The Ashtons: Walker, Ford & Mercedes: Betrayed Birthright / Mistaken for a Mistress / Condition of Marriage

He glanced at Tamra and saw that she watched him. Could she sense his thoughts? She clutched the roses he’d brought, and the bouquet made her look like a reservation bride, with a summer cotton dress flowing around her ankles.

“These are from Walker.” She handed the roses to Mary.

His mother accepted the gift and smiled.

Walker took a deep breath. She looked pretty when she smiled. Softer, like the woman his father had probably fallen in love with. David Ashton had been a sentimental man, that much he knew. That much Spencer had told him.

“Thank you,” Mary said to Walker.

He gave her a quick nod. “You’re welcome.”

“I’ll make you a shield.” She searched his gaze. “Your dad always wanted you to have one.”

His white father wanted him to have a Lakota object? Walker didn’t understand, but he tried to pretend that it made sense. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with a shield.

Declare war on another tribe? Hang it on his living room wall? Somehow he didn’t see it complementing his contemporary decor. An interior designer had spent months laboring over his hillside condo.

Tamra spoke up. “The meal is ready. We should probably eat now.”

“Yeah, sure.” Anything to divert his mother’s attention, he thought. To make her forget about the shield.

“I’ll put these in water.” Mary took the flowers into the kitchen, where a simple table presented casual china, paper napkins and stainless steel flatware.

Walker waited for the women, intending to push in their chairs. But his mom tapped his shoulder and told him to sit, anxious to serve him. When she filled his glass with milk, he wondered if she’d forgotten that he was no longer eight years old.

Finally Mary and Tamra joined him, and they ate a hearty stew, an iceberg lettuce salad and rolls smothered in butter. It was the kind of meal a farmer’s wife would prepare, he thought. Middle America. Only this was a South Dakota reservation.

He looked across the table at his mom. At Mary. His mind kept bouncing back and forth. He didn’t know what to call her. How to refer to the woman who’d given him life.

“Did Spencer treat you well?” she asked.

He blinked, tried not to frown. “Yes. I was close to my uncle.” And probably the only Ashton who could make that claim. No one had forged a bond with Spencer, not the way Walker did. But even so, it had been a hard-earned alliance. Spencer had been a complicated man.

“You’re not close to him anymore?”

“Spencer is dead. He was murdered a few months ago. Shot to death in his office. Charlotte found his body.”

“Oh, my. Oh.” His mom fidgeted with her food. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

When she stopped talking, the walls closed in. The kitchen was already cramped, the table too small for three people. Tamra sat next to him, too close for comfort.

He was still mourning his uncle, still missing him. Yet Spencer’s betrayal kept him awake at night.

“Will you tell me about Charlotte?” Mary said.

He nodded, knowing how much this mattered to his sister. “She’s engaged to Alexandre Dupree, a winemaker from France. He isn’t the kind of man I’d envisioned for her, but they’re crazy about each other.” Madly in love, he supposed. “My sister was always shy, sort of dreamy. And Alexandre is—” he paused, trying to find a word to describe Charlotte’s fiancé “—worldly.”

“Like a prince.” Mary sighed, already slipping into her daughter’s fairy tale.

“I guess, yeah. Women probably think so.” Walker knew that Alexandre had given his sister everything she needed, including the strength to investigate their family, to discover that Mary was still alive. “They’re in Paris. Charlotte needed to get away after Spencer’s funeral. But she made me promise that I’d search for you.”

“I’m glad she did.” Mary’s eyes were watery again. “Do you have a picture of her?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t think to bring one. But I’m sure she’s going to rush back to meet you. Her and Alexandre.”

“I can’t wait to see her. And her fiancé, of course.” Mary scooted closer to the table. “Is there someone special in your life, son?”

“Me?” Without thinking, he glanced at Tamra. She turned toward him, and he shifted in his seat, wondering if she had a significant other, if she was sleeping with some big Indian buck.

Then he recalled the blonde in a San Francisco bar who’d tried to pin that phrase on him. A racial slur that had made him feel dirty.

