Hearth Song Page 7

  Riley Old Horn watched him in silence from beneath his battered cap. A corkscrewing bucking bull was emblazoned above its brim.

  “Of course he’s well!” Bill Pretty Weasel was short and broad with a crooked nose that spoke of one too many disagreements. His eyes had taken on that far-seeing wisdom that only Jim Beam and his unimpeachable ilk could impart. “He just won the jackpot.”

  “Ai.” Jake’s slow Native rhythm was accented with a belch.

  “Hear, hear.” Jackson raised his glass. Beer sloshed onto the table. The tantalizing scent of hops and hopelessness filled Tonk’s nostrils like a tonic. But he tugged his sticky gaze from the uplifted mugs and nodded sagely.

  “The Great Spirit smiled on us today.”

  “Yeah, and your ponies ran their tails off.”

  Tonk grinned, wished like hell he had a mug to raise. “And my ponies ran their tails off.”

  “Geez.” Jackson shook his head. The motion seemed a little erratic. He had cut his hair in Iroquois tradition. The single strip stood straight and tall down the center of his shaven head, only bobbling a little as he spoke. “I thought you were dead, Tonk.”

  “Not yet,” he said, and curled his fingers into a fist beneath the table. At the far side of the bar, a couple was slow dancing to “Blue Skies.” Their disjointed rhythm gave only a passing nod to Willie’s rendition of Fitzgerald’s hit from the twenties.

  “That was some daredevil stunt,” Jake said.

  “Gotta give the people something to remember us by,” Tonk said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Jackson said, and did so. The others joined in.

  “Hey! Get a beer for the number-one relay rider in the country, will ya, honey?” Jake yelled, but Tonk shook his head, keeping his gaze off the beer that seemed as ubiquitous as rainwater suddenly. Ahead of him, a fair-haired fellow in a black cowboy shirt embroidered with yellow roses leaned across the table, exposing his partner’s face for a moment.

  Sherri Unger’s penciled brows lifted as she recognized him. Her lips rose in a sly bow of feminine calculation.

  Tonk nodded. She smiled and spoke to her partner, who didn’t turn around, and in a moment his Western-cut yoke obliterated her face again.

  “I just came for the company,” Tonk said.

  Jake glanced behind him, caught a glimpse of Sherri’s carefully displayed cleavage, and laughed.

  A leggy waitress arrived, shifting feet that suggested she’d been on them too long. “What can I get you?”

  “Just a Coke.”

  She gave him a nod and returned to the kitchen, letting Tonk settle back against the worn oak behind him.

  “A Coke!” Jake shook his head and drank. A dollop of foam stuck to the bristle on his upper lip. Who said Indians couldn’t grow beards? Tonk’s grandmother had sported a five o’clock shadow every day by noon. He remembered the old woman’s rumpled face with fondness and trepidation. She had a backhand swing that would have made Serena Williams blush. She was also the first person to suggest he was not responsible for every misfortune that crossed his path, his parents’ contempt included. It was a concept he was, at times, still struggling to accept.

  But the mellow memory of his foster parents, Hunter Redhawk’s biological antecedents, loosened the half hitch in his gut a little. They had saved him, braved his moods, eased his insecurities, nurtured his talents.

  “Geez!” Jake said, and gave his head a wobbly shake. “If my ponies had run like yours, I’d buy a round for the house.”

  Tonk let his lips twist up a little. “If your ponies had run like mine, Jake Teton, you would have fallen on your ass.”

  Monroe Jackson chuckled in his beer. Pretty Weasel laughed out loud and slapped Teton on the back just to demonstrate there were no hard feelings. Across the room, a quartet of women flirting with their fourth decade sang “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” without the muffling comfort of a karaoke machine.

  The bawdy lyrics soaked under Tonk’s skin, easing his loneliness, dousing his tension. This was what he missed. Not the beer. Not the whiskey. Certainly not the hangovers. But this. This accepting camaraderie. This … Well, maybe he missed the beer some, he admitted, and felt his fingers quiver a little beneath the table.

  “Tonk.”

  “Ai?” He pulled his attention from Monroe’s brew to his face, realizing he had missed a few words of conversation.

