Pulling the Trigger

And he was the man left behind.

“I’m working the Julie Grainger murder investigation,” she explained, clutching a thick investigation file against her chest. Her fingers fiddled with the edge of the manila envelope in a subtle revelation of nerves. But they stilled almost as soon as he noticed the unconscious movement.

Always guarded, always with a plan, always thinking two or three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. That part of her personality hadn’t changed.

“I knew there was a good chance I’d run into you. We should get this meeting over with so that it doesn’t cost either of us more pain than it has to.” She pointed over his shoulder. “You’re getting wet and so’s the rug. Why don’t you close the door? I’m sure we can find a private place to talk.”

No good memories. Not even him. Them. She’d been through hell those last few months—and the years before hadn’t been much better, so he’d never held her need to leave against her. But she’d never even let him try to help. She’d refused his offer to go with her. And his love hadn’t been enough for her to stay.

Ethan pushed the door shut behind him. He might not hold her obsessive drive to escape Mesa Ridge and the reservation against her. Didn’t mean he had to let her fillet his heart open and char it over the flames of false hope and misguided passion again, either.

“I’m just here to deliver this to a friend,” he explained, holding up the purse he carried.

“Elizabeth?” She inclined her head toward the main hallway, exposing a swanlike expanse of neck that beckoned to randy memories from the past. “She’s in the break room making coffee. I’ll walk you back.”

Though this sure as hell wasn’t the homecoming he’d once wished for, spending a few impersonal minutes in her company could no longer hurt him. Ethan shortened his stride and fell into step beside her. “Time has treated you well.”

“You look good, too.” She arched an eyebrow and gave him a glimpse of the hesitant smile he remembered. “Your hair’s a lot shorter. And you—” her long, agile fingers gestured in the air “—filled out. Got big. You’re taller and broader both, it looks like to me.”

More than six years of elite army training and service, plus the rugged outdoorsman life he led, did that to a man. “I guess.”

“How’s Kyle?”

It made sense that she’d ask about his younger brother. They’d been classmates and good friends. Of course, she and Ethan had been so much more than friends, but she didn’t need him to point that out. “He’s good. Married. Two kids. Lives in Cortez now.”

“Still a man of few words, I see.”

“No sense wasting them.” Stopping at Elizabeth Reddawn’s desk, Ethan set down the purse and unhooked his collar and loosened the black string tie he wore, silently assessing the changes in Joanna’s appearance as she turned to face him.

Despite the warmth of her olive complexion and dark brown eyes, there was a brittleness to her ramrod posture and polite words. He idly wondered if a stroke of his fingertip across the nape of her neck could still make her shiver, or if the touch of his lips against hers could break through those invisible barriers she wore like body armor and unleash the warmth and softness and eagerness to explore her own sexuality he remembered.

The black-as-midnight hair she’d pulled back into a sleek ponytail was shorter than the wild horse’s tail of a hairdo she’d worn through high school. She’d grown, too. Maybe it was the high heels she was wearing—he’d never seen those on her feet before—but the top of her head was just about even with his chin now. The curve of her lips sported a sheer berry tint that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago, and her tailored suit was a far cry from the jeans and tees she’d lived in back then. The beautiful woman standing in front of him looked as polished and businesslike and cold as the gun holstered at her waist.

The curious, coltish tomboy who’d tagged along with him and his younger brother, Kyle, on their adventures around the reservation had vanished. The years apart had erased the young woman with the shy sensuality and big dreams whom he’d patiently coaxed into loving and trusting him. Pity there was no sign of the fire within that had once drawn him like a moth to a flame.

But idle thoughts were as useless as idle words.

“You’re FBI?” he asked.

She nodded. “I made it into the program at Quantico after graduating with my master’s in psychology. Made it all the way to Washington, D.C., where I’m assigned now as a behavioral scientist and criminal profiler.”

