Nighthawk's Child

Hardly able to contain the smile that kept tugging at her collagen-enhanced lips, it was all Audra could do to just sit still. Everything was working out just as Lexine had predicted. In the eyes of the majority of the townspeople, Gavin was guilty as sin. Now all she had to do was keep her mouth shut and wait for the trial to start. With all the circumstantial evidence against him, not to mention public opinion, Gavin wouldn’t stand a chance. He’d be convicted and lucky if he didn’t get the death sentence.

Poor baby, she thought wickedly. That was the breaks. He’d appeal, of course, but that didn’t concern her. Once he was found guilty in a court of law, the case would be closed as far as the local police were concerned. Gavin would be shipped off to prison, gossip would die down, and with time, the murder of Christina Montgomery would be forgotten. And no one would know that the real killer still walked the streets.

Holding that knowledge deep inside like a treasure, she fairly purred with satisfaction as she leaned across the table to Micky Culver, her live-in boyfriend. “Did you hear what that man behind you just said?” she whispered. Her smile sultry, she mimicked softly, “’I’m not paying six-fifty to eat with a murdering Indian.’ Can you believe it, Mick? Everything’s going to work out just the way we want it to!”

His brown eyes hard and his mouth compressed into a flat, angry line, Micky arched a scraggly brow at her. “What do you mean ‘we’?”

Far from offended, she only laughed. “C’mon, baby, you know you don’t mean that. You don’t want anything to happen to me. You love me.”

Grudgingly, he had to admit that was true. When Audra had come to him in despair, penniless after she’d been swindled out of her inheritance by her mother’s lover, he’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Finally, he had a chance to prove his love for her! He’d taken her in, given her a home, and thought they would spend the rest of their lives together.

But lately he’d begun to have doubts. He’d known she was no angel—neither was he—but she was enjoying Gavin Nighthawk’s predicament more than she ought to. The man had a little girl, for God’s sake, and she needed him. But Audra didn’t seem to care about that. All she was interested in was getting her own butt out of a sling, and if that meant an innocent man would go to prison for a crime she’d committed, she didn’t seem to have a problem with that. But he did. In fact, it bothered him more and more each day.

Micky wanted to blame Audra’s cold-blooded attitude on Lexine. Ever since Audra had gotten involved with her birth mother and started visiting her in prison, she hadn’t been the same. She’d become harder and self-centered. But as much as he hated Lexine Baxter’s influence, he knew she couldn’t make Audra do anything she didn’t want to do. Audra was a grown woman, responsible for her own actions. Because of her, Gavin Nighthawk was in a tight spot, and she was delighted.

“Who are you?” he asked, truly puzzled. “I don’t know you anymore. I’m beginning to wonder if I ever did.”

“Don’t be silly.” Audra laughed, not taking him seriously. “Of course you know me, honey. I’m just like you. That’s why we get along so well.”

There’d been a time when he would have agreed with her. Neither of them had much use for the law when it got in the way of what they wanted. He’d done some time in jail and didn’t fool himself into thinking that before it was all said and done, he wouldn’t repeat the experience. But unlike Audra, he wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He was just weak sometimes, and when life closed in on him and he didn’t know where the rent money was coming from or how he was going to eat, he did stupid things. But he’d never physically hurt or killed anyone. He’d robbed from folks who could afford the loss and had insurance to replace what he’d taken. Still, he wasn’t pleased with himself.

But nothing seemed to bother Audra at all. Was she really that cold? That mean? He didn’t want to think so, but he couldn’t be sure. And that was what worried him.

“Are you really going to do this?” he rasped in a low whisper that didn’t carry beyond her ears. “Are you just going to sit there and let that man go to prison for something you know he didn’t do? Would you really do that?”

Surprised that he even had to ask, she all but laughed in his face. “Are you kidding? You’re damn straight, I would! It’s a tough world out there, baby, and a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. Anyway,” she said with a toss of her short, bleached-blond hair, “he’s only getting what he deserves. She was the mother of his baby—he should have married her and taken care of her instead of leaving her out in the woods by herself to get in trouble.”

