Native Affairs (25 page)

Marisa stared at him, clueless. “I beg your pardon?” she said weakly.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes, fine, I’m just a little tired. Hectic week, you know.” She smiled vacuously, feeling a perfect fool.

“Of course. I was just saying that we’ve been at cross-purposes from the beginning, but I’ve never had a chance to explain to you why I’m involved here, why my work for NFN has become my life.”

“Don’t you do anything else?” Marisa asked ingenuously, and then bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, but I know NFN can’t be paying you much.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s a perfectly logical question. As a matter of fact, you’re right, my stipend from NFN is very small. I support myself with my writing.”

“Writing?”

“Do you read mysteries?”

Marisa shook her head. “I’m afraid that my work doesn’t leave much time for reading anything other than legal briefs.”

“Well, I write a series of mysteries that features an Indian detective as the main character, sort of a Blackfoot Agatha Christie.”

“You’re Roger Whitemoon!” Marisa said incredulously. Even she had heard of him.

“Yes,” Jack said, smiling. “I do a couple of books a year and that enables me to finance my NFN work, which occupies most of my time.”

“The last one was a bestseller, wasn’t it?” Marisa asked, impressed. “What was it called?
Quiet Prairie
?”

“Silent Prairie
. Close.”

“But your first love is the NFN.”

He shrugged. “The books bring in the money, and I do enjoy writing them, but in the grand scheme of things the NFN is more important.”

“Why?”

He sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. “I grew up on a reservation in Oklahoma. My father was killed when I was five and I was raised by my mother and older sister, whom you met.”

Marisa nodded.

“You cannot imagine the hopelessness, the emptiness of the life there. Through a combination of circumstances I was able to escape it, but I never forgot it. I resolved to do what I could to change things for my people.”

“But do you really think that the preservation of this cemetery is crucial enough to warrant spending eight million dollars to bypass it?” Marisa asked him.

His mouth tightened. “It’s the principle involved, and anyway, the government can afford it.”

“Eight million dollars?”

He stood up so swiftly that Marisa flinched. He began to pace the room and she watched him silently, noticing how the lamplight reflected off his seal black hair and threw his strong profile into relief against the wall.

“Do you think that any dollar amount can make up for the abuses of the past?” he demanded. “There isn’t enough money in the U.S. treasury to repay Native Americans for what they’ve suffered, for being robbed of their homes and their land and being herded onto reservations like cattle. What do I care if it costs eight million or ten million or twenty million? They’re not going to get one more yard of Indian land under any circumstances, and especially not this land, which has been sacred to the Seminoles for centuries.” He ran out of breath suddenly and fell back into the chair, his face drained.

Marisa leaped to her feet. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this up tonight, you’re obviously in no condition to discuss it.”

“I’m fine,” he said, irritated.

“Can I get you anything?”

He glanced around the room. “Do you have any coffee?”

“I’ll order it from room service,” she said.

“No, don’t bother...” he began, but Marisa was already on the phone. When she hung up and turned back to him he was studying her intently, his dark eyes unfathomable.

“Coffee will be here in a few minutes,” she announced.

“You must think me an awful bore,” he said wearily, passing his hand over his eyes.

“Why do you say that?”

“I show up at your door, fresh out of the hospital, and even with one foot in the emergency room I can’t stop berating you about my noble cause. Why haven’t you thrown me out of here?”

“Jackson, you may be many things, but boring is not one of them,” Marisa replied lightly.

“I like the sound of that,” he said quietly, after a moment.

“What?”

“My first name on your lips. You’ve gone to great pains to avoid saying it.”

“That was before you threw yourself in front of a bullet meant for me,” she said.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he said dryly. “Reality isn’t quite as heroic. I was trying to shove you out of the way and I tripped. That’s the truth.”

“The result is the same. You saved me.” She leaned against the footboard of the bed. “How did you know what Jeff Rivertree was going to do?”

“His mother came to me and told me he had taken her husband’s gun from the house. He had been sounding off about you in the bar the night his brother was killed and it didn’t take much ingenuity to put two and two together.”

“Sounding off about me?” Marisa asked.
 

“Yes.”

“Saying what?”

Jack shifted uncomfortably.

“Tell me.”

Jack met her eyes and then looked away.
 

“Hotshot gringa lawyer on the Washington payroll sent to overpower the impoverished Indians and deprive them of their inheritance?” Marisa suggested.
 

“Something like that,” Jack confirmed.
 

“Isn’t that what you think?” Marisa inquired evenly.

“Not any more,” he replied, holding her gaze.
 

There was a knock at the door and the coffee arrived. Silence reigned as Marisa poured for both of them and Jack drained half his cup in one swallow. “That’s better,” he said, sighing.
 

“You really should be home in bed,” Marisa said worriedly.

“I’ve spent the last four days in bed,” he said darkly.
 

“How is your shoulder?”
 

“Not bad. A little stiff.”

Marisa watched him as he flexed the fingers of his injured arm and then looked up at her.

“So how did you get off the reservation?” she asked. “If you don’t mind telling me, that is.”

“I don’t mind. It was the usual story. A teacher took an interest in me, helped me get a scholarship.”

“To college?”

“To a prep school first, then to college.”

“I can’t imagine you at a prep school,” Marisa said, before she could censor herself.

