Painted by the Sun Page 8

  For more than a week he'd been trying to reconcile this dab of a woman with the avenging angel who'd bolted upright in that wagon box bent on saving his life. Feeling how small and frail Shea was, and remembering what she'd done back there in the foothills, made Cam go hot and tight inside.

  He wasn't sure he deserved the sacrifice she'd been willing to make, wasn't entirely sure he'd wanted her to risk herself for him. Now he owed her, and he couldn't think how he'd ever even the score with a woman who'd come so close to dying to keep him safe.

  Scowling at the thought, he shouldered through the screen door, crossed the parlor, and bore Shea into his bedroom. The place had been transformed since she'd come here. Though he'd managed to maintain a toehold by refusing to relinquish so much as one square inch of space on his overflowing desk, the rest of the room had been commandeered and feminized.

  Several fresh, neatly folded nightdresses were piled on the corner of his dresser. Combs and brushes and ribbons had overrun his socks and handkerchiefs and were scattered across the top. The skirt and bodice Shea had been wearing when he brought her home had been mended and laundered and pressed. They hung on the pegs by the window, all but veiling the dangerous, masculine shape of his mother-of-pearl-handled pistol and holster. The bar of lavender soap on the washstand seemed to scent the whole damn place with spring.

  With her caught up close in his arms, he realized Shea smelled of lavender, too. It was the fragrance his sister usually wore, but the scent seemed sweeter on Shea's skin, more earthy and provocative. It made him want to press his cheek into the tumble of her caramel-colored curls and nuzzle her temple.

  A hot dart of conscience shot through him. This woman was ill. He'd offered her his protection, and here he was, thinking about nuzzling her skin. What the devil was wrong with him?

  Tamping down the notion, Cam bent and lowered Shea down between the bed's opened sheets. As she settled back, the hand that had lain lax along his neck trailed down his chest. At that simple touch, he became vividly aware of its weight and warmth against him. It made his breath snag in his throat and set off an unwelcome tingling that rippled all the way to his groin.

  Cam scowled again and pulled the covers all the way up to her chin, intent on cloaking her from his view.

  Shea must have noticed his gruffness. "I'm sorry to be such a bother," she murmured fretfully. "I hope you won't have to cart me about like this for very much longer."

  He deliberately gentled his voice and, ignoring every gram of his common sense, reached out to stroke back a few straggling strands of her hair. "I really don't mind. Besides, now that your fever's gone, you'll be getting stronger every day."

  "It was pleasant though, wasn't it, sitting on the porch this evening?"

  He heard the wistfulness in her voice. How often did she have a chance to have her evening coffee on a veranda? Moving around the way they did, she and Owen had to live a solitary life. And Brandt, for all his loyalty, could hardly be mistaken as an affable companion.

  Cameron had already begun to take back his hand when Shea reached out and caught it in her own. "I'd like another word with you if you have the time."

  Cam looked at her, aware of how weary she seemed, aware that he'd promised to read with his son. Still, something in Shea Waterston's eyes, something in the taut line creasing her brow convinced him to give her a few more minutes.

  He settled on the edge of the mattress. "What is it?" he asked her.

  She raised those pale green eyes to his; they were wide and filled with doubt. It made him want to gather her up and hold her until whatever was paining her melted away.

  The muscles in her delicate throat worked before she spoke. "Owen says I shot a man up in the mountains..."

  Cam waited for her to go on, his chest filling with dread and anticipation.

  "...I want to know if that is true."

  "Those were Joe Calvert's friends," he said remembering how the miners had come tearing down out of the rocks before he had a chance to defend himself. "They were men who didn't agree with the sentence I passed on him."

  "I need to know." She paused and swallowed hard. "I need to know if I killed him."

  He could see what this forthrightness was costing her, saw how she pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. Still, he couldn't bring himself to lie to her.

  "If it's any comfort, your shooting him saved my life." It was the first time he'd admitted that, even to himself, and the knowledge dragged on him. "You traded my life for his," he went on. "What you need to decide is whether you think it was worth it."

