five years ago, did they.”
“When Russell died, feelings were running high among family and friends,” Ed told him. “You did not give anyone a chance to recover from the shock, before you ran away.”
Yeah, he’d run, all right. As far and as fast as he could. Back in the good old days, when he’d been a policeman, he had respected himself and enjoyed the admiration of others. He had prided himself on being a good Navajo and a good man. But for the past five years he had questioned himself, every choice, every decision he’d made. He had thought he was doing the right thing when he exposed Russell’s duplicity. The man had been his captain, his friend, a father figure to him since he’d been a teenager. And at the same time Russell Lapahie had been a man torn between duty and family loyalty, between upholding the law and breaking the commandments he had revered all his life.
And Joe had faced his own moment of truth. He had done the legally correct thing. But had he been wrong to expose Russell’s crime? Damn the man for having put him in such a position. A part of him could not forgive Russell for having placed him in such a no-win situation. And another part would never forgive himself.
“Go. Speak with Andi.” Ed squeezed Joe’s shoulder, then released his gentle hold and joined his wife in the kitchen.
Joe didn’t move for several minutes. Everything within him balked at the suggestion. He couldn’t talk to Andi, couldn’t make her see reason. He’d been in her presence only a few minutes, and already she had put words into his mouth, immediately assuming the worst about him.
How would it be possible for the two of them to act like normal, rational people when they distrusted each other so vehemently? The past lay between them, an old wound reopened, or perhaps never truly healed. He suspected that Andi had no more come to terms with Russell’s death than he had. Five years and fifteen-hundred miles apart—and yet they shared a grief that would forever bind them, and just as surely keep them apart.
Shaded by the branches of a pair of scraggly pinyon pines, Andi breathed deeply, drawing huge gulps of air into her lungs as she struggled to regain control of her emotions. She had known this would happen and yet she’d been given little choice but to come here today and meet Joe again after all these years. He had no more than opened his mouth before he’d practically accused Russ of being a murderer. Oh, he hadn’t come right out and put his feelings into words, not exactly. But his meaning had been clear. He thought the worst of her brother, just as he had of her father.
If Doli were capable of dealing with this horrendous situation, Andi might be spared seeing Joe again, spending time with him. But Doli was an emotionally and physically fragile woman, even more so since her husband’s death. Her stepmother had held her hand last night and pleaded with her to help Russ.
“You will find him,” Doli had said. “And prove that he is an innocent boy.”
From the moment she learned what had happened with Russ and Eddie, Andi had known that Kate and Ed would notify Joe. Who in their family was better qualified to track down his nephew than Joe Ornelas, former Navajo Tribal police officer and now an agent with a prestigious protection and security firm? And there had been no question in her mind that she would be the one to protect her brother, to make sure no one—especially not Joe—would place all the blame on Russ’s shoulders. Somehow she had to find a way to grow a tougher hide, and do it immediately. Their meeting didn’t bode well for future cooperation. But cooperate she would, even if it killed her. Whatever Joe did, she would be looking over his shoulder. Wherever he went, she would be one step behind him. When he found the boys, she would be at his side. No way would she trust him to look out for Russ’s best interests. Only she could do that.
Andi would never allow Joe to destroy her brother, de-file his reputation and publicly crucify him. She had been unable to help her father, to prevent him from taking his own life. But by God, she could and would do everything in her power to save Russ. She owed him that much. Owed her father, too, to protect his only son, not only from the real killer and the Navajo police, but from Joe Ornelas.
“Andi.”
She went rigid at the sound of Joe’s voice. Only in her dreams, often nightmares, had she heard Joe call to her. Go away. Leave me alone, she wanted to shout. He was the last man on earth she wanted to see, to be with. But they shared a common goal—the rescue of two young boys, each a family member, each a beloved child of people for whom they cared deeply.
You can do this, she told herself. Put aside whatever you feel for Joe and do what must be done in order to save Russ.
She turned to face the man she had once believed to be not only the person she would one day marry, but the hero of her heart. But Joe Ornelas was no hero. Not in her eyes or the eyes of his people.
Just the sight of him created unwelcome quivers inside her. Leftover mementos of a time when she had thought herself falling in love with him. Wasn’t it perfectly natural for her body to react in such a way? It was possible to intensely dislike someone and yet still find them devastatingly attractive.
Another uphill battle to fight, she surmised. Although she had stopped caring for Joe years ago, her body had not forgotten the pleasure of his touch. Her one regret had become her one comfort—that in the past, their relationship had not had time to reach the point of complete sexual intimacy, before he betrayed her.
Joe came toward her. Slowly. Hesitantly. She waited. Holding her breath. He was as handsome, as utterly masculine, as he had been the day they first met. She remembered so well when her father had introduced them—the young man he thought of as a son and the daughter he’d never known existed. Her heart had beaten a little faster. Her stomach had filled with dancing butterflies. Never before had she felt such an instant attraction to a man.
Don’t let those old feelings confuse you now, she cautioned herself. Joe isn’t here to help Russ. He’s come home to help Eddie. She didn’t dare trust him.
A warm August breeze caressed Joe’s long black hair. Several silky locks fell across his face. He brushed them aside with a sweep of his large, wide hand. A gray, short-sleeved cotton sweater covered his broad, muscular upper body and a pair of black jeans clung to his lean hips and long legs. The turquoise-nugget necklace with a circular silver center that he had always worn shone brightly against the coppery tan of his neck. Despite his years away from the reservation, he looked every inch the proud Navajo.
But this man wasn’t the Joe Ornelas she had known. He had gone out into the world, far from his roots, and experienced life as the white man lived it. He had become a part of the society into which she had been born and reared. There had been a time when he had thought he could never survive in the white man’s world, and she had been certain that she could never live the Navajo life. When they had first begun dating that difference had been the only thing she’d thought would ever come between them.
Joe halted several feet away from her. “Kate has lunch ready. Won’t you come back inside and eat with us?”
“Yes, of course, I will,” Andi replied. “I would never do anything to offend Kate. I know she’s as distraught over what has happened with Russ and Eddie as Doli and I are.”
“If I need to apologize—”
“You don’t!” Andi’s gaze locked with Joe’s, and for one timeless moment she felt light-headed. Breaking eye contact, she shifted her feet back and forth in the dry soil, sending tiny dust storms up and about her ankles.
“Both J.T. and Kate have mentioned several times over the past few years that Doli has been having problems with Russ.” Joe stood
