Painted by the Sun

by Elizabeth Grayson

  Shea caught her landlady's eye and raised her cup in salute, thanking her both for the drink and for maintaining the refreshment table. Agnes Franklin lifted her own cup in reply, knowing full well that traffic to and from the studio was bound to enhance business at the millinery shop.

  Shea took one sip of the punch Mrs. Franklin had sent and laughed. The punch was liberally laced with brandy.

  "What's so funny?" Ty asked her.

  "Just happy is all. Just pleased that the party is going so well." She took another sip of punch and slid an arm around his shoulders. "You're looking particularly handsome this evening."

  Ty looked down at himself. "You should like the way I look. You bought this shirt for me."

  "I just thought it might not be wise," she offered in a confidential tone, "to wear your 'borrowed' things to the party."

  "Yeah, well, the shirt's real nice," he allowed and rubbed at the sleeve. "I like all these blue stripy things."

  Shea smiled with a certain proprietary pride. "And what do you think of the party?"

  He looked around. "I didn't suppose folks got so noisy as this when they ain't been drinking whiskey."

  Shea laughed and listened to the din of a hundred voices, the clink of glasses, and people clapping to the fiddle music. If there'd been room, they would have been dancing. It reminded her of Ireland.

  She smiled down at Ty. "People are pretty much the same all over. They like a good time."

  "I bet with all the swells you got here, there won't be any fistfights."

  Shea burst out laughing. "Are you disappointed?"

  "Sort of," Ty admitted with a shrug, then leaned in close enough that she could smell the pomade Owen had used to help Ty slick down his hair. "Shea," he began, "I wanted to know how you ended up with that picture of—"

  "Ty?" She squeezed his arm, interrupting him. "Isn't that your father coming in?"

  Ty wheeled around. "What's he doing here?"

  "Maybe he's come by to see you," she offered hopefully.

  "He could'a seen me at home," Ty muttered and started toward where his father had come in with several rough-looking companions.

  Even from across the room Shea couldn't help noticing how dissipated Sam Morran looked. His clothes rippled loose against his ribs and flanks, and the skin of his face lay flaccid against the bones.

  No wonder Ty's been so worried about him, Shea found herself thinking. As she drew closer, she could see Morran had clamped a hand around the boy's shoulder and was wavering on his feet.

  "Good evening, Mr. Morran," Shea greeted him. He gave off whiskey fumes like heat from a candle flame. "How nice of you to stop by. I've been hoping to get a chance to tell you what a wonderful help Ty's been here at the studio."

  "Regular little gentleman," Morran sneered.

  "Well, yes he is," Shea answered for Ty's sake, confused by Morran's attitude. When she'd met him up in the mountains he'd seemed an ineffectual father. Now he was drunk and angry with his son, almost resentful. But of what?

  Another moment gave Shea her answer.

  "Bet you're the one who's been filling his head with all that 'Yes, ma'am' and 'No, sir' stuff he's been spouting," Sam Morran accused. "Bet you're the one who convinced him he needs to clean his teeth and take a bath every week."

  "Pa!" Ty hissed.

  "I admit I have encouraged Ty to take care of himself," she answered evenly. "And if I've influenced him to mind his manners, so much the better."

  "You think he's too good a boy to have a pa like me!"

  "Oh, Pa!" Ty moaned.

  Shea heard the misery in the boy's voice, the embarrassment, the regret—as if his father's behavior was his fault.

  Shea felt the heat come up in her face. "Please, Mr. Morran," she started, holding onto her temper for Ty's sake. "If you're determined to discuss this, let's step into the other room where we can do it privately."

  "I know he comes by here every day, trying to cotton up to you," he declared, ignoring her request. "Tonight he's wearing this fancy new shirt you bought him and look how he's slicked down his hair!"

  Morran's voice had taken on an even more strident note, rising above the hum of conversation. She sensed that people were faltering to silence around them, turning to watch the three of them. After a moment the music faded, too.

  Shea had a mouthful of things she was aching to say to Sam Morran, but she knew this wasn't the time or place to say them.

