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Kiki dropped Vicky’s elbow to turn back to the TV herself. Liv pushed between them to see. On the screen, Hunter bent over at the waist, in obvious pain. He did it slowly, as though the earth had suddenly produced an exorbitant amount of gravity and was tugging him down even as he fought it tooth and nail.
Liv felt light-headed. The announcers’ voices sounded anxious.
“Sit down,” Kiki said to her harshly. “You’re white as a ghost.”
“I’m fine. Vicky, go…do something.”
Kiki started angling the girl toward the door again. “Come on. I just made a new recipe for cranberry muffins. I need you to tell me what you think.”
“But I want to see what happens to this guy,” Vicky argued.
“We can watch on the television downstairs in the kitchen.”
Liv knew that Kiki would never allow the TV to go on downstairs until long after this coverage was over. She offered no resistance when the two went out, Kiki closing the door again smartly behind her.
Liv went back to the sofa and sat, fumbling blindly behind her with one hand to make sure the furniture was still there. Then she reached for the remote control and hit up the volume. She’d once seen his car do somersaults down the backstretch, nose to tail, nose to tail, and he’d walked away as steady as a rock. He would be fine.
“They don’t seem to be heading for the infield care center,” one of the announcers said as an ambulance loaded Hunter and drove off. “Looks like they’ll be taking him directly to a hospital.”
“What does this do to his chances tomorrow, Hal?”
“I’d say they’re minimal at this point, Bud.”
He’d driven once with a broken wrist, Liv remembered, taping it for extra support, his jaw set visibly against the pain every time the camera caught him. He’d be in that race tomorrow.
There was another knock on her door. Kiki entered with a tray holding a decanter of brandy and two snifters.
“Where’s Vicky?” Liv asked, startled.
“I gave her two of the muffins and sent her out to harass Bourne.”
The retired cowboy ran their riding operation. “He’ll take the muffins and send her right back again if he’s busy.”
“Not if he wants to see another of my muffins in this lifetime.”
Liv almost smiled.
“Here. You need this.” Kiki poured the snifters and handed her one, then she gestured at the television with her own. “So what’s the latest? Did he live?”
“They took him to the hospital.”
Kiki nodded. “He’s too mean to die.”
Liv jerked up from her slouch against the cushions. “He’s not mean. He’s just…” She trailed off at Kiki’s expression. “What? Why are you looking at me that way?”
Kiki settled on the sofa beside her. “You’ve got to get over this. You were fine before you made that trip back east.”
Liv took a good swallow of brandy without answering. It burned going down.
“You’re the strongest woman I know.”
Liv jolted a little. “Me? Get off it.”
“I just don’t tell you very often because I hate being overshadowed by you.”
Liv could only laugh at that, though her voice was hoarse. Kiki was beautiful—tiny, barely five foot tall—with classic Native American looks. She was a dynamo. Liv generally felt pale, clumsy and befuddled beside her. They’d been friends since even before Hunter had entered the picture, from the first moment Liv had set foot on the Navajo reservation.
Kiki got up to move. Like Hunter, she was always moving.
“You made your decision when you cut him loose,” she said. “You never looked back—at least not that any of us could tell. You married Johnny and when that didn’t work out, we left Flag and came here to Jerome. We established the inn from a ram-shackle building that nobody else wanted but that you saw the potential in. You’ve built a life for your daughter. She’s happy, healthy, smart.”
“She lives with a bunch of strangers trooping through her home several times a week.”
“That’s your phobia, not hers. Don’t foist it off on her, Liv.”
Liv winced.
“You’re the one who was always hung up on the traditional nuclear-home thing. You were the one intent on grabbing back everything you lost when your family’s car went over that cliff and you were sent to the Res. So what if Vicky has a mother, a doting aunt and a lot of guests from all over the country instead of a mother, a father and a sibling or two? What does it matter if she’s thriving?”
Liv found that she couldn’t answer.
“My point is, you’ve got a lot to be proud of. So be proud of it. Don’t let Hunter Hawk-Cole rock your foundations again just because you made one mistake.”
