“When I’m ready.”
“And when might that be?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
“I can damn well keep you as long as I want.”
She shot a cannonball of a glance at him.“I need some privacy.”
“We’ve been through that conversation.You proved you can’t be trusted.I go where you go.”
“You surely didn’t think I wouldn’t try to escape?”
He arched an eyebrow.“I really didn’t know.I’ve discovered I know damn little about women.”
There was the same deep bitterness that had been in his voice when he’d said he expected little of women.She hated herself for wondering why.For wanting again to reach out and touch him, to erase a little of that hopelessness she sensed in him, that oddly endearing hesitancy when he spoke as if debating every word, as if he weren’t quite as certain of himself and his ruthlessness as he wanted her to believe.
She wanted to believe that, anyway.She had to.That was her only chance to get away from him, to find Jack Randall, to warn him about the man who intended to destroy him.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she finally said.
“Which one?”
“My drawing.Are you going to steal it too?”
“I told you before, Miss Randall, I don’t give a damn about that.Just don’t draw my men.”
“You don’t care if you get caught?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
“Yes.”
“So I’m not the only one who suffers?”Dammit, he wasn’t going to start this again.He’d decided to stay away from her, but something kept drawing him back.He didn’t want to think it was loneliness.Or attraction.He didn’t know what in hell it was.Perhaps the challenge she posed.Perhaps because he couldn’t quite connect this feisty, independent woman with Jack Randall.
The thought of Randall cleared his head.He turned and started for the horse.
“Ah …” Her voice stopped him.
He turned.“Remember,” he said, “Mr.Tyler or sir.”Christ, he needed that distance when he looked into her blue-gray eyes.
He could almost see her count to ten as she deliberated whether to ask something of him.And then she turned around, her back to him, as she obviously decided against it.
Rafe disliked himself at that moment, disliked the humiliation she must feel over having to ask anything of him.He knew about systematic humiliation: how much it hurt, how it crushed the spirit if not the soul.
He moved over to her.“Rafe,” he said.“You might as well call me Rafe if the others are too hard to stomach.”He hesitated.“What did you want?”
She turned, and those solemn eyes examined him slowly, as if to see whether he was just tormenting her.His opinion of himself plummeted even further.“I … I would just like some exercise.A walk, or … something.”
The “something” interested him, but he knew that what the word brought to his mind was the last thing on hers.“All right,” he said mildly; although he felt anything but mild.He didn’t want to spend more time with her, and yet neither could he lock her back in the cabin.His conscience was warring with that deep burning need for redemption that had consumed him for so many years, and he wasn’t comfortable with the battle.Christ, he hadn’t even thought he had a conscience any longer.The realization that it was there, lurking around in a dark place, was not comforting.He did not want to deal with it now.
And he suspected her of ulterior motives.Most likely she would be very observant during the walk, hoping to find a way out of the valley and mountains.He didn’t want her to try it on her own again.Still, her request was small enough, reasonable enough.
“Stay with me,” he ordered.
She did.A little to the left, a little to his back so she didn’t have to walk with him, he noticed.Which suited him just fine.She still had the pad under her arm and was clutching it as if her life depended on it.
