She unfroze, took two more steps, and stopped, one foot on the low wooden porch. “Hello, David,” she said, evenly. “I hope it’s nice to see you again.”

“Wish I could say the same. It depends on whose side you’re on.” Impossible to pretend she didn’t know David Spotted Horse; not when he was the first guy she’d ever slept with, the guy her folks had thought for sure she was going to marry.

And the last guy she’d ever been at all serious about, as far as that went.

“I’m not on anyone’s side, David,” she replied, keeping her voice even, and not betraying what she was really feeling. “You ought to know that, if you pretend to know anything about me.”

Her stomach was one tight knot; her heart fluttering. Rival feelings warred for possession of her body. It figures that he’d be here. A possible incident building, involving Native Americans, and right in his own stomping grounds? They must still be scrubbing the marks off the driveway where he peeled out of there. “There” being North Dakota, and “they” being the activist group he’d joined in college, right before he’d dropped out. And right before they’d had that screaming fight that ended in a breakup.

She still couldn’t figure out why he’d bailed out of college. When he dropped out, he was scuttling a promising career in law, and the Powers knew the Native American movement needed lawyers. But he said it was a waste of time. She stayed to graduate. His decision to bail had been only one of the reasons why they’d broken up.…

He was posed right under one of the porch lights, and she couldn’t help but make mental comparisons with the guy she used to know. The guy she used to know wouldn’t have posed like that, making a macho body-language statement, clearly blocking her way. The old David would have stood a little to one side, to give her a chance to push past him. So he was used to blocking the way, to forcing a confrontation, whether or not the other party was prepared for one.