“Which mistake are we speaking of here?” Liv asked dryly.
“Dover.”
“Ah, that one. And it was Millsboro.”
Kiki waved her hand, telling her what she thought of that particular split hair. “Don’t let him drag you down the way you were in those days after he left.”
“You just said I never looked back.”
“But your eyes didn’t see what they were looking at straight ahead, either.” Kiki put her snifter back on the tray and picked the tray up. “On that note, I’m going back to the kitchen. If you want to keep wallowing in angst, you’re going to have to do it on your own.”
Liv nodded absently, her gaze swerving to the television again. They were showing highlights of Hunter’s career on the screen now, while crews cleaned up the track from his crash. Liv watched and tunneled back in time, helplessly and without much resistance.
It was so blasted hot and she had one lamb to go. Without a sheep pen, it was almost impossible to catch the little critter. But her grandmother—the old woman she’d called Ama in the respectful Navajo tradition of “mother”—had stubbornly refused to touch any of the life insurance money her parents had left to make improvements to her land.
Ama had died in her sleep eleven months ago. By hook or by crook, Liv had managed to keep the authorities at the school from finding out. Ama’s clanswomen had signed her report cards and they had showed up at mandatory events in Dinny’s stead. Liv would graduate in six more days. It was over. Her exile here was done, and there was nothing to leave behind. Even Kiki would be moving to Flagstaff with her to begin college there late in August.
When she turned eighteen next month, she could collect the life insurance money. Everything would be fine.
It scared her spitless.
Why was she suddenly frightened now that the time had come? She’d planned her escape from the first moment her heels had touched down on this arid, forsaken soil. It had taken Social Services and attorneys several days to sort out that she had only one living relative, her mother’s mother, an old Navajo woman on a high-country reservation. From the time she’d been delivered into Ama’s care, Liv had dreamed of the time when she could go again, back to the city where she belonged.
But she’d been on the reservation for almost six years now, and she worried that she had forgotten how to act in real, conventional society. If she ate in a restaurant, would she even remember which fork to use? She heard Hunter’s truck at the same moment the terrifying thought slid through her mind again, taunting her.
He was back. Something in her heart leaped, but she was too stubborn to let it show. He always left her as casually as though she were one of the lambs she was about to sell off. But that didn’t stop her from going giddy with pleasure whenever he returned.
Liv finally got the animal inoculated and she laughed with relief. The last one. She already had a buyer for the herd, so that was that. She finally sat up to look for Hunter.
“My money was on you,” he said, sauntering toward her, wearing that grin.
He was so handsome. Liv drank in the look of him. He still wore his black hair long. He revered his Navajo ancestors, the warriors who had once fearlessly taken on Kit Carson at Canyon de Chelly, though he’d always hated being shoved from his home and onto this reservation against his will. Now his hair shifted against his shoulders, more from his movement than the windless air. His cheekbones were arrogant slashes, and his eyes were an incredible blue.
She never got tired of looking at him, and she never stopped wanting to touch him. Sometimes she squeezed it in, a quick, friendly hug or a touch of her hand to his knee. But he always got so skittish whenever she did that. Kiki said it was because he wanted her, too, but neither of them could quite figure out why he never did anything about it.
She was nearly eighteen now, hardly a child any longer—especially after living on her own this past year since Ama had died.
“You don’t have any money,” she said, standing to brush the dust off her bare legs. She was going to fix this problem between them, too, before she went to Flagstaff. “Anyway, that’s it for the herd. You’re next. It’s time to fish or cut bait, Hunter. I’m cleaning up my past here.”
That fierce heat came to his eyes, the look she loved so much. Liv tingled inside. Now that they might finally be together, she found that she was also a little terrified.
She fought against the fear with bravado and started to move toward him. “I love you. I want to be with you. I want to take something away from this place when I go. And I want it to be you. You’re the very best memory of the Res that I have.”
