Despite the lingering wariness in her eyes, her voice was almost steady when she spoke.“Are you going to let me run?”
“No,” he said bluntly.“But I don’t want you to even think about it.You’ll leave when I want you to leave and not before.”
“I think I prefer a good honest bear.”
“That’s because you’ve never met one.”
“But I have metyou,” Shea retorted bitterly.
“And anything would be better?”His smile mocked her, but her gaze remained steady as she silently agreed with the implied answer.
“I wouldn’t put it to the test if I were you,” he said in that agreeable voice that she was beginning to hate.“I don’t tear most of my … captives to pieces.”
“What do you do with them?”
“Tame them,” he said with the slightest quirk of his mouth, but again she saw no sense of humor there.Only menace.
“I don’t tame.”
His voice hardened, and there was a dangerous edge to it.“Anyone can be tamed, Miss Randall.”
Shea knew she was on dangerous ground, but she had to pursue what had been started.“Including you?”
“We’re not talking about me.We will never talk about me.Now you … that’s a different matter.”
Shea hated the insinuation in his voice, the reminder that he was in control, the rough mockery that meant to provoke and sting.
And it did.But she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing that if it killed her.She lifted her chin.“Do you always starve them too?”
“Sometimes,” he said.“It goes along with my bad character.After all, what can you expect of a convicted thief and branded outlaw?”
Despite his light tone, she sensed anguish, a raw pain that drained some of her anger.Did he realize he had revealed something he most likely wished to keep private?That piece of knowledge could be a weapon against him, but she would probably never use it.
She shook her head to dismiss that moment of weakness.She had to use whatever she could to escape.
He was watching her, apparently waiting for an answer to his question.
“Nothing,” she finally retorted.“I expect nothing.”
“Good, then you won’t be disappointed,” he drawled.“But Iwillfeed you.You look as if you need a good meal.I don’t care for skinny women.”His taunt made it clear hewasaware that he had revealed his pain to her.And he was punishingherfor that.
“Then I’ll starve,” she shot back.
He shrugged.“Your choice.”
He went down to the stream and filled the bucket, averting his face from her.She wanted to run more than anything, but as before she knew he would catch her easily enough.He knew it, too, and his casual attitude toward her infuriated her.His confidence was galling.More than galling.
Humiliating.
He straightened, and she wished he weren’t so striking.His clothes molded to the muscles of his body, and there was a suppressed energy about him that electrified the air.Electrified her, for heaven’s sake.
Shea swallowed.She couldn’t believe she was thinking such a thing.More handsome men had called on her, but she’d always felt little when she was with them, and relief when they left.She’d worried about herself, the way she had remained so cool to them, even when she’d tried hard to feel something.
Whatever Rafferty Tyler was, he did not leave her cold.
He turned, and his startlingly blue-green eyes met hers.She wondered how they would look alight with laughter, rather than shuttered by that flatness that stopped anyone from looking inside.
“You’re still here?”
