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

Dance In My Heart

Chapter Five

The road loomed empty before her as Candice consulted her map for the third time to verify she traveled the correct road. She swerved enough to scare herself, and corrected her direction before putting the map aside. She’d driven nearly half a day, and if she didn’t find the Ojibwe reservation soon, she would be forced to turn back.

A battered sign with bright red and yellow paint pealing from sun and water damaged boards approached on the right side of the car. “Welcome to Cedar Lake Summit U.S. Government Ojibwe Resettlement Camp.”

She glanced around her. Nothing but grasslands as far as she could see. But satisfied she was at least heading in the right direction, she kept driving. A few minutes later, she pulled into a small market. The windows gleamed in the early afternoon light, even though the paint on the old clapboard building showed signs of wear.

An elderly man sat in a misplaced restaurant booth set awkwardly outside the front door. He dragged on his pipe and tilted up his straw cowboy hat slightly at her arrival.

Stepping from the car, she smiled at him. “Hello. Can you tell me if there is an office or where I can talk to someone in charge of the reservation?” she asked.

He stared back at her without speaking. Either he didn’t understand her, or he couldn’t hear her, she decided finally, and continued into the store.

“Anii aninishina,” a young Native American woman called from behind a scarred laminate counter. “What can I do for you today?”

Candice walked to the counter and took off her sunglasses. “I’m wondering if there is a central office here on the reservation, or where I might find someone who can answer a few questions about hoop dancing?”

“You a reporter?”

She smiled. “Yes, how did you know?”

“White people only come here for two reasons. One is to bring us charity, you know books, blankets, things like that. Like we don’t have our own blankets,” she rolled her eyes. “The rest are reporters. You don’t have a bus of kids and a truck full of blankets, so you’re a reporter.”

“Well, you’re right. So who should I talk to?”

“Michael Manone works in the main building. It’s a red brick job about six miles up the way you’re going. He can probably point you in the right direction. And he’s sort of like a manager. Takes care of lots of things for lots of people.”

“Michael Manone, got it. Thanks a lot,” she turned to leave.

The woman’s voice brought her back around. “You’re going to right a nice article, aren’t you?”

“A nice article?” she felt her confusion play across her features.

“Yeah. You’re not going to make us sound like were worthless and can’t do anything right, are you? Because if that’s the case, you can get back into your fancy car and drive straight back to your side of the line.”

“I’m writing about the beauty and magic of hoop dancing,” she stated slowly, hoping she expressed the sincerity she felt.

The woman smiled. “Good. Then welcome. Mike should be able to help you out.”

It didn’t take her long to find the main building. A low brick structure with few windows, it reminded her of an old dentist’s office. She parked in front and entered through double glass doors on the North side.

A bell sounded her entrance into the shadowed lobby. Avocado green shag carpet covered an uneven floor and appeared to have passed its prime years ago. The cheap paneling on the walls screamed nineteen-seventy-two. A older woman stood beside a desk behind a counter with cages resembling and old-western bank.

“You’re going to hurt yourself. Be careful.”

A muffled male voice came from out of sight behind the desk. “I know what I’m doing, Celeste.”

“Just don’t electrocute yourself. I’ll be right back.”

She came to the window and smiled at Candice. A heavy-set woman, she looked to be in her late fifties, with a small spattering of gray in her two long braids. She wore a bright red cotton dress and a necklace of multicolored beads. “Boozhoo,” she sighed. “I’m sorry you had to wait. We just got a new computer this morning, and we’re still setting everything up. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Michael Manone. A woman at the store out by the highway said I could find him here?”

“Well, you can when he’s not crawling around under my desk. I don’t have an appointment listed for him. What did you need?”

“I don’t have an appointment. I was hoping he could answer a few questions for me.”

“Celeste, I need you to hand me those other cords,” the voice from the desk boomed.

She turned and shouted back. “I’m talking with someone, Mike. Take a break and get your behind up here. She wants you.” Celeste turned back to face Candice with an exasperated look on her face. “Kids. They can’t do nothing for themselves these days.”

The love shining in her black eyes lightened her features, despite the words. Candice felt herself smiling. Obviously, these two people shared a bond.

“I’ll be right there,” the voice grumbled.

