Hearth Stone

by Lois Greiman

  He handed her a mug. The ceramic was chipped, the color faded, but the aroma was as bright as spring flowers. “I did not say so.”

  “You don’t say anything.”

  His lips lifted a little. “Her will is strong, but her body …” He shrugged.

  Sydney wrapped her fingers around the warmth and allowed herself a sip. A soft wave of cautious comfort washed in. Redhawk had a number of shortcomings, but he could brew a tantalizing cup of coffee. She sipped again and found that for the life of her she couldn’t seem to recall what those shortcomings were. Fatigue, it seemed, was taking a toll on her memory.

  “We have no syrup.” His hands looked large and dark against the stainless-steel spatula. He flipped a pancake with casual grace.

  She took another sip. “I don’t eat breakfast.”

  “This is dinner.”

  “It’s not even seven o’clock in the morning.”

  “Early dinner. Sit,” he said and pointed to the piano bench with the flat end of the utensil.

  “Mr. Redhawk …” she began, using her more-regal-than-thou voice. “While I appreciate everything you’ve done here at Gray Horse—”

  “I ordered hay.”

  She scowled at the back of his neck.

  “From whom?”

  “Farmer I know. Should arrive this morning. Straw, too.”

  She longed to fidget, but couldn’t allow such a blatant lack of control. “Thank you.”

  He nodded and set a plate in front of her.

  “I don’t eat pancakes.”

  “These are flapjacks.”

  “I don’t eat—”

  “She will die,” he said.

  She jerked her gaze to his.

  “The horse,” he said. “If you are too weak, too stubborn … too foolish to care for yourself, she will die. Is this what you want?”

  What she wanted was to be left alone. To feel sorry for herself. But instead, she ate the flapjacks. Because he stood between her and the door. Because he watched her until she did. Because the horse needed her. And maybe, a little bit, because they tasted fantastic. In fact, she ate them all, shoved the plate away, and somewhere in the back of her stubborn mind kind of wished she wasn’t too proud to ask for more.

  He sipped his coffee and watched her with one brawny shoulder propped casually against the wall.

  “Are you happy now?” she asked.

  “Euphoric.”

  He barely looked conscious, like a sleepy bear just out of hibernation. He’d changed his shirt, hiding all that lovely muscle behind tan, narrow-ribbed corduroy.

  She tightened her grip on the coffee mug and pushed her gaze back to his face.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “Besides ungodly strong?”

  His expression was as solemn as a dirge. She resisted the urge to laugh. “Your wound,” she said. “How is it?”

  “It is healing well.”

  “It must hurt.”

  “I am also extremely brave.”

  She did laugh now, but sobered in a moment. “Does the ointment help?”

  “Ai.”

  She let one finger tap the rim of her mug. “We’ll have to change Courage’s bandages soon.”

  He nodded.

  “The ointment … would it help her?”

  “Tonk swears by it for his ponies.”

  She studied him through narrowed eyes and took a sip of coffee. “Tonk?”

  “My youngest and most …” He shook his head as if trying to think of a suitable description. But he gave up in a moment. “My youngest brother.”

  “The one with the relay horses?”

  “Ai.”

  “He thinks the ointment helps them?”

  “If you listen to him, he will have you believing it can bring back the dead.”

  She waited a heartbeat before she spoke again. “Can we try it on Courage?”

  For a moment she was certain he was about to warn her regarding the mare’s prognosis, but finally he nodded.

  She felt her muscles relax a smidgeon and took another sip of coffee. Silence stretched comfortably between them. Ideas, already rooted, bloomed silently in an imagination made fertile by the untamed country around her. Wild horses raced through her mind, manes flying, hooves pounding, but she corralled them in a moment and turned resolutely toward practicality. “Could you … if I bought the necessary lumber … could you build a jump course?” Victoria, bless her heart, had come through with the loan.

  He narrowed his eyes against the steam of his own coffee as he raised the mug to his lips. Sensuously full beneath his proud, bowed nose, they curled at the corners, spewing up a half dozen unwelcome fantasies.

