Hearth Stone

by Lois Greiman

  So what in heaven’s name was she doing here?

  Had she really believed she could buy contentment? Had she truly thought she could change who she was? What she was? She was a Wellesley, not some softhearted country girl like Casie Carmichael who could right wrongs and alter lives.

  Reality felt sharp-edged and brutal, but she turned toward the mattress. Night was falling and her electricity was unreliable. Best to get things done while she could, to keep moving. Grasping the mattress by the lone handle that strongly suggested it had survived a wild dog attack, she tugged it toward the stairway. She’d put it in the bedroom to the right of the steps. It wasn’t the largest, but it boasted the window with the best view. The view of the doe. The view that would help her survive until her finances were back to normal. Until the world had turned right side up.

  Stumbling backward with the mattress held tight to her chest, she struck the wall with her thigh. Pain slammed through her body. She tried to right herself, but she was already falling, toppling sideways with a rasping shriek.

  Self-pity screamed through her. She slumped to the floor, eyes squeezed tight.

  Pain throbbed in her thigh. Apparently, when bone perforates flesh it is disinclined to leave a neat little hole. A scar jagged like a lightning bolt at the site of her injury. It turned out her father had been right all along. Unlike her mother, whose athleticism and grace had awed audiences on a hundred stages, Sydney was meant for a more placid role. While she had inherited dark hair and small stature from her maternal side, she did not have Winona’s physical strength. Fragility had been handed down from her paternal grandmother, who strongly believed a lady need lift nothing heavier than a demitasse. Horsemanship, however, was to be tolerated. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy had kept ponies on the lawn of the White House, after all.

  Sydney had been told from the start, however, that she was not equipped to ride the more demanding horses used for eventing and jumping. Even when fueled by adrenaline following her discovery of David in another woman’s arms, she should have realized her limitations, or so Father had told her. She remembered the conversation in vague wisps and staccato ellipses. The anesthesia from her first surgery had not yet worn off. Much more powerful were the other memories that flashed through her mind. Endless falling. Breathless pain. The labored wheeze of her mount’s last breaths, then the long slide into unconsciousness.… “You need help?”

  Sydney jerked to a sitting position with a quick rasp of surprise. Agony still pulsed like a heartbeat in her thigh, but fear was her overriding emotion.

  A man stood in the doorway … or maybe it was a bear. Backlit by the fast-sinking sun, he looked as big as a grizzly, but somewhat less domesticated. His face was bearded and shadowed by low brows and too long, seal-dark hair.

  “No.” She snapped her gaze away and pushed ineffectively at the mattress. “Thank you. I’m fine.”

  “You alone here?” he asked and took a step toward her.

  She stopped struggling and glanced toward the cell phone she’d left well out of reach. “No, I’m not. My husband …” Swallowing, she searched for a likely name for her fictional hero. Hercules seemed a little theatrical. Popeye a bit cartoonist. “Conan.” God help her. “… will be here any minute.”

  “Conan?”

  “Yes. He just …” If she only had her phone … or pepper spray … or the ability to stand up. “He just stepped out for a minute.”

  “Okay.” In the doorway of the ramshackle two-story, Hunter Redhawk felt his lips twitch with humor. Phil Jaeger, the Realtor from Rapid City, had said Sydney Wellesley might be a little sharp-edged, but he hadn’t mentioned mental illness.

  She was dressed in varying hues of charcoal, making her face look winter white by comparison. “He just went to check on the … barn.” She pushed at the mattress that half lay across her legs. “Is there something with which I can help you?”

  He kind of doubted it and considered saying as much. Or at least informing her that Conan was a name reserved for Hollywood beefcakes and late-night show hosts. He should have remained in Hot Springs. But now that he was here, it seemed patently unwise to tackle the winding roads back to his point of origin; his truck’s headlights were on the fritz again, and there was a storm brewing. Still, there was something about Ms. Wellesley’s snooty demeanor that made him long to be anywhere but here, or at least to fire up every hayseed utterance he’d ever heard. Which was a pretty impressive number, he realized, and couldn’t think of a reason in the world not to utilize some of that white-trash phraseology. “So your ol’ man ain’t here right now?”

