Hearth Song

by Lois Greiman

  An impish grin replaced Lily’s previous pout. “Pops!” she chirped and scrambling off Vura’s lap, sped across the warped kitchen floor. The front door squawked as she hauled it open. “Pops is here!”

  Even from the kitchen, Vura could see that her father was on his cell phone, but by the time he stepped from his pickup truck a moment later he had stashed it away. “Lily Bird!” he said and, squatting, opened his arms wide. Quinton Murrell might be as prized as husband material as he was as a carpenter, but his granddaughter was the center of his universe.

  Vura stood in the doorway of her sadly dated house and felt the muscles in her gut relax at the sight of her two favorite people. Lily was already babbling like a proverbial brook by the time her father rose to his feet.

  “I got bit,” she chattered. “It hurt real bad. Hunk said I was as tough as any chieftain ever. He called me Brave Flower. And Mama—”

  “Wait! What?” Quinton raised his gaze to Vura and tightened his grip on Lily. She was perched on his arm like a spider monkey, bare legs dangling. “What’s going on?”

  Vura shook her head and opened the door wider. He was through in a moment, carrying his chattering cargo with him. “Lily had a little accident.”

  “An accident!” He skimmed his granddaughter’s face, but in his doting estimation, her features were as perfect as a Rembrandt.

  “My ear,” Lily said and, turning her head, pointed at the offending member with one already grubby finger.

  “Holy … spit!” His eyes widened, and his face, weathered from a thousand outdoor conditions, paled.

  Despite everything, Vura grinned. “You’re not going to pass out, are you, Dad?”

  He didn’t bother to rise to her ribbing. Or maybe he hadn’t heard her. Quinton Murrell, tough guy and lady killer extraordinaire, had been known to shed tears when Lily sustained so much as a paper cut; the past five years had been extremely traumatic for him. “What happened?”

  “A horse bit me.” There was more than a little pride in the statement. “I had to get stitches. Forty-seven of ’em. But it’s okay, cuz they’re purple.”

  He clenched his teeth, probably holding back a hundred curses. Color was returning to his cheeks in a mad rush. “Was it the mustang?” The question was a little raspy.

  “Courage?” Vura was surprised his mind had rushed in that direction. True, the horse had inadvertently caused Lily some trouble in the past. But since their hardly believable story had aired to the general public, the animal’s image, drafted by Tonkiaishawien’s admittedly gifted hand, had been reproduced on a thousand mugs, captured on a million Tshirts. Nevertheless, Lily was still the mare’s number-one fan. “No. Courage is”—Vura waved a vague hand toward distant hills—“running free in the park somewhere, I think.”

  “It was a mama horse,” Lily informed him sagely. “Courage isn’t a mama. Not yet anyway. Ohhh …” She breathed a sigh, eyes wide, soft lips parted in awe. “But maybe she will be someday. Tonka says it takes mares almost a whole year to make a foal. But wouldn’t that be wonderful? Wouldn’t she make a great mama, Mama?”

  “I’m sure she would, honey.”

  “Whose horse was it, then?” Quinton asked.

  “It was a bay,” Lily said.

  Vura nodded at her daughter, spoke to her father. “Just some guy at the rodeo.”

  “A bay is a brown horse with a black mane and tail and black on its legs and ears.”

  “What was Lily doing with some random guy’s horse?”

  “The black on their legs are called points.”

  “I guess the mare was just passing by.”

  Lily nodded rapidly. “He was leading her by a pink rope and halter. Her baby was running loose.” She scowled. “Why doesn’t Courage have a baby, Mama?”

  “I’m not sure,” Vura admitted.

  “Passing by!” Her father’s tone was disgusted, as if nothing more dangerous than a cotton ball should exist in his granddaughter’s world.

  Vura shrugged.

  Lily’s scowl deepened. “Doc thinks Courage is only four years old. That sounds young. Cuz I’m already five. But that would be about …” She calculated madly, twisted expression showing her galloping thoughts. “Sixteen in people years. So she’d be old enough to have a foal, wouldn’t she?”

