He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and sat on the edge of his desk. The phone loomed like a scorpion before him. Did he not reach for it, it would sting him anyway.
He grit his teeth and dialed the sheriff’s office main number.
“Deputy Brandon, please,” he told the female dispatcher who answered.
“He’s on patrol. Is this Mike Irontree?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Hi Mike, it’s Carol Peltierre. Do you remember me?”
Carol had left the reservation four years ago. Discouraged with her chances here, she’d vowed to make it in the big city. He smiled. He knew she’d be back. She had always seemed to hold a special place in her heart for their traditions. Like him, she had found a balance between the two worlds. He cringed at the thought. Like he used to have. “Nice to have you back, Carol. I didn’t know you worked for the sheriff’s office. You’re a dispatcher?”
“No way, Mike. I’m a cop. Just filling in for a while on the boards while I get to know everyone.”
“That’s great.” He hoped the hollow ring in his voice didn’t transmit over the phone line. He felt a surge of happiness for her. He should be thrilled she’d made so much of her life. A week ago he would have relished the fact that maybe, just maybe, he’d had some influence over her decisions and her success. It was his job, after all. But he didn’t feel that way. He felt alone.
“Anyway, I can give Carl a message for you, or have him call you later?”
“Whenever he gets the chance, Carol. I’m not going anywhere.”
He hung up the phone and sat down behind his desk. The prospect of diving back into financial reports didn’t exactly thrill him, either.
What had happened last night? He couldn’t figure out what could possibly have changed between his phone conversation with Candice in the morning, and her failing to show up after work? Had she come by and then changed her mind? Or had he said something to frighten her away while they were on the phone?
He’d pushed too hard. That had to be it.
Damn it. He hadn’t meant to press her, but he’d never needed someone so badly. He silently railed at the fates for teasing him so mercilessly. Sure, he’d been able to leave her when he had the chance, but they kept throwing her in his face. Right up until the last second, when he couldn’t breathe without her, then they snatched her away.
Figures.
A loud male voice rent through his closed office door. What could only be the sound of a fist crashing on the countertop in the lobby followed closely behind. Hawk jumped from his desk and dashed into the outer office.
“What’s going on out here?” he snapped at Luke Champagne, an older Warrior who’d lived on the reservation his whole life, except the hellish two years he’d spent in Vietnam.
“I want to know why you would bring some reporter here to make us look bad, Mike. That’s what’s going on.”
“What are you talking about? Candice is writing about hoop dancing, Luke. She’s harmless,” he answered. Harmless to them, anyway.
“According to my daughter, Beth, she was poking around yesterday, asking Lonnie questions that had nothing to do with dancing. She took pictures of Beth and the babies. She better not publish them, that’s all I have to say,” Luke growled. “She better not use my daughter’s face in some article about us. It’s none of the white man’s business what we do here. Or how we live our lives. They’ve done enough.”
“Calm down, Luke. I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.” It has to be.
“I’m not stupid, Mike. She may have told you she wanted to write something on your dancing, but I’m tellin’ you, she lied just to get access to the rest.”
It couldn’t be true. Candice wouldn’t lie to him.
But she didn’t show up yesterday. She blew him off like a mosquito on a summer night. As soon as she got the proverbial scoop she hunted for, she bailed.
The realization hit him like a fist. He’d been so afraid he’d used her, treated her badly. And the whole time, she’d played him like a drum.
He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I’ll get to the bottom of this, Luke. You know damn well I’d never do anything to hurt Beth.”
Once Luke left the office, Hawk turned to face Celeste.
“Hawk, I don’t think you have all the facts. I can’t believe that young woman would ever do anything like this. She seems so nice.”
“Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving, Celeste. You should know that better than anyone.” His gut clenched with sickening waves. “I’m going to see her.”
“But...” Celeste stuttered.
He cut her off with one pointed finger as he went back to his office for his helmet and keys. “Do not call her. Do you hear me? Not one word to her.”
He heard Celeste’s sigh as he moved back through the office and pushed open the front door. “Fine, Mike. I won’t call her. But I still don’t believe it!”
~* * *~
Candice turned up the volume of her MP3 player as she developed the last of several rolls of film in her makeshift dark room at the hotel. The strains of Native American flutes she’d downloaded last night soothed her nerves, but not her conscience. As the image of Beth and her two small children appeared on the high quality photo stock, her stomach turned.
She was really going to do it.
She swallowed the surge of regret. She had no choice. If she wanted to keep her job, therefore allowing her to do little unnecessary things, like pay her rent, her alimony, buy food... She had no choice, she repeated.
Once this assignment ended, she would no longer be reminded of Hawk, either. She’d spent nearly all of last night curled into a ball on the bed, hugging a pillow to her midsection. Intermittent regret mixed with tears born of loss as she’d avoided sleep. Exhausted, she’d risen early and written several paragraphs of her article.
