Hearth Stone Read online

  Also by Lois Greiman

  Finding Home

  Home Fires

  Finally Home

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Hearth Stone

  LOIS GREIMAN

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by Lois Greiman

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Copyright Page

  To Lona Pearl, who could identify a pinto

  before she knew her primary colors and who cries

  when she has to quit riding … just like me.

  I’m the luckiest grandmother in the universe.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to the one and only Tonkiaishawien Koemtiamleah, whose art and stories inspire me, and who, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, assures me he is not a flirt.

  Prologue

  “What’s he doing here?” Sydney Wellesley kept her voice low, but it shook with emotion, with memories.

  Golden light glistened on David Albrook’s carefully tousled hair, glinted off his winning smile as he accepted a drink.

  “I’ll not have you make a scene in my home.”

  Sydney pulled her gaze from her fiancé’s classic good looks and pinned it on her father. The knots in her stomach were yanked up tight, but when in her twenty-four years of life had she ever made a scene? “Why is—” she began again, but Leonard Wellesley spoke over her.

  “We’ll discuss this in private,” he said and turned away. He was not a large man, but he was wealthy and he was a Wellesley. The fact that he was her father was almost inconsequential. Still, for a moment, she nearly bolted, nearly rebelled. But good manners, or maybe habit, made her follow him down the hallway’s floral runners.

  “Close the door,” he ordered when she’d stepped into the room. His study was a caricature of a rich man’s office. Dark paneling, sparse furniture, heavy silence. He turned away to pour himself two fingers of Royal Salute Scotch. “How are you feeling?” He didn’t face her when he spoke, but she had become accustomed to talking to his back long ago.

  “I’m doing well.” She had learned to lie at the same time. “And you?”

  He didn’t respond. Apparently, his capacity for niceties had been stretched to the limit.

  “David is here because I invited him,” he explained and, rising to perfect straightness, took a quaff of scotch. “And because he’s your fiancé.”

  David Albrook had professed his undying adoration. David … world-renowned equestrian … a god on horseback … but not so divine, it turned out, when it came to interpersonal relationships.

  Still, Father insisted she proceed with the wedding. Wellesleys stand by their word, he’d said. But would that have been the case if he weren’t even now trying to facilitate a merger with the Albrooks? And what about David’s word? Was a little fidelity too much to ask of him? He hadn’t even managed discretion.

  Her stomach cramped at the memory of whispered words from a darkened tack room.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the unwelcome thoughts. Her fingers felt icy against the Austrian crystal. “I’ve been meaning to discuss that with you.” She refrained from clearing her throat. Wellesleys were not throat clearers. One might just as well practice cannibalism. “I’m going to formally sever the engagement this evening.”

  Her father made no sound for several seconds, but his disapproval pulsed in the silence. It was a talent of his, passed down through generations of well-bred financiers.

  “Because of that misunderstanding with the Ulquist girl?”

  Misunderstanding. If she hadn’t been such a coward, she would have laughed out loud. “I don’t believe misunderstanding is the correct terminology for this situation.” The memory of her humiliation was almost as painful as her injuries. But he breathed a dismissive hiss and took another drink.

  “If I thought it was serious, I would have put a stop to his philandering long ago.”

  It took her a moment to catch his meaning, but suddenly her breath clogged in her throat. She stood motionless as tiny shards of reality tinkled quietly into place. “You knew about it,” she said.

  He didn’t answer, but his brows were drawn low over saltwater eyes. Less dour expressions had silenced her in the past. But if ever there was a time to speak, surely it was now.

  “How long?” she asked. “How long did you know?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me.” He tightened his blunt, neatly manicured fingers against the cut crystal and pursed his lips. “I didn’t spend a fortune on dressage horses and private tutors so you would become an insolent spinster,” he said, then exhaled and softened his tone. He could play good cop/bad cop all by himself. Another talent not to be underestimated. “Listen, Sydney, I know this has been a difficult time for you.”

  Difficult? She had almost died in the fall. Had lost her nerve, her faith, her ability to ride, to do the one thing at which she excelled.

  “And perhaps you needed a few months to …” He waved a magnanimous hand. “To rebel, as it were. But it’s time to get back on track. To set a date with Albrook. His parents are as eager for this merger as I.”

  “The merger.” David’s father was almost as wealthy as her own illustrious family. She turned toward the blackness beyond the broad bay window. In the light of day it would boast a view of a church steeple purported to have been designed by Thomas Jefferson’s favorite slave. Who said Southerners weren’t forward thinkers? “And which is more important?” She kept her voice quiet as she studied that blackness. Her thigh throbbed in concert with her thoughts. “Finances or my future?”

