Lakota Baby

“That’s what I’m doing.” He softened his words with, “I need to know everything that’s gone on in your life for the past few months, maybe even year.”

“You mean since you’ve been gone?” Her gaze met his, unwavering for a few long seconds before she dropped hers. What was the use? He had never loved her.

“Yes, since I left. With the kidnapping of your son following the accidental death of your husband, I wonder if Paul’s death wasn’t as accidental as we’d originally assumed.”

Maggie struggled with the words teetering on the tip of her tongue. Would the facts she’d withheld make a difference in Joe’s investigation, or would they only cloud the issue of finding her son?

When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “Do you know if Paul was involved in any unusual activities?”

Gritting her teeth, Maggie shook herself and concentrated on Joe’s question. He didn’t need to know any more than he already did about Dakota. As the head of tribal police, he had a lot of influence within the tribe. It was enough for him to know his stepbrother’s son was missing. “Unusual? What do you mean?”

“Was he acting strange, had he altered his habits? Did he hang out with anyone in particular?”

Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know. Paul didn’t tell me about his life outside our home.” She swallowed against the lump rising in her throat. He hadn’t told her because she hadn’t let him. Paul had loved her and had married her when she’d been desperate. What had he gotten from the deal?

Nothing.

As the only white man she’d halfway trusted on the reservation, she’d gone to him to seek help in preserving her secret.

From the beginning, Paul knew Maggie still loved Joe but he’d married her anyway. Maggie had been the one to insist on a marriage in name only. Although Paul would have liked it otherwise, he’d abided by her wishes, agreeing to wait until after she’d given birth to persuade her otherwise. He’d slept in a separate bedroom down the hall from her, and he’d come and gone as he pleased. All this was information Joe didn’t need to know.

No one knew. As far as the Painted Rock Indian Tribe was concerned, Paul was the father of her baby.

“He worked nights at the casino and I worked days at the youth center. We didn’t see much of each other.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Not much of a married life,” he muttered, but he didn’t ask any more questions about Paul’s friends or activities. He turned to Officer Toke. “Check Paul’s phone records and get out to the casino and ask around.”

The officer nodded. “Will do.” He tipped his head at Maggie. “Ma’am, let us know if you hear anything from the kidnappers.”

A rush of panic pushed Maggie forward and she laid a hand on Joe’s arm. “You have to find him, he’s your—” She bit hard on her tongue until she tasted the bitter, metallic tang of blood. “—nephew,” she finished in a rush. How close had she come to telling him the one thing she couldn’t? Based on his belief that Indian children should be raised in the Indian culture, he wouldn’t understand. He might demand custody of her baby if he knew Dakota was his son.

Chapter Two

While Officer Toke stood outside on her porch smoking a cigarette, Maggie paced her tiny living room more times than she cared to count, chewing through every last fingernail. Joe had gone to the police station with the others, promising to be back soon.

The more time that passed the more the walls seemed to close in around her. With Joe there, she could handle almost anything. Without him, she felt the black hole of loss sucking her down. She couldn’t just wait around for his return, she had to do something to find her baby.

But who would have taken him? And why?

She sat on the couch and closed her eyes, focusing on everyone she’d been in contact with in the past six months. A person who could be malicious enough to steal a baby from his bed. It had to be someone who knew which room her baby slept in and that she would be the only adult in the house.

Who? Who? Who? She tapped her finger to her forehead. Faces swam in her mind of all the boys and girls she worked with at the youth center. She’d never invited any of them to her house, but one of them could have spied on her just as easily as someone had painted graffiti on her walls while she’d been away. As if her mind was on a continuous loop, she couldn’t slow her thoughts enough to wrap around an individual. None of the teens surfaced as mean enough to steal her baby.

Was it even one of the teenagers she’d been working with? Could it be someone who knew Paul? If so, she was at a complete loss. For once, she wished she’d been closer to Paul than strangers in a shared house.

She pushed to her feet and strode to the window. When would Joe get back? He would know where to begin. He’d know who to question, who to call.

God, she prayed he did.

