractions. Colt shook his head. Clearly he did not want her to go back.
She had promised them that she’d send help. “Yes. I’ll go.”
Jake told her to tell Colt what to expect and ended the call.
Now Kacey’s heart was pounding. “He said the FBI is coming for that car.”
Colt scowled.
She imagined they could find something in there, fingerprints at least. A clear image of Oleg smashing his hands on the hood of the car came to her. She glanced at the twin dents there as a shot of panic made her ears ring.
“Where? From Phoenix?”
“No. Your brother said that they have FBI in Piñon Forks since the explosion. Colt, what happened? What explosion? What is he talking about?”
“You must have passed through Piñon Forks on the way here. Didn’t you see it?”
“I saw construction vehicles. The station was abandoned. Some man in a uniform told me that tribal headquarters had moved to Turquoise Ridge. But I took off before he told me why.”
“Everyone has moved to Turquoise Ridge. They’re in FEMA trailers or reclaiming their mining cabins.”
“Why?”
“Come on. Let’s get David’s phone back to him.”
En route, he told her everything, and the happenings were tragic. Some eco-extremists organization had blown up Skeleton Cliff Dam in hopes of compromising the Phoenix electrical grid. The dam was upriver from their reservation. Destroying the dam meant flooding their biggest community, Piñon Forks.
Apparently, an explosives expert from the FBI had managed to make a temporary barrier on their river by demolishing a huge section of the canyon ridge. Her actions had saved everyone there. But the rubble dam was failing. Evacuations were necessary.
She thought back to her wild race through town early this morning.
“I didn’t even look at the canyon rim,” she admitted. Her focus had been internal, on her own body, and external to the men she knew would come for her. “Have you seen it?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t been off this claim since I got home. Until today. Heard about it from Ty. Only happened a couple weeks ago. Let’s see. Third week in September, so nearly three weeks ago now.”
He put his hand on the door latch and froze. He wiped a hand across his upper lip.
“I’ll drive,” she said.
“You’re in labor.”
“I know. Let me.” She held her hand out for the fob.
He hesitated, then gave it to her and stepped aside.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She jostled herself awkwardly down into the seat and waited as he rounded the hood and then paused at the passenger side. She lowered the window. “Get in.”
“I can’t.”
“Colt, please.”
“I’ll run to David’s place. Through the woods. Be there before you get there.”
“What if they’re waiting on the road?”
Colt climbed in, his expression grim. He folded his arms over his chest as if he were freezing. She didn’t even suggest the seat belt as she put them in motion. She headed back to David SaVala’s claim. On arrival, she tooted the horn, afraid if she got out, Colt would run. David’s dog was still covered in something, and David appeared shortly afterward. He approached her window and she returned the phone. The dog jumped up and placed her front paws on the door, giving Kacey a stomach-turning whiff of dead animal.
“Get down,” he said, pushing the dog off. “Sorry. She found a dead deer and keeps getting after it.”
Kacey smiled and exhaled, trying to rid her nostrils of the stench.
The miner leaned down to look through the cab to Colt.
“Good to see you out, Colt,” said David. “Been worried.”
Colt nodded but said nothing. Why wouldn’t he speak to anyone?
David glanced at Kacey, who gave him a shrug.
“My dad was in Vietnam,” said David. “Still jumps at every truck that backfires. It changes you, I guess.” He pushed himself off the car, straightened and forced a tight smile.
“Thank you for the use of the phone,” she said.
“Sure.” He scraped his knuckles over the stubble on his jaw. “Well, stop by anytime. Love company. Don’t get much, though.”
They were off a moment later with David waving after them despite the dust they kicked up. The rainy season had come and gone. They were back to hot, dry days and cold, clear nights.
Jake met them en route with three other vehicles. Colt drew his pistol and flicked the safety off.
Kacey was suffering from the end of another contraction, so she spoke through gritted teeth as she clutched the wheel. “Don’t shoot your brother.”
He nodded and holstered his weapon before leaving the vehicle. Kacey watched as he greeted Jake with a nod. Kacey knew the two men who exited the next vehicle. The first was Detective Jack Bear Den. No mistaking him because he was the biggest man she knew. From the opposite side of the SUV came tribal police chief Wallace Tinnin. He was limping, as if he’d injured his foot. The chief had come to speak to her high-school class her senior year. It had been the January awards assembly and he had shaken her hand when she made the honor roll. Had that only been ten months ago? Yes, she realized. Just months before she had been taken.
The next two cars were black sedans with tinted windows. FBI, she guessed. She didn’t recognize the man or woman who exited the first vehicle but was surprised to see they both appeared to be Native American.
From the next sedan came two white men with short military-style haircuts and dark glasses. They had the same stony expressions as the Secret Service men who guarded the president.
Jake approached her door and she leaned out the broken window.
“We’re going to transfer you to Detective Bear Den’s unit, Kacey. That be all right?”
She nodded and he opened the door.
Colt was already speeding away from the vehicle.
Jake helped Kacey rise and then looked across the hood to Colt.
“Good to see you, brother,” he said.
Colt looked away.
Jake glanced to her and she shook her head. She did not understand any better than he did why Colt would not speak.
“Did he talk to you?” Jake said, his voice low.
She nodded.
Jake released a sigh and escorted her toward the SUV. On her way, they paused for introductions. The man was FBI field agent Lieutenant Luke Forrest of the Black Mountain Apache tribe. The woman was FBI explosives expert Sophia Rivas, also of the Black Mountain Apache people.
“Are you the one who saved our town?” asked Kacey.
“Well, I had some help.” She glanced at Bear Den, and Kacey sensed their relationship might be more than professional. “But I set the charges.”
“Colt says you stopped the river from destroying Piñon Forks.”
“That’s true. Why don’t you sit with me? I have a few questions.”
Kacey cast a look at Colt. She was not leaving him.
“We’re riding with Bear Den and Colt’s brother,” she said.
“All right. I’ll just come along. That be okay?”
Kacey glanced to Colt, who inclined his chin.
“All right.”
The contractions were now just an irregular flurry of spasms across her belly and back.
She walked past the last two men, who scanned her from head to toe.
Once past them, she asked Sophia Rivas who they were.
“Our guys. They’re taking possession of your vehicle.”
“Evidence?” asked Kacey.
Rivas smiled and nodded. “We sure hope so.”
Bear Den held the rear door of his SUV open for Kacey. She struggled to climb inside. She wished she had something better to wear than the ugly sheath of a dress they’d given her. But what was important was getting to her friends before something happened to them. Those men, Oleg and Anton, they couldn’t fight against all these law-enforcement officers.
Could they?
Colt slipped in beside her and she gripped his hand, fingers laced. He gave her comfort and she hoped she did the same for him. Jake took the front seat. Rivas climbed into the opposite side, so Colt slid to the middle of the broad back seat, separating her from the FBI agent.
Jake Redhorse told them that the FBI had opted not to notify the Darabee police of their presence based on the information she had given Officer Redhorse. So they sailed through town and back toward the house she had fled only four hours earlier.
Her contractions were no longer increasing in strength or frequency and they interfered little on the ride back from the rez to Darabee. What was going on? she wondered.
Still, her body concerned her less than the tic Colt displayed beneath his eye and the way he repeatedly flexed and stretched his free hand like a beating heart. His breathing was irregular, as if he were in pain.
She answered all Rivas’s questions as they rode back down the mountain and through the settlement of Turquoise Ridge. Bear Den asked a few questions as they covered the road between Turquoise Ridge and Koun’nde. Then Jake told them some things that she hadn’t known.
A classmate of hers and Colt’s, Zella Colelay, had delivered a baby girl on September 23, the Saturday before last. She’d left the infant in Jake Redhorse’s truck and he was being granted temporary custody of the baby by the tribe.
“You’re getting custody?” asked Kacey. She did not quite keep the disbelief from her voice. A single man wanting custody of a baby was unusual.
“Lori Morgan and I are back together now. She’s agreed to be my wife.”
Kacey blinked at this news. She knew that Jake and Lori had once been a couple. Rumors were that Lori had got into trouble and the teens had been encouraged to marry before the baby came. Colt had confirmed it and told her that the miscarriage had wrecked the relationship. Now it seemed a new baby had brought them back together again.
“Congratulations,” said Kacey.
Jake grinned. “Thanks. Just got married.” He lifted his left hand, showing the gleaming gold band. Jake looked to Colt. “I wanted you there, brother. Have you stand up with me.”
