Heroes In Uniform (306 page)

“Hi,” Maggie said, totally undone. “I'm Maggie Johansen.”

There was a pause. “Coop's...?” Marie-Claire prodded.

Maggie swallowed, and looked at him as he casually rested his butt against her counter.
Friend
?
Lover
?
Sex slave
? She panicked, having no idea what she did mean to him.

“Neighbor,” she settled on.

Wolf shot her a look that had “you are a big, fat wimp” written all over it.

“We're working on a case together,” she added. “Sort of.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I see,” Marie-Claire said with interest. “This case, it wouldn't have anything to do with bears, would it?”

Maggie’s jaw nearly hit the floor. “How on earth did you know?”

“I've been having bear dreams for a few days now,” his mother said matter-of-factly. “Last night Memekwesiw told me he had given my son a woman. That would be you,
non
?

Maggie's eyes widened in consternation. “Mrs. Cooper, I don't think—” How on earth did she know about her and Wolf? What kind of a relationship did she think they had? And who the hell was this Memekwesiw guy?

“Please, call me Marie. But,
hmm
. Maggie... What does that stand for?”

“Eugenie Margarethe,” she muttered, to Cooper's rocketing brows.

“Heavens, that is a mouthful. Okay. Maggie, it is. Well,
cherie
, when is my son bringing you home to meet us?”

Maggie’s panic returned with a vengeance. She turned to the window and looked out over the forest below. How could she tell Cooper's mother that she wasn't even sure she'd be with him next week? Misery sliced through her to think she'd have to disappear, and might never meet this wonderfully soft-spoken woman.

Then again, who said Cooper even wanted to introduce her to his family?

Before she burst into tears, she deflected the question. “If he brings me to meet you, will I meet this Memekwesiw, too?”

Cooper choked on a bite of turkey sandwich. On his face, horror battled with amusement.

There was an audible pause on the phone, then Marie said, “I believe you are already acquainted. My dear, please see to it that Blue Wolf brings you around soon, won't you? I'm looking forward to seeing the woman he has chosen...to let answer his phone.”

“I—” Maggie felt like she was being swept along by events over which she had no control. She looked at Cooper who stood watching her, his eyes sparkling and filled with humor. She knew that if she could be with this man, she wouldn't mind being swept to the ends of the earth. She just wished he felt the same about her. “Thank you. I'm looking forward to meeting you, too, Marie.”

Cooper took the phone, and after he had finished talking with his mother, he fetched his sandwich and came over to join Maggie at the table, chuckling richly.

“Sorry. That wasn't fair of me. I just couldn't resist.
Eugenie Margarethe
? Holy shit.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “You were
expecting
her call, weren't you, you jerk.”

He grinned through his lettuce. “In a way. I had a feeling it might be her. She's probably been calling all day because of the dreams.” At Maggie’s accusing look, he said, “Sometimes it seems like she knows I've done things even before I do them.”

“Must have been tough as a teenager,” she muttered.

He grinned. “I did most of my rabble-rousing during my summers in Canada. So, even if she knew, there was no way she could do anything about it.” He laughed devilishly. “No phone within fifty miles.”

“Yeah. Dinny mentioned your rabble-rousing on Hudson Bay.”

Shooting her a glance, he set his sandwich down and leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs. “Did he, now? And what, exactly, did the very Special Agent Paxton have to say about my days in Canada?”

She squirmed under his hard-edged scrutiny. “Just that you might be a terrorist. But of course, you're not.” She bit her lip. “Are you?”

With a cut-off sigh, he took his wallet out of his jeans pocket and fished out a creased and ragged photo. In the picture, two Cree youths holding spears posed grinning behind a large dead bear lying in the snow. The two boys looked around the same age, and enough alike to be brothers. Their hair was long, wild, and unkempt, and they were dressed in old, well-used clothes and parkas. There was an air of friendship, affection, and conspiracy surrounding them.

“That's me and my cousin Bernard up north, at the camp of our grandfather, Jimmy Blue Wolf. Bernie'd just killed his first bear.” Cooper smiled and fingered the bear claw necklace that hung around his neck.

