IRONHEART Read online

  "I'll get someone out here to help with the horses," she told him. "I don't want you doing all this work, Grandfather. I told you—"

  "I think we already have someone to help with the horses," Zeke interrupted. He indicated Gideon with a jerk of his chin.

  The mustang was still sidling nervously, but he had calmed considerably. Sara watched in amazement as Gideon Ironheart murmured to the horse, standing close enough that, had the stallion taken a mind to, he could have bitten off half the man's face. But the horse didn't bite. Shivering, shifting from hoof to hoof, he listened to each and every liquid syllable that Gideon murmured.

  Without missing a beat or changing his intonation, Gideon spoke to her. "Sara? Get Zeke out of here."

  "I'm fine, I'm fine," Zeke muttered stubbornly, refusing to accept even a hand from her. He'd always been cussedly stubborn, Sara thought. Always.

  When they were safely outside the gate, they both turned to look back at Gideon and the mustang. Horse and man seemed to have reached some kind of agreement, for now the stallion stood still, head down, and docilely accepted Gideon stroking his neck.

  "Look at that," Zeke said softly. "Just look at that. There's a man who knows horses, Sarey. I'm damn glad I offered him a job."

  "A job?" Sara stared in surprise at her grandfather and then looked at Gideon. "Here? Can we afford him?"

  "Reckon so. He didn't ask what I was paying."

  "Then maybe you'd better discuss that with him."

  Zeke gave her a smiling glance. "Don't worry, gal. I'll take care of everything."

  Not certain that reassurance made her feel any better, Sara looked over at Gideon. He was still talking to that damn mustang, a soft, seductive murmuring that slipped over the ears like satin over skin, enticing, mesmerizing. Promising.

  And he had once again fallen into that pose of sheer male arrogance, legs splayed, one knee bent, hips cocked rakishly and thrusting slightly forward as if to draw attention to his virility. Since he was intent upon the horse, she gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided that the pose must be unconscious. He wasn't George, after all.

  Thinking of George, as she had been trying not to for ten years, turned her mood instantly sour and waspish. As if he sensed it somehow, her grandfather looked at her.

  "I'll take care of it, Sara."

  She nodded and turned back to the house. Twenty-eight years old, and she was still taking orders as if she was a child. But that was a problem, living in a multigenerational household. To her grandfather, she would always be a child who would do as she was told.

  Gideon looked away from the horse and stared at her departing back. She had a figure, that woman, he noted approvingly. Without her gun belt to conceal it, she had a waist, a tiny waist accentuated by the way she had knotted he shirttails. The ragged denim of her jeans clung lovingly to long, slender legs and a full, round rump. And her hips … well, they weren't a model's skinny ones at all. Nope, they were a woman's hips, meant to cradle a man and bear children with ease. Her hair was long, he saw, too, and he felt a stirring in places that shouldn't be stirring in broad daylight.

  He glanced toward Zeke. "You didn't say she was your granddaughter."

  "I don't recollect you asking."

  Gideon felt himself grin in response. Damned if he didn't like this old coot. The mustang had calmed down now, and the stench of the animal's fear, while still strong, was beginning to fade in the open air. "What were you trying to do when I drove up?"

  "Right foreleg looks a tad swollen just below the knee, and he's been limping. It's probably nothing, but it took me three days to coax him into the corral, and I'd like to be sure there's no real hurt."

  Gideon nodded, speaking soothingly to the horse. The mustang's ears were pricked, attentive to every sound the man made, and his nostrils were still flared, but the whites of his eyes were no longer wildly showing. Not afraid any longer. Gideon judged. Just naturally wary.

  Murmuring nonsense syllables in a cadence he had learned from his uncle, he stroked his hand lower and lower by small degrees, until the horse was tolerating touches to his shoulder and chest. Slowly, very slowly, Gideon squatted and began to run his fingers over first one foreleg and then the other, comparing the two as the best measure of injury.

  "It's swollen, all right," he said a few moments later. "Not a lot, though, and it's not feverish. The skin's not broken anywhere."

  "Probably just a strain," Zeke said. "Guess I'll keep him corralled for a day or two."

