Pulling the Trigger
Elle James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Copyright

JULIE MILLER attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and to shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms. Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.

For my dad. Ace navigator extraordinaire.

The most knowledgeable man I know when it comes to learning about a place and finding my way.

Yep, there’s double entendre there.

While Sleeping Ute Mountain and the Four Corners area of southwestern Colorado are real, full of stark beauty and dramatic landscapes, I’ve taken the liberty of creating some fictional places to serve the needs of the story. So if you do visit the area—and if you’re a fan of history or geography I strongly encourage you to do so—you might not find all of the locations Ethan and Joanna visit on the map. But you will find friendly people and a beautiful part of the country.

Prologue

“I need you to disappear.”

Sherman Watts drained the amber fire of whiskey from his shot glass and licked the dribble from his lips before putting the phone back to his ear and responding to his anonymous contact’s hushed command. “What about my money?”

“You’ve gone through last month’s payment already?”

It wasn’t this loser’s business how he spent his money or how fast he spent it. He’d earned a lot more than this secure cell phone he’d been given so their calls about confidential business couldn’t be traced. “I was promised fifty thousand. Your people are ten grand short.”

“I can deposit the installment into your account on Monday—under the guise of another government settlement payment. You know I can’t authorize the payment any earlier than that. If I pay out the money too fast, it’ll throw up a red flag, and someone might start nosing around in our business.”

Someone else, you mean. Since the Kenner County Crime Unit and a cadre of FBI agents had come to Kenner City, Colorado, and the nearby Ute reservation where Sherman lived, investigating the murder of a lady agent who’d been messing with some people she ought not to have been messing with, there had been plenty of people nosing around. Funny how the man on the phone wasn’t afraid of the hit man Sherman had been hiding on the rez and doing some odd jobs for. Funnier still how the man trying to give him orders could deal with two feuding Las Vegas crime families and keep a cool head, but he had a burr up his butt over the possibility of some accountant questioning why Sherman Watts finally had the money to buy a good bottle of whiskey instead of drinking the rotgut that had curdled his conscience years ago.

Sherman poured himself a second glass to wash down the bologna sandwich he’d eaten for lunch. “I’m perfectly comfortable here in Mesa Ridge.” He took a sip and savored the smooth burn down his throat. “Besides, I thought it was my job to be the front man. Nobody knows the rez like I do. I can wander around any corner of it, talk to any man about anything and nobody blinks twice. I run Boyd Perkins’s errands and get the information he needs so he can continue his search for that fifty million dollars from the Del Gardo family and take care of whatever private business he needs to. Hell, I’m doing such a good job that I hear the cops think Perkins is down in Mexico.” Sherman plunked the glass down on the table in his trailer and sat up straight. Had something happened? This idiot might not be afraid of Boyd Perkins, but he was smart enough to know that crossing the ice-cold killer was a damn fool thing to do. He’d seen what Perkins was capable of when he’d disposed of that woman’s body for him. Screwing up and getting on the killer’s bad side was not an option. “They think Perkins has left the country, right?”

“They have no clue he’s still around.”

“So what’s the problem? Why do I need to skip town? And why isn’t this coming from Perkins himself?”

“I’m doing you a favor, you coot. Giving you a heads-up.”

He could tell from the condescending sneer in the man’s tone that this wasn’t about doing anybody a favor.

This guy was worried about covering his own backside.

“The FBI thinks you’re involved in Julie Grainger’s murder.”

“The feds do?” Accomplice after the fact was definitely involved. He was screwed. Sherman pushed to his feet, stumbling over his chair as he went to the back of his trailer to grab a bag and start packing.

“The feds, the crime unit—they’re all one team now. And they think you may know something. They’re bringing in some hotshot profiler from D.C. to question you.”

“What?”

“One of their own agents is dead. They may not have evidence to charge you with anything, but they’re going to explore every possible lead on the case. And right now, that’s you.”

Screw that. He pulled his gun from his top dresser drawer and tucked it into the back of his jeans. Two boxes of bullets landed in the bottom of his pack. “Who else are they questioning?”

“No one. Like I said, they don’t know that Perkins is still in the neighborhood. But with the way you get around to every bar, whorehouse and the casino, I’m sure they want to ask if you’ve seen anyone matching his description.”

Sherman dropped his bag back onto the bed. These past six months working for the Nicky Wayne crime family out of Vegas had given him the best money ticket of his life. He wasn’t going to give it up if the feds just wanted to show him some pictures and ask if he knew a guy. “I can always say no. They’ve got nothing they can hold me on. You’re just worried that I’ll mention these phone calls, and then they’ll figure out they have a traitor in their midst.”

The lengthy pause indicated that Sherman had struck a nerve. “You’ve got nothing on me. No name. No ID. But can you still say no when the detox kicks in? Can you keep your mouth shut about Perkins? About Grainger’s murder? Do you really want to take the fall for our crimes? This is a federal investigator they’re bringing in, Watts, not some good ol’ boy sheriff who’ll give you a sip from his own flask and let you walk away. I hear she’s tough. She’ll break you.”

“She?” He took the news like a punch to the gut.

Hell. It was a woman who had turned him to drink in the first place. Some woman or other always seemed to be standing in the way of what he deserved. His high school sweetheart, Naomi, had married his best friend, Ralph Kuchu, instead of him. Eighteen years later, Naomi had been drunk enough to get herself and Ralph both killed in a car wreck—taking the woman Sherman loved and the money Ralph owed him to their graves.

Women were good for one thing. Sobering him up and poking questions at him wasn’t it.

And if she did flash her boobs or nag him enough and get him to reveal what he knew about Julie Grainger’s murder or Boyd Perkins’s whereabouts, then he’d be a dead man. He was only useful to Perkins and the family he worked for as long as he kept his mouth shut.

“All right. I can hide out for a few days.” Sherman carried his bag out to the table and packed the whiskey bottle in with a change of socks and some fishing gear. He grabbed his sleeping bag from the closet and tied it to his pack. “Let Perkins and Mr. Wayne know that I’m out of here.”

After disconnecting the call, Sherman opened the trailer door and studied the sky. Clouds were gathering with the promise of spring rain in the next twenty-four hours, give or take. That was good. It’d be hell to sleep in, as the temperature in the mountains was still cold on June nights. But rain also meant he wouldn’t leave any tracks. He reached for his black, flat-brimmed hat and pulled it on over scraggly hair that was still as black as it had been the day he was born over fifty years ago. With his survival skills, he could last for weeks up in the red rocks and cliffs of the Mesa Verde range.

He could last as long as he had something to drink.

And no woman got in his way.

Chapter One

Special Agent Joanna Rhodes stepped off the puddle jumper flight from Durango into the rain at Kenner City, Colorado.

Though the other two passengers on the same plane made a dash for the shelter of the terminal, Joanna stood on the tarmac, surveying the stark, dramatic landscape of red rock mountains and barren desert spaces of the Four Corners region of the state. Awe-inspiring. Rich in history and mystique. Majestic. She’d read all the descriptors in tourism magazines and advertisements for the nearby casino.

But she couldn’t see the beauty. She could barely feel the cool drizzle of rain spitting against her face. An oppressive sense of the world closing in around her, so at odds with the rugged, wide-open spaces, made it difficult to catch her breath.

