Eye of the Tiger Lily

by Ann Yost

  Praise for Ann Yost

  EYE OF THE TIGER LILY

  nominated for the Golden Heart award

  ~*~

  ABOUT A BABY

  Winner 2011 Phoenix Desert Rose Golden Quill Award for best short contemporary

  Finalist 2011 Gayle A. Wilson Award of Excellence

  Finalist 2011 Wisconsin RWA

  Write Touch Reader’s Award

  ~*~

  “I loved ABOUT A BABY. The characters breathe life right out of the pages!”

  ~Siren Book Reviews (5 Stones)

  ~*~

  THAT VOODOO THAT YOU DO

  Winner First Coast Romance Writers Published

  Beacon Contest for romantic suspense

  Finalist Wisconsin Romance Writer's

  Write Touch Reader's award for romantic suspense

  Long and Short Reviews Book of the Week

  ~*~

  “Yost pens a story that's heavy on romance and suspense but with a comedic flair in the form of some elderly ladies who are convinced they are witches.”

  ~Cindy Himler, Romantic Times

  Eye of the

  Tiger Lily

  by

  Ann Yost

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2013 by Ann Yost

  Originally published by Wild Rose Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonEncore are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  eISBN: 9781503991446

  Cover Designer: Kim Mendoza

  This title was previously published by Wild Rose Press; this version has been reproduced from Wild Rose Press archive files.

  Dedication

  To Pete, always

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  A word about the author...

  Chapter One

  Molly Whitecloud squeezed her eyes to block out the stark overhead light in the treatment room. A burning sensation crawled up the back of her throat. She knew it couldn’t be morning sickness. Not yet. Even if the procedure had worked she’d only been pregnant for about seventeen minutes.

  Molly lifted herself off the table, shed the paper gown, tugged on her blue jeans and pulled her apple-red sweater over her head freeing her thick, black braid in the process.

  If an acquaintance walked into the room she’d look like the same old Molly, the slightly sanctimonious, loud-mouthed crusader; the self-anointed guardian angel to the Blackbird Reservation and the Penobscot people. She’d look that way to her friends and neighbors. She’d look that way to her mother.

  But the impression would be wrong. She wasn’t the same. She’d let the halo slip. Molly wrinkled her nose. It was worse. She’d ripped off the halo and stomped on it. She deserved the quiverful of guilt that was already invading her bones. She knew it and accepted it. She’d bartered her self-respect for a chance to welcome Cameron Outlaw’s baby during the Sewing Moon.

  Molly imagined Cam’s reaction to this betrayal and her lips thinned. He’d be furious to learn she’d helped herself to his sperm-on-ice. He no longer hated her. She’d seen him a few times since his return to Eden and she’d experienced his indifference but under the smooth exterior of a sophisticated, buttoned-down financier there beat the heart of a lion.

  Cam’s fierce emotions were buried like the deadly rapids under the frozen Eden River and Molly Whitecloud had just drilled a hole in the ice.

  She walked through the sparsely furnished lobby of Boston’s Spotswood Fertility Clinic and into the brilliant blue of a late autumn morning. Normally she felt a surge of unalloyed freedom when she slid under the wheel of her ancient Jeep Wrangler. Not today. Molly felt no sense of relief that the hard decision had been made, that the die was cast, just a numbness and that stubborn, slender reed of hope.

  Thirteen years ago she’d followed her head instead of her heart and she’d lost everything. It was too late now for love but a twist of fate had presented her with a last chance at motherhood. She’d jumped at the chance and she had no regrets. She couldn’t afford to have any regrets.

  ****

  Cameron Outlaw, Eden’s golden boy, peered into his steam-clouded bathroom mirror. The fogged image reflected his uncharacteristic confusion. Normally he faced issues, took positions and solved problems with ease. Cam knew his success in business drew from his ability to make swift, accurate decisions. That ability had suddenly deserted him. He’d begun to dither and Cam despised dithering.

  He glared at his dark visage.

  Most of Eden’s five thousand residents, from Ebenezer Whitfield, the oldest living inhabitant, to the members of the Chamber of Commerce, the bank’s board of directors, and everyone in his family expected an imminent announcement of his engagement. And he had every intention of proposing to Sharon Johnson.

  The owner/proprietor of the Garden of Eden Inn was perfect for him in every way. A striking redhead with porcelain skin and legs that wouldn’t quit, Sharon was intelligent, kind, witty and, like Cam, committed to revitalizing Eden and the rest of western Maine.

  Most importantly, she shared his desire to create a family. He knew Sharon would make an excellent stepmother for Daisy.

  And yet he was dithering.

  Turned out that contemplating the murky waters of matrimony from the safe shore of widowerhood was not the same as actually flinging himself into the drink. Cam shuddered. Sharon’s perfection paled before the memory of his past mistakes. He considered himself a two-time loser in the sweepstakes of the heart and he found himself extremely reluctant to cast his lot again.

