“I want my son back.”

Her head hung down and her shoulders shook with the force of silent sobs.

Joe stood helpless in the face of Maggie’s despair. When words wouldn’t come, he pulled her into his arms and pressed her face against his shoulder. He held her for a long time without speaking.

“It’s so cold outside,” she whispered, her breath warm against his chest. “They didn’t even take his blanket.”

Joe swallowed the knot of regret in his throat. “We’ll find him.”

With Joe’s arms around her, Maggie felt as if she’d come home. Hope feathered the inside of her stomach. Even after her tears dried, she didn’t lift her head, didn’t want to move from the certainty of Joe’s embrace. Despite the pain of their past, he was the only man she trusted to find her son alive.

And she’d sell her soul to the devil himself to get Dakota back.

Lakota Baby
Elle James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This book is dedicated to my children—Courtney, Adam and Megan—and to my grandson—Reily. If ever I lost one of you, I’d be as frantic as my heroine, Maggie, to get you back. Children are to be loved and cherished. They outgrow their parents entirely too fast. I love you guys!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Golden Heart winner for Best Paranormal Romance in 2004, Elle James started writing when her sister issued the Y2K challenge to write a romance novel. She managed a full-time job, raised three wonderful children and she and her husband even tried their hands at ranching exotic birds (ostriches, emus and rheas) in the Texas Hill Country. Ask her and she’ll tell you what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with an angry 350-pound bird! After leaving her successful career in information technology management, Elle is now pursuing her writing full-time. She loves building exciting stories about heroes, heroines, romance and passion. Elle loves to hear from fans. You can contact her at ellejames@earthlink.net or visit her Web site at www.ellejames.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Joe Lonewolf—Painted Rock Reservation tribal police chief, sworn to carry on the ways of his Lakota ancestors.

Maggie Brandt—Joe’s former lover and widow of his dead stepbrother. Will her secret ruin her chances with Joe?

Dakota—Maggie’s five-month-old son, kidnapped and ransomed.

Bill Franks—Ex-con turned vending machine delivery man. Is he delivering more than snacks to the residents of the Painted Rock Indian Reservation?

Gray Running Fox—Joe’s old friend and manager of the Grand Buffalo Casino.

Tokala—The mysterious drug dealer supplying methamphetamines to the Lakota youth.

Marcus Caldwell—National Indian Gaming Commission representative to the Grand Buffalo Casino.

Randy Biko—The leader of the Sukas gang.

Delaney Toke—Tribal police officer and Joe’s right-hand man.

Leotie Jones—A woman obsessed with Joe Lonewolf. Would she do anything to get him?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

She stood on a slight rise in the middle of a prairie, the golden grasses wilted and dying. Winter hovered on the horizon, gray clouds growing ever larger, harbingers of the snows to come.

Despite her goose-down jacket, she shivered, wondering where she’d left her gloves and hat. Anyone with sense wouldn’t come out in subzero temperatures without the proper clothing. Had she lost her mind?

As she pondered this conundrum, she heard a bleating sound as if a lamb had been separated from its mother. Where did the cry come from? She spun three-hundred-sixty degrees but all she could see was prairie for miles and miles. Not another living soul, animal or human, just herself alone on an endless plain.

Was it an animal separated from its mother? Her heart wept for the frightened creature.

Thinking she might have imagined the sound, she turned to find her way home. Home to the little cottage on Painted Rock, the South Dakota Indian Reservation where she lived with her son, Dakota.

The cry sounded again, only this time less like a lamb and more like the plaintive whimper of a baby.

Her baby.

“Dakota?” Her heartbeat picked up pace until it pounded against her ribcage. She couldn’t see her son in the vastness of the open prairie. Why was she here? Why had she left Dakota alone in his bed?

She took off at a run, knowing neither the direction nor the distance to town. All she knew was that she had to get to Dakota. He was crying—he needed her. The more she ran, the slower her legs moved until she slid into a wallow, her legs dragged down by the weight of cold, clammy mud filling her boots and coating her clothes.

“Can’t stop. Must get to Dakota.” Leaning to the side, she grasped an outstretched branch from a tree she hadn’t seen a moment before. The branch became a hand, locking with her fingers, dragging her to safety, freeing her from the pit of glue-like sludge.

For a moment, she lay with her face on the ground, gasping for breath. When she lifted her head to thank her rescuer, her dead husband stared down at her, his face slashed with blood, his eye sockets vacant. Again, he held out his hand to help her to her feet.

Maggie screamed and fell backward into the ditch, the sucking mire like fingers grasping at her arms and legs, dragging her deeper and deeper until mud covered her face, filling her lungs. When she thought her chest would explode from lack of air, blessed blackness swallowed her.

MAGGIE BRANDT sat straight up in bed, shaking.

“Dakota,” she said into the darkness, pulling in deep breaths of cool night air.

Her digital clock glowed—4:15 a.m. It wasn’t due to go off for another two hours. With her heart still pounding in her ears, she knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep.

Had she been startled awake by the dream? Or had Dakota really cried out in his sleep?

Shivering, Maggie slung the covers aside and slid from her bed. She padded barefoot across the carpeted floor, her feet moving more freely than they had when mired in the mud of her nightmare.

Why was it so cold in the house? If it was this chilly in her room, what about the baby’s room? Had he kicked his covers off? Why hadn’t he woken up crying?

Her steps quickened.

To conserve on her gas bill, she’d set the heat five degrees lower than usual. Had she turned it down too low?

On the way down the hall toward Dakota’s room, she passed the thermostat with only a cursory glance, determined to fix the heating problem after she’d assured herself that Dakota was okay. Tendrils of frigid air caressed her bare feet and calves, rising from the floor. Her breath caught in her throat, making it difficult for her to fill her lungs.

Frigid night air drifted in from the bedroom in front of her—it had nothing to do with the thermostat.

“Dakota.” Maggie raced into the minuscule room, barely large enough for the baby’s furniture. The small window stood wide open, the blue-and-white cloud curtains flapping in the bitter wind.

“Oh my God,” Maggie whispered. Her feet carried her one agonizing step at a time toward the crib of her five-month-old son, her heart choking the air from her throat. Even before she peered through the colorful mobile into the nest of blue blankets, she knew.

Dakota was gone.

A SHRILL BEEPING NOISE pierced his sleep, forcing Joe Lonewolf awake. He fumbled in the dark for his pager, until his fingers curled around it and he lifted it close to his face. In bright green digital letters he read Call Maggie, followed by a phone number and 911.

His pulse raced through his veins and as he swung out of bed the blankets and sheets fell in a careless heap to the floor.

Why would Maggie call at…he peered at his clock…four-twenty in the morning? Hell, why would Maggie call at all?

He grabbed for the phone and dialed the number, every cell in his body on high alert.

“Joe?” Maggie answered the phone before it had barely rang once. “I need you.” Her words came out in a sob, reaching across the line like a hand curling around his heart.

“What’s wrong, Maggie?” He could hear the faint wail of a siren in the background. “Are you okay?”

No response, only the sound of someone taking a ragged breath.

“Maggie! Talk to me!” he shouted, panic tightening his chest.

“Joe, Dakota’s gone.” A sharp clattering crackled across the line and the phone went dead.

What the hell was going on? Before he could form another coherent thought, he was throwing on clothes, a jacket and hopping into his boots. He hit the door running. Maggie needed him. He had to get there.

Outside his house, the predawn air hit him like a slap in the face. What was it, minus ten degrees already? And it wasn’t even the end of October. The first snow hadn’t fallen.

His black SUV had a thin layer of ice covering the windshield and it took two cranks before the engine turned over. Maggie needed him. The thought replayed through his head, a mantra to keep him moving forward when he could hardly see through the windshield.

Dust and gravel spewed to the sides as he spun the vehicle out of his driveway. He raced down the road until he passed the bright green city limit sign for Buffalo Bluff, the largest town on the Painted Rock Indian Reservation. For once in his life, he wished he didn’t live so far out of town. The eight miles to the small community took an eternity. At the same time, the drive gave him too much time to think about Maggie—his stepbrother’s widow.

Had it only been two weeks since Paul’s accident? It seemed like a month had passed from the time he’d received the call that his stepbrother had run off the road on his way home from work at the Grand Buffalo Casino. He’d been pronounced dead at the scene, leaving behind his wife and baby.

Joe slammed his hand to the steering wheel, still angry he hadn’t lived up to the promise he’d made his mother—to watch out for Paul.