  "Of course it was worth it," she answered without reserve, sounding more sure of his value than he was himself. "I suppose what I need to know is—is how you live with yourself afterward."

  The question set off tremors in his hands and he balled them into fists to still their shaking.

  "What makes you think I'd know?" he asked her.

  She pressed those soft full lips together as if to firm her resolve. "Lily said you fought in the war, so I thought—I thought you'd be able to tell me."

  The war again. The war, always and forever—staining him, marking him the same way it had marked a whole generation of men who'd marched off to fight for causes that had gotten obliterated in the heat of battle.

  He looked past her, out the window to where the memories lingered in the dark. Memories of firing his gun more times than he could count, of looking over the field after the battle and wondering how many of the men lying dead were ones he'd killed.

  "You tell yourself what you did was justified," he finally answered, his voice gone raw. "You tell yourself you had no choice. But you never forget what you did, and the remembering tempers everything you do from that day on."

  He hunched at the edge of the bed, knowing he should have lied to her. The truth was too harsh, to hard to tell, too ugly for her to live with for the rest of her days. He should have refused to answer. He should have—

  Shea slid her hand across the coverlet and curled her fingers around his wrist. His pulse beat hard beneath her cool soft flesh, and when he dared to raise his gaze to hers, what he saw in her eyes was understanding and compassion. No one had ever offered those things to him; no one had ever understood how badly he needed them. The moment of contact burned fierce and hot between them, then abruptly Cam pushed to his feet.

  He needed to put distance between this woman and himself, to break off the strange communion. His head was reeling a little as he stood over her. "I can't imagine that a conversation as grim as this is going to lead you into pleasant dreams," he apologized as he bent to dim the lamp.

  "Ah, no." Her voice came soft in the dark. "But I think that it was necessary. I thank you for telling me the truth."

  The truth, Cam thought as he closed the bedroom door behind him, was one more thing in life that was vastly overrated. Lies, evasions, and denial were so much easier, so much safer. But then, Shea Waterston didn't seemed to be afraid of the truth. He was beginning to wonder if she was afraid of anything.

  His sister was wiping dishes when Cam passed through the kitchen on his way to check the animals for the night.

  "I think Shea enjoyed being out on the porch, don't you?" Lily said stopping him halfway to the door. "And goodness, what a lovely voice she has."

  "The singing tired her out," Cam observed. He felt churlish and itchy inside his own skin; he needed to be by himself for a while.

  "Is she all right?"

  He couldn't set Lily to worrying because he was out of sorts. "She'll be fine once she's slept."

  "Cammie?"

  He'd put one hand on the knob when he recognized the low, precarious note in his sister's voice. He turned and looked at her. Her head was bowed, and she was worrying the delicate garnet band she'd worn on a ribbon around her neck ever since the night their mother died.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Shea asked me about Rand's mother."

  He froze. "And what did you tell her?"


  She raised her head. He could see the V nipped into the delicate skin between her eyes. "I spoke before I thought. I told her you'd never been married."

  He went to her, closed his hands around her arms, and drew her against him. "It's all right, Lil. She's only curious."

  "But, Cammie, no one here knows where Rand came from."

  He could hear the apprehension in her voice, and looked down into her ravaged face, into those wide, worried eyes. He stroked her withered cheek and loathed himself for not being able to protect her.

  "No one will ever know about Rand unless we tell them," he soothed her. "There's no reason to worry. I promise you."

  He gathered her nearer and felt her turn her face into the curve of his throat. Cam shifted his weight, rocking her gently. No matter how he'd failed her in the past, he was here now. He'd always be here to protect and care for her and his son. He'd made his promise.

  "It will be all right," he whispered.

  "You're sure of that?"

  "As sure as I am that we'll have snow this winter." He smiled to himself and rested his cheek against her hair. "As sure as I am that you'll be hanging washing on the line come Monday morning."