“Suck it up, girl,” Joanna whispered between clenched teeth, her nostrils flaring as she pulled her shoulders back and ordered her lungs to expand. It wasn’t the altitude or the faint chill of early spring in the air that had grabbed hold of her. It wasn’t the rain, kicking up a familiar, omnipresent dust and washing the scent of ozone down to her level, that made moving from this spot so difficult. It was the memories swirling inside her head, attacking her from every direction, that made this homecoming feel like a walk down a long corridor at a maximum-security prison, ending at a windowless cell with her name on it.

“That’s the power of positive thinking,” she chided herself with sarcasm, hating that her thoughts had gone off on the morbid metaphor. Fanciful images of any kind didn’t fit with the practical, efficient persona she’d worked so hard to cultivate. This wasn’t supposed to be a stroll down memory lane for her. “Focus on the work.”

She was here to break open a case that the bureau, local law enforcement and the Kenner County Crime Lab had been investigating for five months now. Solve the murder of a federal agent in the area and uncover suspected links to the feuding Wayne and Del Gardo crime families out of Las Vegas. Find a lead on the missing fifty million dollars that the late crime boss, Vincent Del Gardo, had allegedly hid in the Four Corners area.

All she had to do was face down a nightmare from her past to get the answers they needed.

No small task on any front.

This was her assignment. She’d been personally requested by the Durango bureau office because of her ethnic background and ties to the area. Her boss in D.C. had assured her it was a career-making opportunity she’d be foolish to pass up. Besides, a job was a job. And she was damn good at hers.

Blinking the moisture from her long dark eyelashes, Joanna checked the Glock 9 mm in the holster on her belt, as well as the FBI shield clipped beside it. Then she rebuttoned her pin-striped blazer and shook her ponytail down the center of her back.

“Piece of cake.” Armed inside and out, she pulled up the handle on her overnight suitcase and strode toward the terminal.

“Agent Rhodes?” The glass double doors swung open and a tall, lanky man wearing a tuxedo with a cowboy hat and boots jogged out to meet her.

Instinctively, she halted and retreated half a step, her hand hovering near her gun, waiting for the man to identify himself.

“Didn’t see you inside and thought I’d missed you. Sorry I’m running late. I had to pick up my wife and son and give away a bride before I could get here.” He stopped a few feet away and tipped the brim of his hat before extending his hand in greeting. “I’m Patrick Martinez.”

“Joanna Rhodes.” Recognizing the name and the general description of dark hair and Irish-blue eyes given her by the bureau chief in Durango, Jerry Ortiz, she reached out to shake hands with the Kenner County sheriff. “You’re not late, Sheriff. But I’d like to remind you that I could just as easily have rented a car and driven myself to your office.”

He grinned. “Well, that wouldn’t say very much for western hospitality, now, would it.”

Knowing she was meant to smile at the friendly remark, she curved her mouth into a practiced arc. But when he reached for the handle of her suitcase, Joanna tightened her grip. Long before she’d reached the age of thirty-three, she’d learned to take care of herself in every way that mattered. “I’ve got it.”

With a nod, he turned to walk beside her. “Then let’s get you out of the rain and get you briefed on the investigation.” Despite her show of independence, his longer stride got him to the doors first, and he pulled one open for her. He glanced up at the late afternoon’s overcast sky as she walked through. “We’re expecting storms on and off all weekend long. This little sprinkle is just the prelude.”

She remembered the all or nothing weather patterns from her childhood. Summers could be beastly hot and dry, yet still be chilly at night. Winters were frigid, especially up in the mountains. And the transitional seasons in between promised torrential rains and flash floods, or blizzards, depending on the temperature. The area was probably going through its spring thaw right now, when massive snowmelts at the higher elevations filled the rivers and streams in the area—the same streambeds that would be bone dry come autumn. But she wasn’t here to reminisce or discuss the weather. “How far are we from your office? I understand it shares a building with the crime unit?”

Once they cleared the terminal, the sheriff pointed to the officially marked black Suburban parked at the curb. With a beep from his key chain, he opened the back door behind the passenger seat. “You can toss your bag in here.”

“Thank you.”

His cowboy-style manners were charming but unnecessary. And once they were both inside the car, he seemed to accept that she was more interested in answers than in making new friends. “We’ve got a smoothly integrated system here in Kenner County. Budget constraints being what they are, the practicality of housing the area law enforcement units in one location made it a no-brainer. A briefing room, locker rooms, executive offices, plus the interview rooms, lineup room and temporary lockup are located on the first two floors, while most of the crime lab is housed upstairs on the third. We’ve got a fourth floor for storage.” He shifted into Drive and pulled onto the highway leading into town. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Through the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers, Joanna watched the landscape change from scrub brush to the metal prefab buildings of a growing industrial park. They passed a neat and tidy residential area nestled in the foothills, filled with square, pueblo-style houses, bungalows and larger Victorian reproduction homes. Finally, Sheriff Martinez turned his car toward the brick and stone buildings that marked the downtown area. Kenner City was a quaint, bustling enterprise of a town, nestled in a bowl between mountain peaks. It boasted striped awnings and pinewood balconies, and flags flew above nearly every storefront and business.

Not one trailer park in sight. No run-down liquor store on the main drag. No tattered teenage girl running the streets, looking for her parents in seedy bars and back alleys, hoping they’d be happy drunk and cooperate with her efforts to get them safely home, instead of mean drunk and belligerent, or just flat passed out from whatever party or paycheck they’d drunk their way through on any given night.

Everything here was charming and well kept and scrupulously clean—a far cry from the Ute reservation where she’d grown up, just a few more miles down the road.

She knew she was expected to say something, to make conversation to pass the drive time. But Joanna had made a career out of watching and assessing before she spoke, learning to listen without saying more than was required. Even before her training, idle chitchat had never come easily for her.

The sheriff didn’t seem to have that problem, however. “The hotel where you’re booked is just a block from our location, and I figured you’d be doing your interview of the suspect there. If you do want to go somewhere, one of my deputies will be available to drive you. Or we can loan you a vehicle if it’s not in use.” He slowed as they drove through the heart of downtown, touching his hat to pedestrians hurrying along the wide sidewalks. As they passed the last few businesses, he pointed out a diner-style restaurant with bright lights and lots of windows called the Morning Ray Café. “That’s my mom’s place. You can get all three meals there. It’s good, down-home cookin’ that’ll fill you up.”

The gleam of pride was obvious in his tone and smile. Joanna’s mother’s idea of a home-cooked meal had involved ripping open packages and zapping them in the microwave—when she remembered to fix any meal at all for her daughter. Joanna had turned herself into a fairly accomplished cook by the time she’d finished the third grade, simply as a matter of survival. But the lack of three square meals a day growing up had been the least of her problems.

The sheriff reached across the seat and tapped her elbow to pull her attention from her thoughts. He pointed to an imposing building with a gray brick and white stone facade on the corner at the end of the street. “There’s your hotel. Used to be a mining office, but now it’s completely remodeled inside. Want to check in first?”

Alarmed to realize her thoughts kept drifting to the past instead of focusing squarely on her present assignment, Joanna resolutely straightened in her seat. “Let’s go directly to your office. I want to familiarize myself with my surroundings before I meet the suspect I’m interrogating.”

“You want the home field advantage?” he teased.

“Something like that.” They had almost driven out of the far edge of town before Joanna spotted the rambling four-story building with signs that read Kenner City Sheriff and Kenner County Crime Unit. “I read the file from Supervisor Ortiz, but I’d like to get your take on things since you’ve worked more closely on Agent Grainger’s murder. What can you tell me about your suspect, Sherman Watts?”

Good. She got the name out without so much as a stutter of hesitation.