  Gideon straightened slowly, murmuring soothingly again as the horse shied a little. Then he released the halter and stepped back. For several heartbeats the mustang didn't move; then he darted to the far side of the corral. Gideon laughed softly. "Reminds me of some of the street toughs I've known over the years."

  He climbed the fence and joined Zeke on the other side. For a while neither man spoke. They stood and watched the horse posture threateningly and whinny at the mares who hung back near a pine-covered ridge. The breeze stirred, carrying the scents of pine and grass and horse to them.

  "How many mustangs?" Gideon asked.

  "Just these. I'd take more—certainly have enough room for 'em—but we couldn't afford to keep 'em in hay all winter. Sarey works hard enough as it is."

  The younger man nodded.

  Zeke indicated the mustang with a jerk of his chin. "What did you say to him?"

  Gideon shrugged. "Nothing but the truth."

  "And what's that?"

  Steel-gray eyes met obsidian ones. "That I didn't want to steal his fire or his freedom."

  Zeke continued to stare intently at him for a few seconds; then he looked toward the mustang again. "So you want some work?"

  "A little. A few days, maybe. A few hours here and there."

  "What kind of wage?"

  Gideon had already figured that one out. "Whatever will keep you from feeling you're taking a favor."

  Zeke laughed. "I think you were wasted working with all that steel, Ironheart."

  Maybe he had been, Gideon thought as he watched the stallion paw the dirt. Certainly now, whenever he looked back, all he saw was a vast wasteland where his past should have been.

  * * *

  Sara saw them coming toward the house and immediately recognized the indefinable aura that existed between men who had reached a friendly understanding. Gideon Ironheart would be working for them, which meant she was going to be seeing a lot of him.

  The thought made her at once uneasy and excited. He affected her as no man had since George, and even George hadn't given her the electric feeling Gideon did, as if the very air around him tingled and snapped with energy. Her hand flew to her dark hair, freshly brushed and loose around her shoulders. At least she'd caught herself before she had changed. That would have been too obvious.

  At the very last possible moment, though, she turned and fled from the kitchen. Gideon Ironheart made her feel vulnerable, and she had to shore up her defenses before she faced him.

  In her bedroom, she listened to the men come in, heard the deep rumble of their voices as they settled at the kitchen table, heard the clink of crockery as her grandfather poured coffee.

  Anger flickered briefly as she recalled the way Gideon had manhandled her last night. She hadn't been a deputy sheriff for the last nine years without learning how to handle herself in tough situations, or without learning how to judge them. He hadn't needed to drag her out of that bar and thrust her into her vehicle. He certainly hadn't needed to make that remark about women needing protection. He might be eight inches taller and outweigh her by seventy or eighty pounds, but that didn't necessarily mean he could protect her any better than she could protect herself.

  The memory made her steam, even as a traitorous warmth touched cold places. Apart from her grandfather, it had been a long time since anyone had wanted to protect Sara Yates from anything.

  But everything else aside, she wanted nothing to do with any man who made her feel vulnerable. She was never going
to be vulnerable again. Nearly a decade had passed, but she hadn't forgotten the humiliation of waiting in a church packed with people for a groom who was finally discovered to have fled to another state in order to escape marrying her. Sara Yates had awakened that long-ago morning a blushing, fresh eighteen years old. It had been both her birthday and her wedding day. By the time it was over, her heart had felt as if it were eighty. And it had been months before conversations no longer halted whenever she entered a room. No, she wasn't going to make a fool of herself again.

  * * *

  When Sara returned to the kitchen, Gideon and Zeke were on a second cup of coffee and making inroads on the coffee cake she had taken from the oven only an hour ago. Since she had baked it only to satisfy her grandfather's sweet tooth, she didn't mind.

  She did mind the way Gideon's gaze followed her as she moved around the kitchen, fixing her own coffee. Her stomach was suddenly full of butterflies, and her knees felt rubbery, almost exactly the sensation she had felt during her one foray into acting in a high school play. Stage fright, all because a man was staring at her? Get real, Sara!

  She reminded him, Gideon thought unexpectedly, of a sweet, small brown mouse. Evidently she dropped the tough act around her grandfather, and she even moved differently—gracefully. More like a woman and less like a boy.

