Eagle Warrior

Could protecting her mean protecting the enemy?

As a former US Marine, Turquoise Guardian Ray Strong is no stranger to high-risk situations. But when he is assigned to protect Morgan Hooke—a single mother and daughter to the Apache who killed a mass gunman—Ray suspects there is more to his mission than meets the eye. Is Morgan an innocent bystander, or the keeper of her father’s secrets and blood money? Despite his better instincts, Ray feels a powerful attraction to Morgan. Motivated by love and the loss of his own parents and best friend, Ray will do anything to keep her out of the hands of unseen enemies.

Apache Protectors: Tribal Thunder

This was what it must be like, he thought, to have a woman not just to sleep with but to hold.

The awkwardness eased and they sat there quietly. When she pushed away he felt the tug of regret.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

He wasn’t sorry, but how could he say so?

“That’s okay. Happens sometimes.” It never happened, actually.

She stared up at him and, bang, there it was again—that ache in his chest and the zing of attraction that crackled like the glass glaze Mrs. Yeager used on her white pots. Ray dropped his arm from her shoulder down to her waist.

“Oh,” she said. Morgan inched away and met the resistance of his arm as he tightened his hold.

“My daughter is in the other room,” she said.

That broke his concentration. His arm fell away and Morgan rose to her feet. She backed toward the door, pausing just inside the threshold with one hand on the doorknob, as if preparing to slam it shut and flee. It was the kind of chase he’d enjoy, but only if she would, too.

Eagle Warrior

Jenna Kernan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JENNA KERNAN has penned over two dozen novels and has received two RITA® Award nominations. Jenna is every bit as adventurous as her heroines. Her hobbies include recreational gold prospecting, scuba diving and gem hunting. Jenna grew up in the Catskills and currently lives in the Hudson Valley of New York State with her husband. Follow Jenna on Twitter, @jennakernan, on Facebook or at www.jennakernan.com.

For Jim, always

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Extract

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Most folks wouldn’t trust Ray Strong to look after a houseplant let alone a woman and a child. But that was exactly what had happened. Ray watched the woman in question as she served a complimentary drink to one of the customers on the floor of the tribe’s casino—she dipped as she set down the glass to avoid showing too much leg in her skimpy skirt. A shame, really, because she had great legs.

Detective Jack Bear Den, one of his friends and a fellow member of the warrior sect of the Turquoise Guardians medicine society, told him that they had all gone to high school with Morgan Hooke. But honestly, even after observing her several times over the past five days, Ray didn’t remember her. That meant that she did not look like this back then.

Morgan was not beautiful, but compelling in a waifish sort of way. She had dark cautious eyes and a generous mouth. For reasons unknown, her thick shock of black hair was cut short on the sides and back and long on the top in a style favored by adolescent boys. He liked that cut on some actresses. But Morgan’s hair lacked the product to make it look sassy, so it fell thick and straight in a bowl haircut that looked practical but not sexy, unless you noticed the long curve of her neck. Which he did, and that slim column of sensitive flesh gave him all kinds of bad ideas.

Some of the servers had released their top few buttons to reveal more of their breasts. But not Morgan. She wore the uniform in as conservative a manner as possible. Judging from her tip glass, he was not the only man in the room that rewarded less clothing and more skin.

He watched her retreat to the bar for more drinks. She did look good walking away. Not that it mattered. Ray was not here to pick Morgan up. An outsider had been asking about the shooter’s daughter. The Anglo had even been at the casino last Sunday, Morgan’s day off. A coworker had furnished Morgan’s name, but not where she lived and the stranger had vanished. The woman had called their shaman, Kenshaw Little Falcon, who shared her concern, so he’d sent Ray to watch Morgan’s back and see what she knew about her father’s involvement in the crime. His shaman had been very specific. Keep her safe and find out if she knew who hired her father. Kenshaw believed that her father had not acted out of some need for justice but had been paid to shoot Ovidio Natal Sanchez. Why was obvious. But who—now that one was a puzzle.

Not as big a puzzle as why his shaman had chosen him for this job. Real dark horse he was and he knew it.

Morgan finished her shift and Ray trailed her out to the parking lot. Morgan stopped to pick up milk and processed cheese. Ray took the opportunity to buy beer and pork rinds. She didn’t notice him. She never did because she kept her shoulders rounded and head down all the time. He didn’t like it, wanted to shout at her to stand up straight.

Ray gazed across the space that separated them. She didn’t seem the type for secrets. But she had at least one. No one seemed to know who fathered her child, Lisa. Everyone had secrets. That made it hard to tell about a person from what you saw on the outside. And no one ever got a look at the inside.

Next Morgan drove home to the small house that she had shared with her father and still shared with her ten-year-old girl. No sign of a man in her life though. A shame. She seemed fragile and Ray wondered why no man had responded to the compulsion to look after her. Not that he was that sort. Not at all.

