In the Barren Ground

by Loreth Anne White

  Crash.

  He stood there, shopping bags in hand, breath misting about his face. Tana came slowly, awkwardly to her feet. His gaze went straight to her huge belly, then back up to her face.

  “Damn, you look good, Constable,” he said as he came forward, that old Crash grin cutting into his craggy and freshly scarred face, his green eyes sparking. And her heart crunched, then kicked a burst of adrenaline, anticipation, through her blood. “Don’t think I’ve seen you out of uniform before,” he said.

  She gave a self-conscious shrug. “One down jacket and ski pants is much like any other, especially in my shape.”

  “How long now?”

  “Any day.”

  “You on leave?”

  She nodded, heart racing. Her eyes burned. She’d hadn’t dared believe that he really would return to her. She’d been too badly burned too many times, and now, seeing him here, in the flesh, was overwhelming.

  He hesitated, then came forward and gave her a kiss on her cheek. She stilled, met his eyes. He swallowed. “It’s good to see you, Tana,” he said. “Really good. It’s been too long.”

  Reaching up, she gently touched the new scars that clawed red down the side of his face. “They didn’t do a bad job,” she said.

  “Didn’t do a good one, either.”

  “You okay?”

  He grinned again. “Yeah. I’m good. Who’s the old dog?” He nodded toward the bush where the husky had vanished.

  “Crow’s. We all thought the animal was a he, but turns out it’s a she, and she’s been hanging around my cabin a few days now. I’ve started feeding her. I think she’s sleeping under my deck nights, but she’s always gone in the morning before I let my guys out. They don’t get on.”

  “So where are Max and Toyon?”

  “Inside. I keep them in there when I feed her so as not to spook her off.”

  He turned, taking in her view. “Nice.”

  And under the inanities so much more simmered. Tana barely trusted her own voice.

  “I … I like it. Maybe I’ll try a veggie garden when it gets warm. Don’t know how that will go—I’ve never had a garden. It’s a good place to raise Destiny, though.”

  His gaze shot to her. “Destiny?”

  She grinned, nervously. “Yeah. Sappy, huh? But … it … it’s real. She brought me here.”

  “A girl?”

  She nodded. And his eyes glistened. “Congrats,” he said, then hesitated as if wanting to say more. Instead he turned away and looked out over the river again. And Tana knew he was thinking about his own unborn baby girl. About Gracie, too. She had so much she wanted to ask him, yet she felt uneasy about just how much to pry, and where they would go from here.

  “Want to come in?” she said.

  “Thought you’d never ask.” He held up the packets in his hand. “I told you I make a good venison stew, remember?”

  She held his eyes, a whole world of emotion surging silent and fierce between them.

  “Bottle of red wine for simmering,” he said. “Button mushrooms, baby carrots, onions, garlic. Fresh fruit for dessert. Beer. Juice. What am I missing?”

  “Nothing,” Tana said, voice thick. “Nothing at all.”

  They sat on her small sofa in front of a crackling fire, Max and Toyon at their socked feet. The sky outside had turned dark indigo, and soft waves of aurora played over the horizon. The stew simmered in her kitchen, and Crash sipped a glass of red wine. He was warm and solid beside her. He felt good. He smelled good. She liked the look of him—the new scars and lines on his face were like a map of his past, and Tana understood people with messy pasts. They made her feel more comfortable than those with blank slates who seemed to be doing everything right. Whatever “right” was. And those fresh scars on his cheek knitted directly into her own life—made her part of him. They told of a crucible through which they’d both emerged profoundly changed.

  “So, I heard Van Bleek and Sturmann-Taylor were taken in for questioning last week,” she said, leaning into him.

  “Yeah, a joint FBI, Interpol, and RCMP op. Cutter was also officially brought in yesterday.”

  Her eyes flared to his. Her pulse quickened. “So he’s been linked?”

  He nodded, sipped his wine. “It looks like Cutter was the leak that sent the Vancouver diamond deal sideways. He couldn’t allow the marked FBI diamonds to enter the system, because he knew they’d lead right back to his involvement in the laundering operation here in the Territories, so he fed information through a fellow cop to the low-level snitch in Vancouver, who in turn fed it to the VPD.”

  “And Sturmann-Taylor, and Van Bleek?”

  “Interpol is working through Sturmann-Taylor’s finances and contacts, and it’s becoming clear he’s involved in the syndicate, if not the kingpin. I suspect the investigators will get there eventually. Van Bleek is being charged with some industry-related murders in South Africa, and the Congo. It appears he was setting up to run conflict diamonds through Harry Blundt’s new mine, feeding raw stones into the future WestMin haul out of Ice Lake.”

  “So Blundt is innocent?”

  “So far. He looks like he was a pawn. Sturmann-Taylor was just wooing him, and providing half the financing for the Ice Lake exploration via his subsidiaries.” Crash got up from the sofa and made his way to the kitchen with his glass. He poured some more wine, and offered her some.

  “I’m good with soda,” she said.

  He stirred his stew and tasted it. That grin of his that she was coming to love so much cut across his face again. “Now, this is good.”

  She got up from the sofa, came over, and he brought a spoonful to her mouth, spilling some on the way in. She laughed, and wiped her lips as she swallowed. “Damn right it’s good.”

