Chapter Seventeen
Caleb was going to kill Lopez. Jail wasn’t good enough.
Not for what he’d done to Gia.
She had an inner core of steel that Caleb admired the hell out of.
Like him, she’d escaped a troubled childhood and made herself into someone respected by others.
She’d bent beneath her former lover’s abuse, but she hadn’t broken.
Her soft, caring heart was as big as ever, as was her determination to serve.
He’d seen yesterday how she treated her patients—her persistence in arranging the necessary care, her lack of judgment when they didn’t, or couldn’t, follow her recommendations.
Her job at the medical clinic might have started out as a refuge, a place to hide, but it was obvious she’d fallen in love with the Navajo people she lived and worked with.
For her, leaving would be a tragedy, not a relief.
His hand still hovered over her cheek. And the way she cared for him…she didn’t have to. He was trained to defend himself, yet she worried more about what her ex-lover might do to him than what Vincente would do if he got his hands on her again.
That landed somewhere deep. Unsettled him.
She was still vulnerable. Still healing.
He needed to remember that .
As much as he wanted her, wanted this—whatever it was—he’d let her control their intimacy until she trusted him with her body and her pleasure.
He sat there on the exam table, staring at her like an idiot long enough that she noticed.
Her brows furrowed. “What?” She glanced at his thumb, her hand lifting to her face. “My makeup’s smeared, isn’t it?”
A knock on the exam room door gave him a reason to look away before he said something foolish.
Gia leaped back, putting a professional distance between them while she scrubbed her face to rid it of tears. “Come in.”
The door opened just enough for Jennie Tsosie to peer inside. “Zach needs to speak with Caleb as soon as you’re finished.”
Concern tightened her expression as her gaze lit on Gia’s red eyes and splotchy cheeks. She turned a steely-eyed glare on him, clearly deciding he was the asshole in the room.
Guilty as charged.
“We’re done,” Gia said.
She busied herself cleaning up the medical supplies while he slipped back into his t-shirt and hopped off the exam table. He needed to talk to his cousin about his phone call earlier with Nathan Long. He needed a new place to sleep.
A shadow of fear hovered like a bad omen at the edges of his brain.
If those bastards had come after Gia instead of him…
She couldn’t stay at her home either. Even though Ortega and his men hadn’t come after her today, it didn’t mean they didn’t know how to find her.
“As soon as I’m finished with Zach, we’re going home.” To pack . He grabbed his jacket off the chair, the leather making a faint creaking sound as he shoved his arms into the sleeves .
“My patients—”
“Will have to reschedule. Your safety comes first. Always.” He delivered his words on a knifepoint. Sharp and staccato.
Gia’s head snapped back, surprise widening her eyes before anger narrowed them. “You’re the one that got shot at. Again. Is avenging your mother’s death worth dying for?”
Fire licked his veins for a different reason now. She believed this was only about his mother?
Two steps. He gripped the counter on either side of her body.
His lips brushed the shell of her ear. “This isn’t about my mother.” Words meant only for her to hear. “It’s about you. Touching you is a privilege Vincente Lopez will never have again.”
He brushed past Jennie and went in search of his cousin.
Zach was in the lobby, on his cell. As soon as he saw Caleb, he hung up and tossed a small black object.
Caleb snatched it out of the air on instinct. A key fob.
Zach leveled a glare. “Not a scratch, Cousin. I asked one of my friends to drive it here.”
He made a beckoning motion. “Give me your hotel key. You know you can’t stay there anymore. I’ll get your stuff and check you out when I’m off shift.”
“Thanks.” Caleb pulled the plastic key card from his wallet. “I asked my colleague to find a safe house nearby for me and Gia to hole up in. Nathan’s making sure the rental’s under one of Dìleas’s shell company names—no paper trail, no way to trace it. Once he gets back to me, we’re out of here.”
He’d had to fill Nathan in—about the ambush, the cartel connection, and the job in New York he wouldn’t be able to take now.
The conversation replayed in his head .
“I made friends in all the wrong places. Got ambushed between Gallup and the rez this morning.”
