A Man of His Word Read Free Page A

be sure he had the upper hand and, more importantly, long enough for Rosebud to secure some rather incriminating pictures of the man meeting with a supplier of prescription painkillers. Although he’d made bail, Johnson had recused himself from the case rather than tangle with Rosebud again.
    Men, she thought with a snort. Especially white men. They all thought the rules applied to everyone else. She plaited her hair and wound the braid into a bun that projected both an old-fashioned innocence and an austere severity. To hold the bun in place, she inserted two sticks that would have looked like chopsticks, except for the bright green beaded tassels hanging from the ends. The sticks were the only things of her mother’s she’d kept.
    Her lipstick set, Rosebud gathered up her files. She heldno hope that this Dan Armstrong would be different from the others—after all, that rat-bastard Cecil had sent him—but there was always a small chance that he’d let something slip that could be connected back to her brother Tanner.
    Judy knocked on the door. Rosebud glanced at the clock. Almost half an hour had passed. Perfect. “They’re here.”
    â€œHow do I look?” Rosebud batted her eyes.
    â€œBe careful,” Judy repeated, sounding awed.
    Oh, Rosebud couldn’t wait to see this guy, not if he was throwing Judy for such a loop. She met Joe White Thunder and Emily Mankiller outside the conference room. “Did Judy tell you it’s a new guy?” she said as she kissed her aunt on the cheek.
    Joe’s eyes sparkled, and in that second, Rosebud saw the man who’d occupied Alcatraz back in the day. Some days, she longed to have known old Joe back when he raised a lot of hell, but she appreciated who he was now—a tribal elder whose vote carried a lot of weight. “I knew that last one was no match for you.”
    Rosebud blushed under the compliment as Aunt Emily shook her head at Joe in disapproval. Aunt Emily had never been one for disobedience, civil or otherwise. “You’re making a dent, dear, but don’t get overconfident.”
    Whatever, Rosebud thought as she nodded in deferential agreement. Cecil Armstrong had thrown the best lawyers money could buy at her, and she was not only holding them off, she was officially irritating that man. “I know. You guys remember what to do?”
    Joe playfully socked her in the arm. “How, kemo sabe.” And then his face went blank and Rosebud stood in front of the stereotypical Stoic Indian. Joe wouldn’t say a single thing today. His job was intimidating silence. Rosebud knew he wouldn’t even look at Dan Armstrong. If there was one thing self-important lawyers hated, it was being ignored. It drovethem to distraction, and a distracted lawyer was a defeated lawyer.
    Aunt Emily sighed. Rosebud knew she hated these meetings, hated all the haggling and hated it when Joe acted like a fake Indian. But she hated the idea of Armstrong Holdings flooding the rez more. “We’re ready.”
    Here we go, Rosebud thought to herself as she opened the door. Her blood started to pump with excitement. Another adversary was another battle, and Rosebud was confident she could win the battles. She honestly didn’t know if she could win the war with Cecil Armstrong, but she could slow him down for years.
    The first thing she noticed was that Dan Armstrong was standing. His back was to the door and he was looking out the conference room’s sliver of a window. The prick of irritation was small. She preferred her victim to be sitting in the chair that was two inches shorter than the others, with the bum wheel that gave the chair an unexpected wobble with every movement.
    What she noticed next erased the irritation. Dan Armstrong was tall without being huge, his shoulders easily filling out the heathered brown sport coat. The brown leather yokes on his shoulders made his back seem even broader. She could