IRONHEART

by Rachel Lee

  "Sorry. I get these flashbacks and feel like I'm falling."

  "You fell?" Sara asked tentatively, trying to understand what was happening, why he was so torn up.

  For the space of several heartbeats he didn't answer, and Sara began to think he wasn't going to. And that was his right, she told herself. Absolutely his right.

  "Connectors work in pairs," he said suddenly. "It's absolutely essential to be able to read your partner, to know what he's going to do, how he operates. You have to be able to trust him with your life. So when you find a good partner, you tend to stick together. Barney and I worked together on every job for the last thirteen years. We were … close. Really close." He drew a long breath. "Last October, Barney fell. Seventy stories."

  "Oh, my God!" She reached out again, covering his hand with hers and holding on tight. "Oh, Gideon!"

  "I felt him die, Sara. Maybe nobody will ever believe that," he said rawly, "but I felt him die. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do except hang on to the column and wait for it to be over. But I felt it, Sara. I felt it."

  "I believe you. Oh, Gideon, I believe you."

  He turned suddenly and gathered her to him, crushing her to his chest, hanging on as if she were a lifeline in a world gone mad. There just weren't words to tell anybody how it had felt to have Barney gone. There was a hole in him where Barney had been, and in the moment of his friend's death he had felt something ripped out of his soul by its roots, leaving nothing but a bleeding wound.

  For thirteen years he and Barney had worked together, drunk together, fished together, hunted together. Brothers. Even Barney's marriage hadn't come between them. They'd simply packed Jolene up with the tent or the boat and taken her with them. Jolene had loved it. She had even loved moving from town to town, wherever the jobs took them.

  "What happened to Jolene?" Sara asked softly.

  Her question jarred him out of his memories, and back to the chilly Wyoming night and the restless sighing of the wind in the trees. Only when she spoke did he realize he'd been talking. Rambling. Spilling his guts about Barney. He started to pull away, but her arms tightened, clinging, and honest to God, he needed her touch. He stayed.

  "She … uh … she told me she didn't want to see me again for a long time. Said I made her … think of Barney every time she set eyes on me."

  Oh God, Sara thought, pain ripping her heart. Even then, the person who could have most shared his grief had left him on the outside. He'd been on the outside his entire life, never belonging, never fitting. Always looking in but never asked to come inside. Except for his grandfather and uncle, she amended. They'd asked him in, but she suspected he was so used to being on the outside that he didn't know any other way to be.

  Squeezing her eyes shut against the ache in her heart, she had a sudden memory of Gideon Ironheart as she had first seen him, standing at the center of a group of men who wanted to beat him to a pulp. Refusing to give an inch. Fighting for the right to stand at a damn bar and order a sandwich. Refusing to be cast out because of his skin.

  But he was already an emotional outcast, and he didn't even know it. Didn't even realize that he had accepted that he should always be on the outside looking in.

  That was the moment when Sara realized that she had already invited him in. He was there, in her heart, as not even George had been. But how could she tell him that? she wondered miserably, aching for both of them. He would rear up like that damn mustang and dash for the trees, believing himself to be a wild creature. He would shy away and tell her that he was a tumbleweed, that he didn't believe in love.

  And he didn't. That was the really odd thing about him. He didn't believe in it, but he practiced it with nearly every breath he took. Look at the way he took care of Zeke. The way he had fretted about her safety, the way he looked after the ranch when Zeke couldn't. The way he whispered to that damn mustang. The way he called his uncle every few days to check on the old man.

  She couldn't tell him, she realized, tightening her hold on him. But she could certainly show him.

  When at length he eased away, she let him go. You couldn't hold a wild thing, she reminded herself. It had to want to be held.

  The wind whispered of things lost, and the night yielded no secrets. It was lonely out here, and empty. The vastness of the Wyoming night was awesome.

  "I'm sorry, Sara," he said after a bit. "I didn't mean to dump all over you."

  "That's what friends are for."

  "You've got enough problems of your own. Joey's a real handful, isn't he?"

