Thunder Horse Heritage. Elle James

suppose you tell me why the hell a dead woman is holding me at gunpoint.”

      * * *

      JULIA GASPED, HER heart squeezing so tightly in her chest she couldn’t breathe. “Shut up.”

      “Who are you?” Tuck Thunder Horse stalked toward her, closing the distance between them. “I watched the coroner zip the body bag on Julia Anderson.”

      Julia raised her empty hand to her ear, tears filling her eyes. “Shut up,” she whispered. She’d suspected her sister was already dead, but having it confirmed stole her breath away. Her body trembled, the tremors becoming more violent until she shook so hard she could barely stand. “Shut up.”

      “No. I will not shut up until you tell me what’s going on.”

      Julia swallowed hard, knowing that in order to keep herself and her baby safe, she had to hold it together. Had to get Tuck Thunder Horse to take her and Lily into his protection, or they’d die before she could get them away from Fort Yates.

      Die just like her twin sister.

      “I am Julia Anderson. You and I were married over a year ago. I filed for an annulment the next day.” A lump of emotion lodged in her throat. Her sister lay on a cold, hard slab in the morgue. She’d already lost one of the only two people she had left in this world. She’d be damned if she let anyone hurt Lily. And Tuck was the only one she trusted to help protect her baby.

      Tuck’s jaw tightened, a tic flickering in the left side. “If you’re Julia, then who the hell was in the body bag?”

      The baby wrapped snugly against Julia’s belly stirred and whimpered. Lily, sweet Lily, the love of her life, her reason for living.

      Julia coughed to cover the sound of the child’s whimper. “That was my twin sister, Jillian. Whoever killed her will be after me next.”

      “What?” Tuck shoved a hand through his hair, her revelation hitting home. He really hadn’t known anything about Julia when he’d married her. “You expect me to believe you had a twin?”

      Julia jerked the hat from her head and let her long blond hair fall down around her shoulders. She and her sister had been identical twins, Jillian arriving two minutes before Julia. Their mother had told them that Jillian had arrived kicking and screaming, Julia in a more sedate manner, calm and angelic. “Did she look just like me?”

      The man studied her face, his gaze traveling from the tip of her head down the length of her body. “Hard to say when you’re covered from head to foot.”

      Julia dropped the hat on the floor and slid her free hand beneath the shawl. Patting the bundle around her middle, she hesitated, reluctant to spring the next shock on a man who already didn’t trust a word she said. “Well, it’s true. We were sisters.” The ready tears sprang to her eyes, and she dashed them away with the edge of the shawl.

      “Do you know what happened to her?” Tuck asked, his voice hard.

      Julia nodded.

      “Do you know why?” he asked next.

      “Yes. That’s why I called you.”

      “Why me? Why contact me after all this time?”

      She drew in a long, steadying breath. The time had come to tell him the rest of the story. “We need help.”

      “We? Seems a little late for your sister.”

      Julia winced, actually hating this man for a minute for his callousness. Still, maybe it was better that he could be so calm, so detached. Heaven knew she couldn’t—not with so much at stake. Her sister was dead. She could be next. Her baby was at risk. All of that meant she had to convince Tuck to protect them. “I’m in trouble and need help.”

      “What makes you think I’ll help you?” He glared at her. “You didn’t want anything to do with me a year ago. You didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye.”

      Guilt lay heavily on Julia’s heart, but the strong sense of protectiveness she’d developed since the birth of her daughter won out. Protecting her daughter was more important to her than anything. For Lily’s sake, she would take whatever harsh words this man chose to throw at her. Besides, she knew she deserved them. Sneaking out of the hotel room, running off with no explanation and ending their marriage long-distance, without laying eyes on the man again… It had been a weak, cowardly thing to do. She knew that. But now she had no choice but to be brave—for her baby’s sake, if not for her own.

      With a deep, indrawn breath, Julia laid the gun on the television console and, grasping the corner of the shawl, lifted it up over her head, dropping it to the floor.

      For several seconds, Tuck studied her, his brow furrowing. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stared at her middle.

      Then Lily moved, a tiny hand peeking out from the fabric of the sling, waving in the air.

      “Tuck Thunder Horse, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but meet Lily.” Julia swallowed hard and continued, “Your baby girl.”

       Chapter Three

      All the air left Tuck’s lungs in a whoosh, and the image of the baby wavered like a mirage on hot desert terrain.

      As quickly as his vision blurred, anger raged, red-hot and fiery, erupting through his body. “How dare you threaten me—with a gun or a baby. Do you really expect me to believe that this baby is mine?” He poked a finger at the woman’s chest. “Even if you’re telling the truth about your twin and you really are Julia, why should that make me trust you? You weren’t all that trustworthy when you married me and then walked out on me less than a day later. Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe anything you have to say to me?”

      She hugged the child to her chest and then loosened her hold, titling her forward so that Tuck could see her face.

      Nestled in a pink fluffy blanket, the infant’s mouth moved in a soft sucking motion, her shock of thick black hair stealing Tuck’s anger, sucking the fire right out of his veins.

      “She looks like you,” Julia whispered. “She has your hair, your dark skin…your eyes.” Just as she said the words, the baby blinked up at him with dark orbs, already losing their baby blue for the ink-black so typical of the Thunder Horse family’s Lakota heritage.

      Tuck’s chest squeezed so tightly, he could barely draw in air. The baby did look like him. “So, she has black hair.” He fought the urge to reach out and touch the baby’s rosy cheek. “That doesn’t mean she’s mine.”

      “She’s four months old.” Julia stared across the baby at him. “You do the math.” His ex-wife reached around her neck with one hand and fumbled with the knot holding the sling, while balancing the baby in her other arm. When she had the sling loose, she handed the child across to Tuck.

      He hesitated and drew back, his hands dropping to his sides.

      “Hold her. She won’t bite.” Julia shoved the baby at him, giving him no choice but to take the squirming bundle.

      He grasped the baby, holding her out like an alien being. Then Tuck stared at the infant girl, who stared back at him, her dark hair and dark eyes so very much like his own.

      Then she smiled, the mere quirk of those tiny lips and cherubic cheeks nearly bringing Tuck to his knees.

      His hands shook. Rather than drop the baby, he brought her close to his body and cradled her against his chest. “Are you sure?” Tuck glanced up at the woman standing across from him.

      Julia’s lips trembled, her eyes glistening with tears. “Never more certain.”

      “Why didn’t you tell me?”

      She sighed. “I didn’t know I was pregnant until two months after we met…and then it snowballed, all happening so quickly.” She gulped, her head dipping low. “One minute I was a