IRONHEART

by Rachel Lee

  Just then the kitchen porch light flipped on and Sara stood there, .45 in hand, looking ready for anything, even in her terry-cloth bathrobe. Damn, she was one hell of a woman, Gideon thought groggily. If he'd known they grew them like her in Wyoming, he would have headed this way years ago.

  "Gideon?" Sara stepped out onto the porch. "I heard something— Oh, my God! What happened to you?"

  She was off the porch in a shot, and the next thing he knew, her arm was around his waist and she was guiding him up the steps, across the porch and into the kitchen.

  "Sit down," she said, helping him ease onto a chair. "My God, your head…"

  His head? He looked at her, wondering what she was talking about. "My arm's broken, I think."

  "We'll take care of that if you don't bleed to death."

  Bleed? That was when he realized his head was aching fit to burst. Turning a little, he looked at himself and saw that his entire right side was covered in blood. "Where'd that come from?" he said.

  "Oh, my God," Sara said again, and this time she sounded as if she was going to cry. Taking a clean dish towel, she pressed it to the side of his scalp. "I've got to get you to the hospital. Can you hold this towel on your head while I wake up Joey?"

  "Sure." Anything the lady wanted. "Don't drive your car," he said, wondering why his words seemed to be running together.

  "What?" She leaned back and stared at him. "Why not?"

  "Somebody … fooling with it."

  "The person who hurt you?"

  "Yeah." Then he set his broken arm on the table and reached up with his right hand to hold the towel. "I'll be okay, Sara," he said seriously.

  "Oh, Gideon," Sara said, and leaned forward, kissing his cheek. "Of course you will," she whispered. "You have to be. I only just found you."

  Then she turned swiftly and disappeared from the kitchen.

  * * *

  He never lost consciousness, although for a while he wasn't very far from losing it. He was aware of Sara calling the sheriff's department to report the incident while Joey went out to the bunkhouse to get Gideon's truck keys. He'd managed to get the point across that they needed to take his truck, not Sara's vehicle, which might have been tampered with. He was too far out of it to realize that his own might have been tampered with also.

  Joey, however, wasn't. He took a flashlight out and went over Gideon's truck while Sara talked to a deputy on the phone and Zeke applied pressure to the wound on Gideon's head.

  He was aware of a low-voice fight between Zeke and Sara.

  "I don't want you staying here alone, Grandfather. Something is going on, and I don't want you hurt again."

  "I'll lock the doors and get the gun, Sarey," Zeke told her. "I'll be just fine until the deputy gets here."

  "But, Grandfather—"

  "Look, Joey's ready. Just get Ironheart to the hospital."

  * * *

  By the time he'd been x-rayed, had his scalp stitched up and a cast put on his forearm, Gideon's head had pretty much cleared up. Doc Randall was agreeable to releasing him, so Gideon was able to pull on his blood-crusted shirt and skedaddle.

  Joey was out in the waiting room, and he eyed Gideon doubtfully, shaking his head. "Man, you don't look so good."

  "I'm better than I was a little while ago. My head still feels like somebody's beating on it, though. Where's Sara?"

  "Ladies' room. She'll be right back. So your arm's broken? But not your head?"

  "Not my head. I think it's almost as hard as yours."

  That surprised a crack of laughter out of Joey, who grinned at him. No, thought Gideon, this boy wasn't bad at heart. So what was going on?

  Sara smiled when she saw him, relief and concern apparent in her face and eyes. "How do you feel? Are you okay? What did Doc Randall say?"

  "That my arm is broken, that my head is harder than steel, and that I'll live. We both agreed that guy must've been swinging a lead pipe, though."

  Sara drew a sharp breath. "Do you want to tell me exactly what happened?"

  Gideon looked down at her and thought of all the things he wanted to do, and none of them involved discussing the night's events. They were more like curling up in his bed with a naked Sara Yates beside him, with her soothing, enticing, wicked little hands doing soothing, arousing, devilish little things.

  "Now?" he said. "Here?"