  She twisted fretfully toward the door as if her every desire lay in that direction. “As I said, he’s just a short distance away in the barn. He’ll be here any second.”

  “You sure ’bout that?”

  “I could hardly be mistaken.”

  Oh, yeah, she was snooty as hell, but she was scared, too, and though she hid it well enough, that knowledge made Hunter soften against his will. “I guess Phil must have forgotten to mention him.”

  “What?” Her gaze skittered past him toward the window, making him wonder, with just a dash of unacceptable humor, if she was honestly considering an escape by that route.

  “Phil Jaeger …” He paused, letting the name sink it. “He said you might need some help here. But …” He glanced around. Honest to God, he’d never seen such a rat hole in his entire life. And he’d spent his first nine years on the rez. “I guess he was wrong.”

  “You’re a friend …” Her brow furrowed as she let her attention fully settle on him for the first time. “You’re a friend of Mr. Jaeger’s?”

  “Just an acquaintance,” he said and sighed as he let her slip off the hook. “But I am a friend of the folks at the Lazy.”

  “You know Colt?”

  Did she say the name as though Dickenson were a living legend? Not that Hunt cared. Colt was all right as rodeo cowboys went. And he was a pretty good guy to know in a pinch, but he’d been turning girls’ heads since they were in short pants and the scenario was getting a little old. “Yeah. I know him. You need help?”

  She let her gaze skim down from his face, over his frayed shirt and patched jeans, then straightened her back and gave him a tight smile. It was a damned weird scene, her sitting there as if she weren’t, even now, being crushed beneath that awful mattress. “It’s very kind of you to offer, Mr… .”

  “Redhawk.”

  “Very thoughtful of you, Mr. Redhawk, but I’ve no desire to impose on your time.”

  He raised his brows at her. He’d gotten the brush-off a number of times in a plethora of situations, but really, he thought, this one took the cake.

  “So Phil was wrong,” he said, just to be sure.

  “Yes.” It looked as if she was holding her breath. “He was.”

  “All right then,” he said and turned to leave, but there was something about the image of her flattened like a rag doll under that god-awful mattress that would weigh on his conscience, and he had enough damned regrets to last a lifetime. Pivoting back, he strode over to grasp the ragged, cord handle. And damn if she didn’t glower while he lifted the mattress from her legs to prop it against the wall. She looked as haughty as a duchess. Except for those eyes. Those lost-child eyes. And then there was her scent … like peaches on a summer breeze. It was as disconcerting as hell.

  “Thank you,” she said finally and managed with marvelous aplomb to make it sound as if she had done him a favor. “That will be all.”

  He forced himself to ignore both her scent and her eyes. “So you’ve got everything under control here?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I do,” she said and wrestled herself to her feet. By the time she was upright, her cheeks had lost their last vestige of color. Was she sick? he wondered. It seemed a distinct possibility. She was as thin as the blade of the bone-handled pocket knife his grandfather had given him on his fifth birthday.

  He glanced around, nodded once. “Planning to rough it
here?”

  “Actually,” she said and gritted a vicious smile, “I’m planning to burn it down and build new.”

  “No joke?”

  She brushed at an invisible mote on the lapel of her cashmere coat. Her left sleeve, he couldn’t help but notice, was covered in dust from shoulder to wrist. “None whatsoever.”

  Was there an accent in her better-than-thou voice? A hint of Southern with perhaps a dash of Bostonian mixed in? “Who are you using?”

  She stiffened even more, which, honest to God, he wouldn’t have thought possible unless she’d been petrified for posterity. “I beg your pardon?”

  “What contractor?”

  “Oh.” She pursed her lips. “You’ve probably not heard of him.”

  He watched her in silence.

  “He’s not from this area.”

  “Where then?”

  “Manhattan.”

  “Manhattan?”

