Several times she rose and went to the window silently on stocking feet and looked out at him.Even in sleep, he was disturbing.She thought about trying to climb out the window, but she’d have to step down just about where his hand lay.He’d said he was a light sleeper.She didn’t think he’d bed.
When she woke up the next time, no light at all streamed through the window, no breeze.She looked up and saw that the window had been closed.She tried opening it and knew she’d been locked in once again.
She told herself not to panic.He’d come back yesterday; he would return this morning.But the closeness of the cabin was stupefying.She found the matches and lit a candle.There were some logs and kindling in the fireplace, and simply for something to do, she started a fire, taking comfort in both its warmth and bright flames.
Shea wouldn’t give Rafferty Tyler the pleasure of thinking her afraid.
To keep busy, she heated water in a pot for washing, wondering whether the iron container could be used as a weapon.But it was too big, too heavy, too bulky, for her to swing with any accuracy, and she suspected he was quick.
She hunted for the mouse again but couldn’t find it.Loneliness crowded back, and she tried to banish it.She’d always been content with her own company before, with her sketching and her books.But then she’d always felt safe before, had always known there was a mother and friends if she’d felt the need for companionship.Now there was no one.No one but herself.Even the mouse had deserted her.She felt tears gathering in back of her eyes, but she refused to allow them to fall.That would be weakness, surrender.
Why had she been such a fool to accompany Ben Smith?
But regrets didn’t help.Shea mentally made a list of things to do.Wash first and brush her hair.Eat.There were crackers.Maybe they would satisfy the gnawing in her stomach.Then a book.Or perhaps she would try to sketch Tyler again.Or even that mouse.Perhaps she could bring it back in that manner at least.
She hated the desperation in that last thought.
She wondered how long the window had been closed.What time was it?Glimmers of light filtered through the cracks in the cabin, but was it morning?Noon?She swallowed, that overpowering hopelessness closing in again.
She wondered whetherhehad felt the same way.She wished she didn’t think of him so much, but then she supposed it was natural.She was totally dependent on him at the moment.But there was something else … something she hated and didn’t understand: a coiling need inside, an inexplicable fascination with something dangerous and unpredictable in a life that, up until two months ago, had been totally predictable.
She had taken the pot from the fire, washed her face, and was brushing her hair when she heard the key in the padlock on the door, a short knock, a pause.
At least her captor proved to be somewhat of a gentleman.She’d thought he would just come in.
There was another knock, and then the door opened, and sunlight suddenly flooded the dark cabin, nearly blinding her and shadowing him.
Her hand stopped in midmotion, frozen for a moment before she let it slide down.She was sitting on the cot, her hair tumbling to her waist.
She felt terribly vulnerable, terribly defenseless.
Her eyes grew accustomed to the light, and while he didn’t shrink in size, he didn’t seem quite as threatening, especially when she saw two large trout hanging from a string in his hand.Her mouth watered.She didn’t want it to, but it did.She wanted to ignore the fish, but her eyes were riveted on them.It had been two days since she’d had a satisfying meal.
“I saw the smoke,” he said as if needing an excuse for entering.His stance seemed every bit as stiff as she felt graceless, dressed in wrinkled, dusty clothes.He looked as striking as ever, like a desperado with bristles covering his jaw.His sun-streaked hair was mussed as if fingers had combed it, and his shirt was open at the neck despite the cool mountain temperature.
But then the temperature in the cabin seemed to rise suddenly as bolts of awareness ran between them.She watched his jaw set and knew he felt it too.The silence was awkward, pregnant with unexpected but compelling attraction, made even stronger by the fact that she knew how forbidden, how foolish, how impossible, it was.
He hated her.He hated her father.He was holding her against her will.He was the opposite of everything she held dear, everything she valued.Honesty.Honor.Loyalty.
She hated him for making her feel unwanted things, for stirring a part of her that no one ever had before.Her hand made one more sweep with the brush down her hair as she forced her gaze away from him, the action dismissing him with a contempt she didn’t believe words could.
But he only looked amused at that bravado, apparently seeing it for the fraud it was.“Interesting, Miss Randall,” he said.“I thought for a moment you might have inherited some honesty from someone other than your father.I see you didn’t.”
She glared at him.“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you, Shea Randall?”His eyes were cold.Calculating.Deliberately baiting her.Distancing.She suddenly realized that he didn’t like that odd attraction any more than she had.He was trying to provoke her again, to turn the sparks of awareness between man and woman into anger between captor and captive.
It was working.
“No,” she said curtly.
He approached her.She noticed his right hand, the one holding the trout, was gloved again.He saw the direction of her gaze, and a grim, bitter expression appeared on his face.
“You’re a liar,” he said.“Are you denying you feel something other than the fear that you should feel?”The hoarseness seemed to be disappearing from his voice, replaced by a kind of low, taunting assurance.
Shea was struck speechless that he had put into words something she had been trying to deny.She didn’t know how to defend herself.Shehadwordlessly denied those moments of awareness.She refused to think of it as attraction, as sensual.She chose to attack instead.“That’s the second time you’ve accused me of lying.Judging me by your standards?”
His eyes seemed to bore into her.“Let’s just say I’ve had a lot of experience with Randalls who lie.”
