“Put the phone down and let’s talk about why you’re really here.” His hand rubbed the back of his sofa as if he was inviting her to sit beside him. The hum of sexual awareness buzzed louder in her ears, and that buzz spread to parts that hadn’t been buzzed in a long time.
“I don’t think so.” That look was so coming off his gorgeous face. She dialed 911.
“You really don’t want to do that.”
She glared at him. “Oh, I do.”
He ran his palms up and down his jean-covered thighs. “You realize that if anyone has broken a law here tonight, it’s you. Trespassing and—”
“I came to get my—” The voice on the line stopped her dead.
“Precious Emergency,” a woman said. Somehow, the two words didn’t seem to go together. Before Shala could gather her wits, the voice continued, “Ms. Callan, if this is you again, I’m telling you, being out of Twinkies is not an emergency! Wait, this isn’t your—”
“No,” Shala managed. “I need a police car here now. Someone has stolen my camera, and I’m at the house of the thief, and he still refuses to hand it over.”
“Oh, my!” said the woman, as if she hadn’t really dealt with a 911 call before. “Let me see, let me see. First I’m supposed to make sure that this is a real emergency. Is this really an emergency?” she asked. “A 911 emergency?”
“Yes! He stole my camera and he refuses to return it. And he’s…he’s making me nervous, if you know what I mean.”
“How is he making you nervous?” the woman asked, sounding more curious than concerned.
“As if he might…try something.”
Mr. Gomez’s eyes widened as if calling her a liar.
“Oh, my!” said the woman.
Well, it wasn’t a lie. Her body was getting all sorts of messages from him, and not one of them was decent. Every second that passed, in fact, she was finding those messages more disturbing.
Or more tempting, a voice whispered in her head.
Oh, hell. She really needed the police to hurry.
“Okay,” said the woman on the line. “I’ll contact the chief. But only if you really think it’s an emergency. He doesn’t like to be disturbed on his days off.”
“It’s an emergency,” Shala snapped.
“Okay, can you stay on the line? I’ll get him, and then I’ll get your information.”
“Yes.”
She glanced up, offering Mr. Gomez a little smile of victory, but her camera thief had picked up a newspaper, feigning total disinterest. Damn him for being so cool. Damn him for making her feel…alive, at least sexually. She didn’t want to feel alive. That fuzzy feminine sensation had led her to saying “I do,” and “I do” led to her heart feeling as if it were stomped on by sharp stilettos, stabbed by an ice pick, and given to baby crocodiles for a teething toy.
A ringing filled the cabin. Dropping the paper, her thief reached over and picked up the phone on the coffee table. His eyes met hers. “Chief Gomez,” he answered, in his deep, sultry voice. Then he had the audacity to grin and wink at her.
CHAPTER THREE
Shock filled Shala Winters’s baby blue eyes, and Sky couldn’t help enjoying that any more than he could help enjoy looking at her. While she measured slightly below average in height, nothing else about her did. Her breasts were large, her waist small. She had enough leg encased in that soft, formfitting denim to pull off wearing a short tight skirt, and wispy blonde hair a man might pay to run his fingers through. On top of all that, she had the face of an angel.
Not that faces fooled him. Angels didn’t look at men the way she’d eyed him at the powwow. He might believe that she wasn’t with the other two women, but she couldn’t deny the heated way she’d looked at him.
“Sky? We have an issue. Some woman called 911. I have her on hold but…” It was Martha, his nighttime 911 operator and daytime secretary. Martha excelled at two things: taking care of her Cadillac and talking.
While Martha jabbered, Sky watched Shala. She hadn’t moved. He questioned if she even breathed.
Normally, he wouldn’t have minded being blatantly checked out by someone who looked like her, but tonight was a prime example of why the elders in his tribe didn’t want the public invited into their private world. Outsiders took something culturally meaningful and turned it into a gawkfest. And this woman was one of the gawkers. She was supposed to be different, supposed to be here to help prevent this very thing. And damn it if he hadn’t been the one to talk the tribal council into accepting her.