“That was back in junior high—one of the years I went up for spring break.” He gazed at the photo, but she knew he was seeing something else, from long ago. “The band used to spend all nine winter months out in the bush at hunting camps. I always felt I missed out on the most essential part of being Cree because I'd never gotten to go with them.” He toyed with the lettuce on his plate. “My parents thought school was more important.”

“That must have been hard,” she murmured.

“Later on, after I'd graduated from college, I lived with
Nimosom
for over two years. But by then, things had changed.” She saw the sadness in his eyes as he replaced the photo in his wallet.

“Where are they now?”

“
Nimosom
is living with my parents in San Francisco. Bernie's in and out of jail.” Cooper got up and put a kettle of water on to boil as he spoke. “A while back, he got involved with a radical Indian rights group that's opposed to all the hydro-electric dams they're building in Quebec, flooding our band's traplines. He helped blow up one of them.”

She stilled in surprise. “Your cousin?”

He nodded. “There was also an incident with a bow and arrow down in New York.”

So it was true. His cousin really was a terrorist.

Cooper cleared his throat. “Anyway. I didn't agree with Bernie's methods, but I agreed with the sentiment. With its short-sightedness, the government wiped out our band's whole way of life. I looked on it as a sort of badge of honor when the FBI down here branded me a sympathizer.” He gave a wry, humorless laugh. “Of course, it was easy to be unconcerned when the stupid bureaucrats filed me under my clan name, Cooper Blue Wolf, instead of my legal one.”

“You feel guilty because you didn't blow up dams, too?”

“No.” he exhaled. “Yes.” He looked at her and shrugged. “Story of my life. Split between two worlds.”

She thought of her own Danish parents who had come to this country just a few years before her birth. She understood well the feeling of being a cultural ping pong ball, but couldn't imagine being bounced between two so unbelievably different ways of life. European cultures had their quirks, but not one of them was a hunter-gatherer culture living on traplines.

She nodded, gazing into his bottomless eyes. They were filled with pain and hope and determination. “It's lonely in that place, isn't it?” she said gently.

“I’ve been in worse.” He pulled her onto his lap. “You don't know how much it hurt when I thought I'd have to arrest you.”

She slid her arms around his neck. “I think I have an idea.” Snuggling in his lap, she thought about the dams wiping out his family's livelihood. “Boy, and I thought poaching a few bears was bad.”

He kissed her forehead. “Poaching bears
is
bad,” he said. “It's the same thing as the dam projects, just on a smaller scale. A few people decide their own need for money is greater than the need to preserve the important things for our grandchildren.”

She kissed him back. A frisson of hope went through her. “Our grandchildren?”

Smiling, he set her on her feet and went to make the coffee. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

Irrational disappointment crashed in on her, and she sat down again with a
thunk
.

Damn it, she needed a serious reality check. She didn't even know what the next day would bring, and here she was dreaming of picket fences and grandkids.

Besides, the man wasn't interested in picket fences. Every time she brought up the subject of the future, Cooper skillfully deflected it. She acknowledged she had little chance to be with him in the short term. But she had hoped maybe in the long term...

Their lovemaking had not nearly satisfied the deep longing she felt for the man. Touching him only made the ache more acute, since she now knew just what she'd be losing when they parted.

Grandkids, right
.

She smiled weakly. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

He set her coffee in front of her. “Well, enough philosophizing. Let's finish eating and go to Gina's. I want to nose around a bit and see if we can find anyone else who knew about those ear tags.”

Barely Dangerous: Chapter Ninety-Three

When Maggie walked into Gina's with Cooper, his arm casually draped over her shoulders, seven sets of eyes swiveled to them with knowing looks. Maggie quickly assessed the situation, and realized there was no way to avoid the inevitable ribbing.

Well, that suited her fine. She was feeling moody. Maybe she’d even pick a fight, to get rid of some of this frustrated tension. The guys could take it. They did it all the time amongst themselves. Tonight it was her turn.