“Good.” That was what she’d wanted—to move East, to put the entire country between her and the memories of her parents’ deaths and the compounding tragedy that followed. She’d longed for urban landscapes and busy, diverse city streets instead of the endless red-rock terrain and isolation of the reservation and the small mountain towns like Mesa Ridge and Kenner City. She’d wanted to carry a gun and take down bad guys and give the victims like herself, who’d been denied a voice, a champion who could save the day. She’d wanted things he couldn’t give her. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

So she’d finally gotten what she wanted. On some noble level, he was happy for her. But deeper down, somewhere between his battered heart and old man’s soul, it had always felt like unfinished business between them—as though fate and her stubborn will had seen fit to deny them the wonderful possibilities of loving each other.

Just punishment, Ethan supposed. He hadn’t protected her well enough back then—hadn’t even sensed how badly she’d needed his protection until it was too late. He’d been more interested in getting in her pants and making her see the world—and their future together—through his eyes.

Yeah. More than anyone he knew, Joanna Kuchu deserved to have her dreams come true. Even if those dreams didn’t include him. He was glad that she’d finally found her place in the world.

After moving on for a while, he’d come to realize that he was already where he needed to be. He’d come home from that last hellish deployment to the land whose spirit flowed through him like his own blood. He needed the open space and quiet the way she needed the bustle and technology and new faces around every turn in the big city.

When the silence stretched on long enough for her coffee-dark gaze to drop to the middle of his chest, Ethan knew there was no sense prolonging their would’ve-could’ve-should’ve-been reunion. He smoothed his hand over the top of his cropped hair and down the back of his scalp, taking away a palmful of dampness with it. There was no good way to let this woman go. He just had to do it. “I hope life always gives you what you need, Jo.”

Her dark eyes flinched and darted back up to his. “You, too, Ethan. You’re kinder than I deserve. I’m…” Those berry lips tightened into a frown that tugged at both his heart and conscience. “I’m—”

“I know.” He knew the sentiment by heart. “You’re sorry. So am I.” Before he could act on the impulse to take her in his arms to trade comforts and remind his body what hers felt like pressed against it, he pointed to the overstuffed bag he’d set on the counter. “Would you make sure Elizabeth gets this?”

“Of course.”

Ethan turned, ending the conversation and walking away. He needed the rain on his face to cool his skin along with the desire and regrets simmering just beneath the surface. He needed a long, fast drive into the countryside and a hike up into the mountains to put behind him his feelings for Joanna and the damnable understanding he had for why the two of them could never work.

“Goodbye, Ethan.”

Those dream-destroying words grated against his ears. Fifteen years and that woman could still get to him. Must be the guilt. Keep walking, buddy. You can’t change the past. He pushed open the door.

“Agent Rhodes?” Patrick Martinez’s voice echoed through the reception area behind him. “I finished those calls. My men are en route to pick up the suspect.”

Agent Rhodes? Ethan glanced over his shoulder and scanned for the second person his sharp eyes wouldn’t have missed. Wariness seeped up through the soles of his boots and put him on alert.

“Hey, Ethan.” Martinez acknowledged him with a nod as he strode up beside Joanna. “You coming or going?”

Turning, Ethan quickly accounted for every person here. Joanna. Martinez. Bates. She had to be Agent Rhodes. What was going on here?

His eyes swept Joanna from head to toe, coming back twice to her bare left hand as she tucked Elizabeth’s purse behind the counter. He hadn’t even considered the idea that she’d gotten married. That she might find someone else after leaving him.

He hadn’t. No one that ever stuck in his heart the way she had, at any rate.

The idea that another man had been able to give her what he couldn’t burned through him.

But any questions about new names and old relationships remained unspoken at the sheriff’s next words. “If you want to step into my office, I can spare a few minutes now to go over any other questions you might have regarding Sherman Watts.”

The current of awareness that flowed from the earth into Ethan’s body blazed into a full-blown warning. “What does she have to do with Sherman Watts?”

Joanna’s ponytail bobbed against her neck as she gave him a quick shake of her head. Not a word, she silently pleaded.

So much for the ice in her eyes.

Martinez didn’t know her history with Watts? The FBI was allowing this?

No. He could see it in her face. She hadn’t told them.

