Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Copyright

“When am I going to see you again?”

David asked.

“I’m not sure,” Kyra answered.

It was her final word on the subject, David realized with an empty feeling in his gut. Were the vows they’d spoken and the rapture they’d shared simply to evanesce like a puff of smoke? Or could they cross the fragile bridge of belief and trust to a life together?

With effort, he remembered his grandfather’s counsel. To win Kyra back and keep her for a lifetime, he’d have to be patient. According to his great-grandfather, if her love matched his, she’d remember what had taken place and come back to him. Instead of existing as a memory lost in time, their marriage would unfold in the present moment.

And if she can’t? he wondered. Will I be condemned to walk through life alone, missing the biggest piece of my heart?

Dear Reader,

This month, Silhouette Romance has six irresistible, emotional and heartwarming love stories for you, starting with our FABULOUS FATHERS title, Wanted: One Son by Laurie Paige. Deputy sheriff Nick Dorelli had watched the woman he loved marry another and have that man’s child. But now, mother and child need Nick. Next is The Bride Price by bestselling author Suzanne Carey. Kyra Martin has fuzzy memories of having just married her Navajo ex-fiancé in a traditional wedding ceremony. And when she discovers she’s expecting his child, she knows her dream was not only real…but had mysteriously come true! We also have two not-to-be missed new miniseries starting this month, beginning with Miss Prim’s Untamable Cowboy, book 1 of THE BRUBAKER BRIDES by Carolyn Zane. A prim image consultant tries to tame a very masculine working-class wrangler into the true Texas millionaire tycoon he really is. Good luck, Miss Prim!

In Only Bachelors Need Apply by Charlotte Maclay, a manshy woman’s handsome new neighbor has some secrets that will make her the happiest woman in the world, and in The Tycoon and the Townie by Elizabeth Lane, a struggling waitress from the wrong side of the tracks is romanced by a handsome, wealthy bachelor. Finally, our other new miniseries, ROYAL WEDDINGS by Lisa Kaye Laurel. The lovely caretaker of a royal castle finds herself a prince’s bride-to-be during a ball…with high hopes for happily ever after in The Prince’s Bride.

I hope you enjoy all six of Silhouette Romance’s terrific novels this month…and every month.

Regards,

Melissa Senate,

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Bride Price
Suzanne Carey

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUZANNE CAREY

is a former reporter and magazine editor who prefers to write romance novels because they add to the sum total of love in the world.

Chapter One

It was 6:22 a.m. on what promised to be a glorious September day. In the bedroom of her Kansas City, Missouri, apartment, Kyra Martin was still deeply asleep as she twisted and turned beneath her down coverlet. Divorced, childless, the twenty-seven-year-old, hardworking assistant federal prosecutor for the Western District of Kansas was immersed in a recurring dream, which had transported her back in time by almost five years to an erotic encounter she’d experienced beneath the graceful torrent of Havasu Falls with David Yazzie, her part-Navajo, would-be lover.

Though in her dream the water was like ice as it plunged about their shoulders, Kyra didn’t pay it any heed. Moaning with pleasure and a mounting sense of urgency, she felt her resistance melt as David’s mouth crushed hers. The expert way he was teasing her nipples through the fabric of her red bikini top was pushing her past the limits she’d set for herself. If they didn’t call a halt, and soon, she’d violate the promise she’d made to herself to remain a virgin until her wedding day.

“David…maybe we’d better stop,” she protested when he drew back to gaze at her with lust and longing in his beautiful eyes.

Moving around to her back with the calm audacity that so disarmed and captivated her, his strong, exquisitely shaped fingers tested the clasp on her bra preparatory to unhooking it. “Why should we,” he demanded reasonably, “when we both want it so much?”

Mad about him, she found it all but impossible to resist the longing that washed over her in waves as he pressed the front of his swim trunks against her lower body.

A moment later he was unfastening her top and letting it fall into the tumbling waters of the creek that swirled about their ankles. Thanks to the weather, which had turned somewhat chilly, and the fact that it was a weekday, the falls were deserted at that hour except for them. But that ideal state of affairs wouldn’t last long. Several of the hikers and campers who haunted the remote but beautiful off-shoot of Arizona’s Grand Canyon no matter what the season were bound to appear at any moment.

“Please,” she managed, begging him to save her from herself, “this is a popular spot. Despite the weather, some-one’s bound to come along and see us!”

His determination to have her seemingly as fixed as the North Star he’d woven into the retelling of a Native American legend beside their campfire the night before, David nuzzled his kisses lower. “Don’t worry,” he advised. “No-body’s going to gawk at your beautiful breasts. I’ll keep them covered with my hands and mouth…”

Abruptly Kyra’s bedside phone rang, shattering the scene her unconscious mind had chosen to present her with in a thousand shining fragments. Jarred and disoriented, with the flush of arousal it had brought to her cheeks slowly fading, she groped for the receiver.

“Hello?” she muttered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Kyra, it’s Dad,” her caller announced in his raspy baritone. “Did I wake you, sweetheart?”

Chief prosecutor for Coconino County, Arizona, for more than twenty years, Big Jim Frakes had been widowed for nearly as long. He’d raised Kyra by himself from the time she was eleven. Though he kept close tabs on her even now, he usually called around dinnertime. Something must be up, she thought. About to reassure him that her alarm was set to go off in a few minutes, anyway, she remembered it was a Saturday.

“Sort of,” she admitted, propping herself against some pillows. “But I needed to get up, anyway. What can I do for you, Dad?”

The momentary pause was uncharacteristic of him. “Frankly,” he said with regret, “I could use a little help.”

At sixty-four, and having developed a spot of heart trouble, Big Jim would be retiring soon. Lately he’d begun to make ever more insistent noises about wanting Kyra to return to Flagstaff and work for him—run for election in his stead when his current term was up. The problem was that he had a capable and likeable first assistant, middle-aged Tom Hanrahan, who’d been waiting in the wings for nearly eight years hoping to play that role.

Her father knew how she felt about going head-to-head with Tom. She wouldn’t want to do it. She’d told him so half a dozen times, at least. Her other reason for staying away from the town where she’d grown up and the gorgeous sweep of canyon, high desert and pine-clad mountain country she loved so much was one they couldn’t talk about. Any mention of David and the fact that he owned a ranch near Flagstaff—one with a striking stone-and-cedar house surrounded by ponderosa pines—would reopen too many wounds.

“Problems at work, Dad?” she asked lightly. “Or is it something of a more personal nature?”

Again she caught that slight hesitation.

“Both, I guess,” he admitted at last. “The fact is, I’m faced with trying Paul Naminga for murder. And I—”

Kyra gasped. “Not another tragedy in the Naminga family! I can’t believe Paul would ever commit such a crime.”

A Hopi paramedic who’d chosen to live and work in Flagstaff rather than remain in the Second Mesa village of Mishongnovi on the reservation where he’d been raised, Paul Naminga was known and liked in both the Anglo and Native American communities. Still, the family had a history of trouble. Five years earlier, Paul’s mildly retarded, alcoholic older brother, Leonard, had been on trial on charges of manslaughter, grand theft auto and driving under the influence. It had been during this trial that Kyra, then a second-year law student, and David Yazzie, who’d been employed as the first-ever Native American assistant on Big Jim’s staff, had gotten to know each other.

