Painted by the Sun Read online

  "My God! Shea," he whispered and her soul caught fire.

  "Pa."

  Before either of them had time to consciously recognize the voice, they jerked apart. Shea stepped back dazed, her senses humming, her mind grappling to understand why she was standing here alone, while Cam stood three feet away devouring her with his eyes.

  "Pa?"

  The sentient cloud of physical allure that had rolled up so unexpectedly between Cam and her blew away like a squall before a freshening wind.

  Rand was poised on the threshold into the kitchen, tousled, barefoot, blinking in the light.

  This boy.

  Her son.

  The realization swamped her, set her head to spinning with wonder and incredulity. Her son was here before her now, solid and real after so many years of living only in her imagination. Joy burgeoned in her chest, filling her, making laughter bubble in her throat and fresh tears sting her eyes.

  She needed to reach for him, hold the weight of her child against her chest the way she had when he was hours old. She wanted to feel the rise and fall of his breathing beneath her palms. She wanted to savor his scent, stroke the hair at the nape of his neck with her fingertips.

  She wanted to tell Rand who she was—and who he was.

  Instead Shea stood crushing the orphan train photographs against her chest, as ten years of guilt and loneliness and self-denial clamored that she speak.

  "Pa?" Rand said again, beginning to sound uncertain as the silence in the kitchen lengthened.

  "What—what are you doing downstairs?" Cam's own voice seemed a little frayed.

  And then Shea realized all at once what they'd been doing in front of this child. In front of her child. A flush scorched to her hairline.

  She could see the boy was flustered, too. "I—um—came—um—down for a glass of water."

  "The bucket and dipper are there on the sink," Cam directed unnecessarily, following after the boy, dipping a cup of water for him as if he were a far younger child. He stood with his hand cupped to her boy's back with a gentleness that tore at Shea's heart.

  How could she tell this boy who she was, if it meant destroying something so precious as this father's love? How could she hurt these people who had been so good to Owen and her, so wonderful to her boy?

  Shea turned away, fumbled the photographs into her portfolio, and jerked at the strings.

  "I—I was just going off to bed myself," she said.

  Her voice was trembling, but she didn't even try to control it. "So I bid you good night."

  "Good night," the boy and his father echoed.

  Once she'd been swallowed up in the shadows of the dining room, Shea looked back at her son. In the lift of Rand's arced eyebrows and the quirk of his mouth, she rediscovered the man who had been his father. She caught the play of a dimple that reminded her suddenly of her sister Mary Margaret. And though she was seeing Rand Gallimore with new eyes, she realized this boy was everything she dreamed he would be.

  Then as she watched, Cam bent close to the boy, speaking to him with concern etching the contours of his lean face. With love in his eyes, he spoke to the boy in a way that excluded everyone else. Including her.

  And in that moment Shea knew she couldn't stay on at the farm. She couldn't stand by and watch how Cam was with her son, or see proof every day that her boy was the light in Lily's world. She couldn't stay here and make the decision she had to make, the decision that could change everything and disrupt every one of their lives.

  She needed time. She needed space. No matter what she'd promised Owen this morning, they had to leave.

  * * *

  Cameron stared after Shea, his body still thrumming with the unexpected longing her kiss had fired up in him, his mind churning with all she'd said about his son. He turned back to where the boy was drinking water as if his life depended on finishing every drop.

  How much of what had gone on between Shea and him had the boy seen? Too much, Cam suspected.

  But that wasn't what he needed to talk to his son about tonight. He had to speak with Rand about his adoption, tell him how he'd come to be with Lily and him. Rand needed to hear how much they loved him. Every child deserved to be secure within his family and if Rand had doubts, a father's job was to reassure him.

  Cam shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. "Shea and I were talking about you just before you came down to get a drink," he began, then did his best to ignore the glance Rand slid across the rim of the cup at him. It was a glance that said he knew exactly what his father and Shea had been doing when he'd interrupted them—and it hadn't been talking.

