Chapter 6
Rafe left open the door to the shack to let in the last remnants of light and as a reminder to the woman that he was watching.
He should damn well keep her locked in the cabin so he wouldn’t have to concern himself, but he’d found he couldn’t do that.
He might have been able to if she’d had tantrums, if she had screamed invectives at him, or had collapsed in tears. That dignity, however, touched a conscience he hadn’t realized still survived.
The simple fact was that he understood her fear, the terrible sense of helplessness and powerlessness, and therefore he sympathized in ways that cut to the core.
The damn woman reminded him of himself ten years ago.
He remembered cloaking himself in stubborn pride as his soul was systematically destroyed at the court-martial and subsequent parade-ground ceremony.
He remembered trying to feign indifference as chains were riveted around his ankles and he was marched out, in front of Allison and former comrades, to a waiting wagon for transportation to prison.
And he recalled masking despair with defiance as the cell door closed on him for the first time, knowing it would be another ten years before he knew anything else.
He saw all of these things—despair, pride, and defiance—in her, and he respected her for challenging him and for wisely realizing exactly how far she could go.
He knew she would try to escape, because he had tried it. Christ, he had thought of nothing else. In the fort guardhouse he had thought of making his break on the way to prison, but the irons on his ankles, linked together by a short chain, made that impossible.
He had tried twice to escape from the penitentiary in Ohio.
The first attempt was betrayed by a fellow convict.
The other attempt, involving a tunnel he had worked on for months, was foiled after a similar escape was successfully carried out by Confederate general John Morgan and some of his officers, who had been held in an adjoining cell block.
As a consequence all cells were thoroughly searched and repaired.
Rafe’s tunnel was found, and he spent even more time in the box.
His hands went over the bay Ben had purchased in Ohio.
It had filled out, and its coat was now thick and rich.
Rafe had been working with the animal daily, teaching it intricate maneuvers and to anticipate his wishes.
He’d always had a special knack with animals, and working with them was one of the things he’d missed most in prison.
His hand ran down the horse’s flank, and the animal turned its head around to nuzzle him.
Rafe rubbed the nostrils. “Lonely, old boy? We didn’t get our workout today, did we?”
The horse whinnied softly. “We have a visitor,” Rafe said. “A guest.” He glanced out the door and saw her sitting on the tree stump, her graceful form as still as a statue, her hands on the sketchpad.
Her long braid fell halfway down her back, and he wondered what her hair felt like.
Probably about as soft as her cheek. He didn’t know why in the hell he’d touched her, and he had immediately regretted it.
His brief, unplanned gesture had obviously offended her, despite that fleeting moment when he’d thought …
Hell, he’d been in prison too long. He was even imagining things now, imagining that she might welcome his touch. The caress of a branded convict! He had made a fool of himself, but he didn’t plan to do it again.
Trying to suppress his self-contempt, he plunged his hand into a sack of oats and held them out to the horse.
He hadn’t named it yet, hadn’t found that right monicker.
Not like Abner. Which reminded him that he had to liberate the mouse from the cabin.
He didn’t think Miss Randall and Abner would coexist very well.
He gave the horse one last pat and went out, carefully locking the door after him.
She was still sitting stiffly, her eyes fixed on the star-filled sky as though her life depended on it.
He suddenly realized that Shea Randall was probably worried about tonight’s sleeping arrangements.
There had been a time when he could have had nearly any woman he wanted.
Now, who, other than a whore, would sleep with a man branded as a thief and traitor?
Not even the daughter of a man who was both of those.
As he got closer, he saw her face clearly by the light of the nearly full moon. His voice was gruff when he spoke. “I’ll get my bedroll. I usually sleep out here. You will sleep inside.”
Those wide blue-gray eyes met his. They were full of relief, which did nothing for his already decimated pride.
She nodded.
“I’ll lock the door but keep the window open,” he said, trying to keep his mind away from the way she looked, soft and rumpled and appealing in the moonlight. “I’ll sleep outside the window, and I’m a very light sleeper.”