Focus on the job, Joanna. Watts is just a job.

“He’s a local troublemaker. Been convicted and jailed on any number of petty crimes—mostly drunk and disorderly, a couple of assaults.”

“A-assault?” That was a definite hesitation.

But Martinez, fortunately, didn’t pick up on the way she stiffened in her seat. He pulled into a slanted parking space in front of the building. “When Watts is drunk, he can get mean.”

So some things never changed in Kenner County. “You don’t have him in custody?”

“We suspect he’s been doing odd jobs for the Nicky Wayne crime family out of Vegas, like helping Wayne’s hit man, Boyd Perkins, hide out in the area. However, what we believe and what we can prove are two different things. That’s why he’s still a free man. But he’s definitely a person of interest we’ve been watching. Could be he had nothing to do with the murder, and he’s only funneling information to them—someone sure seems to be.”

She’d heard about the information leaks that had dogged the investigation, seeming to give Boyd Perkins—the man reputed to have killed mob boss Vincent Del Gardo, as well as the bureau’s chief suspect in Agent Grainger’s murder—a heads-up when to go into hiding or carry out another attack. “How do you want me to direct my interrogation? Confirm the source of the security leak? Find out if Perkins is still in the area and pinpoint his location? Or should I concentrate on Watts himself, and tie him to Boyd Perkins and Agent Grainger’s murder so you can make an arrest?”

“Anything you can get out of him. I don’t make him for premeditated murder—I’d be surprised if he has the backbone for that. But I wouldn’t put it past him to hurt someone if he felt threatened.”

She didn’t need to read the Kenner County Crime Unit—KCCU, according to her mission brief—report to know his assessement of Sherman Watts was on the money. Drunk or sober—if that ever happened—the fifty-eight-year-old Indian was as dangerous and unpredictable as a badger. If he got cornered, he was just as likely to turn and attack as he was to skulk away into some hole. If he felt he was entitled to something, he’d take it—as long as he thought he could get away with it. And damn to anyone who tried to stop him.

“You owe me, bitch.”

With her face smashed down into the bed and his heavy weight on top of her, Joanna’s screams were muffled. The wool lint from the blankets filtered into her nose and mouth with each gasp, and she could scarcely breathe.

He’d hit her hard enough, too, to make the room spin. But the pain was clear, the humiliation intense. Oh, God, it hurt. Right down to her soul, it hurt.

Son of a bitch. Joanna jerked her mind back to the rain and the sheriff and the present, and forced herself to breathe. So she had a little extra insight into Sherman Watts and how his mind worked. That’s what criminal profiling was all about, right? Knowing the truth about the suspect—knowing his secrets—could only help her get this interview done more quickly and efficiently.

Joanna pried her fingers off the armrest to unbuckle her seat belt. She breathed deeply, clearly, in through her nose and out through her mouth, more determined than ever to leave the past in the past so she could help Martinez and his people deal with the present. “Is there any hard evidence to connect Watts to Julie Grainger’s murder? Any motive?”

Either unaware of her momentary discomfort, or politely ignoring it, the sheriff continued. “We know that Agent Grainger was on the trail of fifty million dollars that crime boss Vincent Del Gardo hid in the area. If she found it, or had a clue on her that would lead to its location, then that’s fifty million reasons why just about anybody would want to kill her. One of our lab teams found a leather necklace that we believe belonged to Watts at the site where her body was dumped. That puts him at the scene—before or after her death, though, we don’t know.”

“You think Watts has the fifty mil?”

“No. Someone’s still looking for it, or the attacks would have stopped.” Martinez muttered a curse, clearly frustrated with the lack of closure on the case. His eyes were clear glacial-blue when they locked on to hers. “Sherman Watts is a survivor. He’ll do whatever it takes to stay alive and stay one step ahead of us. There was a time when Watts would pick a fight at one of the local bars, just so he could spend a warm night in jail. Now he’s living in a new trailer on the rez and drinking name-brand booze. He claims his money is from an inheritance. I haven’t been able to prove otherwise.”

“You don’t believe him.”

He shook his head. “Nicky Wayne and his family have laundered enough money that they could make it look as if Watts’s income is from a legitimate source. If they’re funding him, Watts may be uncatchable right now.”

Letting Watts get away with aiding and abetting, theft, murder—or God knew what—wasn’t going to happen. Never again. “I’ll get him in a room and get him to talk. I’ll find out what he knows.”

Martinez nodded, believing the strength of her words. “I’ve sent a couple of men out to the reservation to bring him in for questioning.”

She waved aside the offer of an umbrella, retrieved her bag and followed him inside.

He nodded to the security guard reading a newspaper at the front desk and led Joanna past him to a reception area at the center of a suite of offices. “Anybody home?” Martinez hollered. He removed his hat and knocked it against his leg before brushing away the moisture beading on the shoulders of his black tux jacket. “Elizabeth?”

Joanna frowned, smoothing the damp hair around her face as she surveyed the executive office area and the hallways, elevator and doors branching off in either direction. “I was led to believe this was a fully staffed facility. Where is everyone?”

“Like I said, we had a wedding this afternoon. Our chief forensic scientist, Dr. Calista MacBride, married Tom Ryan. Tom’s been with us as an FBI investigator almost from the day I first saw Julie Grainger’s body. I guess the two of them went through the academy together—Tom and Julie, that is. I think Tom and Callie were, uh…friends, if you know what I mean, even before the murder brought them back together.” He turned toward the locker rooms and staff entrance at the end of the hall. “Elizabeth? You here yet?”

Joanna noted the name plate on the high front counter at the center of the carpeted waiting area. She dismissed the sudden chill of remembrance as the rain trickled down the back of her scalp. This Tom and Callie weren’t the only old friends to be reunited by this case. “Elizabeth Reddawn is your receptionist?”

The sheriff set his hat on the counter beside the nameplate. “You know her?”

“Old friend” wasn’t exactly the right term. Joanna’s parents, Ralph and Naomi, had alienated most of the decent people she knew by the time they’d died in a drunk-driving accident when she was eighteen. And once Joanna had left for college and her career, she’d never looked back. Until now. Yet there were bound to be harder memories to face than this one. She would handle them all. Supervisor Ortiz and her boss back in Washington, D.C., were counting on her. “I grew up on the rez over in Mesa Ridge. Elizabeth worked for the reservation sheriff back then.”

“Elmer Watts?”

Probably the man Martinez had replaced when the county and reservation units had merged. Sherman Watts’s uncle. Joanna nodded.

Elizabeth had been the only one in that office who’d really listened to Joanna when she’d needed their help. But as a lowly secretary, Elizabeth Reddawn had been as powerless as Joanna had been. And the resulting pity she’d offered had been no help at all.

“Then this will be a reunion of sorts for you.”

“I suppose.”

Martinez gestured toward the door marked Sheriff. “Let me make a couple of calls to see where my people are.” After setting her bag behind the reception counter, he turned back to Joanna. His smile faded and she caught a glimpse of the sharp, protective-of-his-own man in charge Supervisor Ortiz had described. “Don’t pass judgment on my team, Agent Rhodes. They can all use a break for one afternoon. This has been one twisted case and we’ve taken some personal hits that haven’t gone down real well. We lost crucial evidence during that blizzard back in March. I’ve had a witness with amnesia and a crime boss who was killed before he could give me any answers. Our families have been attacked—my people tested in every way imaginable. The lab has gathered plenty of evidence and we’ve all got our suspicions, but we need to tie the pieces together and make it stick. We need somebody behind bars. Soon.”

