Dewayne shook his head.“There’s a big mystery about you, Miss Randall.In fact, there’s any number of mysteries around here.”
Rafe said you’re not a very good liar.When was it that she realized everything Rafe had said had been said to protect her?He hadn’t needed to let her go, especially not to see a man he despised.He’d known, though, how important it was to her.
And now she needed to be a good liar for him.No matter how many times he’d said he didn’t care if Randall knew who was after him, she wasn’t going to be the one to place a noose around Rafe’s neck or clang a door shut on him again.She wasn’t going to repeat the story she was coached to tell.She had simply become lost, that’s all.Just lost.
She looked up at Sheriff Dewayne.
“Randall never told anyone he had a daughter,” Dewayne said.
“I don’t think he knew,” she said softly.“I didn’t know myself until a few months ago when my mother died, and I found some letters from him to her.She … always told me my father was dead.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Shea said.“That’s what I came to find out.”
“Where have you been?The clerk at the stage office in Casey Springs said you left there weeks ago.”
“I … got lost,” she said.
“That long?”he said with disbelief.
“I found an abandoned cabin.There was some food,” she said.
His eyes narrowed.“I was told you left with someone who claimed to be a Circle R hand.”
“He changed his mind,” she said.“I left by myself.I’m not a very good rider, and my horse threw me, and I got lost.And then I found a cabin by a stream.There was some food.Maybe a miner … left it.”
Shea saw the doubt in his eyes and knew other questions were coming, questions she wasn’t quite sure she could handle.Rafe was right.She was a bad liar.She felt the flush on her cheeks, the strained quality of her voice even when she was trying so hard.
But she was saved from any more questions by a sound from Jack Randall.She leaned down, trying to hear what he was saying, if anything.
That sound came again, along with a slight movement, but his eyes didn’t open.Shea dampened the cloth in her hand and ran it gently down his face.
The doctor had gone.He had other patients who needed him, he’d told Kate, and he could do nothing for Jack Randall but what they were doing: wait.Wait and see whether he woke.
Shea had such mixed feelings toward him, so many doubts.Yet love had been building in her since she’d learned of his existence.She felt disloyal to Rafe for having them.She felt disloyal to Jack Randall, the man who might have given her life, for doubting him.
She wished she could feel numb, not hopeful that this man would live, not wishful that Rafe would stay.The two were incompatible.
“Sara.”Her mother’s name was a groan on Jack Randall’s lips.
Immediately, the sheriff stepped closer and knelt next to the bed.“Jack.Jack.”
Randall’s eyelashes flickered, revealing confused, clouded blue eyes.Shea’s mother’s eyes were gray, and her own blue-gray.
Jack Randall’s eyes tried to focus.They wandered about the room and then hesitated at Shea’s face.“Sara?”
The wavering tone penetrated Shea’s very fragile calm.She shook her head.“I’m Shea.Sara’s daughter.”
He focused on her with an intensity that frightened her.“Shea?My daughter?”
Hearing the word “daughter” was nearly her undoing.
“I’m here,” she said softly.
“I was … so afraid for you.The clerk at the station said …” His hand reached out, clutching her arm.“Did anyone … hurt you?”
Shea shook her head, hearing, seeing, love in his eyes.Her heart beat faster, harder, against its cage.“I just got lost,” Shea told him.“I was frightened.”
