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 kept 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.

When he finally found the courage to raise his gaze to hers, her eyes were calm, filled with a compassion that was nearly as unnerving as it was seductive.

But with his responsibilities to Lily and Rand, Cam didn't dare allow himself to be seduced. He wrenched his hand away and shot to his feet. He needed to put some distance between them and snatched at the first thing he could think of to divert her.

"So which of these boxes need to be sent to New York?"

Shea hesitated just long enough to let him know she saw through his evasion before she gave her answer. "The two boxes down by the tailgate are ready to go. The three at this end of the wagon stay with me. I've been trying to sort through the rest and divide up the negatives."

Shea pushed up on her elbows, then eased cautiously into a sitting position. She wavered a bit, and Cameron steadied her.

"If I get everything ready," she said on a sigh, "perhaps I can convince Owen to venture into Denver—"

"Venture into Denver? Denver's barely a half hour drive. Rand and I ride into town every day," he told her. "I'll put the boxes on a train myself."

"You'd do that?" Her expression softened and her words were tinged with amazement and gratitude.

How long had it been since anyone had done things for her? Cam found himself wondering. How long since she'd allowed anyone in close enough to help?

"I wouldn't offer unless I meant it," he assured her. "Besides, if I'm ever going to get you and Owen out from underfoot"—he let a smile dawn across his face—"I have to see you have the wherewithal to find other quarters."

Shea stared at him askance for a moment, then realized he was teasing her. She laughed with surprise and reached across to brush his hand again.

Even that fleeting touch sent a tingle of sensation rippling across his flesh. Her warmth seeped through the pores of his skin and sank deep. He resisted I urge to rub the spot.

"Do you want to go through the rest of these now," he asked her, "or would you like to do them when you're feeling stronger?"

"I'd like to do them now, if we can," she answered.

They reviewed the plates one by one. Most of the negatives were views Shea had taken with a stereoptic camera. Its double lens produced two small, dense images side by side. When the negative was printed on cards and used in a stereoptic viewer, the scene would jump to life giving the illusion of reality.

As they held the negatives up to the light, Cam could see how well she'd captured the grandeur of the mountains and recognized several of the landscapes. She'd crept close enough to photograph elk grazing in a meadow ringed by mountains, and caught the pristine details of the alpine wildflowers.

Even looking at the negatives with darks and lights reversed, Cameron was captivated by Shea's skill. Working in what must have been nearly impossible conditions, she had made magic with the contrasts, the shapes, the poetry of the high country.

What courage and determination it must have taken to record the places few women had ever seen! Cam was inexpressibly proud of her.

Shea seemed pleased with the negatives, as well. But by the time they'd gone through all the plates, she was drooping with weariness.

"If I promise to come back after supper and seal these boxes," he proposed, "will you let me escort you back to the house?"

"Are you sure it won't be too much trouble for you to send these off for us?" she asked, still fretting about accepting the favor.

Cam scowled at her. "Now just how much trouble do you think I'll have taking these five boxes to the railroad station?"

Finally convinced, Shea allowed him to lift her down from the wagon. He steadied her on her feet, then slid an arm around her and drew her against his side. The fluff of those gingery curls barely reached his shoulder, and he was surprised at how small she really was. Somehow the practicality and determination in her made her seem so much more hardy.

As he matched his footsteps to hers, her warm not-quite-lavender scent rose in his nostrils. Her hand came to rest in the furrow of his spine, and for all that it wasn't a particularly intimate touch, Cam found it strangely unsettling.

"Shea," he said as they ambled down the lane, "you know if you need help, all you need to do is ask for it, don't you?"

Her gaze rose to his, and he could see that some of the wariness he'd sensed in her earlier had ebbed away. "I know it now," she answered softly, and together they walked back to the house.

* * *

"King me!" Rand whooped as he snapped a black checker down on the game board directly in front of where Shea was sitting.

She scowled at him across the kitchen table. It was Sunday afternoon. Lily was singing hymns and finishing up the dinner dishes, while Shea was losing her third—or maybe it was her fourth—game of checkers to Rand. She could hear Owen's boot soles scuffling, keeping the battered rocker out on the porch in motion. Cam had gone off to deliver a crock of Lily's chicken broth to someone who'd fallen ill.

"Aren't you going to king me, Shea?" Rand prodded her.

"Oh, all right." With an exaggerated sigh she stacked a second checker on Randall's king.

"Are you sure you've played this game before?" he asked with a sly smile.

"Of course I've played it," she sniffed. She carefully considered her next move and eased one of the checkers forward. The instant she lifted her finger she knew she'd made a mistake.

Rand cackled with delight and jumped Shea's last three men. "I won," he announced unnecessarily.

"I can see that." Shea did her best to scowl at him, but he was such an engaging child with that breezy grin and affable manner. "If you want me to keep playing with you," she muttered peevishly, "don't you think you should let me win just once?"

