Chapter 20
Shea looked at Jack Randall, trying to see something of herself in him. Trying to find what her mother had loved and what Rafe Tyler hated.
He was still a handsome man and would have been very handsome years ago. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes. They had not opened since she’d arrived hours before. He was so still, she had to put her hand to his mouth to make sure he was breathing.
It was the head wound, the doctor had said. He might regain consciousness. He might not. He might remember what happened. He might not. Nothing was certain.
She looked across the bed at Kate, who had been here when she arrived.
Shea had liked her instantly, liked her warmth, liked her support when she had hushed her father, who started asking questions.
“Later,” she had said when she saw the tiredness in Shea’s eyes.
She had hurried Shea to the room where Jack Randall lay so silently, and Shea had blessed the woman’s own lack of questions.
How many hours now? How many since she’d left Rafe? How many since she’d gazed on the man she believed to be her father? The man who was Rafe’s nemesis.
She was part of him, this man. And yet he was a stranger. Nothing was familiar. She’d thought there would be a flicker of recognition, a facial feature that matched. Something. Anything that would tell her the truth. A truth she wasn’t sure she wanted to know any longer.
She looked back at Kate. Shea felt a bond with the woman who was close to her age.
Shea hadn’t missed the glances that had darted between Kate and Clint, the longing in both their eyes, even as Clint made the introduction curtly.
It was a curtness Shea recognized from Rafe.
Because Rafe had cared? Because Clint cared about Kate? A defense? A wall?
The sheriff’s daughter. And Clint was in cahoots with an outlaw band. No wonder he had been so understanding.
There was a knock on the door, and Sheriff Dewayne came in. “No change?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Can you spare me a few moments?”
“Papa,” Kate said warningly.
Dewayne shook his head. “There’s a big mystery about you, Miss Randall. In fact, there’s any number of mysteries around here.”
Rafe said you’re not a very good liar. When was it that she realized everything Rafe had said had been said to protect her? He hadn’t needed to let her go, especially not to see a man he despised. He’d known, though, how important it was to her.
And now she needed to be a good liar for him.
No matter how many times he’d said he didn’t care if Randall knew who was after him, she wasn’t going to be the one to place a noose around Rafe’s neck or clang a door shut on him again.
She wasn’t going to repeat the story she was coached to tell.
She had simply become lost, that’s all. Just lost.
She looked up at Sheriff Dewayne.
“Randall never told anyone he had a daughter,” Dewayne said.
“I don’t think he knew,” she said softly. “I didn’t know myself until a few months ago when my mother died, and I found some letters from him to her. She … always told me my father was dead.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Shea said. “That’s what I came to find out.”
“Where have you been? The clerk at the stage office in Casey Springs said you left there weeks ago.”
“I … got lost,” she said.
“That long?” he said with disbelief.
“I found an abandoned cabin. There was some food,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “I was told you left with someone who claimed to be a Circle R hand.”
“He changed his mind,” she said. “I left by myself. I’m not a very good rider, and my horse threw me, and I got lost. And then I found a cabin by a stream. There was some food. Maybe a miner … left it.”
Shea saw the doubt in his eyes and knew other questions were coming, questions she wasn’t quite sure she could handle. Rafe was right. She was a bad liar. She felt the flush on her cheeks, the strained quality of her voice even when she was trying so hard.
But she was saved from any more questions by a sound from Jack Randall. She leaned down, trying to hear what he was saying, if anything.
That sound came again, along with a slight movement, but his eyes didn’t open. Shea dampened the cloth in her hand and ran it gently down his face.
The doctor had gone. He had other patients who needed him, he’d told Kate, and he could do nothing for Jack Randall but what they were doing: wait. Wait and see whether he woke.
Shea had such mixed feelings toward him, so many doubts. Yet love had been building in her since she’d learned of his existence. She felt disloyal to Rafe for having them. She felt disloyal to Jack Randall, the man who might have given her life, for doubting him.
She wished she could feel numb, not hopeful that this man would live, not wishful that Rafe would stay. The two were incompatible.
“Sara.” Her mother’s name was a groan on Jack Randall’s lips.
Immediately, the sheriff stepped closer and knelt next to the bed. “Jack. Jack.”
Randall’s eyelashes flickered, revealing confused, clouded blue eyes. Shea’s mother’s eyes were gray, and her own blue-gray.
Jack Randall’s eyes tried to focus. They wandered about the room and then hesitated at Shea’s face. “Sara?”
