Navajo's Woman by Beverly Barton

thinks Joe Ornelas gives a damn about me. Yeah, sure, he cares what happens to you, but he's probably already got me pegged as guilty. He's not going to give me a break."
    "Uncle Joe's not like that."
    "Yeah, well, tell that to my father. Joe sure didn't give him a break, didhe. "
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    Eddie grabbed Russ's arm. "That guy who's after us killed theyataaliiand he would have killed us, too, if HosteenKieyoomia hadn't held him off until we could get away. For all we know, that guy is right behind us, following us, just waiting to kill us."
    Russ tugged on his arm, but Eddie held fast. "Let me go, will you? Nobody is following us. Don't you think I'd know if somebody was right behind us?"
    "I want to go home," Eddie said. "If you want to keep on running—"
    "No! You aren't going home and neither am I. Not yet. I have to call Jewel again. Maybe this time she won't hang up on me. Until she can back up our story, we have no way to prove that I didn't kill Bobby.
    And I can hardly go to her house. Her family knows the police are looking for us. Besides, I don't want to lead the killer to her and put her life in danger."
    "The police don't have any proof that you shot Bobby." Eddie tugged on Russ's arm again. "I thought we'd be safe at your great-uncle's house, but we weren't. We aren't safe anywhere."
    "Damn it, Eddie, will you quit bellyaching."
    When Russ jerked his arm free of Eddie's hold, he mo-mentarily lost control of the truck. The vehicle went ca-reening across the highway and straight through the guardrail. Both boys bounced forward.
    Russ's chest slammed into the steering wheel and Eddie's head thumped against the windshield as the truck came to a halt in a deep, rocky ditch.
    Joe wished he could read Andi's mind. After they left the Echo City police station, she didn't say two words to him and hadn't been particularly talkative since. But what had he expected? Had he thought she would thank him for not mentioning the fact that they had found Russ's wallet at the scene of the crime?
    Even now, he wasn't one hundred percent sure why he'd withheld the infor-mation. Was it because, just this once, he wanted to look like a hero in Andi's eyes again? Or was it because he thought he owed it to Russell to protect Russ? Hell, maybe it was just because he knew that telling the police he had evidence Russ was at the scene of the crime wouldn't help them solve Edmund Kieyoomia's murder. The police already suspected that the boys had been at the shaman's hogan, so why cloud the issue by throwing unjust suspicion on Russ? Whatever his true motivation had been, Joe felt guilty for not being totally honest.
    He and Andi had been on the road all night, after leav-ing the police station at well past one in the morning. He was taking them straight to his house where they could shower and change clothes, then they'd head out to J.T.'s ranch for a strategy meeting. He figured they would prob-ably reach his place within the next fifteen minutes. Dawn sunlight streaked across the eastern horizon in front of them, painting the sky with vivid color. He glanced quickly over at Andi and noted that she was still asleep. She was huddled in a ball, her knees drawn up and her arms crisscrossed over her stomach. She was lovely.
    Tired, probably hungry, with her hair slightly disheveled and her face void of makeup, Andrea Stephens was still a beautiful woman.
    Just catching shadowy glimpses of her in his peripheral vision as he'd been driving had whetted his appetite to see more of her. Despite her obstinance and hostility, he couldn't convince his body that she was the wrong woman for him. He wanted her.As much now as he had five years ago. Back then, he had been patient, willing to wait for her to decide when the time was right for them to become lovers. But that Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    was when he had hoped they might one day