Chapter 14 #2
“Until you’re better, there’s nothing you can do about what you don’t want.”
His gaze met hers. Rebellious. Angry. And then surrendering as he closed his eyes. It was, she knew, as much an attempt to close her out as to obey.
Rafe tried to block her out as he closed his eyes. He didn’t understand why she persisted. Why she hadn’t left. Why she was so determined to take care of him. Why she didn’t understand he didn’t want her help.
You didn’t do it, did you? He hated the way he’d felt when she asked that question.
But she hadn’t really asked. It had been a statement, presented sadly, as if she already knew the answer.
He’d felt a quick flare of warmth. Christ, no one had believed him except the small group helping him against Randall.
Men he’d considered friends had deserted him, afraid he would taint their own careers.
And the woman he’d planned to marry … she had been the first to desert him.
He couldn’t even remember what she looked like now.
In his mind’s eye he saw just Shea Randall.
And felt her hands. They had been so gentle when they’d touched him.
No one had touched him like that before.
Allison had touched him with passion, but never with tenderness, never with a soft, caring look in her eyes.
Shea Randall was the last person in the world he would expect to show understanding. He kept telling himself it was a lie, nothing but a lie. A trick.
Or that unlucky star again. He’d felt rage when he had seen her above him, so much bitterness toward whatever fates controlled him.
He hadn’t wanted that flash of wonderment over her presence, over the concern for him that made her eyes hazy.
And he had lashed out at her, daring her to betray him, to prove him right about her.
He kept trying to convince himself that she would do exactly that, even as he fell asleep. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, in any event. He had to get his strength back. And then … and then he could reason again. Without those damned eyes looking at him, he could think again.
Shea kept the door to the cabin ajar, to catch the light, to listen for any rider and warn that person about the she-bear.
It was almost dark when she finally heard a frightened neigh and realized an incoming horse had smelled the bear.
She looked down at Rafe. He was still sleeping, as restlessly as before but at least he was getting some rest. She was worried about fever; his skin had gone from warm to clammy and then warm again.
The rider was Ben. She ran out to him, keeping her distance from the large bear that was only too visible as it kept a careful eye on the cabin.
“What the hell?” he said as he tried to calm his skittish horse.
“You’d better take him inside the stable,” she said.
“Where’s Rafe?” His voice was suspicious, his eyes wary.
“Inside the cabin. Ill. I think he needs a doctor.”
“If you …” The warning died as he realized she would have been long gone if she’d been responsible for whatever had happened. Still, his eyes remained watchful as he searched her face. “Why are you still here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said impatiently as the bear rose on its back paws, growling loudly. “Just take the horse inside,” she said.
Ben dismounted, led the horse over to the stable, and stopped. “It’s locked.”
“The key must be on Rafe.” She noted the stunned look on Ben’s face, and if she hadn’t been so concerned about Rafe, the bear, and the cub, she would have been amused at the odd expression. “I’ll get it.”
He hesitated, but he had no choice. His horse was nearly uncontrollable, and he couldn’t tie it to a tree, not with the bear nearby. He nodded.
Shea went into the cabin and knelt next to Rafe. The key had to be in the pocket of his trousers, where he usually kept it.
He had moved again, and his leg had fallen off the side. His breath was not quite so labored, but his skin was still clammy. Thank God, there was some help now.
She searched the pocket that was reachable.
Nothing. Her fingers skimmed over his chest, silently urging him to move without waking him.
She found her hands lingering against the smooth hardness of his body.
He groaned slightly and moved enough that she could reach his other pocket. She quickly searched and felt a key.
Just as she was extracting it, his eyes opened. His hand reached out, clasping her wrist with unexpected strength.
“What are you doing?”
The suspicion in his voice angered her even though the touch of his hand was like lightning running through her. “I thought you wanted me gone.”
His hand didn’t let go.
Shea tried to pull away, but he continued to hold her. “Your friend is here. And if he doesn’t stable that horse, that bear’s going to drive it wild,” she said.
“Clint’s here?”
“Ben.”
He released her. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he didn’t seem sorry at all. But he’d given her as close to an apology as she was apt to receive.
She started to rise, but his question stopped her. “The bear’s still out there?”
“She’s not going anyplace. Not while her baby’s here.”
He lifted up on his good arm. “How is it?”
“In the same shape as you.”
“That bad?” There was the slightest bit of humor in his voice, but his face was as harsh as ever. She wondered whether he’d ever laughed or joked or, for that matter, even smiled.
Shea looked down at her wrist, still red from his grasp, and his gaze followed hers.
His hand touched it, fingers moving softly along the bright red ring, and then they moved to her hand, turning it over.
Her palm looked so raw, a mass of broken blisters.
She had almost forgotten the burn in her concern for his much greater hurt.
“You need some doctoring yourself,” he said roughly.
She shrugged as he had done so many times. “It didn’t help when I—” She stopped suddenly.
“Bashed me?” he asked wryly. There was humor in him. She hadn’t imagined it. It was in his eyes, those gloriously bright sea-green eyes with all their mysteries and secrets and anger.
“I don’t think I regret that. You deserved it. I do regret sending you out after that cub.”
“Lady, you didn’t send me. I went willingly. Damn fool thing to do, almost as damn fool as your hanging around and sewing me up.”