“Would you excuse us a minute, Patrick?” Ignoring every vow to keep his distance, Ethan clamped his fingers around Joanna’s arm and ushered her into the nearest open room he could find. Though her sinewy muscles twisted beneath his grip, he never let go. And she never muttered a sound that might indicate to the sheriff that she was moving against her will.

“You two know each other?” Patrick called after them. “Well, ain’t that a surprise.”

Ethan ignored the amusement he heard in his friend’s tone and pushed Joanna into an empty interview room. He closed the door, releasing her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He blocked the exit with his body as she stormed across the room and came back in a useless attempt to get past him. The file crumpled in her grasp as she tilted her chin to glare in defiance. “You already asked me that. I’m working the Julie Grainger murder. Now move. I have a briefing with the sheriff.”

She knew better than to play stupid with him. He rephrased the question. “Why are you messing with Watts?”

“My assignment is to interview him.”

“Get someone else.”

“Never a man to mince words, are you, Ethan?”

“He raped you.”

Her skin blanched beneath her tan. The fire in her eyes went out as her chin dropped and her hazy focus landed on the middle button of his creased white shirt. He felt like a bastard playing the voice of reason here, but someone had to make her see how badly she could be hurt if she went head to head with Sherman Watts again.

The bruises and blood and violation had been bad enough when he’d found her at her trailer that night after her parents’ funeral. But the emotional toll had been even more devastating. That night had killed her warmth. Killed her trust. Killed her love for him. He didn’t ever want to see her suffer like that again. If she wouldn’t protect herself from facing that unrepentant monster, then by damn, he’d do it for her.

Her deep, stuttering breath broke the silence of the room, reminding him to move past his raging emotions and seek out that calming sense of quiet inside himself again. She wasn’t a man under his command, and he shouldn’t be barking orders to get his point across.

“Joanna—” He reached for her pale cheek, but she knocked his hand away, the same way she had that night.

“Do you think that’s something I can forget?” Her gaze briefly touched his before she turned away to dump the file on the table opposite the observation window. Keeping his feet rooted to the spot, Ethan watched her take a moment to smooth a straight strand of hair off her face and pull her shoulders back. By the time she faced him again, that prickly, polite chill was back in place. “This isn’t about revenge.”

“Bull.”

“The statute of limitations ran out on my assault before anything could be proved, so there’s no longer a conflict of interest for me to work this case. I’ve accepted that he’ll never pay for what he did to me.”

“I haven’t.”

His stark, growly pronouncement seemed to take her aback. He watched the muscles travel down her long neck as she swallowed hard before speaking. “The attack wasn’t your fault, Ethan.”

“I should have been there.”

“I told you I needed some time alone that day. You were giving me the space I needed after Mom and Dad’s funeral. If I’d known he still had feelings for Mom…”

Her fingers clenched at her side and he got the feeling she was fighting back the urge to reach out to him, as well.

“What happened afterward—Watts’s never even being arrested—that wasn’t your fault, either.”

Didn’t make Watts any less of a bullying bastard who’d gotten away with crap his entire life because of who he was related to. Didn’t make Ethan feel any more like a man who’d done right by the girl he loved, either. “He can still hurt you. In ways you may not even have imagined yet.”

“I’ve imagined all of them,” was her stark answer. “But this is my job.”

“Go back to D.C. This is too personal.”

Joanna laced her fingers together and tapped her knuckles against her lips, thinking for a moment before she slowly began to pace. She seemed to choose each and every word with laser-beam precision. “I’ll concede that I won’t lose any sleep if Watts is arrested for a different crime. That’s not why I’m here. I didn’t volunteer for this assignment, but I didn’t argue when it was given to me, either. If I can’t face whatever criminal I run up against—even my own rapist—over an interview table, then I’m not tough enough to do this job.

“Make no mistake, there’s a reward involved if I prove to myself I can do this. If I break this case—if I can break Watts—I’m guaranteed a promotion in D.C. and I’ll never have to come back to this place again.” She stopped in front of him, her hands curled into fists as she faced him once more. “I know that sounds cold and calculating, but this is what I do. This is what I need to do. I’m the go-to woman who’s going to get Watts to talk. He’ll tell me who murdered Agent Grainger, and maybe where that fifty million dollars of Vincent Del Gardo’s is hidden. Besting him at my game will be justice enough for me.”

