by Rachel Lee
"Gideon, please!"
Laughing softly, he pressed her hot cheek to his shoulder and let it alone.
Later, much later, he lay on the living room floor, his sleeping bag wrapped around him. The storms outside had moved on, leaving the night utterly silent. He could almost feel the emptiness around him, feel the vast spaces outside this house where not another human soul breathed for miles. Closing his eyes, he tried to reach within for the silence in himself, the place that gave him strength and what little peace he'd ever known.
But he couldn't find it. Every time he looked inside himself, he found memories of Sara. Remembered how she had felt in his arms. The woman was easy to hold. Too easy.
A man might forget himself and start building castles in the air with a woman like that in his arms. He might forget that it was all just illusory, and that love was a meaningless word.
He might find himself standing in quicksand with no way out—if he were a deluded fool.
But Gideon Ironheart was nobody's fool.
* * *
Chapter 7
« ^ »
The wind blew down off the high snowfields and rippled the grasses of the pasture with its chilly breath. Storm clouds were brewing over the peaks again, promising late afternoon rain.
"Need a jacket?" Gideon asked Zeke. More than a week had passed, and Zeke was getting around pretty well now, except that his ribs pained him if he moved the wrong way. Gideon was still doing all the chores, steadfastly refusing Zeke's help and insisting that the older man take it easy.
"I'm fine, boy," Zeke answered. "It'll take a little more than a breeze to chill me." He still didn't remember what had happened the night he was beaten, but other than that, he insisted he was just fine.
Gideon smothered a smile. "You're just a damn tough old bird, Zeke. And about as hardheaded as they come." He glanced toward the tree line, waiting. They waited every afternoon at this time for the mustangs to make their appearance. He would feel their approach first, through the earth beneath his feet. They always came into the meadow at a dead run, their hooves making thunder on the ground. And it always caused his heart to race and his spirits to soar in some primitive way.
"Have you thought any more about a vision quest?" Zeke said suddenly.
Gideon hesitated, reluctant to admit that he had been thinking about it. Simple fact was, the longer he stayed here, the less he wanted to move on. Even his primary purpose in being here, getting to know Micah Parish, had somehow become less pressing. "Why is it so important to you, old man?"
Zeke raised a hand, resting it on the top rail of the corral. He stared past Gideon, beyond even the trees and mountains to someplace only he could see. "You were meant to be wichasha wakan, a holy man."
Gideon felt his scalp prickle, as if a chilly wind had touched him. His grandfather had told him the very same thing.
"A holy man is not necessarily a good man," Zeke said presently. "He doesn't have any rules to follow or a certain way he must live. He is an ordinary man living an ordinary life."
"Then why—"
Zeke shook his head. "Listen. A holy man is special only because he has power in him. You have power. I can feel it in the air around you. I'm sure others have told you the same."
Gideon couldn't deny it, but this conversation was making him distinctly uneasy. What power? He had never understood what was meant by that.
"You see the grass, how it grows? You see the trees that stand so tall? Each thing must be itself. Must fulfill itself. You have not fulfilled yourself, Ironheart. And you don't need me to tell you that."
No, he didn't need to hear it from Zeke, Gideon thought uncomfortably. But a vision quest?
Before he needed to say anything, he felt the hammering of approaching hooves through his feet. "They're coming," he told Zeke.
The eight horses emerged from the trees at a full, thundering gallop. Reaching the center of the unfenced portion of the meadow, they turned abruptly, circling before coming to a halt.
God, Gideon thought, they were beautiful. Sleek coats, losing some of the winter's protective thickness, glistened in the sun as the seven mares tossed their heads and waited for their stallion to take off again.
Gideon clucked softly, and the roan's ears pricked forward. The game again. Man and horse appeared to enjoy it equally. This time, though, Gideon changed the rules a little. Instead of waiting for the mustang to edge closer, he left the corral fence and walked out into the grassy meadow.
