Stay (9 page)

“My mother gave it to me. It’s just a rock, fool’s gold or something. She found it the day I was born. She wrapped it in the wire, stuck a chain on it and called it my good luck charm.” He offered Syd the binoculars again, but she continued to stare at the stone as if it were twenty-four karat gold.

“Syd, it’s not a big deal,” he repeated.

She lifted her hand and let the stone dangle at the end of its chain. She turned those big brown eyes on him. “It’s not fool’s gold; it’s too heavy to be fool’s gold. It’s melted gold.”

“Syd, it’s nothing.” Lucas wrapped his hand around the stone, waiting for her to let go. When she did he tucked it away in his jacket pocket. “Here…” He offered her the binoculars once more. “You want these or not?”

Syd nodded and he handed them over.

“Where did she find it, the rock, I mean? Where did she find it?”

Lucas rolled his eyes. The woman was like a dog with a bone. “I don’t know where she found it. She always said she found it in my crib but I’m sure that’s just a fairytale. I doubt she even remembers where she found it. She probably doesn’t remember she gave it to me.”

“Then why do you have it?”

“I don’t know why I have it.” He threw his hands in the air. “I have it because my mother gave it to me. Satisfied?”

Syd brushed her hand over the pocket that held the stone. “No, not even close to satisfied.”

Lucas dropped down on an empty bar stool. He glanced up at the bartender. The man’s face barely registered. “Whiskey,” he said.

“What kind?”

“The cheap kind.”

The man poured him a shot. As he turned away, Lucas grabbed the bottle from him. “Leave it,” he said. Lucas figured the worse the stuff tasted the less he’d think about Sydney Blake and the big problem she represented.

He tossed back the first shot, grimacing at the burn. Rot gut. Maybe that was the solution, a big fat hole in his stomach to distract him.

Lucas pulled the rock from his pocket. He’d never given it much thought, just kept it around because it was from his mother.

He dropped the rock into his palm and closed his eyes. The warmth from his body seemed to seep to the chunk of metal, or maybe the heat from the metal seeped into his hand. Syd was right; it didn’t feel anything like pyrite. Come to think of it, it didn’t look like pyrite either. Lucas wondered how he’d missed that all these years.

But why did the hunk of metal matter to Syd? What difference did it make where his mother found it?

He set the rock on the bar and poured himself another shot. He sipped it this time, realizing how awful the liquor was.

“That’s a nice chunk of gold you have there. I’d give you good money for that.”

Lucas looked up. “It’s not gold. It’s just a rock.”

“The hell it is. John Walker…” The man stuck out a hand. “I own a pawn shop just down the road.”

Lucas wiped his palm on his jeans before he gripped the man’s extended hand. “Lucas Jennings.”

“Well, Lucas Jennings, I’ve seen a lot of gold in my time and that’s the real deal,” said Walker. “Where’d you find it?”

What the hell was wrong with everyone? It’s a rock for Christ’s sake
.

“I didn’t find it. My mother did.” Lucas shrugged. “This rock seems to be a big conversation piece today.”

The man raised his eyebrows. “Oh?” He glanced around the bar. “Who’s been asking?”

“It’s nothing.” Lucas shook his head. He took another drink. “I’m the new manager out at the Triple Creek. Dr. Blake asked me about it.”

“Sydney Blake?”

“You know her?”

“I know her father.” The man sipped his beer. “Seems to me I heard rumors about gold found on the ranch…” He stopped speaking to take a big swallow. “…After that lightning strike.”

Lucas had his glass raised to his lips. He set it down.
Cass’s gold barbed wire
.

“Lightning strike?”

“Yeah, sure, you must not have been here yet. It was back in February. We had lightning in the middle of a blizzard.” Walker laughed. “Some of the old timers from the Res came into my store. They swore they saw a warrior made of gold ride that lightning bolt down from the clouds. You know how it is, old timers. But the geology department from the university paid a visit to the Triple Creek; sent a crew to check things out. From what I hear, they found gold.”

Lucas looked the man over from head to toe. He knew Cass Weber hadn’t uttered a word about the gold on the barbed wire. “Now how would you know that?”

Walker laughed again. “You’d be surprised at the things I hear in my line of work.” He tapped the tip of his nose. “Besides, this nose can smell gold forty miles in any direction.” He finished his beer and tipped his head at the rock. “You ever want that assayed, you come in. Here’s my card.” He fished around in his pocket and set a business card on the table. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Jennings.”

Before Lucas could say another word, the man had vanished.

He didn’t waste time wondering where he’d got to, instead Lucas finished his whiskey and set his glass down on the business card, spinning it around until it made a noticeable water ring on the paper. He poured himself a refill.

“I think I need to get a whole lot drunker than I thought.”

Stay

yd climbed into her truck at two a.m., heading out for one more check of the cows. When she’d made her earlier rounds she’d found the final three cows giving birth. She wanted to make sure the babies were up and nursing.

