Hearth Stone

by Lois Greiman

  “Yeah.” Vura cranked the steering wheel. Behind them, Lily was chattering to the items she pulled out of a much-abused backpack. “Lil’s father. He’s working up in Williston.”

  “Where?”

  “Williston, North Dakota. Pours cement for Barnett Petroleum. Frackers. It’s booming up there. He wanted to stay here, of course. It’s really hard for him to be gone so much. Away from Lily. And me. But he lost his job at T and T and …” She shrugged, glanced out the side window, a soft frown creasing her brow. “Is this the fence line?”

  “Yes.” Sydney nodded. “It starts here, then runs west and north, I think.”

  “Well, we’ll get rid of it. Lily and I.” She said the words with a strange finality, then smiled. “Where should I put the posts?”

  Posts. New fence lines. Steel barns. Drywall. Oak flooring. So many things she had never before considered. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about it yet.” She was already backing around to return to Gray Horse Hill. “We’ll think about that when I have the first load.”

  The cab went silent except for Lily’s humming.

  “He’d be here if he could,” Vura said softly.

  Sydney glanced at her.

  “Dane,” she explained and managed a smile as she turned back toward the passenger seat. “He hates that man camp where he’s living. I’ll make sure you meet him when he’s home next time.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “You’ll like him,” Vura added, attention riveted on the bending road ahead. “Everyone likes Dane. He’s a charmer. He wouldn’t have left if he didn’t have to.”

  In the backseat, Lily was singing a lisping version of “Old MacDonald” to her rat. Her mother watched her in the rearview mirror. Devotion as warm as sunlight shone on her face. “I mean …” Her words were little more than a whisper. “You’d have to be nuts to leave a great kid like Lily.”

  Sydney winced, though she didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if her own mother had left her on purpose. Still, the memory of her loss made her throat feel tight and her eyes sting.

  “Right?” Vura asked and smiled, upbeat again.

  “Absolutely,” Sydney said and felt her heart break a little.

  Chapter 21

  In the end, Sydney spent the day with Lily and Vura. By seven p.m. she was quite certain she was going to die. By eight, she half hoped she would. She’d put in some long days with Redhawk, but given their size difference, her inability to keep up seemed reasonable. With Vura, who matched her in height, she couldn’t find a justifiable reason to fall behind. And Vura was a virtual dynamo. She could, it seemed, pull out posts, roll up wires, and entertain a child while carrying on a conversation and fixing snacks from the passenger seat of her Chevy. She had, in fact, refused to return to the house for lunch. Instead, she and Lily had remained in the shade of the bluff not far from where Sydney had first found Courage.

  Evening came and went, bringing blessed darkness and an end to the work day.

  Redhawk didn’t look up from the pan that sizzled with melting butter as Sydney pulled off the gloves he had loaned her. There was a hole in the leather of the left thumb. A blister had formed and broken hours ago. She glanced toward the stove, trying to judge his mood. It was a little like attempting to psychoanalyze a bear.

  “It smells good in here,” she said and felt the homey scents slide contentment through her system.

  “Fry bread.”

  “I beg your pardon?” she said and washed up at the kitchen sink.

  “Old Indian recipe.” He nodded toward the table. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized they had one. It was old and battered, with claw feet and rounded legs.

  He didn’t have to tell her to sit down this time. She sank onto the nearest cushion. As he opened the oven and gave something a poke, she slouched against the slats of the newly purchased chair and realized it had three mates. It was almost like sitting in a real kitchen. “You’ve been busy,” she said.

  “Windows came in. Had to go to town.”

  “Is that where you got the …” She studied the jumble of knives and forks he had tossed onto the table. As far as she could tell, they were like snowflakes. No two alike. “Silverware?”

  “Went back to Re Uzit,” he said. “Bought the plates, too.”

  She glanced at the two that had been set out. They were matching and only one was chipped. It was a good day. “Aren’t you a little Suzy Homemaker?”