  "Shea ain't done nothing wrong," Ty spoke up, defending her. "She pays me to sweep up here, and she's my friend. All of them are my friends—Rand and Lily and the judge—"

  Morran stiffened and his grip on Ty's shoulder tightened. The boy did his best to flinch away.

  "I don't want my son coming here," Morran shouted, color suffusing his sallow cheeks. "I don't want you talking to him. I won't have you buying his affection with new clothes and such. He's my boy and I won't let you or anyone interfere with how I'm raising him!"

  Cursing, he gave Ty a shove in the direction of the studio doorway. "Now git on home, boy," he shouted, "before I lose my temper."

  Whether Morran had meant to push his son as hard as he had, or miscalculated his own strength, Ty all but flew across the room and out the open door that led to the stairs.

  "Ty!" Shea cried and bolted after him in alarm.

  But before she could make a grab at Ty, the boy slammed into the waist-high baluster at the far side of the landing. He staggered with the momentum, then rebounded headlong down the steps.

  * * *

  "It sounds like a good party," Cam said to Rand as they pulled up their horses in front of the millinery shop. From where the studio door stood open in invitation, he could hear the rumble of conversation and the high, sweet notes of a violin. The fiddler Shea had hired for the evening was playing "Lorena."

  As he was tethering his horse, Rand glanced up toward the studio. "You think Ty's there, yet?"

  Cam paused and looked at his son. "You and Ty get on together, don't you, boy?"

  Rand grinned at him. "Sure we do. He runs really fast and is a dead aim with a slingshot. He can juggle three chestnuts at a time, and he knows things."

  Cam looped his horse's reins around the post. "What things?"

  "Well, he knows how to cheat at poker, for one."

  "Cheat at poker?" Cam couldn't help being taken aback. "Is—is knowing that important?"

  "If you're going to gamble, I guess it is."

  "Is that what Ty means to do with himself? Be a gambler?"

  "Oh, no!" Rand vehemently shook his head. "Ty says playing cards is a big waste of money. While he was sweeping up over at the Golden Spur he saw some man lose a hundred dollars on a single hand of cards! But Ty says it's important to know how to cheat, in case you get into a game with someone who's doing it."

  Cam couldn't fault either the Morran boy's reasoning or his good sense, though he wished Ty wasn't being exposed to life in a saloon quite so young.

  "Well, I'm glad you like each other," Cam said, draping an arm around Rand's shoulders. "I think Ty needs friends like you and Shea right now."

  "Him being new in Denver and all?"

  That wasn't quite what he'd meant, but Cam nodded anyway. He nudged Rand toward where Shea's freshly painted sign pointed the way to the studio. "So are we going to go to this party or aren't we?"

  They were halfway up the stairs when Cam heard someone in the rooms at the top start shouting. A tingle of alarm shot the length of his back.

  "Go wait for me at the bottom of the steps," he instructed, his heartbeat quickening. Rand must have recognized the urgency in his tone because he obeyed without question.

  Cam cupped his palm to the reassuring shape of his holstered pistol as he climbed the stairs. Up above a man was shouting, his voice loud and slurred. He heard Shea answer, quiet, insistent, and—unless he'd misjudged her—furiously angry.

  He had almost reached the top of the steps when Ty came careening out the studio door. He slammed
into the railing at the far side of the landing, all but toppling over it. He stumbled half a step then came rebounding directly at Cam.

  The boy slammed into Cam's chest like a sack of corn, with force enough to knock both of them down the steps. Clutching Ty against him, Cam teetered and reeled, somehow managing to keep his balance on the narrow stairs.

  After several frantic moments of struggle, both Cam and Ty managed to find their footing.

  "You all right, son?" Cam asked, steadying the boy.

  Ty nodded and sniffed.

  "You sure?"

  Cam glanced at the people crowding out onto the landing. He immediately spotted Shea and saw she was restraining a rail-thin man who stood wavering at the edge of the top step. Cam figured this drunkard must be Ty's father.

  "I'm fine," Ty insisted.

  But Cam heard the faint waver in the boy's voice, felt the tremors wrack his narrow shoulders. A low, familiar hum tuned up deep inside Cam's skull.

