Had she married Paul out of revenge?
No. Maggie wasnt the vengeful type. Then, had she always been in love with Paul? Joe felt his chest contract. Had their night of passion been nothing but lust, just as hed told her?
The letter from Leotie two months after his deployment to Iraq said it all. Maggie and Paul had gotten married not long after Joed left. She said they were happy, in love and expecting a baby.
The news hit him like a mortar to his belly.
As hed walked night patrols in the desert, hed wondered what Maggie would have done if hed asked her to wait for him. Would she have married Paul anyway?
Hed been certain Maggie had no place on the reservation or in his Indian way of life. Just as hed made a promise to his mother to watch out for his stepbrother, hed made another promise to his father to raise his sons to know the Lakota ways. Maggie would not fit in with that promise. She was white, he was Indian. Their two worlds could not convergeor so hed thought a lifetime ago, before hed gone to war.
Now he was here for Dakota. The little boy with the face of an angel. With dark auburn hair curling around his head, he was the image of his mother. It hurt Joe to look at him. The child perched in his mothers arms at Pauls funeral, staring with wide, brown eyes at the gathering of people. Oblivious to the seriousness of the occasion, he hadnt understood the finality of his fathers death.
Joe told himself the boy was his primary reason for standing in front of the little clapboard house, not his mother.
Maggie appeared in the doorway as if conjured from his deepest thoughts. Her pale skin was almost translucent, the light dusting of freckles even seeming faded. Yet, despite her red-rimmed eyes, she was every bit as beautiful as the first time hed seen her in the tribal youth center. Shed stood out like a flame amidst the dark-haired, dark-skinned teenagers she was shooting hoops with.
Standing with her hands drooping at her sides, the agony in her gaze pierced Joes soul in a way he hadnt expected, and his arms ached to hold her and soothe away the fear and anguish.
Then he remembered how quickly shed gone into another mans bed after hed leftthe bed of his stepbrother hed resented as a child growing up.
His lips firmed into a straight line and he nodded. Maggie.
A single tear slid down her cheek. Dakotas gone. She wrapped her arms around her middle and shivered. Dressed only in jeans and an oversized green sweatshirt, she wasnt up to the cold of the late-October prairie breeze.
Joe had the sudden urge to walk awayno, make that runas far away as he could get from her. But he couldnt leave Maggie when she was so vulnerable. Lets go inside. For the better part of the last month, hed avoided her at every turna tough thing to do in such a small community. Especially when he was a tribal policeman and she worked with the reservation youth. Sometimes they crossed paths. He worked hard to make those occasions brief.
She led the way into the living room and waved at the couch, muttering something about sitting. Yet Maggie stood half turned away from him, her gaze on the scene outside the window as if watching for her sons return.
Joe shrugged out of his coat and slung it onto a chair. The two state police officers moved in and out of the house, talking to each other and into the radios they carried. To Joe, Maggie might as well have been the only one in the room.
After one long minute, he couldnt stand the silence any longer. He walked up behind her and pressed a hand to her shoulder. Maggie, sit. I cant talk to you when you have your back to me.
Im sorry. Its just Her hand made a weak wave. I cant focus. I cant think. Then she turned and stared straight into his eyes. I want my son back. Oh, God, I want him back. Her head hung down and her shoulders shook with the force of silent sobs.
Joe stood helpless in the face of her grief. When words wouldnt come, he pulled her into his arms and pressed her face against his shoulder. He held her for a long time without speaking.
Its so cold outside, she whispered, her breath warm against his chest. They didnt even take his blanket. Burrowing against him, her tears soaked into his chambray shirt.
A twinge of jealousy skittered across his consciousness to be squelched in the rightness of a mothers tears for the son shed lost. The son shed had with Paul. Joe swallowed the knot of regret in his throat. Well find him.
WITH JOES ARMS around her, Maggie felt as though shed come home. Hope feathered the inside of her stomach. Even after her tears dried, she didnt lift her head, didnt want to move from the certainty of Joes embrace. She knew if she did, the gaping black horror of the past would rush back to overwhelm her.
Joe pressed a finger beneath her chin and tipped her face upward, breaking through her wall of thoughts. Maggie, what time did you notice Dakota missing?
The blinking red of her alarm clock pierced her clouded memory. Four-fifteen. I woke because it was cold in the house. They could have taken him between the time I went to bed around midnight and when I awoke. His touch made her want to lean on him and let him shoulder her burden. But this was Joe.
She jerked her chin out of his grip, hardening the heart shed given him freely once. If not for the loss of her son, she would have nothing to do with him. But despite the pain of her past, he was the only man she trusted to find her son alive. And shed sell her soul to the devil himself to get Dakota back.
Did you hear anything, see anything?
Shed answered all these questions for Delaney but Joe needed to know as much as he could to search for her son on the reservation. The FBI hadnt arrived yet, but Maggie would bet her sons life on Joe. She inhaled and let the air out slowly, combing through her barely conscious memories of the past hours. No. I didnt see or hear anything. Her voice caught and she bit hard on her lip to keep from shedding more tears.
She concentrated on Joe and it was as if she could see his thoughts churning in eyes so brown they could be black. His hair had started to grow out from his tour of duty with the South Dakota National Guard. He looked more like the tribal police officer shed known rather than the unbending military man shed seen at her husbands funeral.
Officer Toke stepped in the door and nodded toward Joe.
Maggie held her breath hoping for news. Something tangible.
Joe pushed to his feet and strode across the room. Did you find anything outside?
The man shook his head. The ground is hard and dry. Without snow, we couldnt trace footprints.
Maggie leaped to her feet and joined the men. What about fingerprints?
The police officer shook his head. Dusted and sent to the state crime lab. Takes time to identify each. Well need yours to match up.
She nodded but her shoulders sagged, the heavy burden of her failure pushing them down. How could they just come in and leave without a trace? I was in the house all the time, she whispered. A shiver rippled down her back.
Joe reached out and pulled her against him. Its not your fault, Maggie.
But I should have woken up.
His fingers tightened on her forearms. Well find him.
She stared up into his dark, swarthy face, his high cheekbones and strong chin, evidence of his power and ancestry. He was Lakota, one of the surviving members of a proud nation of Sioux warriors. If anyone could find her son, he could.