Lady. It was an improvement over “Miss Randall,” said with such disdain.
But despite his light tone—light for him—his mouth was grim, lines of strain deepening the crevices of a face already deeply sculpted by hardship.
She knew he was struggling for control, control of himself, of her, of a situation he’d almost surrendered to earlier.
Struggling with the sheer force of his will rather than physical strength.
Whatever weakness, whatever despair, he’d expressed earlier was gone now, overpowered by a relentless determination that awed, even frightened, her.
His hand still held hers, not by might, but by another force that was just as strong.
Their gazes met, held, mesmerized one another, will battling will even as recognition of something more stretched between them, binding them as no rope or chain could.
Shea had never believed in love at first sight. She had believed that love had to grow, had to be nurtured carefully as any young thing. Her mother had told her that, and Shea had believed her. Her mother had loved, enough to mourn all her life. At least that was what Shea had once believed.
Nevertheless, she’d never been able to bring herself to accept one of the few men who offered for her. There had never been the slightest spark, the slightest ember, of a smoldering great love ready to be fanned.
Now there were sparks. Dear God, there were sparks.
Sparks and fireworks. Explosions. Tornado and cyclone, both spawned of powerful, conflicting winds.
More than that, there was an intimacy that kept creeping between them, a knowledge of each other that revealed itself in unexpected ways.
He had known she would love the waterfall, would enjoy the playful bears.
She had known he would go after the cub.
He had suffered himself—it had been in his eyes—when he’d seen her burned hand.
She had felt the pain of his ripped skin where the bear had clawed him.
No matter how little either wanted these feelings, they were there.
Destiny? She had always thought people wrote their own destiny.
Now she felt buffeted by furious winds over which she had no control.
There was a wild, terrified neighing outside, and Shea suddenly came back to the moment, to Ben waiting outside.
How long had it been? Not more than a few moments, but in some ways it seemed a lifetime.
She shook off the forceful emotions caused by Rafe’s touch.
A touch she didn’t want to relinquish but must. A tremor racked her body as she pulled away, the key still clutched in her hand.
Rafe sank back on the cot, as if he, too, had been battered by a storm too strong to resist. But that piercing gaze of his didn’t leave her, and it took every bit of will she had to rip away from it.
She nearly ran from the cabin. Ben was having even more difficulty controlling the horse as the bear growled, moving restlessly under the trees. His gun was out, and Shea screamed, “No,” and ran toward him.
His hand wavered, then dropped as he waited for her to open the stable door, but the key fell from her injured hand.
Ben stared at her hand for a moment, then leaned down, picked up the key and quickly unlocked the door.
Shea held it open with her good hand as he took the horse inside, calming it with his voice.
When the horse finally stood silently, he turned to her.
“It took you long enough. I was about ready to shoot that damn bear and come after you. Will you tell me what in the hell is going on?”
“Rafe … rescued the bear’s cub.… It’s inside the cabin.” She tried not to see the surprise in his eyes at her use of Rafe. The name now came easy to her. Too easy.
He began unsaddling the horse. “You said he was ill.”
“The bear clawed him when he was taking its cub from a trap.”
Ben didn’t seem surprised. “And you. Why are you still here?”
She knew the mother-bear excuse wouldn’t work on him. He had seen she wasn’t afraid. She shrugged. “I didn’t know … what direction …”
He nearly smiled. “I heard that didn’t stop you before.”
“I learn quickly.”
He finished rubbing the horse down and picked up his saddlebags. “Clint told me you’d burned your hand. I brought some salve and a few other medical supplies. Appears it’s a damn good thing.”
“He’s in a lot of pain.”
“That bother you?”
The quizzical expression on his face rattled her. “A hurt polecat bothers me.”
This time he grinned. “Then you two have something in common. I’ve never seen a man so concerned with critters. Even that little mouse. You know he carried him a thousand miles.…”
Shea suddenly felt defensive. “We have nothing in common. He’s an outlaw, a—”
“Be careful, Miss Randall,” he said, his voice very quiet all at once, “or we might talk about your own shortcomings or those of your … father.”
“I wish you would,” she defended herself. “You insinuate, you make charges, you blame, all the while kidnapping, stealing, robbing—”
He stopped her with a penetrating gaze. “Randall doesn’t know anything about you. If you are his daughter. He was completely surprised when someone told him a woman claiming to be his daughter appeared at the stage office.”
Shea went stiff. She’d realized from the letters, from the absence of any mention of her, that he probably hadn’t known. Yet the reality still stung. The mystery deepened. “I have to see him.”
“Not until this is over.”
“What is this?” she said with frustration.
“Rafe will tell you when he’s ready,” Ben said, giving her the saddlebags, then going to a corner to get a bottle of whiskey.
He moved to the door, opening it and grandly waiting for her to go first.
She did so and then watched as he closed the door and locked it, pocketing the key. A part of her had considered escape now that Rafe Tyler had help. But as she looked into Ben’s face, she knew she had forfeited what little chance she’d had. She was a prisoner again, this time with two keepers.
She heard the lonely, anguished growl of the bear still prowling under the trees. It didn’t understand what was happening.
Neither did she. She didn’t understand anything that was happening, particularly inside her mind and heart. Dear God, she didn’t understand.