The Bride Price

Though she’d been gone quite a while, Kyra knew most of them. One name that stood out was that of Dale Cargill, the forty-three-year-old, unmarried son of Roy and Betty Cargill, semiretired ranchers who were lifelong friends of her dad’s. Awkward, a loner given to gambling, tasteless jokes and drinking too much, Dale ran his father’s former construction business, which she’d heard hadn’t been doing too well of late.

In that role, he’d been a business rival of the victim’s. Coincidentally, he was also the owner of the pickup truck that Paul’s brother, Leonard, had allegedly stolen shortly before crashing it into the elderly couple’s Pontiac five years earlier, and killing them.

The oddly synchronous details didn’t appear to have any significance. Though she’d always considered Dale somewhat offbeat, and found his penchant for mooning over her distasteful, Kyra doubted he’d hurt a flea. With relief— because she liked his parents—she dismissed him as a suspect.

Bidding Julie goodbye, she got into the Cherokee and drove east, toward the country club and the area of better homes that surrounded it. Before heading for the one where she’d grown up, with its four big bedrooms, heated swimming pool and choice view of the mountains, she’d stop to see Flossie Miner, as planned. Favorite aunt, substitute mom and lifelong family friend rolled into one, plump, bespectacled Flossie was always good for what ailed her.

Apparently Big Jim had phoned to let her know Kyra was coming.

“Don’t you look nice, all duded up in your lawyer’s suit with your hair in that pretty braid!” Flossie exclaimed, popping out of her front door and holding out her arms, before Kyra could switch off the Cherokee’s engine.

“I imagine you’ve heard that you and your dad are scheduled to be our guests for dinner at the country club tonight,” Flossie said as she led Kyra to the patio for coffee and Danish. “What you may not realize is that, as of this coming Thursday, your dad will have worked in the Office of the County Attorney for forty years. That’s right! He started as a twenty-four-year-old fresh out of law school. In honor of the occasion, some of us have decided to throw him a little party tonight.”

Delighted for her father’s sake, Kyra fretted that she didn’t have a present for him.

“Not to worry,” Flossie reassured. “To avoid a wedding shower atmosphere, which would embarrass him, we’ve gotten together on a group gift…that expensive new set of golf clubs he’s been wanting. No stuffy gold watches for Big Jim!”

Though Kyra had spent very little time in Flagstaff since David had walked out on her, she and Flossie had stayed in close contact. She knew the older woman could keep a confidence. As a result, she decided to share some, though not all, of her feelings about seeing David again.

Sympathetic as always, Flossie patted her hand. “As I recall, the two of you made a handsome couple back in the days when you both worked on your daddy’s staff,” she said. “I guess you’ve heard he dates Suzy Horvath now when he’s in town. As a matter of fact, the grapevine has it that she’s bringing him tonight. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me that, if you crooked your little finger…”

Kyra blushed, remembering David’s kiss in the courthouse lobby. “I may have been madly in love with him five years ago,” she admitted. “But that was then. This is now. As far as I’m concerned, Suzy can have him. I’ll never forgive or forget the way he walked out on me. It can’t be put right.”

Heading home to her father’s house a few blocks away, she tried to take a nap. But she couldn’t get David out of her thoughts. With all her heart, she longed to confront him. Demand to know why he’d accepted a bribe to leave her. I’d like to hear him try to square that with his precious ethics, she thought.

She realized she’d never ask. Letting him know she still cared to that extent would be just too humiliating. It was a mercy when her dad came home and they had a little time to chat before she had to go upstairs and dress.

Returning to her former room, which was still decorated with the cream-colored bed linens and gentian-blueflowered wallpaper she’d chosen as a teenager, Kyra realized she hadn’t brought much in the way of party clothes. When she laid them out on the bed, the few dress-up outfits she’d packed seemed to lack interest.

