“He was upset when he came over here to check on me, but he made a few calls and seemed to feel better after.” Gran patted Jolene’s knee. “He seemed to think you had something to do with the bones out there, Jolene. He came in here ranting and raving.”
“Right. Like I have a spare skeleton in my closet at home.” Jolene snorted. “Look, the Yaqui council voted, and they decided to go with the casino on that land. Nothing I can do about it.”
“Your father could’ve stopped it.” Gran clicked her tongue. “The rest don’t have the backbone to stand up to Wade.”
“Good thing Dad was conveniently murdered.” Jolene blinked her eyes.
Gran’s fingers turned into claws on Jolene’s leg as she dug them into her flesh. “Wade loved your father, Jolene. He looked up to him. Learned from him. Please don’t say those things to me.”
“I’m sorry, Gran.” Jolene kissed her grandmother’s weathered cheek and stood up as Sam returned from washing the dishes in the sink. “Sam’s going to give Rosie a ride back to her place, as they’re heading in the same direction.”
“Are you ready, Rosie?” Sam captured Gran’s hand and kissed her gnarled fingers. “I’ll see you later, Granny Viv.”
“You can come by any time if you’re washing dishes.”
Rosie gathered her umbrella and purse and waved at Gran getting out of her chair. “Take a seat, Viv. We can see ourselves out.”
Outside, Sam took Rosie’s arm and steered her around the puddles to his truck as Jolene watched them, a hand on her hip.
After he handed Rosie into his truck, he approached Jolene. “What are you staring at?”
“You’re such a gentleman...to the old gals.”
“Hilarious.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Be careful. Wade, or whoever, wanted that map back for some reason.”
“Maybe he just wanted to make sure I didn’t pull any stunts like the one today. I beat him to the punch, and now he’s over it.” She took a step back into Gran’s house, hanging on to the screen door.
“Why wouldn’t he just approach you? Tell you he’s aware you took the map from his phone, planted the bones and he’s going to out you to the authorities?” He brushed some hair from her eyes. “There must be something else on that map he’s hiding.”
“Not sure I’ll have another shot at it now.” She waved to Rosie in the passenger seat of Sam’s truck. “Thanks for the ride, Sam. Remember, I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He pressed a finger to his lips and strode to his truck. She watched while Sam climbed in his truck and pulled out. As he peeled away from the house, he beeped his horn.
Jolene returned to Gran and spent the next hour giving her evasive answers about her and Sam. When she stood up and stretched, she gazed out the window at the rain coming down in sheets.
“I’d better get going, Gran. Do you need anything else?”
Gran patted her arm. “Just for you to be happy, Jolene.”
She dropped a kiss on her grandmother’s head. “Always that.”
Outside, the rain lashed her as she ran to her car. She folded herself into the driver’s seat and blasted the defroster. She rolled slowly along the roads of the reservation, and then turned onto the highway. The wipers on her car could barely keep up with the onslaught of water pouring across her windshield.
She sat forward in her seat, hunching over the steering wheel, easing off the accelerator. The car seemed to be floating underwater, the landscape a blurry, watery tapestry.
She picked up speed as she headed down an incline. She tapped her brakes and mumbled a few obscenities beneath her breath. The water had made her brakes squishy. She tapped again, putting a little more force into it.
As she stepped on the brake, the car whooshed forward, going even faster. She jerked the steering wheel harder than she wanted as she coasted into a slight curve in the road.
She tried the brakes again, and this time her foot hit the floor. Her back tires hydroplaned and the car began to fishtail. Gripping the steering wheel with one hand, she fumbled for the hand brake with the other.
The car lurched and skidded, and the rain-soaked scenery blurred into a kaleidoscope of colors as she careened out of control.
Chapter Six
Sam rolled to a stop in front of Rosie’s neat Spanish-style house, the tiles on the roof dyed to a deep red from the torrent of rain, now moving sideways.
“Hold on a minute.” He grabbed Rosie’s umbrella and came around to the passenger side of the truck to let her out.
He held the umbrella over her head as he walked her to the front door.
Her grandson threw open the door. “Hurry, Abuela, before you get swept away.”
Rosie turned to Sam on the porch. “You can take my umbrella back to the truck with you.”
“That’s okay.” He handed the pink-and-red umbrella back to her. “I’m already wet. A little more rain isn’t going to make much difference.”
Head down, he jogged back to the truck. When he got behind the wheel, he flicked down the visor and slicked his hair back from his face, dripping with water.
He scowled at his reflection. “So much for drying your clothes at Jolene’s.”
It was a good ruse for taking half his clothes off at her place, anyway. Not that it did him much good. If he wanted to get back into her good graces...and her bed, he’d have to take things slowly. He’d burned her once, and she wasn’t the type of woman who trusted easily—her mother’s abandonment and her father’s death had seen to that.
Then he had to pile on.
He shook his head like a dog, flinging drops of water inside the cab of the truck, and continued driving toward the station.
As he turned down the main street, he had to pull to the right for some emergency vehicles racing off to a call. A lot of people
