Surrogate Escape

Being seen with Jake Redhorse would only start tongues wagging and again make her a target for mockery. She acknowledged that not acting on the intense jolt of desire that grew with each moment she spent in his company was not the same as not feeling that desire. Lori accepted that her attraction for Jake Redhorse might be ever-present, a condition from which she would never recover. Just like when faced with the common-cold virus, avoidance was the best option.

The longer he hung around, the more difficulty she would have not succumbing to those come-hither stares and his sexy, lazy smile. It tore her up like shards of glass.

His mouth quirked, and she realized she’d been staring, remembering their night together. Had it really been that good?

“Go home, Jake. Seriously.”

“Naw,” he said at last, pushing his hat far back on his head and yawning. “I’ll stay till you hear from Protective Services. I want to be sure she’s staying on the rez.”

She didn’t say that there was a possibility they might take the baby to a different placement. She gnawed on her cuticle.

“I know that look,” he said. “You’re worried about something.”

She lowered her hand from her mouth, flicking the bit of ragged cuticle on her thumbnail with her index finger.

“We’ve never taken custody of a baby like this one.”

“You mean white?”

She nodded. “We keep and place all Apache infants within our tribe, but she has no protection under ICWA.”

He nodded, obviously familiar with the Indian Child Welfare Act, the legislation that sought to keep Indian children in Indian homes in response to the horrific number of indigenous children who had once been adopted away.

“She might be Indian, a member of the Turquoise Canyon tribe.”

Lori made a face. “It’s possible. Hard to say without knowing the identity of her parents.”

He nodded. “Working on that. Until then, I’ll stay here to keep an eye on little Fortune.”

“Fortune?”

He shrugged. “That’s what you called her. Said she was fortunate.”

“She’s not a puppy we found, Jake. She’s a baby. You can’t name her.”

His face was strained, though from the pain or the subject matter, she didn’t know.

“A baby, all right. A baby girl,” he said.

Like the one they had lost. Same size, same big blue eyes. But this was not their child. Whose was it?

“When will they be here?” he asked.

“Well, since we’re a Safe Haven Provider, they might not even come. May just give us directions by phone.”

“But they can’t put her in temporary placement until we investigate for a missing child,” said Jake.

“She’s not missing.”

“I agree. Still have to run it through the system, though.”

He knew the law. She knew this particular bit, as she had been here when one teen mother appeared at the clinic to relinquish her child. The father had been contacted, and the young man had signed away his rights to his baby before the infant was placed. The Turquoise Canyon tribe had a 100 percent adoption rate of their children. Their tribe’s history of losing their youth to the training school that had once taken over the education and raising of Apache boys and girls made the tribe diligent in raising their own children.

In the past, parents did not have to agree to send their children, but once their people were resigned to the reservations, they faced a devil’s choice. They could keep their children home and lose their government subsidy and the only way to feed their families. Or they could send their children, receive the subsidies but lose the ability to teach their young their language and their heritage. The choice and the deep wound that remained made the tribe fiercely protective of its youth.

“What if she comes back?” he asked. “The mother, I mean.”

“She has parental rights,” said Lori.

“She shows up here and I arrest her. Glad to. Leaving Fortune out in the wind. Just wrong.” He wasn’t even using complete sentences now. This was bad.

“She might be young, Jake. Young people don’t always make the best decisions.”

He met her gaze, knowing the subject of the conversation had shifted.

* * *

HE LET THE fatigue drag at him, rounding his shoulders. His ears were ringing.

Jake’s head drooped and his words slurred. “Should be out investigating. Find who left her.” He gave a dull shake of his head. “Not right.”

“Detective Bear Den is at your house. They’re investigating.”

Which meant he’d drawn their only detective away from his other investigations, including a recent murder, the growing list of runaways and the relocation of the entire tribal headquarters to a temporary facility away from the river. He closed his eyes, swaying slightly on the stool.

“Come on, Officer Redhorse. Bedtime for you.”

Lori held his arm as she walked him to an empty birthing room with a comfortable bed and waited while he removed his open jacket and utility belt.

“Want me to lock that up?” Lori asked.

“Where?”

“Right there in the closet.” She pointed at the combination bureau and closet unit that backed up to the bathroom near the entrance. He judged the strength of the particle board and figured he could break it if he needed to.

“It’s safe,” she repeated. “But it’s a maternity wing. That—” she pointed at his gun “—needs to be locked up. So here or the nurses’ station.”

“Here. Leave the key.”

She opened the closet and he accepted her help to remove his jacket, mainly to feel her cool fingers brush his neck. Now the ache in his chest had more to do with regret than arousal. She’d taken a lot of crap back in high school, after word got out. It had been worse for her than for him. He didn’t know why, but, at the time, he’d been relieved.

He considered taking off his flak jacket but was just too tired.

He sat on the bed and she knelt to unlace his boots, placing them with his jacket, hat and belt. Then she locked the closet and handed him the key on a lime-green plastic accordion-style bracelet that he looped around his wrist.

He settled back into soft pillows and a mattress covered with something plastic beneath the white sheet.

“We’ll take care of her,” she assured him and stroked his forehead.