Chapter 19
Rafe checked the small bear’s leg. The cuts were healing; there didn’t seem to be any infection.
He wrapped the injured leg again with the splint, making it tighter than before so neither the mother nor cub could tear it off easily. It was the best he could do.
The time had come for the cub to return to his mother, to the woods where he belonged. The mother was still haunting the cabin area, and it was only a matter of time before she hurt someone. And it wasn’t good for the cub to become dependent on human beings who would soon be gone.
Rafe looked up at the sadness in Shea’s eyes. She was already very much attached to the small bear. He had watched her cuddle it, sing to it. It was only natural; she had been lonely.
Lonely enough to bed with him. Lonely and scared enough to accept what companionship she could find. He didn’t delude himself that what had happened between them was any more than that.
He couldn’t let it be, no matter how much he wished differently.
He looked at the cub in his arms. Trouble, he called the small fellow in his mind, but he hadn’t said the name out loud.
He hadn’t wanted to share a name with Shea, to make it more difficult for her to give up the animal.
He was a man without attachments. He didn’t want them, didn’t need them.
But Shea wanted them. Her search for her father proved that.
“Do you really think he’ll be all right in the woods?” Shea asked, her hand trailing down the thick fur of the cub, which began nipping on her other hand.
“I think that she-bear outside will take very good care of it,” he said.
“His leg?”
He shrugged. “The young heal easily.”
“I’ll miss him,” she said sadly. “So will Abner.”
Abner had taken up sleeping next to the bear, since the time the mouse had darted in to grab a crumb of cracker the cub had left scattered on the floor.
The cub had been asleep, and Abner had crawled up next to it and nestled against its little fat stomach.
Now he did it frequently, and the cub made no objections.
“He’ll find a new, warm place,” Rafe said wryly.
He saw her quick, questioning glance. He was talking about more than the mouse; he was trying to reassure himself that Shea Randall would have a warm place after this, a safe place.
Still, nothing had changed. He wouldn’t rest until he received some kind of justice.
The cub’s rough tongue licked him. The salt he thought. The salt that remained there from the sweat of lovemaking. The thought made him stiffen again, and he knew he needed a swim in the icy water of the pool.
“Let’s go see if the mother will claim him,” he said, trying to keep the roughness from his voice.
Shea nodded. She had braided her hair again and dressed in the trousers and shirt that were so unintentionally enticing. She was quiet this morning, attuned to his own laconic mood.
They went out the door. The mother bear was back, prowling back and forth as it had every morning, waiting to see its offspring. Rafe approached cautiously, watching the bear rear on its legs. He came within ten feet of the animal and very carefully set the cub down and backed away.
The bear moved just as warily toward its cub, licked it, and then nudged it.
The cub moved several feet, then several more.
It looked back toward the cabin, but the she-bear nudged again, and it obediently limped toward the woods.
The she-bear roared and then headed toward the woods, looking behind to make sure its cub was trailing. It was.
Rafe turned and saw the sheen in Shea’s eyes. He had never met anyone so tenderhearted, so gentle. He had to keep reminding himself that she really was Jack Randall’s daughter. He didn’t want to remember that, but it was there between them.
“Damned bear nearly ate everything we have,” he said, forcing irritation in his voice. “Ben will have to make another trip.”
She glanced up at him and smiled. He buried the pleasure he felt at her smile, trying to smother it under anger. But it didn’t work anymore, dammit. He felt buoyant.
“And what will we do about this morning?” she asked saucily.
He could think of something, God help him. And it had nothing to do with food. His hand reached out and touched the braid. “Nothing daunts you, does it?” His tone was unusually whimsical.
“I could think of a few,” she replied with devilish humor. “A furious bear. A glowering outlaw.”
He wanted to glower again, but he couldn’t.
He was lost in the magic of her eyes, the glow of her face, the grin on those much too inviting lips.
He let go of the braid and moved his fingers to her face, running them down those smooth cheeks, and then the woods went silent, and he knew someone was approaching.
Automatically his hand dropped to his side, and he realized he hadn’t worn his gunbelt. The rifle, too, was inside the cabin. He no longer worried that Shea Randall might try to use it.
Rafe heard a low whistle, and he knew it was Clint. Each of the men had a different, predetermined whistle. “Clint,” he said to Shea. “There must be some news.”