After one more circle around the living room, she stopped at the entrance to the hallway. From Dakota’s doorway, light spread in a triangle on the carpet in the hall. As if drawn by an irresistible force, Maggie walked toward the room she’d avoided since the police left. The closer she got, the more her chest squeezed until she was gulping short, shallow breaths. The walls pressed in on either side of her. She didn’t want to go in but she had to know, to see for herself, that her child really was gone.

This wasn’t a dream.

The officers had tried to clean up their mess before they left, but she could still see the faint traces of dust from where they’d lifted fingerprints from the walls, window-sill and furniture.

Baby blankets and sheets had been stripped from the crib and sent to the state crime lab along with the blue cloud curtains that used to hang in the window. She’d made them herself from a piece of fabric she’d found in Rapid City last Christmas.

With an icy lump of pain lodged in her throat, Maggie struggled to breathe. Yet her eyes remained dry, almost too dry, with that achy, hollow feeling she couldn’t blink away.

Longing to hold her child had become a physical need, just like breathing. And now that she was completely alone in her house, worry set in with a vengeance.

Was Dakota warm enough? Was he hungry? Were they changing his diapers and holding him so he wouldn’t be afraid? She prayed whoever had taken her son wouldn’t hurt him.

A sob rose in her throat and she pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from wailing aloud.

Then she noticed a powder-blue teddy bear lying forgotten against the wall. The plush, pillow-like toy was Dakota’s favorite. He liked to sleep with it at night.

Maggie sank to her knees and gathered the plaything to her breast, inhaling the scents of baby powder and milk.

Why her child? He didn’t like going with strangers, preferring only those he recognized, his mother and his caregiver, Mrs. Little Elk.

Please Dakota, don’t cry too much. With all the child abuse and neglect she’d witnessed in the year and a half she’d been on the reservation, she hoped whoever had Dakota wasn’t one of the abusers.

She pressed her face into the teddy bear, squeezed her eyes shut and sent a prayer to God and the Lakota spirits to help Joe find her son. At this point, she didn’t care if he found out he was the father or if he sued for custody. Maggie loved Dakota so much she’d give him up to his father if she could be certain he was alive and taken care of.

Why hadn’t she heard them when they’d entered her house? A good mother would have woken up at the slightest movement. If only she hadn’t slept soundly. If only she’d woken with the dream. If only she’d left the reservation and gone home to Des Moines when Joe went to war. She should have left while she was still pregnant and Dakota was safe in her womb. Her baby would still be with her if she’d gone to Iowa. None of this would have happened.

If only.

She buried her face in the bear’s soft nylon fur, her shoulders shaking, her body racked with dry, silent sobs. Alone in the middle of the prairie, her son was nowhere to be found.

The phone in her bedroom rang twice before Maggie heard it, so deep was she in her misery.

She lurched to her feet, the teddy bear still in her hand, and raced for the cordless phone on her nightstand.

“Hello?” She practically hyperventilated with her hopes and fears tangled in her chest.

“We’ll trade the baby for what was stolen from us. Coyote Butte. Saturday, midnight. Come alone or we kill the kid.”

“My baby? Is Dakota all right?” Maggie asked in a strangled whisper. “Please. Is he okay?”

An infant’s cry could be heard in the background, before the line went dead.

“Dakota!” Maggie crushed the receiver to her ear, straining to hear her baby. Her hands shook so much she banged the phone against her temple, the pain barely registering. “Dakota! Oh, please, let me have my baby!”

“Maggie?”

As her vision blurred, the phone slipped from her ear. They had her baby and he was alive. Blackness curled around her and her knees buckled.

“Maggie!” Joe was there, gathering her into his arms, holding her up when her legs gave way. He smoothed her hair from her face and muttered soothing words.

She stood for several moments, reminding herself to breathe, telling her heart to go on beating, absorbing the strength, smell and touch of Joe holding her in his arms.

Finally, Joe tilted her chin up and stared down at her intently. “What happened, Maggie?”

“I heard my baby.” Her fingers clutched at the lapels of his shirt. “They have Dakota. He’s alive.”