“So it’s his fault that you came along and killed her?” he whispered incredulously. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Pushed into a corner, she shrugged. “Well…yeah. If she’d been where she was supposed to be, none of this would have happened.”

Unable to believe she could justify murder so easily, Micky actually felt nauseated. Pushing away the steak sandwich he’d barely touched, he threw down his napkin and abruptly rose to his feet. “Something in here’s making me sick to my stomach,” he said coldly. “I need some fresh air.”

And for the first time in their relationship, he walked out on her, leaving Audra staring after him in stunned surprise.

Laughing Horse Reservation was north of town and home to the Northern Cheyenne tribe. It was here that Summer had spent the summers of her childhood, getting to know her father’s people and their traditions. And it was here that she had first been introduced to medicine when she was taught the ways of tribal medicine. She’d loved it, loved caring for her people, and when she’d returned to Whitehorn after college and medical school for her residency in immunology at Whitehorn Memorial Hospital, one of the first things she’d done was open a clinic on the reservation.

It was hard, working two jobs, but she was doing the right thing and had no regrets. Life on the reservation had improved some since she was a child, but poverty was still rampant and medical care practically nonexistent. It was the very young and the very old who suffered the most, and she did what she could to help them. She even took her services on the road, making rounds on the reservation once a week, driving from one home to the next long into the evening, visiting with patients, examining them, caring.

Usually she loved making house calls because they gave her a chance to reconnect with her heritage and memories of long-ago summers. But as she left the Hip Hop Café behind and headed for Janet Crow’s house on the far east side of the reservation, all she could think about was Gavin Nighthawk. There had to be something she could do to help him.

Troubled, she thought she hid it well. Taking Janet’s blood pressure as the older woman chattered about her new granddaughter, Summer smiled and nodded and made the appropriate responses. But Janet was shrewder than she’d given her credit for. The older woman waited until Summer had listened to her heart and pulled the stethoscope from her ears before she arched a brow at her and said, “All right, missy, what’s wrong?”

“Well, your blood pressure’s higher than I’d like, but—”

“No, not with me,” she cut in with an impatient wave of her hand. “I’m an old woman—it’s my time in life to fall apart. I’m talking about you, girl. What’s wrong with you? What are you brooding about?”

“I’m not brooding,” Summer began, only to swallow the rest of her words when Janet gave her a hard look with brown eyes that were as sharp as a hawk’s. She might be seventy-five and not as healthy as she could be, but she had earned her place as a tribal elder. She didn’t miss much.

“All right,” Summer sighed, knowing when she was beaten. “It’s the trial, okay?”

Janet didn’t have to ask which one. “His days of freedom are numbered,” she said flatly. “I hope he’s wise enough to enjoy them while he can.”

“So you think he’ll be convicted?”

Janet’s shrug was uncaring. “It makes no difference to me.”

“But he was born and raised here on the reservation!” Summer protested, stunned by her attitude. “He’s Cheyenne. Don’t you think the tribe owes him some kind of loyalty?”

“Why? Where was his loyalty when he moved into the white man’s world?” she countered swiftly, resentment glittering in her eyes. “He grew up on the land of his ancestors, spent his boyhood running free among his people. But we were never good enough for him. Even as a boy, he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with his Native American heritage.”

Summer winced. “It was the poverty he hated, Janet. The lack of hope.”

She disagreed. “It was the white man’s way he admired, the white man’s world of money and success and fair skin that he wanted, and as soon as he was old enough, that’s what he went after. He doesn’t care about us. Why should we care about him?”

She had a point, one that Summer couldn’t, regrettably, argue with. It was common knowledge that Gavin’s parents had raised him to want a life different from the one found on the reservation. And while there was nothing wrong with encouraging him to be ambitious, they’d gone too far. He’d never been content with who and what he was, and the end result was that he was a man who fit neither in the white man’s world he sought nor the Native American heritage to which he was born.

