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“Ow!” I shoved him away, even though he’d smelled really good, as if he’d rubbed fresh mint leaves all over his skin.
He stared at me with a combination of bemusement and concern.
“My head’s fine,” I said. “Why’d you sneak up on me?”
“I didn’t sneak.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“I’ve always been quiet.”
He was a lot more than quiet. I was quiet. My father had trained me to track both man and beast in complete silence, but this guy had tracked me. Something about him set my instincts humming.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I told you last night, or don’t you remember?”
“You said you were a doctor, yet I find you creeping around abandoned storefronts manhandling women.”
His lips curved. “You didn’t mind.”
If I could blush I’d have been beet red. As it was, my blood pressure went up so fast my pulse seemed to pound out a painful song behind my blackened eyes.
“I should take you in for squatting in an abandoned building.”
“Do I look like a squatter?”
I took the opportunity to give him the once-over. In contrast to his expensive tailored suit, he wore sandals. His right ring finger sported the band I’d noticed last night, glaringly gold in the sunlight. I’d think it was a wedding ring, except he wore it on the wrong hand.
He wasn’t exactly handsome. The bones of his face were too sharp for that. But his hair was dark, his eyes light, and his skin just tan enough to make him memorable.
“Officer?”
“Sheriff,” I corrected.
His gaze lowered to my chest, and my pulse quickened again.
“ ‘Sheriff McDaniel,’ “ he read from my name tag. “I’m Ian Walker, from Oklahoma.”
Which explained the accent—not South, not North, but West, where most of the Cherokee had gone long ago.
“What brings you here?”
“To Lake Bluff or this building?”
“Both.”
“I’ll be opening an office as soon as I can get the place ready, and I chose Lake Bluff because...” His voice drifted off.
“Because?” I prompted.
“I traced my ancestors to this town. From the time before our people suffered on the Trail Where We Wept.”
He used the Cherokee version of the historical term “Trail of Tears.” They meant the same thing. Another example of the U.S. government’s treatment of those whose only crimes had been to be here first and then arrogantly refuse to give up what was theirs just because they were told to.
“How do you know we’re the same people?” I asked.
I could easily be descended from any tribe in the country. For all he knew I might not be Native American at all but African, Asian, Italian, Hispanic, or any combination of the above.