Colt lifted his shoulders and shuddered.
“What about Zella?” asked Kacey. “What will happen to her?”
Bear Den took that one. “She’s been relocated, faces charges for abandonment of the infant. But she’s young, and with the circumstances, I doubt she’ll receive more than community service.”
“One more thing,” said Jake. “The baby. It’s white.”
Kacey frowned and rested her hands on her belly. How could Zella deliver a white baby? Did he mean the baby was a mix of Apache and Caucasian or what some here called a mix-up? Was Zella like her and the rest of the captives? Had this happened to her but somehow she had evaded capture? “Does Zella have a boyfriend?”
“No. She told us she has never been with a boy.”
Kacey gasped. Just like her, Marta and Maggie. She needed to speak to Zella. Kacey turned to Colt to tell him that Zella might be one of them and she noticed he was trembling.
Colt’s eyes were darting about and his leg was bouncing like that of a junkie coming off a high. She pressed a hand to his knee.
“You okay?” she whispered.
He jumped at her touch and then clutched her hand so hard she winced. Colt had not even visited his family since his return from Afghanistan. Now he was surrounded by people.
“I need to get out of this car,” he said. “We’re trapped back here.”
“Pull over,” said Kacey.
Bear Den glanced back at them in his rearview mirror.
“What?” said Bear Den.
“We can’t stop,” said FBI agent Rivas.
Colt’s gaze flashed to the closed door.
“The baby. Pull over,” said Kacey.
He did and the line of cars behind them stopped, as well. The lead car drove a few yards on and then noticed the delay and also pulled over.
Kacey tried the handle and found it locked.
Bear Den was quick for a big man. He had her door open an instant later and Kacey slid sideways, legs out of the SUV. Colt bolted past her and ran a few feet. Then he stopped, facing them, panting. His complexion was gray and his eyes were wild.
“Colt?” said Jake, hands raised.
Colt had his hand on his pistol.
“Take your hand off the weapon. No one is going to hurt you.”
“I have to go back,” he said. His eyes were wild as he searched for escape.
“Colt. Kacey needs you,” said Rivas.
Colt stared at her, his expression tortured. “I’m sorry. I thought I could...”
“It’s all right, Colt. You don’t have to go,” Kacey assured him.
“Don’t get in that Humvee, Kacey,” he said, pointing at the SUV. “Don’t go. They’ll take you.”
Kacey’s blood iced. It was her greatest fear, to be taken again, by the Russians, the feds, the Darabee police. Her throat went so dry she couldn’t even swallow and she wanted to go with him.
“Not a Humvee,” said Bear Den, his words an aside to Tinnin.
“Colt,” said Rivas. “You’re scaring Kacey.”
Kacey headed toward Colt. She needed to touch him. Bring him back and save herself from the terror now crawling over her skin like scorpions.
“Don’t,” said Bear Den, clasping her arm and holding her back.
Colt made a feral sound between a snarl and a roar as his eyes were pinned on the place Bear Den touched Kacey.
“Let go,” said Kacey.
Bear Den’s hand dropped away. Kacey continued forward to Colt as he drew his pistol, holding it down and at his side. Behind her, she heard handguns leaving their plastic holsters. When she reached Colt, she took his face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his.
“I’m here, Colt. You’re safe. You’re home.”
His body relaxed and his breathing slowed. “Stay with me,” he said.
“It’ll be all right.”
“Don’t go with them.”
“I have to. I promised them, my friends, that I would send help. I have to go. Can Jake take you home?”
He nodded. The pistol slid from his fingers, thudding to the ground.
“All right. Wait for me. I’ll be right back.”
It was what he had said to her before he shipped out for boot camp. I’ll be right back. That had been nearly two years ago.
He shuddered and turned to Jake, who was already holding his brother’s abandoned handgun. The two brothers walked back along the line of cars to Jake’s police unit, which had been driven by Chief Wallace Tinnin. Jake helped Colt into the rear seat and then shut him in. Colt’s eyes darted about the closed compartment. What had happened to him? Kacey wondered. Jake hurried behind the wheel as Colt locked his fingers together behind his head and ducked like an airline passenger preparing for impact. The vehicle made a U-turn and sped away.
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Jenna Kernan
He will never stop fighting.Colt and Kasey share something that goes deeper than tribal blood. Colt’s time as a marine left him with nightmares, but his training also gave him a certain set of skills. No one is taking this woman…or his child.
He will always fight to protect
those who cannot protect themselves.
In the throes of labor, Kacey Doka escaped her captors and their underground surrogacy ring to find Colt Redhorse. Though he’d sought seclusion on the Apache reservation for months, Colt and Kacey share something that goes deeper than tribal blood. Colt’s time as a marine left him with nightmares, but his training also gave him a certain set of skills. No one is taking this woman...or this child.
JENNA KERNAN has penned over two dozen novels and has received two RITA® Award nominations. Jenna is every bit as adventurous as her heroines. Her hobbies include recreational gold prospecting, scuba diving and gem hunting. Jenna grew up in the Catskills and currently lives in the Hudson Valley in New York State with her husband. Follow Jenna on Twitter, @jennakernan (https://twitter.com/jennakernan?), on Facebook or at www.jennakernan.com (http://www.jennakernan.com).
Also by Jenna Kernan (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
Surrogate Escape
Tribal Blood
Turquoise
Guardian Eagle
Warrior Firewolf
The Warrior’s Way
Shadow Wolfy
Hunter Moon
Tribal Law
Native Born
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Tribal Blood
Jenna Kernan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07877-1
TRIBAL BLOOD
© 2018 Jeannette H. Monaco
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Jim, always
Contents
Cover (#u23343bdc-ebaa-59f9-8b20-c52d66c97a52)
Back Cover Text (#u1faaaf41-ae82-5d0e-86ac-bd95399f8471)
About the Author (#u6033f094-b343-548d-a753-ee3c51c5b5bc)
Booklist (#u9d9ee83b-7180-547e-84fe-2f39d4908fc3)
Title Page (#u6527ccd3-3242-5ca5-b183-5da98be26865)
Copyright (#u989aae15-8b1c-5c09-8727-bd5f9bd24c85)
Dedication (#u7fe1a5aa-533e-5b72-a0f9-f80b5ad16080)
Chapter One (#ue7eec7f5-2f64-558f-a0d6-48e78cd72544)
Chapter Two (#u7bbbb8d3-3bce-5717-ad1c-143b1f347032)
Chapter Three (#u63f34429-8b71-5ee9-a29f-bc0f1da655ea)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
Kacey Doka felt the warm gush of liquid surge down her thighs as her water broke. She knew what it meant, knew she must alert the guards. After eight months of captivity, she would be the first to see what happened next.
She didn’t know what frightened her more, the prospect of giving birth or what they would do to her when she was finished.
“Don’t tell them,” said her friend Marta, her eyes wide with terror. Marta Garcia was also nineteen and had been taken before Kacey. She was bigger around the middle, so all the girls trapped with Kacey in this dusty basement thought that Marta would go first.
“They are going to notice a baby,” said Brenda Espinoza, who was two years younger, was well into her second trimester and no longer able to deny the child that moved within her.
Brenda was the third to arrive. In May, according to their floor calendar, three months after Kacey.
“And that you’re no longer pregnant,” Brenda added. “How do you expect to hide that?”
She didn’t. Kacey knew that she had no alternative but to alert the guards. She glanced to Maggie Kesselman, the newest arrival here, just over a week ago. Kacey felt so sorry for her. Maggie was the youngest at only fourteen and still grappling through tears and disbelief at what had happened to her.
“Call them,” said Kacey.
Marta walked laboriously up the wooden steps from the basement to the metal door that opened exactly twice a day. Marta glanced back with wide, troubled eyes and Kacey nodded. Marta knocked and then retreated down the stairs. All the windows were covered from the outside and barred from within, so the only light was the single overhead bulb that never went out and that now cast Marta’s shadow before her as she descended. Marta hurried along with a heavy, rocking tread, gripping the banister for support, anxious to be back on the cold concrete floor before that door swung open because they didn’t like them hanging by the door when it opened.
Kacey did not know where they were being kept. But she did know that screaming for help brought only the guards. Vicious, heartless guards who spoke in a thick foreign accent.
“They’ll find us soon,” said Kacey to the other three. “They’ll come and rescue us.”
