“Are your … friends gone?Or do outlaws have friends?”
Good question, one that Rafe wasn’t willing to answer for her.“Let’s say we have a commonality of purpose.”
“My father,” she stated.
“Your father,” he confirmed.
“I still don’t understand …”
“You don’t have to, Miss Randall.It has nothing to do with you.”
“How can you say that when you’re keeping me here?”
He shrugged.“It’s unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate?”She glared at him, a blue fire burning in her eyes.“Unfortunate?”Her voice had risen slightly.
He lifted an eyebrow.“How about extremely unfortunate?”Self-defense had forced mockery back into his voice.The angry flush on her face deepened.
“You’re despicable.”
Rafe shrugged.“So I’ve been told.”His glance automatically went down to his gloved hand, and he wished it hadn’t.It showed a weakness he didn’t want to display.Not to her.
Her eyes followed his, and something flickered in them.He damned sure didn’t want it to be sympathy or pity.
He turned abruptly away from her.The shirt she had been wearing was hanging over the chair, and he knew from its damp look that she had washed it.He walked to the fireplace.Only ashes remained from the fire last night.He stacked some wood and kindling in the hearth and started a fire.
“I’m going to get some water,” he said finally.“Do you want to come with me?”
“Or you’ll lock the door again?”
“That’s right,” he said evenly.
Rafe watched her consider.He found himself fascinated again with the expressiveness of her face as she obviously fought a battle between continued resistance and the need to get out.He understood.Christ, he understood.
Her gaze warred with his a moment, letting him know she wasn’t surrendering but biding her time.No one, he thought, could say so much so eloquently without words.
He went to the door and opened it, standing back politely as she passed through it.Then he led the way to the stream.It was midafternoon, and the sun was bright and warm.Perhaps this evening he would take her to the waterfall.If he completely lost his senses.
He filled the bucket he brought and leaned against a tree, watching her.She’d always seemed graceful to him, but now she was especially enticing as the skirt swished against her legs, and the blouse hugged a figure the oversized man’s shirt had hidden.
Rafe found himself swallowing deeply.Once he had been an officer and ostensibly a gentleman.But the last ten years he had been little more than an animal, treated like one and thus reacting like one.He’d never been well-versed in the niceties of courtship, not even with Allison.He had never thought flowers important, or small gifts, and he had been awkward with such rituals when he realized Allison expected them.
Now he felt more awkward than ever, wanting something that he couldn’t have, that he should never even consider.But he did want this woman, and he tried to tell himself it was only because of deprivation.There was a gnawing in his belly, a burning in his loins, and a loneliness in his heart.But he had given in once, and he had no intention of making the same mistake twice, particularly with Randall’s daughter.
He’d experienced treachery from a Randall and a woman, and Shea Randall was both.
He looked up, and she was standing a few feet away.“Can I have some privacy?”
He knew how much that question cost her, how much it cost her each time she uttered it.Christ, he wished the hurt didn’t go so deep, didn’t bite so hard.
Rafe nodded.
She watched him carefully, and he knew she was waiting for something else.
He finally complied.“I don’t have to warn you this time, do I?”
She looked at him steadily.“Are you going to follow me?”