“I’m not involved with anyone,” he said. “I’m too busy with my career. Investment banking.” More than ready to change the subject, he questioned his mom. “So, what kind of work do you do?”

She smoothed her gray-streaked hair. “I’m a nurse’s aid at the PHS.”

“PHS?”

“Public Health Service Hospital.” She sat up a little straighter, proud of her job. “It’s easier for me than some of the other aids. I lived in the white world, so I have a better understanding of the white doctors and nurses who work there.”

Tamra interjected. “Most of the doctors are young. Physicians who received government loans for medical school. So they’re paying back those loans by performing public health services on the reservation for a few years.”

And probably hating every minute of it, he thought.

Tamra continued, “Our society equates wisdom with age, so it’s difficult for our elders to accept young doctors. And there’s often a language barrier. Far too many cultural differences.” She glanced at his mom. “Mary is a valuable asset. The patients trust her. And so do the nurses and doctors.”

Unsure of how to respond, he ate another a bite of stew. Mary sounded like a caring woman, yet she’d allowed her children to believe she was dead. He wanted to grill her about the past, to bombard her with accusations, but having Tamra nearby complicated the situation even more.

She’d taken his place. She’d been raised by the lady who’d let him go. And worse yet, he was attracted to Tamra.

A disaster in the making.

When he reached for his drink, he brushed her arm, a touch that made him much too aware.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m left-handed.”

“It’s okay.” She tried to move away from him, to give him more room, but her effort proved useless. There was nowhere to go. They were stuck.

Yet his mother was smiling. “Walker used to do that when he was little, too.”

“You mean this?” He lifted his milk, bumping Tamra’s elbow, nearly knocking the roll out of her hand.

Everyone laughed. A silly incident. But it felt good. He hadn’t laughed in a long time.

A few moments later, silence engulfed him. No one could think of anything to say, so they resumed their meal, making noise with spoons and forks and butter knives.

He glanced at a clock on the wall and imagined it ticking. Like a bomb, he thought. Like the day Spencer had taken legal custody of him and his sister, the day he’d been told that both of his parents had died.

Charlotte had been too young to understand, to comprehend the cold, harsh reality of never seeing Mommy and Daddy again. But she’d cried just the same.

Walker stopped eating. His childhood memories were scattered, lost in the darkness of his mind. But not about that day. He remembered it vividly.

“Why did you do it?” he asked Mary, unable to hold back his emotions, to keep faking this reunion. “Why did you give us away?”

Two

“I’m sorry, Walker.” Mary’s voice quavered. “I should have explained everything right away. But I thought…I hoped…we could get to know each other first.”

He pushed away his plate. “Why?”

“So you wouldn’t judge me so harshly. So you wouldn’t think I was trying to turn you against Spencer.”

“I already told you. My uncle is dead.”

“This is his fault,” Tamra said. “He forced your mother to give up her children.”

“Oh, yeah? With what? A gun?” Unable to sit at the cramped table any longer, he rose from his chair and glared at the young woman Mary had raised. “Did he force her to take you in, too? To be your mom instead of ours?”

Tamra came to her feet. Suddenly she looked like a female warrior, her mouth set in a determined line, her dark eyes blazing with anger. “That isn’t fair.”

“You want to talk fair? There’s no excuse for what my mom did. None whatsoever.” He rounded on Mary. “I prayed for you. I called you an angel.” Much too edgy, he blew out a hard breath. “When Spencer rescued us, I was so damn grateful. And so damn scared. Do you have any idea what being an orphan feels like?”

She didn’t answer. She just swallowed the lump that seemed to be forming in her throat.

“I know what it feels like,” Tamra said.

He spun around, gave her a cold look. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. It’s just that I understand.”

“Yeah, right. You. The perfect Indian.”

“Perfect?” She started clearing the table, moving at a frustrated pace. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. I wasn’t raised in a mansion, Walker. My father ran off before I was born, and my mother was all alone, trying to survive on welfare. To find us suitable places to live.”

“It’s not the same thing.” He gestured to Mary, who crossed her arms, hugging herself. “She let me think she was dead. At least your parents were honest.”

“Don’t point at her.” Tamra clanked the dishes. “Don’t do that. It’s not proper.”

