“How did you get me out?” he asked.
“You walked, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
There was a whooshing sound, as if from a strong gust of wind. Black smoke rose up behind them, billowing in a dark column in the bright blue sky.
“Fire,” said Carter.
Had the men retrieved Muir and Leopold before setting the Subaru ablaze?
Tires crunched on sand. Amber’s grip tightened, and she ducked her head.
“They’re back,” she whispered, her voice strained.
“Carter? Amber?”
He knew that voice. It was Jack.
“Here!” he yelled. When he stood, the dizziness came with him, clawing at him and making the ground heave. Amber was there beside him, steadying him, holding him so he didn’t fall.
“Slow,” she said. “Go slow.”
She could have run to his brother. But she didn’t. She helped him walk, leaning into him as she wrapped an arm about his middle and gripped his opposite arm, now draped over her narrow shoulders. Then he scrambled up the steep bank on his hands and knees toward the road topping the rise and saw the SUV consumed in flames.
Amber felt safe again, at least for now. Detective Bear Den had transported them back to Pinyon Forks and the Turquoise Canyon police station. On the way they had told Carter’s brother everything. Once they arrived, she’d had a chance to wash her face and hands, brush out the powder from her hair and drink some water with Carter standing guard outside the door.
We’ll have to come back for her.
Who where they? And why did they need to come back for her? She wrapped her arms about herself and shivered. She had gotten tangled up in something, but she didn’t know what.
She now sat with Carter in Tribal Police Chief Tinnin’s office devouring a sandwich, chips and a cookie provided by the same woman who prepared the meals for the prisoners. Amber was so hungry she barely tasted the food. Carter’s was already gone, and he sat back to finish his third bottle of water.
Some of the powder had settled in his part, clinging to his black hair. He wore a new clean T-shirt courtesy of his brother who had a locker across the hall. He also wore an unbuttoned green-and-white chambray shirt that was obviously Jack’s, because, though Carter was a big man, he had to roll the sleeves.
Carter watched her eat and smiled.
“Wish we had some fry bread,” he said.
Fry bread! She hadn’t had any since she’d visited her sister over the holidays. It was just one of many things she missed. She returned Carter’s smile.
He lifted the water bottle and drank, his Adam’s apple rising and falling with the rhythm of each swallow. Her mouth went dry, and her entire body electrified. Even after all this time he still made her want him without even trying.
She cut her gaze away, refusing to torture herself with the sight of him. But she was too weak, and her eyes found him again. The bottle lay between his two broad hands, tucked between strong thighs. She exhaled.
“Amber. You okay?”
She forced her gaze away from his groin, but it was too late. Now his eyes blazed in return, the sexual awareness crackling between them like static electricity.
“Amber,” he whispered, leaning forward.
She shook her head but moved closer until his fingers brushed over her cheek, leaving heat blazing in their wake.
She wished they could go back in time, back to those two kids who had fallen in love, and try again. Tell her younger self to be wise and give Carter another chance. But it was too late now, because she could never ask him to leave their tribe, and she was too ashamed to stay.
Despite her reservations, her heart hammered in giddy excitement and her skin flushed.
Focus. You’re in real trouble, and this man doesn’t want a woman who walked away from her family.
Carter had loved her. But he loved his people and his place among them more. He was not leaving, and she was not staying. There was no future for them. Only more pain.
“Thank you for saving us back there,” she said.
“I didn’t get us out. I’d have been cuffed to the handgrip in a smoldering wreck if not for you.”
He’d been the reason they had a chance to get out of that SUV, and they both knew it.
Her smile drop away. “Did they find them?” she asked.
“No. Those other two got them out before torching the vehicle. No sign of them since.”
“Oh, Carter. What’s happening?”
He lifted his water. “I was hoping you’d know.”
“I don’t. I can’t even imagine. It’s like a nightmare.”
Carter rubbed his neck. It was a gesture he used when unhappy, but she wondered now if it might stem from pain.
Carter had refused to go to the health clinic but had allowed Kurt to look him over. He declined the neck brace they recommended for the jolt he’d taken during the crash, but took the offered analgesic medication.
“Did you get through to your family?” asked Carter, changing the subject. Did he believe her? She couldn’t tell.
“I did. Your brother let me use his desk phone. I called Kay. She’ll get word to my mom and Ellie.” But not her father. Her father had made it very clear that he wanted nothing to do with her ever again. Her stomach ached, and she felt even lower than before.
“Do you ever see them?” he asked. She could see the pain now, there in his tight expression and the watchful eyes. Did he still feel the ache that she carried like a stone in her heart?
“Sometimes. When I can. I see them at Kay’s.” Her younger sister had married at nineteen and moved to the smaller Rez communities of Koun’nde to the north of Pinyon Forks.
Now his eyes held accusation. “But you never came to see me again.”
She hadn’t. Not after that last time.
“Carter. I...” She thought of their last meeting. “I didn’t think you’d want to see a manzana.”
A manzana was Apache for an apple. It meant that she was red on the outside and white at the core.
She used the insult he’d thrown at her when he had been home recovering, and Yeager had still been listed as missing.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You told me to go away, me and my manzana clothing.” She lifted the hem of her ruined blazer to show that she still dressed like an Anglo working in an Anglo world.
His jaw tightened. And the glimmer of desire faded from his eyes, replaced with something hard and cold.
Detective Bear Den poked his head through the open doorway.
“The FBI is here. The real FBI.”
“You find them—the guys that took us or the other two?” asked Carter.
“No.” Jack shifted and rested a hand on his hip. “Vanished like ghosts.” He inclined his head toward the door. “They have some questions.”