  She let him change the subject. "He can be."

  "What exactly do you think is eating him?"

  She sighed then and lifted her feet to a higher step so she could hug her knees. "I'm not sure. He was little when we lost our parents, but he was never a problem until just about two years ago. I keep thinking something must have happened, but I sure don't know what. I've tried talking to him. I've suggested counseling. I've begged his teachers for clues and patience and help, and nothing changes."

  She wiggled her toes in her boots and shivered a little as the breeze snaked into the neck of her sweater. "Nate didn't really want to send him home," she said after a few minutes.

  "Why not?"

  "He doesn't believe Joey's really turning over a new leaf. He said Joey's just scared right now, but not scared enough to change."

  Gideon thought about what little he'd seen of the boy during their confrontation this afternoon. "He's scared, all right. More than a little scared."

  A small laugh escaped Sara. "Frankly, Gideon, I think anybody would be petrified to have you lift them right off their feet with one hand the way you did Joey. Lordy, I couldn't believe I was seeing it!"

  He chuckled and raised his arm, making a muscle for her inspection. "These arms have moved more tons of steel than Schwarzenegger. Joey's a snap by comparison."

  She reached out and touched the bulge of his biceps through the chambray of his shirt. "Hard," she said approvingly. Like steel. Like iron.

  He let his arm relax beneath her hand, and the firm resilience of his flesh proved far more seductive than the bulge of taut muscle. She snatched her hand back as if burned, realizing that friendly play might turn into something else. Much as she wanted him, she wasn't yet convinced she should take that step.

  "It's late," she said, telling herself that she really ought to go back to bed. She was still restless, but the excuse of wanting to be sure Gideon returned safely was no longer even an excuse. She had absolutely no business being out here with him like this. He was bound to be wondering about it, and what if he drew the wrong conclusion? Not that she was sure there was a wrong conclusion.

  The crazy spiraling of her thoughts suddenly stopped dead when Gideon claimed her hand and held it between both of his. His touch was warm but innocent. She could have sworn he was hardly aware of what he was doing. But she was aware—acutely, exquisitely aware of the dry, callused heat of his palm against hers.

  "Just a few more minutes," he said.

  "All right."

  "You never told me why you're hiding, Sara Yates."

  She stiffened and tried to yank her hand away, but he held on tightly. The reminder of George was as good as a fall into an icy river. In an instant she was very much alert and very much wary.

  "Come on, Mouse. I bared my soul. Now it's your turn."

  She turned her head and looked straight at him, wishing she could see him better, could read his expression. It was so dark, though, that she could barely make out the deep-set hollows of his eyes. "Who said this was a trade?"

  "Me. I've been wondering since I clapped eyes on you." Keeping his grip on her with one hand, he raised the other to touch her cheek. It was a touch so exquisitely tender that her throat tightened. "Someone hurt you," he said. "Someone wounded you, and now you talk tough and wear a badge and hide behind a shotgun and mirrored glasses."

  "Gideon—"

  "Hush, little mouse," he said softly. "Hush. I've been livi
ng here for twelve days, and the Sara Yates who lives at the Double Y is not the Sara Yates the rest of the world sees. You put on a shell when you leave here. Why?"

  She licked her dry lips and tried not to lean into his fingers, which were now tracing the curve of her cheek. He was leaving, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. At any moment he would get bored with ranch life and go back to building skyscrapers. "Why do you call me 'Mouse'?"

  He chuckled softly. "Changing the subject, Mouse? I call you Mouse because you remind me of something very small, very soft and very warm." He hesitated, and then thought what the hell. Sara would understand. "When I was in the orphanage, there was this little brown mouse who used to come into our dormitory at night. It took a long time and an awful lot of bread crumbs, but he finally would climb onto my knee when I sat on the floor. And sometimes he would let me touch him. That little brown mouse is the only really good memory I have of those years."

  Her hand was suddenly gripping his hand as tightly as he gripped hers. She did understand.

  "So," he said quietly, "who hurt you, Mouse?"

