Hearth Stone

by Lois Greiman

  “Bravura,” he said and she turned, striking him with her turquoise eyes. Sydney saw him grin as if he knew some secret jest. “Giving up kind of early tonight, aren’t you?”

  She shoved leather gloves into the back pocket of her jeans and didn’t bother looking at him. “Some of us got here before noon.”

  Tonk had pulled up at 7:07, three minutes after Vura’s arrival. “And some of us have reasons to stay in bed.” He smirked and watched her stiffen as his barb struck home.

  “Well, you’d better get back to her,” she said and reached for the Chevy’s door handle, “before she finds another client.”

  He grabbed her arm. “She’s not a—” he began, but she snapped out of his grasp.

  “Don’t put your hands on me.” She said the words through gritted teeth.

  He raised his palms in surrender. “I’m sorry.” The apology came immediately. “Listen, Bravura, I do not want to argue.”

  “I know what you want.”

  He paused a moment, then huffed a laugh. “You know very little.”

  “I know your type.”

  “My …” He shook his head, then stopped, as if willing himself to resist the argument. “I made something for you,” he said and lifted the gift he held in his left hand.

  She scowled at it. “What is it?”

  “What does it look—” He refrained from grinding his teeth and found his old world cadence. “It is a sacred necklace, crafted of silver to cleanse your mind, acoma black jet to heal that which ails you and—”

  “I thought you guys made license plates.”

  Frustration swamped him. “Just because your old man walked out on you doesn’t—”

  “You know nothing about the situation.”

  “And you know nothing about me!” He stabbed a thumb at his heart. “Doesn’t stop you from being a …” His words stumbled to a halt.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Say it! I dare you to say it.”

  They stared at each other, tension streaming like an electric current between them, but finally Tonk jerked away, dropped the necklace into the pocket of his jeans. “Never mind.”

  Watching from the kitchen window, Sydney exhaled and Hunter scowled as Vura jerked into her truck and sped toward the road.

  Tonk was already out of sight.

  “Will we be meeting your other brothers anytime soon?” Sydney asked and glanced toward Hunter.

  He narrowed his eyes as he shifted his attention to her. “Why do you ask?”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she said, worried suddenly that she had offended him. “He’s a great worker and he’s good with the horses. It’s just that …”

  “Just that what?”

  She straightened her back a little, a defensive pose she had adopted decades ago. “He seems to irritate Vura a little.” And that had to bother Hunter. His feelings for the young mother and daughter were hardly a secret, but he didn’t address that issue.

  “What does he do for you?”

  “What?”

  “Tonk.” He stood very still, shoulders rigid, muscles taut. “How do you feel about him?”

  “Well …” She wished, quite fervently now, that she hadn’t started down this particular path. “He’s very nice. Really. And …” She searched for the right adjectives. “Skilled …” She turned with a jerk toward the stove, but his attention remained on her face. She could feel her cheeks warm under his perusal.

  “You don’t like him.” You could have lined the drive with the gravel in his voice.

  “I like him. I just—” she began, but the sound of his chuckle stopped her words.

  “You don’t like him.” His grin was watermelon wide.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I don’t understand you at all,” she said, to which he laughed out loud. But at that second the front door opened and the subject of their discussion strode in.

  “What’s so funny?” Tonkiaishawien usually looked as if he was about to laugh or had just finished doing so, but that wasn’t true at the moment.

  “Nothing,” Sydney said, cheeks burning hotter. “We were just—”

  “She doesn’t like you,” Hunter informed him.

  Tonk watched him a moment before shifting his gaze to Sydney. “That can’t be true,” he said.

  “It’s not!” Her denial was quick and emphatic. “I was just saying—”

  “Everybody likes me.” He scowled at the kitchen window. “Almost everybody.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.” Hunt laughed again.

  “Some people want to punch me in the throat,” Tonk added.

  Hunter nodded and lifted one broad palm as if to say, “Well sure.”

  “But they like me.”

  Hunt shrugged, grinned, and returned to his carrots.

  “Have you been talking to Bravura about me?” Tonk asked. His expression looked honestly confused, more than a little curious, and not the least bit miffed.

  “No,” Sydney said. “Of course not. And I do like you. I do! It’s just that …”

  The kitchen went quiet. Both men faced her.

  Tonk raised one brow.

  She tapped one restless finger against the wooden spoon and looked from Hunter to his brother. “You’re kind of a flirt.”

  There was another moment of silence before Hunt snorted.

  “And?” Tonk asked.

  “Well, I just …” She was starting to sputter a little. It wasn’t like her at all. “I’m just not the type who—”

  “You’ve got a thing for him!” Tonk said suddenly.

  “What?” She stumbled backward a half step, already shaking her head.

  But it was Tonk’s turn to laugh. “And here I thought I had seen it all. You know he snores like a buzz saw, right?”

  “No, I don’t know …” She was sputtering in earnest now. “How would I know …”

  “You haven’t slept with him yet?” Tonk tilted his head at her. “Well, that explains part of it, I guess, but still … he’s as charismatic as a rock. And he moves with the speed of a glacier. But … hey …” He shrugged. “They say it takes all kinds. I never believed them, but now …” He shook his head. “Oh …” He lifted his hand. “I made this for you.”