“Of course, sir.” Her acquiescence seemed to appease the protective papa-bear growl of his voice. “I’m here to work—not catch up with former acquaintances.”

“In my head, I know you’re not the enemy. Still, it feels like a slap in the face for the bureau to bring in a big gun from outside our investigation to get us over this stone wall we’ve run into.” He pulled back the front of his jacket and propped his hands near the gun and badge at his waist. “I guess I can see the bureau’s logic in bringing in a Native American to interview Watts. I suppose he’s more likely to respond to one of his own.”

One of his own? Joanna’s skin crawled at the comparison.

But she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “Possibly.”

So not only was she coming into a tightly knit group of co-workers, but Martinez was hinting that there was resentment against her being here. Joanna was used to being the odd man out. As the daughter of Ralph and Naomi Kuchu, she’d grown up not fitting in with normal families who worked hard and paid their bills and protected their children.

Since the day of her parents’ funeral, she’d taken that loner persona and turned it into a strength. She was trained to be courteous and professional right down to her painted pinkie toe, but she’d discovered that if she remained dispassionate and in control she was harder to read. And if the bad guy sitting across the interview table from her couldn’t get into her head, then he had no advantage over her.

No one had an advantage over her if she didn’t let them in.

“I’m not here to mop up any mess or steal any thunder from your people, Sheriff. The bureau just wants vindication for the murder of one of their own.” She could handle the isolation, but if Martinez’s team resented her enough to actually work against her, then they’d have no chance of success. “Perhaps I should clarify the kind of support I’ll need from you.”

“Yeah?”

Simple. “All I need is a room, and Watts. If he knows anything, I’ll get you the information you need. You’re welcome to make any arrests or pursue any leads that might result. I’m just a tool the bureau is providing your investigation. Use me.”

Martinez nodded, accepting the arrangement. For now. She could see he still had his suspicions about her motivation for being here. “Ortiz says you’re up for a big promotion back in D.C.”

No point in lying about that. “If I don’t deliver here, they may reconsider.”

“This is a test for you, eh?”

More than anyone here or in D.C. would ever know. “Yes.”

Any hint of western hospitality disappeared as he leaned in and issued a warning. “I won’t have your career ambitions get in the way of my case or jeopardize the safety of my team. Are we clear on that?”

Joanna stood as tall and straight as her dignity and two-inch heels allowed. “Yes, sir. I won’t let you down.”

He pulled back, relaxing his shoulders if not quite smiling again. “Good. I’ll go make those calls and find some people.”

“Don’t bother, Patrick.” A squat woman with a thick black bun on the back of her head waddled into the reception area. She peeled a clear plastic rain slicker off her scarlet blouse and brightly patterned skirt, hanging the coat up beside the reception counter as she talked. “We’re on our way back. Since they’re only taking the weekend off, I think Callie and Tom are anxious to get their honeymoon started, so the festivities are breaking up.” The sixtyish petite woman turned her eyes, dark as night but shining with laughter, up to Joanna. She clapped her hands together. “As I live and breathe. Joanna?”

“Good to see you again, Elizabeth.”

“‘Good to see…’?” She tutted. “What kind of greeting is that?” Elizabeth Reddawn flung her arms open and squeezed Joanna against her ample bosom. “My goodness, child, how you’ve grown up.”

The woman’s enthusiastic welcome seemed to demand some kind of a response before she’d let go. Nonplussed by the effusive human contact she typically avoided, Joanna finally reached around and patted the back of the older woman’s shoulders, completing the hug. “It’s been fifteen years.”

“Has it really?” Elizabeth pulled away, her eyes crinkling with the depth of her smile. She maintained a clasp on Joanna’s fingers, alerting her that there was more personal conversation to come, even though she turned away and tilted her head toward the sheriff. “By the way, Patrick? Bree asked if you still wanted to do a movie with her and Charlie tonight because they’d stay in town instead of going home.”

“Are you kidding? That new action-hero movie opens tonight. Of course I’m taking my son.” He turned to include Joanna in a wink that erased his stern countenance. “Bree would be the wife. She gets to hold the popcorn and keep Charlie and me in line.” He nodded to Elizabeth. “You’ll keep our guest company for a few minutes?”

“Of course.”

“Excuse me.”

“So…” Turning her maternal indulgence from the sheriff’s retreating back to Joanna, Elizabeth took hold of both hands and quickly inspected her from head to toe. “Joanna Kuchu—Daughter of the Buffalo. You’ve matured into a woman as beautiful and powerful as your namesake.”

As Elizabeth pulled her toward the couch and chairs of the seating area, Joanna gently disengaged her hands. “It’s Joanna Rhodes now.”

Elizabeth sat and patted the sofa cushion beside her. “You’re married?”

“No.” Joanna perched on the edge of the couch, curling her fingers into her lap. “I was a Rhodes scholar my senior year at Yale. I liked the name—I liked the honor—so I had it legally changed.”

“I see.” Her quizzical frown indicated she suspected there were deeper reasons for erasing her past. However, the Elizabeth Reddawn Joanna remembered wouldn’t have pried unless invited to do so—even if she was champing at the bit to ask questions. Judging by the way she kept plucking at her wool skirt, the older woman was definitely itching to ask something. But Joanna wasn’t offering. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Several silent moments passed, leaving Joanna wondering how long Martinez would be on the phone to his wife, and how long she could sit here smiling and pretending that this reunion wasn’t awkward as hell for her. “How do you like working for Sheriff Martinez and the crime lab?”

“It’s nicer than working at old Elmer’s office ever was. And I’m not just talking about the new furniture and state-of-the-art facilities in our lab.” Despite Joanna’s stiff posture, Elizabeth reached across and squeezed her hand around one of the fists in her lap. “These are good people here. You’ll like them.”

The other woman’s caring touch seeped into Joanna’s fingers and shot little tendrils of distracting warmth into her resolve to stay focused solely on work while she was in Kenner City. “I’m only here for a couple of days. I doubt I’ll have time to get to know them.”

“What about the people in Kenner City and Mesa Ridge you already…? Oh. Of course.” Elizabeth politely pulled away, no doubt sensing the protective personal barriers Joanna was pushing back into place. “I don’t suppose you have relatives in the area to keep you here.”

“No.”

“Will you be paying your respects to your mother and daddy?”

“Hadn’t planned on it.”

“Ethan Bia has been back in town for a few years now, after his stint in the army.”

Ethan Bia? A shiver of recognition, of feelings long buried and often regretted, danced along Joanna’s spine.

She flashed through the remembered sensations of a young man’s eager touch—the patient demands of his mouth on her untutored lips. She blotted out the image of anger she’d seen only once on his tanned, rugged face—the last memory she had of the gentle giant she’d once loved.

“Ethan left Mesa Ridge?” That was almost more surprising than her reaction to the mere mention of his name.

Elizabeth jumped on the question. “For six years. He’s a consultant with the crime lab now. Works search and rescue in the area. What about calling him—?”

“I’m not here to socialize.”

Joanna hardened herself against the name, as warring memories of strength and warmth, regret and shame, surged inside her.

“Nüa-rü. The wind.” He stroked the long strand of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. “You’re just as elusive to me.”

“Ethan…”

She’d had to leave. Just as surely as Ethan had had to stay. He was tied to the earth and the mountains in a way she’d never been tied to anything or anyone.

A smack across the face. A knife at her breast.

“You owe me, bitch.”