She stopped again at the neighbor’s to pick up Lisa. Her daughter was as skinny as a split rail with hair that flew out behind her when she ran, which she did often. In her features was the promise of beauty and none of the slinking posture her mother adopted. Lisa was bright-eyed and curious. She’d made eye contact with Ray a time or two and even thrown him a generous smile. He liked her. She was outgoing and a little crazy like him, judging from the way she climbed and swung and jumped on the playground at school during recess. But today was Saturday so no school.

When Morgan reached her dark and empty house, Ray waited on the road as Lisa charged toward the door.

April in the Arizona mountains meant that Lisa still wore a heavy coat, though it flapped open as she ran. Ray lifted his field glasses. He had the house behind hers. But this spot on the road gave him a better view of the kitchen. She never shut the curtains over the sink, so he could peer right in as she made dinner.

From his place on the shoulder, he could see both the kitchen on the front corner and one side of the house, including the back window where Morgan’s father’s bedroom was located. He caught the flash of movement in the bedroom. She left the shades up during the day; he suspected she did this for her cat, who liked sitting in that sunny window on the back of a worn upholstered chair.

Seeing a man pass the window, Ray shifted the direction of his gaze. Redirecting his field glasses, he saw that the contents of the room had been tossed about and there was someone searching the bookcase.

An instant later, Ray was out of his truck and running for the house.

Chapter Two

Morgan Hooke unlocked the front door and her daughter, Lisa, charged inside. One step took Morgan to the small rug just beyond the threshold. She exhaled, glad to finally be home. The day shifts were long and the guests were older, drank only the complimentary beverages and tipped almost nothing. Night shifts paid better, but without her father here at home, she needed to look after Lisa. That meant fewer hours and less pay. She’d picked up the Saturday hours only because a friend agreed to watch Lisa. Money had always been tight, but it had become stretched like the head of a war drum since her father’s arrest.

Morgan flicked on the light, chasing off the late-day gloom and looked to the recliner where the cat usually slept. Finding the cushion empty, she scanned the tiny room for Cookie, the cat Lisa had dragged out of a Dumpster behind the school when it was only a kitten.

Lisa had tossed her backpack by the door and now called a greeting to her pet as she entered the eat-in kitchen and switched on the light. Cookie was usually there to greet them, meowing loudly for dinner. Morgan kicked off her shoes, retrieved Lisa’s empty lunch bag from her backpack and carried both pack and bag into the kitchen. Lisa had already dropped the sack of groceries on the dinette before making her way down the hall that led to their three small bedrooms on her hunt for the gray cat with the startlingly green eyes.

Morgan frowned at the first prickling of unease. She hoped Cookie was all right because a vet visit was not in the budget.

“Cookie! Coook-key!”

Lisa sang the name and then made a familiar sound proven to lure the cat. The only noise Cookie responded to with greater frequency was that of the electric can opener.

“Mom!”

The alarm in Lisa’s voice brought Morgan around. She glanced down the hall where Lisa stood motionless with her hands lifted slightly from her sides as she stared into her grandfather’s room.

“Lisa? What’s wrong?” Morgan was already moving and had cleared half the distance separating them as she prayed that nothing had happened to Cookie. Then she saw it. Her father was in Phoenix awaiting trial. No one should be in his room. But his overturned dresser now blocked the door.

A small gray cat could not do that.

“Lisa, honey,” she whispered as the dread flooded over her suddenly clammy skin. “Come here to me right now.”

“But what happened to...” Lisa took one step forward and threw her hand over her mouth. Then she turned and ran.

Morgan did not ask what she had seen. She asked nothing as she grabbed her daughter’s wrist and ran for the closest door on bare feet. She heard the footsteps pounding down the hall and pushed Lisa ahead.

“Hurry!”

They cleared the hall and Lisa nearly reached the kitchen door when someone grabbed Morgan by her hair and tugged so hard she saw stars.

Lisa turned back. “Mom!”

A low male voice growled in Morgan’s ear. “Where’s the money?”

“Run!” she shouted to Lisa.

But her daughter hesitated.

“Get help,” she said.

That sent her daughter off. Lisa rounded the table as the kitchen door flew open. Another man stood on the back step. Lisa screamed as the man lifted her off the ground, spun her in a circle and set her behind him on the back step.

“Run,” ordered Morgan. The last thing she saw was her daughter’s wide dark eyes before her captor tugged her backward into the hall.

“Where is it?” he asked, punctuating his question with a little shake.

Morgan grabbed hold of his wrists and twisted to face her attacker. Then she punched him in the bicep as she’d been taught by her dad. The man released her. Morgan staggered back, right into the second man.

