by Linda Turner
“Rachel and Jack are taking good care of her,” he said gruffly. “I owe them for that.”
Rachel Montgomery Henderson, Alyssa’s aunt, was, in fact, devoted to the baby. After Rachel had launched an exhaustive search for Christina’s baby last winter, Gavin had removed the child from the home of Cheyenne elder Lettie Brownbear and left her anonymously on Rachel’s doorstep with a note to take care of Alyssa until he could come for her. When he was charged with Christina’s murder and the truth came out that he was Alyssa’s father, he’d arranged for the baby to continue to stay with Rachel and her husband, Jack. The decision had been a wise one. They loved her as if she was their own and saw that she had a loving, stable home.
Still, Summer knew that it had to be difficult for Gavin, knowing that someone else was raising his child. “Do you get to see her very often?”
“As much as my schedule allows,” he began. His mouth twisted into a grimace of a smile. “Of course, that was before the hospital staff decided they couldn’t work with an accused murderer.”
“You didn’t murder Christina,” she replied with quiet confidence. “Even if you didn’t love her, she was the mother of your little girl. You would have never hurt her, let alone killed her.”
No, he wouldn’t have, but he was surprised that she realized that about him. No one else seemed to. “Tell that to a jury of my peers,” he said bitterly. “If they’re anything like the clowns in here, I’m fried.”
He tried not to think about it because it tore him in two, but the closer the trial drew, the harder it was to ignore the fact that the evidence piling up against him was damning. Thanks to the generosity of Summer’s uncle, Garrett Kincaid, he had a good attorney in Elizabeth Gardener, but he had a grim feeling that not even Elizabeth was going to be able to pull his feet out of the fire on this one. Too many people wanted to see him burn.
“I can take whatever they dish out,” Gavin continued, his face carved in harsh lines, “but Alyssa’s the one I’m worried about. If I’m convicted, I’ll either spend the rest of my life in prison or face the death penalty. Either way, Alyssa’s going to grow up without a father, and that’s not fair to her, damn it! She’s just a baby—she didn’t ask for any of this. But she’s the one paying the price for whoever killed Christina, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
He looked sick at heart, and Summer couldn’t say she blamed him. His daughter’s fate hung in the balance as much as his did, and that was the real tragedy here. Summer knew from firsthand experience what it was like to grow up without a father, and she wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Her own father, Raven, had disappeared before she was born, leaving a hole in her life that had never been filled. To this day, whenever she looked in a mirror, she searched for him in her own features. Had his eyes been almond-shaped like hers? Had his hair been the same shiny black? Was he the one she had to thank for her wide, expressive mouth and quiet personality?
Because her mother, Blanche Kincaid, had died a week after she was born and no one knew Raven the way she had, Summer had been left with a legacy of questions about her father that she would never have the answers to. Her mother’s sisters, Yvette and Celeste, had raised her in a loving home and while they had never said a bad word against Raven, they had never been able to tell her why her father had left town when he’d known her mother was pregnant with her. Had he really been paid off by her uncle Jeremiah? Was Raven Hunter the type of man who would do such a thing to the woman he claimed to love and the baby they had created together?
Her aunts didn’t think so, and Summer wanted to believe them, but deep down inside, doubts lingered that she couldn’t banish. And her heart twisted at the idea of Alyssa growing up with those same kinds of doubts. She was an innocent child. She had a right to grow up knowing that her father was an honorable man who loved her—and the right to really know him. That wasn’t going to happen if he was convicted.
Her heart breaking for both Gavin and the baby, Summer wanted to tell him to have faith that the real killer would be caught soon, but he wouldn’t thank her for what would be little more than trite words to him. In the eyes of the police and D.A.’s office, they were satisfied that they had charged the right man with the crime. If the reaction of the other diners in the café was anything to go by, just about everyone else felt the same way. Which meant Gavin’s fate was doomed.
Seated three tables over from Gavin and Summer, Audra Westwood picked at the salad she’d ordered, pretending to eat, her green eyes sparkling with glee as she avidly listened to the heated comments flying around the café. All around her, people shot Gavin Nighthawk dirty looks and grumbled about the man’s audacity. He was nothing but a cold-blooded killer, and he had no business forcing himself on decent, law-abiding citizens. If he had any kind of conscience at all, he would confess to killing the Montgomery girl and save the county the expense of an extended trial.
Hardly able to contain the smile that kept tugging at her collagen-enhanced lips, it was all Audra could do to just sit still. Everything was working out just as Lexine had predicted. In the eyes of the majority of the townspeople, Gavin was guilty as sin. Now all she had to do was keep her mouth shut and wait for the trial to start. With all the circumstantial evidence against him, not to mention public opinion, Gavin wouldn’t stand a chance. He’d be convicted and lucky if he didn’t get the death sentence.
Poor baby, she thought wickedly. That was the breaks. He’d appeal, of course, but that didn’t concern her. Once he was found guilty in a court of law, the case would be closed as far as the local police were concerned. Gavin would be shipped off to prison, gossip would die down, and with time, the murder of Christina Montgomery would be forgotten. And no one would know that the real killer still walked the streets.