Joanna jerked inside her skin. No. No way could she have stayed.

“Honey?” Elizabeth’s hand was on hers again.

The locker-room doors swung open, thankfully putting an end to the discomfort of reacquainting herself with the past.

“Madre de Dios,” muttered one Latino man, shaking the rain from his black hair. “It hasn’t let up once since noon. It’ll be raining buckets by sunset.”

“You’re telling me.”

Joanna pushed to her feet as a second man—same height, same black hair, same features save for the scar that bisected his chin—came up beside him. Both wore suits, although the first one was already pulling off his tie and stuffing it into his pocket as they approached.

The second one pulled a cell phone from his belt beside the gun he wore. “I’d better give Aspen a call at school and tell her I’ll pick up Jack from the sitter’s. I don’t want her on those muddy reservation back roads any more than necessary. I predict a washout in our future. No pun intended.”

“Nice one, hermano.” The first one elbowed his buddy in the arm. “Emma talked about seeing great waters and danger in her dreams last night.”

“Maybe she should take up weather forecasting.”

“Yeah, and maybe you should call your wife before she forgets what you look like. Again.”

“Ouch.” Both men laughed as they moved their magnets on the sign-in board behind the reception counter to indicate that they were back in the office and on duty. “Point taken. I’ll leave the one-liners to you.”

Joanna didn’t need Elizabeth mouthing the word “twins” to recognize the resemblance. She didn’t particularly need the nudge forward as Elizabeth insisted on introducing them, either. “Miguel? Dylan? I’d like you to meet the daughter of an old friend of mine, Joanna Kuch—” She caught the mistake. “Joanna Rhodes. She’ll be working with us for a few days.”

Extending her hand in a professional greeting, Joanna completed the introductions herself. She’d done her homework. “Agent Dylan Acevedo. Supervisor Ortiz told me you’d transferred here because you were friends with the deceased, Agent Grainger.”

“Julie and I went through the academy together—along with Tom Ryan and Ben Parrish. We’ve all been working the case.” Dylan—the one with the scar—shook her hand, nodding toward the badge at her waist. “You’re FBI?”

“I’m with the D.C. office. Profiling and interrogation specialist. I’m here to interview Sherman Watts.”

Dylan’s twin shook her hand next. “Good luck with that one. He’s a wily SOB. The man’s got nine lives when it comes to staying ahead of the law. I’m Miguel Acevedo.”

Joanna recognized the name. “You’re a crime-scene investigator with the forensic lab.”

“That’s right.” He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and shucked his jacket, looking like a man who was anxious to get out of his wedding apparel and get back to work. “So you’re the big gun Martinez said the bureau was bringing in to crack this case for us.”

You don’t have to make friends, she reminded herself. You just have to get the job done. Her promotion and the ability to walk away from here emotionally unscathed depended on it. “That’s my intention. The information in the case file that KCCU prepared for me was very thorough. I’m sure it will be invaluable to the success of my interview.”

The locker-room door opened again at the end of the hall. She needn’t have worried about the laxness or scarcity of the staff. This wasn’t the reservation sheriff’s office of fifteen years ago. She was beginning to believe the paperwork she’d read. The KCCU was a diverse, dedicated staff of scientists and area law enforcement. The blond-haired man strolling toward them appeared to be no exception.

He walked straight up to Joanna and the Acevedos and diffused the tension between them by leaning down to kiss Elizabeth’s cheek. “Lizzie, you left the reception before that dance you promised me. Broke my heart.”

“Oh, Ben.” She swatted at his arm. “I’m a married woman.”

“All the good ones are taken, hmm?”

Elizabeth blushed at the flirtation from a much younger man.

He grinned as he straightened to introduce himself. “Ben Parrish, FBI.”

“Joanna Rhodes, the same.”

She noted that his handsome smile didn’t quite reach his wary eyes. “Don’t let these guys give you any grief. I was the new kid here myself a few months back. Now I’ve grown on them.”

“Like a fungus, Parrish,” Miguel teased. “I’d better change and get up to the lab. With Callie taking a couple of days off, I want to make sure we’ve got everything covered and on schedule for the weekend.” His smile seemed genuine enough as he excused himself. “If there’s anything you need from the lab, Agent Rhodes, let me know.”

“Thank you.”

As his brother pushed open the stairwell door and jogged up the stairs, Dylan Acevedo toned his indignation at an outsider’s interference down to an I’ll-wait-to-pass-judgment-once-I-see-what-kind-of-job-you-can-do status. “Watts and his buddy Perkins have already gone after my wife and Miguel’s. One or both of them are responsible for other attacks in the area. I’m guessing Sheriff Martinez already told you we make Boyd Perkins for Julie’s murder. There’s not a one of us who doesn’t want to put him away. If you can help us find the bastard…”

“I’ll get what your team needs out of Watts, Agent Acevedo,” Joanna reassured him. “And you’re welcome to make the arrest.”

“What do you get out of this?” Miguel asked.

“Miguel!” Elizabeth chided.

Telling him this was about a promotion wouldn’t build any trust. Telling him her personal reasons for accepting this assignment wasn’t an option, either. Joanna settled for a truth somewhere in between. “The satisfaction of a job well-done.”

“We can all use a little of that,” Ben intervened. Joanna nodded, appreciating his support more than she realized. She didn’t have to worry about thanking him, though. He turned away to mark himself In on the duty board and nodded for Miguel to follow him into an office opposite the sheriff’s. “I want you to tell me more about that medal Julie sent you before she died. There has to be a reason why you, me and Tom all got one.”

Once the door closed on their conversation, Joanna became aware of the warmth of Elizabeth Reddawn’s hand, still linked through the crook of her elbow. Had the older woman been holding on to her this entire time? Claiming her as a friend? Subtly hanging on in the face of the teasing, doubt and outright resentment from the three men?

As uncomfortable with the show of support as she was unaccustomed to it, Joanna shrugged away from Elizabeth’s touch. She busied her fingers, plucking imaginary specks from her blazer and slacks. She was perfectly capable of standing on her own two feet in this investigation without the older woman’s help. Joanna just needed a moment to shore up her defenses again, make sure her powers of observation, her strength and intellect, were firmly in place. “Could you show me where the interview rooms are? I’m afraid Sheriff Martinez has been held up on the phone.”

“Sure, hon.” Elizabeth’s frown indicated disappointment at Joanna’s abrupt insistence on working rather than resuming their trip down memory lane. But there was also something she supposed was maternal understanding when she patted Joanna’s arm. “Come on around this way. There are two rooms, with an observation window in between.” Elizabeth led her back toward the security desk and a hallway that ran parallel to this wing of offices. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“Black, thanks. That would be lovely.”

“I’ll brew a fresh pot and bring it right in.”

As Elizabeth bustled away, Joanna paused for a moment to inhale a quieting breath. But she’d switched on the light in the first room before realizing how much Elizabeth Reddawn and the secrets from the reservation they shared had gotten into her head and diverted her focus from the investigation.

“You forgot the case file, Sherlock.” Stopping short of thumping herself on the forehead, Joanna retraced her steps. She’d already mapped out her strategy for questioning Watts. Now she needed to choreograph her questions with the placement of chairs and where she would sit or stand during each phase of the interview.

Joanna unzipped her bag and pulled out the thick manila envelope with the case reports and her notes. She’d just acknowledged the security guard in the lobby when the front door opened with a rush of wind and patter of raindrops.