The stallion snorted and reared a little, warning. Gideon halted, then clucked again, softly. "Come on, boy. You know I'm not going to hurt you. Come on…"
Whispering, murmuring, he called the horse to him. Behind him, he heard the sound of Sara's Blazer coming into the yard. She was off duty early, he thought, but both he and the horse ignored the intrusion. They were too absorbed in one another to be distracted.
"Come on, boy. Come on." The meaningless liquid syllables, learned so long ago, tripped over his tongue as he willed the mustang to approach. And little by little the roan pranced nearer, pausing often to snort and visibly hesitate.
But the man, it seemed, was an irresistible lure to the horse. Finally, minutes later, the stallion stood with lowered head right before Gideon and accepted the affectionate touch of the man's hands along his neck and shoulder.
Something swelled in Gideon, a golden bubble of feeling so warm that it was like internal sunlight. The horse trusted him. For an instant he closed his eyes against the emotion and told himself the feeling would pass, that it was just fanciful, that the tightness in his throat was just…
Ah, hell, he thought, and drew a deep, shaky breath. He was having a lot of these feelings lately, feelings he'd never had before, and it was getting harder to tell himself it was a reaction to Barney's death. Parts of himself that had been walled off since childhood were breaking loose, and he was beginning to feel as if he were standing in the middle of shifting sands.
The horse nudged him gently, then laid his head over Gideon's shoulder, just as he often did with his mares. Just as if he felt the man's need.
A sudden, sharp, piercing whistle shattered the quiet. The stallion snorted, jerked away and ran into the trees with his mares hot on his heels.
Gideon swung around angrily, unable to believe that either Sara or Zeke would have done that, and looked into a pair of dark eyes that might have been his own twenty-five years ago.
"Joey!" Sara's horrified exclamation was ignored by her brother. The boy stood there, a black-leather-clad maternal nightmare, and looked at Gideon with all the resentment and anger only a sixteen-year-old boy could feel.
Gideon knew that look. He knew it in his heart and soul, knew his grandfather and uncle had faced it from him nearly every day for years. And he knew what lay behind it. Without a word he began walking toward the youth.
Only the slightest movement betrayed the boy's uneasiness as the tall, powerfully built man bore down on him. Gideon halted just two feet from the boy.
"Why'd you do that?" he asked, his voice deceptively soft.
Joey shrugged. "Hell, it looked like you were going to f—"
The word never escaped the boy's mouth. Before he finished his obscenity, Gideon had lifted him off his feet by the front of his leather jacket.
"Let's get something straight here, boy," Gideon said softly. "You're nothing but a little punk until you prove you're a man, and nobody around here is going to take any crap from a punk. You make your sister or your grandfather upset, and you and I will be talking out behind the barn. And while we're on the subject, clean up your language."
For an interminable moment he stared into the blazing hatred in the boy's eyes and saw the fright behind it. Then he set Joey on his feet.
"With that out of the way," Gideon said quietly, "I'm sure we'll get along just fine. I'm Gideon Ironheart." He held out his hand and waited.
For an endless time it seemed that Joey would ignore the gesture. Sara watched, torn between a fee
ling that Gideon had had no right to handle Joey that way and the realization that her brother had deserved it. More, that he had needed it. And now she could hardly breathe for fear that her brother would refuse to shake hands with Gideon. What then? If Joey made things too uncomfortable around here, Gideon might leave, and Sara honestly didn't think she could stand that.
But Joey reached out at last and shook Gideon's hand.
"My pleasure, son," Gideon said as if nothing at all had happened before the handshake. Then he touched the brim of his hat to Sara, nodded to Zeke and headed for his truck.
"I'll be out late," he tossed over his shoulder. "Don't wait dinner." He had to get out of here, he thought. Absolutely, positively had to get out of here. It was getting too easy to hang around, getting too comfortable to be here. Why should he give a damn about what was going on inside Joey Yates? Why should he feel any urge at all to straighten the boy out? The kid wasn't his problem.