  “I think so.” In fact, Vura had only been a couple years older than that when she had learned of her daughter’s impending arrival.

  “I bet my book would know for sure,” Lily said. The Encyclopedia of Horses had risen to biblical status in her mind recently.

  “I’m sure it would,” Vura agreed, seeing a light at the end of the ever-questioning tunnel. “Why don’t you go check?”

  “Okay,” Lily said and, wriggling out of her grandfather’s arms, trotted across the tilted floor toward the bedroom she shared with a hundred toy ponies and all things purple.

  “So, what happened?” Quinton asked.

  Vura exhaled and turned toward the counter. She wasn’t going to cry just because her daddy was there. They had lost her mother in a car accident long before her earliest memory. Maybe that had forced their closeness. Still, even Quinton Murrell couldn’t make everything right. She was pretty sure of that. “Do you want some coffee?”

  “Did you make it?”

  She gave him a jaundiced glance over her right shoulder. “Dane did.”

  “What? Dane’s back?”

  She shrugged and took a mug from the cupboard. It matched the plates. She kind of missed the lady with the kettle corn teeth. “Did I forget to tell you that?”

  “Well, for crying in my beer!” It was only one of the many colorful phrases that had replaced more objectionable expletives since Lily’s birth. There was nothing more comical than hearing the master carpenter growl, “Jumping jackrabbit” or “son of a bear cat!” when hammer met thumb. “Sit down,” he said and, grasping her arm, tugged her toward the chair she had abandoned just minutes before. “Now …” He faced her. “Tell me, what the devil’s going on?”

  She stared dismally at the eggs that had long ago gone cold. The yolks blended almost seamlessly into the sunflower petals. Lily was right; they were gooey. “Everything?”

  “Sounds like a lot.” Rising, he poured them each a cup of coffee, then returned to sit in front of her again. “But I’ve got all day.”

  How many times, she wondered, had they sat like this together, her pouring her heart out, him listening, understanding, making things better just by being him? Even as a teenager, when she had told him she was pregnant, he had understood.

  She felt tears well up.

  “Hey.” He slid a mug toward her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m a terrible mother.”

  “Did Dane tell you that?”

  She blinked back tears, surprised by both the words and the emotion in his tone. Her father might not be Dane’s biggest fan, but he had kept any negative opinions to himself … mostly.

  “No. Of course not.”

  He exhaled and settled back in the chair a little, but his expression remained tense. “You’re not a terrible mother,” he said.

  She felt her shoulders slump. “I know.” Maybe. But Lily’s ear … Lily’s perfect ear … Her throat felt tight. Her heart hiccupped in her chest.

  “In fact …” He gave her knee a nudge with his own. “You’re a wonderful mother.”

  “You think so?” She sounded like a two-year-old.

  “I know so.”

  “That’s because you’re the best father in the world.” Now she was just getting sappy. She hated sappy almost as much as she hated geese. Why did geese exist?

  “Yeah, well …” He smiled wryly, an expression that had made every divorcée between Sturgis and Sioux Falls as giddy as spring lambs. “I made my share of mistakes.”

  “At least you didn’t let me get my ear bitten off.”

  “It was bitten off!” The sharpness of his tone made her wince. He gritted his teeth, shook his head. “Sorry. Just �
�� start at the beginning, will you?”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess.”

  He laughed. It was an old joke. Her mother, he said, had been a princess. He had been an ogre. And somehow, between them, they had spawned the perfect little hobgoblin.

  “Lily and I went to watch Hunter’s relay race yesterday,” she said.

  Quinton shook his head.

  “Indian relay,” she said. “I told you about it.”

  He scowled for a second then, “Oh … sure … three horses, four men with suicidal tendencies.”

  She shot a grin at him. “Yeah, anyway … his team was going to compete … kind of a halftime thing at the Little Britches Rodeo.” She took a sip of coffee. Dane’s was much better than hers, giving her confidence another hit. “Anyway …” She didn’t, she realized, really know how to tell this story. So much had happened. The race, Tonk’s concussion, Dane’s arrival, Lily’s injury. The entire day had been an emotional tornado. “Dane showed up.”

