Surrogate Escape. Jenna Kernan

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СКАЧАТЬ She pressed her lips together, bracing against her physical reaction. Fool me once, she thought. “Thanks for coming, Lori.”

      “You want me to wait?” she asked.

      “Yeah.”

      She nodded and watched him go. Jake Redhorse was her poison, but she was not going to be the tribe’s source of gossip again. She couldn’t go back and fix what was broken between them. Only he could do that, and it would mean admitting he had protected his reputation at the expense of hers. Left her out in the storm that never reached him. His luck, his reputation, his honor and his willingness to do what was right had all played in his favor. While her family legacy had cast her in the worst light. The natural scapegoat for daring to taint the reputation of the tribe’s golden boy.

      So, you’re saying it’s mine? That was what he’d actually said to her. He wasn’t the first to suspect she’d pulled a fast one. How could they be so willing to think so little of her? After the gossip flew, she became the target of disdain. Her appearance in the classroom drew long silences, followed by snickering behind raised hands. Meanwhile, everyone felt sorry for Jake. Forgave him instantly. Who could blame him? He’d been tricked. Swindled. Seduced.

      During junior year, Jake was still playing soccer and planned to play basketball but was already planning to get a part-time job moving cattle when the baby came.

      When she mentioned her intention to work at the Darabee hospital as a health care aide, he’d scoffed.

      “Finish high school, Lori,” he’d said. “So you don’t end up like your mom.”

      So he’d planned to drop out and have her stay in school. More fuel to make him the hero and her the parasite.

      She had glared at him. “You could still go to college.”

      “No. I’ll be here for my child.”

      Yes. Of course he would. But he had never had to.

      Instead, he had accepted condolences first for the unplanned pregnancy and later for his loss. His loss. Never their loss. She clamped her teeth together as the fury spiked. Instead, he had finished high school and gone to college and she had gone. too. Become a nurse. Shown them all. Only, no one had really noticed or cared.

      Yet one look at the wiggling, smiling baby and her temper ebbed. As she looked down into her eyes, she felt a tug in her belly and breasts.

      She knew this feeling, had felt it once before, even though her baby had already left.

      Uh-oh, she thought. Pair bonding, her mind supplied, as if reviewing for one of her tests in school. That magic thing that made a baby uniquely yours.

      “Don’t do this, Lori,” she warned herself. But it was already too late.

      * * *

      JAKE WALKED AROUND the truck. The wind had picked up so much that it whistled through the trees. Cold sunlight poured in golden bands through the breaks in the tall pines to the east. Behind the truck, he found a bloody palm print on his tailgate and pine needles beside the hitch. It looked as if someone had stepped on the bumper and then hoisted up to place the baby in the bed of the truck. She was small, then.

      Had she arranged the red cloth so that he would notice it immediately against the silver of the F-150’s body?

      He could see no blood on the ground and no tracks on the earth on either side of the driveway. He cast his gaze about, looking for a place where she could have watched his arrival and still have been shielded from discovery. Then he walked to the most logical spot. There in the eastern row of piñon pine, at the base of one of the large trunks, was a spot where the needles had been disturbed. He squatted and saw that someone had been here, waiting, evidenced by the sweep of a foot back and forth, creating two little mounds of needles and a swath of clean dark earth in between. He could not stand in the spot without hitting his head on the branches, but if he crouched down, he had a perfect view of the road and his driveway and the back of his pickup.

      So she’d waited here, holding the infant, and then seeing his police cruiser make the turn onto his road... He checked the distance and imagined the timing. She, this brand-new mother, must have hurried out to the drive. He could see it now, the soft indentation of her foot. No boots. A sneaker, maybe. Small with little tread. She would have had to be quick, her hands likely still covered with the blood of the birth. Who had helped her bring the baby? He could find no evidence of a second person.

      Did the father know she had left his child? The ache in his heart hardened in his belly.

      He walked the perimeter of his property. Farther back, between his home and the pasture beyond, was something purple and bloody. He slowed his steps, approaching carefully. It was a placenta; he knew that from calving. The flies had found it already. He lifted his radio and called it in.

      Carol Dorset, their dispatcher, was in the office now and picked up on the first ring. Carol had been on dispatch back before Jake could even remember and had been the one to answer the phone the night Jake had to call 911 on his daddy.

      “Chief’s not here yet.”

      He glanced at his watch and noted it was 9:05 a.m. The shifts started at 7:00 a.m. and were staggered throughout the day. Since the explosion, they rotated covering nights. They were expecting two new hires, one patrol and one detective, but they had not started yet.

      “Should I call the chief at home?” asked Jake. Since he hadn’t been on the job very long, he wasn’t sure what to do.

      “I wouldn’t,” said Carol.

      “What about Detective Bear Den?” he asked.

      “He just left about thirty minutes ago. You can call him. I won’t.”

      Tribal Police Detective Jack Bear Den had been out with him last night on the fatality involving a car and a tree. An outsider leaving their casino too late and too drunk. Jake had been first on scene and then Bear Den. Arizona Highway Patrol was next, and then the meat wagon.

      He signed off the radio and replaced it to his side, then he retrieved his phone and hesitated, debating whether to call. If he waited, Bear Den might be asleep. He might even be already.

      The dam breach and the aftermath was more than they could handle, which was why Bear Den had asked Jake to interview the family of the latest runaway, Maggie Kesselman. She’d be gone a week tomorrow. Girls had been disappearing since last November. There were always runaways among their tribe, but Bear Den had a hunch these girls had not taken off for Phoenix or Vegas. He said that there was something different happening, and he’d had Jake do some initial legwork when he’d been tied up with the dam breech.

      Jake considered calling Ty. His older brother had a very good tracking dog who could find this new mother. He stared down at his phone.

      He had not spoken to Ty in a long time. Too long. But since Jake had become a tribal police officer seven months ago, Ty was even more distant. Jake wondered what Ty would think if he asked him to chase down a criminal. He’d laugh, if he decided to pick up his phone.

      Ty had gotten the worst of it from their dad, no doubt. He just couldn’t shut his mouth or back down. Jake admired that, even though it brought Ty trouble more often than not.

      Jake now felt a cold that had nothing to do with the wind. The СКАЧАТЬ