IRONHEART

by Rachel Lee

  And remembered her dad hugging her to his side, saying, "You're a great gal, Sarey. Some man's going to love you to death."

  But George had panicked at the mere thought of loving her and marrying her, and Sara, at twenty-eight, had given up hope of any man loving her at all, never mind loving her to death.

  Then, slowly and softly, as easily as the words he had whispered to that damn mustang hours ago had slipped into her ears, the memory of Gideon Ironheart slipped into her mind. A woman would give a lot to be loved by a man like that, Sara thought. A whole lot.

  But not her. Damn it, she was never again going to be any man's fool. Never!

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  "Steady, boy. Steady." Gideon spoke soothingly to the wary mustang, patting the horse's shoulder reassuringly. In the four days he had been working for Zeke Jackson, he had spent some time coaxing the roan stallion to accept him. It was important, he thought, to get the horse to tolerate at least one person, because if the animal ever got truly sick or badly injured, he was going to need human help. So far, Gideon thought, he seemed to be gaining ground. The horse no longer shuddered so violently at his proximity and now didn't even attempt to evade his touch.

  The horse had fire in his eye, Gideon thought. He'd survived the wilderness, capture and the BLM corrals, and yet he hadn't sacrificed any of himself.

  "You sure haven't, boy," Gideon murmured, stroking the sleek neck and shoulder, and almost fancied the horse snorted an affirmative. "Still just as free and independent as day one, aren't you? Still you, through and through."

  The stallion bobbed his head and whinnied, then butted Gideon's shoulder. Gideon chuckled.

  The horse, he thought, with a deep, private pang, had achieved something that he himself had failed to. It was hard to put into words, this sense that the horse had fulfilled itself while he, Gideon, had not. Hard to explain even to himself the feeling that his life had somehow been bent out of shape, that he had sacrificed himself to goals that hadn't mattered. Hard to find words to tell himself that this horse had become the best horse he could be, but that Gideon Ironheart was a long way from being the best man he could be.

  He clucked soothingly to the animal and let liquid syllables tumble over his tongue, the sounds and cadences learned so long ago and somehow never forgotten. And thinking of his uncle brought his reverie around to his grandfather, and the old man's warning.

  "Boy, a life is a portrait. It's a picture you paint every day, every minute, every second, with the palette you were given at birth. It's an expression of yourself, whether you want it to be or not. Make sure it's a picture you're proud of."

  Well, Gideon thought now, he sure as hell wasn't proud of his portrait. Not that he was ashamed of it. No, he hadn't done very much that he was ashamed of, because he'd realized a long time ago that he had to live with himself first of all. But he hadn't done a whole hell of a lot to be proud of, either. What did a few skyscrapers amount to, after all? They sure didn't measure up to a Sistine Chapel, or a Mona Lisa. They didn't even measure up to a guy who could raise a good crowd for his funeral.

  Suddenly his lips quirked and he almost laughed out loud. God, talk about sinking into self-pity! What had gotten into him? He was almost never like this.

  "You've got that damn mustang mesmerized."

  Gideon glanced toward the fence and saw a man he didn't recognize. Tall, lean, well-built, the guy was dressed like everyone in these parts—jeans, Western shirt and straw cowboy hat. Gideon himself had traded his black felt hat for a straw one, in concession to the warmth of the day.

  "Howdy," Gideon said quietly. "Something I can do for you?"

  The man shook his head. "I'm here to see Sara, but I caught sight of you and couldn't resist watching. Where'd you learn to whisper a horse?"

  "My uncle taught me when I was a kid." Realizing that his time with the horse was over for now, Gideon gave the stallion a friendly pat and then headed for the fence himself. "Does Sara know you're here?"

  "Not yet. I'll go up to the house in just a minute. I don't recall seeing you around here before. You're new in these parts."

  Gideon nodded. "Lately from Georgia." This guy was good-looking, he thought, just the kind of man women seemed to go for. What was he to Sara? "The name's Ironheart."