  She joined them at the table with her coffee, giving him a polite, casual smile. "Grandfather says he offered you a job. Did you come out to accept it?"

  "Yes, I did."

  Zeke spoke. "I told him he's welcome to stay in the bunkhouse and eat with us."

  "That was the big inducement," Gideon said, watching Sara for any sign of objection. "That fleabag motel is charging me thirty bucks a night."

  Since Zeke did all the cooking, Sara couldn't much object to that, but she wasn't too thrilled at the prospect of cleaning out the bunkhouse, which hadn't been opened in almost five years. "What if the roof leaks?" she said, feeling strangely helpless.

  "We'll fix it," Zeke said. "I don't reckon it does though, Sarey. I've been going in there a couple of times a year to make sure it was still okay in case we needed it. Now we need it." He looked at Gideon. "You'll bring your stuff up here today?"

  "Yeah, in a couple of hours. I need to check out of the motel and give my uncle a call to tell him where to find me if he needs me."

  Sara suddenly remembered him mentioning that his black hat had been a gift from his uncle. "You're close to him, aren't you?"

  Gideon didn't evade. "You bet. By the time he took me in, he'd already raised six sons of his own. You'd have thought he'd have been too tired to bother, but he was never too tired for me. Now he's old and none too well, and all his boys are scattered to the four winds."

  "You can call him from here," Sara said impulsively. "You can always call him from here. Anytime."

  Gideon smiled, a warm expression that touched Sara almost physically. "Thanks, Sara."

  "And now maybe you'll satisfy my curiosity," Zeke said.

  Gideon suddenly looked a little wary, Sara thought, and was uneasy with the realization that this man might not be what he seemed. "Sure," he said, sounding almost offhand about it.

  "Last night you told Sara your grandfather got your attention. What were you up to?"

  "Grandfather!" Sara was appalled. That simply wasn't a question you asked anyone.

  "It's okay, Sara," Gideon said unexpectedly. "He's got a right to know what kind of man he's hiring."

  Which meant that Gideon Ironheart didn't have anything really serious to hide, Sara thought hopefully. Either that or he was a bigger con artist than she wanted to know. And that was unfair, she scolded herself. Why should she be suspicious before she had cause?

  Gideon and her grandfather were looking at one another with a kind of seriousness that seemed odd considering that Zeke had already hired the younger man and, until a moment or two ago, had seemed quite favorably impressed. Now, suddenly, it was as if somehow another factor had been thrown into the equation. What had happened?

  "I was a real troublemaker for a while," Gideon said slowly, never taking his eyes from Zeke. "Drugs. Booze. Fast cars. A little shoplifting for the thrill of it. I was lucky. I didn't get caught with weed on me, but I got caught with an expensive belt buckle I hadn't paid for. I got grand theft and sixth months on probation. Three weeks into my time, my grandfather found me out behind the barn rolling a joint. One thing led to another, and he eventually took me into town and turned me in. I did the rest of my six months in jail, fell behind a year in school, and came out a wiser man. I haven't been in trouble since."

  Zeke nodded, satisfied. "Not everyone learns that quick."

  "What I learned, old man, was that I can't stand to be caged. I can't stand being kept locked up away from the sun and the wind, and I can't stand having other people control me. I barely survived it once. I wouldn't survive it a second time. So I learned to get my thrills in legal ways."

  Again Zeke nodded, as if he found this perfectly comprehensible. "A young man who is wild often grows into an old man with wisdom."

  One corner of Gideon's mouth quirked. "I'm a long way from wisdom, Zeke. Believe me."

  "A long way from old, too," Zeke said on a chuckle.

  "And your grandfather?" Sara asked. "Is he still around?"

  Gideon shook his head. "He passed on twelve years ago. Before I got old enough to really listen to him."

  Something about the way he said that told Sara how much he regretted the loss, and she warmed a little more toward him.

  "Well," said Gideon, pushing back from the table, "I'd better go check out before they charge me for another night. I'll be back in plenty of time to help with the chores, Zeke. Don't get started without me."