Because the alleged crimes had taken place off the reservation, a short distance from the Lariat Bar on Route 89 north of town, the case had been prosecuted in state rather than federal court. Despite Leonard’s frantic, somewhat garbled denials of any wrongdoing, all the available evidence had pointed to him. He’d been found drunk and confused behind the wheel of Dale Cargill’s pickup truck, which had been reported missing by its owner a short time earlier. At some point prior to the arrival of the sheriff’s deputies on the scene, the truck had plowed into a shabby sedan, killing both occupants, a local man and woman in their late sixties.

Off for the summer, Kyra had volunteered to help with the case, which, while tragic, had seemed basically open-and-shut. Slowly, however, both she and David had begun to wonder whether Leonard Naminga might be innocent. Sublimating their loyalty to Big Jim, they’d done their best to check out their hunch.

The effort had come to nothing. Leonard had been convicted, anyway, and sent off to state prison. A few days later David had quit Big Jim’s staff and walked out of Kyra’s life without a word or a backward glance, leaving her stunned and heartsick. The resulting downward spiral of her emotions had threatened to sink her third-year grade point average.

At least, it had until her father had explained the part he’d played in David’s disappearance. Shamefacedly he’d confessed to bribing the man Kyra loved with ten thousand dollars to dump her—for her own good. He’d justified the costly, underhanded move by arguing that he’d wanted her to finish law school and establish a legal career for herself instead of dropping out to get married and have David Yazzie’s babies.

She’d refused to believe it in the beginning. Told him he was lying, that David would never stoop so low. It was only when he’d shown her the entry in his checkbook, explaining that the canceled check hadn’t been returned to him yet, that she’d begun to think it possible. Sobbing that she wouldn’t have dropped out if David had asked her to marry him, Kyra had refused to speak to her father for several months.

Only later had she become suspicious that, despite Big Jim’s apparent liking for David, and his frequently stated admiration for the handsome young assistant prosecutor’s savvy and toughness, his real reason for attempting to break them up had stemmed from the fact that David was part Native American. She’d been furious with both men—David for selling her out and her father for his unstated prejudice.

She’d finally forgiven the latter after numerous abject apologies on his part. No apologies or communication of any kind had been forthcoming from David. Though she’d married fellow law graduate Brad Martin on the rebound and divorced him three and a half years later because they’d had nothing in common, not even their principles, the pain and deep sense of loneliness David had caused by accepting her father’s bribe remained the major hurt in her heart.

It still rankled with her that he’d almost certainly used the money to set up a shoestring legal practice, parlaying it into a highly successful career. In the five years since they’d seen each other, he’d made a name for himself representing clients of modest means, many of them Native American, against the government and wealthy corporations. In the process, he’d won some spectacular judgments. Lately he’d begun to be quoted as a legal expert on television.

He stepped over me on his way to fame and fortune, Kyra thought. Yet, who can blame him? Asked to make a choice, he embraced what mattered to him most. She only wished his fleeting, unconsummated romance with the county attorney’s daughter had occupied a more important place in his heart.

Now Paul Naminga’s life and liberty were at stake. “Who’s Paul supposed to have killed?” she asked, pushing down the heartsick feeling that always troubled her when thoughts of David surfaced.

“Ben Monongye,” Big Jim was saying. “You remember him…the thickset Hopi with the scarred right cheek who put together a successful construction business with the help of federal setasides for minorities.”

Kyra did. Though she’d admired Ben’s hard work and tough-mindedness, she’d always thought him a little brash and self-seeking. From what she’d heard via the grapevine, he’d considered himself something of a Casanova with the ladies.

“He and Paul were both scheduled to perform in the Hopi segment of a multitribe dance festival that was held on the Museum of Northern Arizona grounds last weekend,” her father continued. “Apparently Ben had been hitting on Paul’s wife, Julie. He and Paul traded blows about it shortly before they were due to put on their costumes. We’ve got umpteen witnesses.”

Frowning, Kyra tried to picture the scene.

“A couple of bystanders broke it up,” Big Jim said. “Paul ordered Ben to stay away from Julie and stalked off toward his trailer. Ben went into another trailer to dress. He never showed up onstage. Though he made it, Paul was late. During the dancing, a couple of kids fishing around in the trailers for loose change discovered Ben’s body.”

“The fact that Paul was late for the performance doesn’t prove he was the killer,” Kyra objected. “There could have been any number of reasons…”

She could almost see her father shaking his head.

“I know you like Paul,” he said, sighing. “I do, too. But Red Miner was right to make the arrest. There’s just too much evidence against him.”

Red Miner was the Coconino County sheriff.

“Give me a ‘for instance,’” Kyra requested.

“Okay, sure. Take the minute spatters of blood the crime-scene techs found on Paul’s Koyemsi costume. Preliminary analysis suggests it matches Ben’s, and I’m betting the DNA report will confirm it. Plus a young girl came forward to say she saw someone costumed like Paul go into Ben’s trailer after everyone headed for the bleachers.”

He paused. “Of course, her testimony doesn’t make it an open-and-shut case. As you probably remember, unlike the sacred clown dancers, the Koyemsi are masked. We don’t have an eyewitness, as such.”

The thought that maybe Paul didn’t do it settled a little deeper into Kyra’s consciousness. It was like a replay of what had happened to his brother, she thought. Most of the evidence was circumstantial.

“Paul claims he’s innocent,” Big Jim said. “That he was late for the performance because some Navajo kid ran up to him as he was about to get dressed and begged him to come revive one of his friends, who’d been sniffing glue. Unfortunately we couldn’t locate any of the boys to corroborate his story.”

In all likelihood, her father was right. The blood on the costume would match Ben’s. And the evidence would pile up. Lacking another suspect, a jury would convict Paul. It didn’t look good for him.

Meanwhile, Big Jim hadn’t explained what kind of help he wanted. Her heart sank a moment later when he let it be known that David Yazzie had taken charge of Paul’s defense.

Her dream taking on the aura of a premonition, Kyra conjured a mental picture of David’s broad shoulders and slim hips. How she’d loved the brilliant flash of smile that could illuminate his tanned, chiseled features like sunlight breaking through storm clouds over a distant mesa. And his hands. Oh, his hands…

“This will likely be my last big case,” her father was saying. “I don’t want to lose it, especially not to him. With your help—”

The prospect of running into David on the street had been enough to keep Kyra’s visits to her hometown to a minimum. Now she was supposed to return voluntarily, battle it out with him in the courtroom, face-to-face?

“What about Tom Hanrahan?” she said. “Surely he can give you all the help you need.”

“Sorry. But he can’t, honey. Tom’s hospitalized in Missoula, Montana…in traction with a broken leg. He got injured on a hunting trip. He’ll be out of the picture for quite a while.”

He hadn’t said so, yet Kyra guessed her father thought David would be gunning for him. Though David might have taken her father’s money and run with it five years earlier, he wouldn’t have thanked him for making the offer. Despite his own mercenary behavior he’d have been deeply insulted to realize Big Jim didn’t consider his mixed Navajo, Hispanic and Anglo blood good enough for his daughter—whether or not he’d ever had serious designs on her.

“I remember you mentioning recently that you’ve accrued a mountain of compensatory time,” her father said. “If it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship, I wish you could take some of it off. Come down to Flag and help me prosecute.”

Kyra realized he was probably hoping her presence on the prosecution team would rattle David, create sufficient tension to give the prosecution an edge. However, she was well aware of his respect for her ability. Thanks to her experience in the Office of the U.S. Attorney, she was Tom Hanrahan’s equal at the very least.