  He eased the youngster past him down the stairs. "Rand's waiting there at the bottom," he instructed. "You go stay with him while I find out what's happened here."

  Ty did as he was bid, and Cam turned his full attention to Morran, who was calling curses down on his boy's head.

  No matter what he'd told Ty, he really didn't need explanations. It was clear enough what was happening; this man was abusing his son.

  Fighting to hang onto his composure, Cameron climbed the rest of the steps. The humming inside him tuned to a higher pitch. "I'd like to have a word with you in private, Mr. Morran," he said.

  "And just who the hell are you?" Morran demanded with bleary belligerence.

  "I'm Judge Cameron Gallimore, sir," he answered, his voice taut, but scrupulously polite. "Please come with me now so we won't have anything to regret about this later."

  "You say what you got to say to me right here."

  The drone in Cam's head gained intensity. He breathed deep and caught the faint metallic sting of blood and gunpowder in his nostrils.

  "I'd like to speak to you down in the alley," Cam clarified.

  "I don't want to speak to you anywhere," Morran sneered. "I mean to stay and enjoy the party."

  "I will have a word with you, sir," Cam told him, stepping closer. "One way or another. Now if you'll just come with me..."

  Something about the low, raw timbre of Cam's voice, or the way each syllable rang like a blacksmith's hammer, must have made Morran reconsider. He looked Cam up and down, straightened his shoulders, and wove past him down the stairs.

  "I'll give you a word," he blurred, "but nothing more."

  Cam stepped back to let him pass, taking care not to touch Morran. He took care not to think too much about how good it would feel to jam his palms against Morran's bony shoulders and shove him down the stairs. How good it would feel to mash Morran's face with his fists and consider the consequences afterward.

  People spilled down the steps as they made their descent. Cam could feel them trailing in his wake, their eyes burning into his back, avid with excitement and speculation.

  He heard Shea call his name, but he couldn't break his concentration long enough to answer her.

  At the bottom of the steps, he brushed past Rand and Ty and herded Morran across the alley. Looming over the man, using his height and the breadth of his shoulders, Cam forced him back against the wall.

  He braced his hands on either side of Morran's head and leaned in close enough to smell the whiskey on the man's breath and the stench of his unwashed body. Contempt flared up in him.

  "I don't want you laying a finger on that boy of yours," he instructed, quiet as a knife thrust. "If I hear there's so much as one bruise on him anywhere—"

  Cam paused and dropped his gaze to the center of Morran's chest. "—I'll find you, Morran, and I'll cut out your heart."

  In half-light Cam saw Morran pale.

  "Do you understand me?" he whispered.

  Morran's head bobbed as if it were barely attached to his body.

  "Good," Cam whispered. "Good." He sucked in a breath and stepped away.

  The instant he did, Morran lit out up the street. He stumbled, righted himself, and set off running again. Somehow Cam wasn't surprised when Ty went after him.

  Once Morran was gone, Cam's world shifted, fragmenting, tilting beneath his feet.

  People poured down the stairs to engulf him. Rand rushed over, and before Cam could stop him, threw his arms around his waist.

  The vicious, mindless need to strike out roared through him. Heat surged up his spine and detonated behind his eyes. His palms burned. His scalp shifted. He knotted his fists, fighting the white wash of fury that leaped along his nerves—the old, acrid residue of too much wrath and too much misery.

  Cam fought the madness, taking one breath and then another, closing his eyes, squeezing down the clamor. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked down at his son. His face came into focus; his words came clear.

  "...really scared Mr. Morran! I never thought a grown-up could run so fast!"

  Cam pressed his hands flat against his son's shoulders, steadying himself on the bulwark of that innocence, the sweet pure feel of that uncorrupted life.

  At the periphery of his vision he saw Emmet pushing determinedly nearer. Owen trailed half a step behind him, clear-eyed and resolute in a way Cam couldn't remember seeing him before. They did the best they could to insinuate themselves between him and the press of the crowd.

  Still, men encroached, saying things Cam could not bear to hear. They praised him, complimented him. He all but came apart when someone smacked his shoulder with the flat of his hand.