  “Out of the blue?

  She nodded.

  “At the rodeo.” He narrowed his eyes, shook his head once. “I thought he was in Williston.”

  She shrugged. “Me too.”

  “He didn’t tell you he was coming?”

  “No.” She drank again and wished she wasn’t so weirded out by that fact. He’d said he wanted to surprise her. What was wrong with that?

  “How did he know you were going to be there?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe he talked to Glen or something…. Anyway, he showed up and wanted …” She paused, rapidly changing her phraseology. Her grandfather had once said that Dane generally got what he wanted and he always wanted something. Unlike Quinton, Gamps had never been averse to voicing negative opinions regarding her husband. “We thought it would be nice to spend a little time alone.”

  Something sparked in her father’s eyes but was gone before she had a chance to identify it. “Sure.”

  “So I asked Hunt and Sydney if they could take care of Lily for a while.” She tightened her fingers around the handle of her mug. Guilt again, as toxic as turpentine.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  She glanced up.

  “Don’t do that to yourself. You can’t be with her twenty-four hours a day.”

  “You were.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You were with me twenty-four hours a day.”

  A wave of nostalgia flittered across his face, but he scared it back with a scowl. “You know better than that.”

  She sighed, remembering. Her grandparents hadn’t been saints. Well, her grandfather hadn’t been, but Gamma probably should have been canonized. “How’s Gamps doing?”

  “I think he’s actually enjoying the hospital.”

  She gave him a look and he smiled. “All those nurses to torment. Doctors to browbeat.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten there more.”

  “I’ll take Lily to see him today …” He took a sip of coffee. “If you ever get done telling me what happened.”

  “I don’t even …” She shook her head again. “I don’t have much to tell. Like I said, somebody came by Tonk’s trailer with a mare and foal. They thought Lily was safely inside, filling hay bags. But you know how she is about horses.”

  “Crazy?”

  “Crazy,” she agreed. “She probably tried to carry the baby away or something and the mare took offense.”

  “Well …” His shoulders slumped. “I guess it could have been worse.”

  The understatement made her wince. “Hunt took her straight to the clinic. Sydney called me on the way.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  The hurt in his voice ratcheted up the guilt. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t even know what had happened until we got there and then …” She shook her head, remembering the panic.

  He waved away her explanations. “So Dane went with you?”

  “Yeah. He drove. Thank goodness. I would have probably wrapped my truck around a telephone pole or something.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Tension crept in again. “He had a job interview.”

  “An interview? At seven in the morning?” The skepticism in his tone was more obvious than it used to be. She lowered her eyes, fiddled with the sunflower stamped on her mug.

  “He’s my husband, Dad.”

  “I know.” For a second he tried to make it sound as if he had been implying nothing, but finally he glanced out the window and heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to … I’m glad he’s back.”

  “Me too,” she said, and wasn’t entirely sure if she believed either one of them.

  “Lily needs a dad,” he added.

  “I know.”

  “Otherwise she’ll just be all girly.”

  She gave him a look.

  “Like her mother,” he said and nudged the handle of a ball-peen hammer that had somehow drifted onto the kitchen table.

  She snorted.

  “You haven’t replaced Walt with this thing, have you?”

  He was being ridiculous. Hammers were all well and good, but the DeWalt 18V nail gun was every girl’s dream. “He’s in my truck.”

  “Riding shotgun?”

  “I let him canoodle with the drill driver on special occasions.”

  Quinton chuckled, but the sound was drowned in the honking of geese.

  What now? she wondered and rose to peek out the kitchen window.

  Tonkiaishawien Redhawk was just exiting his battered Jeep.

  Vura ducked sideways, back flat against the ugly wallpaper. Maybe Dad could say she wasn’t home. Or maybe if she just didn’t say anything, he’d go away. Or maybe …

  “Hobgoblin?”

  She snapped her gaze to her father. “Yeah?”

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “Nothin’.”

