“I can’t. It’s better if you don’t know.” He recognized the stubborn set of her jaw, so particular to Emily. There was no fighting her when she dug in her heels.

“I’m not getting any more out of you, am I?”

She shook her head.

“So I’m good enough to come to when you need your forehead wiped, but not good enough to trust. Is that it?”

She didn’t answer.

There’d been times when they’d been close, when there had been a connection he’d cherished, when he’d hoped...

Aw, forget about it.

“Let’s get you home.”

“Okay.”

“Have you had malaria before?”

“No. I won’t again. The medication will take care of that.”

“You’re taking medicine?”

“To prevent it from coming back.”

“Can you walk?”

“Sure. Help me up.”

He lifted her into his arms.

“Put me down. You can’t carry me that far.”

“Want to bet? What have you been eating? Feathers?” It angered him that she’d changed, that she wasn’t the woman he knew, a go-getter, determined and sharp. Hale and healthy. “Don’t you take care of yourself?”

“Not lately.” For the first time, Salem understood what a sardonic laugh sounded like. He didn’t like hearing this self-mockery from Emily.

At the elevator, he stood her on her feet for a minute while he used his key to start it up again. When the door opened and he moved to pick her up, she protested. “Love you holding me, but I can walk. Just let me lean on you.”

Love you holding me. Did she know what she was saying?

They made it to the car with Emily leaning on him heavily, with Salem rushing them through the rain to his Jeep, parked behind the resort. He put her into the passenger seat then climbed behind the wheel and swiped rainwater from his face.

“You picked a great night to come home.”

Emily laughed, but it sounded hollow, as though more than her body was ailing.

“What happened to you in Egypt?” He sounded as disgusted as he felt.

“The Sudan.”

“What?”

“Not Egypt this time. Too much political turmoil right now. Country’s torn apart. I was in the Sudan.”

“What happened?”

She didn’t answer and he glanced at her, but the country road was too dark. “Are you crying?”

“Nope,” she said, but the thickness in her voice betrayed her.

“Was it that boyfriend of yours? What did he do?”

“Screwed me over.” A bitter laugh barked out of her, but she said nothing else.

He didn’t want to know more, didn’t want to hear another word about the guy.

Out of the silence, Emily’s voice floated like a disembodied ghost. “I hit rock bottom.”

CHAPTER THREE

AIYANA PEARCE CREPT past the living room where her grandfather dozed in the flowered armchair.

Dad would hit the roof if he knew she was going out without his permission, but what Dad wanted didn’t matter. He wasn’t home, was he?

She couldn’t help being bitter. Dad used to be home in the evenings with her and Mika, but now he was usually at the Heritage Center, and then when he finally came home all he did was study for his college courses. He wanted to be an architect.

Dad said a person should have ambitions.

Gramps snored and Aiyana glanced at him. Gramps didn’t have ambitions, hadn’t even finished high school, but people still loved him anyway, didn’t they?

Having justified her defiance, Aiyana stepped outside and closed the door slowly. She was careful. There was no way Grandpa would hear the click of the lock catching.

Bypassing the creaky third step, she ran down the walkway to the street. The cool breeze took her by surprise and she zipped up her jacket. The air smelled like rain.

A sharp whistle from a couple of houses down caught her attention. Justin! Her heart rattled in her chest like a baby bird flapping its wings.

She raced toward the sound but squealed when he jumped out from behind a tree and wrapped his arms around her. “Did I scare you?”

“Yes.” She gasped and caught her breath. She smacked her boyfriend’s arm, but couldn’t be mad at him for long. Boyfriend. She liked the sound of that. Yesterday, he’d said he was hers and had invited her out tonight for the first time. Hers, he’d said, forever and ever.

Justin White, the most popular boy in school, wanted her for his girlfriend. How cool was that?

He wanted to keep it a secret, even though she wanted to shout it to the whole world. He said it felt good that it was their special news, only theirs, and they should hang on to it for a while.

Under the streetlight, his hair shone like gold. His blue eyes filled with humor. Grandpa would call it the devil’s mischief, but Aiyana knew Justin wasn’t like that. He was a good guy. Everyone at school liked him. And he belonged to her!

