She left his side and went over to the bear, picking it up with such care that Rafe envied it for a moment.He moved his wounded arm to take the cub and bit back an oath as the throbbing pain flared again into red-hot sparks of agony.Something must have crossed his face, because she asked, “Are you sure …?”
In reply he reached out and took the cub, gritting his teeth against the pain.“Just do it.”
She reached down beside him, and he saw the sewing box.He watched as she threaded a needle.“We need to muzzle him first,” he said.“Despite his age, he has sharp teeth, and he isn’t going to understand.”
Distress crossed her face, and then she nodded and leaned down, tearing a strip from her petticoat.It looked exactly like the one on his arm.He took it and expertly tied the cub’s muzzle closed, then ran a hand down its back, comforting as much as he could.
Shea washed the leg with water that he supposed was bloody from her doctoring of him.Then her face screwed up with concentration, she leaned over her little patient and started to sew as Rafe held the leg tightly with his right hand.Her movements were surprisingly deft, even with the animal flinching.When she had finished the last stitch and tied it, he glanced up and saw her anxious expression, her teeth biting her lip, her eyes glazed with tears for the little bear’s pain.Her cheek had a smudge of blood where her hand had brushed away a strand of hair, and it was livid against her skin, which was pale from strain.
Her gaze rose to meet his, and he found himself smiling slightly at her, a wave of satisfaction, of intimacy, passing between them at what they’d accomplished with the cub.A lump formed in his throat, and he couldn’t breathe for a moment.She was blood-splattered and sweaty, tendrils of damp hair escaping the braid and falling by the side of her face, yet he thought her the most lovely thing he’d ever seen.
A pleasure he’d never known before snaked around inside him, soothing all the raw, aching places.Since the court-martial, he’d felt as if someone had taken him, ripped him up in pieces, and now those pieces were finally coming together again.
The bear squirmed, and its muffled wail suddenly broke the spell that had mesmerized both Rafe and Shea.Rafe came back to reality, to who and what he was, and who and what she was.
“I need a splint,” he said, forcing a coolness he didn’t feel into his voice.
She jerked back.“What kind of splint?”
“A piece of wood.Small but sturdy.”
She looked around the cabin.She’d used all the wood in the fireplace last night.“I’ll have to look outside.”
He gave her the cub.“I’ll go.”He tried to rise.The loss of blood, the blow to his head, the nearly overwhelming weariness, were like a ton of iron on his back, but he couldn’t let her leave the cabin with the outraged animal outside.The she-bear knew him and apparently trusted him to a certain extent.Using all his will, he stood and staggered to the door.
The bear was prowling back and forth under the trees.It eyed him malevolently but made no move toward him as he went to the woodpile and found a branch he could use.He barely made it back to the cabin and fell on the cot, closing his eyes as he willed himself not to lose consciousness again.In a moment some of the dizziness faded.Christ, he needed a drink of whiskey, a good night’s rest.
He took the knife from his belt, and fashioned a small splint while Shea crooned to the cub as he had done.He signaled her to bring the animal back, and he tied the splint to its leg.He knew the cub would try to bite it off, especially when the itching of healing began.
When he was through, he leaned back against the wall, and Shea placed the small animal in the makeshift bed she’d made for it.Rafe closed his eyes, immense weariness flooding him.
Something cool touched his shoulder, and he forced his eyes open.He noticed her hand then, the hand that had sewed his wound and the bear’s.It had tiny blisters all over it, several now broken and oozing.
“Why?”he said hoarsely as Shea lowered his head to the cot.“Why in hell do you have to be Randall’s daughter?”
Chapter 14
Shea sat next to Rafe as he slept.
She couldn’t take her eyes from him.Not from the new wound on his arm, nor the old scar on his shoulder, the one he must have incurred when he’d saved Clint and Ben during the war.Two wounds.Both because of his compassion and courage.
Her gaze went down to his hand, to theTbranded there.She could only guess at the cost of that brand to his pride.She didn’t even want to think of the ten years he’d spent in prison.
What if he had been innocent?
Shea Randall now thought that he probably was.She’d suspected it earlier but hadn’t wanted to admit it, for that would be condemning the man she believed to be her father.It had been his testimony that convicted Captain Tyler.
But no one who had done what Rafe had just done would have betrayed his uniform.He’d risked his life to save an animal, had shown patience and gentleness even after being mauled.A greedy man, a dishonest man, would have stopped at much less.
The only explanation that vindicated her father was that Captain Tyler had been a soldier for the other side, but she couldn’t accept that either.He was too straightforward, too bluntly honest, to have been a spy, too admired by men ready to sacrifice everything for him.
Captain Tyler was the best officer I ever saw throughout the war.Do you really think a man who would risk his life, who would disobey orders to save two enlisted men, would do what they said he did?
Clint Edwards’s words.Words from a man who backed his belief with a loyalty that could cost years of his own life.
Abner had climbed up on the bed and on Rafe’s leg.Shea leaned over and swept him up before he could venture across her patient’s naked chest and perhaps wake him.
She ran her fingers down the mouse’s back.“You missed him, too, huh?”she whispered brokenly.
