Chapter 26 #2
He finally moved a few inches away, and she looked up at him, at those vivid sea-green eyes that were now alive with emotions he’d never allowed to show before. He put a finger to his mouth and guided her away, up in the rocks where they had watched the bears before.
Shea didn’t know how he knew, for she had heard nothing, but in several minutes a doe approached the pool and looked cautiously around, and then a fawn followed it out into the open, and with a grace Shea had never seen before, the two bent their lovely heads and drank from the clear blue water.
Her hand tightened around his. The deer he had promised mornings ago.
She breathed deeply at the utter enchantment below: the mist from the waterfall, the peaceful pool, the deer, the streaks of light above now casting a golden glow over the scene as if blessing it.
She wished she had her drawing pad, and the most wonderful paints, but even then she knew she could never re-create the complete tranquillity of the moment.
Nor the joy of sharing it with the quiet, complex man beside her.
A man capable of the exquisite gentleness required to gain the trust of animals, and yet who could harbor the most violent of emotions.
She was beginning to understand, though.
For a time she had hated her father for what he had done; there was a residue of that anger left, though it was tempered now with his own pain and regret.
They watched as the sky lightened and the deer retreated into the woods, blending almost immediately into their surroundings as if they had never been there.
She turned and looked up at Rafe, and she knew her heart was in her eyes. “No matter what you think,” she said haltingly, “I’ll never be whole without you.”
A muscle in his cheek worked. “You don’t understand,” he said.
“I do,” she said, willing him to believe.
“I know that you think leaving is best for me. It’s not.
I’m not a child, Rafe. I never … have felt this way before, and I won’t ever feel this way again about someone else.
You can go, but you will still carry part of me with you, and the part that remains won’t be worth much. ”
“I’ll be going back to prison,” he said, having finally made a decision during the past few hours. He had thought it would be the hardest he’d ever made, but leaving Shea was even more difficult.
“You said you would never go back.”
“Your father has taught me you can’t run from what you’ve done,” he said slowly. “I’ve been trying to come to terms with that tonight.”
“You had reason,” she said fiercely.
“Not for involving Clint and the others. Or for the deaths of those miners. That never would have happened if I hadn’t come here.”
“You had nothing to do with that.”
“Didn’t I? Hate begets hate, Shea. Violence begets violence. I should have taken my freedom and enjoyed it.”
“Then I wouldn’t have met you.”
“No. You would have settled down as Randall’s daughter, been courted, and married.” He hesitated. “Have a family.”
“I don’t think so,” she said softly. “I’ve been waiting all my life for you, I think. No one else would have done.”
He smiled wryly. “You must like lost causes.”
“You’re not a lost cause,” she said indignantly.
“Ah, Shea. I’ve been alone all my life. I don’t know how to live with anyone … even if I had a chance.”
“There’s never been … anyone?”
He hesitated. “Once. I was … to be married. She returned the ring … by messenger … after I was charged.”
Shea felt indignation and jealousy rush through her. “She didn’t believe you?”
“She never even asked,” he said with a shrug.
“Then you were well rid of her,” she said, but the dry tone in his voice didn’t quite hide the wound behind it. No wonder he didn’t trust anyone.
He smiled slowly but without warmth. “I finally reached that same conclusion, but …”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. It had hurt. And she hated that unnamed woman who had made him so suspicious now. “And you think I might do the same?”
“I don’t know,” he said with stark honestly. “I stopped expecting anything a long time ago.”
“Is that why you’re giving up now?”
He glowered at her.
“Fight, Rafe,” she demanded. “Don’t give up. They can’t send you to prison, not after my father.…”
“They can do any damn thing they want, and I don’t want to trade my life for your father’s.”
“I thought that was exactly what you did want,” she retorted, suddenly angry beyond caution.
The anger seeped from his eyes. “Christ, what have we done to you?”
Her hand went up to his face. “You’ve given me a great deal, Rafe Taylor, and so … has my father in these past few days. He has to do … certain things now, and I need your help. I need you.”