Nathan let out a string of low curses. “Garcia? Or should I say… Lopez?”
“The men who tried to abduct Gia. And they brought friends. Local muscle. Probably part of the biker crew Espina Negra’s using to move fentanyl through the area.
” Caleb grimaced. “I may have stirred up some shit between Lopez and his new business partners using that rumor about Los Coyotes moving north. And I sent him a message through his errand boys to stay the hell away from Gia.”
He braced for the lecture.
Instead, a low rumble, then a snort, and finally—outright laughter.
Caleb scowled at his phone.
What the fuck?
Nathan was still chuckling when Caleb brought it back to his ear.
“Welcome to the club, amigo. I cannot wait to tell Lachlan this one.”
“What club?”
“The stupid-shit-we-do-for-the-women-we-love club. When’s the wedding?”
Love.
The word hit Caleb like a sucker punch.
“That’s not what’s going on here,” he snapped.
But the word stuck. Burrowed in.
Caleb shoved the thought away. “Just find me a safe house.”
Zach’s voice cut through the memory, sharp with irritation. “Grandfather called me. He already heard about what happened. I’m sure he’s not pleased the police chief was the one to tell him and not us.”
“We’ve been a little busy.” Caleb followed his cousin outside to the cruiser.
Zach slid into the Tahoe and rested his arm on the steering wheel. His gaze appraised Caleb. “This attack on you changes things. Grandfather wants to know what you plan to do next.”
“I’m here until this thing with Lopez is finished.”
“And after that?”
Caleb glanced behind him at the clinic. “After that will depend on Gia. What she wants.”
“Don’t break her heart.” Zach’s jaw tightened. “She doesn’t deserve that.”
Caleb held his cousin’s stare. “I won’t.”
An older-model Toyota four-door turned into the clinic. Caleb and Zach went still, their eyes on the occupants.
A Diné woman in her forties stepped from the driver’s seat and walked around to help an elderly man from the passenger seat.
Caleb trotted to the clinic’s glass entrance door and held it open for them before returning to his conversation with Zach.
“Get Gia’s name and photo scrubbed from the clinic’s website and black out her address in any public Navajo Nation records,” he told his cousin. “I’ll ask Nathan to scrub any identifying information he finds on the internet.”
Zach touched the brim of his police ball cap. “I’ll get on it and call you if I get any news on our suspects. Text me your new address once you have it.”
Caleb waited for his cousin’s cruiser to disappear from view before heading back inside.
Gia should be ready to leave by now. He needed time to rest. Regroup.
Plan his next move .
She was in her office with Jennie.
“Are you ready?” He took hold of her navy backpack. “The Jeep’s out of commission so Zach lent me his personal vehicle.”
“Maybe he’d need his car more if he took some time off and got a life,” Jennie muttered.
A closer look at the nurse revealed no wedding or engagement rings. Gia hadn’t mentioned Jennie having a husband or boyfriend, either.
Caleb suppressed a sudden grin.
Zach needed to forget about Gia. Nothing would ever happen between them. Jennie clearly had a thing for him, and maybe if Zach would just pull his head out of his ass, he’d see it.
“I’m sorry my problems have come to the rez.” Gia squeezed Jennie’s forearm. “When this is over, maybe you can convince Zach to do something fun in Gallup. You both need a break.”
Jennie’s smile turned wistful. “Yeah, maybe.”
She made a shooing motion. “Go. Mister Nelson is here for a med check. If anything comes up I can’t handle, I’ll call you.”
Outside, Caleb led Gia to his cousin’s black Charger. The interior was spotless, the red leather supple beneath his fingertips. From the passenger side air vent, an air freshener gave off that unmistakable new car smell.
“Um, wow.” Gia’s eyes widened as she glanced around the interior. “Lots of black and red. I would have never figured Zach as a muscle car guy.”
Caleb laughed. He’d thought the same thing.
The high-performance V8 engine came to life with a guttural snarl, its barely leashed power rumbling their seats like the car was begging to be set loose.
