She glanced around the cabin, looking for the mouse.The piece of dried beef was gone.The bucket of water was inside, and a tin cup.
Shea went to the window and looked out.His bedroll was laid out a few feet beneath the window, but she didn’t see him.She moved away, not wanting him to see her but not wanting to lose the sky either.That, at least, was familiar.
Still, the loneliness she had felt earlier deepened.
She didn’t understand anything, not these raw new feelings, or the mysterious cravings inside, or even why she wasn’t more afraid.
Angry, yes, but not afraid, and that didn’t make any sense at all.She should be very afraid here in the middle of nowhere, alone with an outlaw who so obviously hated the man who probably fathered her.
She heard some rustling noises and wondered whether he was stretched out.She walked to her sketching case and took out a pen and her pad.She quickly sketched what she remembered of him, the stark lines of his face, the lines that gave it so much individuality.She tried to find the essence of him in her mind, but it eluded her.He had given very little away, except for the bitterness that hovered just beneath the surface.She finally gave up.
After deciding against changing into a nightdress—it would make her so vulnerable—she blew out the candle and lay restlessly in the cot.There were two blankets on the end, and she pulled them up over her, finding comfort in them.She could curl up and hide, as she sometimes had done as a child when something at night had frightened her.
But she couldn’t sleep.Not in this strange place, with her enigmatic captor outside.Not in the midst of mountains she didn’t know or understand.Not in this small cabin where she had no freedom.
She wondered what it had been like for him, those years in prison.She couldn’t even think about it, comprehend it.She thought she would go crazy those few hours this afternoon.
That thought didn’t comfort her.Perhaps he had … lost his reason.Perhaps that was why he blamed everything on Jack Randall.
She wished the mouse would appear again.She needed something friendly.She needed …
And Shea realized she didn’t know what she needed.
Rafe smoldered inside.The problem was, he didn’t really know if he still smoldered entirely from anger.
It had been easy to hate in prison.Christ, it had been easy.He’d had to hate to get through it, to obey guards who considered him less than dirt.
He turned to stare up at the sky.He did that nearly every night.Even when it rained, he often stayed outside, feeling the cool, clean moisture until the rain got too heavy, and then he’d rig canvas above him.The cabin, when closed up, was too much like a jail cell.
That’s why he’d left the window open.
He mistrusted that tiny bit of compassion in himself.
And he didn’t understand it.
He shouldn’t give as much as a flea’s damn for the daughter of Jack Randall.He should revel in the knowledge that she was experiencing just a little of what he had.But he only felt sick in the gut at the thought.
He tried to turn his thoughts to other matters.Ben had found out that another payroll would come through in six days on the next stage.Ben would get word to the others to gather here then.But there were still six days to spend alone with Miss Shea Randall, and then he would have no choice but to lock her in the cabin while they robbed the stage.
He’d have to keep his distance.He’d have to avoid those eyes that looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.At least most of the fear was gone.He didn’t like the thought of being fearful to women and children, even Randall’s daughter.
But then he thought of his hand and knew he would always be fearful to them.For a few hours he had almost forgotten.He’d almost forgotten the horror on Miss Shea Randall’s face when she had seen the brand.
And the hate flooded back.
“What are you doing here, damn you?”Jack Randall asked as he paced the room.He was tall and large but not fat, still handsome in his late forties with a smile that could lure rabbits from the safety of their holes right into his traps.That smile, wide and sincere, had always opened doors for him.And cash boxes.And safes.But he wore no smile now.
Sam McClary casually lifted his legs, setting mud-caked boots on an antique desk.“Tyler’s out, you know.I thought he might head here.And I wanted to protect my … investment.”
Randall knew exactly what kind of investment McClary meant.Blackmail.
Anger rushed through him, and fear.He’d known that someday Rafe Tyler would come after him.His eyes had promised as much ten years ago.He’d believed that promise then.He believed it today.
McClary gave a gloating smile.It was a particularly ugly expression.“You should have made sure he hanged.You were a damn fool to lose your nerve.”
“I didn’t lose my nerve,” Randall shot back.“I told you I wouldn’t let him hang.God, the branding was bad enough.I never thought they would do that.”
“That colonel just plain didn’t believe he wasn’t connected to the Rebs,” McClary said.“If he couldn’t hang him, he was damn sure determined to get his pound of flesh.”He smiled.He had enjoyed the ceremony that day, and he’d relished taking Tyler to prison even more.He’d even volunteered for that duty when no one else had.He’d never liked the bastard with his soft Texas drawl and the easy way he’d had with his men, the way he had reprimanded McClary when McClary had disciplined the troops.Always interfering.