He felt tension suddenly invade her, as if reality had just stolen back into her life, and she was silent as Clint rode toward them.
Clint looked at them. Rafe was afraid he would see more than he wanted Clint to see. Not for his sake but for Shea’s. “I have to talk to you,” Clint said. “Alone.”
Rafe turned to Shea. “Wait inside.” It was more curt than he’d intended, but there was something in Clint’s eyes he didn’t like. He saw a quiet protest in her eyes.
“Please,” he added, wondering when he’d last said that word.
At his tone she turned around and walked to the cabin. Clint dismounted, went to the cabin and closed the door, then drew Rafe away from it.
“Jack Randall’s been shot.”
Rafe felt as if a bullet had punctured his own gut. “Dead?”
“Not yet, but he may well be now. I found him yesterday. He was unconscious with a bullet wound near the heart and a gash in the head. The doctor doesn’t know whether he’ll make it or not.”
“Did he say who did it?”
“He hadn’t regained consciousness when I left, but I put my money on McClary.
According to one of the hands, McClary was at the ranch house when Randall returned from his search for you …
and Miss Randall. No one’s seen him since.
But if Randall doesn’t gain consciousness, you know who’s going to get the blame. ”
Rafe stood stone-still. This was not what he’d wanted. He didn’t realize until this very moment how much he had depended on forcing a confession from Randall. Clearing his name—at least that one undeserved blot.
He glanced down at his hand. He closed his eyes, fighting waves of dark pain.
He was there again, at the parade ground, everything being torn away from him as Jack Randall watched.
He waited for the hate to cascade, shrouding him as it had for so long, but it didn’t. He just felt empty. So damn empty.
All of this for nothing. He steadied himself, thinking of Shea. She had come so far to get answers of her own.
He opened his eyes to see Clint’s concerned gaze, and not for the first time he wondered what he’d done to deserve this kind of loyalty.
“Will you take Miss Randall down with you?” he said. “She won’t say anything about this place or you or Ben.”
Clint nodded.
“And, Clint, you and Ben get the hell out of here. You and the others. It’s over.”
“He may not die.”
Rafe gave him a quizzical look. “With my luck?”
“What about McClary?”
Rafe shrugged. He wasn’t going say that McClary was unfinished business. The brothers would insist on staying with him. “He’s probably at least a state away from here.”
“Russ Dewayne is talking about a posse.”
“More reason for you to leave this area. No one’s seen you with me. No one knows about you.”
“The girl does,” Clint said.
“Another reason you should leave. She won’t say anything on purpose but she could slip. She’s not a very good liar.” He saw Clint’s bemused look and realized his voice had softened, betraying more than he’d intended.
But Clint only nodded. “I’ll wait and see whether Randall survives.” He hesitated. “And what Russ Dewayne’s plans are.”
Rafe heard Clint’s reluctance, and that all-too-familiar guilt rocketed around inside him again. Clint had mentioned the sheriff’s daughter before. Rafe knew what it must be costing him to lie to people he liked.
“No more risks,” Rafe said. “Not for me.”
“We’ve started something. It’s hard to let go.”
“It’s my battle, Clint, and now it appears to be over. I don’t want any more casualties.”
“I know it’s not what you wanted.”
Rafe shrugged. It had been a long time since he’d gotten what he wanted. He needed to cut his losses now. Free the men who had followed him. Free Shea Randall.
But if Randall died, Rafe would never be free. He doubted now whether it would make any difference. What was done was done. The brand would remain with him. The memory of prison.
He turned around and headed back to the cabin, his stomach and heart churning.
He had to tell Shea that she might never see her father alive, that he was letting her go.
It would be his fault if she was too late.
He didn’t give a damn about Randall, except to regret his death foiled his plans, but he reluctantly admitted he did care about Shea.
And now she would hate him again. And what light there was in his life would be extinguished, just as surely as it had been ten years earlier.
She was sitting on the cot, playing with Abner nervously, as if she knew something had happened, something that affected her. She looked up at Rafe, a plea in her eyes.
“What is it?”
He swallowed. “Jack Randall …” Rafe couldn’t bear to say the word father.
She stood, her body stiff. “What? What is it?”
“He’s been shot. He … might be dying.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “You …” Her voice choked suddenly.
He took her shoulders. “It wasn’t me, or anyone connected with me,” he said softly.