  Sydney cleared her throat and wondered rather dismally if she sounded like a hillbilly with a phlegm problem. “I have this land …” She shrugged, trying to look casual. Or at least less desperate. “Hills, streams, prairie. Why not allow others to use it?”

  “For?”

  “The barn where I rode …” She gritted her teeth, resolved not to clear her throat again. “Yes, I rode,” she said. He didn’t interrupt. “Dressage. I was a dressage rider. But I didn’t wear a top hat …” She tapped one rogue finger twice against the warm ceramic cup. “… all the time.” Shadbelly coats and flat hats were reserved for the discipline’s most prestigious competitions. Dressage riders were not, after all, barbarians. “Steeple Veil hosted several members of the Olympic eventing team.”

  He said nothing.

  “Are you familiar with the sport?”

  “A three-pronged event, isn’t it? Dressage, stadium jumping, and outdoor …” He shook his head.

  “Cross country. Jumping on an outdoor course. It’s not my field of expertise.” Her thigh throbbed at the magnitude of that understatement. “But I could train the dressage riders and hire someone to help with the other disciplines.” She paused, calming herself. “The next summer Olympics will be held in less than sixteen months.”

  He made no comment.

  “I believe it’s my duty as an American citizen to assist our team in bringing home the gold.” She resisted the burning need to squirm like a mouse in a hawk’s talons.

  “So they would train here for free?”

  She kept her gaze steady on him. “I suspect if we made a modest profit, it wouldn’t be the end of the world as we know it.”

  “We?”

  And now they came to the marrow of the matter. “I thought perhaps you would be interested in taking a share of the profits.”

  “If I do the work.”

  “I would work, too.”

  He watched her. Not long ago, he would have laughed at the notion, but he had learned much about her since then. Much, and nothing.

  “What about funds?” he asked.

  “Funds?” She smoothed a finger over the chip in her mug.

  “Money,” he explained.

  “As I’ve said before, there will be plenty of that soon enough.”

  “It has been my experience that where money is concerned, there is rarely plenty and never soon enough.”

  She forced a laugh. The look he gave her was something between astonishment and trepidation. She wouldn’t try that laugh again. “What would you estimate the cost to be?”

  “For an Olympic-caliber jump course?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps I have given you the wrong impression of my knowledge.”

  “You don’t know everything?”

  “No.”

  “You’re right, you’ve misled me,” she said and smiled when he frowned at her. “If I draw out a course, could you give me an estimate?”

  “While replacing your windows, nursing the mustang, and rebuilding your porch?”

  “Don’t forget about cooking.” Her tone was comically hopeful.

  He raised one brow.

  “The pancakes were quite …” She searched for a moderate adjective and came up empty. “Perfect,” she said.

  She saw the surprise cause
d by her honesty and almost laughed.

  “Well,” he said finally. “I have always been comfortable with tradition.”

  “Which means?”

  “The white slave owner.” He finished his coffee, set the cup beside the sink, and turned to leave. “The downtrodden Indian.”

  She watched him depart … his endless shoulders, his tight buttocks, his loose-limbed swagger. Downtrodden. She snorted and tried her best not to think in terms of thrusting and heaving.

  Good heavens, he was practically a god.

  Chapter 19

  “Two hundred thousand should cover it.”

  Mr. Anderson’s statement was punctuated by the sound of Hunter’s steady hammering, but he was pretty sure he had heard the other man correctly.

  “Two hundred thousand,” Sydney said. The words sounded a little breathless.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Dollars.”

  “Or thereabouts.”

  “For a barn.”

  He nodded. Lean as a white oak rail, the man had his designer jeans hitched low on practically nonexistent hips. His hair was coifed in a swanky do Hunter had seen on a hundred well-dressed hipsters in LA. “All new construction,” he said and flashed a flawless smile. “Raw materials don’t come free, you know.”

  “I see.”

