Chapter 25
Rafe didn’t know how long he stood there, alongside the lake, holding her. He just knew how good it felt.
She snuggled there in his arms, as if he were all she wanted in the world. He tried to breathe through the knot in his throat, the constriction of his chest.
He hadn’t realized how completely he cared until this moment. He hadn’t let himself.
He couldn’t let himself now. But there it was. Sometime in the past few weeks she had snaked her way into his heart and taken it over. Wholly and forever.
Yet nothing had changed. If anything, circumstances had worsened. Not only was he an ex-convict now, he was also wanted for murder. The sigh that came from his mouth was ragged, and she looked up at him, those eyes of hers so full of light.
“How did you ever find this place?” he finally asked. Anything to break the spell that wrapped them in what he knew was a false cloak of safety. If she had found this valley, others could.
“I remembered those peaks,” she said, and he recalled those drawings he’d destroyed, afraid they would lead others to him.
He had not considered her own ability to re-create.
She moved slightly, and he couldn’t stop the ragged breath as she touched the wounded arm.
Her gaze went to his shirt, red and still damp with blood.
“What happened?”
He shrugged, and her eyes narrowed. She backed a few inches away and rolled up the sleeve of the shirt, revealing a crimson bandage.
“What happened, Rafe?” she said insistently.
He sighed. “I’ll tell you later.” He felt himself swaying. He had been moving on pure nerves, on fear for her. But now his body was failing him. “I think I need to get to the cabin.”
She nodded, taking his good arm and putting it around her to give him some support. But he hesitated. “Shea … Jack Randall’s at the cabin.” He still couldn’t tolerate thinking of Randall as Shea’s father.
He felt her stiffen. “Why? How?”
“Posse … found me. I was taken to Casey Springs. He … Randall helped me escape so we could find you.”
Shea’s face paled.
“Why did you leave the Circle R?” His question was soft.
Shea hesitated. “Because … I knew … you were right. He did what you said he did.” Her voice dropped to an anguished whisper. “How can someone do that to another person?”
Rafe didn’t ask how she knew. He didn’t care now. He only cared about the hurt that had driven her away from comfort and safety, that had made her risk these mountains.
He dropped to the forest floor, unable to stand any longer but not willing to go on and make her face what she obviously didn’t want to face.
She stood above him, and his hand guided her down.
She moved stiffly, like a stick figure. “Shea, he risked everything to free me because he figured I was the only one who could find you. He risked being shot, being accused of being one of us, and allowing the truth about the past to be revealed. He risked my killing him, and by God I considered it. He bartered with me. He would tell the truth if I helped him.”
“Is that why …?”
“Hell, no,” Rafe said. “What’s between him and me has nothing to do with you. I never wanted it to have anything to do with you. I never wanted you hurt by it, not from the moment I saw you. I came because I had to come.”
Her eyes were fringed with tears now, and he didn’t know why or for whom. He felt so damn helpless. He felt foolish defending the man he’d hated so long.
Foolish and angry. And tired. So very, very tired.
She appeared to see some of that, and the strain on her face was replaced by that damned determination that so aggravated and attracted him.
“Can you get up, or should I go and get …?”
The very idea of being in debt any more than he already was to Jack Randall gave Rafe strength. He used a tree to help get himself to his feet and then reluctantly put an arm around her.
It was going to be a damned long walk.
And it was. He felt he would fall at any minute. He hated his weakness, hated not being able to think, to reason.
Finally, they were there. Randall was outside, waiting, his face anxious as he saw them coming, particularly when he darted a look at Shea’s face.
He hurried over and offered his good arm, but Rafe shrugged it aside, straightened, and made it the few steps into the cabin before collapsing on the cot.
Shea watched Rafe sleep. Abner had curled up in the crook of his arm, obviously content to have his friend back.
Her father had taken the horses down to the stream to water them.
He had anxiously tried to help, fetching a bucket of water to wash Rafe’s wound, watching as Shea had sewed it again.
The skin had broken loose from the doctor’s stitches.
But Rafe’s soothing comments to her had obviously not affected his feelings toward the man who had fathered her. Raw hostility radiated from his eyes, and Jack Randall had used the horses as an excuse to disappear.
He had not returned.