He threaded his fingers through hers, his palm warm and callused from shooting hoops for a couple of hours every day after school. Holding hands felt good.

She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was following her. Good. Grandpa was still asleep.

Dad thought she was too young to see boys, maybe because Mom got pregnant with Aiyana when she was a teenager. Mom and Dad had to get married.

But Aiyana was too smart for that to happen to her. Dad should learn to trust her. For Pete’s sake, in a few days, she would turn sixteen. Of course she was old enough to date. All the kids at school did.

Justin urged her toward the end of Marshall Avenue. “Come on.”

“Where to?”

When he smiled, one side of his mouth hiked up higher than the other. She liked his lips. “You’ll see.”

He led her to the path that went down into the ravine. She never went down there this close to nightfall. The wind had picked up and the sky was getting dark. She shivered and Justin wrapped his arm around her. “Cold, babe?”

Her heart hammered. “Why are we going down here?” Even to her own ears, even trying as hard as she could to sound sixteen already, her giggle sounded shaky.

“Someplace private,” Justin said, and the word both thrilled and scared her.

“I thought we were going for ice cream.”

“We are. After.”

“After what?”

“I made something special for you.” Special. Just for her.

They stumbled to the bottom of the ravine, where he stopped and pointed. “Look.”

In a hollow created by a boulder at the back and large old trees on either side, Justin had fashioned a makeshift tent of sorts. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A cubbyhole? Just a private spot? He’d stretched a piece of canvas five feet above the ground between the two trees. On the ground he’d covered a plastic sheet with a blanket with a vaguely Native American pattern. It didn’t look like Dad’s blankets at home.

An overturned milk crate had a bunch of stuff on top of it.

“I made this for us,” he said. “No one else knows about it.”

She would rather have gone out for ice cream than sit in the woods when it was getting dark, but Justin looked so proud of himself, she smiled.

Crawling in on her hands and knees, she noticed that he had everything—candles, a flashlight, potato chips—and beer. She didn’t drink. She’d already told him that yesterday.

The place smelled like dead leaves and damp earth, but at least the tarp overhead cut the wind.

He crawled in behind her and pulled the tab on a can of beer then sipped the foam that bubbled out. “It’s warm.” He shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, handing her the can.

“I don’t drink, Justin.”

“I know, but it’s only one beer. No biggie.”

She sipped it but hated the taste. That put it mildly. He was right. It was warm and tasted like crap. When she handed the can back to him, he guzzled half the contents then belched.

She sat on the blanket not really knowing what to do with her hands or where to put her legs. The space was cozy and her knees kept bumping Justin’s thigh.

Every time they did, it felt as if electricity shot through her. She fidgeted.

“Relax,” he said, reclining onto the pillows at the back of the tent. They looked as if they belonged on somebody’s sofa.

He took her arm and urged her down beside him. She resisted, but his grip was strong. “Easy. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to keep you warm.”

She settled her head on his shoulder. It was solid and warm and felt nice.

He unzipped her jacket. When she tensed, he said, “I want see that necklace you always wear. What is the design? Does it have significance in your culture?” he asked, taking it between two fingers.

She was having trouble breathing. His heavy arm rested between her breasts. No boy had ever touched her there. He was strong. An athlete. A basketball player. He said Coach made them lift weights to keep fit.

“It was my mother’s necklace,” she finally answered when she thought her voice might be steady. “She did the beadwork herself. She’s dead now.”

“I know. The beading’s pretty.” He dropped the necklace. “Your name’s pretty, too. Aiyana. Does it mean something in English?”

“Eternal Blossom.”

Justin nodded. “Cool. Maybe I should call you Pretty Flower or Princess Blossom.”

No. She wanted a white name, like Tiffany or Brittany or Madison. Dad had chosen stupid Native American names for her and her sister.

“I’m not a princess. My dad isn’t a chief. I’m nothing.”