THANK THE SPIRITS. Joe held her face against his shoulder. “Shhh, he’ll be okay.” He hoped to hell they found the child before the kidnappers did something stupid. The tribal police were already combing through a list of possible suspects and the state police had issued an Amber Alert throughout South Dakota and the bordering states. The FBI would be there within the next two or three hours. For now, the best he could do was to hold Maggie and help her through the terror of her loss.

With her body pressed against his and the scent of herbal shampoo stirring his senses, memories flooded in.

It had been extremely hot the summer he’d first met Maggie. He’d hung around the activity center on the pretext of working out with the young people. What he wanted was information about drug abuse and drug dealing involving the teens. What he found was a pretty white woman playing a lousy game of basketball with the young adults. Sweaty, her hair curling wildly around her flushed face, she’d looked so alive, so vibrant. Joe couldn’t resist hanging around. And she’d been so good with the kids, concerned and caring about everything in their lives.

Even after he identified the teens involved in the drug trafficking, he still went by the center with one excuse or another to talk to Maggie. His fascination for the auburn-haired social worker with the sunny smile was pretty obvious.

Charlie Tatanka, a recovering teen drug abuser, had agreed to assist in a DEA sting operation to bring the dealer in. Because of the rapport and level of trust he had with Maggie, the teen insisted she be close at hand as the bust went down.

Within the first two minutes of the maneuver, the dealer realized it was a setup and freaked, pulling a gun. Charlie was shot in the arm before the DEA and the tribal police could disarm the perpetrator.

Joe remembered how upset Maggie had been. As distressed as any parent would be over her own child, she’d accompanied the boy in the ambulance to the hospital where she’d stayed half the night ensuring Charlie was comfortable and had the proper treatment.

After the drug dealer was handed over to the state police, Joe dropped by the hospital to check on Charlie and Maggie. Charlie’s father was there to take him home in his pickup truck. Joe offered to give Maggie a lift. That’s when his inward struggle began.

She was still wired, talking nonstop during the trip back, riding an adrenaline high. Although worried about Charlie she couldn’t contain her excitement over ridding the reservation of another dealer. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining.

She’d been so beautiful, Joe had had a tough time concentrating on the road. When they’d arrived at Maggie’s small house on the reservation, he’d insisted on checking out the place to make sure she was safe. Reluctant to leave her, he’d been caught up in her exuberance, the passion of her conviction spilling into him and kindling a similar passion of another nature.

When Joe started to leave, Maggie made the mistake of throwing her arms around his neck to thank him for caring about the teenagers. Unable to resist, he’d returned the embrace, kissing her until he was breathless, amazed at the burst of desire surging through his body.

In the heat of that embrace, he hadn’t given a thought to what color, race or religion she was. That she wasn’t Indian didn’t cross his mind once. He only knew he had to hold her, touch her and feel her skin against his. The kiss didn’t end until morning. He’d spent the night in Maggie’s arms feeling as if he’d been given a gift from the spirits.

Then he’d woken to reality and a vast amount of guilt. He’d made a promise to his father that he’d continue the ways of his people. There was no room for a white woman in the Indian culture—no place for her in his promise to his father. He’d left that morning without a word, before she’d awakened.

He’d taken two days off from work and escaped to the bluffs on a vision quest, his mind a confused mass of old beliefs and fresh desire. The quest turned into a reaffirmation of his Lakotan beliefs, but he moved no closer to resolving his feelings for Maggie.

Nor would he be given the chance to work through them.

Upon his return, the first thing that hit him was the message on his answering machine from the South Dakota National Guard. “You’ve been ordered to active duty. You have twenty-four hours to report to your assigned duty station.”

His world had rushed in around him and he’d made a decision. For the next fourteen months, he’d lived with the result in the hell of Iraq.

But now he stood with Maggie once again in his arms and knew what a terrible mistake he’d made. Her soft curves had blossomed even more as a mother and he liked it—almost too much. She was his stepbrother’s widow, still mourning the loss of her husband.

When Maggie stopped shaking, he held her away. “Are you going to be all right?”

She sniffed and rubbed her nose against the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “You must think I’m a complete flake.”

