Chapter:   Cover 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Dance In My Heart

Chapter Fourteen

“Boozhoo, Mike. How was dinner last night?”

Hawk didn’t feel like talking, but Candice’s little decision wasn’t Celeste’s fault. “She changed her plans.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. I know you went to a lot of trouble. I sure do like her, Mike. She’s a nice girl.”

Too nice for him. His dirty little world had proved too much for her delicate nature, he guessed. As she pointed out, they lived in two different worlds. “Yeah, she’s nice. Hey, can you call Mary’s mother and set up an appointment for them to come in this afternoon? We need to arrange for a medical card for Mary as an emancipated teen so she can get her prenatal care set up through the clinic.”

“Sure thing. Oh, and Deputy Brandon called about a half-hour ago. He wants you to call him back.”

Hawk’s spine tingled with trepidation. Here we go. Time to pay up. He set his pack on the imitation leather sofa in his office and ran a hand through his unbound hair. What had the prosecutor decided? Would Hawk be charged with assault or attempted murder?

He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and sat on the edge of his desk. The phone loomed like a scorpion before him. Did he not reach for it, it would sting him anyway.

He grit his teeth and dialed the sheriff’s office main number.

“Deputy Brandon, please,” he told the female dispatcher who answered.

“He’s on patrol. Is this Mike Irontree?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Hi Mike, it’s Carol Peltierre. Do you remember me?”

Carol had left the reservation four years ago. Discouraged with her chances here, she’d vowed to make it in the big city. He smiled. He knew she’d be back. She had always seemed to hold a special place in her heart for their traditions. Like him, she had found a balance between the two worlds. He cringed at the thought. Like he used to have. “Nice to have you back, Carol. I didn’t know you worked for the sheriff’s office. You’re a dispatcher?”

“No way, Mike. I’m a cop. Just filling in for a while on the boards while I get to know everyone.”

“That’s great.” He hoped the hollow ring in his voice didn’t transmit over the phone line. He felt a surge of happiness for her. He should be thrilled she’d made so much of her life. A week ago he would have relished the fact that maybe, just maybe, he’d had some influence over her decisions and her success. It was his job, after all. But he didn’t feel that way. He felt alone.

“Anyway, I can give Carl a message for you, or have him call you later?”

“Whenever he gets the chance, Carol. I’m not going anywhere.”

He hung up the phone and sat down behind his desk. The prospect of diving back into financial reports didn’t exactly thrill him, either.

What had happened last night? He couldn’t figure out what could possibly have changed between his phone conversation with Candice in the morning, and her failing to show up an hour later? Had she come by and then changed her mind? Or had he said something to frighten her away while they were on the phone?

He’d pushed too hard. That had to be it.

Damn it. He didn’t mean to press her, but he’d never needed someone so badly. He silently railed at the fates for teasing him so mercilessly. Sure, he’d been able to leave her when he had the chance, but they kept throwing her in his face. Right up until the last second, when he couldn’t breathe without her, then they snatched her away.

Figures.

A loud male voice rent through his closed office door. What could only be the sound of a fist crashing on the countertop in the lobby followed closely behind. Hawk jumped from his desk and dashed into the outer office.

“What’s going on out here?” he snapped at Luke Champagne, an older Warrior who’d lived on the reservation his whole life, except the hellish two years he’d spent in Vietnam.

“I want to know why you would bring some reporter here to make us look bad, Mike. That’s what’s going on.”

“What are you talking about? Candice is writing about hoop dancing, Luke. She’s harmless,” he answered. Harmless to them, anyway.

“According to my daughter, Beth, she was poking around yesterday, asking Lonnie questions that had nothing to do with dancing. She took pictures of Beth and the babies. She better not publish them, that’s all I have to say,” Luke growled. “She better not use my daughter’s face in some article about us. It’s none of the white man’s business what we do here. Or how we live our lives. They’ve done enough.”

“Calm down, Luke. I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.” It has to be.