He turned away from her. He’d never been able to help anyone who needed him. Never. He thought of that six-year-old boy, held by a Comanche, as his mother was raped, then killed. He had felt so damned helpless, as if there had to be something … anything …
And then the army, and it had happened again. He had been transferred, and the unit he’d trained had fallen under the command of an arrogant glory hunter, and he’d watched it decimated. He managed to save Clint and Ben, but so many others had died. And then those men guarding the payroll …
If only he’d acted sooner …
Now Shea Randall needed him, and he was so damned scared he would fail again.
“Rafe?…”
He turned. She was standing there in a green dress, slender and strong. Stronger, he thought instantly, than either he or Randall. She was willing to take chances. She always had been, from the first moment she came here, from the moment she’d left Boston to find an unknown father.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go with us, but let my father do what he needs to do.”
“I could still go to prison.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“I have damned few prospects.”
She moved toward him and leaned into his body. “You have friends. Very good friends. You have me.” She searched desperately for some hope to hold out to him, some prospect. “We can find a little piece of land someplace and … you’re so good with horses, we could raise them. You and Clint and Ben.”
The idea was more than a little appealing to Rafe.
He knew he was good with horses, always had been.
They could round up some wild stock, break and sell them.
Perhaps find a little valley someplace. The image was so good, it scared him.
It had been so long since he’d permitted himself to dream, to hope.
… He put his arms around her and pulled her close. “I don’t know how long …”
She looked up at him. “I love you. I’ve never loved anyone before, and I know I’ll never love anyone as I love you. It’s worth the wait.”
He leaned down and kissed her. Slowly, yearningly, heartbreakingly.
A good-bye. Yet a promise too. For the first time a promise, and Shea felt a quiet, bittersweet satisfaction.
He’d had so many failed promises, so many hopes broken.
What if she was guiding him toward yet another one?
Yet she couldn’t believe justice would fail him again.
Not if she had to go see the governor herself.
She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t.
Her throat was choked with fear, her heart constricted with love.
What if he did go back to prison? Could he stand it again?
She meant what she’d said. She would wait.
But could he be caged again and remain the man he was, the man she knew had just barely survived the past ten years?
Shea was almost ready to throw her words to the wind, to ask him to run away with her, to risk being hunted, but she didn’t have the chance. His jaw set and rigid, Rafe took her hand and guided her back to the cabin with firm, determined steps.
Jack Randall had wrapped McClary’s body in a blanket and placed him next to the gelding he had found not far away in the woods. He’d known McClary must have brought a horse with him, and he’d searched for it after finding Shea had left the cabin. He’d surmised she was with Tyler.
Disregarding the pain in his shoulder, he’d shunned the sling he’d been wearing and had awkwardly finished saddling his own horse when Tyler and Shea emerged from the woods, but he hadn’t been able to lift McClary.
His daughter was clutching Tyler’s hand as if it were a lifeline. Tyler’s own face was weary and drawn.
“I’m going with you,” Rafe Tyler said, turning toward Shea. “Perhaps you’d better get that valise.” He hesitated. “I want you to take Abner.”
Jack watched his gaze follow Shea to the cabin. Tyler was as obviously in love with Shea as she was with him. He swallowed, afraid for them both. He no longer cared about himself.
He swallowed hard, then asked, “Abner?”
Rafe’s gaze turned cold as it moved from the cabin to Jack. “A mouse. A companion from prison.”
Jack averted his eyes, unable to meet the direct, challenging glare.
He remembered the small creature several hours ago when Tyler was sleeping.
A mouse. And his daughter had reacted so naturally to Tyler’s request that she retrieve her valise and …
Abner. He felt so damned much the outsider.
He wondered whether he would ever have a chance to learn more about his daughter.
To cover his sudden awkwardness, he lowered his gaze to Rafe’s bandaged arm. “Can you help me … get McClary on the horse?”
Tyler nodded, and together they managed to hoist the body onto the saddle and tie him there.
Jack moved away. “Is there anything else I … can help with?”
“No,” Rafe said curtly, and disappeared inside the stable after his own horse. Minutes later he led out his horse and stood waiting for Shea.