Holding that knowledge deep inside like a treasure, she fairly purred with satisfaction as she leaned across the table to Micky Culver, her live-in boyfriend. “Did you hear what that man behind you just said?” she whispered. Her smile sultry, she mimicked softly, “’I’m not paying six-fifty to eat with a murdering Indian.’ Can you believe it, Mick? Everything’s going to work out just the way we want it to!”
His brown eyes hard and his mouth compressed into a flat, angry line, Micky arched a scraggly brow at her. “What do you mean ‘we’?”
Far from offended, she only laughed. “C’mon, baby, you know you don’t mean that. You don’t want anything to happen to me. You love me.”
Grudgingly, he had to admit that was true. When Audra had come to him in despair, penniless after she’d been swindled out of her inheritance by her mother’s lover, he’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Finally, he had a chance to prove his love for her! He’d taken her in, given her a home, and thought they would spend the rest of their lives together.
But lately he’d begun to have doubts. He’d known she was no angel—neither was he—but she was enjoying Gavin Nighthawk’s predicament more than she ought to. The man had a little girl, for God’s sake, and she needed him. But Audra didn’t seem to care about that. All she was interested in was getting her own butt out of a sling, and if that meant an innocent man would go to prison for a crime she’d committed, she didn’t seem to have a problem with that. But he did. In fact, it bothered him more and more each day.
Micky wanted to blame Audra’s cold-blooded attitude on Lexine. Ever since Audra had gotten involved with her birth mother and started visiting her in prison, she hadn’t been the same. She’d become harder and self-centered. But as much as he hated Lexine Baxter’s influence, he knew she couldn’t make Audra do anything she didn’t want to do. Audra was a grown woman, responsible for her own actions. Because of her, Gavin Nighthawk was in a tight spot, and she was delighted.
“Who are you?” he asked, truly puzzled. “I don’t know you anymore. I’m beginning to wonder if I ever did.”
“Don’t be silly.” Audra laughed, not taking him seriously. “Of course you know me, honey. I’m just like you. That’s
why we get along so well.”
There’d been a time when he would have agreed with her. Neither of them had much use for the law when it got in the way of what they wanted. He’d done some time in jail and didn’t fool himself into thinking that before it was all said and done, he wouldn’t repeat the experience. But unlike Audra, he wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He was just weak sometimes, and when life closed in on him and he didn’t know where the rent money was coming from or how he was going to eat, he did stupid things. But he’d never physically hurt or killed anyone. He’d robbed from folks who could afford the loss and had insurance to replace what he’d taken. Still, he wasn’t pleased with himself.
But nothing seemed to bother Audra at all. Was she really that cold? That mean? He didn’t want to think so, but he couldn’t be sure. And that was what worried him.
“Are you really going to do this?” he rasped in a low whisper that didn’t carry beyond her ears. “Are you just going to sit there and let that man go to prison for something you know he didn’t do? Would you really do that?”
Surprised that he even had to ask, she all but laughed in his face. “Are you kidding? You’re damn straight, I would! It’s a tough world out there, baby, and a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. Anyway,” she said with a toss of her short, bleached-blond hair, “he’s only getting what he deserves. She was the mother of his baby—he should have married her and taken care of her instead of leaving her out in the woods by herself to get in trouble.”
“So it’s his fault that you came along and killed her?” he whispered incredulously. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Pushed into a corner, she shrugged. “Well…yeah. If she’d been where she was supposed to be, none of this would have happened.”
Unable to believe she could justify murder so easily, Micky actually felt nauseated. Pushing away the steak sandwich he’d barely touched, he threw down his napkin and abruptly rose to his feet. “Something in here’s making me sick to my stomach,” he said coldly. “I need some fresh air.”
And for the first time in their relationship, he walked out on her, leaving Audra staring after him in stunned surprise.
Laughing Horse Reservation was north of town and home to the Northern Cheyenne tribe. It was here that Summer had spent the summers of her childhood, getting to know her father’s people and their traditions. And it was here that she had first been introduced to medicine when she was taught the ways of tribal medicine. She’d loved it, loved caring for her people, and when she’d returned to Whitehorn after college and medical school for her residency in immunology at Whitehorn Memorial Hospital, one of the first things she’d done was open a clinic on the reservation.
It was hard, working two jobs, but she was doing the right thing and had no regrets. Life on the reservation had improved some since she was a child, but poverty was still rampant and medical care practically nonexistent. It was the very young and the very old who suffered the most, and she did what she could to help them. She even took her services on the road, making rounds on the reservation once a week, driving from one home to the next long into the evening, visiting with patients, examining them, caring.
Usually she loved making house calls because they gave her a chance to reconnect with her heritage and memories of long-ago summers. But as she left the Hip Hop Café behind and headed for Janet Crow’s house on the far east side of the reservation, all she could think about was Gavin Nighthawk. There had to be something she could do to help him.
Troubled, she thought she hid it well. Taking Janet’s blood pressure as the older woman chattered about her new granddaughter, Summer smiled and nodded and made the appropriate responses. But Janet was shrewder than she’d given her credit for. The older woman waited until Summer had listened to her heart and pulled the stethoscope from her ears before she arched a brow at her and said, “All right, missy, what’s wrong?”