The next instant she was behind him as he continued toward her attacker.

She saw the wide shoulders and clenched fists. Short black hair, a dark hoodie and long legs clad in new blue jeans. The man beyond him was now on his feet.

There was nothing said between them but she could tell by the way that the second man stalked the first that these two were not comrades.

“Listen, buddy,” said her attacker, holding his hands up.

He didn’t get a chance to finish. Morgan winced at the cracking sound of a fist striking the man’s face. Blood sprayed on the white paint and the school photos tacked up in the hall. Morgan balled a fist before her mouth to stifle a scream. From outside Lisa shouted her mother’s name.

Her rescuer thumped her captor’s head on the hall runner as Morgan turned and fled.

* * *

RAY THOUGHT HE should have dropped the guy when he stopped fighting but gave him just one more shot for making him blow his cover. He’d been happy watching Morgan and Lisa from a distance. Experience had told him that things looked better that way. Now they’d seen him and he’d have to come up with something.

Damn.

He released the limp intruder and noticed that the housebreaker was bleeding all over himself but more important he was bleeding on Morgan’s hall runner. Ray knew women despised mud or blood on carpets.

Once on his feet, Ray gave the guy a poke with his boot and the guy’s head lolled. He retrieved the man’s wallet and drew out his license.

“Andrew Peck.” Ray glanced from the image of the smiling well-dressed man to the bloody, slack-faced Anglo with the rapidly swelling nose.

“You live in Darabee. Right up the road,” Ray said.

A little searching of the billfold yielded several business cards. Mr. Peck was a manager at the Darabee Community Savings. Home invasion seemed a strange thing for a bank manager to be doing. He clearly was not very good at B and E or at personal defense. Ray kept the business card and tossed the wallet back on Mr. Peck’s rising and falling chest where it bounced to the ground at his side.

Ray made a call to Kenshaw Little Falcon, reporting in. Little Falcon was his shaman, his spiritual leader, the head of their medicine society and the man who had hand selected the warrior sect called Tribal Thunder. Ray was proud to be among the newest members of the elite group of two dozen Tonto Apache men all selected from within the larger medicine society known as the Turquoise Guardians. Tribal Thunder recruits came from the men who completed the rigorous warrior training required to be considered a candidate. The newest inductees also included his friends Dylan Tehauno and Jack and Carter Bear Den. Like him, all three men were former US Marines but only he had a criminal record and a stunning proclivity for screw-ups.

His shaman told him to contact Jack Bear Den, who was also a member of Tribal Thunder and, conveniently, a detective with the tribal police here on Turquoise Canyon Reservation.

Their tribe of Tonto Apache was small, only 950 members but large enough for a casino and a manmade recreational lake, thanks to the Skeleton Cliff Damn. Their tribal police force totaled seven, including their dispatcher.

When he finished with Jack, he moved to the open back door to call to Morgan and Lisa. They didn’t reply. The night was closing in but he could see that Morgan had them both locked in her car. Pitiful place to hide as he could break the glass with any number of rocks lying nearby, but at least he’d found them. She’d obviously left her keys inside the house.

He shouted to her that the police were coming and to stay put. Then he went to check out the damage the guy had done inside. He stepped over Mr. Peck to find a huge mess in the bedroom that had recently been occupied by Morgan’s father. The mattress lay askew, bedding stripped, dresser drawers all emptied out.

Ray looked back at the intruder. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

A glance in Lisa’s and Morgan’s rooms showed the man had either not looked there yet or chosen to focus on Karl’s room.

Her father, Karl Hutton Hooke, had shot and killed the mass murderer who’d killed nine people down at the Lilac Copper Mine near the border last February. Ovidio Natal Sanchez had been apprehended in the town right outside the reservation boundary. On the very day the suspect had been delivered into custody, Mr. Hooke had walked right up and shot Sanchez twice through the heart. Nobody could explain why Karl had done it and, according to Jack, Morgan’s dad refused to speak to anyone, including his court-appointed attorney.

Ray heard a sound in the hall and returned to find his captive make a failed attempt to rise.

“What were you looking for, Peck?”

Peck groaned and rolled his head from one side to the other. His hand went to his nose. He coughed blood and opened one eye.

“You want to tell me why you’re here?” asked Ray.

“Do I know you?” Peck tried to staunch the copious amounts of blood issuing from his nose with his index finger and thumb. This forced the blood in a new direction and he began to cough.

“We only just met. Why are you here?”

“I was just...” His eyes shifted toward the kitchen, judging the distance to freedom and finding it too far. “I...it...”

“Yes?” Ray asked, lifting his brows and affecting a look of interest.

“I’m not saying a thing without a lawyer.”

