Chapter 13 #2
The cub whimpered, then resumed gnawing on its own leg. Rafe would have to kill the cub, and the mother bear too. He couldn’t leave the small creature to suffer, and he knew the she-bear would never let him go.
But just as his right hand reached for his Colt, the mother moved to the cub.
Her large tongue ran over her young, and then, surprisingly, she moved back, as if she had suddenly made a decision.
Rafe took his hand away from the gun and leaned down, his fingers gently petting the cub to show the mother he meant no harm. There was a low growl but no more.
Ignoring the pain in his arm, Rafe reached down, anchoring the trap with his booted foot and taking the steel jaws in his right hand.
He pulled with all the strength he could muster, and the trap opened.
The cub dragged free its mangled leg and crawled away several feet, whimpering softly all the while.
The mother bear loped over to her cub, her tongue running over the leg, trying to heal it.
Rafe watched them for a short while; then he took off his now-bloody shirt and ripped a piece of cloth from it, which he tied tightly around the gaping wound.
He swayed for a moment, wondering what to do. He just couldn’t think.
The cub cried out as it tried to walk, and Rafe knew the animal couldn’t make it on its own. The leg hung at a crooked angle; it needed to be set and splinted if it was to be saved.
But would the mother let him take the cub? And if she did, could he get back to the cabin?
He moved slowly to where the cub sat, still whimpering.
The mother watched carefully, but the hostility was gone.
“You know I won’t hurt him now, don’t you?
” Rafe said, speaking with the soft voice that had tamed Abner and gentled the bay.
He reached out with his right hand and took the cub in his hand, half expecting the black bear to lunge again. It didn’t.
He started walking, the she-bear following him at a distance. The cub huddled in his arms, its small, miserable cries spurring him on. A mile … maybe more.
Think of Shea Randall, of those anxious eyes.
He forced himself to keep going. One step at a time.
His arm was all fiery pain now, and his head still ached from the earlier blow.
And he was so very tired. He reached the clearing and fumbled in his pocket for the key to the padlock on the cabin door.
His left hand was so clumsy, nearly numb, but he finally fitted the key in the lock.
As the door opened, he started to fall. His left hand grabbed the edge of the door, and he managed to lower the cub to the floor, but then his body started to crumple.
He felt a hand grab his arm. Such a fragile hand.
Yet there was surprising strength, he thought as he made it to the cot before everything went black for the second time that day.
The feel of cool water against his skin brought Rafe back to consciousness.
The feather-light touch of fingers tempted him to return into an unwelcoming world of pain.
He felt so heavy, weighed down by total exhaustion.
His head pounded, and his arm felt on fire.
He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t obey.
“Rafe.” The voice was soft and gentle and coaxing. He couldn’t remember when anyone had said his name like that before, and it curled around inside him, warming and soothing, a balm to wounds much deeper than those on the surface of his body.
He opened his eyes to see hers. They were so near, the blue-gray color full of concern and worry. But not for him. Never for him. That wasn’t possible, could never be possible. He closed his eyes. His mouth was dry, and he tried to swallow.
“Rafe,” she said again. “You have to help me.” There was command in her voice now, unexpectedly strong. He opened his eyes again, trying to understand.
“You can … go now,” he whispered harshly, refusing to believe she would choose to stay.
“I can’t … stop you.” He didn’t want her to stay.
He couldn’t permit her to stay, because then …
it would be her choice, and he couldn’t deal with that.
As his prisoner, she had been forbidden; he had been able to maintain some distance from her, although at times he’d failed miserably. But as …
“Hush,” she said softly, her voice seeping through the denial in his mind. “This is my fault.”
“The cub …?”
“He’s in here. I need your help. I don’t know what to do. The mother is outside. She’s going back and forth.”
Rafe tried to sit. The movement made his head pound even more, and he felt a new surge of pain in his arm. He swallowed a groan but knew his lips had twisted into a grimace. He managed to lean against the wall, his gaze finding the cub cradled by blankets and clothes in a corner.
His gaze then went to his arm. The bandage he’d wrapped around it had been replaced by a piece of white linen now red with blood. His chest, he remembered, had been streaked with blood from both himself and the cub, but Shea had apparently washed it off.
Her eyes followed his. “I … sewed that cut up,” she said hesitantly, “while you were still unconscious.”
His face questioned her.
“My sewing kit.” She hesitated, apparently not knowing whether additional explanation was needed. “I’m very good at sewing. My … my mother had a hat shop. I helped her.”
Rafe tried to assimilate the information. Randall’s daughter. Hat shop. Sewing kit. He remembered it then, remembered finding it when he was searching her belongings and deciding to let her keep it. A small needle was no weapon.