  "As sure as I am that the last piece of lemon cake will be gone before you go to bed," Lily said, and he could hear the smile come back to her voice.

  It was a game they'd played since childhood, after their father had died and left their mother with the two of them to raise. Cameron couldn't remember how the game had begun, but somehow the assurances still worked for them.

  "Maybe it was you, not Rand, Shea was wondering about," Lily suggested slyly.

  She might as well have gigged him with spurs. "What do you mean?"

  She stepped back and looked him up and down. "Perhaps Shea was asking because she finds you—"

  "For the love of God, Lil!" Cameron's own unsettling awareness of Shea Waterston sent a heat creeping up his jaw. "I don't want some woman finding me anything!"

  "Don't you?" she asked, genuinely surprised. "Don't you ever want—"

  Her voice trailed off, but Cam knew what she wanted: a husband, children of her own, to be part of the world around her in spite of her scars. He would have sold his soul to give those things to her, but he was powerless to change the past. Powerless to alter the course her life had taken. Or his own.

  He touched her sleeve to let her know he meant what he said. "I'm content the way things are, Lil. Truly I am."

  She smiled at him. "You're a good man, Cammie. Any woman would be proud to—"

  With a snort of irritation, he turned away. "I'm going out to the barn."

  This time he managed to make it out onto the porch, but one glance toward the barn reminded him that Owen Brandt was there. What Cam wanted was solitude. He headed for the back of the house and half-stepped down the rise toward the river. He ambled through the rustling thigh-high grass that grew all the way down to the riverbank and stood watching the Platte ripple past on its thousand-mile journey to the sea. On nights like tonight he liked to lose himself in something just that vast and mute and powerful.

  Shea Waterston was disrupting all their lives. Rand was dancing attendance and bringing Shea flowers. Lily was worried she'd unearth their secrets.

  And as for him—the woman shook the very bedrock of who he was. The more he saw of her, the more he wanted to seek her out. The more he learned of her, the more questions he seemed to have. The more he tried to turn away, the more compelling she seemed. Even here by the river, he could not still the mumbling in his blood or quench his errant thoughts of her.

  Chapter 6

  What the devil's going on at the photography wagon? Cam wondered as he rode into the barnyard several days later. The tailgate was down, and two big boxes of what he knew were photographic plates sat at the lip of the opening. Once he'd unsaddled his pony and shooed it into the corral, he stepped around to the back of the wagon to see what Owen was up to.

  Shea was crouched on the floor of the wagon instead.

  "Just what the hell do you think you're doing out here?" he boomed at her.

  Shea started, shot to her feet, then lost every hint of color in her face.

  Cursing, Cam vaulted into the wagon and caught her as her knees gave way. "Are you going to faint?"

  "My ears are buzzing," she slurred, toppling against him.

  "I don't for a minute doubt it."

  There wasn't enough room to lay her down on the floor, so he eased her back across the jumble of boxes. It couldn't be very comfortable, but Cam wasn't sure that mattered. With a clatter that sounded like tin cups and silverware, he upended another box and propped her feet on top of it.

  Shea lifted her head. "Don't you dare break any of my photographic plates!" she admonished him, then fell back moaning.

  "Take deep breaths," he instructed her. Cam figured that was the single most useful bit of medical advice he'd ever heard. He knelt beside her and fanned her with his hat.

  "What the hell are you doing out here all by yourself?" he muttered. What could Owen and Lily have been thinking to let her come to the wagon alone? Shea hadn't even had on proper clothes until yesterday.

  "The goats got out," she answered. Her voice faded a little between the words, and she didn't have so much as a dab of color in her cheeks. "Lily and Owen went off chasing them."

  "And you just strolled on down here." He fanned harder, irritated with everyone involved.

  "I had to stop twice to rest."

  Twice in a little more than a hundred yards, but she'd kept coming. Damn stubborn woman, anyway.

  "What was so blasted important?"