  Embarrassment scorched up Cam's jaw, but he didn't let his own discomfort deter him. "Shea seemed to think," he went on, "that you had some questions I needed to answer."

  Rand set his cup on the edge of the sink. "She told you I found out about the orphan train, didn't she?"

  Cam inclined his head. "She thought it would make it easier for you if she told me."

  Rand looked down at his bare toes. "I—I didn't know how to tell you what I heard. I thought you'd be mad at me for listening."

  Cam reached across and clasped Rand's shoulder. "It's been weeks since your aunt and I had that conversation, and you've been stewing over this ever since, haven't you?"

  "I couldn't figure out why you hadn't told me about being adopted."

  Cam squeezed his son's shoulder gently. "Where did you think you came from?"

  "I thought you had been married and my mother ran away," the boy confessed in a rush. "I thought that's why you never talked about her. I—I thought because of that you were..."

  Cameron squeezed again. "Were what?"

  Tears rose in Rand's eyes and Cam could see how hard he was trying not to cry. "I thought you were ashamed of me."

  Cam pulled his son close, cradling him against his chest as he had cradled Shea not so long before.

  "Oh, Randy," he murmured. "I could never be ashamed of you. You're the finest son any man could have." A shiver of feeling crept into his own voice as he went on. "No one's ever been prouder of a boy than I am of you. I'm proud of how hard you try at school, proud of how much you help around the farm, proud that you're honest and thoughtful and kind to people. And your Aunt Lily thinks the sun comes up in the morning because you're here with us."

  He felt the boy shudder in his arms. "Does—does Aunt Lily really think that?"

  Cam hugged his son tighter. It was closer to the truth than the boy would ever know. "Why do you think she goes around singing in the morning the way she does?"

  "I like it when she sings."

  "So do I," Cam admitted. There was a time in his life when he thought Lily's song had been silenced forever. Adopting Rand had taught her a whole new melody; he'd saved her life.

  Cam held onto his son in silence, feeling the warmth and life in him, a promise to the future every man wanted to believe in. And he most of all.

  "Did Shea tell you anything about orphan trains?" he asked, when Rand's tears had abated to sighs and sniffling.

  He felt Rand nod against his chest. "She said children were sent from the city on the orphan trains so they could have a better life. She said people out here took children because they wanted to make them part of their families."

  Cameron blessed Shea for giving the boy such a comforting view of a controversial enterprise. "Well, Shea would know," he observed, his suspicions about Shea's interest in the orphan trains sharpening.

  "She said you picked me off the orphan train because I was special."

  Cam leaned back far enough to look into his son's face. It was tear-streaked, and his eyes were red. Cameron gently smoothed down his sleep-tumbled hair.

  "You have no idea how special you were to your aunt and me," he confirmed, thinking back. "Do you remember anything that happened before we came here to Colorado?"

  "I remember the old house in Missouri. There was a swing in a tree out back, and Aunt Lily used to swing me. You had a horse named Ned,
and there were children next door I played with."

  Rand paused to think. "And I remember being in church. I remember sitting in the front of it, not like we sit sometimes in the rows of benches. And Aunt Lily was on the edge of this little stage."

  Cam stared at him. "You really remember that?" Rand couldn't have been more than two years old when they'd gone and gotten him in St. Joe. "Well, that's a very good thing for you to remember. It was the day we got you. The day you picked us."

  Rand sniffed in surprise. "I picked you?"

  Cameron could see that day now just as clearly as when he'd described it to Shea earlier. He remembered the terror in Lily's eyes and how afraid he'd been that he was making a mistake by forcing her into this.

  "When some of the children saw your Aunt Lily's face, they ran away."

  "Because of her burns, you mean?"

  Cam nodded. "But you came up to her and put your hand right on her cheek. And we knew the moment you did that you were meant to be our boy."