  “Martha Stewart.”

  “My mistake.” She straightened a little. If her nanny saw her slouching, she would have to recite Keats. If Grandmother saw, her penance would be more severe. Coleridge might be involved. She suppressed a shudder and turned her mind aside. “Vura’s a good worker.”

  He nodded. “Mother lions,” he said, and removing a formerly unknown casserole dish from the oven, turned toward the table.

  Sydney raised her eyes … and gasped at the sight of his face.

  He watched her, expression impassive. “I also bought a razor.”

  She stared at him, tried to speak, then shook her head once and tried again. “Why?”

  “You preferred the beard?”

  Was he joking? The beard had been as ugly as sin. While his face … Well, she wouldn’t call him handsome, exactly. But rugged might work. Or chiseled. Or gorgeous! His jaw was square and lean, his skin the color of the bluffs outside her bedroom window.

  He raised his brows at her.

  She exhaled carefully, eased back into her chair. “Not necessarily.” She shrugged, going for casual. It had always been clear that he wasn’t deformed. He hadn’t been hideous. On the other hand, he hadn’t been Adonis, either. Not before now. “No, you look …” This didn’t change anything, she assured herself. She wasn’t shallow. Rigid, maybe. Arrogant. Unskilled. Mean. Condescending. But not shallow. “Clean.”

  “Clean?”

  She cleared her throat. “Nice.”

  His lips, unimpeded by that god-awful beard, lifted a little. “You look nice, too.”

  She breathed a laugh, smoothed her hair behind her ears. “I look a fright.” It was, perhaps, the first time in her life that she had ever disparaged her physical appearance. Looks were unimportant in the Wellesley family. Grooming, however, was tantamount to godliness.

  He watched her with bright-agate eyes. “Relaxed,” he said and removed the milk from the refrigerator.

  “Is relaxation synonymous with exhaustion?”

  “Frequently,” he said and set the milk beside the casserole on the table.

  She shifted her shoulders a little. Pain skittered across her back. “What is that?” she asked and nodded toward their meal. It wasn’t easy to resist making a face, but the entrée didn’t look like anything she had ever seen before. Perhaps that was because she’d never been employed in a kennel. Or employed at all, come to that.

  “Lefties,” he said and turned back toward the stove.

  “Lefties?” She was hungry. Ravenous, actually, but she had always been a picky eater. It was one of the few faults about which her grandmother had not complained. If she didn’t wish to eat what had been prepared, that was acceptable. But there would be no substitutes, no additions. Nothing at all, in fact, until the next scheduled meal. Treats were for poodles and those who cleaned their fingernails with toothpicks.

  “Five men in the family,” he reminded her and slid a piece of fry bread onto her plate. It looked, she thought, like a mistake, but smelled a little like heaven. “Mom never wasted the leftovers.”

  “Ahhh.” She had heard of leftovers. Had never seen any, but had heard of them. She hadn’t been allowed in the kitchen. “Hence it is made of …” She paused, wondering how hungry she would be by morning.

  “In this instance?” He shrugged. “Beef, corn … potato chips.”

  “You’re joking,” she said.

  He gave her a look.

  “As it turns out, I’m not as hungry as I thoug
ht I was.”

  He took a seat across the table from her. “I would have been happy to trade in a brother or two for you.”

  She watched as he dished the mush onto his plate.

  “More for me,” he added and reached across the table toward her plate. “You don’t want the fry bread, either?”

  It was more difficult than she would have expected to keep from stabbing him in the hand with her fork. Despite his newfound Adonis status, she would fight him for that misshapen bread. “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes?” His hand was still poised to seize.

  “I want it.” She cleared her throat, found the verbal cadence her grandmother would have approved of, and tried again. “I would like to taste your fry bread.”

  He shrugged and pushed the butter toward her. It still resided in its paper wrapper. Apparently, Re Uzit had been short on butter dishes. Or perhaps Martha Stewart didn’t endorse them. Either way, Sydney had been taught early on to eschew animal fats. She shook her head and cut into the bread, knife and fork in hand.

