Chapter 4
Rafe hesitated at the door of the cabin. He wished the woman had screamed or cried, or even fainted. He could handle that easily. He could handle anything but that quiet dignity that was so unnerving.
Despite himself, despite the fact that she might be Randall’s daughter, he felt a glimmer of admiration. She had a hell of a lot more guts than her father.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t every bit as devious and treacherous as Jack Randall.
He understood Ben’s thinking in bringing her here, but Rafe’s quarrel was with Jack Randall, not a woman. He wouldn’t use substitutes. Not the way Randall did.
Clint had said the woman’s and Randall’s eyes were alike. Rafe didn’t remember the exact color of Randall’s eyes, but he didn’t think they could be that soft, that color of blue-gray, like the sky at dawn.
Except for that brief visit to a whorehouse, he hadn’t been with a woman. In prison he’d blocked out that kind of memory, that kind of want, and he thought he’d brought them under control. But now they were tormenting him, like tiny devils stabbing his lower region with pitchforks.
Not that the woman was so pretty. She was not his type at all.
Allison had been startlingly pretty, with black hair and green eyes and a figure that was all curves.
This woman was tall and slender, boyish in a shirt and trousers.
Her light brown hair was carelessly bound in a loose braid that hung halfway down her back, and her eyes were calm, even restful, except for those few times when sparks seemed to ignite in them.
Mainly when he had said something about Jack Randall.
Loyalty? In a Randall? That was absolutely incomprehensible to him.
Any decent quality must be foreign to a Randall.
She could, for all he knew, even be a spy.
Hell, he wouldn’t put anything past Randall.
The thought stoked his anger and lowered his admiration to a controllable level. It made things a hell of a lot easier.
He opened the door and strode in, noting that she was sitting on the cot. He suspected she hadn’t been sitting there long. The bottom of her trousers was edged with dust that had settled on the floor. His eyes swept the rest of the room. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed.
“Stand up,” he ordered curtly as he moved toward her.
She shied away from him.
He shrugged. “All right, stay tied the rest of the day.”
She bit her lip for a moment, looking vulnerable, and finally stood, presenting her back to him. His fingers deftly untied the knot that bound her wrists.
She turned and looked at him. She seemed to flinch at the expression in his face, but her back straightened and her chin lifted as she met his gaze straight-on. “Have the others gone?”
It was clear that she hoped they had not. That bothered him for some reason, and his eyes narrowed as he studied her. Either she had lied about being Randall’s daughter, or she was Randall’s daughter. Either way, he wouldn’t trust her farther than he could toss her.
Rafe chose to ignore her inquiry and made one of his own. “What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer. He was getting accustomed to her silence.
Hell, he understood it. How many times had he used silence as a tool, especially when he knew insults or curses would only result in punishment?
She learned a hell of a lot faster than he had.
“All right, I’ll call you Joe,” he finally said.
She searched his face, and he knew she was looking for a flash of humor. There was none.
“I’ve got to call you something,” he said, surprised at himself for explaining anything to her.
“Shea,” she said finally.
“Shea Randall?”
She fell silent once more.
“Let’s try something else,” he said. “Where did you come from?”
She searched her mind for reasons not to tell him and could find none, except she didn’t want to cooperate with him.
She didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.
So she turned away and went to the door, looking out, hoping to see the other two men, but there was only an empty clearing, and she knew she was alone with this … outlaw.
“It won’t work,” he said from behind her. “I’ll find out everything.”
She whirled around, the anger she had been trying to cage threatening to spill over. She didn’t want that to happen. She couldn’t let that happen. She suspected he would enjoy it, that he was trying to provoke it.
“Why are you keeping me here?”
“Not for your charm,” he said. “So rest easy in that regard. Ten years of prison or not, I’m not desperate enough to take Randall’s get. Or his leavings, whichever you are.” He uttered the last sentence in a taunting low voice.
She hated his mockery, the contempt he didn’t bother to hide. It was the last insult she was going to tolerate. Despite her vow that she would pretend obedience, she found her left hand starting to swing, only to be caught in a viselike grip.
“So the lady does have a temper,” he observed. “What else does she have? Tell me, Miss Randall.”
