Tinsel (Lark Cove #4)(92)

He sighed, shifting his grip on the steering wheel. He grimaced as he did, sucking in a sharp breath as his hand went to his sternum.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded. “Just heartburn. I’ve had a hell of a time with it this week.”

“Should we stop somewhere and get some medicine?”

“I’ll be fine.” His hand drifted down his chest to his stomach, pressing in on the side. “I took a couple of Tums a bit ago, just waiting for them to kick in.”

I watched him closely. “Should we go back?”

“I’m fine.” He smiled through the pain. “It’s only heartburn.”

“Okay.” I struggled to relax in my seat. Dakota had just lost his father. If he lost Xavier too, he’d be destroyed.

“Where were we?” he asked.

“You said all of this was partly your fault.”

“It is.” He nodded. “My dad worked for the tribal authorities. It was how I got interested in becoming a cop. As a kid, I dreamed we’d get to work together when I got older. But then he got killed on duty before I graduated high school. Drunk guy traveling through the reservation stopped on the side of the road and killed his wife with a shotgun. My dad was out on patrol. He pulled up, and the guy killed him too before he turned it on himself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s a risk we all understand. Doesn’t make it easier to deal with, but it’s there. My mom, Dakota’s grandmother, had a hard time.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Mom got skittish of everything and everyone not from the reservation. In her mind, outsiders couldn’t be trusted. It became this thing with her, this belief that blinded her. I had a couple of white friends. She refused to let me spend time with them. I worked for a white rancher out of town, fixing fence in the summer; she made me quit my job.”

I blinked, watching the icy road ahead of us as Xavier drove. I hadn’t met Dakota’s grandmother, though I knew she was still alive and living in a nursing home on the reservation. My heart hurt for her, losing her husband too early.

And her son.

My heart hurt that her grief had turned into such venomous discrimination.

“My brother didn’t think the way Mom did,” Xavier said. “Joseph wasn’t a prejudiced man. But he put our people first. Above all else. When I decided to leave the reservation, he saw it as a betrayal of our culture. I was the first one in my family line to have ever left. Ever. Generations and generations, I was the one to break the chain. Joseph never understood because we had everything there we needed to live, get an education and a job. To him, leaving was unnecessary.”

“But you felt trapped.”

“That’s right.” He looked over, his dark eyes soft underneath the brim of his Stetson. “I felt trapped, so I decided to leave. I had a lot to prove back then. Prove to myself I could make it off the reservation. Prove to outsiders that an American Indian could be sheriff in a white town. But it drove a wedge between me and my family. My mom saw it as a betrayal to my dad’s memory. My brother saw it as a betrayal to our people. I should have stayed there to serve them, to make their lives better. Not live two hours away and serve a strange community.”

“And then Dakota left too.”

“That’s right. But it wasn’t just leaving. Dakota left and came to me. Joseph never forgave me for leaving. And I made it nearly impossible for him to accept that Dakota needed to leave.”

“What about all the blood quantum stuff?”

Xavier frowned. “There’s not many families on the reservation who still think that shit matters. But unfortunately, mine is one that does.”

“Is there any hope?”

“There’s always hope.” Xavier placed his hand on my shoulder. “Our people, we are proud of our heritage. That pride is good and bad. Dakota has to learn to keep his pride and set it aside at the same time.”

“I told him he had to choose.” I dropped my eyes to my lap. “Was that wrong?”

“No. He does have a choice to make. But you have to understand how hard that choice will be. As much as you want him to choose you? They want it just as bad. They love him.”

The guilt for putting him in this position settled hard. “Why does this even have to be a choice? Can’t we all just love him?”

Xavier smiled. “That’s why he’ll choose you.”

“I don’t know if he will,” I whispered as my eyes flooded.

“He will. My nephew is his own man. He might be conflicted, but give him time. He’ll work it out.” Xavier shifted, rubbing his side again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

He nodded. “Good as gold.”

Gold. “Can I ask you something else? If I were poor, do you think it would be easier?”

Xavier shook his head. “His family doesn’t care about the money. That’s Dakota’s own personal hang-up.”

Once again, his pride was coming between us. “I—”

“Ooof,” he grunted, stopping me from speaking as his face twisted in pain.

“Xavier?”

His hand went back into his side, pressing hard. “Damn, that hurt.”

The car drifted to the right before Xavier corrected it. The lines on the winding road around the lake were hidden under the snow, but there was no room for error. Too far off to the side and we were going to get stuck in a snow bank.