IRONHEART

by Rachel Lee

  Sara almost stopped breathing as man and boy hoisted the tiller onto the pickup bed. Then, as if they had reached some kind of agreement, Gideon simply walked around and climbed into the passenger seat. Joey hesitated only a moment and then got behind the wheel.

  The field Sara always planted was only a couple of hundred yards from the house, but she had chosen to plant there because the groundwater level was higher and the land dipped a little into a hollow that reduced the wind's drying effects. It was, however, visible from the house, and she watched in amazement as boy and man climbed out and set to work together.

  "I don't believe that," she said.

  "That Ironheart is a unique man," Zeke said from beside her. "Joey feels it, too." He glanced at Sara, and suddenly his dark eyes were twinkling. "Of course, it helps that they settled who was boss."

  Sara felt herself smiling back. "I suppose it does," she agreed, and then laughed, because this was, after all, one of the best days of her life.

  * * *

  Sunset in these mountains happened in stages. After dinner that night, Gideon watched the last stage, when the twilight that had blanketed the world for several hours was suddenly shot through by streamers of pink-and-orange clouds as the sun, long hidden behind the mountains, really set. It was a strange effect, he thought, sitting in the near dark while sunset blazed in the sky above his head. Beautiful. Unforgettable.

  He wondered if Sara would come by tonight. He had tried to let her know she would be welcome, but between Zeke and Joey, they hadn't had a private moment all day. And now Sara was on duty and wouldn't be home until after midnight. No, she would probably go on up to the house. Sara wasn't the kind to impose, and she'd probably figure that she would be if she came without invitation.

  Hell, he thought, and sighed. That was for the best, wasn't it? He didn't want to hurt the woman, and from the way she looked at him sometimes, he figured tough Sara Yates would be remarkably easy to wound.

  A sound snagged his attention, and he looked around, spying Joey standing in the yard. The boy looked lost, Gideon thought. Probably the same way he had looked at that age, pretending to be tough and uncaring to hide the hurt.

  They had worked together well enough throughout the day, tilling the field and planting the vegetables. And Joey had, without being asked, helped with the other chores this evening. Not a bad kid at heart, it seemed. Just a troubled one. A worried one.

  A frightened one.

  Gideon wasn't sure how he knew that, or even that he was right about it, but several times today he had gotten the feeling that Joey Yates was scared to death and didn't know what to do about it. That he was in worse trouble than violating his probation. But nobody could help Joey if Joey didn't talk, and Joey had no intention of talking.

  Sighing again, Gideon almost let it go. Then, feeling a twinge of conscience, he called out, "Nice evening."

  A moment of silence preceded Joey's answer. "Yeah."

  Well, that was hopeful, Gideon thought. At least it could pass for courteous. Anything more, though, would have to come from Joey. And then he decided to make one more stab at it, anyway. "Jail is the pits, isn't it?"

  That caught the boy's interest. Joey tensed a little and looked at him, although he didn't come any closer. "You been there?"

  "Six months, when I was sixteen."

  "What for?"

  "I stole an expensive belt buckle. They gave me probation right off, but I blew that, too, so I spent six months in a cell." He hesitated, then volunteered a little more. "I swore I'd never again do anything to get myself locked up like that. I can't stand being caged."

  Joey's answer was a long time coming. Just about the time Gideon was ready to give up, he said, "It's awful."

  And whether he knew it or not, Joey was edging closer. Just a shuffling step here and there, but he was closing the distance. From the corner of his eye Gideon watched and remembered a brown mouse long ago. Suddenly he smiled into the night. Two little mice in one family. Must be genetic.

  There was an old refrigerator in the bunkhouse, one so old it more closely resembled an icebox, and in it were soft drinks. When Joey edged up to the end of the porch, Gideon asked him if he'd like one.

  "Uh, yeah. Thanks."

  That response had come more easily. Gideon thought. "Cola, orange or ginger ale?" he asked the boy.

  "Cola, please."

  When Gideon returned with the soft drinks, he found Joey sitting on the opposite end of the porch step from where Gideon had been sitting. Offering no comment, he simply handed the boy the aluminum can and returned to his own seat.