Pulling back his jacket, Ethan propped his hands at his waist, shaking his head at her misguided plan. “I don’t want you alone in the same room with him.”

“Isn’t it fortunate, then, that it’s not your decision to make?”

She retrieved her folder, tucked it under her arm and walked up to him as though she thought he would simply move aside. Screw this. Ethan reached out to lightly pinch the upturned point of her chin between his thumb and forefinger. She stiffened for a moment. But when she didn’t pull away and the warm coffee of her eyes stayed locked on to his gaze, he traced the line of her jaw, rediscovering the softness of her skin.

“Don’t do this, sweetheart.”

“Ethan…” She squeezed her eyes shut against the stroke of his hand, pressing her lips into a thin line to block the words and emotions locked up behind them.

“Shh.” He rubbed his thumb across the tight frown, urging her muscles to relax. He swept his fingertips lightly across her cheek.

When she turned her face into the caress, something cracked open inside him—his need for a woman to warm his bed, perhaps, or maybe the memories of how this particular woman had once enjoyed his touch. Her timid response took him back in time, when her long legs had caught his eye, and her innocence had captured his soul. Touching Joanna like this made him feel things, want things that weren’t his to ask for anymore. He tunneled his fingers beneath the heavy silk of her ponytail and let his broad palm cup the length of her neck. He leaned in, touched his forehead to hers and whispered, “You’re not as tough as you act. You weren’t fifteen years ago and you aren’t now.”

Her eyes popped open and looked straight up into his. “Fifteen years can change a person, Ethan.” She braced her hand against his chest and gently pushed him away. “I haven’t been that teenage girl who had a crush on my best friend’s big brother for a long time.”

He’d been more than a crush, and she wasn’t the only one who’d changed during their time apart. But neither comment seemed to mean much right now. She wasn’t here to recapture the relationship that had been, and he wouldn’t force her into the relationship that could be. Not when she was so intent on leaving. Again.

As he disentangled his fingers from her hair, he let her nudge him aside. Joanna patted the spot on his chest, then curled her fingers into her palm. It was a kind, but definite, send-off. “I have a new name, a new life. You don’t know me anymore.”

Ethan stayed in the small room for a moment as the door opened and closed. He listened to the spirit of Mother Earth inside him, listened to his training as a soldier, listened to his conscience—and made a decision. He opened the door and followed her out.

Joanna Kuchu—make that Rhodes now—didn’t know him, either, if she thought he was going to let her face off against that bastard Watts on her own a second time.

“GET IT TOGETHER, GIRL,” Joanna muttered. The skin at her nape was still tingling with tiny tremors from the warmth of Ethan’s hand.

Her heart pounded away at an equally unsettling rate as she left the interview room and forced one foot in front of the other along the KCCU’s tiled hallway. She could do this. She had to do this. She’d prepared herself to look Sherman Watts in the eye, to see familiar faces and places and deal with the memories they might trigger.

But she hadn’t prepared herself for Ethan Bia.

Not really.

She’d forgotten how impossible it was to reason with him—how he could watch her with those dark, nearly black, eyes and get under her skin and into her head and make her think that she was the one who was being unreasonable. His inner peace and age-old wisdom—even at twenty-one—had frustrated her as much as it fascinated. His certainty about the world and belief in what was right or wrong had confounded as much as it had comforted her. He’d been a rock in her chaotic young life, a constant she’d never known with her alcoholic parents. He’d also been a mysterious, compelling—completely sexy man.

Maybe that was the part she hadn’t prepared herself for.

Stopping to straighten her jacket and tuck her hair back into place, Joanna gave herself a moment to silence the confusion in her head. She’d devoted herself to her career, taught herself that her strongest allies were her own wits and determination. She’d gone through counseling and had prepared herself to accept a man’s touch again. It wasn’t so much that she was afraid of being with a man at some point in the future, but that she was afraid of needing him.

Ethan Bia, with that deep, rumbly voice and those gentle, work-roughened hands, had undone in fifteen minutes what had taken her fifteen years to firmly fix into place.

