Navajo Sunrise. Elizabeth Lane

      His black eyes flashed in warning,

      but when he met her gaze, Miranda was overcome by the strange tenderness she saw there. Something moved inside her, warming, unfolding like the bud of a flower. Her lips parted as she struggled to break the silence with words that would not come.

      “I know your heart is good, Miranda Howell,” Ahkeah said, “but your efforts to help the Dine will only make enemies for you—dangerous enemies, on both sides.”

      “Including you?”

      Time froze as he loomed above her, his eyes smoldering with unspoken secrets. His thin lips were sensually curved, his sharp bronze face much too close to her own.

      “Including me?” His husky voice echoed her question as his gaze held her captive. “Make no mistake, bilagaana woman. You and I have been enemies from the first moment we set eyes on each other.”

      Acclaim for Elizabeth Lane’s recent books

      Bride on the Run

      “Enjoyable and satisfying all around, BRIDE ON THE RUN is an excellent Western romance you won’t want to miss!”

      —Romance Reviews Today (romrevtoday.com)

      Shawnee Bride

      “A fascinating, realistic story.”

      —Rendezvous

      Apache Fire

      “Enemies, lovers, raw passion, taut sexual tension, murder and revenge—Indian romance fans are in for a treat with Elizabeth Lane’s sizzling tale of forbidden love that will hook you until the last moment.”

      —Romantic Times

      #607 HER DEAREST SIN

      Gayle Wilson

      #609 BRIDE OF THE ISLE

      Margo Maguire

      #610 CHASE WHEELER’S WOMAN

      Charlene Sands

      Navajo Sunrise

      Elizabeth Lane

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Available from Harlequin Historicals and

       ELIZABETH LANE

      Wind River #28

      Birds of Passage #92

      Moonfire #150

      MacKenna’s Promise #216

      Lydia #302

      Apache Fire #436

      Shawnee Bride #492

      Bride on the Run #546

      My Lord Savage #569

      Navajo Sunrise #608

      Other works include:

      Silhouette Romance

      Hometown Wedding #1194

      The Tycoon and the Townie #1250

      Silhouette Special Edition

      Wild Wings, Wild Heart #936

      Author Note

      Navajo culture is so rich and complex that an outsider, trying to describe it in a story, is bound to make mistakes. For any errors contained in this book, I ask the forgiveness of my readers and all those whom my words may have offended.

      Navajo Sunrise is set against a background of real historical events, but the story itself is the product of my own imagination. Except for Barboncito, Manuelito, Theodore H. Dodd and General William Tecumseh Sherman, the characters are fictitious and bear no resemblance to actual persons, living or dead.

      Elizabeth Lane

      Contents

       Prologue

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Epilogue

      Prologue

      New Mexico

      March, 1864

      Ahkeah stood in the cold moonlight, staring down at the grave the bilagáana soldiers had forbidden him to dig. His hands were raw and bleeding, the nails worn to stubs from scraping away the half-frozen earth. His eyes and throat stung as if he had just walked through a forest fire.

      Even now that the grave was finished, the top piled high with stones, he feared it might not be deep enough to protect his wife’s body from the marauding foxes and coyotes that would close in after he was gone. She had died that afternoon, on the fifth day of the long walk from Dinétah to the place the soldiers called Fort Sumner—died in agony, her body swollen with a child that would not have lived even if she’d had the strength to give it birth. The passing soldier who’d fired a bullet into her temple had probably done her a kindness. Even so, it had taken three of Ahkeah’s friends, gripping him from behind, to keep him from leaping on the blue-coat and tearing him apart with his bare hands.

      At the time he had wanted the soldier to shoot him as well. He had wanted nothing more than to lie on the icy ground beside the body of his sweet young wife, free from the burdens of grief and shame and from the hunger that gnawed at his vitals. But even then reason had whispered that it was his duty to live. There were people who needed him—his small daughter, Nizhoni, whose name meant beauty, and his mother’s elder sister, who had watched her entire family die on the cliffs at Canyon de Chelly, and had not spoken since. And there were others—so many others who needed his strength and his voice.

      The