He swallowed her gasp, touched her again, and let her shudders sink into his body.
Mary’s hands slipped from his hair to lie limp on his broad shoulders. She should stop him.
Her head fell back. His hand took the weight from her neck.
Rafe studied her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were closed, her breath as ragged as his own. Her lips were moist and parted, fully colored with passion.
And he thought she would look just like this lying beneath him. His body clenched with need until he ached.
She opened her eyes, and he saw they were dazed, and held a little fear. He could easily understand the fear. He had a dose of it himself.
Mary struggled free of his arms. She had to regain her balance, emotionally and physically. She practically—No, there had been nothing practical or sensible about the way she threw herself at him.
“Mary, I—”
“Please.” The word was an effort to speak. She shook her head when he repeated her name.
Rafe ran his hand through his hair. He scooped up his hat from the floor of the wagon. Hell, for all the attention he had paid, someone could have shot him and he’d just be getting around to noticing.
“I swear I didn’t stop here for this. I really wanted to talk to you. About my leaving.”
He’d confirmed what she already knew. She stared straight ahead at the deepening shadows that crept across the road.
“Mary, did you hear me?”
“When?”
He lifted his hand to touch her at that choked sound, but dropped it to his side. If he touched her again, now, he wouldn’t trust himself to stop until he had all her secrets and had made her part of him. Another glance at her told him the barriers were in place.
“If Beth is well enough to travel, the end of the week. I want to explain why I can’t wait any longer.”
“I told you, it’s not for me to—”
“I said I want you to know.”
She hitched her shawl around her shoulders and nodded.
“That man Balen is hunting me. Sarah showed me tracks out past the far pasture fence. I think Balen waited there the night we were outside. He had a clear field of vision to the back door. An easy shot with a rifle. Only someone stopped him.”
“A friend of yours?”
“I wish I could say for sure. But no. Not a friend. Someone who may have been paid to do the same job. I can’t keep risking your life, or Sarah’s and Catherine’s, with this kind of trouble hunting me. I need to get my daughter where she’ll be safe.”
He’s leaving. He is going to leave and take Beth away. Mary sat straight-backed and calm-faced, refusing to feel any emotion. She had no right. Beth was his child. Not hers. She could never be Mary’s.
And she would learn to live with the emptiness they would leave behind.
A week. He said that long. It was something to cling to.
“We should go up to the house. They’ll be wondering what happened to us.”
“I’m wondering the same thing, Mary.” But Rafe took up the reins and turned the team around.
She shot him a quick, startled glance. There was no denying the ring of honesty in his voice. But Mary had to protect herself. For the second time, Rafe McCade had shown her how vulnerable she was to him.
“There is nothing to wonder about. There is no ‘us.’” She wrapped her arms around her waist. The heat of passion had suddenly become encompassingly cold.
Rafe decided it was unfair to pursue her denial, but he could, and did, continue to explain his worry for all of them.
Mary listened. She had no choice. It had nothing to do with being a captive audience, but the sound of his voice called to her on some deep level.
She heard of how Rafe had won his share of the Cañón del Agua mine and of his decision to leave day-to-day operations to the other three partners when he was notified of his wife’s death.
“There was no time to go north and meet the men. I had to get Beth. Valerie’s family didn’t want my daughter. Not when they learned the generous allowance I gave my absent wife stopped with her death.”
“Poor Beth. Oh, Rafe, did she know her mother’s family didn’t want her?”
“She knew. I’d always paid Beth’s expenses after I made my first strike. But even then, Val refused me a chance to visit with Beth. She kept putting me off, begging for a little more time, for Beth to be older so she would understand why I didn’t live with them.
“I never knew Val hated me so much that she told Beth I never wanted her. But you heard most of this, Mary. And believe me, it doesn’t bear repeating.”
“Beth’s nightmares—”
“Val’s death triggered those. She didn’t spend much time with our child, but she was Beth’s mother. And me showing up didn’t help. That’s why I stayed in the East so long. My daughter didn’t know me. At least Val used my money to set up her own house. That’s where I stayed. And Beth has this feeling that she didn’t try hard enough to stop Val from going out in the boat the day she drowned. But we’re working on that.”
“I’m sure you will succeed once Beth feels secure in your love.”
Questions burned the tip of his tongue. How had Mary—without children of her own—become so wise? But he wasn’t about to bring the sadness back to her eyes.
“It was about two months later that I got a telegram saying there was trouble up at the mine. Ore shipments had stopped. I sent a man I trusted to find out what was going on. He ended up dry-gulched. A few days after he was found, the man I’d won the share from was shot in the back.”
Rafe brought the team to a stop in front of the barn doors. Light spilled from the kitchen window.
“Rafe, do you believe these men, the ones you named to Balen, are responsible for the attack, too?”
“Makes the most sense to me. It’s not hard to pay a renegade band in guns and whiskey to do your dirty work for you. No one benefits from my death but my daughter. If anything happened to Beth, only the lawyers get rich. But Val’s death happened too close to my winning the share of the mine. I haven’t had time to add a codicil to my will.”
“But they can’t know that.”
