by Lois Greiman
The thing rang in her hand. She jumped as if stung, then, laughing at herself, glanced at the display. She didn’t recognize the number.
Something twisted in her stomach. She tightened her grip, fighting a dozen internal battles. Privacy was a big issue with Dane. They had sparred over it on more than one occasion. Coming to a rapid decision, she reached out to set the phone aside, but her last conversation with Tonk rang in her ears.
“I’m honest,” she had said. So maybe it was time to demand the same of others. Still, her voice sounded feeble in her own ears.
“Hello?”
There was a pause, then, “Who’s this?” The woman’s tone was cautious, a little surprised, and strangely chirpy.
Vura tightened her fingers around the rubberized frame. “This is Bravura Lambert.” Her throat felt dry. “Can I help you?”
There was a moment of silence, then, “I must have the wrong number,” the caller said, and hung up.
Dread crept like poison through Vura’s chilled system. She stood immobilized, drowning in uncertainty, in hopelessness, in doubts. But she was tough. Hadn’t she told Tonk that, too?
Exhaling shakily, she pressed Send and listened to the little unit ring in her ear. But no one answered. Instead, she got a prepackaged suggestion to leave a message.
Breathing slowly, she ended the call and let her eyes drop closed. But how long could she pretend? What was the saying? There were none so blind as those too gutless to see? Or maybe she was paraphrasing.
Opening her eyes, she steadied her hand and checked Dane’s incoming calls. There had been none that morning. None until the “wrong number” from the woman with the chirpy voice.
The guilt had almost burned away by the time she scrolled down the list of callers. Chirpy had mistakenly phoned five times in the past two days.
Apparently she was a slow learner.
A noise boomed in the room. It took her a moment to realize it was the sound of her own laughter. It echoed spookily in the stillness.
“Mama?” Lily’s tone was uncertain.
Vura turned with a jerk, smoothing her emotions, stilling the tremble in her hands.
“Are you all right?”
“I will be,” she said and, placing the cell back on the sawhorse, lifted her daughter against her heart. “We will be.”
Chapter 31
Vura tossed Lily’s giddy-up bag into the backseat of her pickup and tried to think. But a dozen emotions swamped her. Fear, anger, sadness, guilt. She couldn’t seem to fish a single one out of the mix. It hardly mattered, though. She had time for none of them. The Snellings expected new windows and her father was sick, leaving Lily with her for the day. The good news was, her period had finally arrived. Funny how awful and bloated and weepy the good news was, she thought, and realized there would be no time to wonder if Chirpy had been one of the “friends” from the inn the night before. No time to agonize over the memory of the woman she’d met at the rodeo. The woman with the big hair and odd voice. The woman who had smelled like peaches. The woman whose name …
“Tonka!” Lily sang and gave Vura’s hand a quick jerk. “Mama, Tonka’s here.”
Vura closed her eyes for a second. She had almost escaped, but she should have known it wouldn’t be so simple. Steadying herself, she fixed a bland expression on her face and turned slowly. “You’re here early,” she said, though in truth, she could practically set her watch by Tonk’s morning arrival.
“What has happened?” he asked.
She forced a laugh. “What are you talking about? Nothing happened.”
“Did you already exercise them?” Lily asked. Accusation was bright in her wild urchin eyes. Though Vura had agreed to let her learn to ride, there had not been an excess of opportunities as of yet.
Worry touched Tonk’s features as he searched Vura’s eyes, but his expression softened when he dropped his gaze to Lily’s. “Ai. I rode the Sky Bird while leading Bay.”
“So Arrow had to stay home alone?” Censure was sharp in her tone. “Like me?”
Humor flickered in his eyes, but he hid it well. “And I fear he is feeling rather sorry for himself.”
“Him too?”
“Ai.” He almost smiled now. “But perhaps if you gave him this”—he pulled a carrot from the back pocket of his tattered jeans—“he would quit moping.”
“Okay,” she agreed grudgingly and grabbing the treat from his hand, dashed into the barn.
Silence washed up in her wake.
Vura forced herself to meet Tonk’s gaze. “Listen, I’m sorry, but we have to get going.”
“Your father is not coming to fetch her this morning?”
“He has the flu.”
Worry troubled his brow again. “Then who will look after her?”
Her stomach twisted, but she forced herself to shrug, easy-breezy. So Lily would stay with a stranger for a few hours. It wasn’t the end of the world. “There’s a daycare in Custer that takes drop-ins.”
“You have left her there before?”
“No.”
“But you know someone who has recommended this place.”
She cleared her throat and reminded herself that she owed him no explanations. “It’s gotten good reviews.”
“By whom?”
She clenched her teeth. He wasn’t helping. “Listen, I’d love to chat but—”
“She could stay with me.”
Her jaw dropped. “I … That’s really nice of you. But I don’t think—”
“I am not a monster.”
“What?”
“I am not like my parents.”
She pulled a pair of Lily’s socks from the pocket of her Carhartts, wondered vaguely how they had gotten there, and shoved them into the giddy-up bag. “What …” She glanced at him. “What happened to them?”
