Navajo's Woman

The children giggled as they entered the house with their uncle. Side by side, touching only in spirit, their parents followed.

Just an inch shy of six feet, Joe had to duck down to enter through the front door, in order to make sure Joey’s head didn’t strike the door frame. Once inside the house, Joe came to an abrupt halt before he had taken more than two steps into the cosy, colorful family room.

Standing there in the archway between the family room and the dining area was a woman. Long, flowing, dark brown hair cascaded over her shoulders. Pale golden eyes gazed at him. Andrea Stephens was tall, slender and somehow elegant in her jeans, boots and bold red-and-blue plaid shirt. Tiny diamonds sparkled in her earlobes, a remnant of her wealthy South Carolina upbringing. And a wide band of turquoise-laden silver circled her right wrist. Joe’s stomach knotted painfully. He had given her the bracelet, created by his silversmith great-grandfather and passed down to him by his mother. Why did she still wear the bracelet? Or had she simply put it on today, to taunt him?

Joe eased Joey from his shoulders and placed the boy on his feet. Both children stayed at his side as he stood frozen to the spot. He said nothing, only stared at Andi. Kate and Ed came inside, and within minutes Kate hurried toward her guest.

“Andi is going to have lunch with us,” Kate said. “She asked to be here to meet with you. She is as anxious to find the boys as we are. She is going to represent the Lapahie family today.”

“Where is Doli Lapahie?” Joe asked, without breaking eye contact with Andi.

“My stepmother has been distraught since she learned about Bobby Yazzi’s murder and the possibility that Russ witnessed the crime,” Andi said. “Dr. Harvey gave her a sedative last night and left instructions with her sister to keep her medicated if necessary. Doli is not a strong woman. Not since…”

Joe felt the sting of accusation without Andi actually blasting him with the words. He knew what she’d been about to say. Not since my father killed himself. Not since you betrayed a man who had treated you like a son.

Averting his gaze from her face, Joe cleared his throat. “I stopped by the police station in Castle Springs, and Bill Cummings filled me in on what happened. I can’t understand why Eddie and Russ ran away. If they weren’t involved—”

Kate and Andi cut him off simultaneously, saying, “They weren’t involved.”

“How can you think such a thing?” Kate glowered at her brother.

“Did Captain Cummings say that he believes Russ and Eddie were involved in Bobby Yazzi’s murder?” Andi asked.

“He didn’t come right out and say so, but he’s puzzled by their running away. I’m sure he told you that he sees it as a possible sign of guilt.”

“I do not believe my son is capable of killing another human being, and I told this to Bill Cummings last night.” Kate shook her head, regret in her voice and apparent in the desolation of her expression.

“I agree,” Joe said. “I don’t think Eddie would kill someone.”

Andi lurched forward, as if shoved by an unseen hand. Her topaz eyes gleamed brightly when she confronted Joe. “But you think Russ might have killed Bobby, don’t you. You are only too eager to believe that this is all my brother’s fault, just as you once—” Andi broke off, then rushed past Joe and outside, crashing the storm door closed behind her.

“Damn it, I didn’t accuse Russ of anything!” Joe hammered his fist against the nearby wall. Nothing had changed—not between Andi and him. Her distrust and hatred pulsated with energy. She had not forgiven him and probably never would.

“Do not curse in front of my children,” Kate scolded.

“Sorry.” Joe rubbed his knuckles.

“You must go after Andi and tell her that you—”

“I’m not going after her. I didn’t invite her here. I didn’t want to see her or talk to her. As far as I’m concerned, she can go back to wherever she came from and stay there.” He couldn’t say—wouldn’t admit to his family—that just the sight of Andi Stephens brought back all the emotions he had tried so hard to forget. The love and passion. The anger, guilt and remorse. She would forever be a reminder of his own shortcomings, his failure to live up to the expectations of all who had known and admired him.

Ed laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder, but looked at his wife. “Take the children into the kitchen and prepare our lunch.” The moment Kate scurried Joey and Summer through the house and disappeared into the kitchen, Ed tightened his hold on Joe. “We are all very worried. Kate and I. Doli and Andi. We are concerned about Eddie and Russ. They are both only sixteen. Young men now, but in many ways still boys. Boys who need our help.”

Joe realized that Ed had just chastised him in his own kind, subtle way. “That’s why I came home. To help Eddie. And to help Russ, too. I figure I owe it to Russell to do what I can for his son.”

Ed patted Joe on the back. “You are a good man.”

Joe shrugged. “I’m not so sure about that. Nobody around here thought I was much of a hero 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.