“My point, on the money. That night I went into town, a man named Shell Lundy claimed he was hiring men for fighting wages. That’s more than double what a cowhand earns in a month. Earlier talk in the Red Horse led me to believe it was the Cañón where the trouble was.”
Mary faced him. She placed her hand on his arm. “Do you think this man is working with Balen?”
There was no question that he could trust Mary with the little he did know. Telling her his suspicion about Shell could save her life, or the others.
“I want to say yes. Shell tried to goad me into a gunfight, then backed off. But those tracks Sarah and I followed showed the second man wore a large, fancy spur on his boot. I noticed Shell wearing spurs like that.”
Rafe tied off the reins and jumped down. He came around the wagon to Mary’s side to lift her down.
“Wait. I’ve listened and I’ve thought about this, Rafe. What I don’t understand is why these men didn’t offer to buy you out?”
“You think I didn’t ask myself the same thing? I’m a wealthy man, Mary. People get funny notions about those who have money. The only reason that makes sense to me is, they were afraid that I’d do the buying and they’d end up with nothing. How can I know what’s in their minds?”
“Couldn’t you notify them that you’d sell your share? Once that was done, they’d leave you alone.”
“It’s not that simple, Mary. They tried to kill Beth. No one is walking away from that. If I did, what’s to stop any business partner from hiring someone to kill me if they are too cowardly to do the deed themselves? They’d all think I was the coward. That’s a brand no man can live with. Either that, or they’d ruin me with threats against my child and run me off after paying a penny on a dollar owed.
“Money’s a god to some men. You said yourself t
hat your husband demanded an accounting of every penny. I admit I enjoy having it, not so much for what I buy, but for the freedom it’s brought to me. But when I weigh it against Beth, it’s an empty reward without anyone to share it with. And without you asking, I confess, I’d give it away to have the chance to see my daughter grow up.”
“They don’t know that, Rafe.”
“No one does. You’re the only one I’ve said that to.”
Despite the painful reference to her husband’s miserly ways, Mary felt a warm glow at the knowledge that he trusted her enough to share a confidence. She sorted through what he had said, some words with anger, others with pride. Rafe wasn’t a man to wear the mantle of a coward. In a strange way, she understood. He couldn’t go to the law with suspicions. He could do that only with proof. And the wheels of justice turned too slow in a land where men often made justice their own in an instant. Someday there would be civilized law to settle such matters. Until then, a man, and a woman, too, had to be ready to defend life and home against any who would take, regardless of right or wrong.
“Let’s get you inside before Sarah and Catherine fall out of the window. They’ve been twitching the curtain back and forth by turns.”
Mary reached for him as his hands clasped her waist to lift her down from the wagon’s seat. For a moment, she remained close to him, her hands on his broad shoulders, her body pressed against his.
The cold seeped from her body.
“It’s not easy for you,” she murmured, unwilling to let the moment go and yet knowing she had to.
“You’re a very special woman, Mary. Easy to talk to. Sorting through this helped me clarify things. Trust is one of the strongest bonds between two people. Once it’s been betrayed, no matter how things get patched, it’s never the same. But I’ve trusted you with things I’ve said to no one.
“Is that part of your special magic, Mary?” His hand stole between their bodies to tip her chin up. “Don’t judge all men by what your husband did. No,” he whispered, tightening his arm around her, “I’m going to say my piece and not let you go until I do.
“He must have loved you to distraction. Only another man could understand that. You’re a lovely woman. You have a good heart. There’s strength of purpose and kindness that earned my admiration. A man who loved such a woman would very selfishly and possessively want to keep all of her to himself. I know I would.”
She had closed her eyes, now, eyes opened, she saw his head angle lower.
You’re wrong! she wanted to scream.
She couldn’t stay within his arms. This close, with her heartbeat pounding, desire flaring to life. No! One devastating battering to her senses was all she could stand.
She tore herself free of his arms.
“You’re wrong, Rafe.” She clasped one hand to her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say it. But a small, hard-built dam had been cracked by his words.
“Very wrong. Love had nothing to do with it. Harry—” She stopped and backed away. She couldn’t tell him the real reason. She could not lay bare her soul—her secret shame.
She barely managed to raise her hand to ward off his forward move. “Don’t,” she demanded in a choked voice.
She wasn’t the woman he had spoken of in a voice warm with admiration. She felt as if he had thrust a knife in her belly and twisted it. It was the only way she could think of the pain.
Half a woman. Worthless. She heard Harry’s voice shouting in her mind.
But she would not run. Not from herself or from her past. She had learned that she couldn’t. But she could and did turn her back on Rafe.
She heard nothing of the vicious, self-directed swearing he muttered while caring for the horses.
What had he done? What had he said to make her vanish like a ghost? She had not disappeared in quite that way. Physically, she had walked into the house. But the woman he had kissed, the woman he had praised, had gone.
What had she said? He was wrong. Very wrong.
Love had nothing to do with it.
How could that be true? How could any man not love her?
Chapter Seventeen
Rafe carried Beth upstairs after supper. Had he been the only one to sense the undercurrent of tension between him and Mary?