And Sara. Sara was his problem. The woman was living, breathing temptation. Well, that was one ache he could ease in town.
If he could make himself sink that low.
* * *
Somewhere around two in the morning, Sara gave up all pretense of trying to sleep. She pulled on her jeans and a sweater, and tiptoed downstairs with her boots in hand. Thank goodness she didn't have to work in the morning.
Outside, clouds had buried the stars, leaving the night inky. Wind shifted restlessly, a lonesome sound in the dark.
The air smelled of pines and grass, and was soft with a promise of rain.
She pulled on her boots and wished there was moonlight so she could take a walk. Instead, she had to settle for standing in the yard and soaking up the scents and sounds of the night.
Gideon hadn't returned yet, and she guessed she wasn't going to sleep until he did. He'd walked off, leaving the evening chores for her and Joey to take care of, and that wasn't like him. The Gideon she had come to know these past couple of weeks was an extremely responsible man, not the kind to forget evening chores or assume someone else would do them. For all he claimed to be a tumbleweed, he never left a thing undone. Not a thing. He was a finisher, not a quitter.
Something had been troubling him, and she didn't think it was Joey, obnoxious as he had been. Gideon had been mad, not shocked by the boy. And whatever was bothering him, she suspected, had been coming on for some time. Any number of times in the past week she'd caught him staring pensively at nothing in particular, and once or twice she'd seen him grab on to something and just stand there for several minutes, as if he was in some kind of pain. And then he would straighten and carry on as if nothing had happened.
She wished—oh, how she wished! —there was something she could do for him. And wished he would touch her again, kiss her again, hold her again. She wanted to be in his arms so badly that she ached nearly every moment of every day. Ached so badly that sometimes she was even able to convince herself that it didn't matter that he'd eventually leave if only she could have him right now.
Which made her a fool again, she thought with a sigh, whether anybody else knew it or not. And why should he want her, anyway? George had been so chilled by the prospect of bedding her that he'd fled all the way to Denver. So scared of being stuck for life with her that he'd tried to hide. Maybe Gideon hadn't backed off out of some sense of nobility, after all. Maybe he, too, had found her in some way repulsive.
Hardly thinking about it, she walked to the bunkhouse and sat on the porch step, knowing that she wouldn't sleep until Gideon returned, so she might as well make sure he got back in one piece.
He'd probably be full of beer or whiskey and smelling of cheap perfume, she told herself. Nine years as a deputy had taught her the uglier side of male pastimes. She knew every dive, every hooker and every easy woman in town. Sooner or later she'd had to deal with every single one of them. Even in a county this underpopulated, there was plenty of work for prostitutes. Cowboys in from the range made sure of that. Gideon would probably have to fight the women off. If he even wanted to.
That thought caused her a serious pang, but she shoved it aside. She knew men, and she wasn't going to let herself fall into some delusion that Gideon Ironheart was different. There was no reason why he should be. He wasn't married and didn't have kids to worry about, after all.
She heard his truck on the drive long before his lights punctured the darkness. There was plenty of time for her to escape, to run back to the house so he would never know she had waited for him, but something kept her where she was, holding her as surely as if she were nailed to the spot.
If he was drunk and reeking of some woman, she told herself, it would free her of this need she felt for him. She would be so disgusted that she would never want him to touch her again. Men in that condition always revolted her.
And if he wasn't … if he wasn't, she might be in serious trouble.
The truck pulled into the yard, and its headlights pinned her in their glare. Slowly Gideon pulled up and stopped. For a minute he let the engine run and stared at her sitting there on the bunkhouse porch. Waiting for him. Looking a little lost, a little sad and a whole lot frightened.
If he had a single ounce of common sense, he told himself, he would drive out of the yard right now and head back to town. But he evidently didn't have any common sense, because he switched off his lights and his engine and climbed out.
She didn't move. For a moment neither of them moved, waiting for their eyes to adapt to the darkness.