“No, your son was kidnapped. I’d say you’re reacting the way any mother would.”

“Thanks.” A tentative smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Then her eyes filled with more tears and her lips trembled.

Joe wanted to kiss those lips and chase away her fears, instead he folded her into his arms. Her watery smile was a sad reminder of the how happy she used to be. That seemed like a lifetime ago. “I remember the first time I saw you at the youth center. You were playing basketball with some of the kids.”

A hiccupping laugh was muffled against his shirt. “I was terrible.”

“No,” He tipped her head up. “You were wonderful.”

“How can you say that? I didn’t even know how to dribble.”

“But you tried.” She’d laughed and played, even though she couldn’t bounce the ball once without having it taken away from her.

Maggie’s lips twisted. “I never could get a ball in the bucket.”

His arms tightened around her slim waist. “Yes, you did.”

“Not by myself.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and she tucked her head against his chest.

He’d helped her make a shot by standing behind her and placing his hands over hers. Her backside had pressed against him, stirring his blood in a way he couldn’t ignore.

The warmth of Maggie against him now brought back those memories. His body remembered her shape and responded. Joe closed his eyes and willed the surge to subside. He wasn’t there to make love to Maggie. “Who were you playing with? I can’t remember.”

“Charlie, Tray and Kiya…” She stopped her list and her breath caught.

Joe glanced down to see her eyes fill again with tears. “What?”

Her fingers curled in his shirt and she pressed her face against his chest. “Kiya was alive then.”

Joe had received the news from Paul that Kiya Driskall, one of the troubled teens Maggie had been working with, had overdosed.

“What happened, Maggie?”

“I don’t know.” Maggie tore away from Joe and walked toward the window. “She’d been through detox at the hospital. She was doing so well.” She inhaled a jerky stream of air and let it out, her shoulders bowing with her release. “Charlie found her behind the center, she’d injected meth. There was nothing we could do. She was already dead.” Maggie turned to Joe, her eyes haunted.

“It wasn’t your fault, Maggie.” He reached for her, but she backed away.

“No, Joe.” She jerked away. “I failed her. Just like I failed Dakota. I wasn’t there when she needed me. The kids quit coming to the facility, even the ones that weren’t involved in drugs or alcohol. They just quit coming. I ended up going to them. One by one. But no one would talk to me except Charlie and even he was afraid to be seen with me. It was like I was the plague.”

Joe shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself, Maggie. Something else must have happened.” Possibly something related to Dakota’s kidnapping?

“I don’t know. I wish to hell I did.” She turned back to the window and pressed her cheek to the glass. “Now Dakota’s gone.”

“He’s not dead, Maggie. Don’t give up on him.” Joe stepped up behind Maggie and turned her toward him. “You ready to go to work on this case?”

For a moment she stared at him, her eyes glazed and unseeing.

She blinked, and the Maggie he remembered—the Maggie who could fearlessly stand up to a group of rowdy teenagers surfaced. “I’m ready.”

Chapter Three

“That’s my girl,” he said.

Joe almost dropped his arms from around her at the words. She’d married his brother and had a kid as soon as he left. How could he wish Maggie was his girl? Then he looked into eyes so green they reminded him of prairie grass in springtime. He could see why Paul had fallen in love with her and offered to give her what Joe couldn’t. Maggie was the kind of girl who was easy to love, if you didn’t have a thick head.

During the time he’d spent hunkered down with his troops, with bullets and mortars flying overhead, he’d discovered what a fool he’d been. The soldiers he’d fought with were his brothers. Black, white, red—it didn’t matter. They relied on each other to survive. They shared the same world, the same country. He wished he’d seen the truth before he left. Before Maggie had married Paul.

Her full lips drew into a thin line. “Where do we start?”

“First, let’s get you out of here.” He let go of her and walked back toward the living room. “Grab a coat, you’re going to work with me.”

She reached into a closet for a winter jacket, scarf and gloves, pulling them on before she paused to say, “What did they mean, give back what I stole? I didn’t steal anything. At least not that I know of.”