She kept saying it, believing it until the others believed it, too. Their families, their tribe, the authorities were all searching. They’d come for them.
“If I don’t come back, I’ll send help. I promise.”
Marta hugged her. Maggie started to cry again. Brenda stared at the floor with an unfocused gaze, her hands laced, locked and pressed to her mouth.
Kacey knew the guards did not like being disturbed between feedings. Whatever they were doing, interruptions resulted in blows.
The door banged open and two men descended the stairs with clubs. The girls screamed and fled to the corners of the large empty basement area. Only Kacey remained at the bottom of the stairs.
Their captors had provided them each with a blanket and mattress. They also had a sink and toilet behind a partition. The toilet smelled of bleach and soap, both provided, but the basement held the musty scent of wool, dirt and decay. An appearance of a new mattress always signaled the imminent arrival of a new girl. Yesterday, the fifth mattress had appeared. To date, four had entered through that metal door and none had left. Kacey was about to leave their prison.
Would they bring her to a hospital to deliver her baby? No, of course they couldn’t do that because she could speak to any of the medical staff and alert them that she was a prisoner.
“What is dis? Why you are knocking?” The one they called Oleg spoke to the group. His English was best but still difficult for them to understand.
The girls looked from one to the other, none willing to speak to Oleg because although his English was the best, his temper was the worst. Kacey’s insides seemed to have a will of their own and began squeezing so hard that she cried out.
“Her water broke,” said Marta, pointing to the wet spot on the concrete floor.
Oleg turned his pale blue eyes on Kacey. Then he glanced to the large pool of water darkening the concrete. He motioned his head toward Kacey, and the second man, Anton, stepped forward and captured Kacey by the arm, hurrying her toward the stairs.
She glanced over her shoulder to see the girls coming together in the center of the room, huddling tight as they stared after her. Oleg grasped her opposite arm and she was thrust up the stairs before them and through the prison door.
On the floor above the basement, she saw an office with tight dark carpeting and three desks with computers and phones under harsh fluorescent lighting. A television had been mounted on the wall, and a mini fridge sat beneath it with a half-full coffeepot resting on the top. The shape of the room and the two doorways made Kacey think she was in a large house. The normalcy of the layout clashed with the terror below her feet where the others huddled in near darkness.
The windows furnished views of a busy road where cars buzzed past trying to make the light. Beyond that squatted a strip mall, housing a Chinese restaurant, nail salon and pet grooming. The sunlight seemed especially bright and she used her hand as a visor.
“Call the boss,” said Oleg.
Anton released her to move to the phone. The third guard, whom she had never seen, watched her intently as her eyes moved from Anton to the door and then to his face to see the wicked smile challenging her to go for it.
Kacey wrapped her arms around her squeezing stomach and clenched her teeth. Anton lowered the phone.
“The boss said he’ll call the doc.”
Oleg thrust her into one of the office chairs. Kacey’s eyes went from the computer to the phone as she calculated her chances of using either. The big unfamiliar guard stalked forward and sat on the edge of the desk. Then he folded his arms across his wide chest. He looked so smug and superior that instead of feeling defeat, Kacey felt rage.
“Not there,” said Anton. “She’ll bleed all over everything. Take her to the exam room.”
She was lifted by the upper arms with such force she momentarily left the floor. Kacey soon found herself in a small windowless room dominated by a short black examination table with two metal gizmos that reminded her of small riding stirrups. Her flesh began to crawl.
The pain ripped across her back and she doubled over.
“It hurt?” asked Oleg.
She nodded, blowing out a breath as sweat beaded on her forehead.
“Good. That mean baby is coming.”
The door closed but not before she heard Anton ask Oleg, “What about her?”
Oleg’s answer was not in English, but Anton’s reply was.
“Dump her or sell her?” asked Anton.
She could not understand the reply but did not need to. She had her answer. After the baby was born, she would be sold or killed.
Kacey held her throbbing middle. She knew the child she carried was not hers. But somehow it did not matter. She loved it and would protect it. That meant staying alive.
She pounded on the door. “I need to use the toilet.”
“Use the sink in there.”
“I can’t climb up on that sink!”
The door opened and Anton entered. He took her arm and hauled her up another flight of stairs to a very nice, clean bathroom with a claw-foot tub, white shower curtain, shampoo, conditioner, soap and clean towels. She scowled at the bounty as the anger built inside like lava. She and her friends had one bar of soap among all of them, worked down to a thin wafer. Meanwhile the guards had this. She glanced from the toilet to the small window.
“So go,” said Anton.
He wanted to watch? Fine. She drew up the sheath dress they had provided and sat. After several minutes, he urged her to hurry.
“I’m not done.”
“You better not have that kid in that toilet.”
She had her weapon. Kacey closed her eyes and pushed, crying out. She peered at her captor. He was glancing back toward the hall.
Kacey cried louder.
“Oleg! Get up here.” He stepped out of the door and vanished.
Kacey had the door shut and the bolt thrown in a moment. Anton pounded on the door as Kacey opened the window and scrambled out onto a flat roof overhanging the first floor. She ran to the edge and glanced to the lawn. It seemed a long way down. Then she turned back toward the house. How long did she have?
She threw one of her princess slippers off the roof. Then she threw the other one. The roof coating was so hot, it burned her feet. Kacey ran along the roof to the other side of the house, where she found a half-open window. She could see Oleg and the third man rush down the hall toward the bathroom.
Kacey was sliding the window open the rest of the way when she heard a crash. The bathroom door, she thought. Kacey slipped inside the house and down the stairs to the first floor as the men shouted from the bathroom. She hurried through the office and to the entrance hall. There on the stand beside a hat rack were three sets of car keys. She grabbed all three and was turning toward the basement door to release her friends when she saw Oleg through the dining room window as he passed by on the outside of the house. How had he got off the roof so fast?
They made eye contact and he shouted to the others, breaking into a run. She glanced to the locked basement door. If she went that way, he’d have her.
Kacey made her decision and charged out the front door. She descended the porch stairs, hitting the unlock button on one of the car fobs. A car beeped. But that one was trapped behind the others. She tried again, reaching the drive as Oleg made it to the walkway.
The next car was the one she wanted. It looked new and fast. More important, it was closest to the road. She dived into the car as Oleg pounded both open hands on the hood, denting the metal.
She pressed the lock on the fob as his hand slipped onto the latch and tugged. Kacey looked for a key, but there was none. Just a button beside the steering wheel that said START. She pushed it and the engine turned over. There was no gearshift, just a knob. She rotated it to R as Oleg shattered the driver’s-side window with his fist.
“I rip dat baby from your belly!” he bellowed.
His hand extended toward her, his fingers forming a claw. Kacey screamed and threw herself sideways across the console. Then she jammed her foot down on the gas. The car sailed backward down the drive, over the curb, hitting something that flew over the roof before she righted herself. She could barely reach the pedals because the seat was so far back, but she managed to get the car into Drive and turn the wheel so the tires were back on pavement as she raced away. She saw Anton running after her in the street. She thrust her arm out the open space where the window had been and extended her middle finger, giving him a gesture of farewell.
She had all their keys and she knew where they were keeping her friends. All she had to do was get to the police and tell them what had happened.
But Marta told her that she had heard Oleg say the police were on their payroll and that they knew about the house and did nothing. Not the police, then. Her tribe—tribal police. She had to get home to Turquoise Canyon.
Where was she? Sweat beaded on her forehead and her stomach muscles cramped. She slowed as she made a turn onto a strange road. The landscape was familiar. She looked around and then into the rearview at the way she had come. She knew they hadn’t taken her far from home because of the amount of time she had ridden in the back of the van. Soon she had herself oriented.
She was in Darabee, Arizona. And everyone in her tribe knew that Darabee was the police force who had set the stage for the Lilac Shooter to be assassinated right in the station. The investigations were ongoing. The police chief had been replaced, but she believed what Marta had told her. This police force could be on the Russians’ payroll, so she was not going there under any circumstances. Kacey was halfway to her home in Turquoise Canyon when she realized that this would be the first place they would look.
Her mother couldn’t protect her, assuming she was even there. And going there would only put her brothers and sisters in danger. Her best friend, Marta, was still a captive. Kacey needed to get the girls out of there before they did something terrible to them all.
The tribal police, she trusted them. They could find the house. She drove to Piñon Forks, past the activity at the river, construction mostly, with dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes. She ignored them as she drove to tribal headquarters. The parking lot was eerily empty. There were no police cars and no tribal vehicles. She drew up to the fire lane in front of the station, peering at the dark empty building.