  "I'm Jeff Cumberland." He stuck his hand out and shook Gideon's briskly. "I own the Bar C, up north from here."

  Gideon had heard of the Bar C. It was the biggest, most successful ranching operation in the county, and Zeke must have mentioned it at least twice, as had other people around town when they thought he might be looking for work.

  Jeff continued speaking. "I don't have a man who can talk a horse that way. In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone do it in a dozen years or more. If you get tired of the Double Y, come see me."

  "Trying to steal my hired hand, Jeff?" Sara asked. She had come up almost silently, and both men started a little at the sound of her voice. The first thing Gideon noticed was that she was annoyed. Not at him, but at Cumberland.

  Jeff smiled and shook his head. "Nope. Forget I said anything."

  Sara put her hands on her hips in a posture Gideon recognized. Sara, who hadn't shown him the tough side of herself since he started working here, was showing it to Cumberland now. What had this man done to her to make her feel she had to be tough around him?

  "What brings you up here?" she asked Jeff.

  "I wanted to make our usual arrangement about summer pasturage. Are you agreeable?"

  Sara nodded. She needed the money, even if she hated dealing with a Cumberland. Of course, it wasn't Jeff's fault that George had turned tail like a yellow-bellied skunk. In fact, Jeff had been as sympathetic as a big brother, had even offered to date her for a while to save her face. No, she told herself, she shouldn't be mad at Jeff. But every time she saw him, she remembered George and her humiliation at his hands.

  "I brought the papers with me," Jeff said. "It's the same as always, except the fee has been upped five percent, if that's agreeable?"

  "That's fine. Come on inside and I'll give you some coffee while I look it over."

  Gideon watched them walk to the house, wondering what the story was between those two. And he was surprised to feel a rather hot irritation at the idea that Sara had a past with that man—the biggest rancher in the county.

  He looked down at himself, at his dusty jeans and scuffed boots, and tried not to remember that he wasn't even a connector anymore. Tried not to feel as if he were falling, tried not to see the flashing, splintering images of spinning blue sky and wildly careening beams.

  Dizzily, he reached out and grabbed the fence rail for stability. It would pass. The vertigo always passed, because it wasn't real. It was imagined. It was just a psychological reaction, that was all.

  Breathing deeply, he kept his eyes open to counter the vivid, spinning mental images and the sensation of tumbling end over end. Nausea welled in the pit of his stomach, and he swallowed it.

  It would pass. Everything passed eventually.

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Sara poured two mugs of coffee and carried them to the table where Jeff Cumberland sat. "I wish you'd refrain from stealing Gideon Ironheart, at least until Joey is back out here to help my grandfather. Zeke can't handle it all alone."

  "I got the feeling Ironheart isn't in a mood to go anywhere." Jeff smiled and gave a little shrug. "Maybe I can borrow him for a few hours here and there?"

  "That's up to him." She took a seat across from him and reached for the contract.

  "What about Joey?" Jeff asked. "How long will he be locked up?"

  Sara shook her head. "I guess it's up to Nate, from what Judge Williams said when she revoked Joey's probation. With the way Nate feels about it, I guess Joey's going to spend some time there."

  "I'm really sorry, Sara," Jeff said. "I know how hard you've worked and how hard you tried to bring him up right. I guess not everybody turns out okay. Like
George."

  Sara drew a sharp breath and looked at him. She and Jeff had studiously avoided mentioning his brother for nearly ten years now. "George?"

  Jeff grimaced. "He left his wife. Can you believe it? He left her and their kid because it wasn't what he wanted. I could kill him."

  "What—what will she do?"

  "I've asked her and the kid to come stay with me. Just because my brother is a reprehensible, good-for-nothing jackass doesn't mean his wife and kid should suffer."

  "Is she coming?"

  "I don't know. I think she's in pretty much of a state of shock." He shook his head. "She loved him, Sara. Just like you did. What the hell is the matter with him?"