Now Paul was dead. But his baby had his whole life ahead and he needed someone to look out for him. What had Maggie meant, he was gone?

Dakota. The baby boy still gnawed at Joe’s gut. He should have been mine. As soon as the thought surfaced, Joe pushed it down. He had no right to feel that way. Maggie should have been mine. His foot left the accelerator and his Explorer slowed in its headlong race across the reservation. None of this was supposed to happen.

Maggie wasn’t supposed to marry Paul, Paul wasn’t supposed to die, and Dakota should be tucked in bed sleeping like the baby he was. Why then was he racing into town, fear gripping his chest?

Joe skidded his SUV against the curb next to the little house on Red Feather Street and slammed the shift to Park. As he leaped from the vehicle, he squinted at the bright array of lights from squad cars and state police vehicles. The wind had died down during the night, but the smell of snow sifted through the morning air.

He blinked at the glare of headlights and strobes, his eyes stinging in the frosty air. Four hours of sleep wasn’t much to go on and he hadn’t had a drop of caffeine since yesterday noon. Not that he needed caffeine.

Not since Maggie’s call.

Delaney Toke, one of Joe’s tribal police officers, stepped down from the concrete porch. “Glad you came. She just sits there, rocking back and forth.”

“What happened?”

“Apparently, someone came in during the night and stole the baby.”

Although he’d been prepared by Maggie’s words, Joe still felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “How, when?”

“We don’t know. All we can guess is somewhere between midnight and four-fifteen this morning when she called.”

“Thanks, Del.” He moved around the officer and strode toward the door.

Maggie might be his brother’s widow, but she’d been Joe’s woman first. Until he’d gone to Iraq. He didn’t regret the time he’d served for his country, but he did regret the time he’d been away. He’d never thought Maggie would marry Paul.

But why wouldn’t she? Joe hadn’t made any promises—he’d actually told her they had no future and not to wait for him.

Standing in desert BDUs with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he’d fought his desire to take her into his arms as her face paled and her eyes pooled with tears. Had he really expected her to wait around for his return from the dangers of war? He’d been a bastard and gotten what he deserved when he came home to find Maggie married.

Too tired to think or to allow old memories to clutter his head, he sighed and turned toward the door. A state policeman was unrolling yellow crime scene tape around the yard to cordon off Maggie’s house from curious neighbors.

A cameraman from the satellite station out at the casino was already panning the scene. Joe bypassed the man and headed for the door.

“Hey, Joe,” Del called out. “Sorry about your nephew.”

Joe nodded briefly, his gut clenching the closer he got to the door. He hadn’t seen Maggie since his stepbrother’s funeral. But she’d called him. Fear for her child must have made her desperate. Joe knew she’d rather call anyone but him after how he’d treated her over a year ago.

Brown grass crunched beneath his feet, brittle from the subzero nights. A few tenacious leaves clung to the ash tree in the front yard, soon to be whipped away by forty-mile-an-hour winter winds. He tried to focus on the insignificant details, instead of on his imminent meeting with the woman he’d spent the better part of a year trying to forget.

Had she married Paul out of revenge?

No. Maggie wasn’t the vengeful type. Then, had she always been in love with Paul? Joe felt his chest contract. Had their night of passion been nothing but lust, just as he’d told her?

The letter from Leotie two months after his deployment to Iraq said it all. Maggie and Paul had gotten married not long after Joe’d left. She said they were happy, in love and expecting a baby.

The news hit him like a mortar to his belly.

As he’d walked night patrols in the desert, he’d wondered what Maggie would have done if he’d asked her to wait for him. Would she have married Paul anyway?

He’d been certain Maggie had no place on the reservation or in his Indian way of life. Just as he’d made a promise to his mother to watch out for his stepbrother, he’d made another promise to his father to raise his sons to know the Lakota ways. Maggie would not fit in with that promise. She was white, he was Indian. Their two worlds could not converge—or so he’d thought a lifetime ago, before he’d gone to war.

Now he was here for Dakota. The little boy with the face of an angel. With dark auburn hair curling around his head, he was the image of his mother. It hurt Joe to look at him. The child perched in his mother’s arms at Paul’s funeral, staring with wide, brown eyes at the gathering of people. Oblivious to the seriousness of the occasion, he hadn’t understood the finality of his father’s death.

Joe told himself the boy was his primary reason for standing in front of the little clapboard house, not his mother.

Maggie appeared in the doorway as if conjured from his deepest thoughts. Her pale skin was almost translucent, the light dusting of freckles even seeming faded. Yet, despite her red-rimmed eyes, she was every bit as beautiful as the first time he’d seen her in the tribal youth center. She’d stood out like a flame amidst the dark-haired, dark-skinned teenagers she was shooting hoops with.

Standing with her hands drooping at her sides, the agony in her gaze pierced Joe’s soul in a way he hadn’t expected, and his arms ached to hold her and soothe away the fear and anguish.

Then he remembered how quickly she’d gone into another man’s bed after he’d left—the bed of his stepbrother he’d resented as a child growing up.

His lips firmed into a straight line and he nodded. “Maggie.”

A single tear slid down her cheek. “Dakota’s gone.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and shivered. Dressed only in jeans and an oversized green sweatshirt, she wasn’t up to the cold of the late-October prairie breeze.

Joe had the sudden urge to walk away—no, make that run—as far away as he could get from her. But he couldn’t leave Maggie when she was so vulnerable. “Let’s go inside.” For the better part of the last month, he’d avoided her at every turn—a tough thing to do in such a small community. Especially when he was a tribal policeman and she worked with the reservation youth. Sometimes they crossed paths. He worked hard to make those occasions brief.

She led the way into the living room and waved at the couch, muttering something about sitting. Yet Maggie stood half turned away from him, her gaze on the scene outside the window as if watching for her son’s return.

Joe shrugged out of his coat and slung it onto a chair. The two state police officers moved in and out of the house, talking to each other and into the radios they carried. To Joe, Maggie might as well have been the only one in the room.

After one long minute, he couldn’t stand the silence any longer. He walked up behind her and pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Maggie, sit. I can’t talk to you when you have your back to me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just…” Her hand made a weak wave. “I can’t focus. I can’t think.” Then she turned and stared straight into his eyes. “I want my son back. Oh, God, I want him back.” Her head hung down and her shoulders shook with the force of silent sobs.

Joe stood helpless in the face of her grief. When words wouldn’t come, he pulled her into his arms and pressed her face against his shoulder. He held her for a long time without speaking.

“It’s so cold outside,” she whispered, her breath warm against his chest. “They didn’t even take his blanket.” Burrowing against him, her tears soaked into his chambray shirt.

A twinge of jealousy skittered across his consciousness to be squelched in the rightness of a mother’s tears for the son she’d lost. The son she’d had with Paul. Joe swallowed the knot of regret in his throat. “We’ll find him.”

WITH JOE’S ARMS around her, Maggie felt as though she’d come home. Hope feathered the inside of her stomach. Even after her tears dried, she didn’t lift her head, didn’t want to move from the certainty of Joe’s embrace. She knew if she did, the gaping black horror of the past would rush back to overwhelm her.

Joe pressed a finger beneath her chin and tipped her face upward, breaking through her wall of thoughts. “Maggie, what time did you notice Dakota missing?”

The blinking red of her alarm clock pierced her clouded memory. “Four-fifteen. I woke because it was cold in the house. They could have taken him between the time I went to bed around midnight and when I awoke.” His touch made her want to lean on him and let him shoulder her burden. But this was Joe.

She jerked her chin out of his grip, hardening the heart she’d given him freely once. If not for the loss of her son, she would have nothing to do with him. But despite the pain of her past, he was the only man she trusted to find her son alive. And she’d sell her soul to the devil himself to get Dakota back.

“Did you hear anything, see anything?”

She’d answered all these questions for Delaney but Joe needed to know as much as he could to search for her son on the reservation. The FBI hadn’t arrived yet, but Maggie would bet her son’s life on Joe. She inhaled and let the air out slowly, combing through her barely conscious memories of the past hours. “No. I didn’t see or hear anything.” Her voice caught and she bit hard on her lip to keep from shedding more tears.

She concentrated on Joe and it was as if she could see his thoughts churning in eyes so brown they could be black. His hair had started to grow out from his tour of duty with the South Dakota National Guard. He looked more like the tribal police officer she’d known rather than the unbending military man she’d seen at her husband’s funeral.