Shea was relieved. She had to sort out her own ambivalent emotions toward Jack Randall.
In those several days of nursing her father, she had reveled in the warmth of his obvious delight in her, and now, as Rafe had observed, he had risked everything for her.
But Rafe’s unforgiving attitude made it clear that she would have to choose between the man who fathered her and the man she loved.
Rafe moved restlessly on the cot, and Shea instinctively reached out a hand to soothe him. Perhaps her father had risked much to find her, but Rafe had risked just as much in trusting him in this one desperate thing. She knew how much that must have cost him: accepting Jack Randall’s help.
Because of her.
She moved from the chair and sat on the floor next to him, resting her head on his hand, wanting that closeness, that small intimacy, for as long as she could have it.
Shea closed her eyes, comforted by the nearness of him. She didn’t want to think about anything else. He was here. Safe. And that was all that mattered.
Jack Randall finished rubbing down the horses, grateful for the respite from Rate’s dislike and Shea’s awkwardness. It had been a very long time since he’d had any sleep now, and his head still ached, but not as it had. His shoulder also ached, but he was almost grateful for the distraction.
There were a couple of sacks of oats, and he fed the horses. Then he walked slowly back to the cabin. The door was half-open, and he peered inside. His daughter was asleep, her head on Rafe Tyler’s hand. Tyler himself was asleep, his body naked to the waist, a … mouse curled up on his shoulder.
He watched for several more moments, wondering at the love inherent in Shea’s gesture. Because of what he had done ten years ago, it could be a very tragic love. But he would fight for it, as he hadn’t fought for his own so long ago.
Quietly, very quietly, he backed away and gently closed the door.
Sam McClary finally found the opening in what looked like sheer cliffs. He had followed the blood trail to stone walls and then started feeling his way around them. It was late afternoon. The sun was beginning its descent toward the western peaks.
After an hour he saw another red splotch and then the crack in the wall. He followed the winding path and saw the opening into a pine forest. He smiled. The perfect hideaway.
He wondered if anyone other than the two wounded men was in the valley.
He led his horse downward to where the trees and thickets provided cover.
He took the rifle from the saddle and checked his pistol.
Staking his horse in good cover, he snaked through the woods until he saw a clearing and the rooftop of a cabin.
He circled the area silently and finally found what he was looking for: a stack of flapjacklike rocks with an excellent overview of the cabin.
He would wait until the occupants came out and catch them in the open.
He took a piece of jerky from a pocket and started chewing on it. It was just a matter of time.
The first thing Rafe saw when he woke was Shea, her head resting on his hand.
She looked so peaceful, his heart quaked with strong response.
She was so incredibly lovely with that sun-tipped hair falling over her shoulder and down the side of the cot.
Tenderness swept over him like tidal waves, and his hand reached over to touch the silkiness of that hair.
He longed to touch the smooth skin of her cheek, but he didn’t want to wake her.
The second thing he saw was Abner, who, startled, ran down his chest and trousered leg to the end of the bed and disappeared.
He tried to sit without disturbing Shea, but her lashes fluttered open, then her eyes. They found him, and she smiled, a slow, warm, delighted smile that made him smile in return. One of his hands went to her hair and smoothed it back.
He felt so damn good with her so near. Weak as a kitten, but still filled with all those electric responses she always created in him.
Her hand smoothed the back of his hand, the hand with the scar, and she brought it to her mouth and kissed it. When he tried to pull it away, she shook her head.
Rafe winced.
“Don’t,” she said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re not at fault. I just hate the pain you endured because of my …”
Rafe sat up and put his finger to her mouth. “Where is …?”
“I don’t know. The last I saw of him, he was taking care of the horses,” she said.
“How long have I been asleep?”
Shea rose from where she’d been sitting and went over to the door, opening it. “It’s almost dusk.”
“Do we have any food left?”
“Not much,” she said. “Two cans of peaches. Raspberries I gathered last night.” She hesitated. “What are you going to do now?”
Rafe realized he damn well didn’t know. He had put every bit of effort he had into reaching this place, and then he’d collapsed. He remembered Randall’s promise to clear his name, but he felt damn little joy in it.
He wasn’t sure he believed it. Even if he did, the prospect left him feeling hollow.