Breaking Free: A Colorado High Country Crossover Novel, Pamela Clare [i can read book club .TXT] 📗

It had been a long time since Winona had cooked for a large number of people. At least twenty volunteers were camping up there, and Naomi felt the least she could do was feed them. “Are we sure that’s enough?”

“Naomi went over it with Joe.”

“Joe ought to know.” He was the owner of Knockers, the local brewpub and the center of Scarlet’s social scene. “Can I help?”

“This is the last box.” Chaska glanced at her, frowned. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep very well.” She left it at that.

But Chaska knew her too well. “You’re having nightmares again. You need to tell Old Man, let him help.”

“I don’t want to worry him. It’s been five years. I should be over this by now.”

Chaska rested his hands on her shoulders. “That’s not how it works.”

The front door opened, and Grandpa stepped outside, his long white hair pulled back in a braid, his new cowboy boots on his feet. He glanced up at the sky, smiled. “Le hinhanni ki wasté!” This morning is good!

At ninety-three, he seemed to have more energy than Winona did at thirty.

Chaska lowered his voice. “Talk to him.”

Naomi stepped out of the house, wearing a maternity T-shirt that read Growing My Tribe and had an arrow pointing to her bulging belly. She was only three weeks away from her due date and wanted to get as much done at the camp as she could before the baby was born.

She locked the door behind her. “Chaska, did you remember the salt and pepper? And what about the salsa?”

“Relax.” Chaska opened the vehicle’s front passenger door for her. “I packed everything on your list.”

They piled into the SUV, Chaska at the wheel, Naomi up front where there was more room, and Winona and Grandpa in the back.

“Will there be a lot of young Native men there?” Grandpa tried to sound casual, but Winona knew where he was going with this.

Naomi glanced back at Winona, a knowing smile on her face. “I think so. Kat’s Tohono O’odham friend from the Shadow Wolves is coming.”

Grandpa was clearly pleased with this news. “Maybe my granddaughter will meet a good, strong man today.”

Winona was torn between amusement and annoyance. “Grandpa, I’m sitting right here. You can talk to me. Just because there will be Native men around doesn’t mean I’m going to bump into Mr. Right. Most of them are probably already married. Besides, most of them come from out of state, and I won’t leave Scarlet.”

Grandpa said nothing, an impassive expression on his face.

It wasn’t that Winona didn’t want to meet her half-side—her perfect, matching male half. She would love to meet the right man and have what Chaska and Naomi had. But so far, fate hadn’t intervened on her behalf the way it had for them. The guys she’d dated in college had proved disappointing. The only men in Scarlet who interested her were on the Team or married, and those were lines she wouldn’t cross.

Chaska met Winona’s gaze in the rearview mirror, an amused grin on his face. “It’s best not to meddle, Old Man.”

But Grandpa was serious. “I want my granddaughter to be happy. I want to see her with a good man before I make the journey.”

“What if I like women instead?”

Grandpa turned his face toward her, likely trying to decide whether she was coming out or just being contrary. “If you were a winkte, a Two-Spirit person, I would honor that, too and would want to see you settled with the right Two-Spirit woman. I just want you to be safe and happy.”

“I know.” Winona squeezed his hand, unable to stay annoyed with him for long. Two months ago, she’d come close to losing both him and Chaska.

Jason drove while McBride sat in the passenger seat, tools and camping gear in the back. Jason had known McBride would ask eventually. They were both federal agents who had worked the line. If anyone besides his fellow Wolves would understand what Jason had done, it was McBride.

“They had tried to brush out the vehicle’s tracks, but I caught it.”

“Of course, you did.”

“I called the others, and we moved in to surround them.” The Wolves functioned as a pack, hunting together to bring down criminals who trafficked in drugs and human beings. “We didn’t want them to hit the hardball—the highway—and escape again.”

Once traffickers reached the highway, it was much harder to stop them. An SUV loaded with coke was a lot easier to spot in the desert than in traffic.

Jason passed a car with Illinois plates. “Ren flanked them. I came up in front. Ellio and Dale cut them off at the rear. We moved in, but no one was there. We thought they had abandoned the vehicle.”

Traffickers often chose to dump their cargo rather than risk capture.

“What were they carrying?”

“Thirty kilos of uncut cocaine.”

Zach gave a low whistle. “That’s what—five million on the street?”

“Something like that. Ren and I went after them, following boot prints, but they hadn’t gone far. They ambushed us, opened fire, hitting Ren in the belly. I took one out, but the other rabbited, heading south again.”

“You pursued.”

Jason nodded. “Once I saw that Ellio and Dale were taking care of Ren, I pursued on foot. His trail was easy to follow, but he knew the landscape as well as I did. When we got close to the line, he started to run. He thought he was home free.”

“You followed him to the other side, crossed the border.”

“Hell, yes, I did. I’m TO and a dual citizen. That land belongs to our people, even if it is in Mexico. The bastard had just shot a federal agent on TO land. I wasn’t going to let him get away.”

“I get it. I do. I’ve worked black bag jobs on the other side of the line, bringing high-value suspects across the border in secret. I called it ‘unofficial extradition.’ If you don’t get caught,