Something was very wrong.
She craned her neck. Why were there no pickup trucks on the road? She had passed no one and seen not one soul since arriving on the rez. The town looked deserted. Where was everyone?
A car appeared in her rearview and she jumped. Was it Oleg?
The man who stepped out of the vehicle was white and wearing some sort of uniform. Her heart hammered as she considered fleeing before he reached her. But she needed information.
He approached from the driver’s side. Kacey prepared to shift her foot from brake to gas. He stood before her window. She meant to lower it only a crack, but the window was gone, leaving her vulnerable. Her heart pounded in her throat.
“You looking for tribal headquarters?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her voice sounded strange to her ears. Barely a squeak.
“They moved,” he said.
What? Why? That didn’t make any sense at all. “Where?” Her voice was all air and very little sound.
He cocked his head and gave her an odd stare as if she should know this.
“Up to Turquoise Ridge.” He glanced at her distended belly. “Oh! Clinic is up there, too. They’re in trailers, one beside the other. Can’t miss it. You need me to drive you?”
“No. Thanks.” She did not wait for a reply before accelerating away.
They’d moved? Why would tribal government ever leave their main community for the rough mining settlement of Turquoise Ridge?
The women’s health clinic was right next to the police station, looking just as deserted. But she couldn’t go to the clinic, even if it were open, because the Russians would probably look for her there, because someone there had done this to her. She and the other girls had compared memories. They had all been to the tribal health-care facility shortly before capture. But what had happened there was a yawning blank, for her visits and theirs. Why couldn’t they remember?
She had to get word to tribal police.
It was several minutes before Kacey became aware of her surroundings again. She was already in the tribal community of Koun’nde and heading for Turquoise Ridge. She should turn around.
And go where?
Where could she go where she would be safe and where they could not find her? Somewhere she could find help for her friends but not endanger her sisters and brothers?
And then she knew. She would go to him, the boy who had promised to go away with her and instead left her behind. Kacey knew he was scheduled to come home from Afghanistan. His brother Ty had told her so and that he was changed. He had been discharged after something that had happened over there. Ty said that Colt had been captured with comrades in an insurgent attack and then recovered.
Afterward Colt had spoken to Ty from Maryland and said he wasn’t ready to come home. Ty talked him into coming back anyway. Colt agreed but only if he could live up in the family’s claim off Dead Horse Road beyond the community of Turquoise Ridge.
Ty had told her Colt wanted to see her after he got his act together. But she’d been taken before he came home. She knew Colt’s plan had been to make over an old cabin. Colt had shown it to her once. She knew where it was. It was a good place to hide, and if Colt was there, he could help her rescue her friends.
What she didn’t know was if she had the physical strength to reach it. Her middle began to squeeze again and she bucked back in the seat, swerving dangerously. She had to reach him before her body forced her to stop, before the men pursuing her captured her again.
I rip dat baby from your belly.
She shivered at the memory of Oleg’s words. The tears she had held for months now poured down her cheeks, blurring her vision. But she ignored the tears and pain in her middle and the ache in her heart as she pressed down on the gas.
Time had become the enemy.
* * *
COLT REDHORSE HEARD the screeching of brakes and the slide of tires on gravel as someone made the turn leading to his cabin way too fast. His brother Ty was known to drive like that in his youth, trying out the various cars he was improving. But lately he always approached Colt’s retreat slowly and with proper notice. Often he sent his dog, Hemi, in first as envoy.
So it wasn’t Ty.
Colt collected his rifle. The pistol was always on his hip or beside his head on those few occasions when he slept. He didn’t sleep much. Too many ways for his enemies to reach him in dreams.
He moved between the trunks of the trees quickly and without much sound. Whoever it was would not hear him coming. He was like death itself—silent and without mercy.
Since he’d returned from Afghanistan, Colt’s emotions boiled down to only two—fear and fury. Right now, it was just fury. No one came up here uninvited. His brother Jake had tried more than once. Colt hadn’t shot at him, but it had been hard hiding while Jake violated his personal space. The mining cabin belonged to all of them, as did the claim. But the way he figured it, it was his by occupation and because he just couldn’t stand to be around anyone yet. His skin itched like that of a junkie coming down from a high. He checked to see if a bug was crawling up his arm and saw only smooth brown skin.
He wasn’t back in Afghanistan anymore, he told himself. He was home. This was Apache land. Safe land. This settlement lay tight against the turquoise-bearing ridge from which the town got its name.
Turquoise Ridge, the most remote of the three settlements on the Turquoise Canyon Reservation. Most folks here were miners. Living up on the ridge required a person to tote water and live without electricity or plumbing. Other than the miners, there were a few recluses, like him, he supposed. His closest neighbor was a Vietnam vet, former army, who went off the rez hoping to be a code talker like the Navajo and came home as crazy as Colt felt he himself was rapidly becoming. Randy Hooee hung tinfoil around his cabin to keep the CIA from listening to the thoughts in his head. As far as Colt could tell, it seemed to be working.
Colt’s breathing slowed and his skin now only buzzed with adrenaline, not the flesh-crawling fear that threatened daily to have him hanging out bits of tinfoil, as well.
He had a purpose. Find the identity of the intruder.
He resumed his operation, moving close enough to see the road. The car was black and unfamiliar. A sedan, dust-covered with a dented hood. Parked at an odd angle and stationary now as the dust continued to settle back to earth. The tinted windshield showed him nothing. His eyes narrowed.
Why didn’t they all just leave him alone?
The door opened and a hand appeared on the top of the driver’s-side window. Small, slim and gripping hard as if the driver had to haul himself out of the car. Colt lifted the rifle, using the scope to aim at where he knew the center of the driver’s torso would be in just a moment. Should he kill the bastard or just shoot out the windshield beside his head? He shifted between his two targets. This or that? That or this? A smile twisted his lips. He’d learned a lot from the US Marines but even more from the insurgents who had held him for three days.
And then the target’s head popped up above the door frame like a fox leaving its den. Colt’s hands went numb and he dropped his rifle.
It had been eighteen months, but he knew he would never forget that face. That was his former girlfriend, Kacey Doka. She’d tried to convince him not to join up after he graduated. Not to leave her behind. He had explained that if she wanted to get off the rez, this was their way. He hadn’t wanted to go because he loved it here, couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But Kacey could and he loved her enough to try to give her what she wanted. It had cost him, deeply.
He had planned to give the signing bonus and his pay to her, but she wouldn’t take it. She wanted them to go together, but he had committed himself. How had he messed that up so badly? She had not answered his letters. When he’d finally made it back home on a psych discharge, her home was the only place he’d stopped before coming here. Kacey had left, her mother said, months ago. She hadn’t been back, wasn’t expected back. But she sure was back now.
Kacey glanced up the hill toward his position, the sunlight highlighting her black hair blue. Colt flinched. Had she heard him drop his rifle? He watched her glance back the way she had come. From here, he could not see much of the road because of the trees. But she would have a clear view.
What was she doing here after all this time? He’d been home for months. Had Ty called her? That thought made his stomach flip. The only thing worse than being a walking basket case was having Kacey Doka know about it.
“Colt?” she called to him.
He pressed his back to the flaking bark of the ponderosa pine and squeezed his eyes shut.
Go away, Kacey. Please.
“Colt, it’s Kacey!” She was shouting now. Judging from the sound, she was cupping her hands to her mouth to amplify her voice. “I need to see you.”
No, you don’t. Not like this.
Ty had sent her. Damn his meddling older brother. Colt had told him he didn’t want to see anyone. That he wasn’t ready. Had Ty given up hope that he was improving? But he was. He made it through more than one day without a panic attack. But the nights were very long. He knew his lack of sleep wasn’t helping. But he wouldn’t take anything that Ty had offered.
“I’m in trouble, Colt. Please, please answer me.”
Trouble?
Colt’s eyes opened as he pushed himself off the tree. What kind of trouble could she be in?
Was this a trick?
Despite her mother’s neglect, Kacey had done well in school, missing only when her mom took off, leaving Kacey to take care of her siblings. Ty told him that Kacey had been accepted at Phoenix University and planned to use her Big Money for as long as it lasted. Big Money was what they called the allotment of the tribe’s revenue distributed annually, but kept in trust for members under eighteen. The distributions often went for vehicles, something big and flashy. Colt noticed that there never was another new truck after that first one. He knew thirty-year-olds still driving that Big Money truck. So he had not spent his on a vehicle. Instead he kept his for them, him and Kacey. He figured his pay, his bonus and Big Money could get them a house right here on the rez.
