Chapter 12
Shea tried to read. But she couldn’t concentrate on the book with her hand continuing to throb.
Clint had left hours earlier, promising to return with salve later that day.
She had tried to convince him not to lock her back in the cabin, but though regretful, he was immovable.
He had, however, done everything he could to make her comfortable.
The frying pan was still under the cot. The question was whether she could—either mentally or physically—use it. Even with the mudpack Clint had made her, her hand felt as if it were on fire.
Time crept by so slowly. Shouldn’t he be back by now? It had to be afternoon; the candle was getting low. Before long there would be no light at all.
Abner crept up to where she sat on the cot, and he lifted his front paws as if to beg. Shea ran a finger down his back, and Abner bunched up as if in pleasure. She wondered about the man who had managed to tame the mouse. Because he, too, had been unbearably lonely?
But then apparently Rafe was good with all animals. She had watched his patience with the horse, the tolerance of the bears. And then she recalled, word for word, what Clint had said. Rafe Tyler had been the best officer he had ever seen. He had risked his life to save others.
Those two attributes went together, that gentleness with animals and loyalty to men. What didn’t match was the charge that he had betrayed his country and stolen from it. Still, the evidence …
They had found money in his quarters. Her father had seen him meet with the raiders. And he hadn’t denied …
No one listened before.
Clint’s words. They didn’t matter, she told herself. Rafe Tyler had now placed himself outside the law. He was after her father. He was holding her. Innocent men didn’t do that.
She thought again of the frying pan, of hitting her captor when he wasn’t looking, and then taking the horse. She had to get away from Rafe, from these feelings he stirred in her, from her fascination with the man who had made it clear he planned to destroy her father.
She had to warn her father!
Lost in her own misery and unusual indecisiveness, she was surprised when she heard movement at the door. She hadn’t heard hoofbeats, so whoever it was must have approached at a walk.
There was a knock. His knock. It had a certain impatience that she recognized.
She stood, her left hand holding Abner, who seemed altogether at home there, and watched as Rafe Tyler entered.
He looked weary, his face rough with bristles and his eyes as noncommittal as usual.
Her own gaze was raking him, and she wasn’t sure what she was looking for, until she felt relief when she saw he seemed in one piece.
And then she was pierced by his own examination, by eyes that moved downward from her face, finally stopping at her right hand.
His sandy-brown brows knit together. “What in the devil …?”
Shea felt oddly confused at the concern in his voice. “I … I burned myself.”
Two quick steps, and he had reached her, his hands—both gloved, Shea noted—extending to take Abner from her left hand. He placed the mouse on the floor, then gently examined Shea’s injured hand. The sensitivity in his touch was unmistakable. His eyes asked her about the mudpack.
“Your fellow outlaw,” she said, trying to remind herself who these men were.
“He didn’t …?” There was disbelief in his words.
She shook her head. “He just tried to help.… I burned my hand on a … pan that was too hot.”
He released her hand, pulled off his gloves, apparently unconcerned now about his ugly scar, and tucked them into his pants pocket.
He took her hand again, his fingers brushing away the mud and very lightly running over the surface of her palm.
She felt as if a feather were touching it, a feather that made her shiver down to the core of her being.
And some of her pain seemed to fade as he led her over to the bucket of water, washing the mud away and then examining the hand carefully.
“I’m sorry,” he said. She sensed the apology came with difficulty. “I never meant for you to get hurt.”
“It’s all right,” she said in little more than a whisper.
“No, it isn’t,” he replied. He closed his eyes for a moment, and Shea wondered at his thoughts. If only she could read them better.
“It …” He hesitated, then continued. “The burns shouldn’t scar your hand, but I know how much it hurts. Damn.” The last word was explosive, full of anger, and Shea wasn’t sure whom it was directed toward.
She felt a sudden need to comfort him, even though she knew how insane that was.
She should be using the wound to the fullest, demanding he let her go.
But for some elusive reason, she couldn’t.