Parked in the pasture, flashlight on the cows and calves, she breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone seemed healthy. Barring an unexpected delivery, calving season had officially come to an end. Now she needed to finish tagging and then focus on vaccinations, branding and castration, but that wouldn’t happen for another month or so. Syd didn’t want to stress these newborns any more than necessary. Last year she’d lost three babies after branding.

She stowed her flashlight under the seat and turned the truck around, heading back to the ranch house.

Where the hell is he?

Why couldn’t she learn to shut up? She’d had him right where she wanted him, in her bed, loving her. Why did she have to go and open her big mouth and chase him off?

“Because what he is and what he was sits between us like the Great Wall of China, that’s why. I can feel Wolf inside Lucas. He’s like a word on the tip of my tongue. I know what I want to say but the word eludes me. That’s Wolf. He’s there, but he’s elusive. Trying to get him out is driving me insane.”

She stopped in front of the house. There was still no sign of him.

It grabbed her, his absence. Grabbed her and shook her. His absence was cruel.

She needed Lucas for many reasons. Loving him was only the tip of the iceberg. She’d always done everything herself, taken pride in her independence, but she’d come to realize it wasn’t easy for a pregnant woman to haul herself out of bed and check on the cows in the middle of the night. Oh, she could ask Ryan or Chuck to do the job, but the two ranch hands were older. Her father had hired the men years ago. They worked hard, but Syd didn’t trust them to be on top of their game if they were sleep deprived.

Lucas was the man she wanted working by her side.

Syd wondered if she should take a peek in the bunk house; see if he’d returned while she was away. It might be he’d packed up his things and run.

Syd’s stomach turned at the thought. Every single day she lived with the fear Lucas would check out of her life and vanish forever, leave her all over again.

Unable to make up her mind, she stood in the roadway and stared at his dark cabin for a long time. At last she shook her head. No. She would have seen his headlights.

Just to be on the safe side, she walked toward the pasture. His horse was still there. Bodacious stood close beside Delia, she could make out their profiles in the dark.

Syd blew out a big breath, a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. He’d never leave his horse behind. Lucas would be back.

Headlights approached.

“Speak of the devil.” She wondered if she should go inside, avoid him at all costs. She didn’t want him to know she’d been pining after him, but it was too late. The truck was already slowing down.

Syd did a double take. It wasn’t Lucas’s truck. It was Cass’s.

She clutched her chest, feeling her heart pound beneath her palm. There was no good reason for Cass to drive out here this time of night. The only reasons were bad reasons.

Numb, Syd watched Cass climb out the driver’s side of his pickup.

He stood in the glare of his headlights. It was impossible to make out his expression.

“You gonna help me or what?”

“Help you?” Her voice shook.

Cass stepped out of the lights and walked over to her. He must have caught the look of terror on her face because he said, “It’s all right, Syd, he’s not dead, just dead drunk. When he started speaking in tongues and wielding a pool cue like a sword, the bartender got a little concerned. I decided I’d better handle it myself, you know, just in case something weird happened.”

“Oh my god,” Syd lurched toward her friend. “I thought the worst. I thought…” She burst into tears.

Cass put an arm around her. He patted her shoulder. “Believe it or not if that had been the case I would have waited until morning.”

“This is nothing to joke about, Cass.” She sniffed, swiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He’s vanished before.”

“I know that as well as you, Syd, but right now I want him out of my truck. That bottle of cheap whiskey is going to hit him any minute and I just had my truck detailed. Apparently a god can’t hold his liquor any better than a human can.”

Cass’s words stopped her tears. She grinned. A god who couldn’t hold his liquor… Cass was right, it was kind of funny.

“Where do you want him?”

“Am I going to get a lecture if I say my bed?”

Cass was silent for a moment. At last he said, “Nope.”

“All right, let’s do this.”

Syd strode to the truck and opened the passenger door. Lucas lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes half-open.

“Hey,” he said.

She smiled. “Hey, yourself.”

“I’m drunk.”

Syd waved at the strong smell of whiskey. “Really? I’d never have guessed.”

He lifted his arm and swung it around, just missing her chest. “He brought me home.”

“I know, Lucas. Let’s get you to bed.”

“Wolf,” he muttered. “My name is Wolf and I rode to earth on a lightning bolt.”

“What did you say?” Syd and Cass exchanged glances.

Lucas clutched both their arms and hauled himself up onto wobbly legs. “I rode Bodacious…” He stumbled as the two half-dragged him along the path to the house. Syd and Cass both tightened their grip on him. “I rode my horse down to earth on a lightning bolt. Now that’s funny.” Lucas made an effort to stand straight. “Where’s the gold?”

He slurred his words, but Syd heard him clear as a bell. “Uh, what gold are you talking about? Do you mean the pendant?”

Lucas shook his head. “That gold.” He pressed a finger against Cass’s chest. Before either could reply, his head slumped forward. “I don’t feel so good,” Lucas said. “Put me to bed.”