Two men followed him.They holstered their guns, but their eyes didn’t leave him.Neither did the sheriff’s, although he continued to speak to the miner in a low voice that Rafe couldn’t hear.
Two men rode in with his horse in tow, then the three men the sheriff had sent out earlier to trail the missing man.“There’s tracks, Russ, but whoever made them got plumb away.”
“No loyalty among thieves,” one said with a grin as he glanced at Rafe.
Rafe kept his gaze cool, but he was dying inside, piece by piece.He wouldn’t see her again.Shea.Pretty Shea.Randall’s daughter.
Randall was winning again.
The sheriff walked over to Rafe.“I’m sorry to do this with those wounds,” he said, “but I can’t take any chances.Hold out your wrists.”
Dewayne was standing in front of him, the irons in his hand.
Rafe felt a muscle in his cheek twitch, and he concentrated on controlling it.He wouldn’t show the bastards how familiar he was with irons.How much he flinched at the thought of them.Not again, dammit.Not again, something inside him screamed.
“Tyler.”It was Dewayne again, his voice insistent.“Your wrists.”
Slowly, Rafe lifted them.He felt the iron close over the left wrist and then start to enclose the right, but the glove got in the way.Dewayne pulled it down, stared, and Rafe heard the hiss of indrawn breath.
Dewayne’s hands hesitated and then snapped the lock shut on the right cuff.“God in heaven, I’ve never seen one of these before,” he said, pulling the glove back up over the brand as if he’d revealed someone’s nakedness.
Rafe shrugged.He’d known this was coming; still, he could barely contain the rage and frustration he felt.They would watch him like a hawk now, and with eyes that proclaimed him guilty.
But he wouldn’t let them know how much it hurt, how very much it hurt.He had tried to help the miner.Christ, hehadhelped.And now he most likely would hang for it because of the brand he carried.The brand burned on him because of Jack Randall.
His only satisfaction was that Clint and Ben and the others were safe, uninvolved.Somehow, he had to keep them that way.He might hang, but he would hang alone.
Rafe looked up at the sky, at the sun peaking over the mountains.He thought of the past few months.The beginning of his being able to feel again.To hope once more.Fool!
Shea.The image of her face flashed through his mind.It had been there, hovering in his consciousness ever since she’d left.He wondered where she was now.
One of the men brought his bay over to him and waited for him to mount.He clenched his teeth together as he stretched his arm for the saddlehorn and cascades of pain roared through him.Another man took the reins of his horse and started leading it across the creek and down toward Casey Springs.
Chapter 23
Shea dismounted gingerly.She was trembling as much as the horse, which was frothing at the mouth and sweating all over.Shea had barely clung on during its wild dash over the ridges and gulches near the ranch, and now her body stung from a dozen scratches by scrub bush, and her thighs and posterior were sore.
Holding on to the reins, she sank onto the pine-carpeted ground.Her legs simply wouldn’t hold her up any longer.
She didn’t have the faintest idea where she was.
She held out her hand, trying to steady it, but it shook.
Her mind was still muddled with that terror she’d felt.How far had the horse run?He’d headed toward the mountains, toward the area Rafe had been hiding.
Rafe.She wanted him now.She wanted him to hold her, wanted to feel that protectiveness that had enveloped her the rare times he’d lowered that barricade between them.She wanted to feel his arms around her, his mouth against her cheek.
She heard the heavy breathing of the horse.Its head was lowered as if it were thoroughly exhausted.She needed to find the animal some water.She looked around.She had no idea which direction to take.In front were the sharply rising mountains.The Circle R Ranch was someplace in back of her.The Circle R and her father.His frantic yell echoed in her mind.
But all she wanted now was to see Rafe, to beg him to leave now and take her with him, to forget his quest for vengeance that would destroy him as well as her father.Rafe was up there someplace.Up in those mountains, in a blind valley she had no way of finding.She knew Clint wouldn’t take her, but perhaps Ben would.She had figured out that Ben was in some way involved with the miners.That meant he might be living somewhere along Rushton Creek.
She stood slowly, her legs still weak.She looked back from where she’d come.She looked toward the beckoning mountain.She knew its dangers now.Bears.Cougars.Snakes.She knew how easy it would be to get lost.
Behind her was safety.Her father.
Ahead was danger.And Rafe.Perhaps her last hope of seeing him again.Perhaps her last chance of keeping him from destroying himself and, as a consequence, destroying her.
She knew how slim her chances were of finding him.How foolhardy the search was.Until she’d come West, she’d never taken risks.And this was the biggest risk anyone could take.