  He watched her from beneath raised brows.

  Sydney glanced up. “Is something amiss?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched.

  “No,” he said, but his lips curved again. “It’s just that fry bread’s not usually eaten like Cordon bleu.”

  She considered a snide remark, but her salivary glands were acting up. So instead, she picked up her fried dough with both hands and lifted it to her mouth.

  He watched her chew and swallow before taking another bite. She was, he thought, the only woman he had ever known who could look elegant in an oversized flannel shirt and enough mud to plant corn. She sat very straight and chewed slowly. She might also be the only woman who didn’t like his fry bread, which was strange. It was his mother’s recipe, after all; the lard made all the difference.

  “It is better with butter,” he said and felt like an idiot. What did he care if she liked his meal? He wasn’t a smitten bridegroom, breathlessly waiting to see if he’d pleased his new wife.

  “Really?” She set the bread carefully back on her plate, then stared at it as if it were a strange new breed of cat that might leap for her throat at any given second. “I don’t actually think it could be.”

  So she liked it? A splash of pleasure washed through him, but it was strange how her pleased face and her angry face were nearly identical. What was her sex face like? he wondered and drowned the question with a quaff of raw Lazy Windmill milk.

  “Better with butter,” he added again, “and lefties.” He took a bite of hotdish. It wasn’t as good as Mavis Lindeman Redhawk’s. But what was?

  She was staring at the casserole. Reaching out, he tapped the serving spoon toward her with the tines of his fork. After a long, calculated moment, she scooped up a minuscule portion and sampled a kernel-sized bite.

  Good lord, she wouldn’t have lasted an hour at the Redhawk table. He watched her nibble off another crumb of fry bread, chew thoroughly, and wash it down with the coffee he’d put by her plate before her arrival.

  “Your mother taught you to cook?” she asked.

  He shrugged, finished off his bread, and reached for another piece. “Her and the Casa de Hambre.”

  “Excuse me?” She sequestered off another morsel of lefties with a single tine of her fork. Honest to God, he had seen ants eat more.

  “Little café in Tampico.” Café was actually a pretty fancy term for an establishment like the Hambre. But they’d been happy to have him and he had needed the money. People should, he thought and liberally applied butter to his bread. People should need a reason to work.

  “You were a cook?”

  The surprise in her voice made him chuckle a little. “Not apparent by my meal, I take it?”

  “No. I didn’t mean that. It’s quite good.”

  “Careful.”

  She glanced at him, brows raised.

  “You’re making me blush,” he said and she laughed.

  The sound was silvery soft, like rainwater against parched earth.

  They stared at each other for several breathless heartbeats, but she finally broke free and shifted her gaze back to her meal.

  “Could you teach me to make it?”

  “Lefties?”

  “Yes,” she said and took a second helping. The portion was almost big enough for an anorexic prairie dog.

  “Can you dump ingredients into a pan?”

  She scowled. “I’m honestly not sure.”

  He didn’t bother to suppress his chuckle. “I can teach you,” he said.

  Their gazes caught. Something sizzled along his nerve endings. Too much sun probably. He pulled his attention back to his plate and picked up his coffee cup. He hadn’t purchased more mugs. They had two. How many did one kitchen need?

  “When were you in Tampico?” she asked.

  He shrugged, allowed himself to look at her again. “Long time ago.”

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Why do you wish to know?” He wasn’t sure if he should be embarrassed by his reluctance to tell her.

  “Idle curiosity.” Her eyes crinkled a little, apparently amused by that same reluctance. “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

  “I hate to risk the cat.”

  “The … ahh,” she said. “The one that curiosity killed.”

  He gave her a head tilt and hooked an elbow over the back of his chair.

  “Okay, then how old were you when you worked in Tampico?”

  He thought a moment, then, “Fourteen.”