Dad’s getting older, she thought. And tired. He wants to go out with his head up. Maybe because of David’s reputation as an attorney who doesn’t take many cases he can’t win, his faith in his ability to do that has become a little shaky.

Much as she wanted to help, she wasn’t ready to see David again. Her hurt over his betrayal, and her heart’s stubborn inability to get over him, still ran deep. Still, she’d just put an important case to bed. And she had been working a lot of seventy-hour weeks. She didn’t want her father to realize David was still a burr under her saddle. She could, she supposed, drive down, go over his brief for him, suggest some arguments.

“You know I want to help,” she hedged. “But I’ll have to talk to my boss before making any promises. We’ve got a lot of important work coming up. If he can spare me, maybe we can work something out.”

Clearly pleased that she hadn’t turned him down flat, Big Jim promised to call her Monday night. “I’ll be mighty appreciative of whatever you can do to help,” he said. “No doubt it’s a proud father speaking. But you took to prosecuting like a duck to water. With Tom laid up in Missoula, I couldn’t do better than to have you on my side.”

Putting down the receiver after exchanging a few more words with him, Kyra headed for the shower. Inevitably, as she shampooed her sun-streaked blond hair and scrubbed her body with foaming jojoba-scented gel, the spray brought back her dream of Havasu Falls and all the volatile, half-buried emotions it had evoked. In a couple of weeks, if Big Jim had his way, she’d be seeing David again— gazing into stunning eyes capable of undressing her soul and extracting its every secret.

Unwillingly, because she didn’t want to fall under his spell again, she imagined herself running her fingers through his thick, sweet-smelling hair, which was as sensuous to the touch as coarse, black silk. How she’d loved being crushed by his powerful arms. Kissed everywhere she’d allowed his libidinous mouth to wander.

Just to watch him address a jury, smolderingly handsome in a business suit and tie, or sauntering toward her in faded jeans with the bred-in-the-bone grace of his Native American ancestors and a knowing grin on his face had caused her to thank God every morning that she was young, female and relatively good-looking in the world he inhabited.

She thought of his powerful sexual allure and her apprehension over his formidable reputation as a defense attorney who seemed to possess an extraordinary talent for unraveling the facts of a case. Though she tried to shake them off, these memories clung to Kyra as she tugged on jeans, a sweatshirt and a windbreaker to jog in a park near her home and go about her Saturday errands.

Though his morals hadn’t extended to refusing her father’s bribe, David apparently was unswerving in his demand that the clients he accepted be guiltless and/or deserving of redress, according to several newspaper and journal articles she’d read about him. If that’s true, he must believe in Paul Naminga’s innocence, since he agreed to defend him, she acknowledged as she unloaded a week’s worth of groceries at the checkout counter of her favorite supermarket. Her father’s job as prosecutor was going to be tough despite the evidence Red Miner had collected.

When Kyra broached the matter of a sabbatical with her boss, U.S. Attorney Jonathan Hargrave, on Monday, he insisted she take as much time as she needed to help her father. “You’ve been driving yourself way too hard,” he lectured her. “I don’t want you to burn out. Or fall prey to some stress-related ailment. Take a breather…six weeks at least, more if you need it…and do what you can for your dad. You might even try smelling a few roses.”

Her father was elated when she gave him the news. “You’ll never know how much I appreciate this, honey,” he said.

They worked it out that she’d drive down to Flagstaff two weeks hence, in time for the exchange of discovery between the defense and the prosecution.

“You don’t need to sit in on the discovery session unless you want to,” her father said, in deference to what he probably realized were her strong misgivings. “Of course, I’m hoping you’ll choose to be present. You’re damn good at sniffing out the weaknesses in a defense case, you know. You might pick up on something I miss.”

He wants me there to throw David off base, she thought again, her earlier speculation strengthening. He doesn’t realize that, despite my anger over the shabby way David treated me, a part of me still yearns for him. Or else his fear of going out a loser is pretty strong. Whatever the reason for his comments, Kyra reflected, it was narrowly possible that her going wouldn’t be a mistake. While it was too much to expect that she’d feel nothing when she and the part-Navajo defense attorney she’d once loved came face-to-face, she might use the moment as a springboard for getting over him.

Three days later, thirty-six-year-old David Yazzie was currying his favorite saddle horse, Born for Water, outside the barn on his Yebetchai Ranch. A little tired, having just come off a case himself—one that he’d resolved in his client’s favor—he was glad to be home again. Living out of the motor home that became both office and sleeping quarters when he was on the road pleading cases in Wyoming, North Dakota or New Mexico was okay, he guessed. But it didn’t give him the sense of peace and rootedness he felt on his three-hundred-plus acreage studded with ponderosa pine and juniper. With all his heart he loved the ranch and the house he’d built of stone and cedar to his own specifications in the shadow of the sacred mountains.

So why did he feel so restless this morning? he wondered.

Most of what he consciously wanted was within his reach. From impoverished beginnings on the reservation, as the son of a widowed, mostly Navajo mother and a father of mixed Navajo, Anglo and Hispanic background, who’d been killed in a railroad accident before his birth, he’d come a long way. Thanks to the U.S. Army, which he’d joined in order to be eligible for the G.I. Bill, he’d earned a bachelor’s degree, then begged and borrowed his way into law school.

After serving as one of Jim Frakes’s assistants in Flag to establish some credentials for himself, he’d gone on to create a way of life that included a good income—by virtue of his successful lawsuits against negligent corporations— and the satisfaction of helping deserving underdogs win vindication or redress.

In many ways he’d achieved the best of what the Anglo world had to offer. Meanwhile, his Native American ancestors had bequeathed him a rich spiritual heritage. From his great-grandfather, who’d died of advanced old age several years earlier, he’d learned ancient medicine man secrets known only to a few, which allowed him to step beyond the distortions of the present and get at the hidden truth in situations.

Yet something fundamental was missing from his day-to-day existence. He felt it most whenever he finished a case and returned to Flag, with enough leisure to step back from the quotidian flow of work and think about his situation.

This time, because of the trouble that had befallen Paul Naminga, there wouldn’t be much time for reflection. Yet the prospect of defending the Hopi paramedic in what would probably be Jim Frakes’s last major case hadn’t assuaged his yearning.

A chance discovery had only made it worse. While going through some notes David had saved from the Leonard Naminga trial on his first night home, he’d run across a group snapshot taken in the county attorney’s office on the occasion of Tom Hanrahan’s fortieth birthday. In the picture, a smiling, slightly younger version of himself stood with his arm around slim, blond Kyra Frakes—Martin now, he reminded himself. Bronze in contrast to the freckled paleness of her skin, his fingers curled about her upper arm, which was bared by her sleeveless blouse.

He’d almost been able to smell the perfume she wore, feel the heat and vitality that radiated from her body as he stared at the photograph. I shouldn’t have let Jim talk me into walking out on her that way, he thought now, by the corral, for perhaps the thousandth time. I could have helped her finish law school—made whatever sacrifices it took. As husband and wife, we’d have lit up the sky with a fire that would be still burning.

If she cared at all after so much time had passed, that caring took the form of aversion, he guessed. He supposed he could count himself lucky that she wouldn’t be around during the trial to make the besotted thirty-year-old inside him, whose memories were alive and well, eat his heart out. Being civil to the former boss who’d wanted him out of her life for what in retrospect he considered offensive reasons would be difficult enough.

Finishing with the horse, David patted the glossy animal’s neck and led him to his stall. He was just closing the stall gate when the cellular phone in his hip pocket chirped.