  He hugged Rand close again, and his own throat went tight as Rand hugged him back. "Don't doubt for a moment how much we love you," he whispered hoarsely. "No two people could be more pleased and proud of any boy than we are of you. No parents could love their son more. If you ever have any doubts about that, I want you to come to me. To me or your Aunt Lily."

  "All right," Rand promised.

  They clung together for a moment more before Cam stepped away. "Are there any more questions you want to ask me?"

  Rand thought for a moment, then beamed up at him. "No, Pa."

  Cam let out his breath, feeling weak-kneed and battered, yet strangely content.

  "I'm going to tell your Aunt Lily that you and I had this talk," Cam warned him. "And I wouldn't be surprised if there are things she'll want to say to you, too. But I don't want you worrying about that. She loves you every bit as much as I do. She's every bit as proud of you as I am. You understand me?"

  "Yes, Pa," the boy answered.

  "Good," he said on a nod. "Then let's head on up to bed. Dawn seems to come earlier than I ever expect it to."

  "But in the morning Aunt Lily will be singing, won't she?"

  Cam reached to douse the light. "You bet she will."

  He heard his son's voice in the dimness. "Pa?"

  "Yes."

  "You shouldn't be embarrassed that I caught you kissing Shea. I think she's really pretty."

  Cam burst out laughing. "So do I," he agreed and slung his arm around Rand's shoulders.

  Chapter 8

  "I think I've got just what you're looking for, Mrs. Waterston," Agnes Franklin, the buxom proprietress of the millinery shop on Sixteenth Street, assured Shea as they climbed the flight of exterior stairs that led to the rooms above her shop.

  Shea certainly hoped Mrs. Franklin was right. It was Monday afternoon, and she and Owen had been traipsing around Denver since early this morning making inquiries and looking at rooms to let. So far, they hadn't found anything even remotely appropriate for a studio. Each disappointment left Shea feeling a little more frantic about leaving the farm.

  Mrs. Franklin jingled her ring of keys and stopped on the landing. "Mr. Allen kept a photographic studio here for well over a year, then just picked up and moved back to the States. And he left owing me a full month's rent!"

  While Mrs. Franklin unlocked the door, Shea did her best to evaluate the studio's location. The place was half a block off Denver's busy Larimer Street, tucked into an alley between two respectable shops. The building was brick, neatly kept and with freshly painted trim. The steps themselves were in good repair and hemmed by a stylish wrought iron banister.

  "Now don't you mind the mess," Mrs. Franklin went on. "The rooms have been vacant for months, and with so many women wanting new hats this fall, I haven't had a moment to get up here and clean things properly."

  The older woman's words proved all too true. Shea lifted her skirts so they wouldn't drag in the dust as she stepped into the first of several spacious rooms. Mrs. Franklin had clearly been using the place for storage; boxes of feathers and fabrics and trims overflowed across the floor. An army of spiders had strung their intricate lace across the corners, and there were signs of mice. Though the place was far from habitable, Shea could see potential here.

  With the addition of a rug, some chairs, and a gallery of photographs, this entry hall would make a perfectly adequate reception area. To the right was a small second room with windows overlooking the street that was big enough for a bed and a few personal belongings.

  But it was the studio through a wide double doorway beyond the entry hall that settled things. A large skylight facing north provided ideal illumination for taking photographs. They had access to the roof so they could lay out their negatives to print in the sun, and a small side room—a closet, really—had obviously been used as a darkroom by the previous tenant.

  Shea haggled over price, then gave Mrs. Franklin nearly every cent she had toward their first month's rent. If they meant to eat, she'd have to get the studio up and running almost immediately.

  With a final bit of advice about which merchants in the neighborhood to patronize and which to avoid, Mrs. Franklin handed Shea the keys and went back to her customers.

  Shea took another turn around the rooms before she came to where Owen was hovering just inside the door. He was standing wringing his hat in his hands, seeming so unsettled it was all Shea could do to keep from throwing her arms around him as if he were a six-year-old.

  "Well, then, old dear," she began. "I've rented this studio for the winter and decided to live here in town."