  “I said you wouldn’t take twice that for Sky Bird. Right?”

  Okay, so maybe he had missed more than a few. He glanced around the familiar faces, trying to catch up, to figure out what monetary worth they might put on the mare who would, and did, run her heart out for him.

  “I might consider selling her for twice that … to someone I trust,” he said, though, honestly, he still wasn’t sure what number was being bandied about.

  “Yeah?” Jake straightened, expression sober. Teton’s team lacked a good anchor horse, and Sky Bird was one of the best.

  Tonk tilted his head, paused a beat, and added, “Or three times that from you.”

  Teton huffed a snort, drank again.

  Tonk watched him raise his mug, watched him drain his beer, so casual, as if it wasn’t poison, as if he wasn’t being consumed by it instead of vice versa. Oh yes, he had been consumed. There had been a time after his parents’ car accident when he had been as self-destructive as a runaway train. Gambling, loan sharks, bar brawls. He had tried it all. And yet he survived. Life … it was a mystery.

  “Here you go,” the waitress said, and set a Coke beside Tonk’s elbow. He’d washed off his war paint, had pulled on a chambray shirt and well-worn jeans in the dubious comfort of his horse trailer’s tack compartment.

  He glanced up now. “My thanks,” he said, though he would rather be staked naked on a red-ant hill than drink this diluted sugar water. “What do I owe you?”

  “I heard you were the big winner at the relay today.”

  She was pretty. Short hair, soft eyes, long limbs. But no dimples, no freckles, no dark halo of wild wind hair that made a man’s hands tremble to touch it. “The Great Spirit smiled on me.”

  She did too, just the slightest shift of her unvarnished lips. “Well, if the Spirit’s happy with you, I guess this one’s on the house,” she said and, winking, turned toward the kitchen.

  “Man,” Pretty Weasel said, and watched her hips as she swung through the kitchen door and out of sight.

  Teton blew out a breath. “How the hell do you do that?”

  Tonk took a sip of his beverage. It was just as awful as he had anticipated. “Do what, brother?”

  Pretty Weasel shook his head. The motion tilted him a little to the left. He was reaching full capacity. “I could be buck naked and dry as a cocklebur and she wouldn’t even glance my way.”

  “I have seen you naked, brother,” Tonk said and, grinning a little, forced himself to take another sip. “Believe this, she would glance.”

  “Then run screaming for the Hills,” Jake said.

  Jackson chuckled. Pretty Weasel grinned, sheepish and self-effacing. Some men were mean when drunk. Pretty Weasel was not.

  Up ahead, Sherri rose abruptly. Her partner stood, too, speaking rapidly. His words weren’t audible, but the tone was clear. Whiny with a touch of defensive.

  “I didn’t come back here …” Her words were lost for a second. “I don’t care if you inherit the entire state of Omaha.”

  He responded quietly.

  She paused, scowling, perhaps rethinking geography. Women … Tonk thought … they weren’t always brilliant. They weren’t always gorgeous. Still, they drew him in a thousand indefinable ways. But perhaps it was their ability to forgive that appealed to him most.

  Sherri’s expression softened.

  “He can’t hold on forever, baby,” Embroidered Roses said and, stepping around the table, slipped a hand down her tightly cinched waist. She turned away. The remainder of his dialogue was drowned in the ambient noise, but apparently whatever line he used worke
d magic because they left together, ducking through the crowd.

  Tonk sighed to himself. So sad really, that he wouldn’t be the one to take her home. But sadder still, heartbreakingly so, was that even if he was that lucky gentleman, it would not be enough. Not today. Not ever.

  Somewhere in his mind a freckle-faced girl-next-door laughed with saloon girl gusto.

  “You know what you need?” Pretty Weasel asked.

  Yes, Tonk thought as a pair of capricious dimples flashed in his mind, but he wasn’t going to get it.

  Chapter 9

  The aroma of fresh coffee was the first thing Vura noticed.

  Her husband was the second.

  “Dane!” She stopped short. He was standing, perfectly groomed and adorably coiffed, inside her disgusting kitchen. Flipping an egg, he grinned over his shoulder at her.

  “I made you breakfast,” he said.