“Elizabeth?” The familiar male voice swept straight through her, mocking any attempt to keep her emotions in check. “You left your purse at the church. What are you carrying in this thing, bricks?”

Joanna stopped in her tracks. Stared.

The man, easily six foot four, froze in the open doorway. His dark eyes narrowed as they locked on to hers. The wind glued his brown suit jacket to his broad shoulders. The rain made his military-short hair glisten like polished onyx.

“Joanna?” The timbre of his voice darkened. The deep pitch of it filled up his chest and rumbled out in a seductive whisper.

“Ethan.” Here. In the flesh. Impossibly bigger, broader, harder than the man she remembered. The silent intensity of his dark, nearly black eyes hit her like a sucker punch to the heart.

Ethan Bia.

The man she’d given her virginity and her young girl’s heart to.

The man who’d taught her how to survive the mountains—and her family.

The man she’d walked away from fifteen years ago without ever looking back.

Chapter Two

“What are you doing here?” Ethan asked, anchoring his boots to the floor and holding himself still against the impulse leaping through every muscle of his body. Fly across the room and scoop her up in a fierce hug.

But another part of him had grown wiser and more cautious over the years. One, they had an audience in the form of Officer Bates at the security desk. And two, even if they were all alone, he wasn’t too keen on getting his ego smacked or his heart crushed again.

He’d seen plenty of death and destruction in his years as an army ranger and his two tours of duty in Afghanistan. He’d dealt with loss in his work as a search-and-rescue team leader. But nothing had ever hit him as hard or left him feeling as powerless as watching Joanna Kuchu’s tearstained face when she’d scrambled out of his truck that last warm spring night on the rez.

“There are no good memories for me here. I have the chance to leave and I’m taking it. Goodbye, Ethan.”

She was barely eighteen and he was only twenty-one, but he’d known in his bones that they were supposed to last.

But boom. They were done. She was gone.

And he was the man left behind.

“I’m working the Julie Grainger murder investigation,” she explained, clutching a thick investigation file against her chest. Her fingers fiddled with the edge of the manila envelope in a subtle revelation of nerves. But they stilled almost as soon as he noticed the unconscious movement.

Always guarded, always with a plan, always thinking two or three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. That part of her personality hadn’t changed.

“I knew there was a good chance I’d run into you. We should get this meeting over with so that it doesn’t cost either of us more pain than it has to.” She pointed over his shoulder. “You’re getting wet and so’s the rug. Why don’t you close the door? I’m sure we can find a private place to talk.”

No good memories. Not even him. Them. She’d been through hell those last few months—and the years before hadn’t been much better, so he’d never held her need to leave against her. But she’d never even let him try to help. She’d refused his offer to go with her. And his love hadn’t been enough for her to stay.

Ethan pushed the door shut behind him. He might not hold her obsessive drive to escape Mesa Ridge and the reservation against her. Didn’t mean he had to let her fillet his heart open and char it over the flames of false hope and misguided passion again, either.

“I’m just here to deliver this to a friend,” he explained, holding up the purse he carried.

“Elizabeth?” She inclined her head toward the main hallway, exposing a swanlike expanse of neck that beckoned to randy memories from the past. “She’s in the break room making coffee. I’ll walk you back.”

Though this sure as hell wasn’t the homecoming he’d once wished for, spending a few impersonal minutes in her company could no longer hurt him. Ethan shortened his stride and fell into step beside her. “Time has treated you well.”

“You look good, too.” She arched an eyebrow and gave him a glimpse of the hesitant smile he remembered. “Your hair’s a lot shorter. And you—” her long, agile fingers gestured in the air “—filled out. Got big. You’re taller and broader both, it looks like to me.”

More than six years of elite army training and service, plus the rugged outdoorsman life he led, did that to a man. “I guess.”

“How’s Kyle?”

It made sense that she’d ask about his younger brother. They’d been classmates and good friends. Of course, she and Ethan had been so much more than friends, but she didn’t need him to point that out. “He’s good. Married. Two kids. Lives in Cortez now.”

“Still a man of few words, I see.”

“No sense wasting them.” Stopping at Elizabeth Reddawn’s desk, Ethan set down the purse and unhooked his collar and loosened the black string tie he wore, silently assessing the changes in Joanna’s appearance as she turned to face him.

Despite the warmth of her olive complexion and dark brown eyes, there was a brittleness to her ramrod posture and polite words. He idly wondered if a stroke of his fingertip across the nape of her neck could still make her shiver, or if the touch of his lips against hers could break through those invisible barriers she wore like body armor and unleash the warmth and softness and eagerness to explore her own sexuality he remembered.

The black-as-midnight hair she’d pulled back into a sleek ponytail was shorter than the wild horse’s tail of a hairdo she’d worn through high school. She’d grown, too. Maybe it was the high heels she was wearing—he’d never seen those on her feet before—but the top of her head was just about even with his chin now. The curve of her lips sported a sheer berry tint that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago, and her tailored suit was a far cry from the jeans and tees she’d lived in back then. The beautiful woman standing in front of him looked as polished and businesslike and cold as the gun holstered at her waist.

The curious, coltish tomboy who’d tagged along with him and his younger brother, Kyle, on their adventures around the reservation had vanished. The years apart had erased the young woman with the shy sensuality and big dreams whom he’d patiently coaxed into loving and trusting him. Pity there was no sign of the fire within that had once drawn him like a moth to a flame.

But idle thoughts were as useless as idle words.

“You’re FBI?” he asked.

She nodded. “I made it into the program at Quantico after graduating with my master’s in psychology. Made it all the way to Washington, D.C., where I’m assigned now as a behavioral scientist and criminal profiler.”

“Good.” That was what she’d wanted—to move East, to put the entire country between her and the memories of her parents’ deaths and the compounding tragedy that followed. She’d longed for urban landscapes and busy, diverse city streets instead of the endless red-rock terrain and isolation of the reservation and the small mountain towns like Mesa Ridge and Kenner City. She’d wanted to carry a gun and take down bad guys and give the victims like herself, who’d been denied a voice, a champion who could save the day. She’d wanted things he couldn’t give her. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

So she’d finally gotten what she wanted. On some noble level, he was happy for her. But deeper down, somewhere between his battered heart and old man’s soul, it had always felt like unfinished business between them—as though fate and her stubborn will had seen fit to deny them the wonderful possibilities of loving each other.

Just punishment, Ethan supposed. He hadn’t protected her well enough back then—hadn’t even sensed how badly she’d needed his protection until it was too late. He’d been more interested in getting in her pants and making her see the world—and their future together—through his eyes.

Yeah. More than anyone he knew, Joanna Kuchu deserved to have her dreams come true. Even if those dreams didn’t include him. He was glad that she’d finally found her place in the world.

After moving on for a while, he’d come to realize that he was already where he needed to be. He’d come home from that last hellish deployment to the land whose spirit flowed through him like his own blood. He needed the open space and quiet the way she needed the bustle and technology and new faces around every turn in the big city.

When the silence stretched on long enough for her coffee-dark gaze to drop to the middle of his chest, Ethan knew there was no sense prolonging their would’ve-could’ve-should’ve-been reunion. He smoothed his hand over the top of his cropped hair and down the back of his scalp, taking away a palmful of dampness with it. There was no good way to let this woman go. He just had to do it. “I hope life always gives you what you need, Jo.”

