Naked Edge (10 page)

And then she saw Officer Daniels walk over to Grandpa Red Crow's body, a large black plastic bag under his arm, an EMT following behind him with a gurney. He dropped the bag on the ground and unzipped it.

A body bag.

"No!" She hadn't realized she'd shouted until she heard her own voice.

Everyone fell silent, staring at her.

Gabe whispered in her ear, a warning tone to his voice. "Kat, you can't--"

On a surge of anger and grief, she pulled away from him, ducked beneath the yellow tape, and went to stand over Grandpa Red Crow's body. "Not you! I don't want you touching him! I don't want you near him, not after what you did!"

Daniels glared at her, clearly recognizing her. Then his gaze flicked nervously toward Gabe and the other police officers, a mask of indifference sliding over his face. "Are you trying to get yourself arrested? Interfering with a police officer is a crime."

Her heart pounding, her rage moving toward tears, she met his gaze straight on, forcing words past the lump in her throat. "He was
wicasa wakan,
a holy man, and you treated him like garbage! You will not touch him!"

For a moment she thought Daniels would arrest her. Then he stepped back, jerking the gloves off his hands. "Have it your way."

"I'll do it." An EMT stepped forward. "If that's okay with you."

Kat nodded, turned to Gabe. "He trusted you. Could you...?"

But she couldn't say it, her throat suddenly too tight to speak.

She saw in Gabe's eyes that he understood. "Yeah, I'll help."

Shaking his head and laughing, Daniels walked away.

Kat watched as Gabe put on gloves and, with the help of the EMT, carefully placed Grandpa Red Crow in the body bag and zipped it shut, cutting off the old man's last view of the sky, the ripping sound of the zipper so painfully final.

"Hagoonee'"
She whispered farewell to him in Dine and then repeated it in his language, tears blurring her vision.
"Toksa ake."

She watched until his body was loaded into the waiting ambulance, then turned and started walking, needing to get away from here.

"Where do you think you're going?" Gabe overtook her with his long strides.

She tried to think. "Home."

"You're not driving anywhere, honey, not like this." He stepped in front of her, blocked her path, one big hand on her shoulder. "You're too upset. Give me your keys. I'll have Hatfield drive your truck to my place."

It was a measure of how upset she was that she did as he asked, fishing her keys out of her pocket and putting them in his upturned palm. "Where will I go?"

"You're coming home with me."

IT WAS DARK and snowing by the time Gabe pulled into his driveway, small, icy flakes blowing on a frigid wind. He parked in the garage and looked over to see Kat with her hands folded in her lap, her gaze focused on nothing, a look of devastation on her sweet face. He wished there were something he could say or do to make this easier for her, but he knew from experience that there wasn't.

He reached over, brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. "Hey, we're here. Let's get you inside."

Once indoors, he lit a fire in the fireplace and told her to make herself at home, then headed into the bathroom to wash up. Hands and face clean, he crossed the hall to his bedroom and found it exactly as he'd left it--buried in dirty clothes, his bed unmade, climbing and ski magazines strewn across the floor.

You're a pig, Rossiter.

Yes, he was, but most of the time it didn't matter. In the three years he'd lived here, he'd never once brought a woman home. He'd bought the house with the money he and Jill had set aside for a climbing trip to Everest, needing to escape their old condo and anything that reminded him of her. Since then, whenever he'd been with women, it had always been in their space. He preferred it that way because it meant he could leave whenever he chose.

Knowing he'd left Kat alone, he quickly changed into jeans and a T-shirt, picked up his climbing and ski porn, then gathered up every piece of putrefied clothing he could find and carried it all downstairs to the laundry room, where he unceremoniously dumped it on the floor. He'd do something about clean sheets later. She could have the bed, and he would sleep on the couch.

His mind on dinner, he walked back into the living room and found her sitting on the couch in front of the fire, still wearing her coat and looking as if her entire world had come crashing down. He reached for her jacket. "I'll take that."

Her motions wooden, she stood, took off her jacket, and handed it to him, revealing a silky lavender sweater that clung a little too nicely to her curves. Without speaking, she sat again, her hands in her lap, her gaze on the fire.

He hung her coat, then walked over to his entertainment center, which acted as a sort of bar, and poured her a double Bushmills, figuring that the best and perhaps only answer to a moment like this was twenty-one-year-old Irish whisky.

He walked over to her, sat beside her, and pressed the tumbler into her hands. "Drink. It will help clear your head."

She looked at him, then looked at what he'd placed in her hands and shook her head. "I don't drink. Grandpa Red Crow says..."

Tears filled her eyes as she realized what she said, her chin quivering, her grief palpable.

"The rules don't apply tonight, Kat. Even nice Navajo girls get to sip a little whisky when they've been through what you've just been through. I'm sure Grandpa Red Crow--"

She raised the tumbler to her lips--and tossed back almost the entire drink.

"--would understand."

Her eyes went wide, a shocked expression on her face, her entire body shuddering. She gasped, coughed, gaped up at him.

He took the tumbler from her hands. "I said sip, honey."

KAT TOOK ANOTHER sip. How could anyone drink this stuff? It was like swallowing fire, the whisky burning its way down her throat and into her stomach, where it smoldered. She shuddered, her eyes watering.

Now you know why they called it firewater.

She'd just gotten off the phone from telling Glenna the bad news--as if the poor woman needed more bad news. Glenna had at first refused to believe it. Then she'd burst into tears, thanking Kat between sobs for calling and promising to spread the word, her grief making the horrible events of this day inescapably real.