  For a long time the only sound was the sighing of the wind in the pines and the occasional whinny of a horse. It was soothing. Peaceful. A man could easily get addicted to it, if he let himself. He could grow used to the quiet, the lack of human ruckus, the nose-tickling scent of pine on the air.

  Joey spoke suddenly, startling him. "You like my sister?"

  Gideon turned his head and tried to read the boy in the fading light. No such luck. "I like your sister," he agreed. "I like her a whole lot."

  "She tell you what George Cumberland did to her?"

  "She did." Gideon waited, wondering if he should halt this conversation right now. Sara sure as hell wouldn't like knowing they had discussed her. On the other hand, for once Joey was talking instead of glaring sullenly, and shutting him up might be a big mistake.

  "She needs someone to be good to her," Joey said after a moment.

  "I couldn't agree more." Nor could his conscience, which was pricking him right now. "She's also old enough to make her own decisions."

  "Yeah." Joey sipped his drink and didn't say any more for a while. Then he asked, "So you're Cherokee?"

  "Half of me is." He suddenly wondered why he always qualified it. Half-breed.

  "Gramps is Shoshone. But you know that."

  "Yeah."

  "He says because he was raised in that orphanage he knows more about being Sioux than about being Shoshone. Shoshone aren't one of the Seven Council Fires of the Sioux."

  "I didn't realize that." Interested, he leaned back against the porch pillar and turned to look at Joey.

  "There are really seven bands," Joey said. "Grandfather knows the ways of the Oglala mostly because of Chester Elk Horn. I think Chester sort of adopted him." Even in the dark, Gideon saw the flash of Joey's smile, quickly appearing and just as quickly gone.

  "Well, he sure knows more about being Oglala than I know about being Cherokee. I was a hardheaded kid, I'm afraid."

  "Like me," Joey said.

  "Worse, believe me."

  "I went to a Sun Dance the summer before last with Chester's grandson," Joey said after a little while. "Over at Pine Ridge. I thought it was a little … commercial. Tourists and things. But I hear they do it more privately on the Rosebud Reservation. The real thing, for religious reasons."

  "Hmm."

  "Chester's grandson wants me to go with him this summer. Maybe dance this time."

  Gideon sat up a little straighter. He did know a little something about the Sun Dance. "That's … rough."

  "It kind of scares me a little," Joey admitted.

  "I imagine so." He hesitated, wishing his familiarity with the subject were a whole lot greater. "Why would you want to do it? I, uh, understand that it has great religious significance."

  "That's the point." He looked at Gideon. "It's meaningful. More meaningful than going to school and making money."

  Gideon stared at him hard and then gave a quiet laugh. "Joe, you smartened up about twenty-five years younger than me. So you're going to do it?"

  "I don't think I can. I'm on probation, and they won't let me go anywhere." He looked away.

  A couple of minutes passed. Gideon listened to the sorrowful murmur of the wind and wondered how this boy had gotten so messed up. "Why'd you do it, Joe? Why'd you steal the car?"

  "I was dumb!" Shouting the words, the boy stood up and hurled his cam across the yard. "You look b
ad and everybody believes it! Even your own family believes it!"

  Gideon watched him tear off into the darkness and wondered what the hell he had meant.

  * * *

  Clouds were scudding across the moon when Sara pulled into the yard after midnight. More rain, she thought, tasting it on the breeze. The mountainous part of the county always got more rain than the eastern sections, but even so, they were having considerably more than usual. But the whole year had been that way, she reminded herself.

  All evening long she had thought about Gideon, wishing she could go to him when she got home, and knowing she couldn't. He'd gotten what he wanted last night, and men seldom wanted more than that, judging by what she had seen. They certainly didn't want to feel things were getting sticky, and it would probably feel very sticky if she showed up on his porch. No, she had to let him know that she wasn't going to pressure him or demand anything.

  And then she caught sight of movement at the edge of the beam of her headlights. Looking, she saw Gideon walking across the yard toward her. He was still up, as if he had been waiting for her. And he was walking like a man with a purpose.

