Read Online Close Proximity by Donna Clayton - Free Book Online

begin to describe the torment Rafe had suffered agonizing over River’s safety.
    Seeming to sense the tension in him, Libby changed the subject. “So your name is James because you were adopted. What was your name before the adoption?”
    â€œRunning Deer.”
    Strength took root in him, growing like a mighty oak. Sturdy. Potent. When he’d been in his late teens, and bordering on getting into real trouble with the law, he’dlearned from the Elders who raised him that Running Deer was a name to be proud of. That his nohk-han had been a man to look up to. A man of great esteem. A man whose memory should be honored by his only son. Honored with proper behavior. All those years ago, the Elders had touched on the perfect means of taming Rafe’s rebellious nature.
    â€œRafe Running Deer. I like the sound of it.”
    Coming from her lips, so did Rafe.
    Â 
    Saturday morning was spent reading and categorizing evidence. Finally around eleven, Libby told Rafe that the death of the EPA employee, Charlie O’Connell, was niggling at her mind, keeping her from focusing. Fighting off attempted murder was one thing, she’d said; a murder charge was quite another. She decided to visit the local police station to attempt to talk to officers on duty to see what they remembered about O’Connell’s death.
    If the truth were to be told, Rafe was relieved to have a break. Not from the monotonous reading, but from being with Libby. Her nearness caused an ever-increasing strain in him, like a match touched to a slow burning fuse. You knew an explosion was about to occur. You just didn’t know when, or how big the blast would be.
    He wanted her. Oh, how he wanted her. And every moment he was with her, his want—his need —seemed to escalate.
    Rafe dropped Libby off at the police station, and knowing she couldn’t be in a safer place, he decided to run out to the rez to feed his horses. But not before stopping in to visit David first.
    Ever since the man had passed over that surreptitious plea, Rafe had been wondering what the story was behind it. Could be that David was just being an overprotectivefather who was worried about his daughter. Could be that David, innocent of these charges, knew as well as Rafe did that the real culprit was still on the loose. But Rafe didn’t think that was the case. He had the distinct impression that David Corbett knew more than he was telling anyone. And if that was so, Rafe meant to find out all he could.
    Sitting at the table in the visiting room of the jailhouse while waiting for David, Rafe glanced over at the only other occupants of the room. A scruffy teen and a woman Rafe guessed to be the boy’s mother.
    Although Rafe didn’t know the teenager by name, he had seen him trespassing on rez land on a motor bike. More than once Rafe had lately witnessed the young man’s angry outbursts with various townspeople and thought of his own rebellious adolescence. Rafe was so grateful that the Mokee-kittuun Elders had taken hold of him with firm but loving hands.
    He’d been one angry child when his onna had died and Curtis James had dumped off him and his baby sister at the reservation like sacks of rubbish he no longer wanted.
    At first, no one on the reservation seemed to know what to do with the James children. Cheyenne was just an infant and had been taken in by a loving family. Rafe had been ten, a boy with hatred in his heart and anger in his eyes. For six years he’d practically been allowed to run free, and he’d taken every advantage of that freedom. He’d hooked up with a friend, Blake Fallon, a boy whose internal anger matched Rafe’s. The two of them had made a great team.
    The only time the boys ever felt truly released from the torment of their circumstances was when they were riding. Fast. It didn’t matter what they rode, as long as it flew and it had two wheels.
    Motorcycles. Dirt bikes. Scooters, plain