  She blinked foolishly at the object in his hand. “What is it?”

  “It’s a vase made with horsehair. It is called a memory vase.” He looked a little peeved about it.

  She shook her head, though honestly it was beautiful beyond words. Squat at the bottom and lipped at the top, it looked like marbleized jade … deep green flecked with amber and crisscrossed was dark, jagged lines.

  “It is Courage,” Tonk said.

  “What?” She raised her gaze from the vase to his eyes. All humor had fled from them.

  “I gathered tail hairs from the mustang and fired them into the pot.” He nodded. “Whatever the future, Courage will be with you.”

  Sydney reached for the vase. It felt smooth and cool against her fingertips. A trio of rough stones hung from a strip of rawhide knotted at the top. “You made this?”

  “Ai.”

  “You’re a …” She glanced at Hunter, but his eyes remained on his brother. “He’s a potter?”

  “Tonkiaishawien was gifted with art long before he was gifted with wisdom.” Something echoed in Hunter’s voice. It sounded a little like pride.

  “You wondered how I was spending my nights,” Tonk said. “Now you know.”

  Their gazes met. “Now I know,” Hunter agreed.

  Tonk nodded and turned away, but he stopped at the door and caught Sydney’s eye. “Tell me when you tire of him,” he said, and grinning, stepped outside.

  She stared after him in silence.

  “It needs a few more minutes,” Hunter said.

  Sydney blinked at the vase, lying like a treasured pearl in her hands. “What?”

  “The rice,” he said. “It needs a bit more time.”

  She nodded, turned toward him. “What was that a
bout?”

  Scooping the chopped vegetables into a pan, he set them to boil. A half-dozen rich aromas melded in a culinary symphony, but she scowled.

  “Hunter?”

  He was silent a moment, but finally he spoke. “Life on the rez … it is difficult enough with decent parents.” He exhaled slowly, glanced at the pot nearest her. “Stir that.”

  Hugging the vase to her chest, she picked up the abandoned spoon. “His were indecent?”

  “His were monsters.” He glanced toward the door. “And the reason he drinks.” His sigh was as heavy as silt. “But there is only so long you can lean on your excuses before you must carry your own weight and learn to stand tall.” Lifting a frying pan, he began scrubbing it with a Brillo pad. Gray Horse Hill had never been blessed with a dishwasher. It was, in fact, lucky to have a sink.

  Sydney set the vase on the counter, where it captured the harsh overhead light and transformed it into a moonlight luster.

  “I’d like to do that,” she said.

  “Scrub pans?”

  She breathed a laugh. “Carry my own weight.”

  “Looks like you’re on your way.”

  “You think so?”

  He nodded once.

  She inhaled, filling her lungs. “You think riders will come here?”

  “It is a good place.”

  “Yes, but I don’t know if I can convince them of that … or instruct them if I do … or …” She exhaled, stirred vigorously. “Or if I’m even on the right course. I mean, Courage almost died. She still might,” she added quickly, afraid of the black magic that surely accompanied an excess of optimism. “Or she may never run. And how many more are like her? Wild horses that need a hand, need a place?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Just that …” She shook her head and laughed at herself. “I don’t know.”

  “You want to save the wild horses?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. But …” She exhaled slowly. “I used to feel like Lily does. You know? Thrilled to be in the presence of anything equine.”

  “You still do.”

  “I do?”

  “You simply forgot.”

  “I forget about the object of my obsession?”

  “Momentarily,” he said.

  “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “Now you do,” he said and nodded toward the mixture she was stirring. “Taste it.”

  “What?” She watched him drizzle oil into the pan he had just washed.

  “A good chef must taste his masterpieces.”

  “I’m not a good chef.”

  “And never will be if you do not taste.”

  Taking a spoon from a nearby drawer, he dipped it into the kettle before lifting it to her mouth. Her wild-berry lips closed over the stainless steel. He pulled his hand away. Her tongue peeked out, coral against cool porcelain skin. Her broken-girl eyes found his. He leaned in, breathless, aching.

  But kissing her would be wrong. Bad. So bad. She was young. And wounded. He was old. Well … not that old. But he was jaded. And he wasn’t staying. And she should stay. Forever. She belonged here, whether she knew it or not, belonged in the rugged wild of the hills. And he belonged … He didn’t know where he belonged. So kissing her was out of the question. But damn …

  He managed to draw back a fraction of an inch. “What does it need?” His words sounded like they had been scraped from the bottom of his truck.

  She blinked as if just awakening and cleared her throat. “I suppose it would be wrong to add bacon.”

  She probably wasn’t nearly as adorable as she seemed, he told himself, and spoke again. “It is never wrong to add bacon,” he said, and pulling himself away from her eyes, retrieved a paper-wrapped package of hickory-smoked meat from the bottom drawer of the fridge.

  She fried it while he put pre-frozen dinner rolls in the oven. New scents melded with old as they danced through the rest of the preparations, arms brushing, fingers skimming, nerve endings singing.

  They ate on chipped crockery and drank from mismatched cups. No five-star restaurant had ever delivered a better meal.