  At seven years of age, she had asked for a lemonade stand. After due deliberation, her father had commissioned a gazebo to be built on the edge of Arbor House’s manicured grounds. She had manned the booth with terrier-like dedication. But there was little foot traffic in Middleburg, Virginia. By the end of the first week, tired and discouraged, she had been informed that she was $12,474 in arrears. In the future, it would be wise to leave the finances in more capable hands.

  “There’s no need for melodramatics,” her father said. “I understand your … disappointment with David. But I’ve invested too much to change course now.”

  “Disappointment!” She twisted toward him, but pulled cautiously back from the terrifying brink of emotional release. “Is that what you call it when you find your betrothed fu—”

  “Sydney!” It was the first time in her memory that she had heard him raise his voice. “I’ll not have you using that foul language in my home.”

  “Your home.”

  “Yes, and if you hope to inherit one square inch of it, young lady, you will grant me the respect I deserve.”

  Her chest hurt sudden
ly. A strange raw ache near her heart. “Even though you’ve no compunction about marrying me off to the highest bidder?”

  “I didn’t know that living well had become so abhorrent to you.”

  “I believe there might be a difference between living well and prostituting oneself to—”

  He slammed his glass onto the dark walnut of his ancient desk. She jumped, heart racing.

  “What is this hideous racket?” The words were hissed. Gloria Wellesley had never reached the five-foot mark, but size had rarely mattered where she was concerned.

  Silence, as usual, followed in her oppressive wake.

  “You tell her,” Leonard challenged.

  Sydney faced her grandmother. By comparison, her father was as cuddly as a Labrador. Her throat felt tight, but she managed to push words past the constriction. “I’m afraid I won’t be marrying David after all.”

  The faded gray eyes never blinked. “And what will you do instead? Find employment?”

  Sydney gripped the crystal with both hands and tried a shrug. “I hear it’s all the rage.”

  The old woman smiled. “Well, that’s excellent then. I’m sure you will further the Wellesley name admirably. Perhaps you would like to try your hand at lemonade again. Or dare we hope Mr. McDonald is in need of another employee?”

  Nerves tangled, stirring toward anger. “I’m sure there are viable options other than fast-food establishments.”

  “Viable options? Such as what? Becoming a dancer, like your mother?”

  It had taken Sydney forty-three agonizing days to relearn to walk. She would never, the doctors told her, ride again. But the cruelty of her grandmother’s words put steel in her spine. “Perhaps I will,” she said.

  Gloria watched her for several seconds, then turned mechanically toward her son. “I warned you, did I not?”

  “Don’t be a child, Sydney,” Leonard snapped, but her mind had snagged on the other woman’s words.

  “Warned him about what?”

  Gloria raised a single brow.

  “Stop it. Both of you!” Leonard ordered. “Let’s stay on track here. David has come tonight at my request. He’s willing to forgive and forget.”

  “Willing to …” Sydney pulled herself from her grandmother’s gaze and huffed a laugh.

  “How many unattached millionaires do you think your father can scare up for you, Sydney? Do you believe yourself to be such a paragon that the numbers are limitless?”

  “Maybe I don’t want a millionaire. Maybe I just want to be … normal. To be happy.”

  “It’s always about what you want, isn’t it?” Gloria’s voice was censorious, her expression mocking.

  Still, for one crazy second, Sydney almost thought she was joking, but the apocalypse had not yet arrived. “I would think that where my marriage is concerned, my wishes could at least be taken into account.”

  “There are consequences to poor judgment. Your father learned that the hard way. Don’t make the same mistake.”

  “What mistake?”

  “Quiet, Mother.”

  “What does she mean?” Sydney asked.

  Leonard remained silent. His mother shook her head as if bemoaning his weaknesses.

  “I mean that if you continue to be a disappointment to this family, there are others who would be happy to take your place as heir apparent.”

  “Continue to be …” The words hurt her throat. She failed to push out the rest of the sentence. Instead, she remained as she was, frozen into immobility as a dozen painful memories burned through her. But finally she managed to move, to pivot away. Tears stung her eyes.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” The words were as sharp as razors.

  Anywhere, Sydney thought. Anywhere but here.

  Chapter 1

  “Hey, grab the coffee, will you, Syd?” Colt Dickenson was Indian dark and cowboy lean. He had a take-no-prisoners grin and a rugged workingman’s body. But none of those attributes was particularly surprising. What stopped Sydney dead in her tracks was his easy informality, the offhand camaraderie with which he seemed to treat every individual who crossed his well-trodden path … including paying guests.

  This was Sydney’s third day in South Dakota. Her second at the Lazy Windmill, the “anywhere” her favorite cousin Tori had found for her. A way to escape from the chilly disapproval of her family and a means of visiting the state of her mother’s origins.

  The Lazy was a strange place, more underfunded working ranch than cushy vacation spot. A place where they did not, apparently, have staff to fetch and serve.