  “How did you …” She glanced at her entry, remembered he had a key to the door she tried really hard to remember to lock, and shook her head. “When did you get here?” He hadn’t come to bed. And why was that? There had been a time when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Not that she needed that. They’d grown up, matured. But it had been a long time. More than a year. Was she that unattractive?

  He turned toward her, looking clean and close shaven. His turquoise shirt cast his eyes a deeper shade of blue. She felt crusty and exhausted by comparison.

  “Listen, I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

  A whisper of aging doubt slipped between the chinks in her armor. “What about last night?”

  “I shouldn’t have left.”

  No, he shouldn’t have, she thought, but didn’t voice the words. “Where’d you go?”

  He shook his head, expression apologetic. “I had to get out of there. Hospitals …” Twisting away a little, he switched off the burner. His hips were lean, his jeans designer. “They give me the willies. Ever since …” He paused, lifted the pan from the stove, and gave her that mischievous choirboy grin that could still set her heart aflutter. “Over easy, right?”

  “Yeah.” She understood his aversion to hospitals. He had only been six when his brother had died. Leukemia, hard fought and long mourned. The tragedy had left him an only child. Able to do no wrong in his mother’s eyes … no right in his father’s. Familial jealousy was not confined to siblings … at least according to Dane. “Thanks.”

  “Sit down.” He motioned toward a chair. The cushion boasted a jaunty Rhode Island White. When she’d bought the house, the sellers had assured her she could keep the furniture. She had neglected to ask how much more she’d have to pay to have it removed. “Please.”

  She sat. He slid the eggs onto a plate, half-hiding the bold sunflower design that covered the surface. She’d inherited the dishes from her father, who had received them from a former admirer with incisors the size of kettle corn. Vura had always preferred the plates to the gifter.

  The toaster popped. “White bread,” Dane said. “No nutrients whatsoever.” He grinned as he opened the tub of margarine. “Every inch buttered.” He slathered the toast generously, cut the pieces on the diagonal, and set them on the plate in front of her. “What do you think?”

  “Looks great,” she said, but her stomach felt a little jumpy. She didn’t like controversy. True, she could spar with the best of them regarding shake shingles versus asphalt, but she needed peace in her home. “I just …” She shrugged.

  “What?”

  She looked up. “It would have been nice if you were there when Lily got out.”

  “You know I hate those places!” He took a deep breath, tightened a fist, and forced a smile. “After Jeremy died …” He winced, eyes as sad as a dirge.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No.” He sat down beside her, perching quickly on the edge of his seat. “I’m sorry. I want to be here for you, Vey. For Lily.”

  “I want you to be, too.”

  “Do you?” Grasping her hand, he tugged it against his chest. His fingers were always warm. He had laughingly said once that he had thought she’d married him for his body, but as it turned out she only coveted his body heat.

  She stared at their intertwined fingers. “You know I do.”

  “Good.” He grazed her knuckles with his thumb. “Because I’m ready to pick up where we left off.”

  She inhaled softly. “I’d like to, but …” She paused, uncertain. Still, he seemed oblivious to her doubts. Turning her hand in his, he kissed her wrist, and despite her misgivings, warmth shimmered up her arm.

  “Like to what?” he asked, and shifted closer. She could smell his aftershave, musty and a little overstrong. “Like to make love to me?”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes, and he chuckled. “Still as shy as a fawn about some things. So sexy.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. She could feel the old weakness sift in, melting her resistance. “Come upstairs with me. I’ll—”

  “Mama?” The voice jolted her like an electric prod. She twisted toward the doorway. Lily stood there, hair tousled as she knuckled one eye.

  “Baby.” Heat diffused Vura’s cheeks, though she knew she shouldn’t feel guilty; Dane was her husband. Lily’s father! “How are you feeling?”

  The fuzzy, caramel-colored brows inched down a little. “It itches.”

  “I’m sorry.” She held out her arms. Lily slipped into them, eyeing her father as she eased onto Vura’s lap. “Papa’s home,” she said, and smiled at Dane over the top of their child’s disheveled hair.

  “I got my ear bit,” Lily informed him.

