“No! Hold me,” she demanded.
Giving Faith a wry smile, he slid into the seat beside her and settled Callie on his lap.
Faith grinned teasingly. “She does have you wrapped around her finger.”
“No more so than her mother.”
The lights were dimmed. The violins played. The moving picture began rolling.
She heard a crack, smelled the sarsaparilla, and without thought held out her hand. Rawley dropped a smaller than usual piece onto her palm. Glancing over, she saw that Callie was already sucking on her piece. With a wink, Rawley slipped his into his mouth. Looking at this man with her daughter tightened her heart.
The black and white images flickering on the screen mesmerized her, although not nearly as much as the man sitting beside her, who had reached over and once again taken her hand. She had about twenty minutes of just watching him inconspicuously before the film came to an end. But the entire time, the hairs on the nape of her neck bristled. Once she glanced around the room striving to determine who might be staring at her or what might be causing her unease but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
As they made their way out of the theater, she studied her surroundings, the people moving about. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone familiar—
Turning her head quickly, she hoped to get a better view but lost sight of him. Still, he couldn’t be who she thought he was, he couldn’t be Cole. He wouldn’t dare show his face around here and risk having to deal with her father—or with her, for that matter. She’d been too shocked and ashamed to confront him before, but if their paths ever crossed again, he’d discover she was no longer the girl she’d been. That she now possessed a toughness—
“What is it?” Rawley asked.
“I thought I saw—” She shook her head. It was just her imagination toying with her because she was no longer letting the man dominate her thoughts, because she was moving beyond him with Rawley. Maybe a part of her wanted him to see that he no longer held any sway over her. “Nothing. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I’m just tired.”
“I reckon you’ll get sleep tonight.”
She looked at her daughter, nestled against his shoulder, and was tempted to send her home with her parents, but Callie was her responsibility. She and Rawley would just have to figure out a way to be together in a manner that didn’t have her little one catching them alone together. “I imagine I will.”
On the drive home, Callie sat in her lap, doing all the talking she hadn’t done during the movie. Although she hadn’t been able to read the dialogue cards, she’d been fascinated watching the actors moving about on the screen. And she had lots to share about it as though they hadn’t seen it as well.
When they arrived at the cabin, Rawley walked her and Callie up the steps to the door. Rufus came around the corner to greet them. Faith opened the door, and the hound bounded in, Callie racing after him, which gave her a moment alone with Rawley.
“Thank you for being so good to her,” she said.
“She’s like her mother. Easy to love.”
Dear Lord, she wished this man was her daughter’s father.
“Mama!” Callie called out.
“I have to go,” Faith told him.
He slipped his forefinger beneath her chin, tipped up her face, and brushed a kiss over her lips. “Dream of me.”
Laughing, she watched as he strolled to the buggy, giving her a view of his fine broad shoulders. She was most definitely going to dream about him.
Faith was just drifting off into a light sleep when she heard the horse’s nicker outside her bedroom window. Every nerve ending bolted awake as she shot up in bed, her heart pounding so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised if whoever was outside heard it. Barely breathing, not moving another muscle, she listened intently. The huff of noise had been too close to be her horse, enclosed in the corral not too far from the cabin.
The sense of foreboding she’d experienced at the theater had stayed with her, so she’d left the flame in the lamp on the bedside table burning low, which made reaching for the gun resting beside it an easy matter. Her heart slowed and her breathing eased as her fingers closed around the cool ivory handle. Sliding out from between the sheets, she didn’t make a sound when her bare feet landed on the rough braided rug. The curtains were thick enough that the person sneaking around outside wouldn’t be able to catch even a glimpse of her shadow, wouldn’t know a reckoning was making its way toward him.
She hadn’t left any lamps burning in the front room. The curtains weren’t as thick. Moonlight filtered through the fabric lighting her way. She looked in on Callie, grateful to see she and Rufus were snug and asleep in her bed. Quietly she pulled the door closed.
When she reached the front door, she pressed her ear against the wood and listened. Silence. Eerie. Thick. Heavy. Unnatural. Not even a cricket chirping. Then the barest of noises came to her, from across the room, near the kitchen window. Someone was moving around along the side of the cabin.
Slowly, she unlocked the door, released the latch, and eased the portal open. Enough moonlight existed to show nothing skittering about. Knowing the planks well, which ones creaked and which didn’t, she stepped onto the porch in absolute silence.
A crackling as dry leaves were disturbed caught her attention. The horse made a quick snort. A man’s low voice followed. No doubt trying to silence the beast. She found it odd he’d kept the animal with him if he was trying to sneak up on her, but it was quite possible the man was a bullet or two shy of having a loaded gun.
She crept along the porch, her back skimming along the wall of the house. When she got to the edge, she peered around the corner.
Definitely a horse. And a man. A man crouched down, spreading out a pallet. Slipping her finger off the trigger, she stepped down from the porch. “What the hell—”