I have no intention of working my wiles on David—just putting Suzy Horvath in her place and making him eat his heart out, she told herself forcefully as she rummaged in the back of her walk-in closet. A moment later she’d found what she was looking for, a short-sleeved, two-piece cocktail dress in sapphire blue crepe de chine that followed her every curve and accentuated her Scandinavian-blond hair. She’d worn it once for David when he was romancing her. And it had knocked his socks off.

When she tried it on, it still fit perfectly. The only difference was that, with a few years’ maturity under her belt, she filled the plunging sweetheart neckline with a little more cleavage. With a bitter nod of satisfaction, she hung the dress in readiness on the back of the closet door and slipped into the shower to perfume and pamper herself.

* * *

At the party, despite all the compliments and friendly greetings that came her way, Kyra found it difficult to control her jealousy when David entered the room with Suzy on his arm. Though the redheaded newspaperwoman was in her early forties, at least, she was still quite attractive, in Kyra’s opinion. It was all she could do to make small talk with her dinner companions—her dad, the Miners, Dale Cargill and his parents—and keep from glancing in their direction.

Following the meal, Red Miner sprung the surprise aspect of the get-together when he arose and offered a toast. A little red in the face from all the spontaneous applause and humorous anecdotes that followed, Big Jim couldn’t keep from wiping away a tear when Red presented him with his much-coveted golf clubs.

“You really shouldn’t have,” he said, gazing around the room at all his friends, and then laughing, added, “but I’m mighty glad you did. I’ve been eyeing these darn things… and trying to justify buying them…for months!”

Following her father’s speech, which included a plug for get-well cards to be sent to his temporarily disabled assistant, Tom Hanrahan, along with an announcement that Tom planned to run for county attorney following his retirement, the dancing began.

Partnered by Dale because she couldn’t get out of it without hurting his parents’ feelings, Kyra continued to be tormented by jealousy. She was compelled to endure Dale stepping on her toes with almost every move he made while David led Suzy around the floor with smoldering, attentive grace.

They’re lovers, she thought in anguish, forced to remember what it had been like to move in his arms. And everyone in the room knows it. Can’t they wait until he takes her home before having at each other? It didn’t occur to her that David had always danced that way, no matter who his partner was. Or that he wasn’t looking particularly pleased with himself.

At last she’d had all she could take. Excusing herself, she headed for the ladies’ room, only to dart out again when she overheard sandbox chitchat about David and Suzy coming from several of the stalls. To her relief, a different ladies’ room on the opposite side of the bar turned out to be deserted. She was able to hide out there for a few minutes in peace and pull herself together.

Despite her efforts, she was still looking a little grim as she headed back toward the party through the bar, navigating in her spike heels between its deserted, miniature dance floor and the rust-colored club chairs that surrounded a half dozen tables. Intent on maintaining some semblance of indifference, she didn’t notice the tall, dark-haired man in evening clothes who was lounging against the bar until he reached for her arm.

To her astonishment, David had abandoned his date and escaped for a solitary beer.

“I thought you’d gone,” he said, a world of surprise and pleasure in his deep, husky voice. “Stay. Have a drink with me. We ought to talk.”

Chapter Three

The moment spun out, gossamer thin, brimming with possibilities, yet as easily ravaged as a spider’s web, tentatively connecting them. What about your date? she longed to ask. Won’t she be miffed if she finds us with our heads together?

If she refused his invitation, or turned it into an occasion for sarcasm, she would never know what he wanted to talk to her about. Or if he’d have offered some explanation for walking out on her. The ache in her heart might continue to fester.

Deciding to accept, she slid onto the stool next to his and placed her small faille clutch purse on top of the bar. When he retook his seat, their knees were almost touching.

“What would you like?” he asked in the soft, deep voice that had figured in so many of her dreams. “A margarita?”

He’d fixed margaritas for them in the shabby trailer he’d called home when he was working for her father.

Having barely touched her champagne during the bevy of toasts that had been drunk to honor Big Jim’s forty years of service, Kyra thought it would be all right to indulge. “Sounds good,” she agreed, the toe of her left shoe accidentally brushing his trouser hem as she crossed her legs.

