All of that was said outside Shea’s hearing.
“McClary?”Rafe had asked.
“He was gone again the night the second miner was killed,” Clint said.“Unfortunately, he left when I was in Rushton, so I couldn’t follow him.”
“Randall has to be involved,” Rafe said.
Clint shrugged.“Could be.”He darted a look at the cabin.“How’s the girl?”
Rafe winced.The question should be, how was he with the girl around?Godawful.
“That bad?”Clint tried a smile, but it didn’t work.Ben had chortled about the all-too-obvious attraction between Rafe and Shea Randall, but Clint hurt for them.He hurt for himself.He knew only too well now how it felt to want someone he couldn’t have.
“I’ve been thinking about letting her go,” Rafe said quietly.
Clint just looked at him.
“I don’t think she would say anything.…”
“Think?Or know?”Clint asked, and Rafe knew it was Clint’s life he would be gambling with, Clint’s and Ben’s, not his.Clint was gently reminding him of that fact.
“Christ, I don’t know anything any longer,” Rafe said with defeat.
“We’re close, Rafe.”
“But what about those miners?”Rafe said.“I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“We don’t know Randall’s responsible.”
“The hell we don’t.”
Clint hesitated a moment.“He might have changed, Rafe.”
“Hell, he’s always been damn good at covering his tracks.”
Clint nodded.He’d never had any doubts about Rate’s story, not after he’d backtracked Randall’s past.Still, Jack Randall had been a fair boss.A good one.None of it made sense.”
After Clint had left, Rafe felt more alone than he’d had in his life, even in prison.
And now … An attractive, smart, warm woman was only a few feet away, and he could do nothing about the raw sexual hunger that ate at his insides, or the fierce, unexpected need for something soft in a life that had never known softness.Her touches in the cabin, when she’d tended his wound, had nearly been his undoing.And those tears.Those damnable tears the other night.The tears for him.
He had to stay away, and that kind of loneliness was so much sharper, so much more painful, than that which came from actually being physically alone.
How much longer could he endure it?
He had managed admirably the last few days, but then he’d been ill and weak.Now his strength—and desire—were returning at breakneck speed, and he wasn’t sure he could handle his growing need for her.
As if she knew exactly what he was thinking, Shea looked up at him.“You promised to take me back to the pool,” she said.She tilted her head askance, the gesture becoming endearingly familiar.
Rafe knew it was unwise being close to her.But she had asked for little in the past few days.
“The cub?”he asked, wanting an excuse to deny her request.
Her expression softened.“Sleeping off his dinner.”
“The irritated mother is still out there,” he commented.
“I think she trusts us.”
