Apache Heart Read Free Page A

gossip.
                  “Gay?”  Lozen laughed, “No, I don’t think so.  He seemed pretty serious about one gal for a while, but she ran off with a cowboy from Montana.  I imagine she got tired of the moods.”
     
    ###
                 
                  Randi punched in the GPS coordinates she’d been given, and rolled out of the hospital parking lot.  She was renting a cabin at the edge of the reservation, and was anxious to get settled in, and maybe make a grocery run into town. 
                  The cabin was on a mountainside, and it had beautiful views. It was tiny, only a bedroom, kitchen, bath and living room, but it had the advantage of being fully furnished, and there was a woodstove and a deck with a picnic table.  She found the key lockbox, punched in the code, and let herself in.  Looking around with a satisfied eye, it hit her that this was going to be home for the next two years.  In the living room, she found a few boxes of basic necessities that she’d shipped ahead: kitchen stuff, sheets and towels, winter clothes, and a couple of boxes of books.  She went back to the truck and dragged in a couple of giant suitcases. 
                  She rummaged through the cupboards and then made a shopping list of all the mundane things she needed: garbage bags, toilet paper, laundry detergent, food staples.  Then she made up the bed, stacked towels in the bathroom, and unpacked her kitchen necessities.  Books went on a shelf in the living room, laptop on the kitchen table, and suddenly it started to look a little more like a home.  Looking at her watch, she decided she had time to run into town and hit up the grocery store despite the fact that it had been a very full day.  The good news was that it was Friday, and she had the weekend to get herself oriented before starting work bright and early on Monday.  Her task for Saturday would be investing in some new tires.
                  Rattling down the mountain in her truck, Randi started thinking about the two men she’d met that day.  What were the chances, in such a small place, of her path crossing with not one, but two hunky guys? Of course, one of them being her boss was a bit of a deterrent to romance, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to window shop, even if one had no intention to buy.  And while Elan might not have had a date in a while, well, neither had she.  Med school was pretty much guaranteed to turn your love life into shambles.  After a couple of terrible one night stands with other med students, and an ill-fated romance with a cop whose schedule would never align with hers, she gave herself over to a celibate existence focused on becoming the best doctor she could be.  Those days were over now, though, she thought, and there wasn’t any good reason for her to not look around and see what New Mexico might have to offer when it came to men.
                  She wheeled the truck into a parking spot at the small grocery, grabbed a shopping cart, and started trundling down the aisles throwing things in the basket.  She stopped in the meat department and thought that maybe she would treat herself to something nice to put on the grill for Saturday night, an intimate housewarming for one.  Looking around, she picked up a salmon steak in one hand and a ribeye in the other, debating the merit between tasty enough and healthy versus artery jamming and delicious.  Suddenly she heard a voice behind her.
                  “You don’t want that.”  Lee appeared next to her, and took the packages from her hands, tossing them back into the cooler.
                  “I don’t?”
                  He shook his head, “Nope.”
                  “Why not?”  Randi asked.
                  “Because we’re going up to the upper Rio Sierra to catch trout tomorrow.”
                  “We