  She didn’t take it back, though he could see in her eyes that she realized her mistake.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me …” Her tone suggested she was about to have tea and crumpets … possibly with the queen … certainly with someone more acceptable than a half-breed Indian with dubious intentions. “I have things to do.”

  “Yeah y’ do,” he agreed and prepared to leave. But damn it, he couldn’t pull the trigger. Clenching his jaw against his own stupidity, he turned back. “You’re not staying the night.”

  “I beg your pardon,” she said again, but it seemed perfectly clear that she had never had to beg for anything in her life. Still … He glanced out the open door to the west. The sky was as dark as sin, bubbling with impending mischief.

  “It’s gonna get ugly.”

  “Get ugly?” She laughed, then sobered quickly. “I do so appreciate your concern,” she said and damned if she couldn’t deliver a lie. “But there’s no need for you to worry on my behalf.”

  She was smack-dab on the money there, he thought, and tried to force himself back to his truck. Failed again. “You got the furnace working, right?”

  She followed his gaze out the door. The wind was rising, whistling through the trees that surrounded the house, rattling the windows. She shivered. But apparently pride was all she had left. “As I said, you needn’t worry,” she repeated and shifted her eyes back to him.

  “Please shut the door on your way out,” she added.

  He wanted to laugh, wanted to razz her, wanted to ask her if she had any idea how incredibly ridiculous she looked standing in the middle of the rubble in her thousand-dollar coat and her old-money attitude, but there was something in her eyes … something almost hidden behind that haughty façade. Despair maybe. He tightened his fists and glanced at the gathering clouds.

  “I could take a look at it.” He hadn’t meant to say the words, but there was nothing new about that. He’d said a thousand things he hadn’t intended.

  “If you’re referring to the furnace, I must assure you it’s been taken care of.”

  “You got it fixed?”

  Her right index finger tapped against her too thin thigh. “I have a gentleman coming this evening.”

  “From Manhattan?” he asked and managed, somehow, to contain his grin.

  She concocted a smile of sorts. “From Rapid City.”

  A branch scraped nastily against a nearby window.

  “He’s never going to make it in this weather.”

  “Oh?” Her left brow rose the slightest degree. “Are you, by chance, a meteorologist?”

  “Hunkpapa,” he said.

  She gave him a head tilt accompanied by pursed lips and accented by one raised brow … clearly the full arsenal of her disdain. “I’m uncertain if I should offer condolences or congratulations.”

  He almost laughed. “Lakota,” he said. “On my father’s side.”

  “Oh.” He could see the thoughts flittering like butterflies through her mind: What was in his maternal heritage? Buffalo? Grizzly? “Well …” She intertwined her fingers, effectively quelling the movement of that one rogue digit. “While I appreciate your people’s … travails … I fear I can’t offer you employment at this time, Mr. Redhawk.”

  Travails? Good God! He shook his head and didn’t bother to stifle his chuckle this time. Some things weren’t worth the battle. “Well … I suppose a woman like you is used to being cold,” he said, and stepping onto the porch, closed the door behind him.

  A minute later he was back. “My battery’s dead.”

  She remained as she was, facing the wall. “Believe me when I say I will call the police.”

  “Believe me when I say I’d kiss them on the mouth if they’d give me a lift back to town.”

  “Assuming that won’t be sufficiently motivating, you could always walk. It’s only fifteen miles or so.”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “What gave me away?” She turned toward him finally. Her tone was polished, her expression haughty, but her eyes …

  He felt the grin drop from his lips; he’d always been a sucker for little girl eyes. “Listen … maybe we can help each other out.”

  “I highly doubt it,” she said.

  “Then I hope to God your pipes have been drained.”

  “Why are you people so obsessed with my pipes?”

  “The temperature’s going to drop tonight. If you don’t get some heat in here, you’re going to have a hell of a mess to clean up.”

  She laughed, but there was fear in her eyes. “A mess?” she said finally. “In this palace.”

  He stared at her. “Maybe we can work something out, Miss …”

  “Mrs.” She straightened her back to ramrod stiffness. “Mrs. Wellesley.”