  Cam frowned into the mirror and started to scrape his straight razor over his lathered cheeks, aware that his problems were not limited to the incipient engagement. He’d been a fool to get involved with the Penobscots. Blackbird Reservation, for him, was the dark side of the moon and yet he’d developed and funded the casino and spa.

  He gritted his teeth and dropped his head. He’d tried to ignore recent rumblings about disappearing profits, mismanagement and worst of all, exploitation of some of the native staff. None of it concerned him. His part—building and paying for the casino—was finished. The resulting problems weren’t his business. Hell, the rez wasn’t his business. That had been well established more than a dozen years ago. An annoying sense of responsibility niggled at the back of his mind but he shook it off. He wanted nothing more to do with Blackbird Reservation or its residents. Not now. Not ever.

  A noise outside his door prompted him to set down his razor, hook a fluffy cocoa-colored bath towel around his waist and jerk open the door.

  “Hi Daddy,” Daisy said.

  Cam took a step forward but instead of thick carpeting under foot, he felt rough bristles and quivering flesh and an irritated squeal rent the air. He pitched forward.

  “What the hell…” he barke
d, as his arms wind-milled and he landed on something warm and scratchy. He cursed again as he peered into tiny, reproachful red-rimmed eyes of a pot-bellied pig.

  “Daddy, you got a white beard,” Daisy chirped, apparently unconcerned with the fate of either her sire or her pet. “You look like Santa.”

  A pang of remorse made him vow to clean up his language.

  “Daze,” he asked, “why are you and that pig in my room?”

  She moved closer and pressed a small finger into the foam on his chin.

  “Do you shave inside that hole?”

  He grinned in spite of himself and kissed the tiny finger. He hoisted his lean frame off the floor.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I wanna watch.”

  She followed him back into the bathroom and perched on the closed toilet seat like a curious, curly-haired gargoyle. Cam noticed that, for once, Wilbur didn’t follow her. He was a smart guy, that pig. Probably headed back to the safety of his headquarters, the kitchen.

  “I went to Hallie’s yesterday,” Daisy chattered. Cam knew the child spent much of her time at the veterinary clinic run by his brother, Basil and Baz’s wife, Hallie. He knew, too, that Hallie frequently took the little girl with her on house calls throughout Eden County.

  “Did you have a good time?”

  Daisy nodded. “’Cept for that dumb baby.”

  Cam hid a smile. He knew his daughter didn’t like sharing the adult attention with the newest Outlaw.

  “Hallie says me and her can go some places without that baby.”

  “She and I. What places?”

  “The Black Bird. Molly’s been gone but now she’s back.”

  Cam’s heart lurched and his razor slipped. Damn. He’d have to go to the office with toilet paper stuck on his face.

  “I know she missed me,” Daisy continued, with the confidence of extreme youth.

  Cam knew about the friendship between Molly Whitecloud and Daisy. On the one hand he wanted to warn his daughter to guard her heart against the faithless midwife. On the other, he knew in his gut Molly wouldn’t deliberately hurt the child the way she’d hurt the child’s father. He didn’t like the association but he wouldn’t officially object as long as he could stay out of it.

  He was finished with the rez and he was finished with Molly. The girl with the raven’s wing hair and indigo eyes was nothing to him now.

  “Daddy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Hallie said you might get married.”

  Cam made a mental note to speak to his well-meaning but meddling sister-in-law.

  “What would you think about that? Are you ready to have a mommy?”

  Sky blue eyes met their match in the mirror.

  “I been ready a long time.”

  Of course. Elise Outlaw had died a few years after their child’s birth. That was why Cam had ultimately returned to Eden. He’d wanted to give Daisy aunts and uncles. He’d wanted to give her a normal family. Hell, that was why he’d courted Sharon in the first place. He wiped the remnants of shaving cream off his face.

  “Do you like Miss Johnson?”

  “She’s nice.”

  “Yeah. Pretty, too.”

  “I guess.”

  Cam nodded and slapped on some aftershave. The tangy citrus stung the scratch on his cheek.

  Daisy sniffed the air like a curious dog.

  “You smell like lemonade,” she said. She leaned closer. “Hallie said you might marry Miss Johnson.”

  “That okay with you?”

  She eyed him, solemnly. “Could my new mommy be Molly?”

  Cam’s heart squeezed and he growled at the child.

  “Tell Asia I’ll be right down. I’ve got to get dressed.”

  “But what about Molly?”

  Her name caught in his throat as he caught a quick mental picture of the graceful curve of Molly’s jaw and the dark circles beneath her fine eyes when he’d seen her several weeks earlier. She didn’t look much older than she had at eighteen but she’d lost that effervescence he’d loved. He had no sympathy for her. She’d made her choice. If life had been hard for her it was no one’s fault but her own.

  “Miss Johnson will be a perfect mommy. You wait and see.”

  The words hung in the air like the canned peaches Asia put in lime Jell-O. They staked his claim, sealed his intentions. He glanced at the mirror. The steam had cleared. He could see the grooves in his lean, tanned cheeks. He could see the future, too. Whatever he said in this moment, Daisy would tell Asia and Hallie and by noon all of Eden would know. Including Sharon.