And Summer found that incredibly sad. She walked with ease in both worlds and was accepted everywhere she went. She couldn’t imagine what life must be like for Gavin, and her heart ached for him. He’d rejected his own people and didn’t have a clue what he’d given up.

“He made some mistakes,” she acknowledged. “Some big ones. But I can’t say that I wouldn’t have made the same ones if I’d been raised the way he was.”

“You would have never turned your back on us the way he has,” Janet said indignantly, her dark eyes flashing. “You’re not that way.”

“I might have been if Aunt Celeste and Aunt Yvette had only cared about money. So don’t judge Gavin too harshly,” she cautioned. “None of us know how we would have turned out given the same circumstances. And think about this. If we turn our back on him when he’s in the worst trouble of his life, what does that say about us?”

Put that way, there was little the old woman could say. “You are wise beyond your years,” she replied with a grimace of a smile. “I will try to remember the disservice his parents did him and not judge him too harshly, but I doubt that the rest of our people will do the same. It galls many of them that he hasn’t even offered to help you at your clinic. The work you do there is just as important as what he does at the hospital, and you could use his help.”

“He’s got enough on his plate right now without worrying about whether I could use an extra pair of hands at the clinic,” she said dryly. “Anyway, I’m handling things just fine. Opening the clinic was one of the best things I ever did.”

“You’re working too hard.”

Summer grinned. “It’s not work when you love what you’re doing.”

“It is when that’s all you do,” she argued sagely. “There’s more to life than taking care of sick people. You’re a pretty young woman. When was the last time you went out to dinner with a nice, good-looking man? Every girl needs some romance to make her heart sing.”

Summer couldn’t help but smile fondly. Janet was just like all the other tribal elders—they all felt, because they cared about her, that they had a right to dabble in her love life. Or her lack of one, she ruefully added. Not that she was looking for a man. Her work was all that she needed, the only thing she wanted, but no one could seem to understand that.

“I appreciate the concern, Janet, but I don’t have time for romance.”

“You would if you didn’t work so much. Or take on other people’s problems—like Gavin Nighthawk’s. You are going to help him, aren’t you?”

Put on the spot, she couldn’t deny it. “If the opportunity presents itself. My conscience won’t let me do anything else.”

Not surprised, Janet sighed heavily as Summer began to repack her medical bag. “I knew you would. You always did worry about other people more than you worried about yourself. Your mother would be proud of you.”

The unexpected words of praise brought the sudden sharp sting of tears to Summer’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said huskily. “I like to think she would be.”

“Just watch yourself, okay? You’re such a tender-hearted soul and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“By Gavin?” she said, surprised. “For heaven’s sake, Janet, we’re barely friends. The only reason I’m going to help him is because I can’t stand by and let an innocent man go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“Just remember that that ‘innocent’ man likes blond white women. Don’t let him break your heart.”

Summer promised her she had no intention of letting him or any other man do any such thing, but on the way back to her clinic, she almost laughed at the very idea of Gavin looking at her as anything but another doctor. Granted, there was a connection between them that she couldn’t explain, but there wasn’t anything the least bit romantic about it. They just came from the same background.

That was all it was, she assured herself. He looked at her and saw the girl from a past he wanted to forget, a girl who’d eagerly absorbed all the ancient knowledge the reservation had to offer. And every time her eyes fell on his chiseled features, she was reminded of the silent, brooding boy who’d walked alone across land that she loved.

Decades later, he was still walking alone, and it was that, more than anything, that tore at her heart. Everyone needed someone to talk to, to forget their troubles with, to vent to, and Gavin seemed to have no one, not even family. Long ago, he’d walked away from the people who could have at least offered him emotional support now, and there was no way to turn back the clock. He was in the worst trouble of his life, and he had no one.

Except her.

That caught her by surprise, and she immediately tried to reject the idea. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told Janet that they were barely friends. He hadn’t asked for her help and didn’t want it. She would do well to remember that.