Her dark eyes flinched and darted back up to his. “You, too, Ethan. You’re kinder than I deserve. I’m…” Those berry lips tightened into a frown that tugged at both his heart and conscience. “I’m—”

“I know.” He knew the sentiment by heart. “You’re sorry. So am I.” Before he could act on the impulse to take her in his arms to trade comforts and remind his body what hers felt like pressed against it, he pointed to the overstuffed bag he’d set on the counter. “Would you make sure Elizabeth gets this?”

“Of course.”

Ethan turned, ending the conversation and walking away. He needed the rain on his face to cool his skin along with the desire and regrets simmering just beneath the surface. He needed a long, fast drive into the countryside and a hike up into the mountains to put behind him his feelings for Joanna and the damnable understanding he had for why the two of them could never work.

“Goodbye, Ethan.”

Those dream-destroying words grated against his ears. Fifteen years and that woman could still get to him. Must be the guilt. Keep walking, buddy. You can’t change the past. He pushed open the door.

“Agent Rhodes?” Patrick Martinez’s voice echoed through the reception area behind him. “I finished those calls. My men are en route to pick up the suspect.”

Agent Rhodes? Ethan glanced over his shoulder and scanned for the second person his sharp eyes wouldn’t have missed. Wariness seeped up through the soles of his boots and put him on alert.

“Hey, Ethan.” Martinez acknowledged him with a nod as he strode up beside Joanna. “You coming or going?”

Turning, Ethan quickly accounted for every person here. Joanna. Martinez. Bates. She had to be Agent Rhodes. What was going on here?

His eyes swept Joanna from head to toe, coming back twice to her bare left hand as she tucked Elizabeth’s purse behind the counter. He hadn’t even considered the idea that she’d gotten married. That she might find someone else after leaving him.

He hadn’t. No one that ever stuck in his heart the way she had, at any rate.

The idea that another man had been able to give her what he couldn’t burned through him.

But any questions about new names and old relationships remained unspoken at the sheriff’s next words. “If you want to step into my office, I can spare a few minutes now to go over any other questions you might have regarding Sherman Watts.”

The current of awareness that flowed from the earth into Ethan’s body blazed into a full-blown warning. “What does she have to do with Sherman Watts?”

Joanna’s ponytail bobbed against her neck as she gave him a quick shake of her head. Not a word, she silently pleaded.

So much for the ice in her eyes.

Martinez didn’t know her history with Watts? The FBI was allowing this?

No. He could see it in her face. She hadn’t told them.

“Would you excuse us a minute, Patrick?” Ignoring every vow to keep his distance, Ethan clamped his fingers around Joanna’s arm and ushered her into the nearest open room he could find. Though her sinewy muscles twisted beneath his grip, he never let go. And she never muttered a sound that might indicate to the sheriff that she was moving against her will.

“You two know each other?” Patrick called after them. “Well, ain’t that a surprise.”

Ethan ignored the amusement he heard in his friend’s tone and pushed Joanna into an empty interview room. He closed the door, releasing her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He blocked the exit with his body as she stormed across the room and came back in a useless attempt to get past him. The file crumpled in her grasp as she tilted her chin to glare in defiance. “You already asked me that. I’m working the Julie Grainger murder. Now move. I have a briefing with the sheriff.”

She knew better than to play stupid with him. He rephrased the question. “Why are you messing with Watts?”

“My assignment is to interview him.”

“Get someone else.”

“Never a man to mince words, are you, Ethan?”

“He raped you.”

Her skin blanched beneath her tan. The fire in her eyes went out as her chin dropped and her hazy focus landed on the middle button of his creased white shirt. He felt like a bastard playing the voice of reason here, but someone had to make her see how badly she could be hurt if she went head to head with Sherman Watts again.

The bruises and blood and violation had been bad enough when he’d found her at her trailer that night after her parents’ funeral. But the emotional toll had been even more devastating. That night had killed her warmth. Killed her trust. Killed her love for him. He didn’t ever want to see her suffer like that again. If she wouldn’t protect herself from facing that unrepentant monster, then by damn, he’d do it for her.

Her deep, stuttering breath broke the silence of the room, reminding him to move past his raging emotions and seek out that calming sense of quiet inside himself again. She wasn’t a man under his command, and he shouldn’t be barking orders to get his point across.

“Joanna—” He reached for her pale cheek, but she knocked his hand away, the same way she had that night.

“Do you think that’s something I can forget?” Her gaze briefly touched his before she turned away to dump the file on the table opposite the observation window. Keeping his feet rooted to the spot, Ethan watched her take a moment to smooth a straight strand of hair off her face and pull her shoulders back. By the time she faced him again, that prickly, polite chill was back in place. “This isn’t about revenge.”

“Bull.”

“The statute of limitations ran out on my assault before anything could be proved, so there’s no longer a conflict of interest for me to work this case. I’ve accepted that he’ll never pay for what he did to me.”

“I haven’t.”

His stark, growly pronouncement seemed to take her aback. He watched the muscles travel down her long neck as she swallowed hard before speaking. “The attack wasn’t your fault, Ethan.”

“I should have been there.”

“I told you I needed some time alone that day. You were giving me the space I needed after Mom and Dad’s funeral. If I’d known he still had feelings for Mom…”

Her fingers clenched at her side and he got the feeling she was fighting back the urge to reach out to him, as well.

“What happened afterward—Watts’s never even being arrested—that wasn’t your fault, either.”

Didn’t make Watts any less of a bullying bastard who’d gotten away with crap his entire life because of who he was related to. Didn’t make Ethan feel any more like a man who’d done right by the girl he loved, either. “He can still hurt you. In ways you may not even have imagined yet.”

“I’ve imagined all of them,” was her stark answer. “But this is my job.”

“Go back to D.C. This is too personal.”

Joanna laced her fingers together and tapped her knuckles against her lips, thinking for a moment before she slowly began to pace. She seemed to choose each and every word with laser-beam precision. “I’ll concede that I won’t lose any sleep if Watts is arrested for a different crime. That’s not why I’m here. I didn’t volunteer for this assignment, but I didn’t argue when it was given to me, either. If I can’t face whatever criminal I run up against—even my own rapist—over an interview table, then I’m not tough enough to do this job.

“Make no mistake, there’s a reward involved if I prove to myself I can do this. If I break this case—if I can break Watts—I’m guaranteed a promotion in D.C. and I’ll never have to come back to this place again.” She stopped in front of him, her hands curled into fists as she faced him once more. “I know that sounds cold and calculating, but this is what I do. This is what I need to do. I’m the go-to woman who’s going to get Watts to talk. He’ll tell me who murdered Agent Grainger, and maybe where that fifty million dollars of Vincent Del Gardo’s is hidden. Besting him at my game will be justice enough for me.”

Pulling back his jacket, Ethan propped his hands at his waist, shaking his head at her misguided plan. “I don’t want you alone in the same room with him.”

“Isn’t it fortunate, then, that it’s not your decision to make?”

She retrieved her folder, tucked it under her arm and walked up to him as though she thought he would simply move aside. Screw this. Ethan reached out to lightly pinch the upturned point of her chin between his thumb and forefinger. She stiffened for a moment. But when she didn’t pull away and the warm coffee of her eyes stayed locked on to his gaze, he traced the line of her jaw, rediscovering the softness of her skin.

“Don’t do this, sweetheart.”

“Ethan…” She squeezed her eyes shut against the stroke of his hand, pressing her lips into a thin line to block the words and emotions locked up behind them.

“Shh.” He rubbed his thumb across the tight frown, urging her muscles to relax. He swept his fingertips lightly across her cheek.