Perhaps because she sensed the scar on his own hand was his one weakness, the one that went to the core of him, and she couldn’t exploit it.
“Clint … said he would bring some salve,” she finally said, as she watched his face struggle to maintain its usual iron mask. She wished she didn’t want to see the man behind it so badly.
He released a long breath. His hand left hers and held her chin in his fingers, forcing her gaze to meet his. Suddenly, his head came down, his lips touching hers in a tentative, searching way that was so unlike him, unlike anything she’d experienced with him.
His other kiss had been violent, angry, hungry, even punishing. With only a moment of gentleness. And even then, she’d responded in some primitive way she’d despised in herself. Now she was responding on another level, with a need so overwhelming that it drained all reason from her.
The kiss deepened, and she felt her arms going around him, even though she knew it was a terrible mistake that could never be taken back. She knew exactly how terrible when all of her responded, her tongue reaching out to meet his, her body swaying against his.
The embers of fire that had glowed between them since the first day flared, enveloping them in a circle of heat that was exquisitely provocative. Painful in deliciously wicked ways that aroused and stung and burned … and wanted.
Shea lost herself in his touch, in the feel of his lips against hers, in the feel of his aroused body against hers.
His hands moved along the side of her neck as his mouth explored hers ever so slowly.
She sensed he was barely holding on to his control.
That fact only made her own need greater, more demanding.
She didn’t understand what was happening to her, why nothing mattered right now but an outlaw she should hate. She heard the beat of his heart, heard it race suddenly, and her own senses spun out of control.
Despite her knowledge of who and what he was, despite her disquietude over all the pulsating sensations building within her, she felt the strangest sense of belonging. As with every moment since she had met Rafferty Tyler, her being warred with itself, mind against heart, body against will.
Something in him reached out to her in ways she couldn’t decipher, ways she didn’t seem able to deny.
She felt his hand move to her hair, stroking it with strong, sure movements, then hesitating.
His hand fell down to her back, his fingers running along the outside of her blouse, sending quivers throughout her body.
His mouth invited hers to open, and it did so readily, so eagerly that she was shocked.
She had never kissed like this, never been kissed like this.
But from the moment his lips touched hers, she was helpless to resist, helpless to stop the tingling of every nerve, the aching in the deepest, most private part of her, helpless to keep from giving a part of herself that had never been touched before.
She wanted to tame the fury she’d seen in him, wanted to watch him smile, wanted to dispel the bitter wariness that enveloped him.
She wanted him! The knowledge was excruciating. She realized from the tenseness in his body that his kiss was as involuntary on his part as it was on hers, spurred by some otherworldly beings who had conspired to bring together two people who should never have met.
But she was drowning in the essence of him.
His hair was damp, curling around her fingers.
She felt tremors course through his body as his kiss deepened, his tongue teasing and playing, arousing even more unfamiliar feelings in her, speeding the flow of her blood, of her breathing, of her heartbeat.
She whimpered as the pressure inside grew, every part of her, every bone, every nerve stingingly alive, as if fire ants were running wild throughout her.
Her hands tightened around him, and their bodies melded together as one.
She felt as if she would explode with needs that were still a mystery yet irresistibly beckoning.
He groaned, and then his mouth left hers, and her eyes met his.
She saw a muscle straining in his cheek.
His eyes were no longer hooded but burning in a way she thought impossible before.
She felt his fingers, which had been sensually wandering up and down her back, press into a fist as his body went incredibly still.
And then he released her and moved away, the expression on his face one of such unbearable anguish, Shea thought her heart would shatter from it.
He turned around abruptly, his fist suddenly pounding into a table, a gesture of so much boiling violence that she flinched.
His back bowed slightly as he leaned down.
So much raw, naked emotion surged from him that the room felt like a storm center, furious currents rushing between them, sucking at the life core of her.
Shea couldn’t even begin to comprehend the complexity of those currents.
She just knew they drained the very breath from her as she watched him fight them.