“Says who? People on the rez?” As if he gave a damn about Lakota etiquette. “Maybe someone should have told her that lying to her kids wasn’t proper.”

“Mary was on the verge of a breakdown when she lost your dad. And Spencer preyed on her emotions. He—”

Walker cut her off. He turned to his mom, needing to hear it from her. “Is that true?”

She nodded, and he realized how frail she looked, sitting alone at the table, listening to him and Tamra argue.

He resumed his seat, his heart pounding horribly in his chest. He wanted to call her a liar, but he knew his uncle had never tolerated gentle-natured women, especially when their wounds were still raw.

Yet he’d loved Spencer. He’d patterned his life after his father’s power-hungry brother.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what he did.”

“He came to see me in the hospital, right after your dad died. I was injured in the accident, nothing life threatening, but I still needed medical care.”

“How did he force you to give us up?”

“He threatened me. He said he would get Social Services involved. That he would prove that I was an unfit mother.”

“But you weren’t.” Walker studied the shadows under her eyes, the lines imbedded in her skin. “Were you?”

“Oh, God, no.” She reached across the table and brushed his hand. A featherlight touch. The touch of a mother who’d lost her son. “I never abused my babies.”

“I have no idea how you treated us.” Which made Spencer’s threats seem even more plausible, he thought. More frightening. “I can’t remember you and Dad. I just can’t.”

“It’s okay.” Mary’s voice went soft, sad. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has.” Uncomfortable, he turned in his seat and noticed Tamra stood nearby. She’d fixed a pot of tea, some sort of herbal brew. When she offered him a cup, he looked up at her, and their gazes slammed straight into each other.

Heat. Emotion. The gates of Lakota hell.

He shouldn’t be staring at her. Not like this.

Only, he couldn’t seem to break eye contact.

And neither could she.

God help him, he thought. Suddenly he feared they were destined to be lovers, like misunderstood characters in a movie who yelled and screamed, then kissed like demons. He wasn’t a fortune-teller. He couldn’t predict the future. Yet he could feel the passion. The danger that awaited him.

He’d never been involved in a turbulent relationship. His affairs had never bordered on pain, on the kind of emotion that ripped a man apart.

But everything about Pine Ridge tore him in two.

Finally Tamra shifted her gaze, pouring Mary’s tea. Afterward she sat next to Walker again, and he could smell the lotion on her skin, a disturbing blend of summer botanicals. A fragrance that made him want her even more.

Soft, airy, far too real.

Mary looked at both of them. “Neither of you deserve this.”

“We can handle it.” He turned to Tamra, then considered bumping her arm. But he knew no one would laugh this time. His left-handed antics wouldn’t ease the tension. Nor would it change what was happening between him and Tamra.

“Yes,” she agreed. “We can handle it.”

Under the table, her leg was only inches from his, and the near contact made him warm. He didn’t understand why she affected him so deeply, why she made him yearn for a forbidden liaison.

Was he trying to punish her? Or was he hell-bent on torturing himself?

“Finish your story,” he said to Mary, trying to redirect his focus, to clear his head. “Tell me the rest.”

“I was afraid of Spencer. Of his money, his power.” She sipped her tea, clutching the cup with both hands. “When I was growing up, Lakota children were being put into foster care. Into white people’s homes because their own families were too poor.”

“And you thought Spencer could do that to us? That he could convince Social Services to take me and Charlotte?”

“Yes. I’d been away from the reservation for a long time. Married to your dad, being a farmer’s wife. But in the end I was just a poor Indian all over again. Except, this time I was mourning my husband and drugged with painkillers from the hospital. I couldn’t think clearly.”

“But this was the eighties. Wasn’t there something your tribe could have done to help you? To stop Spencer from taking us?”

“The Indian Child Welfare Act could have made a difference. But I didn’t know about it then. It went into effect after I left the reservation.” Her breath hitched, catching in her throat. “My life with your father was over. He was gone and the farm was in foreclosure. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere but here.” She glanced at the window, where a small breeze stirred the curtains. “But at the time, all I had to come back to was a rundown shack and an alcoholic brother.” She shifted her gaze. “Spencer threatened to use that against me. To drum up phony evidence that I was a drinker, too. That I hurt you and Charlotte. He knew people who would testify, who would lie for him.”

