He walked quickly, needing the exercise, too, the quiet of the woods.He didn’t need her, and all the turmoil she created in him.So he pretended she didn’t exist except for an occasional glance to make sure she stayed with him.
He followed no trail.He knew the valley by now; he had prowled it enough.There was a waterfall, protected by heavy growth, about a mile from the cabin, and that was his destination.He had discovered it by accident one day when he’d been especially restless and found it a fine place to drink from the pool and sun on a rock.He bathed there now and then; sometimes he just sat for hours, watching animals come and drink or frolic along the water’s edge.They had become used to him, tolerant of his nonthreatening presence.It was a rare kind of acceptance, one he valued and told no one about.
He didn’t even try to fathom why he was taking her there—except he knew instinctively that it would give her pleasure.After everything she’d been through in the past two days, he inexplicably wanted to give her that.
They finally came to the pool, surrounded by wild raspberry bushes and tall pines on one side, rich red rock on the other.He stepped back behind her, letting her take in the water as it tumbled from multicolored rocks high above.He felt the slightest satisfaction at her exclamation, and then she turned around, a real smile on her lips, and it was enchanting.She was suddenly beautiful.
He forced himself to lean against a tree, to keep his face expressionless, his eyes indifferent and cold.
“It’s lovely,” she said with pleasure, her eyes drinking in the spray from the waterfall, the deep blue pool that reflected flashes of late-afternoon sunlight filtering through the foliage.
After placing her sketchpad on dry ground, Shea stooped down and scooped up a handful of water, bringing it to her mouth and splashing a little on her face.A bird trilled a song, and another answered; there was a stirring in the woods to her left, and Shea looked up suddenly.
“We’ve disturbed their world,” Tyler explained as she looked toward him.“If you come here at dawn, you can see deer drinking from the pool.“I’ve seen a mountain lion, wolves, bears.They seem to have a truce here.”
“And you sit and watch?”
“Sometimes.”
The peaceful scene should have clashed with him, Shea thought, with that violence that hovered around him, with the chill that made those startling eyes forbidding, but it didn’t, and she didn’t understand why.He meshed into it as if he had been born to it, as if he himself was one of the wild creatures he’d just described.She thought of the way he had touched the mouse and had so patiently worked with the horse earlier today.There was an inherent gentleness in him for creatures other than human—none, it seemed, for her kind.
It was a contradiction that fascinated her.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said suddenly, surprising even herself.
“I thought you could wash up,” he said roughly, and turned away from her, walking into the woods.
But she could have done that in the stream not far from the cabin.
She knew he wasn’t going far away.What she didn’t know was whether he’d retreated out of respect for her privacy or because he didn’t want to be in her presence.In any case she decided to take advantage of his withdrawal.She took off her boots and her stockings and dangled her feet in the pool.The water was freezing but as clear as glass.Though drops of spray from the fall struck her with stinging regularity, she enjoyed the refreshing coldness of the water, which quickly dried in the hot sun.
She didn’t know how long she would be allowed to stay, so she rinsed her face, arms, and legs and found a rock where she could sit and dry in the sun.She quickly sketched the waterfall, wishing she had something more colorful than the dark charcoal stick.When she was finished, she used a corner to sketch Rafferty Tyler again.
Rafe, he had told her to call him.But she couldn’t.It was too … familiar.Still, as her hands moved across the pad, she saw differences from the man she’d drawn earlier, the one with cold, angry eyes and cynical set of his mouth.This Rafferty Tyler had a slightly softer cast, a more whimsical twist to his mouth.
She stared at the sketch for a moment, then tore it out and crushed it into a ball.Her first version was the truth.She wouldn’t be fooled into believing anything else.She closed her eyes, absorbing the soft rays of the sun, and waited for him to return.Exhausted from a restless night, she soon felt drowsy, and she allowed sleep to come.
She looked so vulnerable.And pretty.Very pretty.
Rafe had emerged from the woods, where he’d checked for traps.He hated the goddamn things.He’d found one and snapped it shut.The sound of the steel jaws being rendered useless gave him some badly needed satisfaction.
And then he returned, reluctantly.He’d just spent an hour or more telling himself his reaction to Shea Randall—the heat in his loins, the gentling of a nature that could not afford to gentle at this particular time—was nothing more than the result of ten years of abstinence.
Unfortunately, the sight of her sleeping, resting against his favorite rock, did nothing to decrease the need building in him.What in the hell was he doing, anyway?Why didn’t he just keep her locked in the cabin?
But he knew the reason.As far as he could tell, she was an innocent.A guiltless party.And he couldn’t do to her what had been done to him.
Goddammit.
He leaned against a tree and just watched her.Her hair was wet, and the tiniest patch of dirt contrasted with the rosy glow of sun-tinged cheeks.She was sleeping deeply as if she hadn’t had any rest in days.And she probably hadn’t.
He wanted to touch her.He wanted to run his finger along her cheek, and his mouth along the back of her neck.He wanted to see another smile, like the one he’d seen earlier when they’d arrived at the falls.
Randall’s daughter, for God’s sake!Unless there was some mistake, he thought with a faint glimmer of hope.Even she didn’t seem entirely sure, and apparently she’d never met the man she believed to be her father.
A pillar of the community was Jack Randall now.A pillar built on betrayal and theft, but she didn’t know that.
Even without those complications, he had no business thinking of her as a woman.He certainly had no future.He’d be a fugitive the rest of his life, a marked man easily identified by the brand on his hand; the others could blend into normal lives.He never could.