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Long enough for me to do that,” she said.
“Why … didn’t you leave?”
She tipped her head slightly and suddenly smiled. It was a breathtaking smile, full of a mischief he hadn’t expected in her. “The mother bear wouldn’t let me.”
“You could have let me bleed to death,” he said bluntly. He didn’t understand why she had doctored him, nor why she hadn’t left when she had the chance. She still could. He couldn’t stop a kitten from leaving now.
The mischief left her face. “Do you really think I could do that?”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “Anyone with a grain of sense would have.”
“Anyone with a grain of sense wouldn’t have followed a stranger into the mountains,” she answered mildly. “Now what do we do about that little fellow?”
“What you did with my arm,” he said. “Sew up that wound. And a splint. I’ll need a splint for its leg. Maybe we can save it.” The “we” slipped out, and he regretted it immediately. Still, it sounded … right.
She nodded. “Can you hold him while I sew?”
He didn’t know if he could hold the small bear, but he would try. He’d gone through too much for the damned animal to let it die. “Yes.”
She left his side and went over to the bear, picking it up with such care that Rafe envied it for a moment.
He moved his wounded arm to take the cub and bit back an oath as the throbbing pain flared again into red-hot sparks of agony.
Something must have crossed his face, because she asked, “Are you sure …?”
In reply he reached out and took the cub, gritting his teeth against the pain. “Just do it.”
She reached down beside him, and he saw the sewing box. He watched as she threaded a needle. “We need to muzzle him first,” he said. “Despite his age, he has sharp teeth, and he isn’t going to understand.”
Distress crossed her face, and then she nodded and leaned down, tearing a strip from her petticoat. It looked exactly like the one on his arm. He took it and expertly tied the cub’s muzzle closed, then ran a hand down its back, comforting as much as he could.
Shea washed the leg with water that he supposed was bloody from her doctoring of him.
Then her face screwed up with concentration, she leaned over her little patient and started to sew as Rafe held the leg tightly with his right hand.
Her movements were surprisingly deft, even with the animal flinching.
When she had finished the last stitch and tied it, he glanced up and saw her anxious expression, her teeth biting her lip, her eyes glazed with tears for the little bear’s pain.
Her cheek had a smudge of blood where her hand had brushed away a strand of hair, and it was livid against her skin, which was pale from strain.
Her gaze rose to meet his, and he found himself smiling slightly at her, a wave of satisfaction, of intimacy, passing between them at what they’d accomplished with the cub.
A lump formed in his throat, and he couldn’t breathe for a moment.
She was blood-splattered and sweaty, tendrils of damp hair escaping the braid and falling by the side of her face, yet he thought her the most lovely thing he’d ever seen.
A pleasure he’d never known before snaked around inside him, soothing all the raw, aching places. Since the court-martial, he’d felt as if someone had taken him, ripped him up in pieces, and now those pieces were finally coming together again.
The bear squirmed, and its muffled wail suddenly broke the spell that had mesmerized both Rafe and Shea. Rafe came back to reality, to who and what he was, and who and what she was.
“I need a splint,” he said, forcing a coolness he didn’t feel into his voice.
She jerked back. “What kind of splint?”
“A piece of wood. Small but sturdy.”
She looked around the cabin. She’d used all the wood in the fireplace last night. “I’ll have to look outside.”
He gave her the cub. “I’ll go.” He tried to rise.
The loss of blood, the blow to his head, the nearly overwhelming weariness, were like a ton of iron on his back, but he couldn’t let her leave the cabin with the outraged animal outside.
The she-bear knew him and apparently trusted him to a certain extent.
Using all his will, he stood and staggered to the door.
The bear was prowling back and forth under the trees.
It eyed him malevolently but made no move toward him as he went to the woodpile and found a branch he could use.
He barely made it back to the cabin and fell on the cot, closing his eyes as he willed himself not to lose consciousness again.
In a moment some of the dizziness faded.
Christ, he needed a drink of whiskey, a good night’s rest.
He took the knife from his belt, and fashioned a small splint while Shea crooned to the cub as he had done. He signaled her to bring the animal back, and he tied the splint to its leg. He knew the cub would try to bite it off, especially when the itching of healing began.
When he was through, he leaned back against the wall, and Shea placed the small animal in the makeshift bed she’d made for it. Rafe closed his eyes, immense weariness flooding him.
Something cool touched his shoulder, and he forced his eyes open. He noticed her hand then, the hand that had sewed his wound and the bear’s. It had tiny blisters all over it, several now broken and oozing.
“Why?” he said hoarsely as Shea lowered his head to the cot. “Why in hell do you have to be Randall’s daughter?”