Officer Toke stepped in the door and nodded toward Joe.

Maggie held her breath hoping for news. Something tangible.

Joe pushed to his feet and strode across the room. “Did you find anything outside?”

The man shook his head. “The ground is hard and dry. Without snow, we couldn’t trace footprints.”

Maggie leaped to her feet and joined the men. “What about fingerprints?”

The police officer shook his head. “Dusted and sent to the state crime lab. Takes time to identify each. We’ll need yours to match up.”

She nodded but her shoulders sagged, the heavy burden of her failure pushing them down. “How could they just come in and leave without a trace? I was in the house all the time,” she whispered. A shiver rippled down her back.

Joe reached out and pulled her against him. “It’s not your fault, Maggie.”

“But I should have woken up.”

His fingers tightened on her forearms. “We’ll find him.”

She stared up into his dark, swarthy face, his high cheekbones and strong chin, evidence of his power and ancestry. He was Lakota, one of the surviving members of a proud nation of Sioux warriors. If anyone could find her son, he could.

The aching emptiness in her belly eased, followed quickly by an acidic froth of guilt. She should have told him her secret when she’d found out about it, before he left for the Middle East. But the time had passed. Now she had to keep the knowledge to herself.

Tribal police officer Delany Toke cleared his throat. “Joe, we found some graffiti on the exterior wall.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “What graffiti?”

“It was on the west side, out of line of sight of the road,” Del said.

“That’s been there a month.” Maggie raked a hand through her hair. Had it really been four weeks since the ugly paint had appeared on the side of her little house?

“Did you report it to the police?” Joe asked.

“No. I didn’t want the persons responsible to think I was scared. I had enough problems getting through to some of the teens as it was.” But that hadn’t stopped Paul from doing something about it. He’d been angry enough to march down to the youth center and ream every teenager unfortunate enough to stop by that day. Maggie would rather have let the matter drop, not risen to the bait.

“What does it say?” Joe asked.

Del glanced at Maggie. “‘Go away, white woman.’”

Joe stared at Maggie, his lips tightening into a thin line. “Any idea who might have done it?”

“Could have been one of a dozen.” A bucket of white paint still sat in the storage room waiting for her to cover the hateful words, but so much had happened since that day she’d completely forgotten.

Joe glanced at her. “I thought you had a rapport with them.”

“Things change. Besides, it’s a long story.” One she was entirely too tired to get into. “Shouldn’t we concentrate on finding Dakota?”

“That’s what I’m doing.” He softened his words with, “I need to know everything that’s gone on in your life for the past few months, maybe even year.”

“You mean since you’ve been gone?” Her gaze met his, unwavering for a few long seconds before she dropped hers. What was the use? He had never loved her.

“Yes, since I left. With the kidnapping of your son following the accidental death of your husband, I wonder if Paul’s death wasn’t as accidental as we’d originally assumed.”

Maggie struggled with the words teetering on the tip of her tongue. Would the facts she’d withheld make a difference in Joe’s investigation, or would they only cloud the issue of finding her son?

When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “Do you know if Paul was involved in any unusual activities?”

Gritting her teeth, Maggie shook herself and concentrated on Joe’s question. He didn’t need to know any more than he already did about Dakota. As the head of tribal police, he had a lot of influence within the tribe. It was enough for him to know his stepbrother’s son was missing. “Unusual? What do you mean?”

“Was he acting strange, had he altered his habits? Did he hang out with anyone in particular?”

Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know. Paul didn’t tell me about his life outside our home.” She swallowed against the lump rising in her throat. He hadn’t told her because she hadn’t let him. Paul had loved her and had married her when she’d been desperate. What had he gotten from the deal?

Nothing.

As the only white man she’d halfway trusted on the reservation, she’d gone to him to seek help in preserving her secret.

From the beginning, Paul knew Maggie still loved Joe but he’d married her anyway. Maggie had been the one to insist on a marriage in name only. Although Paul would have liked it otherwise, he’d abided by her wishes, agreeing to wait until after she’d given birth to persuade her otherwise. He’d slept in a separate bedroom down the hall from her, and he’d come and gone as he pleased. All this was information Joe didn’t need to know.

No one knew. As far as the Painted Rock Indian Tribe was concerned, Paul was the father of her baby.

“He worked nights at the casino and I worked days at the youth center. We didn’t see much of each other.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Not much of a married life,” he muttered, but he didn’t ask any more questions about Paul’s friends or activities. He turned to Officer Toke. “Check Paul’s phone records and get out to the casino and ask around.”

The officer nodded. “Will do.” He tipped his head at Maggie. “Ma’am, let us know if you hear anything from the kidnappers.”

A rush of panic pushed Maggie forward and she laid a hand on Joe’s arm. “You have to find him, he’s your—” She bit hard on her tongue until she tasted the bitter, metallic tang of blood. “—nephew,” she finished in a rush. How close had she come to telling him the one thing she couldn’t? Based on his belief that Indian children should be raised in the Indian culture, he wouldn’t understand. He might demand custody of her baby if he knew Dakota was his son.

Chapter Two

While Officer Toke stood outside on her porch smoking a cigarette, Maggie paced her tiny living room more times than she cared to count, chewing through every last fingernail. Joe had gone to the police station with the others, promising to be back soon.

The more time that passed the more the walls seemed to close in around her. With Joe there, she could handle almost anything. Without him, she felt the black hole of loss sucking her down. She couldn’t just wait around for his return, she had to do something to find her baby.

But who would have taken him? And why?

She sat on the couch and closed her eyes, focusing on everyone she’d been in contact with in the past six months. A person who could be malicious enough to steal a baby from his bed. It had to be someone who knew which room her baby slept in and that she would be the only adult in the house.

Who? Who? Who? She tapped her finger to her forehead. Faces swam in her mind of all the boys and girls she worked with at the youth center. She’d never invited any of them to her house, but one of them could have spied on her just as easily as someone had painted graffiti on her walls while she’d been away. As if her mind was on a continuous loop, she couldn’t slow her thoughts enough to wrap around an individual. None of the teens surfaced as mean enough to steal her baby.

Was it even one of the teenagers she’d been working with? Could it be someone who knew Paul? If so, she was at a complete loss. For once, she wished she’d been closer to Paul than strangers in a shared house.

She pushed to her feet and strode to the window. When would Joe get back? He would know where to begin. He’d know who to question, who to call.

God, she prayed he did.

After one more circle around the living room, she stopped at the entrance to the hallway. From Dakota’s doorway, light spread in a triangle on the carpet in the hall. As if drawn by an irresistible force, Maggie walked toward the room she’d avoided since the police left. The closer she got, the more her chest squeezed until she was gulping short, shallow breaths. The walls pressed in on either side of her. She didn’t want to go in but she had to know, to see for herself, that her child really was gone.

This wasn’t a dream.

The officers had tried to clean up their mess before they left, but she could still see the faint traces of dust from where they’d lifted fingerprints from the walls, window-sill and furniture.

Baby blankets and sheets had been stripped from the crib and sent to the state crime lab along with the blue cloud curtains that used to hang in the window. She’d made them herself from a piece of fabric she’d found in Rapid City last Christmas.

With an icy lump of pain lodged in her throat, Maggie struggled to breathe. Yet her eyes remained dry, almost too dry, with that achy, hollow feeling she couldn’t blink away.

Longing to hold her child had become a physical need, just like breathing. And now that she was completely alone in her house, worry set in with a vengeance.

Was Dakota warm enough? Was he hungry? Were they changing his diapers and holding him so he wouldn’t be afraid? She prayed whoever had taken her son wouldn’t hurt him.

A sob rose in her throat and she pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from wailing aloud.

Then she noticed a powder-blue teddy bear lying forgotten against the wall. The plush, pillow-like toy was Dakota’s favorite. He liked to sleep with it at night.

Maggie sank to her knees and gathered the plaything to her breast, inhaling the scents of baby powder and milk.

Why her child? He didn’t like going with strangers, preferring only those he recognized, his mother and his caregiver, Mrs. Little Elk.

Please Dakota, don’t cry too much. With all the child abuse and neglect she’d witnessed in the year and a half she’d been on the reservation, she hoped whoever had Dakota wasn’t one of the abusers.

She pressed her face into the teddy bear, squeezed her eyes shut and sent a prayer to God and the Lakota spirits to help Joe find her son. At this point, she didn’t care if he found out he was the father or if he sued for custody. Maggie loved Dakota so much she’d give him up to his father if she could be certain he was alive and taken care of.

