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It was mostly true. She wasn’t pretending to be someone else. She wasn’t hiding under a new name in a new town.
But the one secret she still held had the power to destroy everything good she’d started to build here. With the Navajo. With Caleb.
His stare unnerved her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She set down her mug. One day—soon—Caleb was going to discover it all.
Everything she’d done.
And hadn’t done.
She wasn’t ready for that.
The temperature in the room felt ten degrees warmer. She swiped at the perspiration dampening her hairline.
“You know I have reason to be afraid. Vincente is dangerous. Dangerous people answer to him.”
“I do.” His voice was steady. “But I also know there’s something you haven’t told me yet.” Something in his eyes made her pulse hammer.
The sharp blast of a car horn jolted her.
Caleb was on his feet in an instant. He snatched his gun off the kitchen counter and peered out the front facing window. “It’s Zach.”
“What’s he doing here this early?” She rose on shaky legs, grateful for the reprieve. Caleb had been moments from demanding answers she couldn’t give.
“I don’t know.” His voice had dropped, edged with steel. “But it’s not a social call.”
He opened the front door, using his body to block the entrance. “Tell me you have good news and Lopez’s band of merry men are in jail.”
“There’s been an accident.” Zach’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Jennie tried to reach Gia this morning, but she didn’t answer her phone.”
“Oh, shoot.” Her stomach dropped. Doctor Lewis was back from his conference and on call last night, and after the way she’d reacted to the unknown caller, she’d left her phone on silent for her own peace of mind.
She tugged Caleb’s arm, easing him aside so she could face Zach. “What kind of accident?”
“Some teenagers in the back of a pickup,” Zach said. “The kid driving lost control, and the kids in the back went flying. Jennie’s on her way from the clinic, she asked for you.”
“Send someone else.” Caleb's face was cold, his voice hard.
“Caleb!” He couldn’t possibly believe she would turn down Jennie’s plea for help.
Zach whipped off his cap, ran fingers through his hair, dislodging strands from the short ponytail he’d fastened at his nape.
“I get it. But Doc Lewis is at the clinic, he can’t leave. Doc Chee is about to have her kid any minute—she’s the one Gia replaced. The nearest medic unit is already engaged on a call.”
He glanced at Gia before leveling a stare at Caleb. “We need her.”
“I’ll get my coat.” Gia trotted to the bedroom and returned with her jacket and Caleb’s.
Caleb let out a defeated sigh. “I was trained as a medic.”
“Good, you can help.” Zach jerked his thumb toward his Tahoe. “We’ll take the cruiser.”
Dust billowed as Zach gunned the Tahoe down dirt roads into the rez, Gia clutching the grab handle in the back seat to keep from shaking to pieces as the accident site came into view.
A pickup, caked in dried mud, lay on its side next to a rocky outcropping. Nearby an older model Toyota sedan sat askew, Jennie’s red Nissan Frontier parked behind it.
Four teenagers—two girls and two boys—their faces pale and anxious, sat hunched by the side of the road. A fifth teenager—a boy—lay motionless beside the overturned truck, a woman kneeling beside him.