  "I wanted my things." Her voice had steadied some, and she didn't look quite so much like bone china.

  "Someone would have brought them to you."

  She nodded and closed her eyes. "I suppose."

  He could see she didn't like being less than whole, didn't like being beholden. He could understand her wanting her things. Women seemed to set great store in having their own belongings around them.

  Then he realized what Shea had been doing when he came around the corner. "You weren't exactly gathering up your handkerchiefs when I got here," he accused her. "You were going through those photographic plates."

  "I didn't come down here to do it," she admitted on a weary sigh, "but someone has to. Owen and I won't have a penny to bless us come winter if we don't get those plates off to New York."

  Shea's worry was perfectly justified; Owen Brandt wasn't going to take care of this. Owen Brandt had all he could do taking care of Owen Brandt.

  Still, Cam was overwhelmingly peeved at her. "Well, damn it, it serves you right."

  "What serves me right? Being penniless?"

  "Fainting."

  "I didn't faint," she insisted, with a little more vigor. "I got muzzy is all, and I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't popped around the corner and scared me half to death."

  Cameron scowled, irritated with himself this time. Why hadn't he realized shouting like that would startle her? He let out his breath in exasperation. "Well, I'm sorry."

  She turned her head and looked at him. "You're sorry?" She sounded as if the declaration amazed her. "Why, I didn't think judges ever apologized!"

  "What on earth gave you the idea—" Cameron began gruffly, then caught himself. Shea Waterston was teasing him! No one but Lily ever teased Judge Cameron Gallimore. No one dared.

  Cam fumbled for a few glib words, something sharp and clever to fob her off. He couldn't seem to come up with anything but the truth. "I'm afraid this judge has a great deal to apologize for. Scaring you and tossing you in jail is the very least of it."

  Her eyes narrowed as if she knew exactly how much he'd just admitted. Yet when she answered him her tone was light. "I've been meaning to thank you for doing that."

  Cameron sat back on his heels. "Thank me for locking you up that day in Breckenridge?"

  "Well, not that precisely," Shea clarified. "But in the end I was glad you k
ept me from taking that photograph."

  "Why?"

  She drew a long, deep breath. "I'd never been to a hanging. I didn't know what went on. All I was thinking about was how much money I could make selling that photograph. But I'm glad I never had the chance to take it."

  "You are?"

  Her clear gaze locked with his, and he could see her eyes darken with conviction. "In the end I was glad I didn't see the hanging. Just hearing it—" He saw a shiver run through her. "Just hearing it was enough to convince me I don't ever want to attend one. I don't want to photograph one. And I most certainly don't want to be responsible for making the last desperate moments of a man's life available for everyone to see."

  Shea Waterston understood. Something shifted inside him. Without him having to explain, Shea had seen how wrong it would have been to immortalize something as barbarous as Joe Calvert's death.

  When he'd accepted the appointment as territorial judge, Cameron had understood the kind of decisions he'd have to make, the hangings he'd be duty-bound to order. He'd taken the job because he believed in the law, because he thought he could administer justice fairly. He'd done just that, but each of the murder trials he'd presided over and each execution he'd witnessed was engraved in his mind as if it were etched in steel.

  "How do you do it?" she asked softly, tugging him back from the dark places those memories had taken him. "How do you bear it?"

  Cameron shifted uneasily, startled by her perceptiveness. He wasn't sure he wanted to admit to anyone how much each of those hangings had affected him.

  "How do I watch those men die?" He felt the words burn in his throat and was appalled by how close to the surface his feelings were. "I don't do it very well, I'm afraid. Even though I've made certain each of those men deserved the sentence I've passed on him, I hate the hangings. I hate the noise and the people who come to watch. I hate knowing I'm responsible."

  He started as Shea's small hand closed around his larger one. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was solid and reassuring.

  He looked down at their linked fingers, remembering how he'd held that same hand as Emmet worked over her. He'd held her fingers in his and willed her his strength. Now she seemed to be repaying him in kind.