  He wasn't going to let it go, she realized. And maybe, she thought, it was only fair. It was just that it was so humiliating to remember, so humiliating to speak of. She kept telling herself she shouldn't feel that way, that she hadn't done anything wrong, and that it was George who should be embarrassed, but the fact was, rejection was humiliating. No two ways about it. And no woman wanted to admit that she'd sent her fiancé into panicked flight.

  A sigh escaped her, and at the sound Gideon slipped his arm around her shoulder. "What happened?"

  "Oh, it sounds so stupid," she said, her voice little more than a shaky whisper. "I dated this guy all the way through high school, you know?"

  He squeezed her, letting her come at things in her own way.

  "We went everywhere together, did everything together. It was just … accepted, I guess, that we'd marry. Everyone thought so. His family. My family. All our friends. The date was set before we even graduated."

  "Weren't you kind of young?"

  Sara shrugged. "We're behind the times out here. People don't think it's unusual to marry out of high school. I mean, if all you're going to do is ranch, why wait? And there sure isn't any fast lane around here to dabble in."

  "No, I guess not."

  "It's changing, I guess. Not so many people marry right away now. A lot more of them go to college than even ten years ago."

  She was changing the subject again, he realized. So he pulled her back. "What happened?"

  "We set the date for my birthday, August third. His mother and father were still alive then, and they wanted a big bash. I think everybody in the county was invited, and an awful lot of people from Laramie and Cheyenne. They weren't going to be able to get everyone into the church, so a lot of people only got invited to the reception, which is unusual, I guess. It was to be a big barbecue at the Bar C, the Cumberland ranch."

  Gideon tried to look down at her, but the dark defeated him. "We aren't talking about Jeff Cumberland, are we?"

  She shook her head. "His younger brother. George Cumberland." Even the sound of his name made her stomach roil. "Things were out of my control right from the start. I remember feeling like a doll. I got pushed this way and pulled that way by Mrs. Cumberland. I didn't even get to say two words about my wedding dress. She dragged me to Laramie and picked it out herself. Sometimes I think—" She broke off.

  "Think what, Mouse?" he prompted gently. "What do you think?"

  "That maybe George wouldn't have gotten so scared if his mother hadn't taken over the way she did. I mean, I hardly even got to see him from graduation day until our wedding day. When I did, there were always a dozen other people there. It was like riding a runaway train."

  "Didn't you get scared, too?"

  "A little. I threw up my whole breakfast the morning of the wedding." She blushed and averted her face, forgetting he could barely see her in the dark, anyway. "I'm sorry. You didn't need to know that."

  He gave a soft laugh. "It kind of completes the picture, Sara. My stomach is knotting in sympathy. Okay, here we are, the morning of your … eighteenth birthday, right?"

  "Eighteen," she agreed. "That morning Dad gave me my mother's necklace, a gold chain with a tiny diamond pendant. I felt so grown-up when I put it on." She sighed again and unconsciously leaned against him. "To make a long story short, I dressed, I went to the church, everybody arrived, and people squeezed in until you could almost hear the place groan. And George never showed up."

  "Never?" He let go and put his other arm around her, holding her tight. "What happened?"

  "He chickened out. Only we didn't know that at first. At first we just waited. Then we got scared something had happened to him. I think I must have cried a couple of gallons of tears. Nate had the deputies searching high and low. Honest to God, Gideon, we expected to find a corpse."

  "I imagine so." His heart squeezed for her, imagining the hell she must have gone through.

  Sara drew a deep breath and plunged ahead, needing now to finish it. "He finally called around midnight and told Jeff that he was in Denver and he was never coming back, that he wouldn't marry me if I were the last woman on earth…"

  "Jeff told you that?" Gideon wanted to sock the rancher right in the jaw.