"He's just like his father," Lily put in, working the last of the spoons through the folds of her towel. "He likes to win. I think half the reason Cammie went back east to study law was so he could prevail in any argument."

"Oh, your brother's not so bad as that," Shea offered, thinking how Cam had apologized for locking her up the day of the hanging.

"Well, Cammie was different before he went off to fight," Lily conceded. "He was brash, full of himself, far more stubborn and argumentative. The war—" Shea glanced up just in time to see Lily rub her withered cheek. "The war changed him."

Shea fastened her curious gaze on Lily.

"How did it change him?" Was the war what put the wariness in those night blue eyes? Was the war what created that shadowy second self that no one but her seemed able to see? Was the war why he was more committed to his sister than a husband to a wife?

But Lily seemed disinclined to discuss how her brother had changed. Instead she hefted the brimming dishpan and headed toward the door. Shea hurried ahead to open it, then trailed Lily into the yard.

Walking gingerly, Lily carried the sloshing basin toward the double row of rosebushes blooming along the foundation of the house. "Cammie says there's snow in the mountain passes," she said, as she rationed out the soapy water. "I suppose that means I should be cutting my roses back, but I just can't bear to lose the flowers yet."

Shea knew she should be preparing for winter, too. As soon as they got a bank draft from New York, she'd be able to look for winter accommodations and restock their supplies. Since she'd sold Simon's studio in New York, she and Owen had wintered wherever they were at the season's end. They'd set up a studio in Nebraska City last year and been money ahead come spring. With the month or more they'd lost while Shea was ill, they'd probably be holing up in Denver this winter.

Once we're settled, I can start writing letters again, Shea found herself thinking. Through the dozens of letters she'd written last year, she'd been able to discover which of the orphan trains had taken Liam west. This year she hoped to learn exactly where that train had stopped and when her son had been adopted. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she might even discover the name of the people who'd taken her child.

"Shea?" Lily asked, reaching out to touch her arm. "Shea, have you heard a word I've said?"

"You said you need to cut the roses back?" she guessed hopefully.

"I said that a good long while ago," Lily said with a laugh and tucked a deep pink blossom from one of the bushes behind Shea's ear. "That color suits you," she said, seeming pleased with the effort.

Shea reached up to brush the petals with her fingertips. "I've always liked pink roses," she replied. "Thank  you."

Just then Rand burst out the kitchen door. The bang it made bouncing back on its hinges all but launched Owen out of the rocker.

"And where do you think you're going, young man?" Lily asked, stopping Rand in his tracks.

"Down to the corral."

"Did you put the checkers away?" she asked him.

"Yes, ma'am, I did."

"Have you appropriated more of my perfectly good carrots to feed that animal of yours?"

Rand paused at the gate. "It's Sunday, so I figured Jasper deserved a treat."

Lily sighed helplessly. "Oh, I suppose he does."

Rand grinned at her and raced off down the lane, letting the gate slap closed behind him.

"He loves that horse," Shea murmured watching him.

"He loves all horses," Lily corrected her. "And he'd feed them a whole field of carrots if I let him. Since Cam's not here, I suppose I ought to keep an eye on him. Do you feel up to walking as far as the corral?"

Shea had been staying up longer and walking farther every day. She linked her arm through Lily's. "I think I can, but it would be nice to have someone to lean on."

Together they started off. Though the sun was shining and the sky was china blue, the wind carried the breath of that distant snow. It tugged at their hair, nipped color into their cheeks, and slapped their skirts against their legs. Lily shivered and Shea found herself wishing she'd grabbed their shawls from the peg inside the kitchen door.

When they got to the corral, Rand was riding bareback on a compact little roan, guiding him with the press of his hands and the shift of his weight. Rand and the horse seemed attuned somehow, moving in perfect accord.

He rides the way Sean did, Shea found herself thinking. Her brother had always had a way with horses, a gentleness and ease that was as much a part of him as breathing. Rand had that, too.

"He's a fine horseman," Shea observed, glancing across at where Lily had climbed up onto the first rail of the fence beside her.

"He is, isn't he?" Lily agreed with more than a bit of pride. As she watched Rand and Jasper lope around the corral, the wind teased several long sable strands from Lily's chignon. They caught on her lips and her eyelashes, and without giving the impulse a second thought, Shea reached across and tucked them back.

At the brush of Shea's fingertips against her cheek, Lily stiffened. "What are you doing?" she gasped and jerked away. "I never let anyone touch my face!"

When she'd smoothed back Lily's hair, Shea hadn't even noticed the scars. It was just how Lily was—imperfect in a way folks could see instead of ways they couldn't.

But before Shea could think what to say, Lily had pushed back from the fence and bolted toward the house.