He drew a breath through his nostrils as if needing the strength. “My father cared for me … in his way.” There was the slightest twitch of a muscle in his cheek. “My mother left when I was seven. For L.A., I believe.” Only a hint of nostalgia shone in his eyes. Just a shadow of pain. The words were delivered almost dispassionately.
“I’m sorry.”
“As was I, although—” He stopped, straightened even more. Vura would not have thought it possible. “She was not a good role model. Still, she taught me much, about weakness, about greed. The Redhawks shared other lessons. You could speak to Hunt. He would vouch for me, for my sobriety.”
“It’s not that I doubt—”
“I would sooner lose a limb than see her hurt,” he said, and softened as his solemn-Indian gaze shifted to the barn door through which they could watch Lily slip wisps of hay into Arrow’s stall. She was chattering happily, scurrying busily, former pique forgotten as if it had never been.
“I know you’d be good to her,” Vura said, and found that it was true. There were times when Hunter spoke of his brother with amused exasperation, but there was always respect, always trust. And Vura valued Hunt’s opinion as much as anyone’s, far more than most. “Still,” she began, but when he tugged his attention from Lily, his dark-water eyes were suspiciously bright. “Are you …” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”
His back stiffened like a lance. His lips, full and well defined, pursed at such slander. “I fell from the hayloft at age ten, broke my arm in two places.”
Vura watched him, waiting.
“Dislocated my shoulder at age twelve.”
She raised one brow. If this morning got any weirder, she was just going to call it quits and go back to bed. “Okay.”
“Did not complain.”
“All right.”
“Had a kidney stone while riding in Browning. Finished the race before I passed out.”
“So … you’re not crying?”
He raised his chin. “Do not leave her with me if you don’t wish to. The choice is yours,” he said, and turned away, but she stepped forward and grabbed his arm.
“Okay.”
He pivoted slowly back toward her, saying nothing.
“You can take her for the day.”
His expression remained exactly as it was. Then he nodded slowly, as if taking some solemn vow.
“But she’s a handful.”
He scowled a little as if affronted. “You think a warrior child should be otherwise?”
“No, I guess …” Holy crap. “I guess not.” She grimaced. “You won’t let anything happen to her?”
“Much will happen,” he said. “She will learn of the horse, the People, the old ways.”
“I meant, you won’t let anything bad happen.”
“I will treat her as my own, with all due care.”
She breathed in, catching his gaze.
“Okay. Okay, then.” She felt like an idiot. “If it’s all right with Lily, it’s all right with me.”
He nodded, sober as a post. Vura shifted her gaze to her daughter and raised her voice. “Hey, honey …”
The girl’s tiny hand stilled on Arrow’s painted face.
“Come here a minute, will you?”
She trotted over, sneakers already grubby, nose sprinkled with dust. “Arrow will forgive Tonka if he leaves the others at home tomorrow.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“He,” Lily corrected sternly. “Swift Arrow’s a gelding. Geldings are boy horses that can’t be daddies.” She scowled, fair brow crinkling. “How come they can’t be daddies?”
“I …” Vura began and had no idea where to go from there. “Maybe Tonk can explain that to you later today.”
The expressive eyebrows lifted. “How come not now?”
“Well …” Vura exhaled softly. “I have to get work, but if you want, you could stay with Tonkiaishawien for the day if you promise to be—”
“I do!”
Vura scowled. “I don’t want you to—”
“I won’t!”
“I’m going to be gone for a while but you can—”
“Okay.”
Vura turned in exasperation to Tonk. “I guess she’s yours.”
His eyes looked suspiciously bright again, but Lily drew his attention away.
“Will you teach me everything about horses?” Her voice was little more than a hopeful lisp.
He nodded once. “I will do what I can, Sihu.”
“Can we ride all day?” she asked, and lifted her arms to Tonk.
He reached down with reverent slowness, displaying the same aching care his brother showed in Lily’s presence.
“We cannot,” he said, “for there is much work to do. Horses are meant to graze, but the fences are not yet ready.”
“You can’t put them out all day right away,” she said, tone solemn and a little preachy, “or they might get sick.”
He nodded. “Spring grass can be too rich for them.”
“They could col …” She scowled, searching for the right word. “Collin.”
“Colic,” he corrected. “Ai. We must be cautious.”
“And we gots to get rid of the barbed wire so they don’t cut themselves like Courage did.”
“You know much about horses already.”
She nodded, three rapid-fire jerks of her chin. “I have the Encyclopedia of the Horse. But I bet you could teach me even more.”
“I will try.”
“Like how to run like the wind,” she said, slyness slipping into her eyes.
His own shone with amusement. “You must learn to walk before you run, small warrior.”
“How about if you teach me to walk right now?”
He laughed. “We’ll let them finish their breakfast first.”
“But that could take forever. Horses can eat for twelve hours a day, and there are only twenty-four hours altogether so that just leaves”—she thought hard—“twelve hours to ride, and Mama makes me sleep part of that time.”
He chuckled again. “We will ride this day,” he said. “If you promise to listen closely and do as I say.”
Vura cleared her throat.
They turned toward her in surprised unison as if just remembering her presence.