  Her dark, neatly groomed brows shot toward her hairline. “You were gainfully employed when you were fourteen?”

  “Gainfully may be an overstatement.”

  “Is that even legal?”

  He shrugged. “Easier than picking coffee beans. But it does not teach you how to choose the perfect cherry.” He glanced wistfully into his cup. “Juan could brew coffee so poetically rich, it would make you cry.”

  She stared at him. “You’re making this up.”

  He returned her attention, felt his stomach flip at the sight of her avid eyes, and carefully ignored the sensation. “So you are happy with Vura?”

  “Vura …” She scowled a little. “Do you know her from somewhere?”

  “She came here last Friday. Did you forget?”

  She almost smirked. “I meant before that.”

  “No.” He stood and returned to the urine-yellow counter. It was a wonder of Red Sea proportions, he thought, that any right-thinking person would make such an ugly laminate. “I did not.”

  “Then how did you know about Lily?”

  He turned to settle his hips against that laminate. “Bravura did not seem like the type to read Buffalo Knees to herself.”

  Sydney’s brows twitched in question.

  “The book on her dash,” he explained. It had been one of Sara’s favorites, but he tucked away the emotions that accompanied those memories.

  “And you were certain she didn’t have a niece or a younger sister?”

  “She needed a job.” He didn’t admit that he had recognized the desperation in the woman’s eyes. Had felt that same gnawing anxiety himself on more than one occasion before he’d forged his own path. “You are happy with her work. Where is the problem?”

  “There’s no problem. I just … Why would you promise to teach Lily to ride?”

  He shifted. Why indeed? “You learned to ride as a child, did you not?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “Is she any less valuable because she does not have a wealthy father?”

  She pursed her lips. “That’s not what we’re talking about.”

  “What are we talking about, Sydney?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Courage is going to die.” She said the words softly, then cleared her throat. “You know that as well as I.”

  He felt her sorrow, her fear, her inexplicable guilt. “And yet you sit by her stall through the dark of night.”

 
; She watched him, breath held as if wondering how he knew.

  “The front door shrieks like a mountain lion in the small hours of the morning.”

  She looked down at her plate. She had finished off her morsel. “My point is, Courage will never be able to be ridden.”

  “It would be kinder to be rid of her now, then,” he said. “If you are so certain she’ll not survive. Better now than after she suffers more. And after Lily becomes attached to her.”

  “Lily’s got a mother.” The words seemed to leave Sydney’s mouth without her permission. She pursed her lips as if wishing she could pull them back.

  “And you didn’t.” It wasn’t as if he had forgotten. But perhaps he hadn’t realized how much it still mattered.

  “I just meant Vura will be able to comfort her if … when …” She let the sentence fall flat.

  “How did she die?”

  She squirmed the tiniest bit, then stilled as if even that much fidgeting was a weakness not to be borne. “It was a long time ago.”

  “And still it hurts.”

  “It’s not as if I was raised by coyotes.” She laughed, jiggled her fork, then stopped abruptly, setting it carefully beside her plate. “I had excellent care.”

  Excellent care. God save the children, he thought. “Your father must have spoiled you.”

  “Yes,” she said and didn’t raise her eyes to his. “Of course.”

  A lie, he thought. He could spot them as well as he could tell them and wished he hadn’t asked. He wasn’t the nurturing type. Hadn’t he proven that a hundred times?

  “And what about you?” She shifted the conversation to him. It was an obvious ploy, but he was happy to let her do it.

  “Cake and ice cream every day of my life,” he said.

  She smiled at her plate, then lifted her gaze to his, eyes bright. “Really. What’s it like?”

  “Life on the reservation?”

  “Life with a …” She paused. She was going to say mother. He could feel it in the velvet softness of her voice and felt his heart crack around the edges.

  “Life with the Hun?”

  “The Hun. Yes,” she said and almost smiled.

  “She was funny, unless you made her angry. Then—” He shook his head.

  Her eyes were wide. “Did she strike you?”