  Footsteps echoed on the stairs outside. The doorbell rang.

  Her father’s salt-and-pepper brows were lost somewhere beneath the brim of his ever-present baseball cap.

  Three seconds ticked by, accented by the heavy beat of her heart against her ribs.

  “You thinking of answering that?” Quinton asked.

  She zipped her gaze to his. “Of course. Of course I am,” she said and, peeling herself from the surprised-looking chickens, stalked regally to the door.

  Chapter 11

  “Tonk.”

  Tonkiaishawien stared at her. Bravura Lambert was dressed in a tattered T-shirt and oversized shorts. Lavender crescents shadowed tired eyes. Her hair was uncombed. It was as unsexy as a woman could get. He repeated that litany silently in his head and refused to think about what she had been doing prior to his arrival. It had nothing to do with him. He didn’t mess with married women. It was against Bill W’s lauded values. Against Native values. Against his values. But for reasons completely unfathomable, he remembered their embrace with heart-pounding clarity. Okay, truth was, it hadn’t been an embrace at all. It was a handshake. Nothing but a handshake. So why did the memory of her skin against his make his knees wobble?

  “Bravura.” He gave her his best wise-chief nod.

  The silence stretched between them like a bowline on a skittish mare.

  She cleared her throat. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes snapped. Nothing sexy. Nothing at all. But why was she so scantily dressed? The thermometer hadn’t topped sixty degrees in a coon’s age.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I do not wish to keep you from your husband.” Thank God; he could still lie with foster-home panache.

  Her body went very still for a fraction of a second, but then she shrugged. “Good,” she said, and moved to close the door.

  He caught it in one hand without thinking. Irritation was already circulating in his system like a hot shot of tequila. It was a good thing he wasn’t attracted to her. A good thing he had, from the very beginning, intentionally annoyed the hell out of her s
o that she wouldn’t be attracted to him, because she made him crazy.

  “But we must talk,” he added.

  The tension again. She zipped her gaze toward the interior of the house, and he almost smiled. So she was thinking about how they had touched on the previous day. And it disturbed her. Though it had been nothing more scandalous than a handshake, the memory made her uncomfortable in her husband’s presence.

  Stepping outside, she closed the door behind her. They were very close. He could smell her scent. Rich coffee, fresh-cut wood, and maybe a hint of baby powder. Not the least bit sexy. “About what?”

  He let the question lie fallow for a while. Her feet were bare. He hadn’t noticed at first. Maybe that was because her legs were also bare, a truth that didn’t bother him in the least. He was a shaman now. Kind of. Above such worldly considerations. Sometimes. But her toenails were painted a surprising shade of lilac. That wasn’t sexy, either, just … unexpected, he told himself and resisted squirming like a schoolboy caught with a toad in his pocket. “I wished to discuss the agreement we came to yesterday.”

  She shuffled those bare feet. A tiny scar marred her left instep. He had no wish to kiss that scar. That would be weird. “I wanted to talk to you, too.”

  He straightened his back and waited.

  She cleared her throat, seeming not the least disconcerted by the cold, though Tonk himself was wearing his beaded leather jacket and Justin Boots. But that didn’t matter, either. So what if she was hot-blooded? It didn’t mean a thing to him.

  “I’m sorry …” Her lips, as full as fat ptarmigan’s, twitched a little. “But I won’t be able to … I don’t think you should keep your horses here, after all.” Heat again, rising in her cheeks like embers.

  Anger pushed through him, but he calmed himself. Remembering the twelve steps helped. Reminding himself that he had come to say the very same thing was even more beneficial; she was trouble, and he didn’t need trouble. Didn’t want trouble. But if the truth be known, if the awful facts were laid bare, it was her well-being, hers and Lily’s, that had made him change his mind, that made him decide to keep his mounts elsewhere. He wasn’t a jinx! It wasn’t that. He didn’t believe in such things. Not anymore. His parents’ cruel words had been just that. Just cruelty. Still, mothers left; young girls drowned; parents, beloved beyond words, died far too young in automobile accidents. “We are in agreement then.”