  Her chin took on a mulish set, belying the worry in her eyes. She had her moments, Gideon thought. "Or at the office."

  He sighed. "This is official, huh?"

  Sara nodded. "You can talk to another officer, if you prefer." And if he did, she would kill him. This had happened on her property, after all, and had already involved her family.

  "Why would I want to talk to anybody but you, Mouse?" he asked, ignoring Joey's interested look. "Okay. But can't we go someplace where we can sit and have some coffee?" Truth was, he was still feeling a little ragged, maybe from blood loss.

  "Let's go over to the office, then. I can fill out the paperwork while we talk."

  "Fair enough." Anything was better than hanging around in this lobby looking like an escapee from Halloween.

  The coffeemaker at the Sheriff's office had been cleaned out and stood ready to brew. Sara asked Joey to make the pot while she and Gideon settled down at the front desk. Sara found a yellow pad in the bottom drawer and pulled it out, and from a cup at the dispatcher's desk she retrieved a black felt-tip pen.

  Gideon held up his injured arm and said with all the appeal of a small boy, "Will you sign my cast? Please?"

  It was as if he had pulled a plug. All of a sudden the tension went out of Sara, and she looked at him with huge, luminous eyes. "I was so worried," she whispered. "So worried."

  Gideon lowered his arm. "I'm sorry. I acted like a grade-A jackass, going after the guy, and I probably got less than I deserved. All I could think of was that somebody was tampering with your Blazer, maybe with intent to do harm, and I guess I saw red. Or something. I sure wasn't thinking clearly." He had in fact reacted instinctively to protect Sara. He wasn't sure thought had entered into it at all.

  That wasn't like him. He had fast reflexes and swift responses to danger, developed by twenty years at the top, but as a rule, he didn't go leaping into danger without thinking things through first. No connector did, if he wanted to live long. But tonight he had. For Sara.

  The awareness settled into him uneasily, but he was too damned tired to think about it now. Nor was he sure he wanted to think about it at all. He suspected the reasons behind his behavior were not going to make him happy.

  "Tell me what happened," Sara said, drawing the pad closer. She was all business now. All deputy.

  So he told her. From the moment he was hit in the side of the head, though, his memory of events had become fuzzy, and he could give her only the highlights of his ill-fated chase. One concern stuck forcibly in his mind, though.

  "Has someone checked out your Blazer?"

  "Not yet. It's too dark. They'll look it over in the morning. You don't remember anything at all about your assailant that might help us identify him?"

  It had been dark—too dark, really—to get more than a blurred impression of anything. He shook his head slowly, only saying, "Just that he was big, maybe my height. Heavyset."

  "Fat?" Sara queried.

  Gideon hesitated, and shrugged as he looked at Joey, who was listening intently. "Not really. Broad, solid." He gave Sara a rueful smile. "Of course, my mental image of him may have been affected by the damage he did to me. The guy who beats you bloody is always bigger, by definition."

  * * *

  By the time they arrived back at the Double Y, Gideon felt as if he'd tangled with a gorilla. His arm ached fiercely, his head ached worse, and the bruise on his solar plexus was beginning to throb in time to his pulse. All he wanted to do was crawl into his bed and sleep off the worst of the pain.

  In no mood to wrestle one-handed with his clothes, he simply lay down on his bed fully clothed and clo
sed his eyes. It was nearly dawn, and he should have fallen asleep effortlessly, but his mind was in high gear and wouldn't slow down.

  Fact: Little more than a week ago, Zeke had been brutally attacked, and the house and bunkhouse had been searched but nothing taken.

  Fact: Tonight someone had been prowling around Sara's vehicle and possibly other vehicles in the dead of night.

  Conclusion: Somebody was looking for something at the Double Y.

  But what? Something that might be hidden in the undercarriage of a vehicle? Something small?

  Hell, it could be just about anything, he supposed. The real question was what anybody on the Double Y might have that would arouse such interest. And why they had beaten Zeke so badly, yet tonight had come stealthily. Had they thought Zeke might tell them something? But Zeke seemed to have no earthly notion what anyone could be looking for.