She reached for the hem of her T-shirt. She was shaking, wondering if she dared to do it, to just yank it over her head and bare herself to him to find out what he would do about it. She looked up into those midnight-blue eyes, as sharp as glass now. “Are you going to stop me, Hunter? Don’t. I have a good head of steam up here.”
He made a choking sound but said nothing. There was only promise in his eyes.
She tugged the shirt over her head. The hot, arid air licked her skin. Maybe it was that, the kiss of the sun, or maybe it was the fact that she was being so incredibly brazen. Maybe it was everything tied into one, but she felt her nipples tighten, almost hurting. If he turned away from her now, Liv knew she would die.
She held her breath, waiting for an interminable time. Then he brought his hands up almost reverently and closed them over her breasts. She cried out, a sound of relief and release, then she flung herself at him. She jumped and wrapped her legs around his waist and found his mouth with hers.
Finally, finally. It was all she could think. Oh, how she loved him! She’d loved him since she was twelve years old.
They fell together into the dirt, ripping at each other’s clothing, and suddenly Liv was no longer shy or frightened at all. She was exhilarated, almost weeping with the joy of it. When he finally found his way inside her, she whimpered his name and rode with him, with every thrust, every glorious beat of his body connecting with hers. Then they lay together in the dust, spent and naked, their hearts rioting.
When she found her air again, Liv just came out and asked him. “How long are you staying this time?”
He hesitated for the barest beat. “I have to be in New Mexico tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Why?”
“I’m joining the Army.”
Her stomach dove. “Write me as soon as you get there. Give me your address so I know where you are. Send it general delivery to Flag. I’ll pick it up there.”
“I will.” He wrapped his arms a little more tightly around her. “Livie.”
She rubbed her cheek against his chest, sensing what was coming, trying to savor all the good she could manage before the bad crept in again.
“I love you,” he said. “And you’re the only person who’s ever loved me back.”
She wanted to argue that it wasn’t true, but she was afraid it was. “We’re soul mates,” she murmured. It was a game they had played before. “Two of a kind. Peas in a pod.”
“I’ll always be there for you.”
“I might not always need you to be.” She couldn’t resist the barb. He was leaving again—so soon.
“So when that happens, I’ll go and leave you alone.”
The possibility hurt too deep for words. Liv hugged him fiercely, suddenly. “Are you sorry we did this?”
“I should be.” He kissed her hair. “But no.”
“I’m old enough now to make my own choices.”
“Well, you sure started out with a bang.”
She laughed, her mouth against his skin again. “One more time before you have to go.”
“I’m not going until tomorrow.”
“Then love me all night.”
She rolled on top of him. They didn’t make it inside until dark fell over the desert and small, nocturnal animals began rustling through the tufted rabbitbrush. Then they went into the hogan, their arms still wrapped around each other.
When Liv woke the next morning, he was gone again. But he left a note this time, promising that he would find her in Flagstaff the first time he was on leave.
Liv crushed it in her fist and dropped it into her morning fire.
Chapter 2
His doctor was a small man with a nervous Adam’s apple. Watching the thing bob up and down was beginning to irritate Hunter in a big way.
“Just say whatever it is you’re trying to say,” he warned the man. His voice was still vaguely raspy from the effects of yesterday’s anesthesia. He was in pain.
“I simply can’t clear you to get behind the wheel of a race car in four hours.” The doctor stepped back quickly at the change in Hunter’s eyes, something that could only be likened to a sudden, solar flare.
“Explain to me why I need your permission.”
“I’m your doctor—”
“Do better than that.”
“You had surgery for a ruptured spleen twelve hours ago!”
Hunter made a sound of disgust. “I’m driving.”
“Actually,” said Pritchard Spikes, his longtime friend and team owner, “you’re not.”
“It’s our season! Are you going to throw it away over some stitches?”
“The stitches don’t bother me too much.” Pritch poured a cup of water from the jug on the nightstand in Hunter’s hospital room. “But throw in the fact that you’re now spleenless—and it’s going to take even you some time to adjust to that—I’m not going to let you drive my car.”
“Don’t overlook the seriousness of four broken ribs and a concussion,” the doctor warned hastily.