Of course, that was before Redfoot claimed to have had a wacoi—the sacred word—a spirit-sent dream that foretold the coming together of two soul mates. Sky honestly didn’t blame his foster father as much as he blamed the chili the man ate before he went to bed. However, Redfoot started spouting off about Shala Winters being Sky’s soul mate. Since he couldn’t argue with Redfoot, there was only one way to keep the man’s nonsense about visions from getting out of hand. Stay away from Shala.
“Sky? Are you listening to me?” Martha’s voice brought him back to the issue at hand.
“I’m listening,” he answered, but honestly his mind wasn’t on the conversation. Instead, it was on the distance he’d sworn he’d keep from Shala and on their close proximity right now. And damn it if he didn’t want to be even closer. Unfortunately, knowing the gorgeous blonde was off-limits made her that much more appealing.
Covering the phone, he offered, “You can sit down if you’d like.” Shala ignored him.
He thought watching her from a distance had been hard, but coming face-to-face with her tonight took things to a new level. As chief of police—the only law in Precious besides two occasional state troopers—it was Sky’s job to make sure her visit to Precious didn’t bring out any of the local antitourism crazies. Tonight had him second-guessing his earlier protourism stance. After he’d snagged her camera, he’d been tempted to tell the tribal council he’d made a mistake.
But he couldn’t tell the tribal council that. The woman standing before him was the only thing that was going to save Precious, she and other members of the press. The fates of the town and his people were dependent on tourism. But Sky would be damned if he’d let anyone walk onto the reservation and all over his culture. Even Shala Winters.
“Sky?”
“Yes, Martha?”
“What do you want me to tell her?” Martha asked. “If…”
Sky waited for Martha to take a breath. “It’s okay, Martha. She’s here.”
“There? She…? You mean the caller.” Martha lapsed into silence, which spoke volumes. As one of the mostly white city council, Martha never hesitated to put in her two cents, whether it was wanted or not. Not that he didn’t like Martha; he did.
“Yes, the caller. She’s here. I’m the one who took the camera away from her—at the powwow. I just haven’t had the time to properly introduce myself yet.”
“Oh, God, please tell me she’s not Shala Winters. Oh, God have mercy on us.” Martha sighed. “It’s her, isn’t it? The mayor is going to skin us alive. First he’ll skin you and then he’ll skin me. Then he’ll go after my Cadillac.”
He was going to get the speech again. The one where she pointed out that he had to keep the ways of his people separate from his job. What he’d told her—what she never heard—was that there was no separating who he was from what he did. He was part Native American, part Mexican, and part white, and he was chief of police. But they were all the same man.
“Sky, this is one of those times—”
“I know, Martha. I’m taking care of it.”
“You’re going to give me my camera back?” Shala asked.
He looked up and raised a finger, asking for patience. Not that it looked as if she had much.
“The mayor left strict orders,” Martha continued. “We are supposed to do everything we can to make Miss Winters happy. ‘Happy as a lark,’ he said.”
His eyes returned to the pretty package in front of h
im, curvy in all the right places. Make her happy. He had a couple of ideas of how he’d like to make Shala happy. “Sounds like a good plan.”
“Give her the camera back, Sky! Give it back right now.”
That wasn’t what he meant. “Can’t do that, Martha.”
“Oh, yes, you can. The wrath of hell will fall down on us if you don’t.” His middle-aged secretary just happened to be the Baptist preacher’s wife.
“I’ll deal with that when she shows up,” he replied—if hell’s minion wasn’t already standing right in front of him. Shala would get her camera back in one week and not a minute before. Rules were rules. “Look, Martha, I’d better go.” He hung up and dropped the phone.
Shala stood frozen, cell phone still clutched in her fist, staring at him. “You’re a real jerk, aren’t you?” she asked. He wiped a palm over his mouth to hide his smile.