  "Gideon?" It was an almost soundless whisper.

  Opening his eyes, he saw Sara standing hesitantly in the bedroom doorway, just visible in the first early glow of coming dawn. She was still fully dressed, and he suspected she wasn't sleeping any better than he was. Too much had happened that shouldn't have happened.

  "I'm awake, Mouse. Come here."

  Moments later she was curled up against his good side, her head tucked on his shoulder. Turning his head just a little, he could feel the silkiness of her beautiful hair and fill himself with her wonderful scent. Now, he thought, he could sleep.

  An alarm sounded somewhere at the back of his mind, but sleep was already washing over him, muffling it, making it seem unimportant.

  Sara was here, and now he could sleep. Nothing else mattered.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  Zeke and Chester were building a sweat lodge, and Gideon had the not quite comfortable feeling that he was going to be drafted into using it along with them. After last night's events, the two elderly men had evidently decided that some help was needed, and that started with Inipi, Chester explained. Purification. Then he and Zeke would ask for help in Yuwipi, a spirit-calling ceremony.

  With his arm in a sling, there wasn't a whole lot Gideon could do except watch. Not that anyone would let him. Joey took care of the chores, and Zeke and Chester took care of the Stone-People-Lodge, as they called the sweat lodge. Together they cleared a circle of ground at the back of the meadow, and in it measured another circle, which was dug out to make a shallow bowl. Then they paced off ten steps to the east and dug another hole, this one deeper, in which they would heat the rocks for the sweat, they said. This was called the Fire of No End. By this time, both men were so busy they quit explaining, and anyway, Gideon was content to watch and offer his one good hand where he could.

  "The lodge must always face east," Chester said as he and Zeke began erecting the willow saplings that would frame the building. "From there comes the light of knowledge."

  Gideon helped hold one of the saplings in a bowed position while Zeke tied it to another. "Don't you need a holy man to do this?"

  Zeke chuckled, and Chester regarded him with dark, twinkling eyes. "I am a holy man," Chester said. "I'm all we need. Offer me a pipe, Ironheart, so we can get you started on your quest."

  Hell, thought Gideon, now Zeke even had Chester doing it. Disgruntled, he walked back to the house to get himself a glass of water. Just as he reached the porch, thinking about filling a water jug and taking it up the meadow to Chester and Zeke, Sara returned to the yard in her own Blazer. Early this morning it had been towed to town to be checked over, and apparently now had a clean bill of health.

  "Did they find anything?" he asked Sara when she climbed out.

  "Nope. Somebody looked, but he didn't mess with anything."

  "No prints?"

  "Nope."

  He realized suddenly that he was watching her stiff back as she stalked toward the house. Something was wrong. This was not the woman who had smiled sleepily in his arms only a few hours ago and then proceeded to take his battered, aching body to heaven with nothing but the gentle touch of her hands and mouth. God, the mere memory of that zinged through him like wildfire!

  But … she was disappearing stiffly into the house, and he had to find out what was wrong. She had her back to him when he entered the kitchen.

  "Sara?"

  She didn't turn to look at him. "Yes?"

  "What's wrong?"

  For an endless time it seemed she would not answer. When finally she did, she still wouldn't look at him. "I saw Faith Parish in town this morning."

  His stomach sank to his boots, and he no longer had any doubt what was coming. Nor did he have any defense.

  "She thought I knew you and Micah were brothers," Sara said tightly. "Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was that I didn't?" Even now she remembered the cold sensation of shock that had made her nearly dizzy as she realized that she knew nothing about this man to whom she had given her heart. As she realized that he was keeping secrets. That he was using her.

  "Sara, I—" Oh, God!

  She whirled suddenly and faced him, angry and hurt beyond belief. "Shut up, Ironheart! I don't want to hear your excuses. I felt a little better when I learned that you hadn't even told Micah, but that didn't last long because I … because I—" She broke off and drew a long, shuddering breath before she could continue. "Then I remembered how you wanted me to introduce him to you. How you used me—seduced me—into doing what you wanted."