From the kitchen came the sound of Gabe's voice as he ordered pizza. She'd told him he didn't need to worry about feeding her, but he hadn't listened.

"You need something in your stomach to soak this up," he'd said, pouring her a second, smaller drink. "Just sit back and try to relax. I'll be in the next room."

Feeling almost numb, Kat glanced around, seeing her surroundings for the first time. She sat on a blocky sofa of brown leather, a matching ottoman in front of her. An enormous plasma screen TV hung on the wall across from her, liquor bottles and glasses sitting on top of the wooden entertainment center beneath it. Beside them sat a little stereo into which Gabe had plugged his iPod. CDs and DVDs stood in rows on the shelves below, spilling onto the floor. A stack of magazines with names like
Ski, Outside,
and
Rock and Ice
sat on the polished wood floor on the left end of the sofa, while a fireplace stood to the right. The walls were bare--no art, no family photos, no pictures of friends.

Feeling a little dizzy, Kat relaxed into the sofa cushions and took another sip. Maybe it was the heat of the fire, but she felt flushed, the tension inside her slowly melting away--but not the sadness. It was still there, sharp and aching.

He's gone. Grandpa Red Crow is really gone.

With no warning, it hit her, a wave of grief so strong it seemed to tear out her heart. Tears blurred her vision, spilled down her cheeks, a torrent of pain washing up from inside her, cutting off her breath.

She didn't know Gabe was there until he took the drink from her hand, set it down on the floor, and sat beside her. "I know there's nothing I can say that makes this any easier, but I want you to know that I really am sorry."

She could hear in his voice that he meant it, but she closed her eyes and turned her face away from him, not wanting him to see her come apart. "H-he was a father to me. He was the only m-man who... When I first came to Denver... he w-was there for me. He taught me so much. H-he called me Kimimila. That m-means Butterfly."

Then Gabe's arms went around her, and he drew her against the hard wall of his chest. "It's okay, Kat. Let it out."

And she broke.

Holding on to Gabe as if to save herself from falling, she wept as she'd never wept before, her heart seeming truly to shatter. She would never see Grandpa Red Crow again. She would never hear him sing the songs or play his flute in the
inipi
again, or listen to his stories, or turn to him for advice. She would never be able to tell him how much he meant to her or thank him for all he'd done.

Everything he was, everything he knew, was gone.

She had no idea how much time had passed, but slowly her tears subsided, the sharpest edge of her grief blunted. Gradually, she became aware of other things. The strength of Gabe's arms around her. The steady thrum of his heartbeat against her cheek. The hard feel of his chest. The warmth of his body. The scent of the outdoors that seemed to cling to his skin. The gentleness of his hand as it stroked her hair. The rhythm of his breathing.

She'd never been held like this by a man--or anyone, for that matter. Apart from rare hugs her grandmother had given her, she'd grown up without physical contact. She was surprised to find that she liked it. It felt good, warm, soothing.

More than that, it felt right.

The wind knows him.

She drew back only far enough to look up at his face. He was watching her, his blue eyes filled with concern, his lashes dark, his brow furrowed. His skin was brown from the sun, his jaw shadowed by a new growth of stubble, and his lips...

She found herself wondering again what it would be like to kiss those lips. She'd been kissed before, once in middle school by one of the Benally brothers and twice in high school by Willie Tsosie--and she hadn't been impressed. But somehow she didn't think Gabe would lose his gum in her mouth or slobber on her.

As if of their own will, her fingers found their way to his mouth, tracing the curve of his lower lip, exploring its fullness.

He tensed, and his eyes went dark. "Kat..."

She knew there were reasons why she shouldn't be touching him like this, but she didn't really care, his words echoing through her mind.

The rules don't apply tonight.

She sat up higher, took his face between her palms, and pressed her lips to his.

CHAPTER 6

GEEE-ZUS!

Gabe sucked in a breath, shocked by the blistering impact of Kat's unexpected kiss, heat shearing through his gut at the first clumsy press of her lips against his. Even as his body responded, some part of his brain knew this shouldn't be happening. "Kat, you're upset and tipsy and--"

She kissed him again, tilting her head to better slant her mouth over his.

Christ!

He turned his face away, felt her lips brush his jaw. "Honey, you don't really want this. You've just lost--"

She made a little sound of protest, her arms sliding behind his head, drawing his lips closer to hers, as if to show him that she
did
really want it.

Good. So did he.

Ignoring the pathetic warnings of his conscience, he took control of the kiss, drawing her tight against him, capturing her mouth with his.

God, she tasted sweet! She smelled sweet, too--like honey and woman. She gave a little whimper, melting against him in a way that was utterly feminine, every inch of her soft body molding to his, her breasts pressing against his ribs, her lips parting to give him access. He swirled his tongue over hers, felt her body tense. And through a pheromone fog, he realized she wasn't just a virgin between her legs.

Kissing--real kissing--was new to her, too.

Not just virgin, buddy--extra virgin.

He reined himself in, gentled the kiss, slowed it down, brushing her lips lightly with his, teasing their outline with the tip of his tongue, nipping their fullness, his lust for her at war with some strange urge to protect her from himself. In his world, any night that started with kissing ended soon after with fucking. His cock had already risen to the occasion and strained painfully against his fly, looking for the surest route out of denim and into her. But that couldn't happen--not tonight, not when she was vulnerable and afraid and hurting, probably not ever. She wanted happily ever after, and all he could give her was sex. Still, he could keep kissing her...