His caller turned out to be Jim Frakes’s secretary since time immemorial, Jody Ann Daniels. “Hey, gorgeous. How ya doin’?” the fortyish mother of three greeted him. “The boss asked me to call and set up the discovery exchange in State v. Naminga for a week from Monday. That fit with your schedule?”

He hadn’t been able to do his usual thorough investigation yet. “So long as he’s willing to revisit if and when new information comes to light,” he conceded.

Jody Ann laughed outright. “Knowing you’d ask, he so stipulated. By the way…your old friend Kyra’s taking a leave of absence from her high-powered Kansas City job to help her pop, what with Tom Hanrahan bedridden in Missoula. Guess she’s a little freer to flit around the country, now that she’s divorced. It’s gonna be like old home week around here!”

Kyra was divorced. She was coming back to Flagstaff.

Folding the phone and slipping it back in his pocket after saying goodbye to Jody, David walked back to the corral and leaned over the fence. He rested the astonishing blue gaze he’d inherited from Anglo ancestors on his father’s side and W. W. Trask, the legendary Irish-American-Native American scout who’d been his mother’s great-great-great-grandfather, against the mountains’ enduring beauty.

Did he still have a chance with her? His thoughts in turmoil, he found himself staring into the void his estrangement from Kyra had created. Though he’d tried to phone her a year after they’d parted, around the time she’d graduated, he hadn’t been able to reach her. Soon afterward he’d heard she had been married. After that the notion of contacting her had seemed pointless.

They hadn’t talked or even glimpsed each other in passing since the day her father had pressured him into leaving her for her own good, and he’d been fool enough to swallow the bait.

Now fate had taken a hand.

Seeing her again will either cure me or reinfect me with the same old yearning, he thought. As he pondered what to do about it, a remark his mother’s grandfather had once made drifted through his head. You can’t change the past, even if you acquire the wisdom to visit it, Henry Many Horses had observed in his quiet way. But you can learn a great deal from the lessons it has to teach.

Chapter Two

Thanks to a last-minute flurry of activity in Kansas City, where she was pressed into taking depositions for another assistant who had the flu, Kyra wasn’t able to leave until noon on Saturday. I probably won’t make it to Flag in time for the discovery exchange, she thought as she headed southwest on Interstate 35 toward Wichita in her cherry red Jeep Cherokee. And I’ll miss my first opportunity to come face-to-face with David. It’s almost as if I planned it that way.

Kyra didn’t bargain on the fact that her compulsion to see him again would build as the miles racked up, causing her to press her foot a little harder on the gas pedal. By the time she reached Gallup, New Mexico, late Sunday afternoon, her yearning to see him and the strong apprehension that gripped her at the prospect were at each other’s throats. Within striking distance, she decided to stop early.

More alone in a roadside café and her motel room than she customarily felt in her Kansas City apartment, she tossed and turned that night, getting very little sleep. Finally, around 5 a.m., she gave it up, showered and dressed and headed for the checkout desk.

She arrived in Flagstaff shortly after 9 a.m., the appointed hour for the informal exchange of discovery in State of Arizona v. Naminga to start. Parking the Cherokee in a recently vacated spot and getting out to smooth her beige wool gabardine suit and neat French-braided chignon, she couldn’t quell her nervousness.

What if I’m still in love with him after all this time? she tormented herself. I don’t think I could bear it. I. have a right to get over him—to learn to be happy with someone else.

With its prominent clock tower, the red sandstone court-house where her father’s office was situated had long been a Flagstaff landmark. The dark-paneled lobby, with its murky portraits in oil and broad, imposing staircase leading to the second floor, was just as she remembered it. Only the anteroom to his private lair had changed. If possible, it appeared to be even more choked with files and papers.

“Long time no see,” Jody Ann Daniels greeted her, interrupting her typing to give Kyra her usual insouciant grin. “I hate to say it, but you look better every time I see you. The meeting got started a few minutes ago. Your dad said to tell you that if you made it in time, you were to go right in.”

Her heart in her throat, Kyra entered her father’s office, which hadn’t changed much since her childhood. Law books and Zane Gray novels still filled the shelves. Paintings of cowboys and hunting trophies crowded the walls, reflecting the bluff, plainspoken county attorney’s interests. A pair of skis he hadn’t used for a decade reposed in one corner, gathering dust.

Keenly conscious of David’s presence and the fact that he’d risen to his feet, Kyra postponed acknowledging him as she returned her father’s affectionate squeeze and greeted the court reporter he’d summoned, whom she’d known since high school.

At last, swallowing, she turned to face the man she’d snubbed, who owned the lion’s share of her attention.

So surprising against the palette of his coppery skin and coal black hair, David’s light, beautiful eyes seemed to burn with a fire that had something hidden at its heart. All the lectures she’d given herself notwithstanding, she wanted to drown in them, offer to be his hostage.

“Kyra,” he said simply in his soft, deep voice, holding out his hand to her.

If she was to maintain any semblance of control over the situation, she had to take it. Grasped lightly, it was firm, callused and warm enough to send little shivers of awareness racing up her arms. Every kiss they’d exchanged, every intimacy she’d permitted him in her formerly besotted state, seemed to hover between them in memory, suggesting renewed, even more passionate congress.

“Hello…good to see you again,” she murmured, realizing too late how idiotic and awkward the words must sound. They were hardly strangers. Or even mere acquaintances.

Holding her captive a moment longer than necessary, David responded that it was good to see her, too. She’d been a girl when he’d left. Now she was a woman. Another man had initiated her. With a fierceness he didn’t let show, he longed to step back in time and undo that hurt, claim the priceless opportunity he’d missed for himself.

He’d never been able to manage the first half of that equation where she was concerned. His feelings always got in the way. As for changing things, he’d long since learned that only the future held possibilities.

For her part, Kyra was overwhelmed by his quiet power and almost mystical resonance. In the years they’d been apart, he seemed to have acquired a depth and maturity that were stunning for a man in his mid-thirties. How can someone whose loyalties were so shifting, so available for purchase, project such an aura of decency and wisdom? she asked herself.

There didn’t seem to be any answer. Meanwhile, his physical magnetism was overpowering her. Though he was dressed for his lawyer’s role in a charcoal gray suit, white shirt and tie, she couldn’t help but imagine him in faded, slightly shrunken blue jeans. Compared to him, the husband she’d divorced and the men she’d dated since were ciphers—pallid imitations of the standard he’d set.

Somehow she had to resist if he tried to jump-start their romance. Remembering the money he took ought to do it, she thought bitterly. In her experience, the principles he claimed to espouse were so much poppycock.

Conscious her father was watching her for signs that she was still susceptible, she shuttered her feelings and pulled a worn wooden chair up to one corner of his desk. “Please…don’t let me interrupt,” she murmured. “I assume no one will mind if I take a few notes.”

In Arizona an “open file” rule prevailed, in which both sides in a criminal case could consult a list maintained by the county clerk in which the opposing attorneys catalogued the evidence they planned to present and their proposed witnesses. However, Kyra’s father had always held discovery meetings. He claimed to like the give-and-take, the small-town camaraderie, not to mention the chance to pick up some tidbit of information or other he couldn’t have accessed by any other means.