  He opened the door of the Blazer and reached in to switch off her lights. Then he looked at her, simply looked, with a hunger that seemed to reach out and touch her.

  Everything inside her went into instant meltdown. She could feel herself softening, dissolving, liquefying, and somehow she was leaning against him, wrapped in his arms and cuddled to his chest.

  "Oh, babe," he whispered. "Oh, babe." He lifted her down and waited patiently while she locked the Blazer. Then, as easily as if she were a wisp of the night air, he lifted her from her feet and carried her toward the bunkhouse. He'd figured she would want a shower and something to eat, and he had it ready for her, but the way she had softened against him and wrapped herself around him told him the shower and food might well have to wait.

  He needed her. As the hours of the endless evening had ticked by, the need had grown, a need for more than the warmth of her body. He'd never felt this way before and didn't like it at all, but, like a man driven, he'd waited and hungered, every cell in his body focused on the moment of her return. The Wyoming night spun away, and nothing existed for him now except Sara, warm and willing in his arms.

  The sound of his huskily whispered "Oh, babe" in her ear caused shivers of longing to pour through her. He'd waited up for her. He wanted her. It was more than she had dared hope for, and all she had been able to think of for hours.

  She had been so afraid that she might have allowed herself to be used like some disposable tissue. So afraid that once had been enough, that in some essential way she had failed to give him anything that he would want again. Now here he was holding her and carrying her as if she were infinitely precious.

  The bedside lamp was already on, and the bed was already turned down. When Gideon set her carefully on her feet, Sara looked from the bed to him and felt her chest tighten with emotion. He had taken a risk she would never have had the courage to take herself, she realized. He had come to her risking rejection, and now he'd brought her in here and let her see that he had indeed been waiting for her. She would have done anything to avoid exposing herself that way.

  Aching, yearning, needing, fighting back tears of emotion, she leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his narrow waist. He was so hard, so solid, so strong. So warm, so alive. So real. She couldn't imagine why he should want her at all, but she wanted him with a depth and breadth that was terrifying. He drove away a loneliness that she hadn't even been aware of until he had completed her. She couldn't bear, absolutely couldn't bear, to think how empty she would feel when he moved on.

  "Sweet Mouse," he murmured in a voice so passion-roughened that it was as sensual as a caress. "Sweet, sweet Sara." He hugged her tightly for an instant and then set her back a little so he could undress her.

  First there was the gun belt. Never in a million years would Gideon have imagined himself removing a gun belt from a woman so that he could make love to her. Unexpected humor tugged the corners of his mouth, giving him a cockeyed smile.

  "What's so funny?" Sara asked.

  "Me taking this gun off you," he replied, and gave her a teasing look. "Not quite High Noon, is it?" He set the heavy belt and gun on the battered wooden dresser.

  "Does it bother you?"

  He faced her, taking her gently by the shoulders. She was feeling inadequate again, he saw. Worried that she was somehow wrong. "No, it doesn't bother me," he said softly. "I was just amused, because it suddenly struck me that out of all the fantasies I've ever had about taking something off a woman, I never imagined a gun belt."

  He reached for the buttons of her khaki uniform shirt. "Now, a shirt was on my list," he said, his voice dropping huskily. "And slacks and jeans and even boots, but not a .45. Just goes to show you that life can always rustle up a little surprise." He pushed the shirt from her shoulders and let it flutter to the floor, and saw her small breasts cupped in the plain cotton bra—the same bra he had discovered the first time he had touched her breast, that night in the kitchen.

  "No lace," he said. "Not a smidgeon. Damn it, Mouse, it's the sexiest darn thing I've ever seen."

  Startled, she looked down at herself, unable to imagine that he would find such a utilitarian garment appealing. Only this afternoon she'd considered stopping in at Freitag's Mercantile to see if they had something prettier. "Sexy?"

  "Yeah." Reaching out, he ran his finger along the top edge, causing sparks deep inside her. "It's not playing any games. It's doing its job without pretenses. Like you, Mouse. Just like you." With a twist he undid the front clasp and released her small breasts. "You're the sexiest woman I've ever seen."

