LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Three

      Early the next morning, Ella left the house for her SUV, ready to head out to the film set and meet with Jane Grant. They’d only spoken on the phone or via e-mails, so she was a little anxious to get together with the producer in person. She was about to open the vehicle door when she sensed interested eyes on the back of her neck.

      Turning, she locked gazes with a man standing just behind her. His eyes were dark and he had long black hair, a braid in the front decorated with strips of beading and feathers. His features had matured, his body filled out, but she had no doubt as to his identity. She remembered what Grandmother had told her about him the night before. Her stomach tightened as she nodded to her cousin.

      “Nathan.”

      His expression serious, Nathan Lantero stepped closer so that she could see that he was wearing a beaded necklace with his totem, a buffalo cast in gold. Ella couldn’t help but be surprised—it looked like real gold, an unbelievable luxury amidst so much poverty. She remembered when they were kids, they would secretly search the abandoned mines in hope of finding gold. Now it looked like Nathan had, if not in the way they’d imagined.

      What kind of work had he been able to get to earn it? she wondered.

      “I heard you left the Wasi’chu, Ella. I couldn’t help but wonder why, after all this time.”

      He almost sounded disapproving, she thought, as if he thought she should have stayed with her mother’s people. Wasi’chu was used as reference to the White Man, but she suspected as an activist, Nathan used it in its newer negative context, to describe a human condition based on exploitation. That he’d used it in reference to her made her stomach knot and her pulse rush a little faster.

      Her back up, Ella said, “An odd question considering you lived with your father’s people for years.” Both her father and his mother had married outside the Lakota. “Besides, I have roots here.”

      “You had a nightmare here.”

      “Nightmares follow wherever you go,” she said, knowing this to be true. “No place is safe.”

      Nathan nodded, and Ella knew he, too, had felt her father’s death. He’d been one of the family. Almost like a brother to her. Even so, she hadn’t really spoken to him since the day her father was murdered.

      Ella wanted in the worst way to ply her cousin with questions about the past. Perhaps he could help her sort it all out. Not now, though. No time—she had that meeting. Besides, with that attitude, Nathan surely wouldn’t be receptive to anything she wanted.

      Still, she needed to try to make peace between them.

      “I…I never thanked you for trying to help Father…and me.”

      “Joseph was my teacher and my uncle. He was like a father to me, as well.”

      A grief-stricken thirteen-year-old, Ella had placed blame on him. Analytically, she now recognized Nathan had not only saved her from disfigurement or worse, but he’d done what he could for her father. Of course, emotions had no logic, and back then, hers had been out of control.

      “I’m sorry I was so horrible to you after…”

      “So there are no hard feelings?”

      “For you? No, of course not,” she said. “You and Leonard Hawkins tried to stop what happened. Not everyone went along with the crowd.”

      “What about those who did?” He glanced back as if looking over a now-invisible angry crowd, when no one even walked within sight of the house. “Can you forgive and forget?” he asked, turning back to search her face.

      Ella had no answer. She wanted to be able to forgive—holding hatred in her heart could make her as sick as any disease—but she simply didn’t know if she could look at the past through a softer lens.

      “Maybe that’s why I’m here—to find out if forgiving is possible.”

      “I hope that’s true.”

      But she could tell he didn’t quite believe her. His thick brows were furrowed, and his full mouth pulled tight. More important, she felt his doubt come at her in palpable waves.

      Doubt and something else…something darker…something that made her take a step back and jam her elbow into the car.

      Ignoring the shot of pain, she asked, “What is it you fear, Nathan?”

      “Revenge is a strong need.”

      “You think I would deliberately hurt others?” Or did he mean himself?

      “I don’t know you anymore, Ella.”

      “Nor I you.” Suddenly wanting to put some distance between herself and her cousin, Ella looked away from him and swung open the door of the SUV, but hesitated before getting in. Being rude wouldn’t earn his help in the future. “I need to go now or I’ll be late to an appointment.”

      “Then I’ll probably see you on the set.”

      Ella supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that Nathan knew she was working on the film. Undoubtedly Grandmother had told him.

      What was he going to be doing there? Working or protesting?

      “Did you get a speaking part?”

      He stared at her for a moment, making her shift uncomfortably as she wondered what was going through his head.

      Then he said, “Only speaking to the horses from the rez. I’m moving some into a pasture near the Sioux village set this morning.”

      “I’ll see you there, then.”

      Nathan gave her a ghost of a smile and backed off as she climbed into the driver’s seat. But he didn’t turn away.

      Considering Nathan was part of an activist group trying to regain the Black Hills for The People, Ella found it odd that he would want to have anything to do with the movie. Then again, money was money and he surely needed to make a living somehow.

      After driving off, Ella kept glancing into her rearview mirror. Nathan was there, still watching her, until she turned the corner.

      It was only then that she relaxed.

      What the heck?

      Why had he been giving off such a weird vibe, like he didn’t want her there?

      Lord, who knew? Maybe he considered her Wasi’chu. Maybe he resented the work she’d gotten, especially her being the consultant for the spiritual scenes. Though he was no shaman, Nathan had been one of Father’s apprentices. Grandmother said he remembered. Perhaps he’d wanted to be the consultant and resented the lucrative work going to someone who’d spent the last half of her life living in the white world.

      Maybe he had a point.

      As she drove, Ella let her thoughts stray back to the day before. It was still too early to call the sheriff’s office—she doubted they would know anything until later. If she didn’t hear anything by midafternoon, she would call for an update.

      She turned onto a gravel road that cut between reservation and refuge and remembered her encounter with Tiernan McKenna, whose people owned this land. Without calling it up, she could see his handsome Irish face. The way he looked at her with such concern…the way his expression changed with an injection of humor.

      And then she remembered the nonverbal connection between them. The connection had been made several times, in different ways. She’d felt him, as if she could sense him inside her somehow. Like nothing she’d ever felt before, she thought. Tiernan seemed strangely intuitive—“Irish fey” he’d called it jokingly. For some reason, Ella thought it was more than that, something more compelling, perhaps even dark. The more she considered it, the more edgy she became.

      One didn’t

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