Taking up where he’d left off, Big Jim continued to run down his list of witnesses. It turned out to be a lengthy one, given the number of people who’d seen Paul Naminga and Ben Monongye trade blows outside the latter’s trailer. Many of the names, both Anglo and Native American, were familiar to her. However, she didn’t know the young girl who’d seen a man in Paul’s costume go into Ben’s trailer. Moving on to the preliminary tests investigators had conducted on the bloodstains, he offered David a copy of the lab report. “Something else has, uh, come up,” her father added in a tone that alerted Kyra he regarded it as a chink in his armor. “The crime scene unit found several hairs in the trailer where Ben Monongye was stabbed that don’t match his or Paul’s. Their natural color seems to have been black-gray…”

David frowned with interest. “You say natural?”

“Turns out they were coated with black hair dye. Of course, they could have been shed in the trailer at some point before the murder took place…maybe even weeks earlier. On the day of the performance, lots of people were in and out of those trailers. Besides, they were rentals. No telling where they’d been before Suzy Horvath rented them.”

Suzy Horvath, a forty-something divorcee who owned and edited a local tabloid, had organized the dance festival. Out of the corner of her eye, Kyra caught David’s quick flash of smile.

“Thanks,” he said, the grooves beside his mouth deepening. “That’s a little bit of evidence we can work with.”

Big Jim shrugged, hiding any concern he might feel. “I don’t think it’s going to amount to much.”

They were almost finished when Judge Beamish, who would preside over Paul’s case, sauntered in from his chambers down the hall to perch on a windowsill. Though he didn’t interrupt, he gave Kyra a smile and nod of recognition. A moment or two later, he was followed by a bailiff, who’d brought the handcuffed defendant over from his cell in the nearby jail.

So there’s to be a bail hearing, too, Kyra realized, exchanging a silent hello with the clean-cut, boyish-looking paramedic. Seeing Paul again made it all the more difficult to believe he was guilty of murder, despite his public confrontation with the victim.

Watching the wheels turn in her head, David picked up on her sympathies as surely as if she’d laid them out for him on her father’s desk. She’s just the same, he marveled. Decent. Fair-minded. A champion of the underdog if it was merited. Despite her experience as a prosecutor, he could tell she was still an ethical defense attorney at heart.

If they’d married, as Kyra had wanted them to when they were working together on the Leonard Naminga case, they’d probably have slept and worked together. The happiness in his life would have been seamless. By now, they might even have become parents, he thought. Aware the heat of his regard was making her uncomfortable, David forced himself to pay attention.

As he marshaled his arguments for Paul’s release and Big Jim countered them, the buildup of tension in Kyra’s neck and shoulders from attempting to sit gracefully erect and pretend David was part of the furniture became excruciating.

At last it was Judge Beamish’s turn to speak. Citing the capital nature of the crime, he denied David’s request.

Excusing himself with a long, slow look at Kyra, David accompanied his client and the bailiff back to the jail so that he and Paul could hold a private conference.

For Kyra, it was as if all the light and energy in the room had departed with him. He didn’t bother to say goodbye, she thought. But then, why should he? There’s no precedent. A small, still voice inside her whispered, The twenty-two-year-old girl you once were was hoping he regretted his mistake, that he would try to win you back.

It was going to be a long six weeks. Slumping a little in her chair, she tried to center herself.

An informal bull session followed between her dad and the judge, a burly, fifty-something widower. Only half paying attention, Kyra was stunned to hear Hank Beamish remark that he and David were dating the same woman— Suzy Horvath, the newspaper editor who’d organized the dance festival.

“We’re not really rivals, of course,” he confided with a wink at her. “So there’s no ground for prejudice. I don’t need to recuse myself.”

If Big Jim found the conversation a little awkward, in view of Kyra’s presence, he didn’t let it show. “How’s that, Hank?” he asked negligently.

The judge laughed outright as he stood and smoothed down his robe. “Hell, Suzy would tumble for him in a minute, if she thought he was serious. Of course, she’s a couple of years older than him. But that doesn’t mean much nowadays.”

Why should I feel as if a knife has been plunged into the softest part of my stomach? Kyra asked herself. It’s just gossip, after all. I should have expected something of the sort. David’s had a lot of women since I refused to surrender my virginity without marriage. And he’ll have a lot more. It’s no skin off my nose.

Her heart stubbornly aching despite the brave words she’d summoned to comfort herself, Kyra bade Judge Beamish goodbye and spent a few additional minutes hugging and talking to her dad. However, when an important phone call came through for him, she decided she’d had enough of hanging around the courthouse for one morning. Her parking meter had probably expired, anyway. Scribbling him a note that she planned to drive out to the house and take a dip in the pool, after stopping to see Red Miner’s wife, Flossie, who’d all but adopted her when her mother died, she headed for the stairs.

In the interim, David had finished with his client and headed back in search of her. He came striding into the shadowed, momentarily deserted lobby just as she reached the bottom of the stairs. There was nobody around to form opinions or take notes.

“Forget something?” she asked as casually as she could, taking a tentative step toward the door.

His blue eyes glittered against the tan of his face. “As a matter of fact, I did. And I came back for it.”

She realized abruptly that he was blocking her exit. “Dad’s still upstairs if you need to talk to him,” she whispered.

“It isn’t your Dad I came back to see. And I suspect you know it, Changing Woman.”

It was one of the love names he’d used for her. Beneath her staid, lawyerly suit, Kyra was tingling all over.

“David, I don’t think…” she began.

He wasn’t thinking, either. He was leading with his heart. Cutting off her flow of words before she could say something to discourage what he wanted, he tugged her to him and covered her mouth with his, boldly inserting his tongue.

To be in his arms again, thigh to thigh and mouth to mouth, was like regaining a missing part of herself. Passion rose in a flood, racing through the parched arroyos of her loneliness like the male rain of a summer deluge anointing the high desert. The taste of him, both salty and sweet, his clean remembered scent of piñon and musk invading her nostrils, nearly blew her away.

Yes, oh yes, she thought helplessly. This is what I’ve needed. What I’ve longed for with every breath, despite his treachery.

Pliant as an aspen shedding its leaves on an October mountainside, she didn’t pull away. He was the first to break contact. Holding her back from him, though he continued to grip her upper arms, he gazed down at her with a gamut of emotions on his face.

“Kyra, Kyra,” he said softly. “You’ll never know…”

Abruptly, there were footsteps on the stairs behind them. One of the typists from the county clerk’s office gave them a sidelong glance as she brushed past them and hurried down the hall, her high heels clicking on the tiles.

The woman was known to be something of a gossip. Wrenching free, Kyra regarded David with fire in her eyes. Her delicate, ringless hands had settled belligerently on her hips.

“How dare you do…what you just did, after the way you walked out on me five years ago?” she demanded, unconsciously offering him a full confession of how badly he’d wounded her. “Surely you realize you’re the last man in the world I’d have anything to do with!”

It wasn’t the time or the place to engage her in a shouting match. He wanted to make love to her, not fight over past mistakes. If she wanted an apology, he’d be glad to give it. He shouldn’t have left as he did. He’d realized that a hundred miles down the road.

He just couldn’t let the falsehood stand. “You know you wanted me to kiss you…that we both wanted it,” he asserted in his soft, deep voice.

It was true, God help her. One glimpse of him, one touch, and she was burning up with need for him.

She’d never confess the truth—not if she lived to be a hundred. Turning on her heel without a word, she walked out the courthouse door. He didn’t follow. She didn’t have to turn around to know that he was staring after her.

Pulling herself together, she strode toward her Cherokee with the energy of ten. She supposed it was too much to hope that Cheryl Garcia, the typist who’d caught them kissing, wouldn’t spread the story around. Though it was the county seat, Flagstaff was still a small town. Most people knew each other. It wouldn’t be long before everyone thought they were having an affair.