  “Not necessary,” Emily said and reached for the coffee. Emily Kane, the African-American cook, had not yet reached her twentieth birthday. Sydney was certain of that. But the girl seemed to manage the weathered old farmhouse as easily as she did motherhood. Even now, Colt stood near the table gently propelling Emily’s mocha-skinned baby through the air like a slow-motion 747. The situation was disconcerting on several levels. Sydney, for instance, could barely manage being a daughter and had never, as far as she could recall, impersonated so much as a small-engine Cessna. “Have a seat. Breakfast’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “No, I’ll get it,” Sydney said and bumped herself back to the here and now, though honest to God, the kitchen was as foreign to her as Tel Aviv. In the world of the Wellesleys, a lady managed the kitchen. She did not enter it. The battered coffeepot was as unfamiliar to her as the scarred, claw-footed table that stood barely five feet from the stove. But the dark bean fragrance that wafted from the coffee felt friendly and warm as she filled their cups.

  “Thanks,” Colt said and cuddled the infant against his flannel-clad chest. The baby was dressed in a nubby, parti-colored sweater that matched her mother’s to oddball perfection. She did not, however, sport the kind of abused army boots that Emily seemed to favor. “You sleep okay?”

  “Yes.” The scene was surreal for a number of reasons. Rough-stock rodeo cowboy Colt Dickenson, for instance, had no blood ties to the child. And blood, Grandmother said, would always tell. Neither was he the mother’s lover; his devotion to Casie Carmichael, the owner of this tattered-around-the-edges ranch, had been immediately apparent upon Sydney’s arrival, making his dedication to Baby Bliss patently odd. Perhaps it was that very peculiarity that caused the pang near her heart. “Thank you.” It was strangely difficult to drag her gaze from the pair; she had never liked children. Not even when she was a child. Or, perhaps more correctly, she had never quite mastered being one. “I slept quite well.”

  “So the bunkhouse wasn’t too cold?” Colt settled the infant into the crook of his right arm with extraordinary casualness and reached for his coffee cup with his left.

  Sydney shifted carefully into a nearby chair. Limping, Grandmother said, should be limited to decorated war veterans and panhandlers with cardboard signs. A Wellesley invited neither speculation nor pity. “It was fine.”

  “Good to know.” He narrowed his eyes against the silvery curl of caffeinated steam as he raised the coffee to his lips. The clay mug was earth-toned and strangely misshapen. “We don’t get many guests this early in the spring.”

  Outside the farseeing windows, the temperature had not topped thirty degrees since Sydney’s arrival. “So this is spring?” she asked and cautiously tested her coffee. True to form, it was strong enough to knock the uninitiated out cold and hit her with the gentleness of a stun gun.

  “It’s not always so balmy this time of year. Is it, Soph?” he asked and glanced up as Sophie Jaeger entered the room. The girl, once a paying guest like herself, was dressed in riding breeches and a sleek, long-sleeved tee. She was even younger than the Lazy’s dreadlocked cook, but if Sydney understood the dynamics correctly, she managed the ranch horses as efficiently as the other girl cared for the house.

  “Coffee,” Sophie said robotically and poured herself a cup before sliding into a chair across from Colt. “And no, this isn’t spring.” She wrapped cold-reddened hands around her mug, sig
hed, and took a drink. “How did you get in here so fast?”

  It was barely seven o’clock in the morning, but judging by their rosy cheeks and heat-deprived expressions, they had both been out of doors for some time.

  Colt grinned. “Motivation. Heard Em was making Bacon Bake.”

  “With biscuits and rhubarb jam,” Emily added and gave something inside the discolored oven an exploratory poke.

  Dickenson lifted his shoulders in an “enough said” shrug. “You get chores done already?”

  Sophie took a grateful swig of coffee and didn’t seem to care that it could surely erode tooth enamel from thirty paces. “The stalls are clean. The horses fed.”

  “ ‘They say she’s grounded ’til she’s dead,’ ” Emily crooned and plunked a pitcher of frothy goat’s milk onto the center of the table.

  They stared at her in wordless concert.

  “Garth Brooks. What kind of cowpokes are you? ‘Ain’t Going Down (’Til the Sun Comes Up).’ It was a hit single.” She propped her fists on curvy hips. “Do I need to sing the entire song?”

  “No!”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  Sophie and Colt spoke in unison and with some alacrity.

  Emily deepened her scowl, causing Colt to change the subject, perhaps more out of a sense of self-preservation than curiosity.

  “So who had the honor of milking Bodacious this morning?”

  Sophie grinned as she reached for the pitcher.

  “You got out of it again?” Dickenson swayed, rocking the baby against his chest “What was the bet?”

  “Listen …” Emily sounded honestly peeved and maybe a little impressed as she pointed a charred wooden spoon at the other girl. “There were, like … a hundred pancakes.” She turned back to stir something on the stove. The house smelled like Sundays from a bygone era. “Nobody should have been able to eat that many. Not if she’s human, anyway.”