He was certain that if he could get them their own place and provide her a real home, she would change her mind about leaving. To do that, he’d enlisted in the Marines. That was when she’d ended it between them. When Ty told him she’d gone, Colt had been expecting it.
Had she used her Big Money to run away?
She’d loved him once. He knew that. And he had loved her, which was why he wasn’t going to let her see him now. It would kill those feelings she’d held as surely as a snake crushes a baby bunny.
But he could see her. He’d give himself that at least. Just for a minute and then he’d go.
“I’m coming up there. Don’t you shoot me, Colt Redhorse, or so help me, I will tell your mother.”
His mother liked Kacey and she was worried about him. Ty had said so. And his mother wasn’t well. Why didn’t Ty tell him that Kacey was back? He could have used a little warning to prepare.
He heard the crunch of her footsteps as she crossed the gravel on the road. Her tread was slow and heavy. And she gave a cry as if she was in pain. Colt popped his head around the trunk of the tree. What he saw made his jaw drop.
Was Kacey pregnant?
She was! Very, very pregnant and she was holding her swollen belly as her face twisted into a mask of pain. His eyes widened. He’d seen that same expression on his mother’s face when she went into labor with his little sister, Abbie. He’d only been six, but the fear made the memory stick.
Was Kacey in labor?
That was impossible. You’d have to be crazy to come up here to deliver a baby. He craned his neck to see her as she momentarily disappeared from view behind the trees. She was heading for the trail they had used to climb up to his family’s cabin. She knew the way.
Kacey had been a part of his family, had spent more time living in his house than in hers. Not that he blamed her. But she’d go home when her sister Jackie or Winnie would come and tell her that their mom was gone again. Running drugs for the Wolf Posse, Ty said, taking her cut in either money or product.
Colt moved parallel to Kacey as she walked along the road toward the trail, catching flashes of Kacey between the tree trunks. She looked thin, despite her swollen belly, and pale as if she had not been in the sun in months. Her gait was a scurry that combined the side-to-side rocking motion of a woman far along in her pregnancy with a girl in a hurry. She held both hands under her belly. Why did she keep looking behind her?
Kacey stopped, hunched and turned toward the road. What could she see that made her eyes round and her mouth swing open like a gate? Kacey ran now. She ran to the woods and rock outcropping with a speed he would not have believed possible.
“They’re here! Colt, do you hear me? They’re going to take me again.”
Again?
Oh no, they are not.
Colt didn’t know who they were or why they were after Kacey. What he did know was that they wouldn’t succeed in reaching her. He had the high ground, a rifle with extra rounds and the will to kill anyone who threatened Kacey. He might be a mental mess, but he remembered what it felt like to be in love with her. But now that memory only made his chest ache and his breathing hitch. Whatever part of him that understood how to love a woman had died back there in Afghanistan. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t protect her. He would, with his life.
Colt moved to a position that gave him a good vantage of her car and waited as the second vehicle approached. Colt lifted the rifle, pressing the familiar stock to his cheek and closing his left eye. The crosshairs fixed on the gray sedan.
He felt centered, calm, relaxed.
The first shot sent a bullet at the driver’s side of the windshield. The glass should have shattered into tiny cubes but instead remained intact. The second shot went to the passenger’s side. If there was a passenger behind the windshield, he should now have a bullet in his head, but instead the glass showed only a tiny nick. Colt was using .38 long-range ammunition. That windshield should be compromised. But it wasn’t and he knew why. The glass was reinforced.
“Bulletproof,” he muttered.
He had not seen that since Afghanistan. This was a very expensive vehicle. From within the luxury auto, someone shifted the sedan’s gears and the car reversed direction with a spray of gravel.
Colt marched down the hill. When he reached the road, the car was turning around. He got two shots into the side of the vehicle with nothing but damage to the paint. He missed the shot at the rear tire. The next shot pinged off the rear window of the retreating sedan. Who the heck was after her?
Whoever it was, they had money—lots of money.
He put a hole in the license for no reason except as a final farewell and a good riddance. If they came back, he’d use a hand grenade on their asses.
Colt turned to the woods, where Kacey now stood beside the outcropping of rock she had used for cover. She bent forward at the hips, clutching her belly with one hand and the boulder with the other, eyes pinched shut. Colt had a sickening feeling that while he had been up here brooding over Kacey’s departure and collecting the bits and pieces of his mind, Kacey had been in real trouble. He was equally afraid she was going to have that baby right here and right now.
Chapter Two (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
“They’re gone,” Colt said, his voice slightly deeper than she remembered. He was at her side in an instant, rifle slung over his shoulder. His long black hair hung straight and loose past his shoulders. She met his stare, seeing the familiar espresso color of his irises, just slightly lighter than his pupils. His skin was bronze from the sun and his brows were thicker than she recalled, balancing the rich brown of his eyes and the symmetrical nose that seemed small by contrast to his wide mouth and full lips. The cleft in his chin looked deeper and his face leaner. He’d lost weight but gained muscle, she realized, making his body look harder and more dangerous.
She was safe. For the first time in months and months, she was safe and she was home. The joy bubbled up inside. She threw her arms around his neck, kissing him full on the lips. The warm familiar scent of pine and warm male skin enveloped her. He stiffened as their bodies met, his hands coming up to her shoulders, and for a moment she thought he would push her away. For another heartbeat, he hesitated and then he gathered her up and held her as his mouth took hers, deepening the kiss. She was home in his arms and everything would be—
He gripped her shoulders, increasing the tension as he pushed her to arm’s length. He stared at her, panting and feral, like a mad dog. Then he pressed his hand over his mouth and wiped away her kiss. The pain in her stomach morphed from sorrow at his rejection to another contraction. She grimaced and groped behind her for the solid security of the rock, seating herself as the contraction gripped her.
He was not the boy she recalled, the one who kissed her and told her that he’d come back for her. That boy had been joyful and optimistic. But the man before her was taller, leaner and harder than Colt Redhorse. There was a wildness around the whites of his eyes that reminded her of a mustang the instant he feels the rope cinch around his neck. Colt’s nostrils flared and he stepped back, his gaze sweeping down to her bare feet and then back up to her face.
She imagined what he must think, and the shame sent a guilty flush into her face, making it burn with heat. Kacey placed a hand on her distended belly and the other on the hollow below her cheekbone. Somehow in just over a year, everything had changed between them and they were strangers.
Beneath the skin, her muscles were contracting, sending pressure all the way around to her back. This one was worse. She hunched and groaned, squeezing her eyes shut.
“You shouldn’t do that. I’m not... I can’t.”
She heard the blast of air as he forcefully exhaled.
“They’ll come back for the baby.”
Colt glanced down the road in the direction of their retreat.
“Should I bring you to the clinic?” he asked.
Her reply was a shout. “No!”
Colt flinched. “All right. Where, then? Your mom’s?”
“They’ll look for me there. My sisters and brothers, I don’t want anything to happen to them.” Finally the pressure in her back eased and she could straighten. That was when she noted that Colt had one arm around her. The other she gripped, squeezing with a force that matched the contraction. She released his arm and saw the white print of her hand disappear as the blood returned to his forearm.
How long would this go on? It had been over an hour already.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Ty said you agreed to come home after your discharge if you could come here.” She didn’t mention the reason for his discharge. Had Ty told her that his kid brother had been a POW, rescued and returned stateside?
“So you came here looking for me?” Colt asked.
She lowered her gaze. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
He made a sound in his throat and then said, “I’m honored.”
Kacey’s mouth dropped open and her gaze flashed to him. Colt smiled down at her and for a moment everything was good again. He was here with her and she knew he would protect her.
She looked up at him, noting the unfamiliar breadth of his shoulders. His hair gleamed with good health. She reached up and fingered a strand, placing it on his chest and pressing it into place.
“They didn’t make you cut it,” she said. His hair still reached to his chest and she was so glad.
“Nope. Just made me wear it tied back and under my shirt or in a bun.”
“A bun?” Imagining that made her smile. He smiled, too.
His wide mouth drew back to reveal white, even teeth. He’d had the chip in the front repaired and now she could not even remember which tooth he had damaged. His jaw was more prominent, as were his cheekbones.