  He scowled, shuffled one booted foot. “As in the duke?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Wellesley, as in the Duke of Wellington?” he asked.

  “Oh.” For a moment surprise shone through her careful façade. “Yes. The first duke was, in fact, my progenitor.”

  “Kept your maiden name, did you?”

  “I beg—” she began, but seemed to remember her newly proclaimed marital status in a moment. “Yes, of course. How did you know of the duke?”

  “I read,” he said. Then, “How about fifty bucks?”

  “Well …” Her fingers had escaped. She tapped one restlessly against her thigh. If he were a professional gambler, which he had been for five months in Atlantic City, he would call that her tell. “Fifty dollars seems a bit steep, but if you could repair the furnace, I might be convinced to …” She pursed her lips. They were full and bright in stark contrast to the rest of her being. “… give you a meal … if you agree to vacate the premises once the task is complete.”

  He stared at her. Maybe he was being punked, he thought. He had a couple of friends and several brothers who would sell their dubious souls to see this, but the broken-down old house seemed to be lacking the necessary technology. “How about I take a look at your furnace for a meal and a jump.”

  Terror flashed in her eyes. He scowled, bemused, until he realized his statement might have sounded somewhat sexual in nature. Then, although he managed to control his chuckle, he couldn’t quite do the same with his next words.

  “I got the necessary cables.”

  Her eyes widened to barn-owl proportions, and damned if she wasn’t holding her breath.

  “My truck …” he reminded her finally. “It won’t start.”

  She blinked at him, and there was something about that guileless mannerism that almost made him feel guilty.

  “If I give you this … jump …” She said the word as if she were speaking a foreign language. “Do you vow to leave immediately afterward?”

  He chuckled quietly, no longer able to resist. “Yeah.”

  Her frown might have been considered intimidating under less amusing circumstances. “Was that your solemn vow, Mr. Redhawk, or some response to a gastric disturbance?”

  “Both,” he
said and laughed quietly as he made his way down the death-trap stairs to the torture chamber below.

  Chapter 6

  It was dark in the basement, the ancient walls were crumbling, and the furnace was older than sin. Which, according to Mrs. Big Crow, Hunter’s fourth-grade Sunday school teacher, had first begun over an apple.

  Hunter considered original sin as he tinkered with the furnace’s wires and limit controls, but really, there was no hope until he had better tools; he’d give his kidneys for a screw gun and wire strippers. Still, fiddling with the transformer gave his hands something to do while he thought about his next move. After rattling the pipes, he made his way up the stairs, avoiding the third one, which was missing, and the top one, which was broken.

  He glanced around the empty living room. Some of the broad white-pine logs that made up the walls were beginning to rot near the windows and the ancient brass ceiling lights were tarnished and dented, but in its day this old house was probably a beauty. Filled with laughter and light and homey scents from the kitchen. Now the silence felt as heavy as old regrets, the cold as invasive as cancer.

  Hearing a noise, Hunter followed the sound toward the front of the ramshackle structure.

  Sydney Wellesley stood with her back to him and turned with a start as he entered the doorway.

  Fear shone again in her eyes, but she hid it carefully behind a cool demeanor. “Did you get it working?”

  He shook his head and wondered what she was running from. “Can’t. Not tonight, anyway. But I thought …” He stopped as he caught a glimpse of the room behind her. “You’ve got a fireplace?”

  “Oh.” She twisted to the right. “Yes, I believe I do.”

  He’d been fiddling with that piece of broken antiquity for half an hour and she had a fireplace? He strode past her into the room. Perhaps it had been a parlor at one time. Now it was a pit, except for the far wall, which was a masterpiece. A neglected masterpiece. Still, made of native granite and crumbling mortar, it ran ceiling to floor. “Look at that,” he breathed and admired it with breathless wonder. He should have guessed a levelheaded old beauty like this would have such a practical heat source, but he’d spent a fair amount of his youth in government housing; they’d been lucky to have air.