Once again, Walker battled his confusion. He wished Mary had fought for her rights. That she’d done whatever she could to keep him and Charlotte. Yet he was glad Spencer had been his uncle.

“I didn’t want my children growing up in foster care and thinking that I’d abused them,” his mother said. “To me, that was worse than being dead.”

Was it? Walker didn’t know. He didn’t have kids. He didn’t have anything in his life but his work, the career Spencer had groomed him for.

“There’s more,” Mary told him. “Something else your uncle did. It seemed horrible at first. Only it didn’t turn out to be a bad thing.”

“Really? What was it?”

“Money.” She nearly whispered, then raised her voice a little louder. “His attorney sent me a thirty-thousand-dollar cashier’s check after I got back to Pine Ridge. I didn’t want to cash it at first.”

“But eventually you did?”

“Yes.” She reached for his hand. “I did.”

Walker wanted to pull away from her. But he allowed her to touch him, feigning indifference, pretending that he could deal with the money.

With the sale of two small children…

The following day Tamra arrived at Walker’s motel, per his request. He met her outside, looking like the city boy he was, with his well-tailored clothes and men’s-fashion-magazine haircut. He wore the thick dark strands combed straight back and tamed with some sort of styling gel. Short but not conservative, at least not in a boring way.

Walker Ashton’s hair had sex appeal.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself.” She noticed that he seemed troubled. She hoped they wouldn’t end up in another argument. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just want to talk.” He reached into his pocket and removed some coins. “How about a soda?”

“Sure.” She walked to the vending machine with him and chose an orange drink. He picked grape. From there, they headed back to his room.

She felt a bit odd going into the place where he’d been sleeping. She knew she shouldn’t, but being with him in an intimate setting caused her heart to pound unmercifully in her breast.

She looked around his room and noticed the western motif. He’d chosen comfortable accommodations on Highway 20, but he was probably used to five-star hotels. This, she imagined, was foreign to him.

The window air conditioner was on full blast, with color streamers attached, blowing like international flags.

She sat at a pine table, and he leaned against the dresser, a big, sturdy unit that doubled as an entertainment center. She suspected that he’d climbed under the covers last night and watched cable TV.

What else would he do in a cozy Nebraska town?

“How old were you when my mom took you in?” he asked.

“I was five, but my mother was alive then. We both moved in with Mary. My mom and your mom were friends, and we didn’t have anywhere else to go. It was winter. We would have frozen to death on our own.” She flipped open the top of her soda, memories swirling in her mind. “My mom died two years later. So I was seven when Mary became my guardian.”

“How old are you now?”

“Twenty-six.”

A frown slashed between his eyebrows. “You’re only a year older than my sister.”

She nodded. Did that bother him? Did it make him feel even more betrayed? She wanted to ask him if he’d called his sister, if he’d spoken to her in France, but she decided to wait until he finished interviewing her. She could see the unanswered questions in his eyes.

“Is that common on the rez?” he asked. “To just raise someone else’s kid?”

“Yes.” She tried to relax, but he was making her self-conscious. The way he watched her. His hardedged posture. “The Lakota have an adoption ceremony called Hunka, the making of relatives. It’s conducted by a medicine man or another adult who’d been a Hunka. This ceremony provides a new family for a child who doesn’t have a home.”

“Did you and Mary do that?”

“No.” She lifted her soda, took a sip, placed the can on the table. Walker’s gaze followed her every move. She tried to avoid eye contact, but it didn’t help. She could feel him looking at her. “In those days Mary wasn’t connected to her heritage. She was defying tradition, isolating herself from the community. A Hunka ceremony would have been too Indian. Too Lakota.”

“So she just kept you without adopting you?”

“Yes.” Tamra tasted her soda again, wishing Walker would quit scrutinizing her. “We could do it now, though. People of any age can become Hunka if both parties agree.”

“Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what? Have a ceremony?” Tired of his male dominance, she lifted her chin, challenging him. “That’s not your choice to make.”

