no longer was.
“That makes two of us,” Elena shot back. “I don’t know you anymore, and I can’t trust you, either.”
He bit his tongue again to keep from saying the first thing that popped up in his mind. Instead, he took a breath, tried to collect his thoughts. “I’ve got to go to the sheriff’s office to log this in,” he told her, indicating the bottles of alcohol in the back. He looked into his sister’s eyes. “I want your word that you won’t leave the house until I get back.”
“I thought you didn’t trust me,” she taunted, her tone haughty and arrogant.
“I don’t,” he answered honestly. “But I’m hoping you’ll want to prove me wrong more than you want to run off to find another party that I’ll just have to shut down.” He let his words sink in before noting, “That can’t be making you very popular, being the girl whose brother follows her around, shutting down the parties she attends.”
“It doesn’t,” Elena snapped, glaring at him. She pressed her lips together, as if going over several things in her mind. “All right, you win. I’ll stay home,” she pouted.
Instead of getting out, Daniel remained seated behind the steering wheel. Eyeing his sister, he asked, “I have your word?”
Elena blew out a long, dramatic breath. “Yeah, yeah, you have my word.”
“Good.” Daniel nodded, getting out of the vehicle. “Why don’t you study while you wait for me to get home?” he suggested. He saw her roll her eyes. It took effort to hold onto his temper. Taking a breath, he told her, “You used to be a great student.”
“And then I got smart,” Elena responded sarcastically.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “Not really,” he countered.
Elena uttered a frustrated, guttural sound and then stomped all the way to the front door.
Getting there ahead of her, Daniel unlocked the door then opened it and let her in. For his part, he remained standing outside. “I’ll get back home just as soon as I can.”
“I can’t wait,” Elena retorted sarcastically.
Rather than say anything, Daniel quickly closed the door the moment she was inside the house and then locked it.
“Oh gee, now I can’t get out,” Elena called out, raising her voice so that it carried to him through the door.
“No, you can’t,” he informed her. “Because you gave me your word.”
Daniel heard another sound, louder and more guttural this time. He could picture the look on his sister’s angry face.
He walked to his car and really hoped that he wasn’t being an idiot to believe that, despite everything, Elena was going to live up to her promise.
Daniel got into the vehicle.
“Really wish you guys were still here,” he murmured under his breath to the parents who were no longer there to hear him.
He would have missed his parents no matter what, but being left to grapple with trying to raise a headstrong, overly intelligent sixteen-year-old teenage girl made everything three times worse. And it really made him miss his mother and father.
* * *
When Daniel walked into the sheriff’s office fifteen minutes later, he was surprised to see Joe there.
Senior Deputy Sheriff Joe Lone Wolf was the reason he had this job. He’d known the older deputy by sight when they were both growing up on the reservation. But then his parents had moved him and his sister into town and the next time their paths crossed, Joe was a deputy, working for Sheriff Rick Santiago. Joe’s influence in the scheme of things increased a great deal when he wound up marrying Ramona, the town’s veterinarian. Ramona also happened to be Rick’s sister. And when Daniel suddenly found himself in need of a job, Joe was the one who not only vouched for him but took Daniel under his wing, teaching him everything he needed to know. It wasn’t the job he had dreamed of having, but it was one he felt he could do justice to.
“I didn’t know you had the night shift tonight,” Daniel said to the other man.
“I didn’t. I traded Rodriguez for it. I had a feeling, when you went to answer that domestic disturbance call coming in from the better part of town, that you might wind up coming back.” Craning his neck, Joe looked around behind Daniel. “So where’s Elena?”
It was unnerving the way that Joe seemed to know about things before they became public knowledge. “She’s home.”
Joe’s eyes never left his face as he rocked back in his chair. “Let me guess, she promised to be on her best behavior.”
“I don’t think that girl has any ‘best behavior’ to fall back on anymore,” Daniel responded. There was no missing the disgusted note in his voice. “But she gave me her word that she wouldn’t leave the house until I got back.”
Joe laughed dryly. “Then I guess you’d better hurry back before Elena’s tempted to break her word again.” And then he looked at Daniel, studying him. “Why did you come back?”
“Well, I wanted to log these in at the station,” Daniel answered. The next minute, he was going out the front door.
“These?” Joe repeated, following the younger man out.
Daniel paused to reach into the backseat and take out the carton he’d used in order to carry all the liquor bottles out of Matthew McGuire’s house.
“These,” Daniel repeated as he carried the carton crammed full of bottles back past Joe and into the sheriff’s office.
Joe uttered a low whistle as he looked at all the semi-filled and three-quarters-filled bottles stuffed into the carton.
“What was the kid doing? Competing with the Murphy brothers’ saloon?”
Daniel glanced down at the bottles in his arms. “I’m guessing these belong to his parents.”
“Speaking of his parents, just where are these fine citizens?” Joe asked him.
Daniel thought back, trying to remember. “According to what Elena told me through her clenched teeth and her hostile attitude, I gather that Matthew’s parents are away for the week, touring a couple of colleges with his older brother.”
Joe smile was grim. “In other words, when the cat’s away, the mice’ll play.”
“And get drunk,” Daniel added with a deep, disapproving frown.
“Evidence?” Joe asked, nodding at the liquor bottles and curious as to exactly what Daniel planned to do with all of them.
“My first thought was to get these things out of the kids’ reach,” Daniel confessed. He put the carton down on his desk. “When Matthew’s parents get back into town, they can come by the station and get them.”
“My guess is that they’re not going to be happy about that,” Joe commented.
