In the Barren Ground (40 page)

It also killed her that she’d not been able to save Mindy.

Not saving Mindy was the ultimate failure. She’d become a cop to save young women like Mindy.

Saturday, December 1. Day length: 5:35:58 hours.

“What are they like?” Marcie said as she handed Tana her take-out sandwich and cup of soup to go. “The new station commander and the new constable?”

“They seem nice enough.”

Corporal Mark Saggart had been posted to Twin Rivers on a two-year contract to run the station, and Constable James Weston was now Tana’s new partner. It was good to finally have a team. She felt she’d get on with these guys. There were also still detectives in town, going through the old wolf mauling cases in minute detail. Tana had been brought into the investigation herself, after being preliminarily cleared following extensive interviews with the RCMP’s internal division over her handling of events, and over Jankoski’s and Mindy’s deaths.

There would still be an inquest, and half the town was being questioned in preparation for that, but the picture emerging from Chief Peters, his band council, and his constituents, was that given the lack of police personnel in town, and the fact that an ERT request had been turned down by Sergeant Leon Keelan, they’d taken it upon themselves to hunt down Heather MacAllistair, who’d kidnapped one of their own, and who had killed Crow TwoDove and also taken Crash. According to them, Tana had done her best to mitigate things in the only way available to her while civilian lives were at stake and the clock was ticking.

“Why did they send two cops?” Marcie asked.

Because after Addy had done an ultrasound, and after Tana had learned she was going to have a baby girl, she’d finally put in for maternity leave. They’d need a spare hand on deck when she took a few months off. Tana had told a few people in town about her baby now, and she bet Marcie knew exactly why they needed extra staff—gossip moved like wind through trees in a small place like Twin Rivers. Alexa Peters had already offered to babysit. Alexa had been excited by the idea of potentially opening a small day-care center next year. She was already looking after her grandson, Tootoo, she’d said, so why not a few more?

“They figured Twin Rivers needed more attention,” Tana said with a smile, holding Marcie’s eyes. And Marcie grinned broadly. Yeah, she knew about the baby, thought Tana as she left the diner.

She made for the station liking the fact she had a new crew, liking the fact that it had been hinted at that once Corporal Saggart’s contract was over, she could potentially be in line to run this department. It gave her a fierce new goal—to keep building on what she’d started here, to keep forging closer relationships with this community, to keep growing her policing skills. Her thoughts turned to Crash once more as she crunched through the frosted snow.

He’d called yesterday from the Yellowknife airport, saying he’d finally been released from the hospital and that he felt fine, and he was on his way to New York. He was taking his files and he was going to meet with his contact in the FBI. The Interpol guy from Frankfurt would be flying into New York for their meeting as well. Crash was also going to visit Grace and Leah. He didn’t say much more than that. His flight had been about to leave.

But his absence was loud in her heart. She missed him as much as she missed Jim. And yeah, it ate at her that he was seeing Leah and Grace. She also knew it was right for him to do so. For Leah and Grace, too. Part of his healing process.

She guessed she’d see down the road how things played out now for Garth Cutter, Alan Sturmann-Taylor, Markus Van Bleek, and Harry Blundt.

Her dogs were waiting for her on the police station deck. They wiggled and wagged their tails as they saw her approach.

“Hey, guys,” she said, ruffling the thick fur at their necks. “Good thing the new cops love dogs, eh?” She opened the door. Warmth and smiles greeted her, and her pooches followed her in.

CHAPTER 48

Late February. Day length: 9:32:16 hours.

“Here sweetie, it’s okay, come on.” Tana crouched awkwardly on her haunches in her puffy down jacket and snow pants, trying to coax the skinny old husky out from under the deck of her little cabin with some raw meat. It was a frigid February afternoon, the sun making its pale and low arc across the northern sky, casting long shadows and putting sparkle into all that was frozen.

Crow TwoDove’s old dog ventured cautiously out from under the deck in a crouch. It came toward Tana’s outreached hand, tail between its legs. The emaciated animal had been seen along the outskirts of town several weeks after it had apparently been set free by Heather MacAllistair. And several days ago Tana realized the dog had been hanging around her cabin, perhaps attracted by the scent of the food she’d been feeding her own dogs on her porch. She’d moved back into the little log cabin by the river when Saggart had arrived, and she was incredibly happy here, with her view over the waters of the Wolverine, and the forest and sky beyond its banks. She’d sit sometimes at night, swathed in warm gear, her dogs at her side, just watching the northern lights play across that great, wide open sky. And although the nights were still long, the earth had started its tilt toward summer.

“The curtains are opening again,” Marcie had said. “Soon it will be light again—and it will all be right.”