“In the center of our pristine, pressed and starched, white collar world, lies the wreckage of a great Nation. Native Americans, Indians, live in squalor as government grants and other funds are used for ill-conceived social activities instead of education and community improvements. Pregnancy among the teen population of the Ojibwe Reservation in Minnesota rests precariously at 84 percent, while the unemployment rates rocket even higher. Who feeds these children? Who tends the sick and the infirm? We do. American tax dollars feed the unwanted children, while their parents refuse to work, spending their government funded income on whiskey or other means to escape their beleaguered existence.”
The words of her article tormented her. In her opinion, she’d written a work of fiction.
She believed none of it, but knew others would, regardless of whether any of it were true. She’d yet to send it to the Dragon. She hadn’t been able to press “send” on the email program. Even as she developed the prints to go with the words, it sat in idle abandon on her laptop computer.
Her article concerning the magic of hoop dancing, where she’d expressed her amazement at the mystical power of the dance, the community and the man who shared it with her, rested under the surface of her desktop.
Taunting her.
~* * *~
The last picture developed, Candice stretched her back and rubbed her sore neck. She’d been stuck in the bathroom for hours, with only occasional breaks to hang the photos to dry in the main room.
She’d switched her music from the emotion filled beats of Native American drums and the mystery-laced flutes, to hard rock, which always numbed her. She still felt guilty as hell, but she’d been able to turn off her heart long enough to do what she had to do.
Now, she turned down the volume of Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar On Me and reached for the doorknob. She immediately sensed she wasn’t alone. A tremor of fear shivered up her spine.
Turning the corner into the bedroom area, she stopped short.
Hawk.
His back to her, he hadn’t heard her approach. He held several crumpled photographs in his clenched fist as he..
.
Dear God. No.
Her knees weakened and her head swam with shame and regret.
As he read the screen of her computer.
Chapter Fifteen
“Oh my God,” Candice whispered as she steadied herself against the wall with one hand. “What are you doing here?”
Hawk turned and glared at her. The pain and anger in his eyes burned through her like fire. No. More like spiky tendrils from hell itself.
“You really are doing this. I didn’t believe them when they told me,” he replied in a deadly, even tone.
“I...”
“Save it, Candice. Christ,” he yelled. “I defended you! I told them they were wrong.”
“I can explain. It’s not me. It’s my editor.” She had to make him understand. She could take not being with him if she had to, but she couldn’t accept his hate. Her palms broke into a sweat as she put the latest photos on the bed, not caring if they ruined.
“They are your words.”
“But I don’t want to write it. I have no choice.” She rushed to him and placed her hands on his chest, her eyes lifted to his. Surely he could see how much she hurt for him?
His body became rigid, as if her touch repulsed him. He refused to look at her, focusing on something behind her, over her head.
“Please, Hawk. You have to believe me. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I don’t believe you. I was so upset with myself about leaving you that first night. I thought you deserved better,” he released a bitter, humorless laugh. “I must have been out of my mind. You used me. And I felt guilty about it.”
He shifted his weight away from her and her hands fell into empty space. She felt so very alone, suddenly. As if the place where her heart had lived would never again be filled.
“Great pictures, by the way. You have a lot of talent,” his words burned her anew.
“I’m sorry, Hawk.”
He looked at her again, his eyes narrowed into dangerous black dots. “My name is Michael. You have no right to call me by any other.”
He was right, and she knew it. She’d lost that right when she’d turned on him. Regardless of the reason, a man of honor would never understand why she’d done it. Hell, she didn’t even understand why. Not really.
A man who sold his own horses to provide for families not his own would never do such a horrible thing as she’d done. A man who risked his entire existence to punish someone for an act of cruelty would have made a different choice when it came to betraying someone close to him. She didn’t deserve him.
He deserved better, and she told him so in a cracking voice.
The air in the hotel room thickened, even as the walls seemed to close in. Hawk inhaled deeply, but felt no satisfaction from the oxygen reaching his lungs. Dozens of photographs hung from strings around him. Pictures of his whole life. The people he’d dedicated his life to.
A stack of photos rested on the bedside table and he walked over to them. Using the fingers of one hand, he spread them out. His own image, dressed in regalia, danced from the glossy prints. These were the pictures she’d taken that first day. He lifted them with both hands and leafed through them.
She’d panicked when he’d teased her. She thought she’d captured his soul on film that day, thought she’d offended him. Well, she had his soul now. She should be pleased with herself.
“Why?” he asked without turning. He knew she still stood behind him. Her scent reached out to him. “That’s all I really want to know. Why me?”
Her silence echoed in his mind and he turned to face her, holding up the photos. “Why me, Candice?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she whimpered. She stared back at him with pleading eyes. But he was no man’s fool. She’d tricked him once. He couldn’t allow her to do it again. His people couldn’t afford any more of her lies.
Her face and neck paled until he could make out the veins in her throat. The remembered heat of her skin beneath his teeth and lips seared through him.