Storing away the small, inadvertent intimacy, he ordered, remembering precisely how she liked her tequila and lime concoctions—with just a dash of triple sec. He gave her a chance to taste the drink’s tart coolness before initiating any further conversation.

“Ironic, isn’t it, that we’ve met again because of another Naminga case?” he said at last, holding her captive with his light, unreadable gaze. “Did you hear what happened to Leonard in prison?”

It wasn’t the tack she’d expected him to take. Apprehensively she shook her head. Well aware of the kind of atrocities that took place in prisons, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“He was gang-raped,” David supplied. “He no longer speaks.”

“How horrible!” she whispered, briefly shutting her eyes. “Poor, poor Leonard. He didn’t deserve to be locked up like that…let alone what happened to him in that awful place. He must be so confused, so deeply humiliated…”

Her compassion for others, particularly the fragile and downtrodden, was one of the things that had always attracted him to her. In his opinion, she had boundless heart for a gringa—more than most people he’d met.

“Promise me that if you begin to think Paul could be innocent, you’ll help me uncover the truth,” he requested.

“Of course,” she said. “Dad would do the same.”

The answer was too glib, too easily proffered. He wanted her word. Short of that, there’d be no basis for them to start afresh. It would be difficult enough to reach common ground, he realized, given the way he’d walked out on her five years earlier, without a word of explanation.

“I’m not asking him. I’m asking you,” he said, wondering how and when she would let him apologize. If he could make her see that he’d done what he had partly for her sake…

She was silent a moment, absorbing the remarkable force of his will, which was trained on her like a laser. Instead of explaining, or saying he was sorry, he was making demands. Incredibly she was inclined to give him what he wanted.

“Okay, I promise,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do, after all. Satisfied?”

His mouth curved in the ironic half smile she remembered. “It would take a lot more than that to satisfy me, White Shell Woman,” he said.

It was another one of the love names he’d used for her, and she cringed a little, even as the endearment sank like rain into the soul place where she longed for him. Just to be near him again, to hear his voice and catch the downward sweep of his lashes when he was marshaling an argument or reserving comment, was a kind of apotheosis for her.

She couldn’t let him waltz back into her life without explaining his actions and making amends, the way someone might walk into a house they’d trashed and abandoned, nonchalantly reclaiming it. Or talk about sex as if it were a possibility for them. Unfortunately for her resolve, everything about him was still perfect, exactly the way she liked it, from his air of compressed energy to the graceful halfmoons of his fingernails.

“I don’t think…” she began.

A familiar voice, originating in the hall that led to the room where Big Jim’s party was still in progress, interrupted them. “There’s been a five-car accident on the interstate west of town and Red has to leave,” Flossie Miner said, glancing from her to David and back again. “I just wanted to say good-night. Call me in the morning, darling, if you have a chance.”

“Will do,” Kyra promised, dreading the well-meaning questions she was likely to face.

After Flossie left, she had to get back to the party before she and David became an item and her effectiveness in helping her father was seriously compromised. Kyra told herself she hoped she wasn’t retreating out of cowardice.

It’s not the time or the place to set things straight, thought David, though his heart was eager for that. We need a chance to be alone, without distractions or interruptions. Accordingly, he didn’t argue when she said that perhaps she’d better be getting back. It was her father’s special evening, after all. She belonged with him.

Still, he was too determined to have her after all the time they’d spent apart to let her completely off the hook. She was about to get to her feet when, suddenly, he reached across the space between them to cover her hands with his.

“You’ve probably heard I have a ranch north of town, on Route 89 near the San Francisco Peaks,” he said. “My name’s on the mailbox. Come anytime. I’ll show you around.”

Riding home the short distance that separated the country club from her father’s house in his Lincoln Town Car, Kyra listened with half an ear to his running commentary about who’d said what and to his retelling of several of the jokes she’d missed.

“Several people told me they saw you sitting in the bar, playing patty-fingers with David,” Big Jim said, changing the subject as they pulled into the drive and he raised the garage door with a flick of his automatic opener. “Say it isn’t so.”