Ray smiled. “You have me confused with a law-abiding citizen. So let me explain.” Ray squatted on his haunches and grabbed Mr. Peck, lifting him by the front of his bloody shirt. “I’m Apache and on my reservation.” Ray showed him his empty hand. “I could kill you with this.

“Plus I have a criminal record and a bad temper. I’m not calling you a lawyer. So once again. Why, Mr. Peck, are you lying in Miss Hooke’s hallway?”

Mr. Peck started to cry. “Please. You got to let me go.”

Ray sighed and then shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

“I can pay you.”

“Pay me?” Ray snorted. “This lady is a friend of mine. You scared her. So it’s gone past money.” Ray lifted Andrew’s index finger and gave it a shake. “I expect a bank manager needs these.”

Peck tried and failed to recover his hand with a weak tug. When he reached with his opposite hand Ray slapped him in the forehead with the heel of one hand. Peck’s head thumped on the carpet and his hand fell away.

“I’m about to break this. Fair warning.”

“All right. I was looking for the money.”

The obvious question was what money, but Ray didn’t do obvious.

“Yeah. Me, too. Why do you think it’s here?”

Andrew’s mouth quirked and a little of the fear left his expression. His pale twitchy eyes reminded Ray of a rodent.

“He didn’t have much time between when he cashed the check and shot that man. Maybe twenty-four hours.” He pointed toward the kitchen. “She doesn’t seem to have it. Or she’s real smart. So I figured I’d start here.”

“And you chose a time when Ms. Hooke would find you. Why?”

“No. I thought she worked nights at the casino. Somebody at the bank said so.”

“She did. But her father used to watch her daughter. Now she’s alone so...”

Andrew absorbed that. “Oh, yeah. Right. So what do you say? Fifty-fifty?”

“How much we talking here, Andy?”

His mouth clamped shut and he sniffed. Ray selected which digit to break and Peck writhed and whined.

“Okay. Okay. It was two hundred thousand. A bank check. He asked for cash. We had to make him come back. I don’t keep that much on hand. So he came back, you know, the next day and the check was good. So I cashed it. And he walked right out of there with that money in a cardboard box. Just folded over the top flaps and tucked it under his arm.”

Two hundred thousand? No wonder Kenshaw Little Falcon thought Morgan and her girl needed protection.

“You cleared the check?” asked Ray.

Peck nodded. “Sure did, after the bank in Phoenix cleared the funds.”

How long had this twerp been watching Morgan, Ray wondered.

“Karl went away two months ago. Why now?” asked Ray.

“Because people are asking questions now. They’re after it, the money. So, I thought I’d better get moving. I’d asked Ms. Hooke personally on two separate occasions when she came into the bank if she needed help investing. She declined. Seemed kind of puzzled. I think she’s got it tucked in a mattress or something.” Peck coughed blood and sniffed. “Say, mind if I sit down?”

Ray ignored the request. “What people?”

“A detective from Darabee came back in February, the one that got shot.”

“Eli Casey?”

“Yes, so I figured he was out of the picture. But then a man came right to my church last Sunday morning and right during fellowship hour he asked me if I was the one who cashed the check for Karl in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. I was so shocked I said, yes.” Peck moved his hand and sniffed. Blood continued to flow down his face and neck. “Can I get a paper towel or some ice?”

“No. Who was he, the one from church?”

“I never saw him before. He didn’t give me his name.”

“You tell him anything else?”

“I may have said that the daughter’s name was Morgan and she worked nights at the tribe’s casino.”

Last Sunday, Ray thought, the day before Kenshaw called him in to watch Morgan.

The sound of sirens reached him, still a ways off. He turned his head and then looked back at Peck, noting the moment he heard the approaching police.

“You called the cops?”

“You’re trespassing on sovereign land.”

“What about our deal?”

“Only deal I’ll make is that if I ever see you on tribal land again, I’ll break this.” He set Peck’s hand on his chest and gave it a little pat. “And, if I see you near Morgan or Lisa Hooke again, I’ll kill you.”

Peck trembled. Somehow the man sensed Ray wasn’t bluffing. He was surprised to recognize that he wasn’t making idle threats. He knew himself capable of killing this man for daring to touch Morgan. Why did this woman rouse every protective instinct in Ray’s body? That question troubled him more than this miserable excuse for a burglar.

And who was the man at the casino asking questions? Ray set his teeth as he realized the threat to Morgan may have only just begun.

Chapter Three

Peck’s eyes widened. As Ray stood over him, the bank manager rose to his elbows.

“You want it for yourself. Did you find it already? Is it gone?”

“Yeah. Gone.” Ray made an exploding motion with both hands.

Ray left him to meet the police, passing Morgan and Lisa still sitting in the shabby white Honda with the windows rolled up and fogging. He noticed the gray duct tape securing the driver’s side mirror and shook his head. She needed someone to look after her.