LITMIR.BIZ

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such a loop. She met Joe White Thunder and Emily Mankiller outside the conference room. “Did Judy tell you it’s a new guy?” she said as she kissed her aunt on the cheek.

      Joe’s eyes sparkled, and in that second, Rosebud saw the man who’d occupied Alcatraz back in the day. Some days, she longed to have known old Joe back when he raised a lot of hell, but she appreciated who he was now—a tribal elder whose vote carried a lot of weight. “I knew that last one was no match for you.”

      Rosebud blushed under the compliment as Aunt Emily shook her head at Joe in disapproval. Aunt Emily had never been one for disobedience, civil or otherwise. “You’re making a dent, dear, but don’t get overconfident.”

      Whatever, Rosebud thought as she nodded in deferential agreement. Cecil Armstrong had thrown the best lawyers money could buy at her, and she was not only holding them off, she was officially irritating that man. “I know. You guys remember what to do?”

      Joe playfully socked her in the arm. “How, kemo sabe.” And then his face went blank and Rosebud stood in front of the stereotypical Stoic Indian. Joe wouldn’t say a single thing today. His job was intimidating silence. Rosebud knew he wouldn’t even look at Dan Armstrong. If there was one thing self-important lawyers hated, it was being ignored. It drove them to distraction, and a distracted lawyer was a defeated lawyer.

      Aunt Emily sighed. Rosebud knew she hated these meetings, hated all the haggling and hated it when Joe acted like a fake Indian. But she hated the idea of Armstrong Holdings flooding the rez more. “We’re ready.”

      Here we go, Rosebud thought to herself as she opened the door. Her blood started to pump with excitement. Another adversary was another battle, and Rosebud was confident she could win the battles. She honestly didn’t know if she could win the war with Cecil Armstrong, but she could slow him down for years.

      The first thing she noticed was that Dan Armstrong was standing. His back was to the door and he was looking out the conference room’s sliver of a window. The prick of irritation was small. She preferred her victim to be sitting in the chair that was two inches shorter than the others, with the bum wheel that gave the chair an unexpected wobble with every movement.

      What she noticed next erased the irritation. Dan Armstrong was tall without being huge, his shoulders easily filling out the heathered brown sport coat. The brown leather yokes on his shoulders made his back seem even broader. She could see the curl in his close-cropped hair, the light from the window making it glow a golden-brown.

      She caught her breath. Johnson he wasn’t—in fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a real man in this building, a man who looked like he belonged out on the open range instead of in a dark little office. Hell, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a real man outside of this office.

      And then he turned around.

      Him. The breath she’d caught was crushed out of her chest. Suddenly she felt vulnerable, the kind of vulnerable that comes from making a mistake and then thinking she’d gotten away with it, only to be caught red-handed.

      She was screwed.

      He must have noticed her confusion, because he smiled the kind of smile a man wore when he knew exactly what effect he had on a woman. The implied arrogance—and not recognition—was enough to snap Rosebud out of her momentary terror. She might know who he was, but he didn’t seem to recognize her. And if there were no witnesses, who was to say that a crime had occurred?

      “Mr…. Armstrong, is it?” she began, striding into the room like she couldn’t be bothered to remember his name. That’s right, she thought as she drew herself up to her full height in three-inch heels, there wasn’t a single thing wrong with any of this. Except he had a good four inches on her. “I’m Rosebud Donnelly, the lawyer for the Red Creek Lakota Indian reservation.”

      “A pleasure, ma’am.” Oh, he had a faint drawl, a way of stretching out his vowels that sounded like warm sunshine. Ma’am had never sounded as good as it did coming out of his mouth. Armstrong lifted a hand as if to tip his hat, but then appeared to realize that he wasn’t wearing one. Instead, he swung his hand down and offered it out to her. Rosebud wondered if he’d gone back for the hat she’d seen fly off his head, or if it was still out there. She’d have to check tonight. No hat, no crime.

      Rosebud thanked God she’d done this enough to go on autopilot, because her head was swimming. Not one of the last three lawyers had even sniffed at a polite introduction. She let the seconds stretch as his hand hung in the air. Normally, she let her hand loosely clasp the other person’s—all the better to create an impression of weakness—but not this time. This time, she felt an intense need to be in control of this situation. She returned his grip, noting that his hand was warm, but not sweaty. He wasn’t nervous at all. She was going to have to do better, so she gave him her best bone-crushing shake.

      He tilted his head to one side as if he was questioning her. Eyes the color of the sky right before a twister measured her with something that looked a hell of a lot like respect. God only knew what his uncle had told him about her—it probably started with ball-buster and ended with bitch. As the heat from his hand did a slow crawl up her arm, she had the sudden urge to tell him that she really wasn’t like that.

      Which was ridiculous—the whole point of this little introduction was to demonstrate that she was exactly like that. No wonder Judy had warned her about this one.

      She stepped away from him, pulling her hand with her. He tried to keep his grip for just a second, then the firm pressure was gone. She shivered, but forced herself to forge ahead. “This is Joseph White Thunder, a tribal elder, and Councilwoman Emily Mankiller.” Yes. Formal introductions were the next step. She needed to get back on track here.

      Emily must have sensed Rosebud’s hesitation, because she stepped into the gap. “Mr. Armstrong,” she began as she and Joe took their seats without shaking hands, “are you familiar with the Treaty of 1877 between the United States government and the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Sioux tribes of South Dakota?”

      “Ma’am,” Armstrong replied with a polite half bow as he sat down. Rosebud smiled internally as the whole thing tilted off-kilter and he clawed at the table to keep his balance. Still, he managed to sound nonplussed as he said, “I can’t say that I am.”

      Thank God for that. Aunt Emily was one of the few women on this reservation with a master’s degree in American history, and her role in this little meeting was to wear the adversary down with a complete recounting of the wrongs the Lakota Indians had suffered back in the day at the hands of the American government, and now, thanks to corporations such as Armstrong Holdings. Rosebud had about forty minutes to get her head together.

      Aunt Emily droned on while Joe stared at a spot on the wall just over Armstrong’s head. Rosebud unpacked her files and began reviewing her notes from the last go-round with Johnson. There wasn’t much new to go on. Unlike with Johnson, usable dirt on Cecil Armstrong was just plain hard to dig up. He was courting both political parties, visited a respectable divorced woman twice a month in Sioux Falls and had no personal secretary. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t ever set foot in the Armstrong Hydro office in Sioux Falls, and what few staffers worked there didn’t seem to know anything. That was all she had after three years. It was frustrating.

      She snuck a glance at Armstrong. Not only was he paying attention to Aunt Emily, he was taking notes. What the hell? Rosebud thought when Armstrong interrupted the lecture to ask for the specific dates of the last treaty signed. He must not be a lawyer, she decided. Lawyers didn’t give a hoot for history lectures. Why would that man send someone who wasn’t a lawyer?

      Aunt Emily began to wind down when she got to the reason they were all here today. Rosebud waited as Armstrong finished his notes before she began. “Mister Armstrong,” she began, going right past condescending and straight on over to contemptuous, “are you aware that Armstrong Holdings is preparing to dam the Dakota River?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, trying to lean back

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