“I stopped to talk with him for a few minutes, if that’s what you mean,” she admitted. “I could hardly avoid it. He was sitting there when I walked through on my way back from the rest room.”

Her father was silent for a moment as he drove into the garage and switched off the engine. Then he said, “I hope he wasn’t trying to quiz you about the Naminga case. Or get back in your good graces.”

Though David had mentioned Paul, he hadn’t asked her for any information he could use—his by right, or otherwise. As for her good graces, it would take a lot for him to storm the moat that protected them.

It occurred to her that acceptance of him and surrender weren’t that far apart. He wants to go to bed with me, she acknowledged with a little shiver of anticipation. Complete the conquest my scruples denied him. And he’s laying the groundwork.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” she fibbed. “I’m immune to his charms. As for Paul’s case, we didn’t really discuss it. He did mention Leonard Naminga and the fact that he’d been raped in prison. I suppose this is as good a time as any to ask if you could use your influence to help him win parole.”

To Kyra’s surprise she fell asleep that night the moment her head hit the pillow. She wasn’t to be so fortunate in escaping thoughts of David the following day, however, as she set about reinterviewing the prosecution’s key witnesses. Everything about the reservation’s arid moonscape reminded her of him, as she drove from Flagstaff to Moenkopi to talk with the young girl who’d seen a man in Paul’s costume enter Ben Monongye’s dressing room trailer.

David grew up out here, she thought, poor as mud, no doubt imbibing a sense of wrong done by the white man along with the beans, cornmeal mush and watered-down coffee that were his daily fare as a child. Maybe his reason for leaving me was as simple as the fact that he didn’t want to get married and I was holding out for that. Maybe the money my father offered him seemed like recompense for the hardships he’d endured…a kind of well-deserved bonus.

Whatever his motives had been, he would be pleased to learn that she’d continued to ask the question she’d posed to Julie outside the jail, namely, “Did anyone besides Paul want Ben Monongye dead?” And begun to compose a list of the Hopi construction company owner’s enemies, if only for her own reference.

She wasn’t terribly surprised when some of the same names kept cropping up. Feeling more like an independent investigator than a member of the prosecution team, she justified the path she was taking by reminding herself that her father was sworn to seek justice, no matter what form it took.

That night, the Miners, Marie Johnson—also a neighbor—and the Cargills, along with their son, Dale, were scheduled to arrive at her father’s house for dinner and an evening of bridge, beginning around 6 p.m. Though it was to be an informal affair, Big Jim’s part-time housekeeper had been engaged to cook for them.

Given the fact that she’d probably draw Dale for a bridge partner, Kyra was far from heartbroken when he failed to show up on time and the meal started without him. Maybe she would get lucky and he wouldn’t come at all, she thought. Her father and his friends could play hearts, or something.

To her chagrin, he phoned as the roast beef was being served, to let them know he hadn’t mixed up the date. She was privileged to take the call.

“A problem came up at one of my construction sites,” he said, his somewhat nasal twang faintly slurred as if he’d downed a couple of stiff drinks on the job. “Feel free to start without me. I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”

I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, Kyra thought, as she gave her father the message.

Grateful the table talk didn’t revolve around her renewed acquaintance with David and the history of their relationship, Kyra murmured whatever responses she deemed necessary as she pushed her food around on her plate without really paying strict attention. However, one item of gossip caught her interest. It arose as part of a discussion of the latest Washington, D.C., scandal, in which yet another senator had resigned, hoisted by the petard of his salacious and ill-advised personal diary.

“I’ll confess…I’m surprised anyone would bother to jot down the details of daily life nowadays, what with all the obligations everyone has,” Big Jim remarked. “Let alone use their diary as a confessional.”

Betty Cargill differed with him. “Lots of people keep diaries,” she said. “I always have. So has Dale. He probably picked it up from me. Though he’s hardly the literary type, while I’m a former English teacher, he’s kept one faithfully since high school. As for using them as confessionals, they’re therapeutic.”

