His eyes closed, but her words went on, and he soaked them up like a sponge.They were better than laudanum.
“We used to go to concerts in the park, and we would read.I went to the Young Ladies’ Academy and learned all the social graces, although you wouldn’t know it now,” she said, a bit of humor in her voice.And a sweet guilelessness he remembered from Sara.
“All my dresses are somewhere in the mountains.”She paused, and there was a long silence.He opened his eyes and looked at her and saw wistfulness, even a deep, heartfelt grief she tried to hide.
“We’ll buy new ones,” he said.But the sadness didn’t leave her face, and again something pounded in his head, something he should remember.Rafe.The name had been said softly, not hard and accusing, as it had echoed in his mind for years.But it couldn’t be.He was mixing up dreams and nightmares.She had only been lost.
Her words stopped.She’d hesitated again, and then those wonderful eyes looked down at him, this time with a question.“Do you remember anything yet?”she asked.“About who shot you?”There was an intensity in her voice that startled him.
He tried to remember because it sounded so important to her.But there was only the memory of riding, of thinking.…
And then it started coming back.Brief, quick, painful flashes.McClary drawing a gun.McClary firing.Holy Mother in heaven.He’d told McClary he was going to confess all.
He looked up into his daughter’s face.The daughter he’d just met, the daughter who looked at him with a wonder of her own.And he knew he couldn’t explain his past and see the contempt on her face.
Jack closed his eyes.He had to have time first.Time to make her love him.Time to spoil her.Time to know her.
McClary was probably gone for good, especially since he must have thought he’d killed the man he’d blackmailed for so long.And Tyler?Perhaps Tyler would decide the shooting had been vengeance enough.He would realize he would be the prime suspect.
“F-Father?”The word was so uncertain on her lips.So tentative.He had to have time before she realized what kind of man he’d been.
He kept his eyes closed, pretending sleep to keep anything from showing on his face, to keep from answering any more questions.But he kept her words in his mind, like photographs he could take out at will and study.Then Rafe Tyler’s face replaced them, his eyes piercing him with hate as they had ten years ago on the parade ground.And he knew Tyler would never let him go.
Her hand touched him so gently.He heard her soft sigh, and then the movement of the chair, her steps across the room, the opening and closing of a door.He opened his eyes, and the room was empty.
Jack Randall tried to move again, tried to sit up.He managed, but only after waves of pain assaulted him.He could see himself in the mirror, and he looked away, hating what he saw there, hating the notion that now kept flitting around in his mind.
He had only one way of holding on to his daughter.And that was to destroy Rafe Tyler one last time.
He only needed to tell Russ Dewayne it was Tyler who shot him.
Jack Randall clamped his teeth together, trying to swallow the leadlike lump in his throat.Rafe Tyler or his daughter.Guilt against his need to know and love his daughter.He already knew which course he would take.Even if it hastened his descent into the hell he’d tried to avoid these past few years by doing some good.
But God knew him, had offered another choice, and Jack Randall knew he would fail again.The Devil had always had the upper hand with him, offering comfort rather than poverty, freedom rather than punishment.Someday he would pay the price, but he’d never been able to resist the Devil’s choice.
As he knew he wouldn’t now.
He only wished he could remember what it was that kept nagging at him.Words he should remember.His daughter’s whispered words.
Chapter 21
Kate made a stew from a chicken Clint had killed.There had been precious little food in the ranch house.
But she’d found onions, potatoes, and salt.She would bring over supplies tomorrow as well as some clothes for Shea Randall.The poor girl apparently lost everything in the mountains.It was a miracle she’d survived.
Kate’s father had asked her to try to find out anything she could about Shea Randall and the weeks she’d been missing.It was unfathomable to him that a woman could survive that long alone, but Kate had always had a streak of self-sufficiency, and Shea struck her as the same.There were certainly numerous deserted cabins along the creek and enough wild raspberries for a person to survive a long time.
She had only admiration for the grit it had taken an Easterner to come this far and then to keep going.She had liked Shea Randall on sight, had liked her determination and her obvious concern for a father she hadn’t known.Her own father, Kate thought, was just being suspicious.
She turned around from the pot as Shea Randall entered the room.She looked pale and tired, her eyes haunted, and sympathy surged through Kate.
“How is he?”
“He woke for a few moments and then went back to sleep.”
“Did he remember anything about the shooting?”
Shea shook her head.