  Dane flashed a winning smile, and if a muscle ticked, almost hidden, in his jaw, who could blame him? They’d barely had two minutes alone together. “I know, sweetie,” he said. “I was there at the hospital, remember?”

  For a little while anyway, Vura thought, and felt immediately ashamed of her uncharitable musings. He had every right to be uncomfortable in hospitals. Then again, there probably hadn’t been a single soul in the entire complex who wouldn’t rather have been elsewhere.

  Lily reached for her damaged ear, but Vura caught her arm and kissed her fingers. She grinned, as charming as her father in a thousand tiny ways. “Hunk said I’m a warrior now.”

  “Hunk?” Dane asked.

  “Hunter,” Vura corrected and tucked her daughter’s hand safely against her tummy. “Hunter Redhawk.”

  Lily bobbed a nod. “He’s my friend. And the strongest man in the world. He carried me into the hospital and kept me safe until Mama got there.”

  “That’s nice, sweetheart,” Dane said, “but if he had kept you safe in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to be there at all.”

  Lily’s brows lowered in immediate defense. “It wasn’t his fault.”

  Vura, too, had stiffened at Dane’s accusation, but she forced herself to relax, to smile. “Papa made us some eggs,” she said.

  “Warriors work up an appetite, right?”

  Lily blinked at him. “Whose are those?”

  Dane raised a questioning brow at Vura, who smiled and brushed hair away from her daughter’s fairy-bright face.

  “Lily likes to know which of the hens laid the eggs so she can thank them later.”

  Dane laughed. “Well, I’m not sure who laid them, but I fried them.”

  “Not long enough.”

  “What?”

  Lily wrinkled her undersized nose. “They’re kinda gooey.”

  “Lily,” Vura reprimanded. “Thank your daddy.”

  She pursed her lips … a small display of rebellion followed by immediate capitulation. “Thank you, Papa.”

  “You’re welcome. Say …” He rose to his feet. “I was thinking… maybe we could head out to Rapid City today. Do a little shopping, maybe take in a movie.”

  Tension crept back in, tinged with a touch of resentment. It was Monday morning. Vura had a three-man crew working on Mrs. Washburn’s kitchen. The renovations had to be completed by Mother
’s Day. Some called the scrappy octogenarian feisty. Some called her cantankerous. But everybody agreed that Mrs. Washburn got what Mrs. Washburn wanted or every single occupant of Custer County would know why. And Saw Horse Construction couldn’t afford a bad review so early after its inception. “I’m afraid I have to work today,” Vura said. “But, hey …” She tightened her arms around Lily’s waist and forced herself to sound upbeat as she shifted her gaze to Dane’s. “Maybe Dad wouldn’t mind if you took Lily today.”

  “What?” Father and daughter spoke in unison.

  Vura glanced at Lily’s face. The word skeptical would barely scratch the surface. She gave the tiny shoulder a playful nudge. “Dad usually takes Lily on Mondays, but maybe he’d be okay with you two spending the day together.”

  “Lily and I?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well … that’d be great,” Dane said. “How about it, Lil? Just you and … Ohhhhh!” He tilted his head back as if wildly disappointed. “I almost forgot; I’ve got a job interview this morning.”

  “What?” Vura asked, and handed Lily a half slice of toast. “Already?”

  “I wanted to get a jump on things,” he said, and rose abruptly.

  “Well … maybe she could go with you.”

  He laughed. “I don’t think that would be very professional. Do you? In fact …” He pulled out his smartphone and glanced at the time. “I’ve gotta run. Enjoy the eggs. See you tonight. You too, Lily Belle,” he said, and tweaked her nose.

  In a minute he was gone. The kitchen went silent. Outside, Blue honked, heralding the sound of tires on gravel.

  Lily scowled. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “Sorry?” Vura leaned sideways to study her daughter’s expression. “For what?”

  “That Papa doesn’t like me.”

  Chapter 10

  “What are you talking about?” Gripping Lily firmly, Vura turned her so they faced each other. Purple ponies danced across the nightgown that flowed over skinny thighs and brushed bare toes. “Your daddy loves you.”

  The tiny nose wrinkled again. Outside, a squad of geese added their deeply offended voices to Blue’s as the sound of a diesel engine rumbled into the yard.