to sleep by Mrs. Yeager during one particularly vivid nightmare, but he finally remembered a long-forgotten skill, one he’d learned without realizing. Comfort was not something that women came to him for. Never before, actually, but Morgan hadn’t come to him. He’d been forced on her. He had to remember that.
She sagged against him and rested her head on the hollow between his shoulder and collarbone. Funny, the rocking and the warmth of her little body against him made him close his eyes to savor the sensations. And suddenly she was comforting him.
This was what it must be like, he thought, to have a woman not just to sleep with but to hold. The awkwardness eased and they sat there quietly. When she pushed away he felt the tug of regret.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
He wasn’t sorry but how could he say so?
“That’s okay. Happens sometimes.” It never happened, actually.
She stared up at him and, bang, there it was again, that ache in his chest and the zing of attraction that crackled. Ray dropped his arm from her shoulder and down to her waist.
“Oh,” she said. Morgan inched away and met with the resistance of his arm as he tightened his hold.
“My daughter is in the other room,” she said.
That broke his concentration. His arm fell away and Morgan rose to her feet, perhaps belatedly realizing it is always unwise to enter a tiger’s cage even if it appears docile. She backed toward the door, pausing just inside the threshold with one hand on the doorknob, as if preparing to slam it shut and flee. It was the kind of chase he’d enjoy, but only if she would, too. He smiled as images of Morgan, playful and laughing, danced in his mind. They’d roll on the couch and onto the floor, where he’d let her sprawl on top of him, pink cheeked and giggling.
“So...we’ll go see my dad tomorrow at the jail? Ask him about the money.”
Ray let the daydream end as reality encroached. He wanted to go right now but he could see that Morgan was done in. And he knew that Lisa’s bedtime varied only slightly on the weekends. And federal authorities were very strict about rules like visiting times for prisoners.
“Yeah. First thing.”
Morgan looked scared all over again but there was no helping it.
“I have to put Lisa to bed.”
He heard Lisa complain and the television snap off. Lisa slowed at his door and stared at him before her mother pushed her along. Lisa’s room and his shared a wall and hers was at the end of the hallway. A few minutes later Lisa walked past his room again wearing pink pajamas that made her look about seven instead of ten. Who was that girl’s father?
Had he died like Ray’s or simply slipped away? He couldn’t imagine having a child...or a woman like Morgan. They seemed so normal and unprepared for the chaos that had swept them up. Why would Karl do this? Money didn’t seem like enough reason to leave these two to the wolves. He hoped like heck that Karl hadn’t planned on abandoning them and taking the cash. It would be hard to keep his temper if that was the case. Ray had always been in loose control of his temper and there were many places to lose it. One place he had never lost his temper was with a woman or a child. Never had. Never would. Was that why Kenshaw had chosen him?
Ray checked his mail and texts. Lisa appeared in the door with her mother at her back.
“Good night, Mr. Strong. Thank you for saving my mom tonight.”
Ray stood to face the child, feeling as out of place as a war club at a child’s tea party. He shrugged by way of a reply.
“Mom says you were an army man.”
Ray winced. “Marines.”
“I’m glad you know how to fight. Do you have a little girl, too?”
Ray glanced at Morgan whose expression told her that Lisa had gone off script.
“No. I don’t.”
“A wife?”
“Not one of those either.”
Lisa’s smile seemed satisfied and her eyes glittered with devilment. Ray knew when he was being set up. Normally he’d be saying good-night, which he was, but this time he’d be staying under the same roof with Morgan right across the hall.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” Lisa strode forward and offered her hand.
Ray hesitated. She was thin and tiny and her hand was so very small. But he shook hers as if sealing some deal.
Then she surprised him again by thanking him formally in perfect Tonto Apache.
“My grandfather taught me that,” she said.
He watched Lisa pad from the room on bare feet and wondered what else Karl had taught her.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Ray woke to the sound of a shovel rasping against gravel and earth. He headed for the window that faced the backyard. The sun wasn’t even up and there was Guy Heron digging up the tire planter in the backyard. The ceramic toad lay on its side next him, one eye staring up at the sky. Ray swore and then tugged on his jeans. He hoped the guy didn’t have a job that required him to see out of both eyes.
Ray was out the door a moment later. The day was gray and the air temperature lower than crisp. Heron took another shovelful of earth and dumped it on the ceramic frog. Then he knelt to check inside the hole.
Ray’s approach was soundless, not just because of his bare feet whispering over the ground but because of his training here on the reservation and with the US Marines. But still Heron spotted him before he reached him. The man sprang to his feet, gripped his shovel and ran across the driveway that separated the Hooke territory from the Herons’, but there was no distinction as all land here was communal. There Heron stopped as if protected by some invisible boundary, the kind that Anglos drew all over the earth. He expected better from a member of his own tribe.
“I didn’t find anything.”
Ray kept coming. Heron made his second mistake of the day. He held his ground.
“This here is my property.” He motioned with the shovel at a line that was not there and then lifted the shovel as if he intended to use it like an ax.
Third mistake, thought Ray as he came to a stop.
“This here?” he asked, marking the line that didn’t exist with an index finger.
Heron nodded.
Ray did a fair impression of a mime meeting an invisible wall. Heron’s brow knit as Ray seemed flummoxed by the barrier. His big finale was jabbing Heron in the eye.
Heron’s knees buckled but Ray grabbed him by the collar before he fell to his face. Then he dragged him back across the driveway and to the hole he had been digging.
“You taking up horticulture?” asked Ray.
Heron struggled, choked and dropped his shovel.
Ray