  He meant it, too, as he slipped the bra from her shoulders and then bent to flick each pink nipple with his tongue. She gasped and grabbed his shoulders in response.

  She was absolutely the sexiest woman he'd ever known, and he suspected that had a lot to do with the fact that, for her, sex was most definitely not a game. And he'd played games for too many years.

  Lifting his head, he looked into her slumberous eyes and nearly smiled with delight when he saw the glowing coals of passion there. "You've had a long day," he said roughly, even though he hated like hell to say it. "You must want a shower and something to eat."

  Sara's eyes widened. She couldn't believe it. Her damp nipples felt chilled from the air and cheated by the absence of his mouth, her lower half was aching in a steady, clenching throb for the feel of him on her and in her, and he was talking about food and a shower?

  Tonight he wore the leather strip around his forehead. Sara reached up and pulled it off, tossing it away. "The only thing I'm interested in right now is your gun."

  He laughed. A low, throaty sound, it spilled from him as he tumbled them both to the bed. Springs creaked, slats groaned, and Sara's giggles joined his.

  "God, you're a handful, Sara Yates," Gideon said, his dark eyes smiling down at her. So different, so special, so unique, he thought, lowering his head so he could find her mouth with his. Special…

  Heat flared swiftly; licking flames danced along nerve endings as passion spread. So right, Sara thought as she tugged at Gideon's clothes. So right. This was how she was meant to be, who she was meant to be. He had opened the self-made coffin in which she had been hiding and breathed new life into her with his hands, his mouth, his body.

  She had been made for this man. The certainty filled her as surely as the coming of dawn. She had existed and endured until now just so that she could be here at this place and this time to become part of the man who now held her.

  Gideon groaned deeply as he slid down the bed, trailing kisses from her small, sweet breasts to her tummy. Hot. He was so damn hot for this woman. Years of experience had taught him to expect waning passion with familiarity, to know that he would want less the second time than the first. That wasn't true this time. Not at all.

  It had been many years since he had wante
d a woman more than once. Not since his one ill-starred love affair in the green days of his youth had he felt this degree of longing and need, this constant, unremitting desire for a particular woman. He'd given up hope of ever rediscovering this clawing hunger, this sharp thrill of excitement. This groaning, wrenching, aching need.

  His exploring mouth ran into her belt buckle, and he gave a low groan of frustration. Propping himself on his elbows, he tugged at the buckle, at the button and zipper of her khaki slacks. Then he reared up on his knees and impatiently tugged slacks and panties down.

  Sara caught her breath as she watched him. So big, so dark, so hard, so wild-looking. His shirt hung open, one tail pulled out by her hungry hands. He straddled her, worn denim cupping his aroused masculinity, molding to his powerful thighs, revealing each muscular flex as he struggled with her clothes. His long black hair spilled forward, making him look as if he came from another time.

  His impatience with the obstruction of her clothing excited her even more. Never had she felt so wanted, so prized, so special.

  He muttered an oath as he dealt with her stubborn cowboy boots and then dragged her pants off her. At last she lay completely naked for him, sprawled wantonly on the bed, her soft brown eyes never leaving him. And then, damned if she didn't lift her arms and whisper, "Hurry."

  He hurried. He cast off his clothes and lowered himself to the bed between her legs. He heard her gasp as he propped himself on his elbows and cupped her soft rump, lifting her to his mouth.

  "Gideon…" She sounded shocked, excited, only faintly protesting.

  "Let me, Mouse," he said hoarsely. "Let me give you this." This, something he had never given any woman. Something he had never wanted to give any woman until this one. How could he explain his absolutely overwhelming need to love her in every way possible, to leave the memory of him on every inch of her? Lowering his head, he claimed her.

  He took her to a place where pleasure was so intense it was nearly pain. She writhed wildly, clutching the sheets, then clutching his head, afraid he would stop, afraid she would die if he didn't. She whimpered and twisted and suddenly drew taut, arching up from the bed as a sharp-edged wave of excruciating pleasure ripped through her and carried her over the edge.