  Where was she going to get two hundred thousand dollars? Hunter wondered. She couldn’t even afford a decent mattress. He glanced up from the nail he was pounding. In the last three days, spring had come in earnest. Fresh-melted snow hustled along every gully, singing its way toward unseen oceans. A meadowlark, raucous with joy, sang from a rotting post near a just-budding white willow.

  But the rest of Gray Horse Hill didn’t look quite so fresh. The house was largely unfinished and the wooden barn yawned like an open crypt. Everything needed painting and renovating and redoing. Speaking of which …

  “We’re going to need more lumber,” he said and abandoned his job to take the few steps that separated them.

  Sydney turned at the sound of his voice. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Found more dry rot around the windows.”

  “Hello,” Anderson said and shifted his well-shod feet. “You must be … Mr. Wellesley?”

  “No,” Sydney said.

  Was her answer a little quick? Hunt wondered and refrained from scowling.

  “This is Mr. Redhawk, my …” She paused momentarily, making him rethink the wisdom of that scowl. “… employee.”

  “Well, aren’t you the lucky dog,” Anderson said and turned toward Hunter. “My boss weighs in at about three hundred and fifty pounds. ’Bout half of that is body hair.” He flashed a mouth full of pearly whites and thrust out his hand. “I’m Anderson. Moses. But they call me Moss.”

  “Hunter.” They shook while Hunt reminded himself there was no reason in the world he should want to crush the other’s palm. It only took a moment for him to force his glower away from the contractor and back toward Sydney. “Maybe you could make a trip later this morning.”

  “Hey.” Anderson spoke again. “Aren’t you Verdell’s brother?”

  Redhawk turned back toward him. “One of them.”

  “Yeah. You’re the guy who moved off to L.A. after—”

  “You’re thinking of Jesse.”

  “What?”

  “My other brother. Jesse.”

  “Really? I thought sure it was—”

  “He’s still in Burbank.”

  “No kidding. Well … This is a nice place, too. You planning to keep your horses here?”

  Hunter scowled.

  “I saw you racing at the fairgrounds once.” Anderson shook his head. “That was some crazy stunt.”

  “The horses belong to my family,” Hunter said.

  “Were all those boys your brothers then?”

  “Ai.”

  “So your other brother … what’s his name?”

  Hunter waited several beats before speaking. “Tonkiaishawien.”

  “Yeah.” Anderson shook his head, but didn’t chance the pronunciation. “He’s out of treatment?”

  There was no reason in the world he should be irritated by this little bastard, Hunter realized. Still, he kind of wished he had another shot at that handshake. “Was there a purpose for your visit?” he asked instead.

  Anderson grinned. “Oh, yeah. I came by to give Miss Wellesley an estimate for a brand-new steel barn.”

  “Steel?” Hunter asked.

  Sydney raised a brow at his tone.

  “Sure,” Anderson said, unleashing the full force of that ungodly white smile again. Hunter refrained from shielding his eyes. “Unless you can talk your brother into lending you a couple mil, you can’t afford to build them like they used to. Well …” He reached for Sydney’s hand, held it a fraction of a second too long. “Give me a call if there’s anything I can do for you.” He raised his brows a quarter of an inch. “Anything at all,” he added, and turning, sauntered toward his spanking-new four-wheel drive.

  Sydney broke the silence. “If I had known you were a celebrity, I would have put out the fine china. How good were you at this relay-race thing?”

  “We won some,” Hunter rumbled and tilted his head toward the truck that zipped onto the road and roared up the hill. “Where’d you find him?”

  She canted her head a little, questioning his unspoken sentiment. “On the Internet. Why?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “No reason. Just making conversation.”

  She snorted. He had no idea why. It wasn’t as if he was a deaf mute. Or that he had clocked the guy with an uppercut to the jaw or something. No. If he was going to take a swing, and of course there was no reason in the world for such theatrics, he would have planted one in Mr. Anderson’s well-dressed gut. He looked a little soft in the middle.