When she turned her face into the caress, something cracked open inside him—his need for a woman to warm his bed, perhaps, or maybe the memories of how this particular woman had once enjoyed his touch. Her timid response took him back in time, when her long legs had caught his eye, and her innocence had captured his soul. Touching Joanna like this made him feel things, want things that weren’t his to ask for anymore. He tunneled his fingers beneath the heavy silk of her ponytail and let his broad palm cup the length of her neck. He leaned in, touched his forehead to hers and whispered, “You’re not as tough as you act. You weren’t fifteen years ago and you aren’t now.”

Her eyes popped open and looked straight up into his. “Fifteen years can change a person, Ethan.” She braced her hand against his chest and gently pushed him away. “I haven’t been that teenage girl who had a crush on my best friend’s big brother for a long time.”

He’d been more than a crush, and she wasn’t the only one who’d changed during their time apart. But neither comment seemed to mean much right now. She wasn’t here to recapture the relationship that had been, and he wouldn’t force her into the relationship that could be. Not when she was so intent on leaving. Again.

As he disentangled his fingers from her hair, he let her nudge him aside. Joanna patted the spot on his chest, then curled her fingers into her palm. It was a kind, but definite, send-off. “I have a new name, a new life. You don’t know me anymore.”

Ethan stayed in the small room for a moment as the door opened and closed. He listened to the spirit of Mother Earth inside him, listened to his training as a soldier, listened to his conscience—and made a decision. He opened the door and followed her out.

Joanna Kuchu—make that Rhodes now—didn’t know him, either, if she thought he was going to let her face off against that bastard Watts on her own a second time.

“GET IT TOGETHER, GIRL,” Joanna muttered. The skin at her nape was still tingling with tiny tremors from the warmth of Ethan’s hand.

Her heart pounded away at an equally unsettling rate as she left the interview room and forced one foot in front of the other along the KCCU’s tiled hallway. She could do this. She had to do this. She’d prepared herself to look Sherman Watts in the eye, to see familiar faces and places and deal with the memories they might trigger.

But she hadn’t prepared herself for Ethan Bia.

Not really.

She’d forgotten how impossible it was to reason with him—how he could watch her with those dark, nearly black, eyes and get under her skin and into her head and make her think that she was the one who was being unreasonable. His inner peace and age-old wisdom—even at twenty-one—had frustrated her as much as it fascinated. His certainty about the world and belief in what was right or wrong had confounded as much as it had comforted her. He’d been a rock in her chaotic young life, a constant she’d never known with her alcoholic parents. He’d also been a mysterious, compelling—completely sexy man.

Maybe that was the part she hadn’t prepared herself for.

Stopping to straighten her jacket and tuck her hair back into place, Joanna gave herself a moment to silence the confusion in her head. She’d devoted herself to her career, taught herself that her strongest allies were her own wits and determination. She’d gone through counseling and had prepared herself to accept a man’s touch again. It wasn’t so much that she was afraid of being with a man at some point in the future, but that she was afraid of needing him.

Ethan Bia, with that deep, rumbly voice and those gentle, work-roughened hands, had undone in fifteen minutes what had taken her fifteen years to firmly fix into place.

He’d gotten her blood boiling with his insistence that she had no business working an investigation that involved Sherman Watts. And then he’d hushed her, touched her—soothed her fears and anger and her constant fight to be strong and independent—and the years between them melted away. She’d wanted nothing more than to burrow against his big chest and feel his sturdy arms around her again. She’d wanted the shelter he offered as much as she’d wanted to welcome his kiss.

Felt a hell of a lot like need to her.

“No.” The wall beside her reacted to her firm insistence about as well as her turbulent emotions did. “It couldn’t work then. It won’t work now.”

There. Better. Think it through.

She was leaving tomorrow, Sunday at the latest, depending on how well Watts cooperated with her. She was too smart to risk her heart on a relationship that couldn’t last. Ethan was a man of the earth; she was a woman of the city. He was a Bia, son of a successful business owner and a tribal elder, a well-respected name on the reservation. She was a Kuchu, reservation trash, daughter of Ralph, a charmer with a big heart whose addictions had cost him his money as soon as he’d earned it, and Naomi, a flirtatious beauty whose drunk driving had gotten them both killed.

Joanna was too fractured inside to believe in anything more than what she could do for herself and control with her own two hands. What she needed was to keep moving forward with her life.

A mystic force of nature like Ethan Bia didn’t fit into her plans. She stood a better chance of surviving this trip home if he wasn’t a part of it.

“So get over it, already.” Smoothing her expression and her thoughts into business mode, she found Patrick Martinez pacing a rut into the carpeting of his office.

“Are you kidding me? Hell.” He cursed into his cell phone as he peered outside his window into the waning daylight.

Joanna’s training buzzed her senses on alert. What was he looking for? “Sheriff Martinez?”

“Yes. Lock it down before this rain gets worse and washes away any trail he might have left behind. No one goes in or out until I get there.” He snapped the phone shut and strode from the office. “Elizabeth!”

“I’m right here, Patrick.” The Indian woman set down the two mugs of coffee she carried and took a position at her desk, ready to handle whatever the sheriff needed.

“Sorry.” He offered the gruff apology in the same breath he started giving orders. “Get Miguel down from the lab and tell him to scrounge up any of his field techs he can call on short notice. I need them over at Watts’s place on the rez ASAP.”

“Got it.” Elizabeth spared Joanna a quick concerned look at the mention of the suspect’s name before picking up the phone and punching in the lab’s extension, quickly relaying the sheriff’s orders.

“Has something happened?” Joanna asked. Nobody—not Ethan, not Elizabeth Reddawn—had to protect her from Sherman Watts anymore.

Martinez grabbed his Stetson, pointing it at Elizabeth before putting it on. “And call my wife. Tell her I’m going to miss that movie.”

Elizabeth nodded, reading off an address she’d brought up on her computer screen.

“Trouble?”

Joanna jumped inside her skin at the sound of Ethan’s deep voice from right behind her. How could such a big man move without making a noise?

Martinez nodded to him over her shoulder. “Good. I’m gonna need you with me, big guy.”

“Sheriff.” Joanna ignored her erratic pulse and insisted on an explanation.

“You might as well come, too, Rhodes. Watts isn’t at his trailer. The rat must have gotten wind we wanted to talk to him and skipped town. He’s cleared out his stuff and gone to ground.” His blue eyes shifted back up to Ethan. “I need you to track him for me.”

“My gear’s in my truck.” A hand at the small of her back guided Joanna into step behind the sheriff as they headed for the exit. “You think we had another info leak?” Ethan asked.

“Who knows?” Martinez paused just inside the doorway. “He probably knows that once we bring him in and he starts talking about Julie Grainger’s murder, he won’t be going back home for twenty years or so. Maybe his survival instincts kicked in.”

Joanna took an extra step to move beyond the distracting brush of Ethan’s hand. “You don’t believe that.”

“No. But I like the idea of having a mole on my team even less than I like the idea of Watts’s dumb luck keeping him one step ahead of us.” The sheriff pulled his hat low on his forehead before pushing open the door. “Makes me think he doesn’t want to answer your questions.”

Ethan’s growly protest didn’t matter. The rain hitting her face didn’t matter. Joanna hurried out to the Suburban she’d arrived in, purposely choosing the sheriff’s ride over Ethan’s pickup.

“He’ll answer them,” she vowed.

Her ability to leave Mesa Ridge once and for all, knowing Sherman Watts and her past no longer had any hold over her, depended on it.

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