Furious with David for putting her in that position and even angrier at herself, Kyra unlocked the door on the driver’s side. She almost didn’t see the sweet-faced young woman who’d just emerged from the county jail, a few paces down the street.

“Kyra…Kyra Frakes…is that you?” the woman called, motioning her to wait.

Thoughts of David and her tangled feelings for him faded. The woman was Paul Naminga’s wife, Julie. They’d met five years earlier, during the Leonard Naminga case. It was safe to say that, at the moment, she had more crushing burdens than Kyra did.

“Julie…I was so sorry to hear about what happened,” she said earnestly when they were face-to-face. “I’ve always liked Paul so much…”

Though Julie Naminga’s tone was cool, it didn’t ring with censure or condemnation. “I understand you’re here to help your father prosecute him,” she said.

Kyra wasn’t sure how to respond. For some reason she felt incredibly guilty. Yet she hadn’t done anything. “Dad phoned and asked for my help, since Tom Hanrahan is out of commission,” she answered a bit defensively. “Since I happen to love him, I said yes.”

A licensed practical nurse at the local hospital, Julie didn’t attempt to soothe her with polite clichés. Or launch into a diatribe. Instead, she seemed simply to absorb Kyra’s explanation and accept it for what it was—the reason she’d chosen to give for her actions. She’s reacting as David might have, in her place, Kyra realized.

“I’d like to say something for the record,” Julie told her after a moment. “My husband’s innocent, just as Leonard was. When you and David were helping your father prosecute him, you sensed he wasn’t responsible for that elderly couple’s death. And you did what you could to find out the truth instead of pushing for a conviction.”

Kyra bit her lip. “You’re right. We did,” she admitted. “We weren’t very successful, I’m afraid.”

Again, Julie didn’t attempt to reassure her with platitudes. The fact that they’d failed was the simple truth. There could be no denying or glossing over it.

“I don’t expect you to switch sides…join in the defense,” she said. “Just that you’ll give my husband the same chance you gave Leonard, by keeping your eyes and ears open for holes in your father’s case. Or conflicting evidence.”

Kyra felt keenly that she was being put on the spot. “I can’t act as an informer for David Yazzie,” she said reprovingly.

“I’m not asking for that. Just that you keep an open mind.”

A loose strand of Kyra’s hair blew in her face and she brushed it back. “I like to think I’m capable of that.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

Kyra nodded. “Yes.”

They stood there, looking at each other for a moment.

“Any idea who might have wanted to kill Ben Monongye, if not Paul?” Kyra asked.

Julie Naminga laughed bitterly. “Lots of people,” she said, tossing off some names that ran the gamut from Anglo to Native American.

Though she’d been gone quite a while, Kyra knew most of them. One name that stood out was that of Dale Cargill, the forty-three-year-old, unmarried son of Roy and Betty Cargill, semiretired ranchers who were lifelong friends of her dad’s. Awkward, a loner given to gambling, tasteless jokes and drinking too much, Dale ran his father’s former construction business, which she’d heard hadn’t been doing too well of late.

In that role, he’d been a business rival of the victim’s. Coincidentally, he was also the owner of the pickup truck that Paul’s brother, Leonard, had allegedly stolen shortly before crashing it into the elderly couple’s Pontiac five years earlier, and killing them.

The oddly synchronous details didn’t appear to have any significance. Though she’d always considered Dale somewhat offbeat, and found his penchant for mooning over her distasteful, Kyra doubted he’d hurt a flea. With relief— because she liked his parents—she dismissed him as a suspect.

Bidding Julie goodbye, she got into the Cherokee and drove east, toward the country club and the area of better homes that surrounded it. Before heading for the one where she’d grown up, with its four big bedrooms, heated swimming pool and choice view of the mountains, she’d stop to see Flossie Miner, as planned. Favorite aunt, substitute mom and lifelong family friend rolled into one, plump, bespectacled Flossie was always good for what ailed her.

Apparently Big Jim had phoned to let her know Kyra was coming.

“Don’t you look nice, all duded up in your lawyer’s suit with your hair in that pretty braid!” Flossie exclaimed, popping out of her front door and holding out her arms, before Kyra could switch off the Cherokee’s engine.

“I imagine you’ve heard that you and your dad are scheduled to be our guests for dinner at the country club tonight,” Flossie said as she led Kyra to the patio for coffee and Danish. “What you may not realize is that, as of this coming Thursday, your dad will have worked in the Office of the County Attorney for forty years. That’s right! He started as a twenty-four-year-old fresh out of law school. In honor of the occasion, some of us have decided to throw him a little party tonight.”

Delighted for her father’s sake, Kyra fretted that she didn’t have a present for him.

“Not to worry,” Flossie reassured. “To avoid a wedding shower atmosphere, which would embarrass him, we’ve gotten together on a group gift…that expensive new set of golf clubs he’s been wanting. No stuffy gold watches for Big Jim!”

Though Kyra had spent very little time in Flagstaff since David had walked out on her, she and Flossie had stayed in close contact. She knew the older woman could keep a confidence. As a result, she decided to share some, though not all, of her feelings about seeing David again.

Sympathetic as always, Flossie patted her hand. “As I recall, the two of you made a handsome couple back in the days when you both worked on your daddy’s staff,” she said. “I guess you’ve heard he dates Suzy Horvath now when he’s in town. As a matter of fact, the grapevine has it that she’s bringing him tonight. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me that, if you crooked your little finger…”

Kyra blushed, remembering David’s kiss in the courthouse lobby. “I may have been madly in love with him five years ago,” she admitted. “But that was then. This is now. As far as I’m concerned, Suzy can have him. I’ll never forgive or forget the way he walked out on me. It can’t be put right.”

Heading home to her father’s house a few blocks away, she tried to take a nap. But she couldn’t get David out of her thoughts. With all her heart, she longed to confront him. Demand to know why he’d accepted a bribe to leave her. I’d like to hear him try to square that with his precious ethics, she thought.

She realized she’d never ask. Letting him know she still cared to that extent would be just too humiliating. It was a mercy when her dad came home and they had a little time to chat before she had to go upstairs and dress.

Returning to her former room, which was still decorated with the cream-colored bed linens and gentian-blueflowered wallpaper she’d chosen as a teenager, Kyra realized she hadn’t brought much in the way of party clothes. When she laid them out on the bed, the few dress-up outfits she’d packed seemed to lack interest.

I have no intention of working my wiles on David—just putting Suzy Horvath in her place and making him eat his heart out, she told herself forcefully as she rummaged in the back of her walk-in closet. A moment later she’d found what she was looking for, a short-sleeved, two-piece cocktail dress in sapphire blue crepe de chine that followed her every curve and accentuated her Scandinavian-blond hair. She’d worn it once for David when he was romancing her. And it had knocked his socks off.

When she tried it on, it still fit perfectly. The only difference was that, with a few years’ maturity under her belt, she filled the plunging sweetheart neckline with a little more cleavage. With a bitter nod of satisfaction, she hung the dress in readiness on the back of the closet door and slipped into the shower to perfume and pamper herself.

* * *

At the party, despite all the compliments and friendly greetings that came her way, Kyra found it difficult to control her jealousy when David entered the room with Suzy on his arm. Though the redheaded newspaperwoman was in her early forties, at least, she was still quite attractive, in Kyra’s opinion. It was all she could do to make small talk with her dinner companions—her dad, the Miners, Dale Cargill and his parents—and keep from glancing in their direction.