Hoping to duck out when the meal was finished and leave the card-playing to her elders, Kyra stifled her disappointment when Dale arrived as dessert was being served. It didn’t take much coaxing on Big Jim’s part to talk him into having roast beef and mashed potatoes first, thus prolonging the agony. She was forced to watch him shovel food into his mouth as she helped the housekeeper pick up the plates while Red Miner and her dad set up the card tables.

Gradually the thought of being Dale’s partner—having to put up with his clumsy flirting, dull conversation and ineptness at cards for an entire evening—became too much for her and an escape plan took root. What I want is to see David, she thought. That’s all I care about.

She just wasn’t sure she had the guts to take him up on his invitation. It was entirely possible that, if she drove out to his house without warning, she’d find that Suzy Horvath had beaten her to the punch.

There was only one way to find out.

“Dad…everybody…I’m developing a nasty headache, probably from poring over court files and driving out to the rez,” she said, employing the local epithet for reservation, “to talk to witnesses without my sunglasses.” She massaged her temples for emphasis. “If it wouldn’t be too detrimental to your fun, I’d like to opt out of cards tonight…take a drive instead. A little fresh air might help.”

Before Dale could try to talk her out of it or offer to come along, the Miners begged off, too. “Red was out at that accident scene until 3 a.m.,” Flossie said. “And, like a fool, I waited up for him. We really aren’t up to counting trump this evening.”

Giving Flossie a grateful look while avoiding her father’s unspoken questions, Kyra snatched up her purse, a cardigan sweater that matched her pullover and her car keys. You’re probably crazy to do this, she chastised herself as she got into the Cherokee and headed northeast on her way out of town. Nothing good can come of it.

At the same time Kyra was heading out the door, David received a call from Suzy Horvath. “I know it’s a little late to call with an invitation, but have you eaten yet?” she asked, when he answered on the first ring. “If not, what do you say I pick up a bottle of wine and some steaks… come out and cook for you?”

Briefly silent, David admitted to himself that, before Kyra had come back into his life, he’d probably have taken her up on it. “Not tonight,” he answered, declining to add a word of explanation.

Her voice betrayed disappointment, incipient jealousy. “Sure I can’t tempt you?” she persisted, her bright, friendly manner failing to hide her urgency.

Though he hated to hurt her feelings, his answer was unequivocal. “Sorry. But I have other plans.”

After hanging up the receiver, David headed back to the island range top in his cozy wood, stone and copper kitchen in order to add some seasoning to the slow-cooked Navajo lamb stew he was making. He wondered if those plans he’d referred to would be realized. The worst that could happen was that he would dine alone, he guessed. In view of his mood, it was probably his second-best option.

He was probably mad to expect that on the strength of a casual, nonspecific invitation, Kyra would materialize. Yet as he’d removed the lamb chunks from the freezer after finishing his day’s work, he’d had her in mind. Wanting her there, in his house, had become an obsession from the day Jody Ann Daniels had informed him she’d be helping her father with Paul’s case.

In a way, this house was built for her, he acknowledged, though he’d never really thought she would set foot in it. He got out the ingredients for the corn dumplings that would steam to delicious tenderness atop the bubbling, aromatic stew his grandmother, Mary Many Horses, had taught him to make.

He, who had balked at marriage when she’d been so eager to wear his wedding ring, had built her a house. If she was everything he remembered, everything he’d dreamed about, he would beg her to wear it now, given half a chance. First, he knew, he’d have to set things straight— plead with her to forgive his young man’s lust for freedom and selfishness.

Arranging the bowl of fresh corn kernels and the dry ingredients on the counter, he decided not to mix them with the butter and milk yet. First, he’d wait a little. Learn to believe in miracles. Though it was getting on toward eight-thirty, it wasn’t too late for her to darken his doorstep.

As she drove northward on Route 89, which seemed a lot less familiar after dark, Kyra was having second thoughts. What an idiot you are for taking his casual remark so seriously, she reproached herself. At the very least, you could have waited a few days…gotten more specific directions. He’s going to think you’re still crazy about him.