  "I can't imagine, Jeff. I really can't." And for the first time it occurred to her that she might have gotten off lightly when George left her at the altar.

  "Well, I didn't come up here to saddle you with my troubles," he said after a moment. "I guess I just wanted you to know that you were never the problem."

  Just as Sara turned her attention back to the contract, Gideon opened the screen door and stepped in. "Just wanted a mug of that coffee, Sara."

  "Help yourself." As soon as he had moved into the bunkhouse, she had told him he was welcome to come into the kitchen anytime for coffee or a soft drink. So far, apart from mealtimes, he hadn't availed himself of the invitation, but here he was. Helplessly, Sara watched him saunter across the kitchen to the coffeepot. There ought to be a law, she thought, against men who looked like that walking like that. It was an almost animal prowl.

  Glancing away, she found Jeff regarding her curiously. Before a blush could betray her, she fastened her attention on the contract.

  Gideon poured a cup a coffee and leaned back against the counter as he sipped it. He was acting like a fool, he thought, coming in here this way, but he couldn't seem to make himself walk out. Well, he admitted, Sara was a damn attractive woman, at least according to his lights. He'd been trying to ignore the attraction because he was only passing through, but right now that didn't seem half as important as making sure Cumberland didn't put the make on Sara, especially considering how she had bristled. Since she had something against the man, it seemed wise to be protective.

  "What brought you up here from Georgia?" Jeff asked him while Sara read.

  "Vacation," Gideon replied promptly. He'd answered the question so many times that he had a stock answer. "I finished off my last job and decided it was as good a time as any to do some of the sight-seeing I've always wanted to do."

  "Last job?" said Cumberland. "Where was that?"

  Sara answered without looking up from the contract. "Gideon's an ironworker. I think he's only here because he likes Zeke and Zeke asked for his help." She scanned the last page, then looked at Jeff. "Looks good to me. My only qualification is that I don't want your cowboys crossing the fence line at the falls. That meadow up there is one of my favorite places. If their horses chew up the ground, the place will get full of sage and maybe choke out the wildflowers."

  "I'll make a point of telling them, Sara. If you have any trouble about it, let me know."

  Declining an offer of more coffee after they had signed both copies of the contract, Jeff said his good-byes and left. Gideon was still standing against the counter with his coffee, and Sara glanced at him.

  "Something wrong?" she asked.

  Only with him. He shrugged. "Just wanted some coffee. What's this about him leasing your pasture?"

  "I don't have a lot of grazing land, but I've got a lot of water. Come June, Jeff moves part of his herd into my pasture so he doesn't overtax his own water supplies and grazing."

  "If you've got the water, why can't you raise your own herd?"

  "Because I don't have enough good grazing to raise enough cattle to make it economically worthwhile. I could raise a few head, maybe, but not enough to make this a going concern."

  "You've sure got some beautiful land here. I can see why you don't want to part with it."

  Sara almost smiled at him. Most people thought she needed her head examined for working so hard to keep a nonproductive piece of land. "This place is part of me," she admitted. "Leaving it would be like cutting off my arm. But it sure would be nice if I could figure out some way to make it self-sufficient without sacrificing the beauty or the privacy."

  "You could board horses," Gideon said, the words popping out before he considered them.

  "But everyone around here…"

  "Not everyone around here," he corrected her. "People in town, for one. They have no place to stable them. People who might want their horses broken before they take them to more convenient stables nearer their homes. Maybe some people who'd like to save a mustang but have no place to put one."

  She instinctively opened her mouth to disagree, but then she stopped, reconsidering. "Maybe," she said after a moment. "It's an idea. I'll give it some thought."

  "Good." He put his mug in the sink and headed toward the door. "Zeke wants me to go to town and pick up some stuff for him. I'll be back before dinner."

  They couldn't possibly, Sara thought as she watched him go, be paying him enough to work as hard as he worked. Gideon Ironheart evidently preferred not to be idle, and jobs that had needed doing for years around here were beginning to finally get done.