  It struck Cam that he’d been born in the wrong century. For the second time in his life he would marry an “appropriate” woman.

  This time, though, he was prepared. This time his expectations had changed. He knew happily ever after belonged in the pages of Daisy’s fairytales and he was glad. He no longer craved a soul-mate. He wanted someone he could count on, someone he could trust with his child and his life.

  Sharon Johnson would make him the perfect wife.

  ****

  Molly turned off Highway 31 onto Rural Route 2. The air had changed somewhere between Hartford and western Maine. It was clearer here, fresher, more invigorating.

  She loved the portage from the steamy dog days of late summer to the Moon of Ripening Berries. She turned onto the unnamed main drag on Blackbird Reservation, home of the Penobscot Nation. The late afternoon sun hovered above the horizon like a benediction bathing the rez in golden warmth. Molly saw the bone-deep poverty but she also saw the proud tradition. When she looked at the shabby modern-day trailers she saw rows of tidy longhouses, too. Grass-less front yards filled with rusting automobiles were replaced with neat fire rings and the worn-out, toothless old men camped out in cheap plastic chairs watching the infrequent traffic became young braves, broad-shouldered hunters and skilled fishermen.

  The Penobscot people were made of the same heroic stuff as their ancestors, but times had changed. She’d worked hard to help them find their place in the present. It was her mission and, for a long time, she’d thought it was enough. Not anymore. She deflected the arrows of guilt and fear that pricked her with thoughts of the Penobscot foremothers Molly Mathilde, the peacemaker, Molly Ockett the healer, Molly Spotted Elk, the dancer. Molly herself, as a fifteen-year-old foster child, had borrowed the ancestors’ name. Many times over the past thirteen years she’d leaned on their courage. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. It would be okay.

  Her buzzing cell phone interrupted her thoughts. She slid it out of the leather satchel that served as her purse and spoke.

  “N’nonon.” Mother.

  “How did you know it was me?” Muriel Whitecloud asked.

  “The same way you knew I was back.”

  Her foster mother hooted. Molly pictured Muriel’s cherub cheeks jiggling with good humor.

  “How did everything go?”

  “All right.”

  “Did the uh, thing work?”

  Muriel was as real as Mother Earth and just as blunt.

  “You mean the artificial insemination?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “I won’t know for awhile.”

  Muriel hadn’t approved of the plan but her reaction was typically supportive.

  “I hope it will make you happy, nizwia.” Sweetheart. “You’ve been so…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Bad tempered?” Molly finished for her. “Irritable? Witchy?”

  “Sad,” Muriel replied. “You’ve been sad.”

  Molly couldn’t speak around the lump in her throat.

  “I have bad news, though. Lenaya Dove is pregnant.”

  Molly’s heart sank. Lenaya was barely sixteen. She was one of the teens Molly had worked with to emphasize the importance of education and birth control.

  “How could that happen?”

  “I’ll tell you how,” Muriel said, indignation in her voice. “She’s working up at the resort. There’s orgies going o
n up there.”

  Molly breath caught.

  “She wasn’t…raped?”

  “The girls need money.”

  The simple explanation tore at Molly’s heart. She’d been instrumental in getting the tribe to build a resort and gambling casino. From the beginning she’d known it was a risk. It was impossible to bring in jobs and improved living conditions without exposing the People to the dangers and temptations of the outside world.

  “How do you know this?”

  “I heard it from Connie Black Squirrel who got it from Tanya Stillwater. The maids and waitresses up at the resort go to parties in the bathtub.”

  “You mean the hot tub?”

  “That’s it. After, they get paid for s-e-x.”

  It never occurred to Molly to doubt the ever-reliable reservation grapevine. She wondered, briefly, if Cam knew about this business. Since he’d founded the Eden Community Bank two years earlier, he’d had a finger in nearly every local financial pot including the resort and casino. She felt certain he’d be heartsick about the exploitation. But Molly couldn’t rely on Cam to handle this newest problem. He’d stayed away from the project since it had opened six months earlier and she knew why. He hadn’t wanted to bump into her.

  Now she didn’t dare bump into him.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Molly told Muriel.

  “This isn’t your fault, daughter. You just wanted to help.”

  Molly wondered. She’d hoped to bring in funds for a maternity clinic, a childcare center, and more businesses but it appeared she’d failed to protect the tribe’s vulnerable youth as she followed her own agenda.

  She turned onto the single-lane path that led to her cottage. Fresh white paint gleamed in the last rays of early evening and the blue morning glories that framed her front door had closed up for the night. It took her a moment to recognize the brown sedan in her driveway. When she did, she let out a cry.

  Daniel was home.

  The tall man with arrow-straight posture, flowing gray hair and a profile lifted from the face of an Indianhead nickel met her at the door. He held out his arms and Molly felt emotions well to the surface as her ex-husband pulled her into a comforting embrace.