  Owen furrowed his brow and looked around the rooms again. "Cabin?" he reminded her.

  "I know Cameron has offered us a perfectly good place to spend the winter," she began, "but I don't think it would be very convenient to have a studio here and stay out at the farm."

  "Not far."

  In truth it wasn't all that far, a little more than half an hour's ride. Cameron and Rand made the trip twice every day, but Shea's determination to break her bond with the Gallimores didn't leave room for negotiation.

  "It would seem like a very long way if the weather was bad," she pointed out. "And there have been several holdups out that way."

  "Like it there," Owen insisted.

  Owen almost never argued. That he was arguing now gave an indication of how very strongly he felt about staying with Cam.

  "I know you like being at the farm," she conceded. "Cam understands things, doesn't he?"

  Owen hung his head.

  "I know you haven't had anyone who understands about the war since Simon died," she offered consolingly, thinking of her husband and the secrets she'd never realized he had.

  Owen nodded, then nudged against her arm like a cat that wanted petting. She curled her fingers around his sleeve, massaging with her thumb.

  "Would you—" She took a breath, surprised at how it tugged at her that Owen might value his and Cam's common past above the years of her companionship. Still, if he felt safe with Cameron Gallimore, Shea couldn't begrudge Owen that security. "Would you like me to talk to the judge and see if he'll let you stay on at the farm?"

  Owen glanced up at her and then away.

  "I really wouldn't mind being here in Denver by myself," she went on, encouraging him. "After you've ridden back to the farm for the night, I could retouch and mount the prints we need to deliver the following day."

  A spark of what seemed to be genuine insight fired up in Owen's eyes, almost as if he could see past her explanations to the conflicts she was harboring. Still, Owen had no way of knowing Rand had come west on an orphan train, and he certainly wasn't privy to her belief that the boy was her son.

  Owen's mouth puckered as if he were tasting bitter fruit. "Stay, Sparrow," he murmured and covered her hand with his. "Stay with you."

  Shea thanked him, feeling as if she had forced him to make some sort of impossible choice. "We'll do well here," she whispered. "I promise." />
  It was almost dark when they got back to the farm, and by the time they'd seen to the horses, Lily was putting dinner on the table.

  "Did you have a productive day?" Cameron asked once they were settled and had spoken the blessing.

  Shea forked pot roast, carrots, and potatoes onto her plate. "Indeed we did. I've taken a very nice studio on Sixteenth Street. It's knee-deep in dirt and needs to be scrubbed from bottom to top. But once I've spruced it up and found some secondhand furniture, it'll be perfectly adequate."

  "We've got some old furniture out in the barn," Rand volunteered, "don't we, Pa? Maybe we can let Shea have some of that."

  Rand's offer warmed her and she smiled at him across the table. It was proof of her boy's generous heart.

  "Most of the pieces out in the barn are pretty rickety," Cam put in, "but we'll have a look."

  Rand grinned at her. "And I can come by after school and help. Except on Wednesdays; Wednesdays I have violin lessons."

  She knew she should refuse him outright, but the prospect of having time with Rand drew her irresistibly. Now that she knew he was her son, she had so much to learn about him, so much she wanted to share and show him and teach him. She didn't delude herself. She knew each moment with her son was stolen time, time Cam and Lily would never allow her if she told them the truth, time she'd have to fight to claim if she meant to get him back.

  "Well, we surely wouldn't want you to miss your violin lesson, but I'd welcome the help of a big, strapping lad like you any other day," she found herself saying. "Goodness knows, I need to get the studio open if we mean to eat."

  "I'll come by and lend a hand, as well," Cam volunteered.

  Shea looked up at him, torn by gratitude and dismay. She'd decided to take a place in town so she could escape this constant contact with the Gallimores. She was just opening her mouth to refuse when Lily mumbled something under her breath.

  "I beg your pardon?" Shea asked, sure she'd misunderstood.

  "I—I said," Lily murmured, her voice quivering ever so slightly, "that I'd like to help, too."