“You knew who I was that first day. But did you really have to sleep with me? I mean, is that how you work? Did you sleep with everyone you’ve investigated for your little stories?”
“No,” she answered, her temper showing in the pink of her cheeks as she moved from shock to fury. Her pleading expression changed to indignation in the span of one tortured heartbeat. “It’s not like that. It’s my job.”
“You’re job? Must be nice having that little line to fall back on.”
“Stop it, Hawk. Mike. You don’t know anything about me. You have no right to judge me.”
He could feel her anger now. The six feet of tense air between them sizzled with it.
His own anger demanded release. And release it he would. He yelled, “I know everything I need to know. You use people. You manipulate. And you always get what you want. What else is there?”
“Get out. Get out and go back to your reservation and save your people. That’s what you’re good at right? Avoiding real life so you can play the worshiped hero? So go.”
She marched to the door and threw it open. Her back straight, she stared at him. Fire shone in her blue eyes as her bangs fell in front of her face. He threw the photos on the bed and stalked past her as he muttered under his breath.
“I can’t believe I fell in love with a woman who could this.”
~* * *~
Had she heard him right? Candice stood in stunned silence, her hand still gripping the doorknob painfully. The chime of the elevator had long since dissipated around her.
Hawk was gone. He’d said he loved her, and he was gone. Slowly, the crackle of her abandoned MP3 player ear-piece hanging around her neck invaded the silence, followed by the whisper of traffic from the city streets below her hotel balcony.
She shut the door and stumbled back into her room. The pictures she’d taken of Hawk while he danced strewn across the bedspread. Colorless and empty, they ridiculed her.
She looked at her laptop, the hideous article glared back at her. Trapped inside herself, the photographs and words of her betrayal ripped through her like claws. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pull her hair out.
She did neither.
Instead, she reached for the portable mouse and moved the cursor over the icon and clicked. Then she closed the lid and unplugged her accessories. She stoically packed the heavy computer into its case and began removing the pictures from the strings. She packed everything into a file and dumped them into her suitcase.
If she hurried, she could be packed and ready to go in an hour. Her flight didn’t leave until tomorrow night, but she would get on standby now.
She couldn’t stand to be in this room anymore. Her gut clenched as she remembered making love with Hawk on this very bed. Everything she looked at held a memory of him. The sliding glass door to her balcony caught her eye. The image of her back pressed against the cold glass as he’d driven himself into her, her legs wrapped around his lean waist, twisted inside of her. The television screamed at her as she recalled watching bits and pieces of “I Dream of Genie” while they’d eaten strawberries dipped in whipped cream, tasted champagne on each other’s lips and intermittently explored each other’s bodies.
How could she possibly forget him? How could she go back to New York City and pretend none of this had ever happened?
She snapped her suitcase shut and slipped on her boots.
She’d just have to figure that out when she got there.
Because whatever chance she’d had to love Hawk had died the minute she’d allowed her idiot boss to dictate her life. The minute she’d chosen to betray him, she might as well have severed her own jugular.
She’d made her bed, and now she had to lie in it.
Alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Three Months Later...
The airport hummed with the voices of strangers. The noise blurred in the back of Candice’s mind as she waited for the last of the passengers to disembark flight sixteen-fo
rty two from London’s Heathrow Airport.
Justin’s dark head towered over the other passengers as she spied him approaching the baggage claim area. He smiled, throwing her a tired wave as he brushed past the crowd and headed straight for her.
“Hey, babe. Missed you,” he chimed, sweeping her into a tight embrace. “The next time I tell you I want to go to war, remind me I’m gay, alright?”
She laughed. Barely recognizing the sound from her throat, she winced. She hadn’t laughed in months. She thought she’d forgotten how.
At night, she laid awake, remembered passion filling her limbs until she ached for release. During the day, she worked quietly at her writing. Tired eyes focused on her friend now and she offered what couldn’t be more than a wan smile.
“I’ll do that, J. No problem.”
“You look more tired than me, Candy. What gives? I didn’t like the tone of your last email.”
“I was probably just tired. Don’t worry about it.” She released his neck and stepped back. Changing the subject before she found herself in a puddle of tears in front of all of metropolitan New York, she quipped, “So, is this everything, or do we need wait for a bag?”
“Nope,” Justin replied with a curious raise of his eyebrows. He patted his oversized backpack. “This is it. You didn’t need to meet me. I can hail a cab by myself, you know.”
How could she tell him she couldn’t wait another minute to see him? She’d never been clingy in the past. But having Justin back, when the rest of her life rang hollow and empty, meant a return to some semblance of normalcy.
She sighed quietly as they made their way through the terminal. She could lie to herself with the best of them. Normality wasn’t something she found these days, no matter how hard she looked.
They hailed a cab in front of the airport and Justin rang off their building address like a scripture reading. “I wanted to show you something, by the way,” he whispered once the cab pulled away from the curb.
Dance in my Heart Page 9