Justin smiled and popped the tab on another beer. After drinking a bunch, he set the can aside and wrapped his arm across her shoulders then curled his fingers around the back of her neck, gently urging her head forward. “You’re not nothing. You’re my girlfriend. You’re pretty.”

She knew that wasn’t true, but oh, it felt good that Justin thought she was.

He kissed her and his lips were gentle and sweet even if they did taste like beer. She liked his kiss, but wished he didn’t make it so hard so fast. When he put his tongue in her mouth, the taste of yeasty alcohol overpowered her and it was awful. He pushed his tongue in farther.

His hand touched her breast. It was nice. Sort of. He squeezed and moved his fingers over her nipple. She felt a pull in her belly and lower, excitement and itchiness.

Following the path of that itch, his hand rested on her there, the heel of his palm rubbing her and his fingers pressing the seam of her jeans into her.

He was moving too fast, not giving her time to catch up. Her pulse pounded inside her head. His fingers were at the button of her jeans and pulling down her zipper.

How? What? Wait!

His hand was on her belly inside her underwear. She grasped his wrist, but he kept moving.

His fingers were in her curls, touching her dampness. Stop.

She yanked her head away from his beery kiss.

“Justin, no.” She sounded breathless. Her chest heaved up and down and her breasts kept hitting his body. She put her hands between them and pushed, but he was strong.

Fear became a real thing bouncing around the tent.

“Hey, babe,” Justin said. “We’re just having fun.” He kissed the side of her face, and his hot breath whooshed past her ear.

She grabbed his wrist again, tried to pull his hand out of her pants, but his fingers were inside her.

“Stop!” she cried, her heartbeat as loud as a train engine in her ears.

“What?” Justin sounded frustrated.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“Can’t you feel what you do to me, Princess?” Something hard jutted against her thigh.

“Don’t call me princess.” Her voice shook. “I don’t want you touching me there.”

“You said you wanted to be my girlfriend.”

“I do.”

“This is what girlfriends do, Aiyana.”

“It’s too soon.”

“Grow up.” He pulled his hand out of her pants with a hard flick. It hurt and she winced.

“I can’t believe how ungrateful you are.” He downed the rest of the beer. How many beers made a boy drunk? She didn’t know. She wanted to get out of here, away from him.

“I went to a lot of trouble to make this place for us.” Justin adjusted himself inside his pants. His place didn’t feel safe, not to her, but more like a black hole in the dark woods.

“I want to go home.” Her fingers trembled when she pulled up her zipper, but they shook too much to do up her button. She yanked her jacket down over it. “Don’t tell anyone about this,” she begged. “I don’t want people to think I’m easy.”

He thrust his fingers through his hair. Even messed up it looked good. What she could see of it. There was hardly any light left in the tent.

“Easy,” he scoffed. “That’s a laugh. Find your own damn way home.” With that, he bolted.

Aiyana sat stunned. How could Justin do this? He’d seemed so nice. As though waking from a bad dream, she crawled out. The woods were almost completely dark and foreign. Hostile. Every rattling tree branch, every bush, was a monster coming to get her. Justin must have run up the hill because she couldn’t see or hear him. He’d left her alone in the ravine at nighttime. What kind of person did that? Terrified, she ran up the hill.

The rain started when she was only halfway up, scrambling in the darkness toward the patches of light from the streetlamps flickering through the trees. Something rustled the bushes beside her and she cried out, scrabbling to catch branches to help her up the steep incline.

Her feet slipped and slid in the muck.

Rain streamed down her face, ruining the makeup she’d put on to look good for Justin. At least the rain hid her tears.

She ran home, past their meeting place, and rushed into the house, careful to close the door quietly, even though she ached to throw and break things.

Grandpa was still sleeping. Thank goodness. If he’d woken up and seen her, all hell would have broken loose. She needed to get to her room, where she wanted to hide forever.

She was only halfway up the stairs when Gramps let out his “wakeup” snort and said, “What?” She stopped and tried to calm her runaway heart. He smacked his lips, part of his waking-up routine. She knew he’d be stretching his skinny body every which way to come awake. His spine would make popping sounds.