“I don’t want you to be her adopted daughter. I don’t want to be related to you.” He moved away from the dresser. “And I’m sure you know why.”

Did she? She glanced at the bed, at the maroon and blue quilt, at the plain white pillowcases. Then she looked at him. A bit woozy, she took a steadying breath. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Yes, it is. Sooner or later, we’ll end up there.”

There.

His bed.

She struggled to maintain her decorum, to seem unaffected. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you.”

He finished his drink, then grabbed the chair across from her. In one heart-stopping move, he spun it around and straddled it. “I’m not saying that I want it to happen. I’m just saying that it will.”

Tamra felt as though she’d just been straddled. Ridden hard and put away…

…wet.

She moistened her lips. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“Yes, you are.” He didn’t smile. He didn’t flirt. But he shifted in his chair, bumping his fly against it. “We’re going to tear off each other’s clothes. And we’re going to be sorry afterward, wondering what the hell we did.”

“I don’t have affairs. Not like that.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then why are we having this stupid conversation?”

“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night.” He made a tense face. “And it’s pissing me off.”

She shook her head. He had to be the most difficult man she’d ever met. “Everything pisses you off, Walker.”

He squinted at her. “Did you think about me last night?”

Her pulse tripped, stumbled like a clumsy little kid playing hopscotch in the rain. “No.”

“Liar.”

Yes, she thought. Liar, liar, pants on fire. But she’d be damned if she would admit it. She’d slept with the windows open, letting the breeze stir her hair, her half-naked body. “You’re not my type.”

“You’re not mine, either.” He paused, then checked her out, up and down, from head to toe. “But you’re hot, sexy as sin. For an Indian,” he added, making her scowl.

“I wouldn’t go to bed with you if you were the last half-breed on earth.”

He smiled at that. “Good. Then it won’t happen. We’re safe.”

She was already safe. She’d been on the Pill since her baby girl died. Since she’d decided that she wasn’t getting pregnant again. At least not by a man she wasn’t married to.

Walker rocked in his chair, and she tried to think of something to say, something to wipe that cynical smile off his face. She certainly wasn’t going to discuss birth control with him. She knew that wasn’t the kind of safe he was referring to.

He was talking about their emotions, their feelings.

Sex they would regret.

“What did my mother do with the money?” he asked, changing the topic so abruptly, she merely blinked at him.

“What?”

“The thirty grand. How’d she spend it?”

Tamra took a moment to gather her thoughts, to compose her senses. “Maybe you should ask her about this.”

“I’m asking you.” He leaned back. “It’s easier for me to talk to you. You’re—” the cynical smile returned “—not as vulnerable.”

He had no idea, she thought. He didn’t have a clue. But how could he? She hadn’t told him that she’d lost a child. That she understood his mother’s pain. “Mary bought the mobile home we’re living in. It was used, so it wasn’t very expensive.”

“So there was money left over?”

“Yes. And she invested that.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised. “Were they sound investments?”

“Sound enough. There was enough to help me go to college.”

“Damn.” He dragged a hand through his sexually appealing hair, messing it up a little. “My mom sent her non-Hunka kid to college. Doesn’t that beat all?”

“Beat all what?” Struggling to keep her cool, she blew an exasperated sigh. “I worked hard on my education. I earned a scholarship, too.”

“To a tribal college?”

“To San Francisco State University.”

He practically gaped at her. “You went to SFSU? You lived in California? Where I live?”

“That’s right.” She’d spent her entire childhood dreaming of bigger and better things. “And I brought Mary with me.”

“Why San Francisco? Why did you choose a university there?”

“Because I knew Spencer had taken you and Charlotte to Northern California. And I wanted Mary to feel like she had a connection to her children, even if she was never going to see them.” Tamra finished her soda and cursed her pounding heart. “So we rented a little apartment and tried to make a go of things. I got a part-time job and earned a degree in marketing, and Mary got a full-time job, working at a hospital. Later she became a certified nurse’s aid.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “A marketing degree. And you came back to Pine Ridge?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Why?”

“Why not? This is our home.”

“Fine. Don’t tell me the whole story. I don’t care anyway.”