Why hadn’t she heard them when they’d entered her house? A good mother would have woken up at the slightest movement. If only she hadn’t slept soundly. If only she’d woken with the dream. If only she’d left the reservation and gone home to Des Moines when Joe went to war. She should have left while she was still pregnant and Dakota was safe in her womb. Her baby would still be with her if she’d gone to Iowa. None of this would have happened.

If only.

She buried her face in the bear’s soft nylon fur, her shoulders shaking, her body racked with dry, silent sobs. Alone in the middle of the prairie, her son was nowhere to be found.

The phone in her bedroom rang twice before Maggie heard it, so deep was she in her misery.

She lurched to her feet, the teddy bear still in her hand, and raced for the cordless phone on her nightstand.

“Hello?” She practically hyperventilated with her hopes and fears tangled in her chest.

“We’ll trade the baby for what was stolen from us. Coyote Butte. Saturday, midnight. Come alone or we kill the kid.”

“My baby? Is Dakota all right?” Maggie asked in a strangled whisper. “Please. Is he okay?”

An infant’s cry could be heard in the background, before the line went dead.

“Dakota!” Maggie crushed the receiver to her ear, straining to hear her baby. Her hands shook so much she banged the phone against her temple, the pain barely registering. “Dakota! Oh, please, let me have my baby!”

“Maggie?”

As her vision blurred, the phone slipped from her ear. They had her baby and he was alive. Blackness curled around her and her knees buckled.

“Maggie!” Joe was there, gathering her into his arms, holding her up when her legs gave way. He smoothed her hair from her face and muttered soothing words.

She stood for several moments, reminding herself to breathe, telling her heart to go on beating, absorbing the strength, smell and touch of Joe holding her in his arms.

Finally, Joe tilted her chin up and stared down at her intently. “What happened, Maggie?”

“I heard my baby.” Her fingers clutched at the lapels of his shirt. “They have Dakota. He’s alive.”

THANK THE SPIRITS. Joe held her face against his shoulder. “Shhh, he’ll be okay.” He hoped to hell they found the child before the kidnappers did something stupid. The tribal police were already combing through a list of possible suspects and the state police had issued an Amber Alert throughout South Dakota and the bordering states. The FBI would be there within the next two or three hours. For now, the best he could do was to hold Maggie and help her through the terror of her loss.

With her body pressed against his and the scent of herbal shampoo stirring his senses, memories flooded in.

It had been extremely hot the summer he’d first met Maggie. He’d hung around the activity center on the pretext of working out with the young people. What he wanted was information about drug abuse and drug dealing involving the teens. What he found was a pretty white woman playing a lousy game of basketball with the young adults. Sweaty, her hair curling wildly around her flushed face, she’d looked so alive, so vibrant. Joe couldn’t resist hanging around. And she’d been so good with the kids, concerned and caring about everything in their lives.

Even after he identified the teens involved in the drug trafficking, he still went by the center with one excuse or another to talk to Maggie. His fascination for the auburn-haired social worker with the sunny smile was pretty obvious.

Charlie Tatanka, a recovering teen drug abuser, had agreed to assist in a DEA sting operation to bring the dealer in. Because of the rapport and level of trust he had with Maggie, the teen insisted she be close at hand as the bust went down.

Within the first two minutes of the maneuver, the dealer realized it was a setup and freaked, pulling a gun. Charlie was shot in the arm before the DEA and the tribal police could disarm the perpetrator.

Joe remembered how upset Maggie had been. As distressed as any parent would be over her own child, she’d accompanied the boy in the ambulance to the hospital where she’d stayed half the night ensuring Charlie was comfortable and had the proper treatment.

After the drug dealer was handed over to the state police, Joe dropped by the hospital to check on Charlie and Maggie. Charlie’s father was there to take him home in his pickup truck. Joe offered to give Maggie a lift. That’s when his inward struggle began.

She was still wired, talking nonstop during the trip back, riding an adrenaline high. Although worried about Charlie she couldn’t contain her excitement over ridding the reservation of another dealer. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining.

She’d been so beautiful, Joe had had a tough time concentrating on the road. When they’d arrived at Maggie’s small house on the reservation, he’d insisted on checking out the place to make sure she was safe. Reluctant to leave her, he’d been caught up in her exuberance, the passion of her conviction spilling into him and kindling a similar passion of another nature.

When Joe started to leave, Maggie made the mistake of throwing her arms around his neck to thank him for caring about the teenagers. Unable to resist, he’d returned the embrace, kissing her until he was breathless, amazed at the burst of desire surging through his body.

In the heat of that embrace, he hadn’t given a thought to what color, race or religion she was. That she wasn’t Indian didn’t cross his mind once. He only knew he had to hold her, touch her and feel her skin against his. The kiss didn’t end until morning. He’d spent the night in Maggie’s arms feeling as if he’d been given a gift from the spirits.

Then he’d woken to reality and a vast amount of guilt. He’d made a promise to his father that he’d continue the ways of his people. There was no room for a white woman in the Indian culture—no place for her in his promise to his father. He’d left that morning without a word, before she’d awakened.

He’d taken two days off from work and escaped to the bluffs on a vision quest, his mind a confused mass of old beliefs and fresh desire. The quest turned into a reaffirmation of his Lakotan beliefs, but he moved no closer to resolving his feelings for Maggie.

Nor would he be given the chance to work through them.

Upon his return, the first thing that hit him was the message on his answering machine from the South Dakota National Guard. “You’ve been ordered to active duty. You have twenty-four hours to report to your assigned duty station.”

His world had rushed in around him and he’d made a decision. For the next fourteen months, he’d lived with the result in the hell of Iraq.

But now he stood with Maggie once again in his arms and knew what a terrible mistake he’d made. Her soft curves had blossomed even more as a mother and he liked it—almost too much. She was his stepbrother’s widow, still mourning the loss of her husband.

When Maggie stopped shaking, he held her away. “Are you going to be all right?”

She sniffed and rubbed her nose against the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “You must think I’m a complete flake.”

“No, your son was kidnapped. I’d say you’re reacting the way any mother would.”

“Thanks.” A tentative smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Then her eyes filled with more tears and her lips trembled.

Joe wanted to kiss those lips and chase away her fears, instead he folded her into his arms. Her watery smile was a sad reminder of the how happy she used to be. That seemed like a lifetime ago. “I remember the first time I saw you at the youth center. You were playing basketball with some of the kids.”

A hiccupping laugh was muffled against his shirt. “I was terrible.”

“No,” He tipped her head up. “You were wonderful.”

“How can you say that? I didn’t even know how to dribble.”

“But you tried.” She’d laughed and played, even though she couldn’t bounce the ball once without having it taken away from her.

Maggie’s lips twisted. “I never could get a ball in the bucket.”

His arms tightened around her slim waist. “Yes, you did.”

“Not by myself.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and she tucked her head against his chest.

He’d helped her make a shot by standing behind her and placing his hands over hers. Her backside had pressed against him, stirring his blood in a way he couldn’t ignore.

The warmth of Maggie against him now brought back those memories. His body remembered her shape and responded. Joe closed his eyes and willed the surge to subside. He wasn’t there to make love to Maggie. “Who were you playing with? I can’t remember.”

“Charlie, Tray and Kiya…” She stopped her list and her breath caught.

Joe glanced down to see her eyes fill again with tears. “What?”

Her fingers curled in his shirt and she pressed her face against his chest. “Kiya was alive then.”

Joe had received the news from Paul that Kiya Driskall, one of the troubled teens Maggie had been working with, had overdosed.

“What happened, Maggie?”

“I don’t know.” Maggie tore away from Joe and walked toward the window. “She’d been through detox at the hospital. She was doing so well.” She inhaled a jerky stream of air and let it out, her shoulders bowing with her release. “Charlie found her behind the center, she’d injected meth. There was nothing we could do. She was already dead.” Maggie turned to Joe, her eyes haunted.

“It wasn’t your fault, Maggie.” He reached for her, but she backed away.

“No, Joe.” She jerked away. “I failed her. Just like I failed Dakota. I wasn’t there when she needed me. The kids quit coming to the facility, even the ones that weren’t involved in drugs or alcohol. They just quit coming. I ended up going to them. One by one. But no one would talk to me except Charlie and even he was afraid to be seen with me. It was like I was the plague.”