“You’re too skinny,” she said.
He pressed his mouth closed, still smiling as he nodded. “That’s what Ty says, too.”
“You see him? How is he?”
Colt shook his head. “I don’t talk to him.”
Her brow wrinkled. “But you said—”
“He comes sometimes. He talks to me. I let him see me. But I don’t speak to him. I don’t speak to anyone.”
Her frown deepened.
“But me?” she asked.
He blew out a breath through his nose. “I guess so.”
“How long have you lived like this?”
“Since they released me.”
“Released?”
Didn’t she know? But she didn’t. He could see it in the wide earnest expression that showed nothing but confusion. Well, he sure wasn’t going to tell her.
His lips went tight. He led her down to the car. “Let’s get you out of here.”
She took a few steps and then stopped. “I can’t go to one of the settlements or the police.”
“Why?”
“They’re looking for me. They’ll take me again.”
His eyes shifted and one hand went to the strap of his rifle. “Who?”
“Those two and I don’t know who else. I heard more of them. But I’ve only ever seen Oleg and Anton. Oh, and one other guy. I don’t know his name.”
“Oleg?”
“Russians.”
He looked back toward the road. “They have an armored car.” He swung the rifle before him, lifting it to his shoulder. “Plug your ears,” he said.
She did and he took a shot. The bullet punched a hole in the rear door of the car she had stolen.
“That one isn’t armored.” He swung the rifle so the strap held it behind his back. “Okay. Let’s go farther up into the ridge. There’s a second cabin.”
“Anyone know that?”
“Ty.”
“Let’s go.” She allowed him to help her to the car and flushed as he pulled the safety belt over her distended belly and clipped it in place. She sank into the seat, closing her eyes.
“How long did they have you?” he asked.
She turned to him, opening her eyes. “Since February.”
“February!” He straightened, his brow sweeping down over his dark eyes. That was eight months.
“Yeah.”
“Everyone said you ran away.”
“I didn’t.” She reached and gripped his hand. “Colt, there are more of us. More like me and they’re all from Turquoise Canyon.”
Now he was staring down the road where they had gone. “I could call Jake. Maybe he could pick them up.”
“You have a phone?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“They’ll kill Jake.” The next contraction built across her middle.
He gripped her door frame and glanced down the empty road. “But you said there were others.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes. Three others. They have Marta Garcia. She was in my class in high school. They took her before me. And Brenda Espinoza. She’s five months pregnant. And Maggie Kesselman. They’re all like me.” She motioned to her belly. “Marta’s due any day.”
“What will happen to them now that you escaped?”
A cold shot of terror ripped through her. “I don’t know.” But the possibilities terrified her.
“We have to tell Jake,” said Colt.
His brother was the newest hire on the tribal police force and she knew he could be trusted.
“I think so.”
Her back cramped. “Oof!” she said and clutched her middle.
“We’re getting you somewhere safe. But I need to find a woman to help you.”
“No. Anyone who sees this baby is in danger. Colt, I wish I could have thought of a way by myself. But I’m scared. I need your help.”
“But I’ve never—”
“Neither have I.”
He shook his head and she saw something she had not seen before in him: fear.
“Colt Redhorse, you left me once. Don’t you dare do that again.”
She’d told him not to go. She’d felt something terrible would happen to him. As it turned out, something terrible had happened to both of them.
“I promised to come back.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. But you were gone.”
She glowered at him.
“I’ll get you somewhere safe, Kacey. I promise.”
Kacey sighed. The air here was so sweet and clean. She thought of the musty basement where she’d been kept for months and shuddered.
“So, call Jake. All right?” he asked.
She nodded.
He rounded the hood at a run. A moment later, they were in motion on the rough road, heading back toward the center of Turquoise Ridge.
* * *
COLT HEADED FOR David SaVala’s claim. It was close and David could be trusted to deliver a message to Ty. Ty could get to Jake. Then Colt was going to take Kacey to his cabin and help her bring this baby into the world. Colt planned on keeping this car hidden but close in case he needed to get Kacey to a hospital. With luck, Ty would be here soon.
Colt had three older brothers and his younger sister. The oldest brother was Kee, newly board certified as a doctor. Colt wished he could bring Kacey to him, but she would not go near the clinic. He planned to find out why. His next oldest brother was Ty, who, unlike Colt, had made it through his service in the US Marines to be honorably discharged. His tales of the service had convinced Colt to join.
But Ty had not chosen to enlist. He had signed to avoid federal prosecution after he and their father were arrested for armed robbery. Ty had already been in the Wolf Posse, the tribe’s gang. The tribal leadership felt he needed discipline, so a deal was struck. Charges dropped if Ty enlisted. His father had previous arrests, so the tribe allowed federal prosecution. Now Ty lived between the gang who had claimed him and the family that couldn’t keep him from choosing that life. Ty had often said it was easier to leave the military than a gang.
Finally there was Jake, the newest member of the Turquoise Tribal Police and six years Colt’s senior. Jake had looked after him when their father went to prison. Colt had been lucky. He’d sort of had three fathers.
“Ty lives in Koun’nde. He has a phone. If I can get SaVala to lend me his phone, we can take it far enough to get service and call Ty and Jake. Then I can call Kee and ask him to come deliver this baby.”
She had her eyes closed again and was blowing through pursed lips. Sweat beaded on his brow.
“Kacey?” he whispered.
She turned her head to look at him, her cheeks puffing out and in as she blew.
“They won’t get you,” he promised.
Her head dropped to the headrest. He knew she was already nineteen, but she still looked like the girl he’d first loved, still loved. Why had he left her? She’d been right about everything. Something terrible had happened to him and to her. He’d been so sure that the Marines would be a shortcut to what she wanted, with money to provide the life away from her mother and the shadow of his father. He’d been trying to prove he was strong like his brother Ty and smart like Kee and good like Jake. But he wasn’t any of those things. He was a fragile wreckage of a man who couldn’t even talk to people since...well, since everything that had happened over there.
He hadn’t had the chance to be a hero. He’d just been taken like a sheep from a pasture to the butcher truck. Fate had made him the last lamb in line.
He pressed the web of his hand between his thumb and index finger to his forehead, trying to ease the pounding. He was in a car again and there was not enough air. He released his head to grip the wheel, bracing for the blast, waiting for it.
This time he’d be ready.
Colt was not going back there now. Kacey needed him. He was here on Turquoise Canyon and he had to stay focused. But he knew he wasn’t keeping the panic attack away. He was only postponing it. The doc at Walter Reed in Maryland said he needed counseling and put him on the list. With luck, it would be decades before they would get to his name, because he wasn’t talking about that with anyone ever. No one who wasn’t held by insurgents could possibly understand.
His gaze flicked to Kacey, who sat with her head dropped back on the headrest but turned toward him. She smiled at him, her face relaxed and her hands laced over her belly. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose braid that lay on her shoulder. Her once soft, round face had changed. Her deep brown eyes were still bright, but there were dark smudges beneath them. Her lips were full and pink, but her jaw and pointed chin seemed too prominent in her thin face. How much weight had she lost? Kacey had always been slender, but now she was skinny, way too skinny. How much had they given them to eat?
Not enough—clearly.
The rations that he’d been given during his captivity rose in his mind and he pushed the memory of that down. One sure way to be of no help to her was to think about that.
No one understood that the captivity wasn’t as hard as the memories that just would not go away. It wasn’t getting better with time. It was worse. Colt gripped the wheel. He hated cars, trucks, anything that rolled. No one in his family understood. They were worried, but they didn’t get it. He could not think about it, but he was stuck somehow. Afraid all the time.
Kacey was now looking in the side mirror, watching for trouble. Perhaps she could understand, he realized. Because she’d been a captive, too. But then she’d also understand that he was the very last person capable of helping her. That was why he was leaving her with his brother. Any one of his brothers was a better choice than him.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Almost there,” he said to himself as much as to her.
Chapter Three (#u4a128c45-ca2b-527b-a31d-b25e713f9796)
Kacey’s body relaxed. The contractions were not as strong now, fading as if taking a pause. How long did labor last? Hours? Days? She didn’t know. Her mother just went to the clinic and came home the next day with a brother or sister. Kacey assumed that by tomorrow at this time, she would have a baby. But exactly what happened in the meantime was vague.
She’d learned about childbirth in high-school health class. At the time, the lesson seemed theoretical. The abstract phases of birth just one more thing to be memorized and spit back on a quiz. Stage I—Early Labor. Stage II—Active Labor. Stage III—hand the baby to a nurse and take a nap.