If she heard the warning in his voice, she didn’t acknowledge it. He shrugged, wishing he didn’t feel as discomfited as she looked, and he went into the cabin. After closing the door slightly behind him, he whistled lightly, and Abner crept out from under the bed, his little beady eyes bright.
Rafe gathered up his bedroll and a heavy wool shirt, then reached down and picked up Abner.
He glanced around the cabin. A partially nibbled piece of dried meat sat on the table.
Shea Randall had apparently left it there, and Abner had taken advantage.
He grinned at the thought of her returning and finding the partially eaten tidbit, but then dismissed the thought.
There was no advantage to him in scaring her more than she already was, despite the brave face she wore.
He tucked both jerky and Abner in the heavy wool shirt and went out the door.
She was standing now, looking uncertainly at the cabin, and he bowed slightly, one hand extended to the door, inviting her inside.
Inviting?
Ordering.
Shea stifled her resentment and marched inside, her drawing case in her hand. She glanced at the valise, but he shook his head. Damn him.
Just a tiny bit of night-light filtered into the cabin, and she lit a candle, just as he brought in the valise. She watched as he opened it, and his hands went through her clothing. She resented it tremendously, particularly as he touched her underclothing, and she felt a now-familiar heat.
“Satisfied?” she finally asked.
His eyebrows lifted. “Hardly,” he said, insinuation back in his voice. He eyed her deliberately, his gaze moving up and down, almost undressing her with an intimacy that made every one of her senses tingle. “I wonder what you look like in one of those dresses.”
She decided then and there to continue wearing the shirt and trousers, no matter how dirty they became or how she tired of them.
His lips turned into a wry line, and she knew he could tell what she was thinking again. Then he turned and left, closing the door and locking her inside.
She glanced around the cabin, looking for the mouse. The piece of dried beef was gone. The bucket of water was inside, and a tin cup.
Shea went to the window and looked out. His bedroll was laid out a few feet beneath the window, but she didn’t see him. She moved away, not wanting him to see her but not wanting to lose the sky either. That, at least, was familiar.
Still, the loneliness she had felt earlier deepened.
She didn’t understand anything, not these raw new feelings, or the mysterious cravings inside, or even why she wasn’t more afraid.
Angry, yes, but not afraid, and that didn’t make any sense at all. She should be very afraid here in the middle of nowhere, alone with an outlaw who so obviously hated the man who probably fathered her.
She heard some rustling noises and wondered whether he was stretched out.
She walked to her sketching case and took out a pen and her pad.
She quickly sketched what she remembered of him, the stark lines of his face, the lines that gave it so much individuality.
She tried to find the essence of him in her mind, but it eluded her.
He had given very little away, except for the bitterness that hovered just beneath the surface. She finally gave up.
After deciding against changing into a nightdress—it would make her so vulnerable—she blew out the candle and lay restlessly in the cot.
There were two blankets on the end, and she pulled them up over her, finding comfort in them.
She could curl up and hide, as she sometimes had done as a child when something at night had frightened her.
But she couldn’t sleep. Not in this strange place, with her enigmatic captor outside. Not in the midst of mountains she didn’t know or understand. Not in this small cabin where she had no freedom.
She wondered what it had been like for him, those years in prison. She couldn’t even think about it, comprehend it. She thought she would go crazy those few hours this afternoon.
That thought didn’t comfort her. Perhaps he had … lost his reason. Perhaps that was why he blamed everything on Jack Randall.
She wished the mouse would appear again. She needed something friendly. She needed …
And Shea realized she didn’t know what she needed.
Rafe smoldered inside. The problem was, he didn’t really know if he still smoldered entirely from anger.
It had been easy to hate in prison. Christ, it had been easy. He’d had to hate to get through it, to obey guards who considered him less than dirt.
He turned to stare up at the sky. He did that nearly every night. Even when it rained, he often stayed outside, feeling the cool, clean moisture until the rain got too heavy, and then he’d rig canvas above him. The cabin, when closed up, was too much like a jail cell.
That’s why he’d left the window open.
He mistrusted that tiny bit of compassion in himself.
And he didn’t understand it.