Following the meal, Red Miner sprung the surprise aspect of the get-together when he arose and offered a toast. A little red in the face from all the spontaneous applause and humorous anecdotes that followed, Big Jim couldn’t keep from wiping away a tear when Red presented him with his much-coveted golf clubs.

“You really shouldn’t have,” he said, gazing around the room at all his friends, and then laughing, added, “but I’m mighty glad you did. I’ve been eyeing these darn things… and trying to justify buying them…for months!”

Following her father’s speech, which included a plug for get-well cards to be sent to his temporarily disabled assistant, Tom Hanrahan, along with an announcement that Tom planned to run for county attorney following his retirement, the dancing began.

Partnered by Dale because she couldn’t get out of it without hurting his parents’ feelings, Kyra continued to be tormented by jealousy. She was compelled to endure Dale stepping on her toes with almost every move he made while David led Suzy around the floor with smoldering, attentive grace.

They’re lovers, she thought in anguish, forced to remember what it had been like to move in his arms. And everyone in the room knows it. Can’t they wait until he takes her home before having at each other? It didn’t occur to her that David had always danced that way, no matter who his partner was. Or that he wasn’t looking particularly pleased with himself.

At last she’d had all she could take. Excusing herself, she headed for the ladies’ room, only to dart out again when she overheard sandbox chitchat about David and Suzy coming from several of the stalls. To her relief, a different ladies’ room on the opposite side of the bar turned out to be deserted. She was able to hide out there for a few minutes in peace and pull herself together.

Despite her efforts, she was still looking a little grim as she headed back toward the party through the bar, navigating in her spike heels between its deserted, miniature dance floor and the rust-colored club chairs that surrounded a half dozen tables. Intent on maintaining some semblance of indifference, she didn’t notice the tall, dark-haired man in evening clothes who was lounging against the bar until he reached for her arm.

To her astonishment, David had abandoned his date and escaped for a solitary beer.

“I thought you’d gone,” he said, a world of surprise and pleasure in his deep, husky voice. “Stay. Have a drink with me. We ought to talk.”

Chapter Three

The moment spun out, gossamer thin, brimming with possibilities, yet as easily ravaged as a spider’s web, tentatively connecting them. What about your date? she longed to ask. Won’t she be miffed if she finds us with our heads together?

If she refused his invitation, or turned it into an occasion for sarcasm, she would never know what he wanted to talk to her about. Or if he’d have offered some explanation for walking out on her. The ache in her heart might continue to fester.

Deciding to accept, she slid onto the stool next to his and placed her small faille clutch purse on top of the bar. When he retook his seat, their knees were almost touching.

“What would you like?” he asked in the soft, deep voice that had figured in so many of her dreams. “A margarita?”

He’d fixed margaritas for them in the shabby trailer he’d called home when he was working for her father.

Having barely touched her champagne during the bevy of toasts that had been drunk to honor Big Jim’s forty years of service, Kyra thought it would be all right to indulge. “Sounds good,” she agreed, the toe of her left shoe accidentally brushing his trouser hem as she crossed her legs.

Storing away the small, inadvertent intimacy, he ordered, remembering precisely how she liked her tequila and lime concoctions—with just a dash of triple sec. He gave her a chance to taste the drink’s tart coolness before initiating any further conversation.

“Ironic, isn’t it, that we’ve met again because of another Naminga case?” he said at last, holding her captive with his light, unreadable gaze. “Did you hear what happened to Leonard in prison?”

It wasn’t the tack she’d expected him to take. Apprehensively she shook her head. Well aware of the kind of atrocities that took place in prisons, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“He was gang-raped,” David supplied. “He no longer speaks.”

“How horrible!” she whispered, briefly shutting her eyes. “Poor, poor Leonard. He didn’t deserve to be locked up like that…let alone what happened to him in that awful place. He must be so confused, so deeply humiliated…”

Her compassion for others, particularly the fragile and downtrodden, was one of the things that had always attracted him to her. In his opinion, she had boundless heart for a gringa—more than most people he’d met.

“Promise me that if you begin to think Paul could be innocent, you’ll help me uncover the truth,” he requested.

“Of course,” she said. “Dad would do the same.”

The answer was too glib, too easily proffered. He wanted her word. Short of that, there’d be no basis for them to start afresh. It would be difficult enough to reach common ground, he realized, given the way he’d walked out on her five years earlier, without a word of explanation.

“I’m not asking him. I’m asking you,” he said, wondering how and when she would let him apologize. If he could make her see that he’d done what he had partly for her sake…

She was silent a moment, absorbing the remarkable force of his will, which was trained on her like a laser. Instead of explaining, or saying he was sorry, he was making demands. Incredibly she was inclined to give him what he wanted.

“Okay, I promise,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do, after all. Satisfied?”

His mouth curved in the ironic half smile she remembered. “It would take a lot more than that to satisfy me, White Shell Woman,” he said.

It was another one of the love names he’d used for her, and she cringed a little, even as the endearment sank like rain into the soul place where she longed for him. Just to be near him again, to hear his voice and catch the downward sweep of his lashes when he was marshaling an argument or reserving comment, was a kind of apotheosis for her.

She couldn’t let him waltz back into her life without explaining his actions and making amends, the way someone might walk into a house they’d trashed and abandoned, nonchalantly reclaiming it. Or talk about sex as if it were a possibility for them. Unfortunately for her resolve, everything about him was still perfect, exactly the way she liked it, from his air of compressed energy to the graceful halfmoons of his fingernails.

“I don’t think…” she began.

A familiar voice, originating in the hall that led to the room where Big Jim’s party was still in progress, interrupted them. “There’s been a five-car accident on the interstate west of town and Red has to leave,” Flossie Miner said, glancing from her to David and back again. “I just wanted to say good-night. Call me in the morning, darling, if you have a chance.”

“Will do,” Kyra promised, dreading the well-meaning questions she was likely to face.

After Flossie left, she had to get back to the party before she and David became an item and her effectiveness in helping her father was seriously compromised. Kyra told herself she hoped she wasn’t retreating out of cowardice.

It’s not the time or the place to set things straight, thought David, though his heart was eager for that. We need a chance to be alone, without distractions or interruptions. Accordingly, he didn’t argue when she said that perhaps she’d better be getting back. It was her father’s special evening, after all. She belonged with him.

Still, he was too determined to have her after all the time they’d spent apart to let her completely off the hook. She was about to get to her feet when, suddenly, he reached across the space between them to cover her hands with his.

“You’ve probably heard I have a ranch north of town, on Route 89 near the San Francisco Peaks,” he said. “My name’s on the mailbox. Come anytime. I’ll show you around.”

Riding home the short distance that separated the country club from her father’s house in his Lincoln Town Car, Kyra listened with half an ear to his running commentary about who’d said what and to his retelling of several of the jokes she’d missed.

“Several people told me they saw you sitting in the bar, playing patty-fingers with David,” Big Jim said, changing the subject as they pulled into the drive and he raised the garage door with a flick of his automatic opener. “Say it isn’t so.”

“I stopped to talk with him for a few minutes, if that’s what you mean,” she admitted. “I could hardly avoid it. He was sitting there when I walked through on my way back from the rest room.”

Her father was silent for a moment as he drove into the garage and switched off the engine. Then he said, “I hope he wasn’t trying to quiz you about the Naminga case. Or get back in your good graces.”

Though David had mentioned Paul, he hadn’t asked her for any information he could use—his by right, or otherwise. As for her good graces, it would take a lot for him to storm the moat that protected them.