Colt pulled off the road and up a short turnoff that was composed of two ruts in the yellow grass. A cabin came into view against the ridge, sitting up on concrete blocks. The step before the front door was clearly slag rock from a turquoise vein. She was Turquoise Canyon Apache, so she recognized what base rock surrounded a vein of the precious blue stone.
Colt barely had the car in Park before throwing himself against the driver’s-side door in his hurry to be out of the cab. He scrambled out onto all fours. It took him a moment to right himself before he straightened and returned to the car.
“Colt?”
He was sweating as if he’d run from his claim to this one. He peered in at her through the open door.
“Call him,” he whispered.
Kacey opened her door and swung her legs out, bare feet touching the long yellow grass as she inched forward on the seat. Colt retrieved his rifle and then rounded the car to stand beside her door.
She called a greeting. They were met first by a skinny white dog. The muck on his shoulder showed he’d been rolling in something, and the stench said it was something dead.
The claim holder arrived shortly afterward, dressed in coveralls coated with a fine white layer of rock dust. All claims belonged to the tribe, but families worked them and passed them along. Her family’s claim was worked by others, leased for a period of five years at a time.
David SaVala tried to shake Colt’s hand, but Colt chose to place his hand on the shoulder strap of his rifle. David greeted her instead, peering at her from beside Colt, but his smile was gone.
“Good to see you two back together.”
She smiled and nodded. That seemed easier than explaining.
David took another step toward her, moving beyond the open car door, and his step faltered.
“Oh.” He glanced from her swollen belly to Colt. “Oh, I see. Congratulations, you two.”
Kacey used the door and the frame to heave herself up. Colt rubbed his neck but said nothing. He backed toward the woods, but Kacey gripped his arm to prevent his escape.
She told David what they needed and he retreated to his cabin with his dog for the phone and handed it off to her with the pass code and instructions on where she would first find a signal. The distance and her condition required another car ride. They headed out with the dog trotting with them as far as the road. Colt was shaking by the time they reached the high point of Dead Elk Dip and the place that allowed a weak cell phone signal.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Don’t drive anymore.”
“Claustrophobic?” she asked. This was new. Ty had told her of Colt’s capture but had been short on details. She just now understood what helping her was costing him. Was it leaving his claim that upset him or the driving?
His skin was pale. He retrieved David’s phone. Colt placed the call and gripped his hair in one fist as he waited for the phone to connect.
Kacey heard a male voice issue a greeting.
Colt squeezed his eyes shut. His fist tightened in his hair.
“Who’s this?” came the voice on the other end of the line.
His jaw clamped shut and he thrust the phone at her.
“Hello?” she replied.
“This is Redhorse.” She recognized the voice of Officer Jake Redhorse, one of Colt’s older brothers. Kacey identified herself and relayed the high points. Escape. The stolen car. The gun battle. Her condition and the location of the missing girls.
“You’re with Colt?” Disbelief resonated in his voice.
“Yes. He’s the one who called you.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Where are the girls?”
“I don’t know exactly. I just drove until I figured out where I was.”
“I need the exact address,” said Jake. “And if it’s in Darabee, I need to notify their police department.”
“No. They might be connected. Like they were with that assassination in their station. Karl Hooke and the Lilac Mine Mass Shooter,” said Kacey.
“How do you know that?”
“Marta Garcia overheard our captors say so before I got there.” Kacey knew that the Darabee police were being investigated by the federal and state government for corruption. Several of the force had been suspended and charges filed.
“Can I speak to Colt?” Jake asked.
She relayed the request and was met with a firm shake of his head.
“He says no.”
“I’m calling my chief for instructions and en route to you. Head toward Turquoise Ridge. Okay?”
“Yes. I understand.”
“I’ll need you to identify the house, Kacey. Can you do that?”
That meant going back. She gripped her free hand to her throat. “I’m in labor and those killers are still out there.”
“So are your friends,” Redhorse reminded her.
That hit her harder than the contractions. Colt shook his head. Clearly he did not want her to go back.
She had promised them that she’d send help. “Yes. I’ll go.”
Jake told her to tell Colt what to expect and ended the call.
Now Kacey’s heart was pounding. “He said the FBI is coming for that car.”
Colt scowled.
She imagined they could find something in there, fingerprints at least. A clear image of Oleg smashing his hands on the hood of the car came to her. She glanced at the twin dents there as a shot of panic made her ears ring.
“Where? From Phoenix?”
“No. Your brother said that they have FBI in Piñon Forks since the explosion. Colt, what happened? What explosion? What is he talking about?”
“You must have passed through Piñon Forks on the way here. Didn’t you see it?”
“I saw construction vehicles. The station was abandoned. Some man in a uniform told me that tribal headquarters had moved to Turquoise Ridge. But I took off before he told me why.”
“Everyone has moved to Turquoise Ridge. They’re in FEMA trailers or reclaiming their mining cabins.”
“Why?”
“Come on. Let’s get David’s phone back to him.”
En route, he told her everything, and the happenings were tragic. Some eco-extremists organization had blown up Skeleton Cliff Dam in hopes of compromising the Phoenix electrical grid. The dam was upriver from their reservation. Destroying the dam meant flooding their biggest community, Piñon Forks.
Apparently, an explosives expert from the FBI had managed to make a temporary barrier on their river by demolishing a huge section of the canyon ridge. Her actions had saved everyone there. But the rubble dam was failing. Evacuations were necessary.
She thought back to her wild race through town early this morning.
“I didn’t even look at the canyon rim,” she admitted. Her focus had been internal, on her own body, and external to the men she knew would come for her. “Have you seen it?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t been off this claim since I got home. Until today. Heard about it from Ty. Only happened a couple weeks ago. Let’s see. Third week in September, so nearly three weeks ago now.”
He put his hand on the door latch and froze. He wiped a hand across his upper lip.
“I’ll drive,” she said.
“You’re in labor.”
“I know. Let me.” She held her hand out for the fob.
He hesitated, then gave it to her and stepped aside.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She jostled herself awkwardly down into the seat and waited as he rounded the hood and then paused at the passenger side. She lowered the window. “Get in.”
“I can’t.”
“Colt, please.”
“I’ll run to David’s place. Through the woods. Be there before you get there.”
“What if they’re waiting on the road?”
Colt climbed in, his expression grim. He folded his arms over his chest as if he were freezing. She didn’t even suggest the seat belt as she put them in motion. She headed back to David SaVala’s claim. On arrival, she tooted the horn, afraid if she got out, Colt would run. David’s dog was still covered in something, and David appeared shortly afterward. He approached her window and she returned the phone. The dog jumped up and placed her front paws on the door, giving Kacey a stomach-turning whiff of dead animal.
“Get down,” he said, pushing the dog off. “Sorry. She found a dead deer and keeps getting after it.”
Kacey smiled and exhaled, trying to rid her nostrils of the stench.
The miner leaned down to look through the cab to Colt.
“Good to see you out, Colt,” said David. “Been worried.”
Colt nodded but said nothing. Why wouldn’t he speak to anyone?
David glanced at Kacey, who gave him a shrug.
“My dad was in Vietnam,” said David. “Still jumps at every truck that backfires. It changes you, I guess.” He pushed himself off the car, straightened and forced a tight smile.
“Thank you for the use of the phone,” she said.
“Sure.” He scraped his knuckles over the stubble on his jaw. “Well, stop by anytime. Love company. Don’t get much, though.”
They were off a moment later with David waving after them despite the dust they kicked up. The rainy season had come and gone. They were back to hot, dry days and cold, clear nights.
Jake met them en route with three other vehicles. Colt drew his pistol and flicked the safety off.
Kacey was suffering from the end of another contraction, so she spoke through gritted teeth as she clutched the wheel. “Don’t shoot your brother.”
He nodded and holstered his weapon before leaving the vehicle. Kacey watched as he greeted Jake with a nod. Kacey knew the two men who exited the next vehicle. The first was Detective Jack Bear Den. No mistaking him because he was the biggest man she knew. From the opposite side of the SUV came tribal police chief Wallace Tinnin. He was limping, as if he’d injured his foot. The chief had come to speak to her high-school class her senior year. It had been the January awards assembly and he had shaken her hand when she made the honor roll. Had that only been ten months ago? Yes, she realized. Just months before she had been taken.