The sound of the TV turning on followed her up the rest of the stairs. She tiptoed along the hallway and into her room. Closing her bedroom door, she leaned against it and let her tears flow.

Justin hadn’t really wanted her. He’d just wanted an easy lay.

What made him think she would be? She didn’t go out with boys. She was quiet at school. Was it because of her heritage?

In her mirror, she saw the reflection of a girl with dark raccoon eyes because of her ruined mascara. She swiped it with tissues until it was all gone.

Her hair, usually shiny and straight, hung in wet strings. With the broad cheekbones she’d inherited from her dad, there was no mistaking her heritage.

Native American. Ute.

She hated her face and she hated her name.

Would Justin have attacked her if her name had been Brittany? Or Madison? If she were white, would he have tried to make her drink beer and have sex?

She grasped the corners of the heavy blankets decorated with the symbols of her heritage and hauled them from the bed, wadding them into a ball and tossing them into the corner.

It took forever to get out of her wet clothes, to tug the wet denim down her legs and to put on her long nightshirt. She crammed her jeans into her laundry basket. Dad would be mad that she hadn’t hung them to dry. So what? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

She curled into a ball on her plain white bedsheets and shivered.

* * *

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Salem asked, slowing the Jeep because they were near the turn onto her father’s property.

“I’ve hit rock bottom. I’m as low as I can go. I need a place to rest.”

He didn’t know what to say. He’d told her to leave him alone, but she hadn’t. She’d come to him sick. While he felt used, he also felt an odd sort of honor. In her father’s house, there would have been a dozen people willing to take care of her. She’d chosen him.

Or had she? He thought of her muddy hands.

“I’m dropping you off at your dad’s, right?”

He felt her roll her head on the headrest and watch him.

He glanced at her. “What?”

“I need a friend, Salem. I can’t go home tonight. Too many people there.”

No, he didn’t want her in his home. “There’s no room at my house. You know that, Emily.”

“I’ll take anything.”

Salem struggled to hold back his objections. This push-pull of love and anger was a struggle he’d lived with for too many years.

“Hey,” Emily said quietly. “Why aren’t you at Dad’s party? You two are good friends.”

“I meant to go after work, but started reading and lost track of time.”

Emily’s soft chuckle filled the interior of the car. He’d missed her laugh, and how it could lighten his darkest moments. “You’ve always been one for getting lost in a book. Remember when I used to sit in your office and say outrageous things about you and you would be so immersed in a book you wouldn’t hear a thing?”

He remembered, with enough pleasure that he drove right past the turnoff to her dad’s house to take her home with him.

Crazy fool, letting her use you like this.

Yes, I’m a fool, but I like having her close. This is just for tonight.

It had better be. You know how she breaks your heart when she leaves. Every time.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

“I left him. For good. Just like you said I should.”

“What about work?”

“I left that, too.”

“For how long? A couple of weeks?”

“For good.”

She was leaving her career? The light from the dashboard wasn’t strong enough to tell much more than that she had her eyes closed.

The nature of the silence in the car changed, became laden with censure, as though Emily were holding up a giant No Trespassing sign, making it clear that she’d said as much as she was going to.

Salem didn’t know how he knew this when she hadn’t said a word, but he knew, and held his tongue. Did he believe she’d left Jean-Marc for good? Not a chance. Had she left archeology for good? Never.

On the far side of town, he turned down his street and pulled into his driveway, where he helped her into the house. He led her to the kitchen. She plopped onto a chair and rested her head on her folded hands on top of the table.

His father wandered in. “Emily, hello.”

She raised her head. “Hello, Mr. Pearce.”

“You don’t look good, girl.”

“Feel awful,” she said with a wan smile. Here in the brightly lit room she looked even worse than she had in the dim Heritage Center office. Her skin was as ghostly as her voice had sounded in the car. Fever painted round red spots like old-fashioned rouge on cheekbones that didn’t use to be so sharp. She put her head back down on fragile-looking wrists.

Salem should go to the Sudan and kill the bastard who did this to her, and that puzzled him. Emily had always been able to take care of herself. She’d never needed him to fight her battles for her.

