His Defender

“I would help you with the cost.”

Alona shook her head as she lifted the pot from the gas burner and began to pour the cooked strawberries into small mason jars that were sitting in neat rows on a nearby countertop.

“You have enough expenses of your own right now to worry about helping me. By the way,” she added as she concentrated on filling the jars, “I went by your office site this morning. The carpenters are getting up the framework. The one in charge told me they should have the outside completed by the end of the month. That is, if the weather holds fair.”

Isabella eased down in one of the dinette chairs and kicked off her high heels. As she massaged her feet, she said, “I drove through Dulce before I came out here. I wanted to see for myself just what the carpenters had been doing. When I look at how much more there is to do, it feels like the whole thing is going at a snail’s pace. I’m beginning to wonder if I should have simply rented a building.”

“You tried, remember? There wasn’t anything vacant that would have been appropriate for a law office. And besides, renting is like throwing money out the window.”

Isabella smiled faintly as Alona placed the dirty pot in a sink filled with soapy water.

“I am renting a house, Mother.”

Frowning, Alona began to tighten the lids on the jars. “Only because you refused to live here with me.”

Picking up her tea, Isabella took a grateful swallow before she replied to her mother’s comment. “Mother, we’ve been all through this before. I love you very much, but we shouldn’t live together. We both need our privacy, and I would drive you crazy with my messiness. And anyway, it will be nice to live only a few blocks from where I’ll be working. I won’t have to get up early and make a long drive.”

“Maybe so,” Alona reluctantly agreed. She left the cabinet counter and joined Isabella at the table. “And I can’t gripe,” she went on. “Not when I’m so happy that you’re finally back on the reservation. These years you’ve been away getting your degree and working have been lonely for me.”

Even though Isabella’s life had been very busy the past few years, she’d been lonely, too. Friends were not the same as family. And the bustling city of Las Cruces was not the same as this land that was her home.

“You haven’t heard from John?” she asked.

Alona’s expression was suddenly shuttered as she sank into a chair across from her daughter. “Not in a couple of months.”

Isabella felt a spurt of disgust. As soon as her brother had graduated high school more than fifteen years ago, he’d left the reservation for better things. She couldn’t exactly fault him for that. She’d had to go away for a while, too, to get her education. But during that period she had continually visited her mother on a regular basis. John returned home only once or twice a year and even then it was only to stay for a few hours.

“Sometimes I think he’s ashamed to be Apache,” Isabella said with disgust. “He acts like it dirties him to come home to the reservation.”

A pained expression crossed Alona’s face. “Bella, that’s an awful thing to say of your brother!”

Isabella made a palms-up gesture. “You don’t see him around here, do you? He’s a smart man. A doctor! He could be here helping his people. Instead he’s living in California where he can make lots of money.”

Alona sighed. “It’s true John isn’t happy here. But I’m not so sure it has anything to do with money. I think it’s because of his father and how he was killed.”

Isabella snorted. “Thousands of people have lost loved ones to a drunk driver. John is no different. And that happened thirty years ago! John was only a baby. He didn’t even know his father.”

“And you never knew yours,” Alona added regretfully. “Both of my children were raised without fathers.” A wistful look filled her eyes. “That’s not what I would have chosen for either of you.”

Alona’s husband and John’s father, Lee, had been killed when John was only two years old. Some time afterwards, Alona had become involved with Isabella’s father, a rich, prominent white man, who’d refused, even until his death, to acknowledge his half-Apache daughter. Alona rarely ever brought up the subjects of Lee Corrales or Winston Jones. Isabella wasn’t exactly sure why her mother had mentioned the two men today.

“Oh Mother, you’ve done your very best with me and John. And you’re a good example of the fact that a woman doesn’t need a man to survive.”

Alona shot her daughter a reproving look. “Bella, I haven’t chosen to be single all these years. I would have preferred to have a man at my side. But good men are hard to find.”

“Amen to that,” Isabella said with conviction before she tilted the glass of tea to her lips.

Alona rolled her dark eyes. “I guess this means you’re not seeing Brett anymore.”

Shaking her head, Isabella stirred the sugar up from the bottom of her glass. Thank goodness she hadn’t been foolish enough to fall in love with the Dona Ana deputy before she’d learned exactly how he felt about her plans to return to the reservation.

There’s no way I’d bury myself in some dirty, dusty little town filled with nothing but Indians.

Months had passed since she’d broken their relationship, but his words still haunted and sickened her. She was half-Indian, she’d reminded him. But he’d argued it wasn’t the same. She was a civilized Apache. She was educated. She knew more about life than just raising goats and drinking whiskey.

Shaking away the awful memory, she said, “He was just a friend, Mother. And now that I’ve left Las Cruces, I doubt I’ll ever talk to him again.”

Alona made a tsking noise of disapproval. “A beautiful woman like you without a man. It’s indecent.”

Isabella wrinkled her nose playfully at her mother. Alona could pass for thirty-five and when the two of them were out together she turned as many male heads as Isabella. “I could say the same thing about you.”

Alona chuckled. “Don’t try being a lawyer and twisting my words back at me.”

“But I am a lawyer,” Isabella pointed out. “And that’s what keeps me happy. I don’t need a man hanging around me, trying his best to break my heart.”

Sighing, Alona folded her fingers together and rested them on the tabletop. “So tell me about this new case you’ve taken on. I take it that’s why you can only stay one night?”

Isabella reached back and pulled the beaded barrette from her hair. Once the shiny black strands were loose, she twisted the whole lot into a bun at the back of her head and refastened it with the barrette. The cool air blowing through the open window felt good against her bared neck.

“That’s right. I’ve got to be back at the T Bar K by tomorrow afternoon.”

Concern suddenly shadowed Alona’s dark eyes. “I’ve heard about that ranch before. It’s enormous and those people who own it are rich. They also have a reputation for being rough.”

Ross Ketchum’s outward appearance might be described as rough. He was certainly a physical man. But Isabella figured if she looked beneath the chaps and spurs and battered cowboy hat, she’d find he was as slick as a snake and more clever than a wily coyote.

“Neal assures me that the Ketchum family is upright. Otherwise, I would have never agreed to help Ross.”

Alona’s eyes narrowed as she studied her daughter. “Have you met this man yet?”

She’d more than met Ross Ketchum, Isabella thought. She’d collided with the man. All through her drive here to the reservation, he’d pestered her thoughts. And she had to admit, if only to herself, that she’d never encountered anyone like him.

“Yes. Today.”

Alona sighed. “Well, I understand that once you decided to become a defense attorney, you’d eventually be rubbing elbows with all sorts of people. I guess I just didn’t expect you to jump feetfirst into a murder case.”

Isabella smiled. It wasn’t like her mother to dramatize anything. “It’s attempted murder, Mother.”

“Yes, but I hear that a dead man was found on the T Bar K about a month ago. And they’re saying his death was a murder.”

“It’s amazing how news travels,” Isabella remarked with dismay. “Especially bad news.”

“I saw it on the Farmington evening newscast.”

There wasn’t any point in trying to hide the disturbing information from Alona. Especially when it was already being spread through the media. “Okay, you heard right,” Isabella admitted. “But the specifics of that case haven’t been made privy to me yet. And anyway, I’m not at all certain that the under-sheriff’s shooting has any connection to the homicide.”

Alona looked completely befuddled. “How can you say that? It looks pretty obvious to me that the incidents are connected.”

“Sometimes things are too obvious, Mother. That’s why I plan to do a lot of investigating. To see what’s hidden underneath all that obvious stuff.”