Joe shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself, Maggie. Something else must have happened.” Possibly something related to Dakota’s kidnapping?

“I don’t know. I wish to hell I did.” She turned back to the window and pressed her cheek to the glass. “Now Dakota’s gone.”

“He’s not dead, Maggie. Don’t give up on him.” Joe stepped up behind Maggie and turned her toward him. “You ready to go to work on this case?”

For a moment she stared at him, her eyes glazed and unseeing.

She blinked, and the Maggie he remembered—the Maggie who could fearlessly stand up to a group of rowdy teenagers surfaced. “I’m ready.”

Chapter Three

“That’s my girl,” he said.

Joe almost dropped his arms from around her at the words. She’d married his brother and had a kid as soon as he left. How could he wish Maggie was his girl? Then he looked into eyes so green they reminded him of prairie grass in springtime. He could see why Paul had fallen in love with her and offered to give her what Joe couldn’t. Maggie was the kind of girl who was easy to love, if you didn’t have a thick head.

During the time he’d spent hunkered down with his troops, with bullets and mortars flying overhead, he’d discovered what a fool he’d been. The soldiers he’d fought with were his brothers. Black, white, red—it didn’t matter. They relied on each other to survive. They shared the same world, the same country. He wished he’d seen the truth before he left. Before Maggie had married Paul.

Her full lips drew into a thin line. “Where do we start?”

“First, let’s get you out of here.” He let go of her and walked back toward the living room. “Grab a coat, you’re going to work with me.”

She reached into a closet for a winter jacket, scarf and gloves, pulling them on before she paused to say, “What did they mean, give back what I stole? I didn’t steal anything. At least not that I know of.”

“That’s what we want to find out. When we get to the station you can tell me everything you know about what’s been going on on the Painted Rock Reservation and anything Paul might have been involved with at the Grand Buffalo Casino.”

“That won’t take long,” she muttered.

He grasped her hand and gazed down at her. “Everything, Maggie. Even the smallest detail may be a clue as to what triggered someone to hold your baby for ransom.”

“Okay,” she said, not sounding convinced. She drew away from him, her chin down, making a show of fitting her gloves against her fingers.

Was she uncomfortable about sharing information with him?

Probably. He’d been a jerk before he’d left. What proof did she have that he wasn’t still a jerk? A bitter lump of regret settled in the pit of his stomach. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, one of the other officers can interview you.”

Her head came up, her eyes widening. “No. I want you.” Was that trust in her eyes? Or was he mistaking desperation for something he wanted to see?

“Okay. But let’s get out of here.”

She glanced back at the living room, heaving a long sigh. “I want him back, Joe.” The words had become Maggie’s mantra, echoing inside Joe’s thoughts.

He stared at the plain room with what looked like hand-me-down furniture. The faint scent of talcum powder and baby lotion permeated the air. The only bright spots in the room were the playpen in the corner and a few toys scattered on the couch cushions and the floor. A happy enough environment to raise a kid, missing only one thing.

The kid.

Joe’s gut twisted and he wrapped an arm around Maggie’s shoulders. “We’ll find him.”

“Alive?” she said, her voice a breathy whisper.

“Yes.” If it was the last thing he did.

MAGGIE CLIMBED into the passenger seat of the SUV Joe used as his official tribal police vehicle. She felt funny, as though she was the criminal, even though the cage between the front and back seats was behind her. The thought angered her. Her house had been violated and her baby stolen, not the other way around. She jumped when the radio on Joe’s shoulder squawked.

“Sorry.” He flipped a switch on the device and it quieted.

Joe sat silent all the way to reservation police headquarters, a metal building with tan siding in the heart of the scattered community.

He climbed down and rounded the hood while Maggie sat with her hands clenched in her lap, her eyes staring out the windshield. As her mind replayed the message from the kidnappers, she tried to read into it any glimmer of a clue. But she came up with nothing.

He opened the passenger door and held out his hand.

Maggie turned to stare down at him. “Joe, Saturday is three days from now. I can’t wait that long to find my baby.”

“I know. That’s why we’re here. We’re not waiting.” He helped her from the truck and walked her toward the building without removing his hand from hers.

The pressure of his big gloved fingers against hers, provided a little of the reassurance she so dearly craved. She needed it to keep her from stomping her feet in the gravel parking lot and screaming against the injustice. With every nerve sizzling beneath her skin she felt like a firecracker on the verge of exploding. Where’s my son!

Once inside, Joe seated Maggie at his office and pulled a digital recorder, pad and pen from a drawer. “Let’s start from the beginning.”

Maggie listed off the names of the juveniles she’d worked with prior to Kiya’s suicide.

“Can you think of any reason why she’d show up at the center after taking meth?”

“No. And the tribal police were clueless. It didn’t make sense. If she was back on drugs after all everyone had done for her, I’d think she’d feel so guilty she’d hide in shame.”

“Unless she realized her mistake and came back for help.”

“A little too late.” Maggie had thought of that, distraught that she hadn’t been there for Kiya when she’d needed her most.

“I can’t understand what went so wrong during the time I was gone.” Joe tapped his pen against the metal desk.

“Things were different. The tribal police didn’t have their leader. They tried to keep things together, but all I could figure was the teenagers were being influenced by an outside source.”

Joe shoved a hand through his dark hair. “My deployment couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

Maggie almost snorted, but held her reaction in check. You’re telling me. She’d listened to the man she’d fallen in love with inform her they had no future. Then he’d walked away—or rather flown away—to the other side of the world. Two weeks later, she confirmed her suspicions, she was pregnant.

She gazed at the top of Joe’s head as he bent to the task of noting her responses and her heart softened. Fourteen months had given her time to get over her anger and to learn more about this man through the people on the reservation. The more she learned, the more she understood the reasons for his reaction to their night of lovemaking.

Joe had lost his father when he was ten years old. Chaska Lonewolf had been a gentle man, proud of his heritage, proud of his son and determined to instill in him the ways of his ancestors. But he hadn’t had the chance. He’d died while out hunting when his truck had flipped onto him.

The loss of Chaska Lonewolf as a husband and financial provider for the family had devastated Joe’s mother. She’d taken Joe from the reservation, the only home he’d ever known, and gone to work in Rapid City, where she’d met and married Kevin Brandt. Shortly after the wedding, Kevin’s ex-wife had dumped six-year-old Paul on the new family and left town.

School wasn’t easy for a Native American boy in a white man’s world, but Joe had kept his head low and studied hard, determined to return to the reservation and his way of life as soon as he was old enough. The time had come sooner than he’d expected when Kevin was laid off and once again the family was destitute.

They’d packed up their meager belongings and moved back to the reservation where Kevin drank, bragged about Paul and berated Joe every chance he could get. A miserable life for a little boy who’d lost a loving father. No wonder he’d pushed Maggie away. What had the white man done for him besides give him pain?

Maggie felt deep compassion for the ten-year-old Joe. She’d struggled with the truth of Dakota’s parentage. He deserved a father like Joe’s. He deserved Joe. But Joe had spelled it out in his parting speech. There was no room in his life for her. So Maggie had to make arrangements to keep the tribe from knowing the baby was Joe’s.

Her first instinct was to leave her job and run as far from the reservation as she could. But the teens she’d been working with needed her almost as much as her unborn baby. When Paul started coming around her work, flirting with her, she jumped at a solution.

As it turned out, Paul was the only one who’d known she was pregnant before she married him. He’d been patient, waiting for her to get over the man who got her in that condition. In love with her from the start, he waited throughout her pregnancy, showering her with encouragement and as much affection as she’d let him. But when the baby was born, the wall of her emotions for Joe still stood between them. Maggie wanted to love this man who’d stepped in and helped her in her time of need, but she couldn’t.

Paul must have realized this because he spent more and more time working at the casino. Maggie never saw him. For the most part, she and Dakota were on their own.

Without her son, Maggie felt more alone in the world than ever. If not for Joe, she didn’t know what she’d do.

AFTER MAGGIE’S INTERVIEW, Joe dropped her off at the youth center, despite his better judgment. She’d insisted, saying she needed time to check on her kids and to think.

He’d grabbed her hand before she slipped out of his vehicle. “Promise me you’ll call if you need anything?”

“I will,” she said, climbing down.

“I’ll pick you up around three.”

Her head jerked up and she stared at him, her eyes glassy as if she had to concentrate to focus. “No need.”

A gentle smile lifted his lips. “You don’t have your car here.”

