But he was.He couldn’t deny the way he had responded to her.
He could have controlled it, had it been only physical, but when he was kissing her, other feelings had almost swallowed him.He’d wanted to calm her fears, wanted to run his fingers along her face.He had needed gentleness.He had needed to give it, and receive it.He hadn’t known how much he hungered for that rare commodity until that moment.
He’d meant what he said about feeling a certain responsibility to keep her safe.He’d been here nearly three months, and he respected these mountains; he knew they were treacherous.
Six minutes now?Seven?
Cursing under his breath, he headed toward the woods.
Shea hesitated.She’d finished what needed to be done.Now she had a decision to make.
Go back or hide in the woods.The decision should have been easy.Pure terror of captivity—or was it of her reactions to a man she should hate—dictated that she try to escape.
She had given her word, though.But then hadn’t he violated his when he’d kissed her?A kiss she’d liked too much.He’d said he wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t harm her.And he had … in the most humiliating way, in provoking a response.
She didn’t have any time to consider such things.She had to make a decision now, if she were to have any hope at all.Hope of what?Getting lost in these mountains?
Shea remembered what he’d said about traps.About animals.Snakes.A lie?She had no weapons, no food, and she was already hungry.She thought of the trout cooking over the fire.
But then she thought of him, of the magnetism that attracted her in ways that were so confusing, so destructive to her.Could anything be more dangerous to her than Rafferty Tyler?
She looked back in the direction she had come from.She could see the cabin through the aspens and pines.Should she wait for another chance?A better one if she could somehow get the horse?
Shea still felt the heat radiating from him, the way she had melted for those few moments in his arms, the tenderness he’d showed the mouse with the absurd name of Abner.
He was using her.He was using her to get to the only family she had left.And he was doing it in the most insidious way.
She darted into the underbrush, just as a squirrel started chattering, and she heard the sound of something moving.The wind?A pursuer?Had it been five minutes?
Shea knew it would be a mistake to run.He would hear her and rapidly overtake her.Or she could step out quite innocently.
She did neither.She saw a log and lay next to it, trying to make herself as small as possible.Berry bushes and brambles provided some cover.If he went on, perhaps then she could circle him, go back to the clearing and get the horse.Perhaps he hadn’t locked the stable.
Apprehension ate at her.She tried to stay still as she listened for every little sound.But now the forest was quiet.Very quiet.
She waited for what seemed hours and then lifted her head slightly and carefully gazed from tree to tree.Nothing.He was gone.
Shea rose as silently as possible.The squirrel was chattering again.A bird flew from a tree to the ground, apparently in search of something edible.Everything seemed so peaceful.She looked at the mountain peaks and wondered whether they were as unforgiving as he’d said.
She wasn’t a fool.She knew she could get easily lost in this land of gulches and canyons and mountain ledges.She knew there were wild animals.But that kiss, the violent, tender kiss, and the way she responded to it, seemed the greater danger at the moment.
Shea waited a few more minutes.No noise other than that expected of a forest.The distinctive sound of woodpeckers, the sweeter one of humming birds.Ordinarily, she would have been enchanted, but now …
She started moving, trying to slip quietly through the clump of trees and brambles.Rocks scattered under her feet, each sound louder than the last, and she thought she heard the pounding of her heart.Could he hear it too?
Which way?Right or left?She stopped, trying to orient herself.Everything looked alike—the trees, the jutting red rocks.
Think, she told herself.Don’t panic.But she felt like panicking.
She couldn’t be far from the cabin.She could venture a certain number of steps in each direction, watching for an opening in the pines.
And where washe?She froze again, listening for something that would give a clue as to his whereabouts.There was nothing, and she felt infinitely alone.
She selected a direction and started moving again.She didn’t recognize the outcropping of rocks, the slender aspens and pines.She retreated, wishing she had a knife to mark them, but then she would be marking them for Rafferty Tyler too.She turned in the opposite direction, and remembering her captor’s warning about snakes and traps, kept her eyes to the ground.
She retreated to her starting point, then turned in another direction.She wondered whether she was hopelessly lost.Part of her wanted Tyler to find her.She fought down rising fear, and then she saw the cabin through the trees, and she moved cautiously toward it.
Rafe had seen her soon enough, just a couple of minutes after he’d gone after her.He smothered his sense of relief, buried that glimmer of apprehension for her.