  Through it all he clung to Rand like a handhold in the face of a cliff and managed to weather the intrusion. He nodded when people spoke to him and tried to remember to breathe. He did his best to stay on his feet while sweat ran down his back and the shakes rumbled through him.

  He caught sight of Shea at the periphery of the throng and stared at her, drinking in her sweet, unconventional beauty. He let her remind him that the world could be caring and fine and good.

  As the crowd around him began to thin and Rand ran off to look for Ty, Shea inched nearer. Cam watched her approach, wanting to clutch her against him, wanting to ward her off.

  Emmet stepped between them, fierce and protective. "You all right, Cam?" he asked.

  Cam saw Shea's gaze sharpen. She looked from Emmet to Owen and from Owen to him. Recognition dawned across her face. She knew what this was, goddamn her.

  She'd probably seen the old man like this, sweating and shaking and glassy-eyed. Cam supposed that should make him feel better. Instead he felt weak, angry with himself for being like this, for letting her see. Angry with her for being so perceptive.

  Thick, black despair filled up his chest. He hated what he'd done tonight, hated that he'd had to do it.

  He hated that these three people knew how much that simple act of decency had cost him.

  "Cam?" Emmet's tone was sharp, reproving. "Cam!"

  Shea's lush mouth bowed with distress.

  Cameron swallowed hard and dragged himself back toward composure by his fingernails. He slumped back against the wall and wiped the sweat from his face with his forearm. "I'm all right."

  Shea didn't look like she believed him. She reached right past Emmet as if to take his hand—then hesitated.

  Cam stared at her in surprise. She really did understand how it was with him, yet he could see neither judgment nor fear in her eyes. There was nothing but empathy, nothing but solace and compassion and warmth. And dear God, how he needed her warmth.

  He inclined his head granting her permission.

  Shea grasped his hand, and with that touch something vital passed from her to him. Something warm and pure and life-affirming. He clung to her fingers as hard as he could, drawing on her vigor and letting it feed him.

  "Mrs. Franklin has some brandy upstairs," she said, urging him upright. "I think you've earned a shot of it."

&nb
sp; "I'll go see if I can round up the boys," Emmet offered and disappeared up the street.

  Shea was as good as her word. She brought a punch cup and a bottle of good French brandy to the studio's little front room. As the party wound down outside, Cam slumped at the edge of the bed, watching as Shea filled and handed the cup to him. He drank down two long swallows, liking the way the brandy lit up the hollow in his chest. He closed his eyes and willed the bitter silt of the past to settle again.

  "I'm sorry that happened," he told her when he had drunk enough brandy to voice the words. "I'm sorry I caused a scene and spoiled your—"

  "Now what could you possibly be sorry for?" she interrupted, and startled him by stepping in close. She cupped his jaw in the curl of her palm, her touch gentle, unbearably compelling. "You kept Ty from going headlong down those stairs. You confronted his father. Maybe you even managed to put the fear of God in Sam Morran for a little while. You've no reason in this world to be apologizing."

  She took the empty cup from him and filled it to the rim again. This time before she gave it back, she took a long, deep swallow of the brandy herself.

  Cam fancied he could detect the taste of her, her subtle warmth along the rim of the glass when he put it to his mouth. The sensation sent a strange tingle of pleasure creeping through him.

  That tingle intensified as Shea eased close again and rested her palms against his shoulders. "I think confronting Morran cost you dearly," she murmured. "Are you truly all right?"

  Cam looked away. Emmet and Owen understood this. They'd gone where he'd been tonight. They knew what it was like to all but drown in the scum of fury and despair the war left in each of them. But how could Shea know? How could she understand what this was and still be here with him?

  He took a long breath and nodded for both their sakes. "I'm all right."

  "Then I want to thank you for what you did for Ty."

  Cam glanced up at her. "I didn't do much. Not nearly as much as you've been doing."

  "I'm only giving him work," she said. "You let him know he deserves something better than what he has."

  "And he went off after his father anyway."

  She squeezed his shoulder as if to say that didn't matter, that what Cam had done was right. He found such simple ease in that reassurance, such satisfaction in her gentleness.