“Cochise at Choate?” he said, raising one dark brow.

“I didn’t meant that,” she murmured, unable to meet his eyes.

“That was about the size of it. I didn’t go to Choate, but the school was similar.”

“Was it awful?” Marisa asked softly.

“I didn’t exactly fit in with the preppies, but I endured it. I knew that it was my only chance and I took it.”

“And college?”

He grinned. “Oh, college was different. I had a great time.”

Marisa could imagine the swath he cut through the coeds. Her expression must have reflected what she was thinking because he said, “I became a significant minority experience for a number of female undergraduates, until I realized what was motivating them.”

Marisa looked at him inquiringly.

“Curiosity,” he said flatly. “Not very flattering certainly, but accurate. They weren’t interested in me, but in something, or somebody, different.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t true of everyone,” Marisa said quietly.

He tilted his head to one side. “How have you remained such an innocent, in your job?”
      

“In my job? I like that. I’m not exactly a hit woman for the mob, you know.”
 

“But you’ve seen a side of life many women never encounter. Hasn’t it changed you?”

Marisa thought about it. “I guess my experiences haven’t exactly made it easy for me to trust people,” she admitted.

He burst out laughing and the sound was so infectious that she had to smile, too.

“Tell me about it,” he said, chuckling. “That first day when I tried to warn you there might be trouble you thought I was running you out of town.”
 

“You wouldn’t have been the first to try it,” she said.

“So you’re tough, eh?”

“Tough enough.”

“You don’t look tough. Right now you look like a tomboy about to play third base in a sandlot game.”

Marisa’s hand went to her hair self-consciously.

“Oh, leave it alone, I’m teasing you. You don’t take much to teasing either, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“It’s time someone loosened you up, took some of the steel out of your spine. Does that sober air come along with your sturdy New England roots?”

“You make me sound like some Puritan marching around in a mobcap and starched apron. Am I really so forbidding?”

“No,” he said softly, his eyes lambent.

She had to look away.

“Have you always lived in Maine?” he asked in a normal tone, pouring himself more coffee.

“Yes, I was born there, in Freeport. I went to the University at Augusta. Now I work in Portland and live in Cumberland Foreside, a suburb a few miles out.”
 

“Foreside?”

“Oceanfront.”

“I see. So you’re a real Yankee, the genuine article. With that accent and a name like Hancock, who could dispute it? Are you one of John’s descendants?”

“The family claims so, but who knows? I have an aunt who’s always doing genealogical charts. It’s a cottage industry in the ‘colonies’. They draw them up for the tourists.”

He smiled. “And where did Marisa come from?”

“My mother is French.”

“An interesting combination.” He put his cup aside and yawned. “I’m sorry,” he said, rising. “The coffee did not have the desired effect, I feel...” He reached out suddenly and Marisa rushed to take his arm.

“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

“Little woozy,” he mumbled. She led him to the bed and he sat on its edge.

“Is it time for some of your pills?” she asked.

He glanced blearily at his watch. “I guess so.”

“You guess so?” she said, alarmed.

“Two, I think.”

“Let me get you some water from the bathroom,” she said, moving toward the door. She had trouble locating a clean glass and finally found a wrapped one in the medicine cabinet, then ran the water until it was cold. When she emerged with the drink in her hand she found him sprawled across her bed, fast asleep.

Marisa froze, staring at him, then crept closer. She was loath to disturb him. She felt guilty for keeping him talking to her when he was just out of the hospital, but the temptation to be with him, find out more about him, had been too great.

She set the glass on the lamp table and sat next to him on the bed, studying the sharp planes of his face, the hard line of his mouth now relaxed into sleep. He was not pretty, his individual features were bold and arresting rather than handsome, but somehow they worked in combination to make him the most attractive man she had ever met.

And now the most attractive man she had ever met was asleep on the bed in her hotel room.

What was she going to do?

She could try to wake him and take him back to wherever he was staying, but in his condition that would be a project, and his exhaustion was so apparent that she could not bear to wake him.

Making up her mind, Marisa drew the coverlet over his sleeping form and then hung the Do Not Disturb sign out for the staff. Remembering that Tracy would return later, she went through the connecting door to Tracy’s room and left a note for her, asking her not to come through and saying that she would explain in the morning. Then she went back and checked on her charge.

Jack was sleeping peacefully, a slow pulse beating in his throat. Marisa found his jacket on the chair and rummaged in the pocket, locating his pills. They were a commonly prescribed painkiller, and since he seemed to be in no discomfort Marisa decided he could do without them. When she shoved the plastic vial back into his pocket a crumpled piece of paper fell out onto the floor.

Feeling ashamed of her snooping, she nevertheless smoothed it out and read it.

“Rm. 232, ex. 1545” was scrawled on it in a boldly flowing, masculine hand.

It was her room number and telephone extension at the hotel. He had been carrying it around with him.

Marisa sat in the chair he had vacated, clutching the scrap as if it were a talisman.

This was all wrong, and she knew it. Jack was involved with her case and furthermore, he was the opposition’s staunchest supporter. So why didn’t any of it seem to matter? Why was she willing to jeopardize case and career and future for a man she’d spent barely a few hours with, under the most unfavorable circumstances? It seemed to be the question of the hour, of her life, in fact.