  * * *

  The woman was getting under his skin, Gideon thought as he drove into town with Zeke's list in his pocket. For a minute there, when she had opened her mouth to object and then had changed her mind, he'd had an almost overwhelming urge to bend over and plunge his tongue into the warm, silky depths of her mouth.

  He didn't like this at all. He was forty-one, not sixteen. It had been almost that long since the last time his hormones had ruled him, and he didn't like the idea that some woman could make a mockery of his restraint and self-control. He didn't like the feeling that some complete innocent, with no such intention at all, could cause his loins to stir and his heart to race.

  If she'd meant to attract him, he wouldn't have minded half so much that he had responded. But Sara Yates honestly wasn't interested in attracting a man. She didn't send significant looks or make tempting little gestures, didn't put on makeup or do any of those other things a woman did to advertise her availability. He couldn't quite make up his mind whether she was unaware of such things or just wasn't aware of him as a man.

  No, he thought after a moment, that wasn't quite it, either. A couple of times he had caught her gaze following him. She knew he was a man, all right, and flickers of interest showed from time to time. Sara just didn't want to be interested. Fine. He was willing to let it rest.

  For now.

  He had hoped that his frequent appearances in town would start putting him into the category of a familiar face, but while shopkeepers nodded and chatted with him, they still didn't respond in any detail to his gambits about Micah Parish. He'd better let that drop for a while, he decided, or somebody might notice his interest and get suspicious.

  And maybe he was going to have to break down and meet the man. That was something he'd wanted to avoid, because, once done, it was irrevocable. Once Micah became aware of him, matters would no longer be under Gideon's sole control, and he wasn't at all sure he wanted that to happen. And then there was the matter of meeting him. He couldn't just walk up, introduce himself and tell the truth. No, he would need some kind of cover.

  And there was always Sara, he found himself thinking. She worked with Parish and would be the likeliest person to introduce him if he decided to go that route. So maybe, if he worked at it, he could just get her to talk about the man.

  * * *

  Columbine, a sorrel mare, and her new foal were frisking together in the pasture near the barn, while the roan mustang stood in the corral and watched them, hooves planted widely, ears pricked forward and nostrils flaring as he sought their scent. When Gideon pulled his truck into the yard, Zeke and his lifelong friend, Chester Elk Horn, were standing at the fence and watching.

  Gide
on joined the two men at the fence and gave Chester, whom he'd met the other day, a nod. "What's up, Zeke?"

  Zeke chuckled. "Boy meets girl. Same old story. That mustang has been putting on quite a show trying to get Columbine's attention."

  "And she ain't giving it." Chester grinned.

  Columbine wouldn't be interested for some time yet, but that didn't seem to faze the mustang, who now reared a little and then pranced along the fence, tail held high.

  Shaking his head a little and smiling to himself, Gideon went to unload his truck. Zeke and Chester made a pair, he thought. Something about those two would never be old.

  After he unloaded the truck, he went to wash up at the faucet out behind the bunkhouse. A cup of coffee was sounding real good right about now. Maybe he would venture into Sara's territory and get one.

  It was as he stood shaking water off his hands and arms that a flash from the trees farther uphill caught his attention. Sort of like sun catching on glass.

  There. Again.

  That wasn't right. A piece of glass lying on the ground would have made a steady reflection. Whatever was reflecting the sunlight was moving.

  Somebody was up there.

  Without giving it another thought, he started trotting in that direction. A hiker probably, gone astray. As the weather warmed, every bit of wilderness in America became overrun by hikers and campers from all over the world. He would just check things out, make sure everything was okay. Sara and Zeke wouldn't mind a hiker or two crossing their spread.

  What they didn't like was dirt bikers. "They tear up the ground, kill the vegetation, pollute the atmosphere with fumes, and ruin the peace and quiet with their racket," Zeke had said. "They scare the horses, drive the deer and elk away … damn vandals, that's all they are." The Double Y was posted against trespassers primarily because of off-the-road vehicles.