"Is something wrong?" he asked her finally.
She shook her head. "I just couldn't sleep." He didn't sound drunk, she thought with relief.
"Yeah." He hesitated a little longer, then came to sit beside her on the porch step. "I'm sorry I stomped off the way I did. I know I left you with all those damn chores."
"Joey helped. That's why he's back here, you know. He managed to convince Nate that he wanted to come home and help out because Grandfather was injured."
"And I was here. No wonder the kid was so mad. Maybe I should just move on." He'd been thinking about that all evening but couldn't quite convince himself to do it.
"No," said Sara, battling a wave of panic. "No. Not unless you want to. Nothing around here is going to get bent out of shape for Joey ever again. It's time he started learning to accommodate himself to other people."
Gideon nodded, granting her that. It was a lesson everyone had to learn sooner or later. "Well, I'm still sorry I tore out of here and left you to cope. I don't usually do that."
"I know you don't."
The quiet conviction in her voice caused him to turn his head and peer at her in the dark. Her confidence in him was like a warm touch. "Thank you," he said, meaning it.
"I've had nearly two weeks to learn a few things about you," she told him, brushing it aside. "You're honest, you're honorable, and you don't leave things undone."
"A regular Boy Scout, huh?"
She surprised him with a soft, rippling laugh. "Not quite."
"That's a relief. A man likes to think he's at least a little bit of a rogue." He wanted to reach out and catch a handful of her hair, reach out and pull her close until her mouth was under his and her small breasts were crushed against his chest. Three times tonight he'd sent an interested woman away because he just couldn't stir up any interest in anyone but Sara. He'd been thinking about that, too, when he thought about moving on. "Why are you sitting out here, Sara Yates?" He meant here on the bunkhouse steps instead of her own porch. She could ignore that distinction if she chose to.
She didn't choose to, maybe because it was the middle of the night and her mind wasn't as clear as it should have been. Maybe because deep inside she wanted him to know, wanted somehow to close the distance between them. "I was worried about you."
He wanted to dismiss her concern with some easy, flip remark, but the words wouldn't come. "Thanks," he said gruffly. "Thanks." God, nobody had worried about him in more years than he wanted to think about. Nobody had waited up for
him; nobody had even wondered where he was. "Sometimes … sometimes I just have to be by myself."
Sara bit her lip, afraid to press him, yet concerned enough to be unable to let it alone. Finally concern won out. "Sometimes … sometimes I get the feeling that you … hurt very badly."
Gideon's heart stopped. He didn't even draw a breath as an extraordinary stillness filled him. All his life, whenever he hurt, he had been expected to go off by himself and lick his own wounds in private. Nobody wanted to hear, nobody wanted to know. Even his uncle, forever understanding about such things, was silent about them. He gave Gideon the place and the privacy, but left it to him to manage his own pain. It was the way a man was supposed to do it.
Nobody ever, not once in his entire life, had wanted to hear about it. To share it. And he didn't know if he could even talk about it. Not really. Not in any meaningful way.
"I, um…"
Sara reached out and touched his forearm. "I know it's none of my business, Gideon. I just … worry."
And suddenly the world was spinning again. Even though it was pitch-dark, he saw spiraling blue sky, saw the beam swinging and spinning, felt his grip on the steel slipping, felt as if he was falling…
"I felt him die."
The words seemed to be torn from Gideon's throat, and he bent over until his head was between his knees. Sara hesitated only a moment and then reached out instinctively to wrap her arm around his back. She felt the horrible tension in him, felt the subtle tremors of violent emotion suppressed.
"I keep feeling it," he said, his voice little more than a raw whisper as the pain erupted from the deep well in which he tried to hide it from everyone else. "Over and over and over."
For the longest time he stayed as he was, doubled over and silent, buffeted by waves of anguish. And then, almost as swiftly as he had been overcome, he overcame it. He straightened, looking out into the dark as if he could see something there. When he spoke, his voice was once again normal—or close to it.