She
should
be grateful Cooper was choosing to keep his distance. But his refusal to speak of a future together weighed on her more than she wanted to admit. More than she had any right to ask. Yet, there it was.

The fact that there was a very real possibility that a future together would be totally impossible—well, that was irrelevant. He had no way of knowing that. As far as he was concerned, she was single, available, and open to whatever developed between them with no obstacles in the way.

Which was, no doubt, the whole problem. He must want those obstacles.

He was a cool one, that Blue Wolf Cooper. She had given him two perfect openings to tell her what he was thinking. She’d even asked him directly the first time. But he’d remained totally silent rather than committing himself to being with her for more than one day at a time.

The hurt she'd been nursing at the bottom of her consciousness for the past few hours had started making itself felt on the truck ride to Gina's. It now roiled like a tempest right below the surface.

Was it so unreasonable to want to know where she stood? If he'd still want her after he solved the case? If there was a prayer he’d wait for her to return to him after the trial?

Apparently.

“Where have you two been all day?” Pete asked as Cooper led her to a chair and pulled it out for her.

On his way to the bar for another pitcher, Phil called back, “Yeah, Maggie, you had the dispatcher worried last night when she couldn't get hold of you.”

Cooper gave her shoulder a squeeze, then strolled down to the only other empty chair—which was at the opposite end of the table.

Excellent. So she could glare at him.

“They must have been too busy getting hold of
each other
,” said Pete with a snicker.

Obviously a bunch of new age sensitive type guys, since they had so clearly picked up on the tension arcing between her and Cooper.

Not
.

Phil snorted. “
Real
busy, from what I hear. Gus and I ran into some guys at the Caf this morning looking for him. They said they couldn't raise Coop last night, either.”

“Funny,” Maggie said in a studied voice, holding her expression in a portrait of maidenly innocence. “I didn't have any trouble at all raising Cooper last night.”

The men coughed, and those drinking spit beer. She tilted her head to one side and looked at him from beneath her lashes as he lounged in his chair. “Did I, Wolf?”

A wary smile slid across his otherwise neutral face. “None, whatsoever.”

The table exploded in a howl of laughter.

Phil returned with a pitcher in one hand and something else in the other, which he set in front of Cooper with a flourish. “I heard you lost this. Thought you might need it later.”

It was an aerosol can of whipped cream. Judging by Cooper's expression, Jack wasn't long for this world.

But it gave Maggie an idea. A really wicked one. Idly, she stirred her beer with a finger. Then she pulled it out of the liquid and slowly licked it. “Why don't you pass that can on down here, sweetheart? I've got a hankering to try it right now.”

His eyes narrowed, and his hand paused for a moment before he handed the can to the man next to him, who gleefully passed it along until it reached her. Cooper's expression remained reserved but watchful, his eyes never leaving hers.

Getting a little nervous, Wolf?
Good
. Maybe this will ruffle your fur a bit
.

She shook the can slowly and deliberately, wearing a tiny smile for his benefit. Breaking eye contact for a moment, she squirted a dollop onto the end of her finger, then looked up at him and put her lips around it.

His brows drew together, and his gaze strafed the guys at the table. She noted with satisfaction that
their
attention to her was rapt. “
Mmm
. Not bad.” She squeezed out another bead of whipped cream down the length of the finger, then raised her eyes to his.

Leave me and weep, cowboy
.

There were grunts up and down the table as she put her tongue at the base of her finger and languorously dragged it up to the very tip, gathering cream as it went.

Cooper leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms tightly. As she swallowed, his jaw clamped shut. She licked an errant drop of cream off her lip, and watched as one of his facial muscles jumped wildly.

I'm yours, Wolf. Just tell me you want me. For always
.

Looking dangerous, he said, “We'll play later, baby.” He jerked a thumb at a table on the other side of the juke box. “I see Sally and Theresa over there. Why don't you go see if they want some company?”

She let her gaze wander up and down the foresters lining the table, ending with Cooper. He looked ready to launch.

Oh, what the hell. She'd made her point. Didn't want the man going windigo on her.