“Oh.” She was preoccupied, and rightly so with her baby missing. “Okay.” That was all she said before she turned and walked toward the building, pulling her coat tightly around her.

Joe wanted to go after her and coax her into telling him everything going on in her head. He felt like she was living detached from him and the world around them and he couldn’t get through to her.

With his stomach knotted, he swung his SUV to the west, bumping along a rutted track that shouldn’t be called a road by anyone’s standards.

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into a dirt driveway and sat for a moment, staring at the one-story clapboard house standing alone on a knoll. The yard was free of clutter with not even a bush to adorn the base of the building. Two naked cottonwood trees edged up out of the dead grass, a poor break against the bitter north wind.

A nondescript house for one of the most respected members of the Painted Rock Tribe. Matoskah, or White Bear, had been the tribal Medicine Man for as long as Joe could remember. His reputation for native cures for common physical ailments had Lakotans from towns scattered across the reservation traveling the lonely back roads to seek his help. But more than the cures for disease and sickness, people sought him out for spiritual healing.

And that was the reason for Joe’s visit.

With the burden of a child’s life weighing on his shoulders, Joe needed focus and a mind clear of emotions, memories and confusion.

A mind clear of Maggie.

How could he still be upset that she’d married another man? He’d told her to take a hike, that she had no place in the life of a Lakota. Of this Lakota.

What they had shared was lust—deep, powerful lust. Not enough to maintain a relationship, not on a reservation where poverty and destitution were the norm. For some of his people, lust might be enough. But he and Maggie were from two different worlds. She was white and Joe was a dark-skinned Indian, sworn to uphold the ways of his people and preserve the Lakota bloodline and traditions for future generations.

Memories and regrets punctured his soul the day of his stepbrother’s funeral, when he’d seen what he could have had. Maggie and her baby—a family to call his own.

Shoving his shoulders back, he knocked on the faded door and waited in the cold. After one long minute, Joe stepped from the concrete stoop and strode around the house. In the backyard stood a dome-shaped structure. Vapor wafted in the bitter morning air, a hazy fog lifting from the taut hide stretched over arched willow branches.

A smile lifted the edges of Joe’s lips. Only Matoskah kept his sweat lodge erect year-round, when others were dismantled after powwow and tourist season ended. The buffalo hide, darkened with age and years of smoke, held the secrets, hopes and dreams of many Lakotans, divulged in the way of the ancients.

Joe hesitated to intrude on the shaman’s meditation.

“Enter the womb of our people, Son of Lonewolf.” Age did little to diminish the powerful voice of the tribe’s trusted healer. And how did he always seem to know who stood outside the lodge?

Holding the flap of skin aside, Joe stooped to crawl like an animal into a den, the steam rising from the rocks embracing him. He squatted to the left of the entrance and let his eyes adjust to the light from the fire’s coals and the little bit filtering through the thick skin overhead. Before the steam could escape, Joe turned to secure the flap, sealing the lodge.

Vapor swirled around him and he inhaled, accepting the surge of power that coursed through his veins. No matter how many times he’d been in a sweat lodge, he could count on that blanket of peace permeating his body and soul. Overdressed for tradition, he unzipped his coat as sweat beaded on his upper lip and forehead.

To the right of the entry, a hunched and wrinkled figure sat cross-legged, facing the coals and steaming rocks in the dug out center of the small space. Naked except for a meager loincloth, Matoskah sat staring at the glowing coals. The flap of supple deer skin was his one concession to modesty in the spiritual haven of his ancestors where the Indian was meant to be naked in the womb of the earth.

Joe reached out to grasp the spiritual leader’s forearm. “Mitaku oyasin, chante wasteya, nape chiyusa pe.” My relative, with a good heart, I shake your hand. The words brought back an image of his father sitting across a similar bed of steaming rocks from an eight-year-old Joe. He’d taught him that the words symbolized the importance of family and the completeness of the circle—only one of many lessons his father would teach him of the Lakota way of life, lessons he’d promised to pass on to his children and his children’s children.

Matoskah grasped Joe’s forearm in a firm grip. “Hau kola.” Hello, my friend.

“Forgive me, Matoskah, for intruding on your reflection. I have need of your counsel.”

The old man nodded and resumed staring into the coals.

Joe struggled to suppress his impatience. He felt out of place with too many clothes on his skin and too many thoughts churning in his head. But he forced himself to sit as the shaman did, drawing in a long, deep breath of the thick air. He closed his eyes, absorbing the souls of his ancestors, reaching for the combined wisdom of their years.

“What makes you as gray as the day outside, Joe Lonewolf?” Matoskah asked, the words swirling around the lodge like smoke from a peace pipe.

Joe opened his eyes and stared at the aged man. “A child is missing.”

Without looking up from the bed of rocks, Matoskah’s head dipped in a single nod. “I have heard.”

“It’s Maggie’s child.” Joe hadn’t meant to say anything about Maggie, but there it was, blurted out like a teenager unable to think before he speaks.

“I understand.”

What did the old man understand? Joe sat on his tongue, afraid to open his mouth and spew forth more of his hurt and anger. He’d come to cleanse his mind, not to stir the air with his confusion.

“This woman is not of our people.”

“No, she’s not. She’s one of the social workers with Indian Child Welfare Association. She works with the reservation teens.”

The old man inclined his head. “I know of her.”

As close-knit as the reservation was, Joe wasn’t surprised.

“She’s done well for our youth, working with those who abuse drugs and alcohol,” Matoskah added.

“Yes.” Maggie had thrown herself into her job, winning the hearts of many, including Joe. Had he not been so blind, they might have been together today.

“You must find this child.”

“I know.” The old man wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already believe. Joe wanted him to tell him what to do about Maggie, but the question lodged in his throat.

“You fear you will fail?”

Was that it? Was he afraid he wouldn’t find Maggie’s baby? “Yes.”

“Is your fear of failure for the child or for the woman?”

Joe leaned back. “The child, of course.”

“And if you fail the child, you will not fail the woman?”

The answer was obvious, why would the shaman ask it? Joe dragged in a deep breath of the moist air, cleansing his nostrils and lifting the cloud from his head. “Yes.”

“I sense hurt and resentment toward this Maggie.”

Joe’s chin dipped to his chest, his shame an almost overwhelming being seeping into his pores like the steam. “Yes.” As if the haze cleared, Joe realized some of his confusion stemmed from his anger toward Maggie for marrying his stepbrother. “Will my anger cloud my judgment and ability to find her child?”

“Only you can know this. Do you mistrust her because she is not one of your people?” Matoskah had that uncanny way of reading Joe’s thoughts before he’d completely formulated them himself.

“I did,” Joe admitted, his softly spoken words drifting toward the ceiling with the stone vapor. After a year in the desert country of Iraq he’d come to realize he didn’t trust himself where Maggie was concerned.

The shaman laid a hand on Joe’s arm. “When you were in battle, did you care about the color of your soldiers? What religion, what race?”

Joe sat straighter. “No, they were my brothers.”

“Does a child have a choice of what color, religion or race he is born into the world with?”

“You know they don’t. But that doesn’t change the world for our people on the reservation.”

“We are all brothers, Joe Lonewolf.” Matoskah lifted a cup of water and poured it onto the glowing stones. Steam hissed and rose in a cloud to fill the room. “Children are wakanyega, sacred beings. The child is one with the earth, one with our people, as is his mother. Look for this child like you would look for your own son, and remember, not all is as it appears. That is all you need to know. Mitaku oyasin.”

My relative.

Joe extended his hand and grasped his mentor’s forearm. “Pilamaya.” Thanks. Then on all fours, he crawled from the sweat lodge into the frigid air outside, welcoming the swift rush of cold filling his nostrils and stinging his cheeks.

Look for this child like you’d look for your own son. Dakota wasn’t his son but he was a child, part of the circle of life and born of mother earth. His focus would be on finding the baby alive. Once he’d accomplished that mission, he could decide what to do about his feelings for Maggie.

Chapter Four

Maggie unlocked the door and entered, automatically reaching in to switch on the lights of the large gymnasium. Her snow boots made echoing clopping sounds as she crossed the painted concrete court to her office on the opposite side.

As she pushed the glass door open, a lump lodged in her throat. A colorful playpen stood in one corner as if waiting for her to place Dakota in it with his toys.

How many times had she brought Dakota to work with her? Had she set herself and her child up for this disaster? Had one of the teens who’d visited the center on multiple occasions seen Dakota and figured he’d be a good trade for something?

