Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 1 of 2 (52 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lea stared at this beautiful, driven man who sat beside her bed. She was grateful, but she knew that their time together was drawing short. He had done as he had promised. She was safe. But his life was in Black Mountain and hers... Well, where did she belong? Not here. Not anymore. Back at Salt River, her mother and father had made a life, but her older sister had already left, unwilling to live where she was merely tolerated.

Kino was Apache. Not just by blood but by every measure of what it meant to be one of his tribe.

And she wasn't, not wholly. She wished she could take back the words she had spoken to him. Not because they were untrue but because they would make him feel sorry for her and sorry for having to leave her. What else could she do? She had shown him and told him, and though she was not full-blood Apache, she knew the meaning of pride and stoicism. She would not weep or beg him to stay. And she would not try to hold what could not be held.

“Lea, what you said out there. Was it true?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could disappear. The humiliation was almost as deep as the pain. Only there was no medication for this kind of pain, was there?

When she opened her eyes it was to find him staring anxiously at her. Lea took a painful breath and set her face in the mask of unreadable stoicism learned through long practice.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I had no right to just blurt that out. Please forget I ever said that.”

He straightened and his expression changed. He shifted his weight and, for a moment, looked unsettled.

“Oh” was all he said. His eyes scanned the room. “Forget it,” he said, as if to himself. Then his eyes flashed back to hers and she saw that intensity, that maddening and wonderful passion that showed in everything he believed in and everything he loved.

They stared as the medical machines all around them chirped and bleeped and pinged.

“Forget it because it is not true,” he asked, “or because this is a difficult truth?”

“Kino, I know we have differences. Lots. Too many, maybe. And nothing about that has changed. Not really.”

“I disagree. I think everything has changed.”

She felt a stab of hope between her ribs, right over her heart. “Everything?” she whispered.

He rested a broad callused hand on her forearm and stroked all the way down to her fingertips.

Despite the pain and the medication and the exhaustion, her skin tingled and her body zipped to full sexual awareness of him.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, taking her mouth in a kiss filled with possession and promise.

When he withdrew, her heart monitor was bleating and her face flushed.

“I need you, Lea, all of you.”

“Why?”

“Lea, I know we are different, but those differences are good. I ground you to the earth and you lift me to the sky. You bring out my humanity and I bring you reality. I am practical and you dream of possibilities.” He traced her hand across his jaw and pressed a kiss into her palm. “I am hard and you are soft. You bring me balance and love.”

She could not keep the astonishment from her voice. “I thought that you would be leaving. That this was all finished.”

“This is only just beginning,” he said.

“But I'm Mexican, half-Mexican.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Of course it does. Because it's my mother. Have you thought about this, really thought? I have no clan. If we stay together, if...”

“If we have a family?”

“Yes. They will have no clan.”

“But they will have you as a mother. I can think of nothing better for my children.”

“But...but you said that being Apache was who and what you are. That it was more than nationality. It was a way of being. You said you couldn't imagine ever being with someone who wasn't Native.”

“Lea, are you saying that you don't think you are Apache?”

It was hard to say out loud, so she held his gaze as she nodded.

“But you
are
an Apache woman. You're stoic, brave, resourceful, enduring. And you care for your family...only, for you, Lea, your family is the entire world. Don't ever say you aren't one of us. You are. In fact, you are the best of us.”

Lea kept her expression blank but the tears of joy gave her away. Perhaps she was not as stoic as he'd thought.

“You believe that?” she whispered, hope rising to push away her sorrow.

“With all that I am or will ever be.” He stroked the back of her forearm with an easy, gentle touch and finally captured her hand. “Once I thought that finding my father's killer was the most important thing in my life. It isn't. The most important thing, Lea, is you. I want to spend every day for the rest of my life proving that to you.”

Lea sagged back in the bed.

“Really?”

Kino kicked the stool away and knelt at her bedside, her hand now trapped in both of his.

“Lea, will you marry me?”

* * *

C
LAY
AND
K
INO
filed their paperwork and finished their last report for the Shadow Wolves. Their captain, Rick Rubio, was there to shake their hands.

“You both are welcome back anytime. We need more guys like you. And if you got any more like the two of you up there in Black Mountain, send them my way.”

“Will do,” promised Clay.