If he had wanted to put aside his thoughts about her, it was impossible. Her scent surrounded him in her room, and she was right behind him.
Beth was half-asleep, and Rafe veered from the bed to sit in the rocker with his daughter on his lap. “Little sleepy puss,” he bent to whisper, pulling off her boots.
“I missed—” She stopped to yawn. “Missed you. And I missed Mary.”
“But you knew I was coming back to you.”
Her small arms stole around his neck. “I hoped and hoped.”
“I’ll always come back to you, love. Always.” Above her head, his gaze met Mary’s. She turned away and began placing the few items of ready-made clothing he had bought for Beth into the top bureau drawer.
Rafe watched Mary. Twice he caught her looking into the mirror at him.
Catherine had changed the bandage, and Mary now made short work of getting Beth undressed and into one of the new nightgowns. The hem trailed a good two inches too long.
“We’ll take care of this tomorrow. If you feel up to it, Beth, we can try on a few of your things. That way I can make whatever adjustments are needed.” Mary held Beth close before she gave her turn to Rafe.
“What’s my little girl’s pleasure tonight? A story?”
“Will you rock me, Papa? Then Mary can sing to us.”
“Mary’s tired, Beth.” It was all he could say, when he knew she wanted out of his presence. But he hoped she would stay.
“No. I’m fine. Really.” And Mary wasn’t sure why she agreed, when she wanted to flee.
She brought her shawl to Rafe and watched him wrap it around Beth and her Muffy. It seemed foolish for her to sit on the bed or stand to sing, so she settled herself on the floor, close enough to touch Beth’s hair.
Mary sang “Lorena,” a haunting love song that had made Confederate soldiers so homesick there were desertions after the song was heard. Someone had told her the name had become so popular that for years after the end of the war baby girls were christened with the name.
“Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” an old Stephen Foster song, became, with little effort, “Bethie,” and that brought a sleepy grin to the child’s face.
Long before Mary had finished the song, Beth was asleep. Rafe tucked her in bed, and kissed her.
Mary was waiting with a whispered good-night when he turned around.
He couldn’t argue with a woman who had backed into a shadowed corner. Rafe left, but instead of going across the hall to the spare room, he went downstairs.
He needed answers. Sarah was his choice to provide them.
“Beth asleep?” Catherine asked when he came into the kitchen.
“Mary’s with her.”
“Coffee, Rafe? Catherine and I were just going to sit down and figure out where to store—”
“I want to take a look around outside. Come with me, Sarah.”
“Sure.” Sarah shared a puzzled look with Catherine. Sarah shrugged, grabbed her rifle, then followed Rafe. He was halfway to the corral when she caught up with him.
“A nice night for a walk,” she remarked, wondering where the fire was. She had a long stride for a woman, or so she had been told, but she was hard put to keep pace with him.
“Rafe, do you ever look up at that vast black sky and wonder how far away the stars are? Or where they come from?”
“A time or two. Sarah,” he said, stopping abruptly to face her, “will you tell me about Mary? About her marriage?”
Sarah shivered, despite her wool shirt. “Why are you asking me?” There was more than curiosity in her question. Sarah had to protect Mary.
“I want to know. Need to.”
“That’s not good enough, Rafe. You’re asking for what I can’t giv
e you. I’d break my word. But I can’t deny that I’d like to know why it should matter to you.”
Rafe started off again, and Sarah walked by his side, around the corral, where their presence made the horses restlessly pace with them. Sarah thought he wouldn’t answer her. But he did, and his voice was soft with anguish.
“It matters to me. It’s important. And don’t ask me why. It just is.” He probed the shadows behind the barn, with his other senses more than with sight. When Sarah didn’t respond, he stopped. “Didn’t that satisfy you?”
“Not enough. I don’t understand why you need to know anything. You said you’ll leave at the end of the week if Beth can travel. Mary’s past has nothing to do with that. Or with you.”
He barely restrained himself from taking hold of her arms and shaking what he wanted to know from her. Coming up around the far side of the barn, he leaned wearily against the siding.
“Mary told me a little about him. Her husband sounds like a first-class bastard.”
“He was. He’s dead, remember?”
“I said some things that—”
“What?” Sarah clutched his arm. “I swear, McCade, if you hurt my cousin after I warned you, I’ll shoot you where you stand. She’s had enough pain to last two women a lifetime. Tell me,” she demanded, digging her fingers into his arm.
“That’s just it! I don’t know, Sarah.” He had gone over the conversation, repeating what Mary had told him, what he had said in return. Before he stopped himself, he told Sarah a little of it.
She released his arm when he was done, and sagged against the barn. “Damn you, McCade.” But there was little heat in her words.
“I don’t know if I can make you understand what it was like for Mary. Have you ever begged for pennies to buy a new bar of soap because you were reduced to a sliver that wouldn’t wash a mouse? No, of course not. I doubt you ever begged anyone for anything in your life. That’s what Harry did to Mary. By the time he died, my cousin was an empty shell. It was months before she laughed.”
Sarah tilted her head back and closed her eyes. She had not meant to tell Rafe, but the words whispered past her lips.
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