But all the way back to the clinic, all she could think of was Gavin and the look on his face at the Hip Hop when he’d heard the things being said about him. With every snide remark, his expression had grown colder and more remote, and all Summer could think of was that he must have suffered the same verbal abuse everywhere he went from the day he was charged with Christina’s murder.

Dear God, how had he stood it?

Haunted by the image of his loneliness, she slept little that night. He was innocent. Deep down in her heart, she knew that as surely as she knew that he wouldn’t thank her for interfering in his life. Still, she couldn’t worry about that. She didn’t care if he ended up hating her guts, she had to find a way to help him. The question was…how?

The answer came to her with the rising of the morning sun. Already hard at work at the hospital, her eyes sandy from lack of sleep, she was examining a newborn in Pedi ICU when an idea popped full-blown into her head. Stunned by the very outrageousness of it, she stopped in her tracks and told herself it would never work. He would think she’d lost her mind, and she couldn’t say she’d blame him. So would everybody else.

Sure she was suffering from sleep deprivation, she tried to dismiss the idea and concentrate on her work instead, but she was fighting a losing battle. The idea stuck like a burr to her imagination, and with no effort whatsoever, she could see it working. She could help him. All she had to do was explain the idea to him and persuade him to give her a chance.

Yeah, right, she thought derisively. When pigs could fly. Don’t even think about going there, she warned herself. Even if he didn’t laugh in her face, he would never go for it. If she wanted to save them both some grief, she’d forget the whole thing.

She should have. It would have been the wisest course of action. But she didn’t, unfortunately, always do the wise thing. Instead she followed her heart and dared to take a chance. The decision made with no conscious effort on her part, she found herself heading for his house at the end of her shift and knew she had no other choice.

His house wasn’t in one of the more affluent subdivisions of Whitehorn—as a resident at the hospital, he could afford little more than a tract house at this point in his career. But it was still obvious to Summer as she pulled up before the brick and glass contemporary structure that he’d left his past—and the reservation—far behind. Wincing at the coldness of the place, Summer almost turned around right then and there to head for her clinic. This was never going to work.

But she couldn’t bring herself to drive away, not when this might be her only chance to save him from a life in prison. Her heart in her throat, she stepped from her car and slowly started up the walkway to his front door. With every step, the knots in her stomach tightened with trepidation. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she was doing the right thing, but that didn’t make her task any easier. Because she knew that if Gavin accepted her offer, her life would never be the same and neither would his.

Two

H e wasn’t thrilled to see her. In fact, he was downright rude. Scowling at the sight of Summer Kincaid on his doorstep, Gavin made no move to invite her inside but stood blocking the threshold as if he was going to slam the door in her face at any second. “What do you want?” he growled.

That wasn’t the greeting she’d hoped for, but Summer supposed she couldn’t blame him for being less than hospitable.

“I need to talk to you,” she said quietly. “May I come in?”

He didn’t budge an inch. “No. I’m not in the mood for company.”

That much, at least, was obvious. His chiseled jaw as hard as granite and his brown eyes nearly black with hostility, he was primed for a fight and ready to take on the world. If she’d been smart, Summer would have apologized for disturbing him and waited until another time to approach him with her proposal. But she’d had to psyche herself up just to get this far, and if she didn’t speak her mind now, she was afraid she never would.

So she stubbornly held her ground and looked him right in the eye, silently daring him to throw her off his property. “I’m sorry about that, but I’m not leaving until I’ve had a chance to talk to you. We can do it right here on the doorstep in front of God and everyone or you can invite me inside. The choice is yours.”

Irritated, Gavin arched a dark brow at her. He’d talked to her more in the past two days than he had in the past two years, and he had to admit he was surprised by her obstinacy. She was a quiet little thing and usually didn’t say much. But something had lit a fire under her, and if the glint in her eye was anything to go by, she’d shout whatever she had to say to him to the rooftops if he didn’t give her a chance to speak to him in private.