  "No, oh no. We were all sitting in Jeff's study by that time. Mr. and Mrs. Cumberland, Jeff, my father, Reverend Fromberg. Waiting to hear from the sheriff. When George called, Jeff put it on the speaker. When George started talking like that, Jeff switched off the speaker, but not before I heard—" Not before she heard. Not before the scar had been hacked even wider and deeper by George's tongue. "I was mortified," she whispered. "I wanted to die. And everyone was so nice, so sweet. Jeff offered to date me… I think he'd have married me on the spot if I'd wanted it. And his parents were wonderful. But … conversations came to a dead halt whenever I entered a room for months afterwards. And I felt … I felt…"

  "Violated? Wounded? Emotionally raped?" Gideon would have liked to wring George Cumberland's neck.

  Somehow her head had come to rest in the hollow of his shoulder, and now both his arms cradled her gently. "All of that and a few other things besides," she admitted. "I hid out here on the ranch for a long time, but then Dad died, and I really needed to go to work if I was going to hang on to this place. Nate hired me, and the rest, as they say, is history."

  Well, that sure explained it, Gideon thought. She had been publicly humiliated, so, naturally, for the last ten years she'd put on a tough facade that told everyone she didn't care and couldn't be hurt.

  Some tender little place in him, some private little corner that hadn't been blighted by all the abandonments in his own life, ached for her. He wanted so badly to soothe her pain, to wipe away her embarrassment, but he didn't know how. Her rejection by George had left a deep wound, a wound made all the deeper by the fact that he had blamed his defection on her.

  "The bastard didn't know what he was throwing away," he said gruffly.

  Sara almost smiled into his shoulder. "You're sweet."

  "Sweet? Me? Hell, no."

  He sounded so uncomfortable with the idea that Sara chuckled softly and let it go. Telling him about George, crazily enough, seemed to have lifted some kind of load from her shoulders. Somehow she no longer felt quite as humiliated.

  The wind rustled in the treetops and blew a chilly breath across her cheeks. "It's late. I really ought to get to bed." She started to pull away from him, wishing like mad she could stay, knowing such a wish was in vain. He'd made it clear enough over the last week that he wanted to avoid involvement with her. Since the night in the kitchen, he'd tried very hard not to even brush against her by accident.

  "No," he said, surprising her by tightening his arms around her and preventing her escape. He'd been holding this woman for the last half hour, and now his throbbing, aching, hungry body was doing the talking. "No. Stay with me, Sara. Please."

  * *
*

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  At the instant he spoke, the wind ceased and the world grew hushed. In the silence, he heard her sharply indrawn breath.

  Oh, God, he thought, wishing he could take back the words. How could he have said it so baldly? How could he have asked such a thing of her without even a kiss to sweeten the words? Why had he said it at all? She deserved a lot more than he could offer, and he had no right to ask this of her.

  But he had asked, and the words lay between them in a world that seemed to be holding its breath. Sara didn't move, didn't try to pull away, but she, too, seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for something more.

  He had little experience of women like Sara. She was a cut above him in so many ways, aeons removed from the easy women he'd met in bars when the need got too great to ignore. They had been lonely, too, and hungry, and looking for a night of forgetfulness. Sara wasn't like them.

  So what now, Ironheart? he asked himself as the whole night seemed to wait with bated breath. If she stays, will I be able to please her? If she stays, will she hate me tomorrow?

  It would be better, he told himself, if he just laughed and told her he'd been teasing. Except that he'd waited too long to laugh now. The significance of his words grew with each passing moment.

  Stay with me, Sara. Please. The words echoed in her mind, resounded in the hollow emptiness of her heart. A moment ago she had been wishing she didn't have to leave, and now he had asked her to stay. Wisdom dictated that she flee. Years of avoiding the pain and humiliation urged her to run as if all the hounds of hell were in pursuit. Her heart, empty for so long, begged her to stay. And her body … her body was on fire from little more than the roughly murmured plea to stay.

  If she stayed, she would eventually hurt, because Gideon would eventually leave. She was honest enough, even as longing drizzled through her to the most private of places, to admit that she didn't know if she would be able to endure being a spurned lover. The pain of losing Gideon, she suspected, was going to be far worse than the pain of losing George, even if they never made love.