He’d gotten her blood boiling with his insistence that she had no business working an investigation that involved Sherman Watts. And then he’d hushed her, touched her—soothed her fears and anger and her constant fight to be strong and independent—and the years between them melted away. She’d wanted nothing more than to burrow against his big chest and feel his sturdy arms around her again. She’d wanted the shelter he offered as much as she’d wanted to welcome his kiss.

Felt a hell of a lot like need to her.

“No.” The wall beside her reacted to her firm insistence about as well as her turbulent emotions did. “It couldn’t work then. It won’t work now.”

There. Better. Think it through.

She was leaving tomorrow, Sunday at the latest, depending on how well Watts cooperated with her. She was too smart to risk her heart on a relationship that couldn’t last. Ethan was a man of the earth; she was a woman of the city. He was a Bia, son of a successful business owner and a tribal elder, a well-respected name on the reservation. She was a Kuchu, reservation trash, daughter of Ralph, a charmer with a big heart whose addictions had cost him his money as soon as he’d earned it, and Naomi, a flirtatious beauty whose drunk driving had gotten them both killed.

Joanna was too fractured inside to believe in anything more than what she could do for herself and control with her own two hands. What she needed was to keep moving forward with her life.

A mystic force of nature like Ethan Bia didn’t fit into her plans. She stood a better chance of surviving this trip home if he wasn’t a part of it.

“So get over it, already.” Smoothing her expression and her thoughts into business mode, she found Patrick Martinez pacing a rut into the carpeting of his office.

“Are you kidding me? Hell.” He cursed into his cell phone as he peered outside his window into the waning daylight.

Joanna’s training buzzed her senses on alert. What was he looking for? “Sheriff Martinez?”

“Yes. Lock it down before this rain gets worse and washes away any trail he might have left behind. No one goes in or out until I get there.” He snapped the phone shut and strode from the office. “Elizabeth!”

“I’m right here, Patrick.” The Indian woman set down the two mugs of coffee she carried and took a position at her desk, ready to handle whatever the sheriff needed.

“Sorry.” He offered the gruff apology in the same breath he started giving orders. “Get Miguel down from the lab and tell him to scrounge up any of his field techs he can call on short notice. I need them over at Watts’s place on the rez ASAP.”

“Got it.” Elizabeth spared Joanna a quick concerned look at the mention of the suspect’s name before picking up the phone and punching in the lab’s extension, quickly relaying the sheriff’s orders.

“Has something happened?” Joanna asked. Nobody—not Ethan, not Elizabeth Reddawn—had to protect her from Sherman Watts anymore.

Martinez grabbed his Stetson, pointing it at Elizabeth before putting it on. “And call my wife. Tell her I’m going to miss that movie.”

Elizabeth nodded, reading off an address she’d brought up on her computer screen.

“Trouble?”

Joanna jumped inside her skin at the sound of Ethan’s deep voice from right behind her. How could such a big man move without making a noise?

Martinez nodded to him over her shoulder. “Good. I’m gonna need you with me, big guy.”

“Sheriff.” Joanna ignored her erratic pulse and insisted on an explanation.

“You might as well come, too, Rhodes. Watts isn’t at his trailer. The rat must have gotten wind we wanted to talk to him and skipped town. He’s cleared out his stuff and gone to ground.” His blue eyes shifted back up to Ethan. “I need you to track him for me.”

“My gear’s in my truck.” A hand at the small of her back guided Joanna into step behind the sheriff as they headed for the exit. “You think we had another info leak?” Ethan asked.

“Who knows?” Martinez paused just inside the doorway. “He probably knows that once we bring him in and he starts talking about Julie Grainger’s murder, he won’t be going back home for twenty years or so. Maybe his survival instincts kicked in.”

Joanna took an extra step to move beyond the distracting brush of Ethan’s hand. “You don’t believe that.”

“No. But I like the idea of having a mole on my team even less than I like the idea of Watts’s dumb luck keeping him one step ahead of us.” The sheriff pulled his hat low on his forehead before pushing open the door. “Makes me think he doesn’t want to answer your questions.”