She dropped her cell in her canvas bag and swung around, and he watched her hotfoot it to his door. Against his better judgment, he savored the view. Damn, but why had Redfoot started with all that soul-mate nonsense? Then it hit him: why the heck did it matter? Sky knew he wasn’t soul-mate material. He’d out and out told Redfoot as much. About ten times. So why had avoiding her seemed like the best plan? Just because they were both single and he found her attractive didn’t mean they’d hit the sheets. And if they did…well, they were adults, and if they saw fit to get naked together, there wasn’t a darn thing anyone could do.
There! He’d said it: Shala Winters wasn’t off-limits. Part of him hoped her gut-wrenching attraction would evaporate into thin air. But as he continued to stare at her cute, heart-shaped backside, that evaporation didn’t happen.
She placed her hand on the doorknob, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He needed to come to terms with what he thought about Shala Winters, against what his gut was telling him now. But when he saw her open the door, he did an emotional U-turn.
“You don’t have to go,” he said.
“Good night, ol’ man!”
Redfoot looked away from the piece of pine he whittled and at Maria Ortega. The young woman was his foster daughter, but she would be his daughter-in-law if only his biological son, Jose, came back home and did the right thing. Jose and Maria belonged together.
“It’s Friday night, and you spend your time in bed instead of out with friends, and you call me old?” He hoped she’d go out so that he could do the same.
“I’m not going to bed alone. I have a good book.”
“You would rather read about the made-up lives of others instead of live yourself.”
“I have a life. Matt’s just out of town.”
“Again?” Redfoot asked.
Maria ignored him. He saw a flicker of concern as she leaned down and placed a soft kiss on his brow, though, and Redfoot could feel echoes of sadness in her touch. Matt had little to do with them. Maria mourned not just for Jose, but for the baby she had lost. Sometimes Redfoot wanted to knock some sense into his son. Next time he saw him, he might just do it.
“Matt can stay out of town,” he muttered. He’d bet his best carving knife that boy was up to no good—probably dipping his wick in another candle. He’d never warmed up to the young man’s light eyes. True, Redfoot’s feeling probably stemmed from his belief that Maria belonged with Jose, but that didn’t change the fact that Matt Goodson had no-good scoundrel written all over his pale white ass.
Maria shot him a look. “Stop it, viejo! Matt is a good man.”
“Good as Monopoly money down at the five-and-dime.” What was wrong with his son? How could Jose walk away from this soft woman who loved him? And how could Maria give this white boy a second look?
“Don’t start.” Maria looked at the newspaper on the end table. “Did you read that mustard is good for burns?” She pointed to an article.
“What does mustard have to do with Matt?”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “I was trying to change the subject.”
She walked off. Redfoot pressed his knife into the pine and removed a good chunk of frustration along with the wood. Since he was already ranting about the young folks, what in damnation was up with Sky? Why couldn’t that boy accept that fate had sent him a gift? Was the kid blind? If Redfoot were ten years younger, if his heart weren’t already half-taken, he’d go after Winters himself. Half the young men at the powwow tonight had tents in their loincloths from seeing her.
Nope, Redfoot simply didn’t get young people today. Sometimes he wondered if his inability to understand them meant he was getting old, or if they were just as stupid as he thought. He let that question sit and finally decided they were just stupid. And fate didn’t have much patience. Fate was about to kick ass; Redfoot felt it. From the dream he’d had last night, someone was going to try to hurt Blue Eyes. In his dream, it had been a bulldog. Wolves had come to her aid, but there had been blood spilled. Lots of blood.
“Love you, viejo,” Maria called from the bedroom.
“I’m too mean to love,” he called back, then, “Love you, too.” And he meant it. He loved both Maria and Sky as much as he loved his biological son.