  "Sara, please—"

  "No, Gideon. I don't want to hear it. Were you ever going to tell any of us? Or were you just going to use us all?"

  * * *

  She hadn't given him an opportunity to answer, and he supposed at this point she wasn't really interested in anything he had to say, anyway.

  He considered leaving. He even went so far as to dig his duffel bag out of the closet. It didn't seem right to stay around when Sara was so hurt and angry at him. She would feel better if he moved on and got out of her life.

  But as he reached for the bag with his one good hand, he hesitated. He was always assuming people would be better off without him, that they would prefer him to vanish from their lives. And always, when he felt that way, he moved on.

  But maybe Sara wouldn't feel better if he left. Maybe that would only confirm for her that she had meant nothing at all to him. Maybe it would harden her belief that he had simply used her. Maybe it would humiliate her every bit as much as George's defection years ago.

  Maybe Sara Yates needed somebody to stick around and fight back. Maybe she needed some proof that he'd forgotten all about using her long before he had made love to her. Maybe she needed to know she meant something to him, meant enough that he would stick around through the rough times.

  Slowly he sank onto the edge of his bed and thought about it. Maybe Sara needed from him all the things he had always wanted for himself.

  All the things he didn't believe in.

  * * *

  Sara had thought that George had taught her what it meant to be hurt. Now she knew better. Nothing on earth could possibly hurt as much as Gideon's betrayal. Her throat felt as tight as if a noose were tied around it, and she was sure she would never dare speak again for fear of bursting into tears.

  Sorrow tightened her chest, too, like a vise, and made even the simplest act seem difficult. From her bedroom window she could see Gideon crossing the meadow to where Zeke and Chester were building the sweat lodge and wondered if he would tell them of his deception. He had used them all.

  Etched in acid on her brain was the memory of Faith Parish this morning on the sidewalk, her baby in her arms, bubbling cheerfully and obliviously about how wonderful it was that Micah and Gideon had found one another, how simply fantastic that Micah had a whole family he had never even met. How, if Gideon were any example of the Oklahoma Lightfoots, they would all be wonderful people.

  And how she herself had stood there listening to Faith, frozen almost to ice in the middle of a day that had turned into a
nightmare. How she had since wondered how many other secrets Gideon was keeping. A wife, perhaps? A dozen children.

  Maybe that was the real reason he was a "tumbleweed."

  And then the horrible, horrible realization that she had been used. That Gideon had sought her out because she worked with Micah.

  She drew a long, shaky breath and tried to tell herself it didn't matter. This had merely been a reinforcement of a lesson she had learned long ago, and she had only herself to blame for giving her heart to a drifter. At least he'd warned her about that much. At least he hadn't tried to make her think he would stay.

  In fact, she admitted with bitter honesty, he hadn't promised her one damn thing. She was the one who had given him more than he had ever asked for. If she had heeded his warning, she wouldn't be hurting half so badly right now.

  Like so many women before her, she had fallen into the oldest trap in the world, she thought miserably. She had been foolish enough to think her love could make a rolling stone stay. Foolish enough to think that he would become what she needed him to be.

  Lies or no lies, what she was feeling right now was all her own fault.

  That knowledge didn't make it one bit easier to take.

  * * *

  By midafternoon Zeke and Chester had nearly finished the lodge. Neither man had any buffalo skins, which would traditionally have covered the frame, so trade cloth was used.

  "Tomorrow," said Chester finally, nodding approval. Then he got into his thirty-year-old pickup truck and departed.

  "Now," said Zeke, looking at Gideon, "you'll make your Chanunpa, your own sacred pipe."

  Gideon shook his head. "I've got other things on my mind, Zeke."

  For a long moment the old Shoshone regarded him intently, with black eyes as piercing as arrows. Gideon knew that look and felt as exposed as an upended turtle. "Zeke, Sara is … furious with me. With good reason. And right now I just don't want to think about sacred pipes and vision quests and sweats."