“Why did you leave the Circle R?”His question was soft.
Shea hesitated.“Because … I knew … you were right.He did what you said he did.”Her voice dropped to an anguished whisper.“How can someone do that to another person?”
Rafe didn’t ask how she knew.He didn’t care now.He only cared about the hurt that had driven her away from comfort and safety, that had made her risk these mountains.
He dropped to the forest floor, unable to stand any longer but not willing to go on and make her face what she obviously didn’t want to face.
She stood above him, and his hand guided her down.She moved stiffly, like a stick figure.“Shea, he risked everything to free me because he figured I was the only one who could find you.He risked being shot, being accused of being one of us, and allowing the truth about the past to be revealed.He risked my killing him, and by God I considered it.He bartered with me.He would tell the truth if I helped him.”
“Is that why …?”
“Hell, no,” Rafe said.“What’s between him and me has nothing to do with you.I never wanted it to have anything to do with you.I never wanted you hurt by it, not from the moment I saw you.I came because I had to come.”
Her eyes were fringed with tears now, and he didn’t know why or for whom.He felt so damn helpless.He felt foolish defending the man he’d hated so long.
Foolish and angry.And tired.So very, very tired.
She appeared to see some of that, and the strain on her face was replaced by that damned determination that so aggravated and attracted him.
“Can you get up, or should I go and get …?”
The very idea of being in debt any more than he already was to Jack Randall gave Rafe strength.He used a tree to help get himself to his feet and then reluctantly put an arm around her.
It was going to be a damned long walk.
And it was.He felt he would fall at any minute.He hated his weakness, hated not being able to think, to reason.
Finally, they were there.Randall was outside, waiting, his face anxious as he saw them coming, particularly when he darted a look at Shea’s face.He hurried over and offered his good arm, but Rafe shrugged it aside, straightened, and made it the few steps into the cabin before collapsing on the cot.
Shea watched Rafe sleep.Abner had curled up in the crook of his arm, obviously content to have his friend back.Her father had taken the horses down to the stream to water them.He had anxiously tried to help, fetching a bucket of water to wash Rafe’s wound, watching as Shea had sewed it again.The skin had broken loose from the doctor’s stitches.
But Rafe’s soothing comments to her had obviously not affected his feelings toward the man who had fathered her.Raw hostility radiated from his eyes, and Jack Randall had used the horses as an excuse to disappear.
He had not returned.
Shea was relieved.She had to sort out her own ambivalent emotions toward Jack Randall.In those several days of nursing her father, she had reveled in the warmth of his obvious delight in her, and now, as Rafe had observed, he had risked everything for her.But Rafe’s unforgiving attitude made it clear that she would have to choose between the man who fathered her and the man she loved.
Rafe moved restlessly on the cot, and Shea instinctively reached out a hand to soothe him.Perhaps her father had risked much to find her, but Rafe had risked just as much in trusting him in this one desperate thing.She knew how much that must have cost him: accepting Jack Randall’s help.
Because of her.
She moved from the chair and sat on the floor next to him, resting her head on his hand, wanting that closeness, that small intimacy, for as long as she could have it.
Shea closed her eyes, comforted by the nearness of him.She didn’t want to think about anything else.He was here.Safe.And that was all that mattered.
Jack Randall finished rubbing down the horses, grateful for the respite from Rate’s dislike and Shea’s awkwardness.It had been a very long time since he’d had any sleep now, and his head still ached, but not as it had.His shoulder also ached, but he was almost grateful for the distraction.
There were a couple of sacks of oats, and he fed the horses.Then he walked slowly back to the cabin.The door was half-open, and he peered inside.His daughter was asleep, her head on Rafe Tyler’s hand.Tyler himself was asleep, his body naked to the waist, a … mouse curled up on his shoulder.
He watched for several more moments, wondering at the love inherent in Shea’s gesture.Because of what he had done ten years ago, it could be a very tragic love.But he would fight for it, as he hadn’t fought for his own so long ago.
Quietly, very quietly, he backed away and gently closed the door.
Sam McClary finally found the opening in what looked like sheer cliffs.He had followed the blood trail to stone walls and then started feeling his way around them.It was late afternoon.The sun was beginning its descent toward the western peaks.
After an hour he saw another red splotch and then the crack in the wall.He followed the winding path and saw the opening into a pine forest.He smiled.The perfect hideaway.
He wondered if anyone other than the two wounded men was in the valley.He led his horse downward to where the trees and thickets provided cover.He took the rifle from the saddle and checked his pistol.Staking his horse in good cover, he snaked through the woods until he saw a clearing and the rooftop of a cabin.He circled the area silently and finally found what he was looking for: a stack of flapjacklike rocks with an excellent overview of the cabin.He would wait until the occupants came out and catch them in the open.
