The Bride Price. Suzanne Carey

partner was. Or that he wasn’t looking particularly pleased with himself.

      At last she’d had all she could take. Excusing herself, she headed for the ladies’ room, only to dart out again when she overheard sandbox chitchat about David and Suzy coming from several of the stalls. To her relief, a different ladies’ room on the opposite side of the bar turned out to be deserted. She was able to hide out there for a few minutes in peace and pull herself together.

      Despite her efforts, she was still looking a little grim as she headed back toward the party through the bar, navigating in her spike heels between its deserted, miniature dance floor and the rust-colored club chairs that surrounded a half dozen tables. Intent on maintaining some semblance of indifference, she didn’t notice the tall, dark-haired man in evening clothes who was lounging against the bar until he reached for her arm.

      To her astonishment, David had abandoned his date and escaped for a solitary beer.

      “I thought you’d gone,” he said, a world of surprise and pleasure in his deep, husky voice. “Stay. Have a drink with me. We ought to talk.”

       Chapter Three

      The moment spun out, gossamer thin, brimming with possibilities, yet as easily ravaged as a spider’s web, tentatively connecting them. What about your date? she longed to ask. Won’t she be miffed if she finds us with our heads together?

      If she refused his invitation, or turned it into an occasion for sarcasm, she would never know what he wanted to talk to her about. Or if he’d have offered some explanation for walking out on her. The ache in her heart might continue to fester.

      Deciding to accept, she slid onto the stool next to his and placed her small faille clutch purse on top of the bar. When he retook his seat, their knees were almost touching.

      “What would you like?” he asked in the soft, deep voice that had figured in so many of her dreams. “A margarita?”

      He’d fixed margaritas for them in the shabby trailer he’d called home when he was working for her father.

      Having barely touched her champagne during the bevy of toasts that had been drunk to honor Big Jim’s forty years of service, Kyra thought it would be all right to indulge. “Sounds good,” she agreed, the toe of her left shoe accidentally brushing his trouser hem as she crossed her legs.

      Storing away the small, inadvertent intimacy, he ordered, remembering precisely how she liked her tequila and lime concoctions—with just a dash of triple sec. He gave her a chance to taste the drink’s tart coolness before initiating any further conversation.

      “Ironic, isn’t it, that we’ve met again because of another Naminga case?” he said at last, holding her captive with his light, unreadable gaze. “Did you hear what happened to Leonard in prison?”

      It wasn’t the tack she’d expected him to take. Apprehensively she shook her head. Well aware of the kind of atrocities that took place in prisons, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

      “He was gang-raped,” David supplied. “He no longer speaks.”

      “How horrible!” she whispered, briefly shutting her eyes. “Poor, poor Leonard. He didn’t deserve to be locked up like that…let alone what happened to him in that awful place. He must be so confused, so deeply humiliated…”

      Her compassion for others, particularly the fragile and downtrodden, was one of the things that had always attracted him to her. In his opinion, she had boundless heart for a gringa—more than most people he’d met.

      “Promise me that if you begin to think Paul could be innocent, you’ll help me uncover the truth,” he requested.

      “Of course,” she said. “Dad would do the same.”

      The answer was too glib, too easily proffered. He wanted her word. Short of that, there’d be no basis for them to start afresh. It would be difficult enough to reach common ground, he realized, given the way he’d walked out on her five years earlier, without a word of explanation.

      “I’m not asking him. I’m asking you,” he said, wondering how and when she would let him apologize. If he could make her see that he’d done what he had partly for her sake…

      She was silent a moment, absorbing the remarkable force of his will, which was trained on her like a laser. Instead of explaining, or saying he was sorry, he was making demands. Incredibly she was inclined to give him what he wanted.

      “Okay, I promise,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do, after all. Satisfied?”

      His mouth curved in the ironic half smile she remembered. “It would take a lot more than that to satisfy me, White Shell Woman,” he said.

      It was another one of the love names he’d used for her, and she cringed a little, even as the endearment sank like rain into the soul place where she longed for him. Just to be near him again, to hear his voice and catch the downward sweep of his lashes when he was marshaling an argument or reserving comment, was a kind of apotheosis for her.

      She couldn’t let him waltz back into her life without explaining his actions and making amends, the way someone might walk into a house they’d trashed and abandoned, nonchalantly reclaiming it. Or talk about sex as if it were a possibility for them. Unfortunately for her resolve, everything about him was still perfect, exactly the way she liked it, from his air of compressed energy to the graceful halfmoons of his fingernails.

      “I don’t think…” she began.

      A familiar voice, originating in the hall that led to the room where Big Jim’s party was still in progress, interrupted them. “There’s been a five-car accident on the interstate west of town and Red has to leave,” Flossie Miner said, glancing from her to David and back again. “I just wanted to say good-night. Call me in the morning, darling, if you have a chance.”

      “Will do,” Kyra promised, dreading the well-meaning questions she was likely to face.

      After Flossie left, she had to get back to the party before she and David became an item and her effectiveness in helping her father was seriously compromised. Kyra told herself she hoped she wasn’t retreating out of cowardice.

      It’s not the time or the place to set things straight, thought David, though his heart was eager for that. We need a chance to be alone, without distractions or interruptions. Accordingly, he didn’t argue when she said that perhaps she’d better be getting back. It was her father’s special evening, after all. She belonged with him.

      Still, he was too determined to have her after all the time they’d spent apart to let her completely off the hook. She was about to get to her feet when, suddenly, he reached across the space between them to cover her hands with his.

      “You’ve probably heard I have a ranch north of town, on Route 89 near the San Francisco Peaks,” he said. “My name’s on the mailbox. Come anytime. I’ll show you around.”

      

      Riding home the short distance that separated the country club from her father’s house in his Lincoln Town Car, Kyra listened with half an ear to his running commentary about who’d said what and to his retelling of several of the jokes she’d missed.

      “Several people told me they saw you sitting in the bar, playing patty-fingers with David,” Big Jim said, changing the subject as they pulled into the drive and he raised the garage door with a flick of his automatic opener. “Say it isn’t so.”

      “I stopped to talk with him for a few minutes, if that’s what you mean,” she admitted. “I could hardly avoid it. He was sitting there when I walked through on my way back from the rest room.”

      Her father was silent for a moment as he drove into the garage and switched off the engine. Then he said, “I hope