  Sydney was still watching him with a bemused expression. It looked patently out of place on her elegant features.

  “What’s wrong with the old barn?” Hunter asked.

  Her lips turned up a little, making her face look quizzical and young. Such New York sleek features, he thought, shouldn’t have lips that were candy-apple bright and strawberry plump. “Besides the fact that it would make better matchsticks than shelter?”

  He pulled his gaze from her mouth, pushed it toward the barn. “That building was constructed by men who created things through hard work and ingenuity. Who took pride in craftsmanship… not by some fly-by-night dandy with pearly teeth and truck payments.”

  Her eyes widened. The expression was tantamount to a shout in a woman as reserved as Sydney Wellesley. “Dandy?”

  He felt a muscle tic in his jaw. “The point is, that barn has stood against the elements for a hundred years and would last another hundred if repaired.”

  “As impressive as that fact may be, I begin to suspect that you don’t fully understand the kind of clientele I’m looking for, Mr. Redhawk.”

  “Maybe you don’t.” His tone sounded just a tad more childish than he had planned.

  She folded her hands demurely in front of her body. She was, once again, dressed in perfectly tailored slacks and a button-down shirt. He missed the oversized sweatshirt and bare feet and couldn’t help but wonder if she had donned those clothes for the well-groomed Mr. Anderson. “Enlighten me then,” she said.

  “If they have the best riding facilities in the country out east, why would anyone bother to come here?” he asked.

  “Maybe their current stable is too costly or they’re disillusioned with their trainers. Or perhaps they simply want something new. Something fresh.”

  “Or something old. Something solid.”

  “These are internationally acclaimed horses,” she said. “World-class riders.”

  “Who can have spit-polished grooms and climate-controlled barns any day of the week. Why not promise them something different? A piece of history. An opportunity to get their hands dirty, to learn from the ground up.”

  She scowled at him, then turne
d her glower on the barn. It was a good-sized structure. Twenty by thirty meters at least. The roof had sustained some damage over the years and much of the interior would have to be gutted, but the overhead beams were as big around as a man’s waist.

  “I’ll admit this isn’t exactly my forte,” she said. “But unless I miss my guess, it would cost nearly as much to restore as to build new.”

  “Unless you take the environmental degradation into account.”

  “I’m afraid I need to consider the degradation of my finances first and—” she began, but stopped at the sound of an engine.

  Glancing to the left, she watched as a red Chevy truck turned into the drive and bumped through potholes and puddles toward the house. Mud was splattered liberally over its aging bumpers. It pulled to a halt not twenty feet from them, then rumbled hungrily for an instant before the driver cut the engine.

  In a moment she stepped out from behind the wheel. “Hi.” The speaker was a woman in her early twenties with bright eyes, a round face, and a swishy sundress that showed well-toned arms and brown legs.

  “I’m looking for Sydney Wellesley …” The newcomer let the statement hang in the air like a question and glanced from one to the other as if either of them might be the person for which she searched.

  Uncertainty and suspicion were written in equal measures on Sydney’s face. Hunter raised his brows at the continued silence, bumping her back into action.

  “I am she,” Sydney said finally.

  “Oh …” Their guest took the single step forward to shake hands. Her hair was long, dark, and curled in trendy spirals that fell softly against her sunny summer dress. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Bravura Lambert.” When she turned to greet him as well, her handshake was firm and brisk. “But most people call me Vura.” She stepped back, gaze steady.

  “Is there something with which I can help you, Ms. Lambert?”

  Hunter heard cautious reserve return to Sydney’s voice as he watched her erect a barrier as unimpeachable as the ancestral fortress in which she had surely been raised.

  “Oh …” Vura rocked back on her heels when she laughed. She had a girl-next-door kind of face, pretty, but not so stunning as to scramble a man’s brains. The way she stood suggested she was comfortable with her body and with her skills. The weathered pickup truck she drove said much more. “I’m sorry. I guess you’re not a mind reader. I’m looking for work. I was told you might be hiring.”