Shea was ready to go after her when Rand nudged Jasper up close to the fence. "What happened to Aunt Lily?"

Shea turned and confronted the child's far-too-curious eyes. "She left something on the stove." She lied instinctively, protecting Lily.

Rand smiled ruefully, taken in. "She let some eggs boil dry one time when she was practicing piano. And, boy, did they stink!"

Shea couldn't help being relieved when Rand went on. "Want to see the trick Jasper and I have been working on?"

She could almost hear her brother Sean shouting, "Watch me! Watch me, Shea!" before he made his father's gelding high-step across the paddock or jump some impossibly high fence.

Smiling at the memory, she nodded to Rand. "Of course I want to see."

Easing Jasper to a lope, the boy raised one foot, then the other, and slowly pushed himself into a standing position. Balanced upright in the center of the roan's broad back, he made one circuit of the corral and then another.

As Shea applauded, Emmet Farley bellied up to the fence beside her. "Don't you fall off that pony, boy," he warned. "I'm planning to have tea with your aunt this afternoon, and I don't want it disrupted to bandage that head of yours!"

Rand laughed and waved and kept right on circling.

Shea looked up at the doctor. His long, angled jaw wore a bristly coat of sandy-colored whiskers, and his clothes seemed creased into the joints of his gaunt, long-boned frame.

"I didn't expect you to come by this afternoon," she said.

"I just delivered a fat baby boy down the road at Mayhew's," he said around a yawn, "so I thought I'd stop and see you since I was out this way."

Shea slid him a sidelong glance. "/ think you came to see if there's any of Lily's apple cobbler left over from dinner the other night."

"I do have a certain fondness for Lily's cobbler," he allowed, then turned to look down at her. "So how are you, Shea?"

"Stronger than I was yesterday, but not as strong as I'll be tomorrow."

He nodded, pleased with her answer. "I'd still like to check your bandages. Would you mind if we headed back?"

Shea waved at Rand then threaded her hand through Emmet's elbow. As they walked, Shea tried to scrape up courage enough to ask the question that had been plaguing her for weeks, the question that had come to a head this afternoon. "What happened to Lily Gallimore's face?" she finally asked.

Emmet stopped dead in his tracks. "Is that why Lily seemed so upset when I drove in?"

A hot flush flooded up Shea's neck as she explained what had happened.

When she was done, the doctor shook his head. "I keep hoping she'll find a way to make peace with those scars. I keep trying to find something that will get her off this farm. I'm not sure she's been farther than the end of the lane since Cam brought her out here."

"Is she afraid that people will stare at her?"

"Or worse yet, offer pity."

Shea nodded thoughtfully. "Yet she's curious about Denver. She reads the newspapers and asks you and Cam all sorts of things about town. And she sends notes and gifts—"

"—to people she's never seen and doesn't know. It doesn't make sense, does it?"

Shea shook her head. "Maybe one day she'll just get curious enough to pick up and go into town."

"Maybe pigs'll sprout wings and fly," Emmet all but growled at her.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

Emmet slid a thin, dark cheroot from the pocket of his jacket. "I'm not sure I know the whole of it," he said, striking a match and exhaling a long plume of smoke. "She and Cam don't say much. Just that Anderson's Confederate guerrillas raided the town where Lily and her mother were living during the war. And that after the raiders ransacked the house, they set it ablaze. Apparently Lily's clothes caught fire while they were escaping."

Shea shivered at the thought and raised her hand to her own smooth cheek. What would it be like to feel those withered striations where smooth, soft flesh had been?

"Lily couldn't have been more than a girl," Shea breathed.

"She was just sixteen." Emmet's voice caught and she could hear sadness in him, regret that ran deep, and compassion that ate at him for Lily's sake. "Just sixteen."

Instinctively Shea reached for the doctor's hand. "And Cam wasn't there to protect them?"

"He must have come home not long after. I think he's always blamed himself for not being home when they needed him. His mother died the following spring and he's devoted himself to Lily and Rand ever since."

Emmet threw down his half-smoked cheroot and ground it to powder beneath his boot. "I hate that Lily has sacrificed so much of her life to those damned scars. I keep thinking that when they put her in the ground all she'll ever have been is Cameron's sister and Randall's aunt, when there's so much more she could have had and been."

"But would it be so terrible—if she was happy?"

The stiffness went out of Emmet's back. "No, it wouldn't be terrible if she was happy." He drew a suddenly shaky breath. "But the loss would be a goddamn shame for the rest of us."

The sound of the dinner bell clanging startled them both. Lily was standing on the back porch waving at them. In the last half hour she seemed to have regained her composure. "I've put the tea on to steep," she called out. "Won't you come in and have a cup?"

As he turned to her, Emmet Farley's face softened and warmth supplanted the regret in his eyes. "We'll be right there, my dear," he shouted back.