Mourning Dove by Aimée & David Thurlo Read Free Book Online Page A

and the hard edges around her heart disappeared. “I just wanted to wish you luck, pumpkin,” Ella said as she raced to the station.
    “You can’t come, can you?” Dawn said in a mournful voice.
    “No,I’m sorry. But my heart’s going to be right there with you.”
    “I know, and you were with my class all day when we went to Narbona Pass. But still . . .” a tiny voice replied.
    Ella almost made the turn that would have taken her to Dawn’s school. “I love you, sweetie. More than you’ll ever know. But the tribe needs me. I’ll be there next time, you’ll see.”
    “Daddy’s here,” Dawn said. “He wantsto talk to you.”
    Ella’s grip tightened around the phone as Kevin got on. “Don’t worry about anything, Ella. I’ll be sitting in the front row along with our daughter’s grandmother and we’ll be clapping louder than anyone else.”
    His voice was cheerful and she knew he was speaking for Dawn’s benefit. “I’m glad you’re there,” she said.
    “She needed one of us.”
    He’d spoken in a matter-of-fact tone,but the words knotted her stomach until it hurt.
    “So what kept you from coming this time?” he asked pleasantly in that same tone of voice that told her Dawn was still close by.
    She imagined landing a solid punch in his midsection and found some satisfaction in that. Then she took a deep breath. “Certainly not the same excuse that kept you away the last
two
times. Just listen to the news andyou’ll understand. I’ll talk to you later, but right now I have to get to the station.”
    “I’ve already told Dawn that you’ll make it up to her by taking her on a special horseback ride. Maybe even this weekend?”
    She would have shot him on the spot—had she been there. “
Why
did you say that without checking with me first?”
    “I knew that horseback riding is something you two do together. And youcan work out the timing yourself, right?”
    The next voice she heard was Dawn’s. “Mom, can we? Can we go for a picnic lunch? Or an early morning pancake breakfast?”
    Ella swore that next time she saw Kevin, she’d reach down his throat and yank his tongue out. “We
will
go, I promise, but it may not be this weekend. I have to wrap up this case first. Your father will explain once he listens to theradio, or reads the newspaper.”
    “Oh.”
    Her daughter’s small voice pierced her. “Pumpkin, you know I love you. As soon as this case is closed, we’ll take off on the horses and stay out for as long as you want. Just the two of us.”
    “Breakfast
and
lunch?”
    To Dawn, the ideal breakfast was pancakes and the perfect lunch, hot dogs, both over a campfire. “We can handle that,” Ella answered, givingher daughter, the negotiator, a few points. “But I’ve got to go back to work now,” Ella said as she pulled into the station and parked.
    “Okay. Someday I’m going to be an officer, too,” Dawn said, then promptly hung up.
    The declaration stunned her. Ella sat in her cruiser staring atthe wheel, trying to gather her thoughts. The
last
thing she wanted for her daughter was a career in law enforcement.She took a deep, steadying breath. She was taking it too seriously. Dawn had also mentioned wanting to be a basketball player and a rodeo star within the past six months. Two walls in her room, full of photos of two very different kinds of arenas, testified to those impulses.
    As Ella walked into the station lobby, she started down the wrong hall before remembering her new office. Reversing directionsand noting that if the duty officer behind the counter had seen her lapse, he wasn’t showing it, she hurried on. The new wing still smelled of fresh paint, and seeing Ralph Tache in the hall, hoped he wouldn’t get queasy from the odor. He’d been out sick yesterday.
    Ralph nodded somberly as he joined her, his eyes filled with questions, not answers. As she went by Justine’s office, her partnercame out through a new doorway to the lab and followed them. “I