“She has malaria, Dad.”

“You need fattening, girl,” Dad said. To Salem, he directed, “Warm her some of that soup I made yesterday.”

Salem took a container of chicken soup out of the refrigerator and heated a bowl in the microwave. Old wives’ tale or not, his father figured it was good for anything that ailed a body. He made a fresh pot every week.

Emily lifted a spoonful of soup, but the effort cost her. She needed to be in bed.

“Give me,” he said. He took the utensil from her and raised soup to her mouth.

“Not a child.”

“I know, but if I leave it to you, we’ll be here all night.” He got most of it into her before she batted his hand away.

“So tired,” she whispered.

“Okay, let’s get you to bed.” He carried the bowl to the sink to wash it, but his dad took it from him.

“Take care of her,” he said with a jut of his jaw toward Emily.

Salem led her upstairs to his bedroom and left her there while he went to the closet in the hallway to get fresh sheets. When he returned to his bedroom, Emily had stripped to her underwear—plain white cotton panties and bra.

He could probably wrap his fingers around her waist. There was a time when he’d craved her tight little body, but not tonight. Every part of Emily had been stripped down to bare essentials.

“Do you have a spare T-shirt?” She pulled back the covers.

“Of course.” He took one out of his dresser then turned his back while she finished undressing. He heard her climb into bed.

“Wait.”

She stopped with her knee on the mattress and watched him warily, her strange blue eyes with the odd hazel rings huge in her drawn face.

“I need to change the sheets.”

She made a sound—a cross between a raspberry and an old-fashioned pshaw—and finished scrambling under the blankets.

The second her head hit the pillow, she closed her eyes.

By the time Salem returned the clean sheets to the closet and came back to the bedroom, Emily was asleep.

He grabbed a T-shirt and flannel pants, and washed up and changed in the bathroom. When he finished, he laid a fresh towel and facecloth on the counter beside the sink and hoped neither of the girls used them in the morning before Emily got up, or before he could warn them he had a visitor.

From his supply of spare toiletries he kept under the counter—toothpaste, deodorant, tissues—he grabbed a toothbrush, unwrapped it and did a double-take. He held a child’s toothbrush in his hand. With a sick sensation, he realized he was still buying his girls small toothbrushes when they were no longer children. They were adolescents.

He placed the foolishly small brush onto the facecloth. He also needed a fresh bar of soap, but couldn’t find any under the counter. They were all out. He headed toward his younger daughter’s room. She owned a collection of small soaps.

The light bleeding around the partially closed door of his older daughter’s bedroom caught his attention. He pushed it open and said, “Hey, kid, time for lights-out.”

Aiyana slept in a tight fetal ball on top of her bedsheets, her fingers curled over her shoulders—an egg with hands and feet. Where were her blankets?

“What the heck?” They were a tangled mass in the corner. He picked them up, straightened them and covered her, tucking them close around her body until they cocooned her, as he used to do when she was little.

She used to giggle and say, “Make me a mummy, Daddy.”

She didn’t laugh with him these days. She no longer called him Daddy, but he still thought of her as his little baby, a child who was growing up too fast.

He stared down at his daughter. No, she wasn’t a child. She was becoming a woman, too quickly. He thought of those children’s toothbrushes he’d been buying. He knew Aiyana went to the store and bought her own feminine products. Yes, she was becoming a young woman.

He’d missed turning points in his daughters’ lives, and that made his chest ache.

When had he gotten so out of touch with them? With life around him?

Salem’s ambition to be an architect, and his part-time school studies, were admirable, but his children had grown up while he’d had his head buried in one book after another, studying for tests and writing papers. Had his ambition harmed his children?

When he finished tucking her in, he kissed her forehead and said softly, “Good night, Eternal Blossom.”

“Night, Daddy,” she whispered, but as asleep as she was, probably had no idea that she had. She would certainly forget by morning when she’d be prickly as a porcupine again, as she’d been for the past year.

He had no idea how to deal with her. All he could do was give her the creature comforts—food, clothing, a roof over her head—and hope it was enough.

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