“Let me go,” she demanded, looking down at his fingers on her wrist.
He laughed bitterly but loosened his hold. “You should know the bite of iron, Miss Shea. Cold. Hard. Cutting. My hand can’t come close to that feel.”
“I would prefer it to you,” she spit at him.
“Obey me, or you’ll have the opportunity to find out,” he retorted.
She felt the blood drain from her face. “You wouldn’t?”
“I’ll do whatever I must to finish what I’ve started.”
“And what’s that?”
“Your father, or whatever he is to you, has a certain debt to pay.”
“Because he testified against you?”
“Oh, that’s only one of the reasons,” Rafe said.
“He was just doing his duty.”
“Was he?”
His cold green eyes suddenly blazed, and she felt the heat from his anger. There was something else in those eyes. Something very frightening. She stepped away. “What are you planning?”
“That, Miss Shea, is none of your business.”
“It is,” she insisted.
“No,” he said flatly. “And you’ll stay here. In this cabin.”
“And you?” Shea tried to keep her apprehension from showing.
“Lady, I don’t want to be anyplace close to you.”
“I can’t stay here.” She hated the plea in her voice.
“You don’t have any choice. And if you’re smart, you’ll do as you’re told.”
“I’m obviously not, since I was foolish enough to trust Ben Smith or whatever his name is.”
“Let’s see if you’re a fast learner then,” he said, glancing around the cabin and then picking up all the weapons.
He stopped midway to the door and turned back to her.
“I don’t make war on women. But be clear on this—I’ll do what I must to finish what I started.
If it means confining you in here, even chaining you, I’ll do it.
I won’t like it, but I’ll do it. In the meantime you don’t have to worry about your safety.
I have no interest in you, other than to make sure you don’t interfere in my plans. Do you understand?”
She defied him silently, her hands clenched at her sides.
Her wrist still bore the print of his hand, her skin its heat.
She couldn’t take back anything, not that foolish trust in Ben Smith, not the words that gave Rafferty Tyler a weapon against her father.
She could only try to escape, to get to her father, to warn him.
Outlaws, the clerk had said in Casey Springs. She wondered whether her father knew who led the outlaws, or the hate that drove them. It was like a live thing, that hate. She could feel it vibrate in the room, and it made her shiver.
“Do you understand?” he said again.
She nodded without accepting.
He didn’t say anything else; he just walked toward the door without giving her another glance.
He kicked the door shut behind him, and the light in the cabin dimmed.
After several seconds she heard metal against metal and knew he had placed a padlock on the door.
There was one window, through which light filtered, and with a sinking feeling she waited for him to rob her of that too.
She didn’t have to wait long. Shutters closed, and she heard the slam of a bar holding them in place.
She was alone in darkness now, alone in these forested mountains with an outlaw who hated her father, a man she didn’t even know.
She didn’t understand Tyler’s hatred, and she couldn’t minimize it.
Or her own danger. No matter what he said, he couldn’t help but see her as a weapon.
She tried to keep the rising terror at bay, to submerge it under other thoughts.
She searched for a weakness in Rafferty Tyler, and the artist in her recalled every feature of his face, every harsh line.
She wondered what his face would look like at ease, if it had ever been that way.
And she remembered the way he’d spoken of the ten years in prison, of the feel of iron—with tightness in his voice and tension in his body.
She relived that moment when anger radiated from him as he’d showed her his scarred hand.
And he blamed it all on Jack Randall.
Unjustly. Rafferty Tyler had brought on his own problems by stealing army payrolls.
The punishment did seem barbaric, but it was his own fault, she told herself, trying to dismiss those moments of sympathy for him.
That she could feel any softness toward him made it even more essential that she escape.
She just had to.
Rafe prowled the woods like a wounded panther.
He felt cut to the core and knew his soul was as mutilated as his hand.
He kept seeing those soft blue-gray eyes: widened with terror, glinting with defiance. When he’d locked the door, they must have reflected the feelings he’d had when a cell door first closed on him.
What kind of man was he that he could terrify a woman? What had he become?
Damn Ben. And yet, Rafe might have done the same thing Ben had, given the opportunity. Randall’s daughter. He still couldn’t believe it was true, but part of him was willing to admit it was a possibility.