  Sara watched him go, only half-aware that her grandfather was watching her. All man, she thought with a delicious, frightening inward thrill. Gideon Ironheart was all man. And he probably had a string of broken hearts behind him to prove it, she reminded herself. Still, it couldn't hurt to admire his rear view as he strolled to his truck.

  "Seems like a good man," Zeke remarked.

  "Maybe." She was determined to reserve judgment, and faced her grandfather with her chin stubbornly set. "Time will tell. Now I need to get out there and clean the bunkhouse. That place must be layered under inches of dust and dirt after all this time."

  "I'll do it, Sarey. I offered it to the man."

  "Forget it," she said, softening. "Your arthritis will give you fits, and it won't take me long at all to do a little dusting."

  Zeke rose from the table and came over to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "We all depend on you too much, child."

  They were nearly of a height, and Sara had to tip her head only a little bit to meet his eyes. "I wouldn't have been able to do any of it without you, Grandfather, and you know it perfectly well. I couldn't have taken a job if you hadn't come to live here and look after Joey. I would have lost the ranch for sure, and maybe I would have had to give Joey up."

  And suddenly she gave a soft laugh. "Right now, that doesn't sound so awful, does it?"

  Zeke joined her laughter and squeezed her in a warm hug. "No, Sarey, right now it doesn't sound bad at all."

  * * *

  The bunkhouse was dusty, all right, and there were plenty of cobwebs, but otherwise it was a sound and sturdy structure. It had four rooms, three with beds, and a front room with a wood stove, a couch and a couple of overstuffed chairs. A mouse had gotten into one of the chairs, pulling out a little stuffing, but the damage wasn't too bad. The plank floors needed a good dust mopping, and then a swipe with the wet mop.

  A couple of hours later, she reached the last bedroom and noticed the stack of boxes and a trunk in the corner. Zeke's things, she thought. He'd stored them in here when he had come to live with her and Joey. Maybe he would want to bring them up to the house now.

  Absently, not really paying attention to what she was doing, she flipped open one of the boxes. Her attention was immediat
ely snared by a gold-framed portrait, and she lifted it with slow hands and a wondering heart.

  This was her grandparents' wedding portrait, she realized, and sank onto the edge of the bed so she could study it. That would have been 1941, she thought. Just at the beginning of the war. Zeke would have been about nineteen, and his bride, Alma Dietz, would have been barely seventeen.

  The photo was sepia-toned, but there was no mistaking that Alma was fair and Zeke was dark. Zeke wore an army uniform proudly, and his raven hair was trimmed close, revealing the proud shape of his skull and cheeks. Alma, with wispy blond hair and eyes so light they barely registered in the photo, looked as fragile as Zeke looked strong. Her dress was white, and her veil was trimmed with rosebuds.

  Why, Sara wondered, had Alma's missionary father blessed this union? Prejudices had been even worse then than they were now, and they were bad enough now. Had Alma been so persuasive? Or had the war made other matters seem unimportant? Or had her great grandfather simply been a man of principle without prejudice?

  She was tempted to ask Zeke about it, then hesitated. This photo was out here, after all, hidden away with things he evidently had no need of. Maybe it was better left hidden. Perhaps the memories were still too painful for him in some way.

  Sara devoted another couple of minutes to looking at the face of the grandmother she had never known, then slipped the framed portrait back into the box. Maybe she would just mention the boxes casually and see what Zeke said. Maybe he wouldn't want them out here where Gideon could rummage through them.

  And maybe he would tell her why they weren't in the house with him.

  The bathroom took a little longer to clean, partly because it had been years since anyone had scoured the scum from the tub, and partly because Sara kept coming face-to-face with memories of her father. Ted Yates had worked nearly a solid month one summer to bring water and modern facilities to the bunkhouse. Sara, ten at the time, had worked right alongside him, getting her first lessons in plumbing, soldering, welding and good, old-fashioned ditch digging. The ditch, to lay pipe from the well, had taken most of the time, needing to be pickaxed out of rocky ground and made deep enough so the pipes wouldn't freeze in the winter. Looking at her hands now, Sara remembered her blisters and her wonderful sense of accomplishment.