Nice wheels . He wasn’t picky about his vehicles unless he was on a job, but he had to admit, this was a sweet ride .
“Zach told me he’d shoot me himself if I get so much as a ding on her.” He glanced at Gia. “Jennie’s got a crush on him.”
She shifted in her seat to gape at him. “When did you realize that? I’ve seen them together tons of times, and I just now figured that out. And crush makes it sound like she’s a teenager pining after the high school quarterback.”
“I’m trained to notice the little things.” He took his gaze off the road long enough to glance at her. “You should tell Zach he doesn’t have a chance with you. Maybe it will give Jennie the opening she needs.”
“Why should I tell Zach he has no chance with me?” Her voice held humor, but he’d seen the flash of vulnerability in her eyes.
“Because you’re with me. And I don’t share.” Caleb cut his gaze back to the road as Gia let out a small gasp.
His fingers tightened on the wheel. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m not Lopez. I’d never mistreat you or force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
I’m not my father either.
He’d tried to protect his mother from his father when he’d gotten big enough.
And after, when the Phoenix police found Pops dead in a back alley.
“I know.” Her words were quiet but held a ring of conviction, and damned if that didn’t have him mentally thumping his chest like a caveman.
“But you aren’t staying.” She turned her face toward the window, gaze distant.
“I’m staying for as long as you need me.”
Her eyes snapped back to his—wary, hopeful. “And then?”
He didn’t know. The only thing he did know was that he wasn’t ready to walk away from her .
Once Lopez was out of the picture, then maybe he’d figure out what a future with Gia could look like.
Trust, he’d learned, could be a weapon. He’d seen how his father had twisted his mother’s love until it became a noose around her neck.
That would never be Gia’s fate—not with him. He’d rather cut out his own heart than see fear in her eyes because of something he’d done.
She needed to see every day, with every action, that she was safe with him. That she’d always have a choice.
“You’ve gone awfully quiet.” Gia’s soft murmur jolted him from his thoughts.
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He turned onto her street and pulled into her driveway. Scanning the area, he checked for unfamiliar vehicles. Movement. Anything out of place from this morning.
Nothing jumped out, and his sixth sense remained blessedly quiet.
Throwing the gear into Park, he reached over and trailed one finger down the soft skin of her cheek. “You.”
Her eyes deepened to a midnight blue. “I’m what put that serious look on your face?”
He loved the way her voice got all breathless when he touched her, like she’d run up a set of stairs.
His lips gave a slight tilt. “I’m always serious.”
Gia laughed. “True. You definitely have a poker face. How are you at cards? We could go to Vegas.”
“Don’t gamble. I like to make sure the odds are always stacked in my favor.”
His gaze raked the front of her home. Windows and doors closed. No obvious signs of tampering. He’d have to take a closer look, of course. “I need to figure out how to stop Lopez without risking the people in this community.”
“You shouldn’t try.” Her fingers slid along his forearm to cover his hand. She squeezed. “He only came after you because of me. You’re not the one he wants.”
The hunted look he’d seen when they first met slid into her eyes. “If I leave”—her grip on his fingers tightened when he shook his head—“ If I leave , everyone here on the rez will be safe. You’ll be safe.”
Hell no.
“You won’t be.”
“Caleb, you could have died today. It’s a miracle you didn’t.” Gia’s eyes glistened. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t want anything to happen to the people I’ve come to care about.”
His stomach did a somersault. When he’d first learned she was fleeing her ex, he’d thought the best thing for her was to leave. Then, when he realized who her ex was, he wanted her to stay.
As bait. Zach had been right to call him out.
“This is your home. You’re needed here. The people have accepted you, and they don’t welcome outsiders easily.”
“What about you?” She paused, licked her lips before those big blue eyes peered into his soul. “Would you ever consider this your home? Will you allow yourself to get to know your family? They’re good people.”
He thought about his answer before giving it. He’d already staked his claim. Might as well be honest.
“If I were to consider staying here, it wouldn’t be for the Blackwaters. It would be for you.”