They exited the small station. All that was left was to pick up Lea at the Oasis office where she had been helping Margie Crocker transition from area supervisor to regional director. Kino had been right about the media coverage. They had descended like the locusts of old, but Lea was a charismatic spokesman and, given her recent experiences, she was in high demand. In every interview she managed to bring the subject away from her and onto the people crossing a desert without water. And just as they had hoped, donations had flooded in and new volunteers were applying daily.

Clay walked with Kino out into the dry desert heat.

“Look at that,” said Clay, pointing.

There over rocky cliffs, white clouds billowed.

“It's not the rainy season yet,” said Kino, stopping to look at the unfamiliar sight.

“Might just rain, though.”

“I miss the rain,” said Kino as they reached Clay's battered brown truck and swung up into the front bucket seats.

“I miss a lot of things,” said Clay.

Kino paused. “Hey, I never asked you. How did you find our trail? From the hospital, I mean?”

“There aren't that many ways out of town. Rubio had called in everyone and we started running the highways. He'd also called Barrow, but couldn't reach him. About that time we got the trace on both of your phones. That put us right at the spot you left the road. I took over the tracking from there.”

“You're the best tracker I know.”

“Captain said that, too. I'd even consider staying if not for the heat.”

“Save a lot of lives, catching them before they die out there in that desert.”

“Yeah. I'll think on it. For now, I want to get back home and help Gabe and Clyne.” Clay started the truck. “I heard from Gabe. They're back in Black Mountain. Grandma is dyeing leather again.”

Oh, boy. That meant she was back at preparing the all-important traditional buckskin dress for the Sunrise Ceremony.

“But what if we don't find Jovanna by next July?” asked Kino.

“We'd better. She's started a guest list and she's enlisted her sister and her sister's daughters for the cooking.”

“Don't get me wrong—I want to find her. But she's been missing for nine years.”

“She's alive,” said Clay.

“She was alive when they placed her in foster care,” corrected Kino.

“Gabe says he can't take any more time off. There was a spike in crime while he was gone.”

“I've got a few more days of leave left,” said Kino.

“I thought those were for your honeymoon.”

“We will honeymoon—in South Dakota.”

Clay laughed. “Most folks go to Vegas or Sedona. Lea is all right with that?”

“It was her idea.”

Clay's eyebrows rose at this information. “I think she will be good for you.”

“I hope Grandma agrees,” said Kino.

“Will it make a difference?”

“Not to me. But it's important to Lea. She's worried about the no-clan thing.”

Clay nodded.

“You coming back to testify against DeClay?”

“If they call us.”

“I heard that Barrow's family didn't even claim the body. He was cremated.”

Clay glanced at Kino.

Kino knew the look. Clay had something on his mind. “Spit it out.”

“Did you know when you left him that he'd die?” asked Clay.

“You taught me all I know about rattlesnakes,” Kino said.

“Is that why you left him?”

Kino thought back to the last time he'd seen Barrow. There had been no more threats, no smugness or air of authority. Just cold fear in those eyes as he'd faced his own mortality.

“I left him because I'd lost the need to kill him. I just wanted Lea safely away.”

“Terrible death, that,” said Clay.

“Yeah,” agreed Kino.

“No worse than he deserved,” said Clay.

Clay pulled up and Kino jumped out. Lea emerged from the Oasis office as if she'd been looking out for them. He kissed her long and deep and she melted against him. His hold was light, deferential to her healing body. Even with the bandage wrapped around her ribs he knew that she was very tender. But with time she would mend and they would marry.

He stepped back and she stared up at him dreamily.

“I've missed you,” she sighed.

“It's only been three hours.”

“Too long. Way, way too long.”

Clay already had Kino's duffels out of the back of his truck and beside Lea's car. From here Clay would head to Black Mountain and Kino and Lea would visit her home in Salt River, where Kino would meet her family.

Clay and Kino embraced, each thumping the other on the back.

“See you at home,” said Clay. He then kissed Lea gently on the cheek before returning to his truck alone.

“Ready?” Lea asked Kino.

To begin the rest of his life with her? Yes, he was more than ready and willing and eager.

“You bet,” he said and lifted his bags into Lea's car. “Let's go home.”

* * * * *

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ISBN-13: 9781460388372

Shadow Wolf

Copyright © 2015 by Jeannette H. Monaco

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