The dog took the meat from Tana’s hand. She was surprisingly gentle, full of scars. Tana gave her another piece from the container she had with her. “What’s going on in your head, sweetie?” she said as the dog chewed and wagged her tail ever so slightly. “Bet you don’t miss being tied up, eh? But it must be hard out there all on your own.” Tana stilled, besieged suddenly by a sensation that she was being watched. The dog scuttled off into the leafless, frosted scrub. Slowly, Tana looked over her shoulder. Her heart kicked.

Crash.

He stood there, shopping bags in hand, breath misting about his face. Tana came slowly, awkwardly to her feet. His gaze went straight to her huge belly, then back up to her face.

“Damn, you look good, Constable,” he said as he came forward, that old Crash grin cutting into his craggy and freshly scarred face, his green eyes sparking. And her heart crunched, then kicked a burst of adrenaline, anticipation, through her blood. “Don’t think I’ve seen you out of uniform before,” he said.

She gave a self-conscious shrug. “One down jacket and ski pants is much like any other, especially in my shape.”

“How long now?”

“Any day.”

“You on leave?”

She nodded, heart racing. Her eyes burned. She’d hadn’t dared believe that he really would return to her. She’d been too badly burned too many times, and now, seeing him here, in the flesh, was overwhelming.

He hesitated, then came forward and gave her a kiss on her cheek. She stilled, met his eyes. He swallowed. “It’s good to see you, Tana,” he said. “Really good. It’s been too long.”

Reaching up, she gently touched the new scars that clawed red down the side of his face. “They didn’t do a bad job,” she said.

“Didn’t do a good one, either.”

“You okay?”

He grinned again. “Yeah. I’m good. Who’s the old dog?” He nodded toward the bush where the husky had vanished.

“Crow’s. We all thought the animal was a he, but turns out it’s a she, and she’s been hanging around my cabin a few days now. I’ve started feeding her. I think she’s sleeping under my deck nights, but she’s always gone in the morning before I let my guys out. They don’t get on.”

“So where are Max and Toyon?”

“Inside. I keep them in there when I feed her so as not to spook her off.”

He turned, taking in her view. “Nice.”

And under the inanities so much more simmered. Tana barely trusted her own voice.

“I . . . I like it. Maybe I’ll try a veggie garden when it gets warm. Don’t know how that will go—I’ve never had a garden. It’s a good place to raise Destiny, though.”

His gaze shot to her. “Destiny?”

She grinned, nervously. “Yeah. Sappy, huh? But . . . it . . . it’s real. She brought me here.”

“A girl?”

She nodded. And his eyes glistened. “Congrats,” he said, then hesitated as if wanting to say more. Instead he turned away and looked out over the river again. And Tana knew he was thinking about his own unborn baby girl. About Gracie, too. She had so much she wanted to ask him, yet she felt uneasy about just how much to pry, and where they would go from here.

“Want to come in?” she said.

“Thought you’d never ask.” He held up the packets in his hand. “I told you I make a good venison stew, remember?”

She held his eyes, a whole world of emotion surging silent and fierce between them.

“Bottle of red wine for simmering,” he said. “Button mushrooms, baby carrots, onions, garlic. Fresh fruit for dessert. Beer. Juice. What am I missing?”

“Nothing,” Tana said, voice thick. “Nothing at all.”

They sat on her small sofa in front of a crackling fire, Max and Toyon at their socked feet. The sky outside had turned dark indigo, and soft waves of aurora played over the horizon. The stew simmered in her kitchen, and Crash sipped a glass of red wine. He was warm and solid beside her. He felt good. He smelled good. She liked the look of him—the new scars and lines on his face were like a map of his past, and Tana understood people with messy pasts. They made her feel more comfortable than those with blank slates who seemed to be doing everything right. Whatever “right” was. And those fresh scars on his cheek knitted directly into her own life—made her part of him. They told of a crucible through which they’d both emerged profoundly changed.

“So, I heard Van Bleek and Sturmann-Taylor were taken in for questioning last week,” she said, leaning into him.

“Yeah, a joint FBI, Interpol, and RCMP op. Cutter was also officially brought in yesterday.”

Her eyes flared to his. Her pulse quickened. “So he’s been linked?”

He nodded, sipped his wine. “It looks like Cutter was the leak that sent the Vancouver diamond deal sideways. He couldn’t allow the marked FBI diamonds to enter the system, because he knew they’d lead right back to his involvement in the laundering operation here in the Territories, so he fed information through a fellow cop to the low-level snitch in Vancouver, who in turn fed it to the VPD.”

“And Sturmann-Taylor, and Van Bleek?”

“Interpol is working through Sturmann-Taylor’s finances and contacts, and it’s becoming clear he’s involved in the syndicate, if not the kingpin. I suspect the investigators will get there eventually. Van Bleek is being charged with some industry-related murders in South Africa, and the Congo. It appears he was setting up to run conflict diamonds through Harry Blundt’s new mine, feeding raw stones into the future WestMin haul out of Ice Lake.”

