Page 19 of Heart of Stone

Luke had abandoned his work at last, apparently finding their conversation more interesting, and he was watching the two of them with a faint frown. “Howdy,” he said, although he sounded less friendly than he usually did to new folks.

“Mr. Reynolds, sir.” Little Sam flushed under Luke’s regard. “Pleased to meet you.”

Stone frowned as well, wondering if something was wrong. “Little Sam was workin’ on the Circle J when I got there and proceeded to make a nuisance of himself.”

“Aww...” Sam shook his head in embarrassment. “I wasn’t that bad! Besides, you needed a friend, didn’t you?” He looked at Luke, as if anxious to explain himself. “Stone barely talked to anyone, and folks said I never shut up, so I guess it made sense that I talked to him.”

“I guess it did,” Luke replied, fixing Stone with an inscrutable look. “Sounds to me like you got yourself a habit of pickin’ up men who like to run their mouth at you, Mr. Harrison.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” Stone still wasn’t certain what was going through Luke’s mind, but Luke sure didn’t run his mouth anymore. He looked back at Sam and smiled slightly. “Well if you’re goin’ to work for me, there better be less talkin’ and plenty of workin’.”

“Oh! Yeah, sure!” Sam nodded vigorously. “I know you’re the boss now, Stone. But I guess I should call you Mr. Harrison?”

“We were hands together, so I guess you can still call me Stone.” He wagged his finger under Sam’s nose. “But no tale tellin’, you got me? And I ain’t treatin’ you any different from the other hands. I won’t have no one sayin’ that you get away with anything because you knew me before, understand?”

“Right! But I’m awful glad to be here.” The irresistible grin Sam was known for split his face. “I always did want to see more than Texas, though so far all I’ve seen is a lot of snow. But the mountains look right pretty.” He paused and bit his lip, looking at Stone hopefully. “Are the girls in these parts pretty, too?”

Luke flicked his gaze back to Sam, his eyes widening slightly, and then he leaned back in his chair, seeming to relax a little. “I reckon we’ve got our share of pretty gals in Serenity,” he said. “I can introduce you around after church some time, if you want. I know who’s single and who’s got a steady beau already.”

Sam smiled at Luke as though he’d just been offered a thousand dollars. “That’s mighty nice of you, Mr. Reynolds! There weren’t so many girls in Yellow Knife as would look at a cowboy like me.”

Stone couldn’t help snorting. “You mean there weren’t so many girls who hadn’t heard all your nonsense already.” He reached out and ruffled Little Sam’s hair. It was good to see the young man, if for no other reason than it helped him feel like he hadn’t messed up every friendship in his life. “Go on, then. You can take your horse to the barn and get it settled, and the bunkhouse is out back. If you ain’t had supper, I know Charlie keeps soup on for the hands all day on Sunday.”

“Thanks, Stone! And it was nice to meet you, Mr. Reynolds.” Little Sam nodded, and then he took off out the door like an eager puppy ready to explore.

Stone walked to the back door and closed it, shaking his head. “Durn fool kid,” he muttered.

“Looks like he likes you well enough,” Luke said, turning back to his paperwork at last.

“Never did understand why.” Stone returned to the table and took his seat. He didn’t look down at his papers, however, taking a moment to study Luke, who had been uncharacteristically aloof until Sam had asked about girls. Stone was pretty sure he knew what Luke had been thinking, and he felt he owed Luke some reassurance, no matter how uncomfortable it made him to give it.

“There ain’t goin’ to be no one from my past showin’ up. Least not in the way you were obviously thinkin’ about Sam. I don’t want you thinkin’ that I won’t take up with you, but I’d take up with someone else. There ain’t never been anyone like that except for one man who was kind to me, a long time ago, and he was relieved to see the last of me when I left.”

Luke went still for a moment before responding quietly. “You don’t owe me no explanations. Your business is your business, not mine.”

Stone’s heart sank at the way Luke was continuing to shut him out. There was a gulf between them that he didn’t know how to get across except for the one way that would surely mean the ruin of them both. He just wished he could make Luke understand.

“Maybe I feel like I do owe you somethin’, like respect of your feelin’s. Maybe my respect ain’t much, and maybe it ain’t what you want, but I ain’t plannin’ to treat you like what you think don’t matter.” Stone rose, feeling like the walls were closing in on him. “I’ll go introduce Sam to the others.”

Luke pressed his lips together, as if to keep himself from saying more; instead he nodded curtly. “All right. I’ll stay here and get some more work done.”

Stone looked at him once more and then turned away, putting on his coat and hat. He wasn’t good with words, and he didn’t know what to say to make things better. So instead, he fell back into the silence he knew and trusted, and he left the warm kitchen, which seemed colder than the night outside without the warmth of Luke’s smile.

CHAPTER13

“Yeah, boss, get ‘em! Show ’em how it’s done!”

Stone looked up and grinned at Shorty, who was waving his hat as Stone and Raider went after a calf who seemed determined to avoid being caught. Stone barely had to tell his horse what to do; after so many years together, he and Raider were in tune with each other and with the job they were doing.

The lasso was in his hand, and as Raider gained on the calf, Stone whipped it around his head and neatly tossed it over the young steer’s neck. Raider stopped at once, and Stone secured the rope, dismounted, and hurried to flip the protesting calf onto its side, swiftly binding its legs with the slack of the rope.

“Not rodeo-pretty, but that’ll do.” Another hand, Brent Fields, came over with the branding iron. He marked the bawling calf on its flank and nodded to Stone. “That’s about it for this batch, boss.”

“Good.” Stone clapped the cowboy on his shoulder, and then he released the calf, which ran off at once toward the rest of the herd, bawling in protest. Stone began to coil his rope in neat circles. “Let’s finish up and get home, then.” He started back toward Raider, pausing as he caught sight of Luke standing off to one side, looking far more handsome than any man had a right to be.

At that, Luke ambled over, touching the brim of his hat as he approached. “Didn’t want to interrupt a man with rope in his hand and a hot brand nearby,” he said, which was about as close to the kind of teasing he’d once plagued Stone with as he got these days. Unfortunately, the image of throwing a lasso around Luke and pulling him down to the ground was not doing much to help Stone get on with his responsibilities.

Brent grinned at the two of them. “Yeah, Luke, the boss gets caught up in his work. Never seen a man so driven. Sometimes we think he’s tryin’ to work himself to death.”

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