The next two cars were black sedans with tinted windows. FBI, she guessed. She didn’t recognize the man or woman who exited the first vehicle but was surprised to see they both appeared to be Native American.
From the next sedan came two white men with short military-style haircuts and dark glasses. They had the same stony expressions as the Secret Service men who guarded the president.
Jake approached her door and she leaned out the broken window.
“We’re going to transfer you to Detective Bear Den’s unit, Kacey. That be all right?”
She nodded and he opened the door.
Colt was already speeding away from the vehicle.
Jake helped Kacey rise and then looked across the hood to Colt.
“Good to see you, brother,” he said.
Colt looked away.
Jake glanced to her and she shook her head. She did not understand any better than he did why Colt would not speak.
“Did he talk to you?” Jake said, his voice low.
She nodded.
Jake released a sigh and escorted her toward the SUV. On her way, they paused for introductions. The man was FBI field agent Lieutenant Luke Forrest of the Black Mountain Apache tribe. The woman was FBI explosives expert Sophia Rivas, also of the Black Mountain Apache people.
“Are you the one who saved our town?” asked Kacey.
“Well, I had some help.” She glanced at Bear Den, and Kacey sensed their relationship might be more than professional. “But I set the charges.”
“Colt says you stopped the river from destroying Piñon Forks.”
“That’s true. Why don’t you sit with me? I have a few questions.”
Kacey cast a look at Colt. She was not leaving him.
“We’re riding with Bear Den and Colt’s brother,” she said.
“All right. I’ll just come along. That be okay?”
Kacey glanced to Colt, who inclined his chin.
“All right.”
The contractions were now just an irregular flurry of spasms across her belly and back.
She walked past the last two men, who scanned her from head to toe.
Once past them, she asked Sophia Rivas who they were.
“Our guys. They’re taking possession of your vehicle.”
“Evidence?” asked Kacey.
Rivas smiled and nodded. “We sure hope so.”
Bear Den held the rear door of his SUV open for Kacey. She struggled to climb inside. She wished she had something better to wear than the ugly sheath of a dress they’d given her. But what was important was getting to her friends before something happened to them. Those men, Oleg and Anton, they couldn’t fight against all these law-enforcement officers.
Could they?
Colt slipped in beside her and she gripped his hand, fingers laced. He gave her comfort and she hoped she did the same for him. Jake took the front seat. Rivas climbed into the opposite side, so Colt slid to the middle of the broad back seat, separating her from the FBI agent.
Jake Redhorse told them that the FBI had opted not to notify the Darabee police of their presence based on the information she had given Officer Redhorse. So they sailed through town and back toward the house she had fled only four hours earlier.
Her contractions were no longer increasing in strength or frequency and they interfered little on the ride back from the rez to Darabee. What was going on? she wondered.
Still, her body concerned her less than the tic Colt displayed beneath his eye and the way he repeatedly flexed and stretched his free hand like a beating heart. His breathing was irregular, as if he were in pain.
She answered all Rivas’s questions as they rode back down the mountain and through the settlement of Turquoise Ridge. Bear Den asked a few questions as they covered the road between Turquoise Ridge and Koun’nde. Then Jake told them some things that she hadn’t known.
A classmate of hers and Colt’s, Zella Colelay, had delivered a baby girl on September 23, the Saturday before last. She’d left the infant in Jake Redhorse’s truck and he was being granted temporary custody of the baby by the tribe.
“You’re getting custody?” asked Kacey. She did not quite keep the disbelief from her voice. A single man wanting custody of a baby was unusual.
“Lori Morgan and I are back together now. She’s agreed to be my wife.”
Kacey blinked at this news. She knew that Jake and Lori had once been a couple. Rumors were that Lori had got into trouble and the teens had been encouraged to marry before the baby came. Colt had confirmed it and told her that the miscarriage had wrecked the relationship. Now it seemed a new baby had brought them back together again.
“Congratulations,” said Kacey.
Jake grinned. “Thanks. Just got married.” He lifted his left hand, showing the gleaming gold band. Jake looked to Colt. “I wanted you there, brother. Have you stand up with me.”
Colt lifted his shoulders and shuddered.
“What about Zella?” asked Kacey. “What will happen to her?”
Bear Den took that one. “She’s been relocated, faces charges for abandonment of the infant. But she’s young, and with the circumstances, I doubt she’ll receive more than community service.”
“One more thing,” said Jake. “The baby. It’s white.”
Kacey frowned and rested her hands on her belly. How could Zella deliver a white baby? Did he mean the baby was a mix of Apache and Caucasian or what some here called a mix-up? Was Zella like her and the rest of the captives? Had this happened to her but somehow she had evaded capture? “Does Zella have a boyfriend?”
“No. She told us she has never been with a boy.”
Kacey gasped. Just like her, Marta and Maggie. She needed to speak to Zella. Kacey turned to Colt to tell him that Zella might be one of them and she noticed he was trembling.
Colt’s eyes were darting about and his leg was bouncing like that of a junkie coming off a high. She pressed a hand to his knee.
“You okay?” she whispered.
He jumped at her touch and then clutched her hand so hard she winced. Colt had not even visited his family since his return from Afghanistan. Now he was surrounded by people.
“I need to get out of this car,” he said. “We’re trapped back here.”
“Pull over,” said Kacey.
Bear Den glanced back at them in his rearview mirror.
“What?” said Bear Den.
“We can’t stop,” said FBI agent Rivas.
Colt’s gaze flashed to the closed door.
“The baby. Pull over,” said Kacey.
He did and the line of cars behind them stopped, as well. The lead car drove a few yards on and then noticed the delay and also pulled over.
Kacey tried the handle and found it locked.
Bear Den was quick for a big man. He had her door open an instant later and Kacey slid sideways, legs out of the SUV. Colt bolted past her and ran a few feet. Then he stopped, facing them, panting. His complexion was gray and his eyes were wild.
“Colt?” said Jake, hands raised.
Colt had his hand on his pistol.
“Take your hand off the weapon. No one is going to hurt you.”
“I have to go back,” he said. His eyes were wild as he searched for escape.
“Colt. Kacey needs you,” said Rivas.
Colt stared at her, his expression tortured. “I’m sorry. I thought I could...”
“It’s all right, Colt. You don’t have to go,” Kacey assured him.
“Don’t get in that Humvee, Kacey,” he said, pointing at the SUV. “Don’t go. They’ll take you.”
Kacey’s blood iced. It was her greatest fear, to be taken again, by the Russians, the feds, the Darabee police. Her throat went so dry she couldn’t even swallow and she wanted to go with him.
“Not a Humvee,” said Bear Den, his words an aside to Tinnin.
“Colt,” said Rivas. “You’re scaring Kacey.”
Kacey headed toward Colt. She needed to touch him. Bring him back and save herself from the terror now crawling over her skin like scorpions.
“Don’t,” said Bear Den, clasping her arm and holding her back.
Colt made a feral sound between a snarl and a roar as his eyes were pinned on the place Bear Den touched Kacey.
“Let go,” said Kacey.
Bear Den’s hand dropped away. Kacey continued forward to Colt as he drew his pistol, holding it down and at his side. Behind her, she heard handguns leaving their plastic holsters. When she reached Colt, she took his face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his.
“I’m here, Colt. You’re safe. You’re home.”
His body relaxed and his breathing slowed. “Stay with me,” he said.
“It’ll be all right.”
“Don’t go with them.”
“I have to. I promised them, my friends, that I would send help. I have to go. Can Jake take you home?”
He nodded. The pistol slid from his fingers, thudding to the ground.
“All right. Wait for me. I’ll be right back.”
It was what he had said to her before he shipped out for boot camp. I’ll be right back. That had been nearly two years ago.
He shuddered and turned to Jake, who was already holding his brother’s abandoned handgun. The two brothers walked back along the line of cars to Jake’s police unit, which had been driven by Chief Wallace Tinnin. Jake helped Colt into the rear seat and then shut him in. Colt’s eyes darted about the closed compartment. What had happened to him? Kacey wondered. Jake hurried behind the wheel as Colt locked his fingers together behind his head and ducked like an airline passenger preparing for impact. The vehicle made a U-turn and sped away.
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Jenna Kernan
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: He will never stop fighting.Colt and Kasey share something that goes deeper than tribal blood. Colt’s time as a marine left him with nightmares, but his training also gave him a certain set of skills. No one is taking this woman…or his child.