  He stilled as he watched her mouth, watched her laugh. And Tana suddenly wanted to kiss him. She looked away quickly, opened the fridge, took out a cold soda that she didn’t really need but she had a desperate urge to keep busy, keep moving. To not look into his eyes right now because what she felt for him scared her. It was too soon. Too deep. Too big. She was not ready. Or was she?

  She had to prove to herself that she was properly stable and on her own two feet. She needed to be there for Destiny one hundred percent.

  “How’d it go with Grace and Leah?” she asked without looking at him as she made her way back to the sofa.

  He was silent a moment, before coming slowly over to the fire, and reseating himself beside her.

  “I’m glad I did it—that I went to see them.”

  She raised her gaze, met his eyes.

  Crash inhaled deeply. “It was awkward initially. But Grace was keen to meet me. I took her out for lunch, and we walked around the city. She showed me her school.” He paused for a long while. “It was a bridge, Tana. It was forging a connection between the past I’d cut off, and the present. And it’s a way into the future for all of us—Grace, Leah, me—a way to put things to rest, and to keep moving forward.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I needed to do it, and I feel good that I did.” He held her eyes. “I had to own my mistakes. She’s going to come visit.”

  “Grace?”

  “In the summer. Leah okayed it.” A hesitant smile crossed his face, and something deep changed in his eyes. “I’m going to teach her to fly, like my dad taught me. I’m going to learn how to be a father.”

  Emotion sideswiped Tana, hard. She swallowed at the intensity coming off him, the hopeful, nervous energy she felt inside herself. She touched the back of his hand tentatively. He looked down at her fingers against his skin. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered.

  Without meeting her eyes, he said, “And I’ve been cleared to fly for the Twin Rivers RCMP detachment. I signed the contract last week.”

  When she made no response, he looked up into her face.

  “Tana?”

  She sniffed and swiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Damn hormones,” she said with a thick laugh.

&
nbsp; He cupped the side of her face, and his thumb, rough, moved across her bottom lip. “I told you,” he whispered. “I’m your man. I’ve got your back. We’re going to find a way to make it work up here, you and me.”

  She nodded, and he leaned forward and pressed his mouth over hers. She tasted him, his wine, the salt of her own tears. Heat washed through her and her bones turned limp as she drowned into his kiss, opening to him. His hand slid down her back as he drew her close against his hard body.

  The next morning Tana stood on her porch watching Crash feed Crow’s old husky. The dog wiggled and licked his hand.

  “I think she likes you,” she said.

  “I think she does.”

  Crash had stayed the night. They’d eaten in front of the fire, and after they’d kissed, he had not pushed her for more. And she’d loved him for it.

  As much as she craved a deeper physical connection with Crash, for far too long she’d resorted to sex as a way of numbing herself. Of coping. And she wanted this to be different. Slow. She wanted it to be real. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa in his arms. Later, he’d come with her to bed where he’d just held her and her baby bump, and Tana didn’t think she’d ever felt anything more intimate in her life. She’d felt loved. She’d felt trust. She’d felt as though she had nothing to hide from this man. And he’d given her everything about himself.

  He came to his feet. “I should go. I’ve got a flight run. Later?”

  She smiled and nodded. “Tonight. And this time I cook. Or … try.”

  He grinned, cast her a salute, and he started down the frosted path along the frozen river. The dog followed him.

  “Hey,” she called out after him. “I think you’ve got a friend.”

  He stood looking at her for a long moment, and then said, “Yeah, I do.”

  “I meant the dog, goof.”

  He dropped his hand to his thigh, and the husky sniffed and licked it. “I tell you what,” he called out to her. “If she follows me all the way home, I might give her a place to stay.”

  Tana smiled and waved. And she watched the scarred old husky follow the scarred man into the frozen morning. Crash was picking up another stray. He was a good man. A special man. She thought about second chances, and how everyone, everything, deserved them. No matter how broken they seemed, there was always hope.

  There would be challenges ahead. Giving birth. Being a mom. Her career—dealing with Damien and his gang, the community. The inquest. Learning to be with Crash—learning how to fully open herself to love, which was still, honestly, as terrifying as it was deliriously exhilarating. But it was the stuff of life. Already there’d been a community celebration of Mindy’s life. Crash had phoned in from the hospital for that.

  Tana had gone out into the badlands with Caleb and Jamie, and informed Elliot Novak about Heather MacAllistair’s death, and her role in his daughter’s death. He’d howled like an animal, and even so, part of Tana felt that he’d known all along that MacAllistair had killed Regan.

  A ceremony had also been held to ask forgiveness for Jamie and Caleb’s mistakes in plundering the graves of ancestors. The bones themselves were yet to be returned to the band, and when that happened there would be a huge festival, a coming together as the bones were once again laid back to rest in the traditional manner.

  By then Destiny would have been born.

  By then Tana would be a mother.

  And as Tana watched the river mist swallowing her man and the dog in his tracks, she felt she’d done it. She’d come through the crucible, and light lay ahead.

  As Marcie had said, the season was turning, the curtains were opening again. All would be fine.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2013 Paul Beswetherick

  Loreth Anne White is an award-winning author of romantic suspense novels, thrillers, and mysteries. She spent sixteen years in the newspaper business before joining the world of fiction. A two-time RITA finalist, she has won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Readers’ Crown. She is a Booksellers Best Award finalist, a two-time Daphne du Maurier finalist, and a multiple CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award winner. Born in South Africa, White now lives with her family in a ski resort in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest—the perfect place to escape reality. Learn more about her online at www.lorethannewhite.com.