“The kid would be taking a heck of a risk.”

The more Joe considered the idea, the more it made sense. “He thinks he’s smarter than we are. He thinks he’s above the law. He got caught several times for dealing, with barely a slap on the wrist. A track record like that might convince the kid he’s infallible, instead of realizing he owes it all to smooth lawyers and family money.”

“Maybe he’s not calling the shots at all, maybe his father is-did you ever think of that?”

“There’s nothing pointing that way, but if he were, it would be one more reason to focus on Graywolf land for the new site.” Joe got up and strode to his desk where he’d stacked the information they’d gotten from the land office, took out a map of the Navajo lands and spread it across his desk.

“And you said my desk is bad,” Arnie commented, trailing out to watch Joe quizzically. “Looks like you became a slob in my absence. What is all this?”

“Information.” Joe grabbed a section of maps and property documentation and thrust it toward his partner. “I needed to find out who owned that piece of land where Delaney was shot at, and Garcia brought a whole box of this stuff back from the land office. Start going through it. Maybe we can find something on the Graywolf holdings.”

Although he wasn’t looking up, he could hear the smirk in his friend’s voice. “Delaney? Would that be the lady you didn’t want on the reservation?”

Deliberately, Joe kept his gaze trained on the map. “Like you said, Charley and I had different opinions. It really doesn’t have anything to do with Carson.”

“Oh, really.” Arnie went to his desk with his pile of papers and sat down. “Seems to me that the case isn’t the only thing I need to be caught up on.”

But Joe wasn’t about to say anything further. Whatever this thing was between him and Delaney, it wasn’t something he wanted to share. It wasn’t even something he could easily identify to himself.

It’d be easy to tell himself that sex was all that bound them. Easy to accept the boundaries she’d so carefully laid out for their relationship. But it was hard to reconcile a casual no-strings liaison with the need that was beginning to burn in him at the oddest times when she wasn’t near. Or with the sense of contentment he felt with her curled up beside him, as she slipped uneasily into a troubled sleep.

It was dangerous for a man to allow a woman close enough to fill parts of himself he hadn’t realized were empty. And it was far more dangerous to let such a woman know that she wielded that kind of power. He had no intention of doing either. He knew Delaney Carson well enough to be certain that would frighten her at least as much as it did him.

The sunsets on the land of Dinetah would always remain the most spectacular in her memory. Delaney finally lowered her camera and sat down on the ground in back of her small house to enjoy the final display of crimson bleeding over the horizon. Her computer was already loaded with similar images, far more than she needed for the book. But the rest were for her. Brilliant washes of color to remind her of the Navajo custom of finding beauty all around them.

Saturday had been spent with Eddie in her first visit to Monument Valley. She’d quickly discovered how naive it had been to assume she could “see” a place so vast in one day, so they’d focused on the southern end, around Hunt’s Mesa. It had taken her four-wheel drive and some hiking to get them to the more inaccessible parts, but the landscape of lonely buttes and sculpted red rock formations had taken her breath away.

There had been a sort of sacredness about the place that quieted the spirit and hushed the soul. One that hinted of centuries-old ghosts and long-dead secrets. She’d been left with a lingering sense of sadness that she’d never truly understand what it meant to the Diné to stand in that place. And a sort of peace that came from being there at all.

Although she didn’t hear his approach, she felt a presence behind her and knew instinctively who it was. “You missed it,” she murmured. Shadows were spreading along the darkened horizon and the sky had grayed. “Do you ever get used to that kind of beauty day after day?”

He’d squatted down behind her. She could feel his breath in her hair and had the urge to lean against him, to feel his strength and warmth envelop her. She squelched the temptation. A woman who got too used to leaning on someone else could easily forget how to rely solely on herself.

“Grandfather would say that when a man stops seeing the beauty around him, he also stops seeing himself and his place in the world.”

“And what would Joe Youngblood say?” She didn’t know where this compulsion sprang from, to scratch below the surface for glimpses of the enigmatic man beneath.

“No,” he said simply. “I never get used to it.”

She would have been content to sit and watch the stars break through the night sky as it darkened but she sensed a restlessness in the man behind her. Rising, she dusted off her jeans as they headed to the house.

“I spent a day with Cowboy Nahkai,” she informed him as they entered the living room. The hours she’d spent with the older man had been an intriguing glimpse into a mystical part of the culture. The crystal gazer had explained his role as a diagnostician of various ailments, and the resulting recommendation for the proper ceremonies or chants to focus on healing.

“When people like Cowboy and other medicine people die, too often their knowledge dies with them. Already there are fewer ceremonies done than when I was a boy. Fewer chants remain well-known.”

“They need to be documented,” she said, horrified at the thought of traditions being lost forever.

“Applying for the job?” But where the words would have been caustic when they first met, she detected a note of teasing in them now.

“No. Even I can agree that it would be a job best done by a tribe member for the tribe.”

He sank heavily onto the sofa and for the first time she noted the fatigue on his face. It was evident that he’d been keeping long hours, and not for the reason she did, pushing herself to work until well after midnight hoping to drop into the bone-weary sleep of the exhausted.

“Are you hungry? I have…” She took mental inventory of her cupboards. “Peanut butter.”

“Tempting. But, no. I stopped at Charley’s before coming here.” He reached up for her hand and gave it a tug, so she sat on the arm of the sofa next to him. It didn’t escape her notice that he didn’t relinquish his hold on her, but laced their fingers together. “He rarely loses an opportunity to feed me, or to nag about proper nutrition.”

“He worries about you,” she murmured. He rested his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. She was tempted to smooth the lines from his face. Her free hand rose, hovered, before dropping into her lap again. She moistened her lips. “I can see it in his expression when he talks about your job. He’s proud of you, but he’s worried, too. He said…” She thought back, trying to recall the phrase correctly. “…that coyote is always out there waiting and coyote is always hungry.”

Coyote was a recurring figure in Navajo lore, appearing in most native legends, portrayed both as an essential figure that gave order to life, and an association with evil. If Charley had been referring to the dangers inherent in Joe’s job, she could certainly understand the reference.

He made a sound of agreement, although he didn’t open his eyes. “We have another saying, too. ‘It’s impossible to wake a man who is pretending to be asleep.’ I’m careful. I have to be. Charley knows that, but he’ll worry anyway.” He gave a fatalistic shrug.

He tugged on her hand, hard enough to have her tumbling into his arms and his eyes opened then, a satisfied glint in them. “The case might be coming to a head.”