The wavering tone penetrated Shea’s very fragile calm. She shook her head. “I’m Shea. Sara’s daughter.”
He focused on her with an intensity that frightened her. “Shea? My daughter?”
Hearing the word “daughter” was nearly her undoing.
“I’m here,” she said softly.
“I was … so afraid for you. The clerk at the station said …” His hand reached out, clutching her arm. “Did anyone … hurt you?”
Shea shook her head, hearing, seeing, love in his eyes. Her heart beat faster, harder, against its cage. “I just got lost,” Shea told him. “I was frightened.”
The sheriff moved in. “Jack … what happened here?”
Shea watched Jack Randall hesitate, look around frantically, as if searching for something that would bring back the memory. “I … don’t know.”
Dewayne shook his head. “Try to remember. Who shot you?”
Jack Randall closed his eyes. “I’m … trying. I remember … looking for … my daughter. Coming back. Nothing more.” Shea saw him clench his teeth and knew he was in pain. She looked up at the sheriff, who looked thoroughly frustrated.
Dewayne tried again. “Jack, this all started with those first robberies. Then the killing of the miners. There’s some connection. Help me, dammit.”
Shea watched her father struggle. She didn’t think he was faking.
He seemed genuinely confused. “I just … don’t remember.
” He looked up again at Shea, his gaze devouring her.
“Shea,” he whispered again. “My daughter.” He moved his hand slightly toward her, and Shea found herself taking it, tightening her fingers around his, feeling his respond, clinging to her almost desperately.
Then he looked toward the sheriff. “I’m … sorry, Russ. I just … remember riding toward the ranch.…” His voice trailed off, and his eyes closed, his breathing becoming steady again.
Shea kept holding his hand, holding on to that tenuous connection to her father. Her father. He had been looking for her. He wanted her. His eyes had told her that.
She looked down at the pale face, at the now-closed eyes, and she shook with the realization she was a part of this man. There were so many things she wanted to know. So many questions to ask. So many answers she needed.
Not the least among them his involvement in the robbery so many years ago. His face was not evil. His eyes had not been devious.
Rafe had to be wrong!
Dewayne stood. “Hell, that’s it,” he said, then looked at the two women. “Begging your pardon.” Kate just smiled, but Shea couldn’t. She was too tied up in knots to do anything but look at him helplessly.
“I’ve waited long enough,” he said. “I’m putting together a posse and combing these canyons if it takes me a year. God knows what happened here, and I’m not sure Jack will be able to help anytime soon.”
Clint had been lounging along a wall, watching with intense interest. Shea’s gaze went to him and met his quick glance. There was neither approval in it nor disapproval.
“You going after McClary?” he said lazily.
“Him and those damned outlaws who’ve been deviling Randall,” Russ said. “McClary could be dead or kidnapped himself. It’s time I got some answers.” His gaze went again to Shea, and he was frowning. Shea realized he hadn’t swallowed her story. He turned back to Clint.
“Where exactly did you find Miss Randall?”
“Around Rushton Creek, near Casey’s old strike,” he said. “I was looking for signs of McClary.”
“You think he’s around the creek?”
“That’s where the last miner was killed,” Clint said.
“You still think …”
Clint nodded. “McClary was gone each time a miner was killed. Now he’s disappeared again.”
“I wish I could be so certain,” the sheriff said. “But that doesn’t explain the other robberies. There were at least six men involved, and two occurred before Sam McClary arrived.”
Clint shrugged. “Before he publicly arrived,” he corrected.
Russ nodded. “That could be. Yet my gut tells me something else. Someone had it in for Randall, and I don’t think it’s someone he would invite into his home. Damn, I wish he could remember something.…”
“The doctor said we could expect this,” Clint reminded him. “He might or might not remember certain things.”
Russ nodded. “We’ll be leaving in the morning, if you change your mind and want to join us, Clint.”
Clint shook his head. “I think I’m needed here.”
“Nate’s here,” Russ said pointedly.
“Nate can’t take care of the herd alone,” Clint said. “Just about everyone else has left, and whoever did this might come back.”
Russ nodded. “You’re right.” He turned to his daughter. “Kate?”
“I’ll stay here, make some dinner,” she said. “I’ll ride home later.”
“Not alone,” Russ warned, and Shea saw Kate bristle slightly.
“I’ve been riding alone since I was twelve.”
“We didn’t have killings then.”