“And if it is acceptable to your mother, of course,” he added.
“Mama?”
“You’ll be careful?”
Lily nodded solemnly. Tonk did the same.
“Very, very careful?”
The nods again.
“All right, then,” she said, and left, knowing, absolutely knowing it would be crazy to feel jealous of that intangible something Tonk shared with her daughter. But, she admitted as she rumbled toward the Snellings and their unfinished windows, sanity was overrated.
Chapter 32
“It doesn’t hurt,” Lily said.
Tonk lifted his gaze from the cut on the child’s ankle to fix it on her eyes.
She fidgeted a little. “Much,” she added.
He resisted a smile. Her mother, he realized, had not been exaggerating when she’d said the child was a handful. In fact, it had taken both his hands and all his wits to keep Lily entertained and safe throughout the day. And he had done well … until her task of finding unwanted barbed wire had caused this little scrape on her leg. His stomach knotted. Certainly it wasn’t a serious cut. His biological parents would never have noticed such a small laceration. His adopted mother, however, the woman known on the rez as the Hun, would have kissed it better, though he’d insisted he needed no woman fussin’ over him. Didn’t need one. Didn’t want one. But would be eternally grateful he had had one. He would always remember her eyes, bright as dawn from sunup to sundown. Her booming laugh, her unquenchable love for life. And her hands … soft as thistledown when he was hurting, hard as steel when he’d messed up beyond the generally accepted limits of mess-ups.
The memory of her softened the knot in his stomach. Still, Bravura Lambert was neither a monster nor the Hun. What would she think of this situation?
“Perhaps we should take you to the clinic,” Tonk said.
Lily scowled, thinking. “It’s not a good day for that.”
“What?” He met her eyes.
She blinked, solemn as a surgeon. “Dr. Shelby isn’t in on Mondays.”
The fact that she was aware of her doctor’s schedule was a little disconcerting. “So what would your mother do if she was here?”
She pulled a thoughtful face. “Well … Mama loves me.”
He raised his brows and waited for her to continue.
“So I think she’d probably want me to ride horse until I feels better.”
He managed to contain his laughter for a full three seconds, but that was as long as he could resist.
She grinned, charming beyond reason. “Please?”
He shook his head. “I’ve no wish to make your mother angry.”
“You’re not afraid of her, are you?”
“Do I look like a fool?”
“Only sometimes,” she said, and wrinkled her nose.
Impressively perceptive, he thought. “You seem to see your doctor on quite a regular basis.”
“That’s because I’m accident-proned.”
He nodded.
“But Mama says that from now on if it’s not spurting blood or falling off, we’re just gonna bandage it up and go about our business.”
“Really?”
She nodded solemnly and glared at the wound. “And it’s not spurtin’.”
“True.”
“And my leg’s not falling off.”
He lifted his palms gratefully. “Praise the Great Spirit.”
She shrugged, a quick bob of tiny shoulders. “So I think I’m good.”
“You are,” he agreed. “But we’ll wash it up and bandage it anyway,” he added and lifted her into his arms.
“Can I ride after that?” she asked, and twined her arms around his neck.
Contentment settled in, edged by gratitude, underscored by wonder. “We shall see.”
“No spurtin’,” she reminded him.
There was nothing he could do but agree.
Vura had planned to get home sooner, but by the time she pulled up beside Tonk’s battered Jeep, the sun had sunk below the cottonwoods.
Creaking out of her own less-than-stellar vehicle, she headed toward the house, but a shriek, high-pitched and desperate, stopped her in her tracks.
She jerked toward the sound.
“Lily!” she gasped and shot toward the barn.
One rapid-fire glance told her the building was empty.
Another shriek had Vura scrambling through the back door to the paddock on the other side. And there she stopped, breath held, goose bumps shivering over her skin, too scared to move, too petrified to speak.
Lily, her only child, her precious five-year-old daughter, sat alone on a sixteen-hand horse. Alone, without benefit of saddle or reins, she galloped in a circle, arms flung wide.
Inside the circle, Tonk held Arrow’s lunge line with casual ease. Still, fear clamped Vura’s throat in a tight grip, though it was clear now that neither terror nor pain had caused the shrieks she’d heard. It was joy, unfettered and wild as the west wind.
“Mama!” Lily called, catching sight of her mother for the first time. “I’m ridin’.”
Vura nodded, swallowed, and held herself perfectly still lest she scare the animal upon which her daughter’s life depended. “I see that, baby.” The fear had abated somewhat, allowing her to speak. “But it’s time to stop now.”
The little brows dipped dramatically toward her trouble-brewing eyes. “But we just started, and …”
“We will stop now, Lily,” Tonk said, gaze never leaving the loping pair. “Arrow is about to drop to a trot. Are you ready?”
Lily shifted her gaze to his and nodded, though treason flickered across her face.
“It will be bumpy.”
“I know.”
“Tighten your core. Do not let him throw you forward. Move with the horse. He is your wind.”
She nodded again. Tonk breathed a word. The pinto slowed to an easy jog, then to a careful halt. Vura stumbled forward and held up her hands. Lily slid into her arms.