“Damn.” Maggie slapped her hand to the doorframe and closed her eyes against the sting of tears. She could imagine Dakota crying for his mommy, holding out his hands for her to pick him up and make him safe. The tears squeezed through one at a time until she gave up and let them flow, hunching her shoulders in despair.

So caught up was she in her misery, Maggie barely heard the sound of the outside door opening. When the sound of rubber boots stopped in front of her, she looked up into Winona Little Elk’s dark face.

“Come, thiblo.” Daughter. Heavy, warm arms curled around her shoulders and drew her into a maternal embrace.

“Oh, Winona, where is he? Where’s my baby?” Maggie wailed into the older woman’s wool jacket.

“I don’t know. I miss him, too.” Her shoulders shook with her own silent sobs and the two women stood holding each other until the storm passed.

After several minutes, Maggie pulled back and gave Winona a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry. I should be strong.”

“Look at me,” she snorted. “I’m just as bad.” Winona’s brown eyes were red-rimmed and puffy and she rubbed at the moisture clinging to the sunkissed, leathery skin of her cheekbones. “I love my hoksika.” Little boy. Her words were a mix of English and the sometimes harsh, yet beautiful native Lakota language she’d grown up speaking with her parents and grandparents.

Maggie paced in front of the government-issued metal desk littered with files and work she’d thought so important only yesterday. Now nothing was as important as finding Dakota. She stopped and faced her son’s caregiver. The woman who was more a grandmother, more than a babysitter to her child. “Why, Winona? Why would someone take my son?”

“Joe will find him and ciks agli.” And bring your son home. Her voice rang with conviction as she stood with her back ramrod-straight and her ample shoulders pushed back. Winona’s waist-length hair hung in long braids over her shoulders, the gray ropes a stark contrast to the black wool of her winter jacket. The woman was Lakota and her proud lineage shone through in her high cheekbones and deep-brown eyes. Then her shoulders slumped forward. “Do you think one of the tribe took hoksika?”

“I don’t know anyone but the teenagers and people of the tribe. Who else would take him?” She hesitated for a moment and made a decision. “Winona, I had a call this morning from the kidnapper.”

Winona’s eyes widened and she reached for Maggie’s hands. “What did they say? What did they want?”

Maggie’s brows furrowed. “That’s the problem. They want to use Dakota as a trade.”

“A trade for what?”

“I don’t know.” She threw her hands in the air and turned away, searching her office for the answer and coming up blank. She sighed and faced Winona. “The man said something about trading Dakota for what was stolen.”

“What do you mean, ‘what was stolen’?”

“I wish I knew. I’d give it to them. Hell, I’d give them everything I own to get Dakota back.”

Winona’s eyes narrowed into a ferocious scowl and she tapped her finger to her chin. “What would someone want so badly they’d take our hoksika?”

“I’ve tried and tried to come up with something. But frankly, I don’t have anything of value. And I certainly haven’t stolen anything.”

“You think the kidnapper is Lakota?”

“I think so. The meeting place is on the reservation at Coyote Butte.” Maggie stepped behind her desk and sank into her battered office chair. “I don’t even know where that is, much less what I supposedly stole.”

The older woman shook her head. “I don’t understand the ways of the young people of my tribe. Have they no shame? Drug use and alcoholism is a disgrace, child abuse unforgivable and that casino should never have been built.”

“I thought the tribe was happy about the money the casino brings to the community.”

Winona’s lips thinned. “Money is not everything.”

“Your husband, Tom, works there, doesn’t he?” Having worked on the reservation for almost as long as the casino had been open, Maggie knew the benefits the tribe received from the profits. New roads, a new clinic and next year the new school would be complete. “What’s wrong with the casino, other than the usual habitual gamblers?”

“Tom isn’t sure, but he has the feeling there are illegal activities going on there. He just can’t put his finger on it.”

Maggie leaned forward. “What makes him think that?”

“He’s a janitor, and as a janitor, he’s somewhat invisible. He sees things.” She shrugged. “That’s all he will say.”

“Do you think someone from the casino took Dakota?” Maggie pushed away from the desk and stood.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve never been there, even when Paul was alive.”

“Did Paul tell you anything about his work or the people there?” Winona asked.

“No.” Maggie sat down again and buried her face in her hands. “I’ve made such a mess of my life. And poor Paul is dead.”

“Does Joe know Dakota is his son?”

For a full five seconds, Maggie’s heart stopped beating. When it started up again, it pounded against her rib cage, threatening to burst out with the force of her lie. Slowly, she lifted her head from her hands and stared at Winona. “How did you know?”

“Dakota may have your red hair, but he has the skin and eyes of his father’s people.”

Maggie jumped to her feet, and grabbed Winona’s hands. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

Pudgy brown fingers patted hers. “I won’t tell what is not mine to tell. But why?”

“Joe didn’t want me because I wasn’t Lakota.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Winona waved her hand around the room filled with pictures of the teens Maggie worked with on a daily basis. “You care about our children more than most of the people on the reservation.”

“He said I didn’t fit in his way of life. I didn’t belong.” She dropped Winona’s hand and turned to the window overlooking the indoor basketball court.

“Men can say stupid things when they’re going off to war. They aren’t in their right minds.” Winona’s lips twisted. “If he’d known about the baby—”

“No!” The old hurt and fear surfaced and Maggie frowned. “I was scared. Afraid that if I told him about the baby, he’d take him away from me and raise him within the tribe. I’d lost Joe, I couldn’t lose my baby as well.” And if he’d decided to marry her, he’d have been doing it out of obligation, not love. She couldn’t stand to be an obligation. She’d thought she’d be better off marrying someone else than being in love with a man who’d never love her in return.

“So you married Paul?”

“Yes.” Maggie’s chin tilted up. “I thought if I married Paul, everyone would think Dakota was his. I made him promise not to tell.”

“What was in it for Paul?”

Paul. Dear, sweet Paul. Regret burned in Maggie’s gut. In her attempt to protect herself and her son, she’d put Paul in the situation she most wanted to avoid. Paul had stepped in when she was desperate, but despite his love for her all she felt for him was platonic affection. She’d tried to sleep with him but couldn’t, not with the knowledge she still loved her baby’s father. He’d given up his chance to choose a woman who’d love him to help Maggie. And he’d died before she could make things right. “Paul loved me.”

“You should tell Joe about Dakota. He has the right to know. Especially, since it’s his son who’s missing.”

“I know.” Maggie clasped her hands together, twisting the simple gold band around her ring finger. She’d insisted she didn’t want a diamond engagement ring. A band was all that was necessary to keep her secret.

She slipped the ring from her finger and shoved it into her pocket. “You’re right, Winona. I should tell him. But I want to be the one who tells him. Please don’t mention it. The news should come from me.”

“Yes. It should.” Winona touched a hand to Maggie’s cheek. “I promised Tom I’d fix lunch for him. Will you be all right alone? I could tell him to fix his own lunch.”

“No. I’ll be fine.” Winona’s offer to stay with her touched her. She’d made a few lasting friendships over the two years she’d worked at the reservation. Maggie trusted the older woman with her life and that of her son. She was the family Maggie didn’t have.

“Call me if you need anything. Even if only for a shoulder to cry on, thiblo.”

“Pilamaya.” Maggie responded with one of the few Lakota words she knew. Then she pulled the older woman into her arms and hugged her tightly, struggling to be strong when all she wanted to do was curl into a fetal position and cry. “I miss my baby.”

“I know, I know.” Winona patted her back once more and then held her at arm’s length and said, “Trust him.” After a long hard look, the old Lakota woman left.

The empty gym echoed with the sound of the outside door closing behind her. A blast of icy wind filtered across the concrete floors to send a chill across Maggie’s skin. She wrapped her arms around her middle, shivering, and wondered if Dakota was warm enough.

The door screeched open and Maggie looked up, half hoping Joe would walk through. Her hopes died when Leotie Jones slipped through and advanced across the concrete with her high-heeled boots grating against the silence. “Oh, good, you’re here,” was her only greeting. No How are you? or Hello.

Maggie squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment and willed Leotie to go away. I don’t need this. Not now. Then she opened her eyes and forced herself to be pleasant, something that wasn’t easy around the self-centered woman. “Leotie,” she said, dipping her head in acknowledgement.

“I just stopped by to tell you how sorry I was about your baby.” She cinched the belt circling the waistline of her long, black leather jacket.