“So Blundt is innocent?”

“So far. He looks like he was a pawn. Sturmann-Taylor was just wooing him, and providing half the financing for the Ice Lake exploration via his subsidiaries.” Crash got up from the sofa and made his way to the kitchen with his glass. He poured some more wine, and offered her some.

“I’m good with soda,” she said.

He stirred his stew and tasted it. That grin of his that she was coming to love so much cut across his face again. “Now, this
is
good.”

She got up from the sofa, came over, and he brought a spoonful to her mouth, spilling some on the way in. She laughed, and wiped her lips as she swallowed. “Damn right it’s good.”

He stilled as he watched her mouth, watched her laugh. And Tana suddenly wanted to kiss him. She looked away quickly, opened the fridge, took out a cold soda that she didn’t really need but she had a desperate urge to keep busy, keep moving. To not look into his eyes right now because what she felt for him scared her. It was too soon. Too deep. Too big. She was not ready. Or was she?

She
had
to prove to herself that she was properly stable and on her own two feet. She needed to be there for Destiny one hundred percent.

“How’d it go with Grace and Leah?” she asked without looking at him as she made her way back to the sofa.

He was silent a moment, before coming slowly over to the fire, and reseating himself beside her.

“I’m glad I did it—that I went to see them.”

She raised her gaze, met his eyes.

Crash inhaled deeply. “It was awkward initially. But Grace was keen to meet me. I took her out for lunch, and we walked around the city. She showed me her school.” He paused for a long while. “It was a bridge, Tana. It was forging a connection between the past I’d cut off, and the present. And it’s a way into the future for all of us—Grace, Leah, me—a way to put things to rest, and to keep moving forward.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I needed to do it, and I feel good that I did.” He held her eyes. “I had to own my mistakes. She’s going to come visit.”

“Grace?”

“In the summer. Leah okayed it.” A hesitant smile crossed his face, and something deep changed in his eyes. “I’m going to teach her to fly, like my dad taught me. I’m going to learn how to be a father.”

Emotion sideswiped Tana, hard. She swallowed at the intensity coming off him, the hopeful, nervous energy she felt inside herself. She touched the back of his hand tentatively. He looked down at her fingers against his skin. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered.

Without meeting her eyes, he said, “And I’ve been cleared to fly for the Twin Rivers RCMP detachment. I signed the contract last week.”

When she made no response, he looked up into her face.

“Tana?”

She sniffed and swiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Damn hormones,” she said with a thick laugh.

He cupped the side of her face, and his thumb, rough, moved across her bottom lip. “I told you,” he whispered. “I’m your man. I’ve got your back. We’re going to find a way to make it work up here, you and me.”

She nodded, and he leaned forward and pressed his mouth over hers. She tasted him, his wine, the salt of her own tears. Heat washed through her and her bones turned limp as she drowned into his kiss, opening to him. His hand slid down her back as he drew her close against his hard body.

The next morning Tana stood on her porch watching Crash feed Crow’s old husky. The dog wiggled and licked his hand.

“I think she likes you,” she said.

“I think she does.”

Crash had stayed the night. They’d eaten in front of the fire, and after they’d kissed, he had not pushed her for more. And she’d loved him for it.

As much as she craved a deeper physical connection with Crash, for far too long she’d resorted to sex as a way of numbing herself. Of coping. And she wanted this to be different. Slow. She wanted it to be real. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa in his arms. Later, he’d come with her to bed where he’d just held her and her baby bump, and Tana didn’t think she’d ever felt anything more intimate in her life. She’d felt loved. She’d felt trust. She’d felt as though she had nothing to hide from this man. And he’d given her everything about himself.

He came to his feet. “I should go. I’ve got a flight run. Later?”

She smiled and nodded. “Tonight. And this time I cook. Or . . . try.”

He grinned, cast her a salute, and he started down the frosted path along the frozen river. The dog followed him.

“Hey,” she called out after him. “I think you’ve got a friend.”

He stood looking at her for a long moment, and then said, “Yeah, I do.”

“I meant the dog, goof.”

He dropped his hand to his thigh, and the husky sniffed and licked it. “I tell you what,” he called out to her. “If she follows me all the way home, I might give her a place to stay.”

Tana smiled and waved. And she watched the scarred old husky follow the scarred man into the frozen morning. Crash was picking up another stray. He was a good man. A special man. She thought about second chances, and how everyone, everything, deserved them. No matter how broken they seemed, there was always hope.

There would be challenges ahead. Giving birth. Being a mom. Her career—dealing with Damien and his gang, the community. The inquest. Learning to be with Crash—learning how to fully open herself to love, which was still, honestly, as terrifying as it was deliriously exhilarating. But it was the stuff of life. Already there’d been a community celebration of Mindy’s life. Crash had phoned in from the hospital for that.