my girl,” he said.
Joe almost dropped his arms from around her at the words. She’d married his brother and had a kid as soon as he left. How could he wish Maggie was his girl? Then he looked into eyes so green they reminded him of prairie grass in springtime. He could see why Paul had fallen in love with her and offered to give her what Joe couldn’t. Maggie was the kind of girl who was easy to love, if you didn’t have a thick head.
During the time he’d spent hunkered down with his troops, with bullets and mortars flying overhead, he’d discovered what a fool he’d been. The soldiers he’d fought with were his brothers. Black, white, red—it didn’t matter. They relied on each other to survive. They shared the same world, the same country. He wished he’d seen the truth before he left. Before Maggie had married Paul.
Her full lips drew into a thin line. “Where do we start?”
“First, let’s get you out of here.” He let go of her and walked back toward the living room. “Grab a coat, you’re going to work with me.”
She reached into a closet for a winter jacket, scarf and gloves, pulling them on before she paused to say, “What did they mean, give back what I stole? I didn’t steal anything. At least not that I know of.”
“That’s what we want to find out. When we get to the station you can tell me everything you know about what’s been going on on the Painted Rock Reservation and anything Paul might have been involved with at the Grand Buffalo Casino.”
“That won’t take long,” she muttered.
He grasped her hand and gazed down at her. “Everything, Maggie. Even the smallest detail may be a clue as to what triggered someone to hold your baby for ransom.”
“Okay,” she said, not sounding convinced. She drew away from him, her chin down, making a show of fitting her gloves against her fingers.
Was she uncomfortable about sharing information with him?
Probably. He’d been a jerk before he’d left. What proof did she have that he wasn’t still a jerk? A bitter lump of regret settled in the pit of his stomach. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, one of the other officers can interview you.”
Her head came up, her eyes widening. “No. I want you.” Was that trust in her eyes? Or was he mistaking desperation for something he wanted to see?
“Okay. But let’s get out of here.”
She glanced back at the living room, heaving a long sigh. “I want him back, Joe.” The words had become Maggie’s mantra, echoing inside Joe’s thoughts.
He stared at the plain room with what looked like hand-me-down furniture. The faint scent of talcum powder and baby lotion permeated the air. The only bright spots in the room were the playpen in the corner and a few toys scattered on the couch cushions and the floor. A happy enough environment to raise a kid, missing only one thing.
The kid.
Joe’s gut twisted and he wrapped an arm around Maggie’s shoulders. “We’ll find him.”
“Alive?” she said, her voice a breathy whisper.
“Yes.” If it was the last thing he did.
MAGGIE CLIMBED into the passenger seat of the SUV Joe used as his official tribal police vehicle. She felt funny, as though she was the criminal, even though the cage between the front and back seats was behind her. The thought angered her. Her house had been violated and her baby stolen, not the other way around. She jumped when the radio on Joe’s shoulder squawked.
“Sorry.” He flipped a switch on the device and it quieted.
Joe sat silent all the way to reservation police headquarters, a metal building with tan siding in the heart of the scattered community.
He climbed down and rounded the hood while Maggie sat with her hands clenched in her lap, her eyes staring out the windshield. As her mind replayed the message from the kidnappers, she tried to read into it any glimmer of a clue. But she came up with nothing.
He opened the passenger door and held out his hand.
Maggie turned to stare down at him. “Joe, Saturday is three days from now. I can’t wait that long to find my baby.”
“I know. That’s why we’re here. We’re not waiting.” He helped her from the truck and walked her toward the building without removing his hand from hers.
The pressure of his big gloved fingers against hers, provided a little of the reassurance she so dearly craved. She needed it to keep her from stomping her feet in the gravel parking lot and screaming against the injustice. With every nerve sizzling beneath her skin she felt like a firecracker on the verge of exploding. Where’s my son!
Once inside, Joe seated Maggie at his office and pulled a digital recorder, pad and pen from a drawer. “Let’s start from the beginning.”
Maggie listed off the names of the juveniles she’d worked with prior to Kiya’s suicide.
“Can you think of any reason why she’d show up at the center after taking meth?”
“No. And the tribal police were clueless. It didn’t make sense. If she was back on drugs after all everyone had done for her, I’d think she’d feel so guilty she’d hide in shame.”
“Unless she realized her mistake and came back for help.”
“A little too late.” Maggie had thought of that, distraught that she hadn’t been there for Kiya when she’d needed her most.
“I can’t understand what went so wrong during the time I was gone.” Joe tapped his pen against the metal desk.
“Things were different. The tribal police didn’t have their leader. They tried to keep things together, but all I could figure was the teenagers were being influenced by an outside source.”
Joe shoved a hand through his dark hair. “My deployment couldn’t have come at a worse time.”
Maggie almost snorted, but held her reaction in check. You’re telling me. She’d listened to the man she’d fallen in love with inform her they had no future. Then he’d walked away—or rather flown away—to the other side of the world. Two weeks later, she confirmed her suspicions, she was pregnant.
She gazed at the top of Joe’s head as he bent to the task of noting her responses and her heart softened. Fourteen months had given her time to get over her anger and to learn more about this man through the people on the reservation. The more she learned, the more she understood the reasons for his reaction to their night of lovemaking.
Joe had lost his father when he was ten years old. Chaska Lonewolf had been a gentle man, proud of his heritage, proud of his son and determined to instill in him the ways of his ancestors. But he hadn’t had the chance. He’d died while out hunting when his truck had flipped onto him.
The loss of Chaska Lonewolf as a husband and financial provider for the family had devastated Joe’s mother. She’d taken Joe from the reservation, the only home he’d ever known, and gone to work in Rapid City, where she’d met
