“I get that,” Ava said. “Do you want to talk about the baby?”
“Not really. I mean, I probably should say yes then we could talk about that…but no.”
“It’s okay. You’re in control here—we can talk about anything.”
“Anything?” Fern asked.
“Sure. Like, how do you feel about cowboys? I like a man who knows how to wear a pair of jeans.”
Fern relaxed against the pillows of her hospital bed. Moving to cross her arms over her body before realizing that she was connected to the IV. “I do too. Can’t help that.”
Ave stayed with Fern for another twenty minutes until she faked falling asleep. Ava sighed quietly and left. Havingstruggled with grief after the death of her fiancé, she was very aware of the different techniques that could be used to get people to leave you alone. So, she didn’t press Fern. Her patient needed time, and Ava understood that better than anyone.
As Ava was heading back to her office, Marg Lesser stopped her. “Hey, Ava, are you available to foster for a few days? We have a baby girl—still trying to figure out who she is exactly.”
“Yes. I can take her,” Ava said. She’d been fostering for the last year or so. At twenty-nine, she was settled in a way that she hadn’t anticipated. But her life was good. She liked her house and her job and her family. Her community needed her, and her work was fulfilling. But she had always dreamed of being a mom, something that she wasn’t too sure was still in the cards for her after Greg’s death. Fostering satisfied that need in her, and the children and babies she fostered needed to be loved. And Ava had a lot of love to give.
“I’ll stop by your office after my shift,” Ava said.
“Thanks.”
Chayton Benally didn’t really love coming into Dark Canyon. He had enough work to keep him busy on the Navajo Nation as a Tribal Police officer. He’d been an officer for almost five years. He’d gone to Salt Lake when he was eighteen just to get away and joined the police department there. But he’d missed home, and his grandmother wanted him to move back. So he’d applied at the tribal police…and he found he was more content.
His usual routine of patrolling and filing reports had been interrupted by the discovery of a woman near the border of the Navajo Nation. Ava Colton’s younger brother Ryan had been on duty and was the firefighter who rescued Fern.
The fact that she was so close to the Nation raised a few questions for Chay. However, he hadn’t wanted to add to thetrauma the woman had already experienced, so when he came to the hospital, he’d tried to speak to the psychologist who was working with her.Ava Colton.
Damn if she wasn’t one of the stubbornest women he’d ever crossed paths with. Stonewalling every question he asked and now dodging him while he waited outside her office for her return.
He caught a glimpse of the tall, athletic woman at the same moment that she spotted him. Ava did a one-eighty—heading back into a corridor of the hospital he wasn’t allowed to enter. Her assistant, frustratingly, hadn’t been cooperative, either. Sighing, Chay asked Darla to inform Ava he’d stopped by—again—and headed out to the parking lot to figure out his next move.
He’d already spoken to Ryan Colton, the firefighter who’d rescued Fern, but he had no leads on the men who’d taken Fern or any idea if either of them were Navajo.
Spotting a familiar tall redhead leaving the hospital, he had an idea. Granted, not a great one, but it was an idea. And he wanted to put to rest that niggling thought that this might be connected to someone on the Navajo Nation.
So he followed Ava as she drove to the grocery store, where she quickly spotted him. He smiled and waved at her, getting out of his Chevy Tahoe.
“Hiya.”
“Hi. What are you doing?”
“Trying to talk to you,” he said. “I left a message with Darla. Did you get it?”
A flash of annoyance passed over her face quickly. “I did. As I told you yesterday, there’s nothing new to report. Fern is still recovering and hasn’t shared any new information with anyone.”
“Do you think I could question her?”
Ava crossed her arms under her breasts and stared down her nose at him. She had to be close to five-nine, and with the hiking boots she was even taller. A lesser man might have been intimated.
“Is that supposed to be an answer?” he asked when it was apparent she wasn’t going to say anything else.
“I was hoping you’d back down,” she said. “I’m not sure if she’d answer your questions. At our next session I can mention you want to talk to her. Or you could try going through her attending physician.”
“I’d appreciate that if you think it will work?” he asked, glad for the information she’d provided but more interested in the barrier she’d clearly tried to wedge between them.
“Yeah, I can ask,” she said with a shrug. “If that’s all, I need to get moving. I’m on my lunch break.”
“Thanks for asking Fern. I’ll stop by tomorrow to find out what she said.”