“I’m not stupid, Mike. She may have told you she wanted to write something on your dancing, but I’m tellin’ you, she lied just to get access to the rest.”

It couldn’t be true. Candice wouldn’t lie to him.

But she didn’t show up yesterday. She blew him off like a mosquito on a summer night. As soon as she got the proverbial scoop she hunted for, she bailed.

The realization hit him like a fist. He’d been so afraid he’d used her, treated her badly. And the whole time, she’d played him like a drum.

He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I’ll get to the bottom of this, Luke. You know damn well I’d never do anything to hurt Beth.”

Once Luke left the office, Hawk turned to face Celeste.

“Hawk, I don’t think you have all the facts. I can’t believe that young woman would ever do anything like this. She seems so nice.”

“Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving, Celeste. You should know that better than anyone.” His gut clenched with sickening waves. “I’m going to see her.”

“But...” Celeste stuttered.

He cut her off with one pointed finger as he went back to his office for his helmet and keys. “Do not call her. Do you hear me? Not one word to her.”

He heard Celeste’s sigh as he moved back through the office and pushed open the front door. “Fine, Mike. I won’t call her. But I still don’t believe it!”

~* * *~

Candice turned up the volume of her MP3 player as she developed the last of several rolls of film in her makeshift dark room at the hotel. The strains of Native American flutes she’d downloaded last night soothed her nerves, but not her conscience. As the image of Beth and her two small children appeared on the high quality photo stock, her stomach turned.

She was really going to do it.

She swallowed the surge of regret. She had no choice. If she wanted to keep her job, therefore allowing her to do little unnecessary things, like pay her rent, her alimony, buy food... She had no choice, she repeated.

Once this assignment ended, she would no longer be reminded of Hawk, either. She’d spent nearly all of last night curled into a ball on the bed, hugging a pillow to her midsection. Intermittent regret mixed with tears born of loss as she’d avoided sleep. Exhausted, she’d risen early and written several paragraphs of her article.

“In the center of our pristine, pressed and starched, white collar world, lies the wreckage of a great Nation. Native Americans, Indians, live in squalor as government grants and other funds are used for ill-conceived social activities instead of education and community improvements. Pregnancy among the teen population of the Ojibwe Reservation in Minnesota rests precariously at 84 percent, while the unemployment rates rocket even higher. Who feeds these children? Who tends the sick and the infirm? We do. American tax dollars feed the unwanted children, while their parents refuse to work, spending their government funded income on whiskey or other means to escape their beleaguered existence.”

The words of her article tormented her. In her opinion, she’d written a work of fiction.

She believed none of it, but knew others would, regardless of whether any of it were true. She’d yet to send it to the Dragon. She hadn’t been able to press “send” on the email program. Even as she developed the prints to go with the words, it sat in idle abandon on her laptop computer.

Her article concerning the magic of hoop dancing, where she’d expressed her amazement at the mystical power of the dance, the community and the man who shared it with her, rested under the surface of her desktop.

Taunting her.

~* * *~

The last picture developed, Candice stretched her back and rubbed her sore neck. She’d been stuck in the bathroom for hours, with only occasional breaks to hang the photos to dry in the main room.

She’d switched her music from the emotion filled beats of Native American drums and the mystery-laced flutes, to hard rock, which always numbed her. She still felt guilty as hell, but she’d been able to turn off her heart long enough to do what she had to do.

Now, she turned down the volume of Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar On Me and reached for the doorknob. She immediately sensed she wasn’t alone. A tremor of fear shivered up her spine.

Turning the corner into the bedroom area, she stopped short.

Hawk.

His back to her, he hadn’t heard her approach. He held several crumpled photographs in his clenched fist as he...

Dear God. No.

Her knees weakened and her head swam with shame and regret.

As he read the screen of her computer.

~* * *~

 

©2006 Romance at Heart Magazine.

Book ©2003 by Margorie Jones.

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