  “My compliments,” Hunter said and nodded toward the soup. Sydney felt a ridiculous flush of pleasure.

  “Heart attack in a bowl,” she said, but he shook his head.

  “Happiness,” he corrected. “Happiness in a bowl. Why did you forget how you felt?”

  She took another sip of soup, considering. “About horses?”

  “Ai.”

  She set her spoon aside, stomach cramping a little. “There are certain expectations when you’re the daughter of a prima ballerina and a financial tycoon.”

  “You had no desire to become a dancer?”

  She shook her head. “And even less aptitude. I wasn’t particularly good at …” She paused, slipped her hands under the table. “Anything. But there was a pony down the road from us. He was a potbellied little skewball with one glass eye and a popped knee.” She smiled at the memory. “I called him Sir Lancelot. I thought him the most glorious thing I had ever seen and imagined myself riding him. Racing like the wind, his mane flying in my face.” She should stop talking, she thought, but failed to do so. “Excitement is frowned upon in the Wellesley family. So I played that down. I told Father riding would be good for my posture.”

  He watched her, waiting.

  “I was never very strong. And I had a mild case of scoliosis. Some research suggested horseback riding could have a positive influence on spinal deformities, and Mrs. Dobbs”—she managed not to wince when she said the name—“thought the discipline might do me good.”

  “Mrs. Dobbs?”

  “My …” Nanny didn’t seem like quite the right word, but she had nothing else. “Nanny. She was …” She paused, exhaled softly.

  “Terrifying?” he guessed, gaze steady on her.

  “No. No. She was just firm and …” She huffed a little … at herself … at the world. “Yes, actually, terrifying is a pretty apt description. But she convinced Father to let me ride.”

  “So you trotted into the sunset on the potbellied little pinto with the popped knee?”

  She had finished her soup. She took a sip of coffee. “I think you know better.”

  “Wellesleys only ride thoroughbreds?”

  “We can ride warmbloods, too.” She smiled again, almost laughing at herself. “If they’re imported … and trained by someone related to a monarch. They don’t have to be first-generation nobility,” she assured him, but he didn’t smile. She set down her coffee. “So I rode at world-renowned stables. It was still wonderful. The way the horse smells when he warms up. The satisfying finality when their hooves strike the earth.” Feelings unfurled, half forgotten, but she shook them away, rose to her feet. “Well, my turn to clean—” she began, but he stood up beside her and took her hand.

  She watched their fingers meet, brown against white, felt the warm sizzle of desire sear her and raised her eyes to his.

  “Come,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “To hear hooves strike the earth.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The horses need exercise.”

  “We’ll have a paddock done soon. We can turn them out then.”

  “Windwalker’s stocking up,” he said. “Bad for their legs to stand around so long. Fluids build up around their cannon bones. Makes it hard for them to—”

  “I know what stocking up means!” she snapped, then cleared her throat and soothed her tone. “But … it’s late.”

  He caught her gaze with eyes as dark as dreams. “What do you fear, Sydney Wellesley?”

  “Me?” She lifted a shoulder, breathed a laugh. “Spiders. A stock-market crash. Global warming.” Everything, she admitted silently.

  “Come,” he said and squeezed her hand. His fingers were warm and powerful and as gentle as a sonnet. There seemed nothing she could do but follow him.

  Outside, the night air was cool and ab
solutely still. Above them, the sky was inky black, perforated by a billion winking stars. But fear was beginning to creep up her spine. A thousand things could go wrong with a horse in the best of circumstances. But Hunter was already leading Windwalker from his stall.

  “Is he limping?” Sydney asked, studying his gait.

  “He is well.”

  “You didn’t even look.”

  “He is well.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I can.”

  Fear crept toward panic. “This is ridiculous!”

  “Perhaps.”

  “It’s cold.” The weeks had flown by. Nights were already cool, mornings crisp and clear.

  “You’ll warm up.”

  Her heart actually clutched in her chest.

  “I … no!”

  He glanced at her.

  “It’s …” She swallowed. “Slippery.”

  “The horse …” He glanced at the handsome chestnut. “He was meant to run, to fly through forest and field and never falter.”

  The fear was almost painful in its intensity, but maybe it was time to set it aside. To move on.

  Courage nickered from her stall and limped closer. Sydney glanced over, throat tight, eyes tearing.

  “Are you ready?” Hunter’s voice was low and quiet.

  She shook her head, barely able to manage that much. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You will be surprised what you can do.”

  “Listen …” She straightened her back and tried to push down the fear, but it was as strong as a geyser, rising up in her throat. “The truth is … I was injured a few months ago.”

  “Ai,” he said and motioned toward her.

  She scowled at him.

  “Come. You can tell me how it happened.”

  “I would rather not talk about it.”

  He shrugged. “Then we will ride in silence.”

  She shook her head and backed away a step. “I would like to.” It was as blatant a lie as she had ever told. “But I’m not supposed—”

  “Will you let the bastards win?”

  “What bastards?”

  His expression was somber, his eyes intense. “The ones who hurt you.”

  “Nobody hurt me.”

  “There is fear in your eyes.”