“Thanks.” She couldn’t help it that the one word implied anything but gratitude. Leotie had had it in for her from the first day Maggie had set foot on the reservation. Or should she say from the first day she’d run into Joe Lonewolf and instant attraction had practically ignited the dry prairie grass all around the youth center? Leotie considered Joe her territory and saw Maggie as an encroaching outsider. She’d done everything in her power to get between Maggie and Joe and spoil any chance of a blossoming relationship.

“I was hoping we could forget about the past and, you know, let bygones be bygones, and all that.” Leotie stared around Maggie into her office. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Although her words sounded cheerful, the slight curl of her lip indicated she wasn’t impressed with the sparse furnishings or the two hard plastic chairs positioned in front of Maggie’s desk.

“Normally, I would. But there’s nothing normal about the way I feel today.” She stared hard at Leotie, hoping she’d get the message and leave. “Leotie, I’d rather be alone.”

“I see.” Leotie’s forced smile turned into a sneer and she crossed her arms over her ample chest, flipping her red-streaked black hair over her shoulder. “Joe’s working the case, isn’t he?”

This was more Leotie’s style—cut to the chase. Maggie braced herself for the attack. “Yes, Joe’s working the case.”

“You know he’ll never marry you, don’t you?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

“Well, don’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “He won’t ever marry you. He has too much of his father in him to care about a white woman.”

“I said, I didn’t ask him.” If Leotie didn’t get the hell out soon, Maggie was afraid she’d say or do something she’d regret. She had to remind herself not to rise to Leotie’s bait, to take the high road. But her emotions were raw and she wasn’t in the mood.

Mentally, she counted to ten.

One.

“If he marries, he’ll choose a Lakota woman.”

Two.

“Like me.”

Three.

“Do we understand each other?”

Four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten! “Leave, Leotie.” Maggie pointed to the door, her lips set in a firm tight line, afraid if she opened them again, she’d spew forth venom.

“Fine.” Leotie tugged at the belt of her already tight coat and flipped her hair back again. “Just remember—”

Maggie’s control snapped. “Out!”

Leotie snorted and spun on her heel, marching to the door. But she couldn’t leave without a parting shot. “Just because he’s helping you doesn’t mean anything.”

With her tongue pinched between her teeth, Maggie only pointed to the door.

Leotie flung the heavy metal door open and it crashed against the building, bouncing back to smack into her shoulder. She swore and shot a glance backward as if to see if Maggie had seen her fit of temper backfire.

Served her right. The bitch didn’t know what love was. Joe deserved someone who really cared for him and the people of his tribe. Not a venomous witch like Leotie, who only cared about herself. He needed someone kind, caring and devoted to his people.

Someone like you? A niggling voice asked the question in Maggie’s head.

No. Not a red-headed white woman.

Best stick to worrying about Dakota. Joe was out of reach.

She walked into her office and closed the door.

AS SOON AS Joe entered the station he asked, “Any leads from the Amber Alert?”

“A couple of sightings of women carrying babies into stores in Rapid City.” Del shrugged. “The babies were theirs.”

“Do you have anything on the graffiti on Mag—Mrs. Brandt’s house?” Her married name burned an acid path down his throat and gave him the worst case of heartburn he’d known since returning from Iraq.

Del slid a sideways glance at him, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “Bother you that she married Paul after you left?”

“No,” Joe lied. Hell yes, it bothered him. The tarmac hadn’t even cooled from the plane taking off before she’d married Paul.

What galled him most was who she had married.

His stepbrother.

Paul had been nothing but a thorn in his side since his mother had married Kevin Brandt. The six-year-old boy had followed him around like a lost puppy, mimicking his every move.

Now that Paul was gone, Joe realized how much he missed his stepbrother and had to admit he’d enjoyed the hero-worship when they were younger.

“What makes a woman go out with one man and marry another the next day?” Del asked, and then winced. “Sorry, that’s pretty personal.”

“She had the right.”

“I thought you two would make a go of it before you left.”

“Well, we didn’t.” Joe moved through the crowded office to his desk in the corner and stared down at the neat top, as yet uncluttered with a full workload. He’d been easing back into his old job as chief of tribal police. Until today. The kidnapping had thrown him full-force back into work. “Did you find out who left the graffiti on her house?”

“Not yet. I bet it’s one of the druggies that hangs out with the Sukas Gang. My inside source says one of them has a gripe against your Maggie for the death of his girlfriend, Kiya Driskall.”

The Sukas Gang had been growing before Joe had left for his tour of duty, but he’d thought their numbers manageable and somewhat contained. And from the police report, Kiya’s death had been attributed to drug overdose. “Kiya’s death wasn’t Maggie’s fault.”

“We know that, but for some reason Randy Biko hasn’t figured that out.”

“Randy? I thought he’d turned around and straightened up his act?”

Del shrugged. “A lot changes in a year.”

“Apparently.” Not for the first time that day, Joe regretted the timing of his call to service with his South Dakota National Guard unit. He wondered if things would have been different if he hadn’t gone. Would he have turned his back on Maggie? Would Kiya Driskall still be alive? Would the gangs have expanded whether or not he’d been here? He’d never know.

One thing was certain, he didn’t regret his time in Iraq. The people of that country needed someone to defend their right to life and the men in his unit had needed him. Courting death in Iraq taught him a lot about himself. And if he could he’d take back what he’d said to Maggie before he left.

Del strode to the wall where a white board hung, littered with notes from previous cases. He wiped it clean and wrote in black erasable marker the date and time of the missing person report and the call. “We know it’s a kidnapping and we’ve been given the ultimatum. We need to find what it is they think was stolen,” Del said.

“What we need to do is find the baby before they hurt him.” Joe pushed his chair back and stood. His heart pinched in his chest at how devastated Maggie would be if Dakota was hurt or killed. “Call in the entire force, we’re going house-to-house across the reservation until we find that kid. Do the necessary calling. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Where you going?”

“I’m going to get Maggie. She’ll want to be there for the search.”

“Yes, sir!”

Joe left the office, his long stride eating up the distance between the door and his vehicle. He hated himself for the way his pulse quickened at the thought of seeing Maggie again. He shouldn’t be feeling that way for a newly widowed woman. Hell, she’d only lost her husband less than two weeks ago.

FOUR HOURS LATER, the sky was dark except for the yellow glow of porch lights on Red Feather Street. Disappointment gnawed at Joe’s gut. They were no closer to finding Dakota. Joe pulled the SUV to a stop in Maggie’s drive.

She sat for a moment staring at her house. What was she thinking?

Joe couldn’t imagine the worry going through her mind. “We’ll find him, Maggie. We still have the scattered homes farther out to check.”

She turned to him and placed a hand on his arm. “You’ll call me if you find anything? It doesn’t matter what time of day or night. Please call me.”

Her eyes beseeched him in the light from his dashboard, the pale purple smudges beneath them a testimony to the long day and the little sleep she’d had the night before. Joe couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out to cup her chin. “I’ll call you, Maggie. You know I will. I want Dakota back, too. He’s part of my family.”

Maggie’s eyes widened before her lids dropped down to cover the shock in their smoky-green depths. She jerked her chin from his grasp and fumbled with the door handle. “I should go inside. Maybe the kidnappers left another message on my answering machine.”

Had he imagined that look of fear when he’d mentioned Dakota was family? Did she hate him so much that she didn’t want him to be a part of her son’s life? “Dakota’s my nephew, Maggie. Does it bother you that I care about him?”

“No, not at all.” She gathered her purse and pushed open the door.

She wasn’t telling him something, and Joe wondered if what she held back was important to the case. He’d opened his mouth to ask her, when he noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. His attention swung to the blinds in one of the windows. They hung at an odd angle. “Did you leave those blinds like that?” He pointed toward her house.

“Huh?” Maggie’s gaze followed the direction he indicated. “No. That’s the master bedroom. I never touch the blinds.” She jumped out of the SUV.

“Wait, Maggie.” Joe was out and beside her before she reached the front door. He set her to the side of the entryway and checked the handle. The door was locked securely. “Come on.” He grabbed her hand and ran around to the back door.

The door stood wide open, the frame splintered from a harsh blow. “Someone kicked this door in,” Joe said, his voice a low rumble in the dark.

“You think they’re still inside?” Maggie whispered.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” Joe held her by the shoulders and stared down into her eyes, barely discernible in the light from the stars. “Stay here.”

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