It occurred to her that acceptance of him and surrender weren’t that far apart. He wants to go to bed with me, she acknowledged with a little shiver of anticipation. Complete the conquest my scruples denied him. And he’s laying the groundwork.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” she fibbed. “I’m immune to his charms. As for Paul’s case, we didn’t really discuss it. He did mention Leonard Naminga and the fact that he’d been raped in prison. I suppose this is as good a time as any to ask if you could use your influence to help him win parole.”

To Kyra’s surprise she fell asleep that night the moment her head hit the pillow. She wasn’t to be so fortunate in escaping thoughts of David the following day, however, as she set about reinterviewing the prosecution’s key witnesses. Everything about the reservation’s arid moonscape reminded her of him, as she drove from Flagstaff to Moenkopi to talk with the young girl who’d seen a man in Paul’s costume enter Ben Monongye’s dressing room trailer.

David grew up out here, she thought, poor as mud, no doubt imbibing a sense of wrong done by the white man along with the beans, cornmeal mush and watered-down coffee that were his daily fare as a child. Maybe his reason for leaving me was as simple as the fact that he didn’t want to get married and I was holding out for that. Maybe the money my father offered him seemed like recompense for the hardships he’d endured…a kind of well-deserved bonus.

Whatever his motives had been, he would be pleased to learn that she’d continued to ask the question she’d posed to Julie outside the jail, namely, “Did anyone besides Paul want Ben Monongye dead?” And begun to compose a list of the Hopi construction company owner’s enemies, if only for her own reference.

She wasn’t terribly surprised when some of the same names kept cropping up. Feeling more like an independent investigator than a member of the prosecution team, she justified the path she was taking by reminding herself that her father was sworn to seek justice, no matter what form it took.

That night, the Miners, Marie Johnson—also a neighbor—and the Cargills, along with their son, Dale, were scheduled to arrive at her father’s house for dinner and an evening of bridge, beginning around 6 p.m. Though it was to be an informal affair, Big Jim’s part-time housekeeper had been engaged to cook for them.

Given the fact that she’d probably draw Dale for a bridge partner, Kyra was far from heartbroken when he failed to show up on time and the meal started without him. Maybe she would get lucky and he wouldn’t come at all, she thought. Her father and his friends could play hearts, or something.

To her chagrin, he phoned as the roast beef was being served, to let them know he hadn’t mixed up the date. She was privileged to take the call.

“A problem came up at one of my construction sites,” he said, his somewhat nasal twang faintly slurred as if he’d downed a couple of stiff drinks on the job. “Feel free to start without me. I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”

I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, Kyra thought, as she gave her father the message.

Grateful the table talk didn’t revolve around her renewed acquaintance with David and the history of their relationship, Kyra murmured whatever responses she deemed necessary as she pushed her food around on her plate without really paying strict attention. However, one item of gossip caught her interest. It arose as part of a discussion of the latest Washington, D.C., scandal, in which yet another senator had resigned, hoisted by the petard of his salacious and ill-advised personal diary.

“I’ll confess…I’m surprised anyone would bother to jot down the details of daily life nowadays, what with all the obligations everyone has,” Big Jim remarked. “Let alone use their diary as a confessional.”

Betty Cargill differed with him. “Lots of people keep diaries,” she said. “I always have. So has Dale. He probably picked it up from me. Though he’s hardly the literary type, while I’m a former English teacher, he’s kept one faithfully since high school. As for using them as confessionals, they’re therapeutic.”

Hoping to duck out when the meal was finished and leave the card-playing to her elders, Kyra stifled her disappointment when Dale arrived as dessert was being served. It didn’t take much coaxing on Big Jim’s part to talk him into having roast beef and mashed potatoes first, thus prolonging the agony. She was forced to watch him shovel food into his mouth as she helped the housekeeper pick up the plates while Red Miner and her dad set up the card tables.

Gradually the thought of being Dale’s partner—having to put up with his clumsy flirting, dull conversation and ineptness at cards for an entire evening—became too much for her and an escape plan took root. What I want is to see David, she thought. That’s all I care about.

She just wasn’t sure she had the guts to take him up on his invitation. It was entirely possible that, if she drove out to his house without warning, she’d find that Suzy Horvath had beaten her to the punch.

There was only one way to find out.

“Dad…everybody…I’m developing a nasty headache, probably from poring over court files and driving out to the rez,” she said, employing the local epithet for reservation, “to talk to witnesses without my sunglasses.” She massaged her temples for emphasis. “If it wouldn’t be too detrimental to your fun, I’d like to opt out of cards tonight…take a drive instead. A little fresh air might help.”

Before Dale could try to talk her out of it or offer to come along, the Miners begged off, too. “Red was out at that accident scene until 3 a.m.,” Flossie said. “And, like a fool, I waited up for him. We really aren’t up to counting trump this evening.”

Giving Flossie a grateful look while avoiding her father’s unspoken questions, Kyra snatched up her purse, a cardigan sweater that matched her pullover and her car keys. You’re probably crazy to do this, she chastised herself as she got into the Cherokee and headed northeast on her way out of town. Nothing good can come of it.

At the same time Kyra was heading out the door, David received a call from Suzy Horvath. “I know it’s a little late to call with an invitation, but have you eaten yet?” she asked, when he answered on the first ring. “If not, what do you say I pick up a bottle of wine and some steaks… come out and cook for you?”

Briefly silent, David admitted to himself that, before Kyra had come back into his life, he’d probably have taken her up on it. “Not tonight,” he answered, declining to add a word of explanation.

Her voice betrayed disappointment, incipient jealousy. “Sure I can’t tempt you?” she persisted, her bright, friendly manner failing to hide her urgency.

Though he hated to hurt her feelings, his answer was unequivocal. “Sorry. But I have other plans.”

After hanging up the receiver, David headed back to the island range top in his cozy wood, stone and copper kitchen in order to add some seasoning to the slow-cooked Navajo lamb stew he was making. He wondered if those plans he’d referred to would be realized. The worst that could happen was that he would dine alone, he guessed. In view of his mood, it was probably his second-best option.

He was probably mad to expect that on the strength of a casual, nonspecific invitation, Kyra would materialize. Yet as he’d removed the lamb chunks from the freezer after finishing his day’s work, he’d had her in mind. Wanting her there, in his house, had become an obsession from the day Jody Ann Daniels had informed him she’d be helping her father with Paul’s case.

In a way, this house was built for her, he acknowledged, though he’d never really thought she would set foot in it. He got out the ingredients for the corn dumplings that would steam to delicious tenderness atop the bubbling, aromatic stew his grandmother, Mary Many Horses, had taught him to make.

He, who had balked at marriage when she’d been so eager to wear his wedding ring, had built her a house. If she was everything he remembered, everything he’d dreamed about, he would beg her to wear it now, given half a chance. First, he knew, he’d have to set things straight— plead with her to forgive his young man’s lust for freedom and selfishness.

Arranging the bowl of fresh corn kernels and the dry ingredients on the counter, he decided not to mix them with the butter and milk yet. First, he’d wait a little. Learn to believe in miracles. Though it was getting on toward eight-thirty, it wasn’t too late for her to darken his doorstep.

As she drove northward on Route 89, which seemed a lot less familiar after dark, Kyra was having second thoughts. What an idiot you are for taking his casual remark so seriously, she reproached herself. At the very least, you could have waited a few days…gotten more specific directions. He’s going to think you’re still crazy about him.

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