“Well, your blood pressure’s higher than I’d like, but—”
“No, not with me,” she cut in with an impatient wave of her hand. “I’m an old woman—it’s my time in life to fall apart. I’m talking about you, girl. What’s wrong with you? What are you brooding about?”
“I’m not brooding,” Summer began, only to swallow the rest of her words when Janet gave her a hard look with brown eyes that were as sharp as a hawk’s. She might be seventy-five and not as healthy as she could be, but she had earned her place as a tribal elder. She didn’t miss much.
“All right,” Summer sighed, knowing when she was beaten. “It’s the trial, okay?”
Janet didn’t have to ask which one. “His days of freedom are numbered,” she said flatly. “I hope he’s wise enough to enjoy them while he can.”
“So you think he’ll be convicted?”
Janet’s shrug was uncaring. “It makes no difference to me.”
“But he was born and raised here on the reservation!” Summer protested, stunned by her attitude. “He’s Cheyenne. Don’t you think the tribe owes him some kind of loyalty?”
“Why? Where was his loyalty when he moved into the white man’s world?” she countered swiftly, resentment glittering in her eyes. “He grew up on the land of his ancestors, spent his boyhood running free among his people. But we were never good enough for him. Even as a boy, he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with his Native American heritage.”
Summer winced. “It was the poverty he hated, Janet. The lack of hope.”
She disagreed. “It was the white man’s way he admired, the white man’s world of money and success and fair skin that he wanted, and as soon as he was old enough, that’s what he went after. He doesn’t care about us. Why should we care about him?”
She had a point, one that Summer couldn’t, regrettably, argue with. It was common knowledge that Gavin’s parents had raised him to want a life different from the one found on the reservation. And while there was nothing wrong with encouraging him to be ambitious, they’d gone too far. He’d never been content with who and what he was, and the end result was that he was a man who fit neither in the white man’s world he sought nor the Native American heritage to which he was born.
And Summer found that incredibly sad. She walked with ease in both worlds and was accepted everywhere she went. She couldn’t imagine what life must be like for Gavin, and her heart ached for him. He’d rejected his own people and didn’t have a clue what he’d given up.
“He made some mistakes,” she acknowledged. “Some big ones. But I can’t say that I wouldn’t have made the same ones if I’d been raised the way he was.”
“You would have never turned your back on us the way he has,” Janet said indignantly, her dark eyes flashing. “You’re not that way.”
“I might have been if Aunt Celeste and Aunt Yvette had only cared about money. So don’t judge Gavin too harshly,” she cautioned. “None of us know how we would have turned out given the same circumstances. And think about this. If we turn our back on him when he’s in the worst trouble of his life, what does that say about us?”
Put that way, there was little the old woman could say. “You are wise beyond your years,” she replied with a grimace of a smile. “I will try to remember the disservice his parents did him and not judge him too harshly, but I doubt that the rest of our people will do the same. It galls many of them that he hasn’t even offered to help you at your clinic. The work you do there is just as important as what he does at the hospital, and you could use his help.”
“He’s got enough on his plate right now without worrying about whether I could use an extra pair of hands at the clinic,” she said dryly. “Anyway, I’m handling things just fine. Opening the clinic was one of the best things I ever did.”
“You’re working too hard.”
Summer grinned. “It’s not work when you love what you’re doing.”
“It is when that’s all you do,” she argued sagely. “There’s more to life than taking care of sick people. You’re a pretty young woman.
When was the last time you went out to dinner with a nice, good-looking man? Every girl needs some romance to make her heart sing.”
Summer couldn’t help but smile fondly. Janet was just like all the other tribal elders—they all felt, because they cared about her, that they had a right to dabble in her love life. Or her lack of one, she ruefully added. Not that she was looking for a man. Her work was all that she needed, the only thing she wanted, but no one could seem to understand that.
“I appreciate the concern, Janet, but I don’t have time for romance.”
“You would if you didn’t work so much. Or take on other people’s problems—like Gavin Nighthawk’s. You are going to help him, aren’t you?”
Put on the spot, she couldn’t deny it. “If the opportunity presents itself. My conscience won’t let me do anything else.”
Not surprised, Janet sighed heavily as Summer began to repack her medical bag. “I knew you would. You always did worry about other people more than you worried about yourself. Your mother would be proud of you.”
The unexpected words of praise brought the sudden sharp sting of tears to Summer’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said huskily. “I like to think she would be.”
“Just watch yourself, okay? You’re such a tender-hearted soul and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“By Gavin?” she said, surprised. “For heaven’s sake, Janet, we’re barely friends. The only reason I’m going to help him is because I can’t stand by and let an innocent man go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Just remember that that ‘innocent’ man likes blond white women. Don’t let him break your heart.”
Summer promised her she had no intention of letting him or any other man do any such thing, but on the way back to her clinic, she almost laughed at the very idea of Gavin looking at her as anything but another doctor. Granted, there was a connection between them that she couldn’t explain, but there wasn’t anything the least bit romantic about it. They just came from the same background.