He shouldn’t have cared. The whole world already knew just about everything there was to know about him—she couldn’t possibly have anything to say that couldn’t be posted across the front page of the Whitehorn Journal. Or at least, he didn’t think she did.

Frowning down at her, he hesitated, then with a muttered curse, he jerked the door open wider. “All right,” he said harshly. “Come in and say what you have to say. But make it quick.”

Then get out.

He didn’t say the words, but Summer heard them nonetheless. Another woman might have been offended, but she refused to take his hostility personally. She’d wanted an opportunity to speak to him and he was giving it to her. Nothing else mattered.

Slipping past him through the door, she stepped into the living room, only to stop short. She supposed she had to give him credit. With inexpensive glass and chrome tables and what appeared to be a few good pieces of secondhand modern furniture, he’d created a surprising sophistication without spending a lot of money. If there were no plants, no warm colors, none of the softness needed to turn a house into a home, she doubted that he cared. After all, he wanted acceptance in the white man’s world, not warmth.

Following her into the room, Gavin said roughly, “Well? What is it you barged in here to say? Spit it out and let’s get it over with.”

Jerked back to her reason for being there, she hesitated, not sure how to begin. Too late, she realized she probably should have given more thought to her proposal, but at the time she’d come up with it, it had seemed like the perfect plan to exonerate him. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Heat singeing her cheeks, she tried not to squirm as he pinned her with a gaze that was as hard as nails. “I’ve been thinking about the trial—”

“You and everyone else in town,” he drawled. “What about it?”

“I think I can help you.”

His eyes narrowed sharply. “How? Have you heard something? What do you know about Christina’s murder?”

“Nothing!”

“Then how the hell do you think you’re going to help me?” he demanded impatiently. “By being my friend and standing up with me in court the way you did at the Hip Hop?” He made “friend” sound like a dirty word. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think the jury’s going to give a damn about how many so-called friends I have when the prosecution has evidence placing me at the murder scene. So if that’s all you came for—”

He turned away, dismissing her without even hearing what she’d come there to say, and something in Summer just snapped. She’d meant to lay the groundwork for her offer before she actually made it so she wouldn’t completely shock him, but he’d taken that opportunity away from her.

Left with no choice, she blurted, “The jury might not care about your friends but I bet they’d be impressed by a wife who believed you and stood by you through all this.

“Especially,” she continued when he jerked back around to face her with a scowl, “if that wife was from one of Whitehorn’s leading families and was a well-respected member of the medical community.”

“I don’t have a wife,” he said flatly.

“No, you don’t,” she said simply. “But you could. Think about what that would say to a jury. After you were accused of a horrible murder, a woman with an impeccable reputation pronounced her love for you and married you. No woman in her right mind would do that unless she thought you were truly innocent.”

If he was impressed with her reasoning, he didn’t show it. His brown eyes suspicious, he said, “Just what exactly are you suggesting?”

“That we get married.”

The words just seemed to pop out of their own accord and hang in the air between them like a blinking neon sign. And too late, Summer realized just how forward they sounded. Horrified, she hurriedly said, “Don’t misunderstand—I’m not saying that I’m in love with you! How could I be? We hardly know each other. Any marriage between us would be one strictly of convenience.”

“Of course. I never expected anything else.”

At his dry tone, she blushed to the roots of her hair. “This isn’t about sex,” she said stiffly. “It’s about helping you.”

“Which you seemed determined to do, and I can’t for the life of me understand why.” Frowning, he studied her with puzzled eyes. “What’s in this for you?”

Not surprised that he’d so quickly reduced things to the bottom line, she didn’t insult his intelligence by pretending she was a saint sacrificing herself just for the sake of helping him. “Your help in my clinic on the reservation for one year,” she said bluntly.

“In exchange for marriage?”

She nodded. “Also for one year. You know I’m not the type to flaunt my family connections, but you have to admit that marriage to a Kincaid can’t do anything but bolster your standing in the community. And that just might help clear your name. Once the trial’s over and you’re vindicated, my family connections will help when you go back to court to regain custody of Alyssa.”