Not that it had always been that way. Bringing in the foster children had been his wife’s idea. A nurturer at heart, she had longed for a big family that fate had not given them. But a few months after getting Sky, Redfoot had realized Estella was right. Then, years later, Estella had gone out and done it again. A year after she found Maria, the spirits had taken his woman home. Sometimes Redfoot wondered if Estella brought Maria into his life because she knew she was going and wanted her family to have a woman’s touch. He wondered, too, if she’d known their only son would abandon his people’s ways to become part of the white world. That was a choice Redfoot understood but resented. But maybe Estella had been more like her son than she cared to admit.
His gaze shifted to shelves filled with the fine pottery she’d made, pieces the world called art. How much more would his woman have become if she, like their son, had abandoned Precious?
“Did you take your medicine?” Maria called.
“Don’t I always?” he answered. And he did, but he hated it—hated that he needed to take the medicines of white men to keep him going. There was only one pill he appreciated, and he took that only when his neighbor Veronica Cloud was in the mood. While it had been over ten years since he’d lost his wife, every now and then Redfoot would think about her position regarding him and Veronica. But then he could see her in his mind, smiling down and saying You are not dead yet.
Not yet. Sometimes—like tonight, feeling the passion steaming off Sky after he confronted that Winters gal—Redfoot almost felt young again. And Veronica had been there, dressed in bright colors and looking younger than her sixty years. Her smile had goosed his sixty-six-year-old heart. Maybe, after Maria got settled in, he would go see how Veronica felt. He usually got lucky on Friday nights.
He waited several long minutes, then got up and pocketed his knife. Moving past the hall, he saw Maria’s door ajar. “Going to take a walk,” he called out. “Thinking I might stop off and see Cougar and play a hand of poker, beat him out of some coins.” This wasn’t a lie: he had indeed thought about it. Personally, he considered it silly that he had to hide his visits with Veronica, but every time he brought it up, the woman got mad enough to chew leather. No way did she want her children or grandchildren to know. And to her that meant his children should not know, either. Redfoot did not like keeping secrets.
“I hope you get lucky,” Maria called back.
“So do I.” He grinned, knowing she was talking about poker, but he had hopes for another kind of luck. Starting out the door, he stopped, remembering. Smiling, he went back to collect his bottle of little blue pills.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sky continued to stare at Shala. She stayed frozen for several moments, the door half-open in front of her. Then she shut it, pressed her forehead to the wood, and sighed. He didn’t mind; the view of her backside remained nice. He heard
her suck in deep gulps of oxygen, saw the tension slowly ease from her muscles. Still facing the door, she finally spoke.
“All I want is my camera. Is that too much to ask?”
“Next week, it won’t be. But right now? Yeah.”
She swung around. The tension may have eased from her body, but anger brightened her blue eyes. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying here until you hand over my camera.” She stomped over to his leather recliner and dropped down.
She crossed her arms over her chest. Now, that he minded. He’d rather liked observing the flesh filling out her white tank top. For the last two months, he’d spent every free moment working on the powwow committee, and since his last fling had been flung about a month before that, he’d been without a woman for more weeks than he cared to count.
“I mean it. I’m not leaving until you give me my camera.”
He bit back a smile. “Okay.”
Her wide eyes widened. “Okay, you’re going to give me my camera?”
“No. Okay you can stay. We’ll probably be tired of each other before the week is up, but have it your way. I’m not prone to telling beautiful women they can’t stay in my house…or in my bed for that matter.”
“You’re a real jerk. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sounds familiar.” Standing, he stared down at her. She looked good at all angles: back, front, above—and he’d surely like to see her from below.
“Since you plan on staying, can I get you something to drink?” He walked into the adjoining kitchen and opened the fridge. The cool air hit him in the face, and for a second he wondered what the hell he was doing. Even if they hit it off, things always went south eventually. Martha was right: the mayor would skin him alive. And don’t forget Redfoot’s whole vision issue. If he thought his foster father was giving him hell now, imagine if he and Shala actually got involved. Were a few rolls in the hay worth the cost? The image of her heart-shaped backside flashed into his mind.
“I’ve got beer. Might have a bottle of wine,” he called out, glancing back at her.
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