Two legs encased in black denim and tipped with cowboy boots backed out from behind the desk. From her position on the opposite side of the cages, Candice had only a narrow view of the floor, but she could see Michael Manone’s form scoot from behind the old office furniture. A neat pony-tail of rich black hair rested on his back. Then he stood up and faced her.

Hawk.

Candice’s heart stopped beating. At least, she felt like it did. Her breath whooshed out of her chest and her pulse froze.

“Candice?” He looked uncomfortable as he hurried around two unoccupied desks and opened a swinging door in the counter. He stopped several feet from her in the lobby. “What are you doing here? How did you...”

“I had no idea I’d find you here,” she cut him off. Well, at least now she knew exactly where she stood with him. If Saturday night had meant nothing to him, she certainly didn’t need him thinking she’d tracked him down for happily-ever-after time. “I’m working. My editor wanted me to find out some history and background on hoop dancing, and since I neglected to gather the information... before... I thought this would be a good place to start.”

“You two know each other?” Celeste asked.

“We met at the Pow Wow,” he answered Celeste a little too swiftly. What did he think? That she would go into some sordid Penthouse explanation of their relationship?

“I’m a reporter,” she handed Celeste her business card.

“Come on into my office. I have some books and things you can take a look at.”

She followed him through the maze of desks to a small, sparsely furnished office in the rear of the building. He offered her a chair in front of his desk, while he took the seat behind.

He never once met her eyes. Instead, he rummaged through a bookshelf behind his desk and brought out five worn paperback texts. “This should answer all your questions. Glance through them and I can get you photocopies of whatever parts you think might help.”

She picked up the first book and ran the pages off her fingers absently. “Are you okay?”

“What?” His head snapped up and finally, she could see the dark orbs set deeply into his face. How she loved his eyes.

“I said, ‘are you okay’?”

Hawk couldn’t believe she sat in the chair across from his desk. He’d thought he’d never see her again. All day yesterday, her image had haunted him, shaming him for what he’d done. She deserved better.

And now she wanted to know if he was okay? If he was okay? He’d treated her badly, running out in the middle of the night like a boy afraid of himself. Well, not the middle of the night. They’d spent the middle of the night exploring each other’s bodies and learning the intimate desires they shared. He’d left at dawn. As she slept soundly against him in the early morning rays of the run, he’d slipped from under her relaxed cheek and arms, and left without even waking her.

He heaved a sigh. He should be shot. “No, I’m not.”

She tilted her head, sending cascades of yellow curls over her shoulder. “No?”

He shook his head. “No. I owe you an apology.”

“You do?”

“Eya’. Yes, I do. For the way I left. That was... wrong.”

“Oh.” Her brows came together as if he’d confused her. “What should you have done?”

Stunned by her question, he thought for a moment. “Said goodbye?”

She set the book down on the desk and leaned back in the chair. “Listen, Hawk. We had a good time. I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself. If I’d had half my wits about me, I would have taken care of these details that night, and you’d never have to see me again.”

Except every night when he closed his eyes.

“Then you don’t hate me?”

She waved her slender hand and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Of course not. How could I possibly hate Mr. Stud?”

He studied her. Regardless of her relaxed posture, her structured movements and her words, he saw her pain reflected in the watered blue of her eyes. No, he’d hurt her. What good would come from calling her bluff? Nothing, he decided, so he let her have her way.

Celeste came into the office, just in time to break the tension. He breathed a little easier. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there are three boys out front who need to talk to you. It sounds important. One of them is Jeremy Littlefeather.”

“I’m sorry, Candy. I have to see them. Have you had lunch yet?”

“No,” she replied.

Against his better judgment, he continued, “Why don’t you wait outside and when I’m finished with the kids, I’ll take you to a little place I know in town.”

“Sure,” she answered with a hint of hesitation.

He stood and walked her to the door. Her eyes fell on the gold nameplate glued to the wood.

“Michael Irontree. Tribal Social Worker,” she read aloud. “That’s you?”

“Eya’. Manone means Irontree. Actually it means Ironwood Tree, but the university I attended screwed it up, and it stuck.”

She scanned him from his eyes, to his boots and back again. He felt the blood rush to his loins and settle there with passionate vengeance. “It fits.”

 

©2006 Romance at Heart Magazine.

Book ©2003 by Margorie Jones.

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