“That’s what we want to find out. When we get to the station you can tell me everything you know about what’s been going on on the Painted Rock Reservation and anything Paul might have been involved with at the Grand Buffalo Casino.”

“That won’t take long,” she muttered.

He grasped her hand and gazed down at her. “Everything, Maggie. Even the smallest detail may be a clue as to what triggered someone to hold your baby for ransom.”

“Okay,” she said, not sounding convinced. She drew away from him, her chin down, making a show of fitting her gloves against her fingers.

Was she uncomfortable about sharing information with him?

Probably. He’d been a jerk before he’d left. What proof did she have that he wasn’t still a jerk? A bitter lump of regret settled in the pit of his stomach. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, one of the other officers can interview you.”

Her head came up, her eyes widening. “No. I want you.” Was that trust in her eyes? Or was he mistaking desperation for something he wanted to see?

“Okay. But let’s get out of here.”

She glanced back at the living room, heaving a long sigh. “I want him back, Joe.” The words had become Maggie’s mantra, echoing inside Joe’s thoughts.

He stared at the plain room with what looked like hand-me-down furniture. The faint scent of talcum powder and baby lotion permeated the air. The only bright spots in the room were the playpen in the corner and a few toys scattered on the couch cushions and the floor. A happy enough environment to raise a kid, missing only one thing.

The kid.

Joe’s gut twisted and he wrapped an arm around Maggie’s shoulders. “We’ll find him.”

“Alive?” she said, her voice a breathy whisper.

“Yes.” If it was the last thing he did.

MAGGIE CLIMBED into the passenger seat of the SUV Joe used as his official tribal police vehicle. She felt funny, as though she was the criminal, even though the cage between the front and back seats was behind her. The thought angered her. Her house had been violated and her baby stolen, not the other way around. She jumped when the radio on Joe’s shoulder squawked.

“Sorry.” He flipped a switch on the device and it quieted.

Joe sat silent all the way to reservation police headquarters, a metal building with tan siding in the heart of the scattered community.

He climbed down and rounded the hood while Maggie sat with her hands clenched in her lap, her eyes staring out the windshield. As her mind replayed the message from the kidnappers, she tried to read into it any glimmer of a clue. But she came up with nothing.

He opened the passenger door and held out his hand.

Maggie turned to stare down at him. “Joe, Saturday is three days from now. I can’t wait that long to find my baby.”

“I know. That’s why we’re here. We’re not waiting.” He helped her from the truck and walked her toward the building without removing his hand from hers.

The pressure of his big gloved fingers against hers, provided a little of the reassurance she so dearly craved. She needed it to keep her from stomping her feet in the gravel parking lot and screaming against the injustice. With every nerve sizzling beneath her skin she felt like a firecracker on the verge of exploding. Where’s my son!

Once inside, Joe seated Maggie at his office and pulled a digital recorder, pad and pen from a drawer. “Let’s start from the beginning.”

Maggie listed off the names of the juveniles she’d worked with prior to Kiya’s suicide.

“Can you think of any reason why she’d show up at the center after taking meth?”

“No. And the tribal police were clueless. It didn’t make sense. If she was back on drugs after all everyone had done for her, I’d think she’d feel so guilty she’d hide in shame.”

“Unless she realized her mistake and came back for help.”

“A little too late.” Maggie had thought of that, distraught that she hadn’t been there for Kiya when she’d needed her most.

“I can’t understand what went so wrong during the time I was gone.” Joe tapped his pen against the metal desk.

“Things were different. The tribal police didn’t have their leader. They tried to keep things together, but all I could figure was the teenagers were being influenced by an outside source.”

Joe shoved a hand through his dark hair. “My deployment couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

Maggie almost snorted, but held her reaction in check. You’re telling me. She’d listened to the man she’d fallen in love with inform her they had no future. Then he’d walked away—or rather flown away—to the other side of the world. Two weeks later, she confirmed her suspicions, she was pregnant.

She gazed at the top of Joe’s head as he bent to the task of noting her responses and her heart softened. Fourteen months had given her time to get over her anger and to learn more about this man through the people on the reservation. The more she learned, the more she understood the reasons for his reaction to their night of lovemaking.