“Yes,” she whispered.
“What about Randall?”
“Can’t there be some mistake?Perhaps that McClary …” She heard the plea in her own voice, a plea that he agree with her.
“Has Randall said anything about the attack?”
She shook her head.
“He won’t,” Clint said bitterly.“He’ll blame it on Rafe.”
“He doesn’t remember.…”
“Are you sure of that, Miss Randall?Are you really sure?”
Shea wasn’t sure of anything anymore, not even that the world was round or the sky blue or the sun always rose.“No,” she finally answered.
“Rafe can take care of himself,” he said, his voice softening.
“And you?”
He stopped saddling the horse.“What do you mean?”
“Kate.”
Friendliness left his voice.“What about Kate?”
“She’s in love with you.”
“She can’t be.”
Shea just looked at him.
“In any event it’s none of your business,” he said curtly.“Now if you’ll excuse me.I’ll see if she’s ready to go home.”He led the horse out of the stall, and then took a small mare that must belong to Kate out of another.He stopped, turned back.“Thank you for … what you said to Russ Dewayne.”
“I don’t think he believed me.”
Clint gave her a wry smile.“I don’t think so, either, but there’s no way he can disprove it.”He started to say something more, but then clamped his lips together and led the two horses out the door, leaving her in the barn.She sat on a bale of hay, feeling very alone and lost, and then she remembered the sketches she’d brought with her.She took them from inside her belt.
The drawing of Abner was there, another of the cub.One of Rafe with the horse.He had torn away the sketch of the fall and pool, of the mountains drawn from the stump in front of the cabin.And she realized he hadn’t meant to leave immediately; he had ripped away every geographical landmark she’d captured on paper.
But he’d left alone the sketches of him.And it made her sick inside.I don’t give a damn what you say about me.He’d already given up on a future.Or maybe, just maybe, he didn’t want her to forget, no matter what he said.
And she hadn’t given up.She knew she would never give up.Somehow she would make things right.She didn’t know how, but she had to.
She heard horses ride off and knew that Clint and Kate had gone.She balled the drawings up, took the lantern down, and went outside the barn.Carefully, very carefully, she burned all evidence of Rafe Tyler.
She didn’t need them.She had memorized him in her mind, in her heart.She recalled every expression, every hard line of his face, especially the way it had gentled last night before Clint arrived with his news.That was the picture she held now in her heart.
From a distance lights were visible at the Dewayne ranch.A number of horses were tied to the hitching rail.
The evening was cold, but Kate felt a chill of another kind.She had stood outside on the porch, waiting for Clint and Shea Randall to appear.It seemed a very long time before Clint came out of the barn alone, his expression daunting and visibly warning her to be silent.
Kate had never been jealous before.She had never fallen in love before.Until she met Clint Edwards two years ago at a dance.
He was a fine-looking man, with light gray eyes and a cleft in his chin that eased the starkness of a face darkened by the sun.He said little, and though he regarded her with interest, he offered none of the compliments her suitors did.
It took a year and many socials they both attended before she’d summoned the nerve to ask teasingly for a dance, since he obviously wasn’t going to ask her.He had given her a slow smile that made her heart do strange jumping things, and then he’d admitted that he didn’t know how to dance.
