"You just can't leave him like that," Shea implored her. "You can't go without forgiving him!"
"What he's done isn't easy to forgive," Lily raged, her voice shaking. "He made me live with those memories every day because he wouldn't tell me the truth!"
Shea caught Lily's arm. "Think how it's been for Cam," she cried. "Your brother has been carrying those same memories around with him—and his guilt besides.
"He's kept his silence because he wanted to protect you. Every breath he's taken, every decision he's made has been made because he cares for you." Shea's grip tightened. "Lily, for the love of God, can't you forgive him?"
Lily jerked out of Shea's grasp and tore open the studio door. "All I ever wanted was to put the memories away, but he wouldn't let me!"
Shea watched Lily run down the steps and leap into the carriage, watched her whip the horses up the street as if demons were snapping at her heels.
She didn't have any idea what she was going to say to Cam once she went inside, but by the time she did, he was out of bed and dressing himself.
"I'm going after Lily," he told her as he pulled on one of the shirts Rand had brought from the farm. "She's my sister. We need to settle this."
Shea reached out to steady him as he pulled on his trousers. "Why don't you give Lily a bit of time? Perhaps once she's thought this through—"
"Lily can have until I catch up with her!"
Shea gently maneuvered him in the direction of the bed. "I'm not sure you're well enough to ride as far as the farm."
"Don't worry. I'll get there," he assured her.
"If you're so determined to go after her, at least let me go with you."
"I don't need you hovering over me."
"We can rent a carriage. I can drive—"
Cam plopped down at the edge of the mattress and reached for his boots. "This really doesn't concern you."
Of course this concerned her. He concerned her—and Lily was her closest friend. "Please, Cam, let me go with you."
Grunting with the effort, he tugged on his second boot. "This is between my sister and me. It's something we have to settle ourselves."
"I think I can help."
He dragged himself to his feet and stood over her, weaving ever so slightly. "Damn it, Shea!" he roared. "This is a family matter. You don't have any part in this!"
He might as well have laid hands on her and shoved her away. She stumbled back a step of her own accord. The air in her chest went cold and thin.
"I do so have a part in this!" she insisted, her voice starting to tremble. "You made me part of it by coming here when you needed me. You made me part of it by showing me things about yourself you never show anyone. You made me part of it by letting me fall in love with you."
Cam simply stared at her.
Tears breached the rim of her lashes. "People who love each other share more than what they do in bed. We've shared our secrets and our fears. We've had our moments of joy and wondrous pleasure. You've made me part of this, Cam. If you love me, you'll let me go with you."
He stepped in close and cupped her face in his two hands. "Please, Shea," he whispered, "try to understand. What happened with Lily is my doing, my mistake to rectify. No one can help. I have to make peace with my sister by myself."
She pulled out of his hold, angry at how determined he was, how completely he was shutting her out. She stood with tears on her face, shaken and disheartened that just when she thought she'd found her place in his life, he'd turned away.
Cam stepped past her into the entry hall and fought his way into his coat. She followed after him, helpless against his pull.
He jerked open the studio door and hesitated. "I want you to understand I'm not doing this to hurt you."
She shook her head. "I don't understand anything."
"Shea, please—"
"If you're going to the farm alone," she whispered, her voice wavering in spite of her efforts to hold it steady, "just go."
With a dip of his head, he turned and pulled the door closed behind him.
Once the unsteady tread of his footsteps had died away, Shea crumpled into the chair behind the appointment desk. She bowed her shoulders and raised her knees, curling tight into herself. Tears scoured her cheeks, and she pressed her hands to her mouth to hold back the hollow ringing of her sobs.
All her life she'd managed to make peace with the things she'd lost—her home and family in Ireland, her child, and her husband in New York. Even when grief lay heavy on her heart, she'd managed to draw on the will inside herself and move on. But here in Denver her losses had sundered the very fabric of who she was. She'd lost her son to the kind of family she could never provide, lost Owen to an act of senseless violence. Now she'd lost Cam—
Fresh tears stung her eyes, and she curled even more tightly into herself. She bowed her head to her knees and sat there huddled and holding herself together.
Ty found her there when he came home from school a good while later. "Shea?" he asked her, stumbling to a stop just inside the door. "You all right?"
She swiped the tears from her cheeks and smiled at Ty. Here amidst all of her losses she realized she'd been given a wondrous gift—this bright, scruffy, curly-headed youngster. She'd been given the chance to make a family, the two of them together. And she recognized that no matter what she'd lost she still had the strength for this. The strength for him.
She drew Ty closer.
He came hesitantly at first, not sure how to deal with a woman who'd been crying. He reached out gingerly and patted her. He didn't get the rhythm quite right, but something about his gentleness and his concern eased the ache inside her.
Shea sniffled one last time, then wrapped him against her. The notions that had been circling in her brain settled, solidified. Formed into the decision she'd been toying with since Cam left.
"I've been thinking that maybe we should pack our things," she offered softly, "and move on from here."
Ty pulled back, his eyes widening. "You have?"
"We'd be leaving in a month anyway," Shea went on, convincing both Ty and herself. "We could head up north and scout out opportunities for a lady photographer and her young assistant. We can come back for the wagon and the camera equipment when the roads are better."
After all the frequent and unexpected moves Ty must have made with his father, he didn't even question her. "So where do you think we should go?" he asked.
Shea said the first thing that came into her head. "To Cheyenne." The words came on the breath of a sigh. "We'll start looking for our new opportunities in Cheyenne."
* * *
The ride to the farm seemed to take Cam forever. The pain in his side and the cold, shaky light-headedness that swelled over him was only part of what made it so difficult. That he had no earthly idea how he was going to make peace with Lily preyed on his mind. But the thing that tormented him most was the way he'd parted from Shea.
He hated that he left her with tears on her cheeks. He hated that he'd left her believing he didn't care for her, that she had no part in his life. But as much as he'd longed to tell Shea how much she meant to him, he couldn't speak the words or court the consequences.
He was bound by the vows he'd made to his mother on her deathbed, bound by the commitment he'd made to his son when he and Lily had taken Rand as their child. They were sacrifices he'd made gladly, choices and restrictions he'd never minded living up to until today. Not until he'd looked into Shea's face and admitted to himself how important she'd become to him—and how little he had to offer her.
But before he could think beyond the depth of his regrets, the farmhouse appeared on the snowy rise ahead of him, and he turned his thoughts to Lily. When he'd come here not quite a week ago, she'd let Emmet turn him away. This morning at the studio, Lily had run from him, but he wasn't going to let her elude him again. They needed to settle things between them, and put their lives to rights for everyone's sake.
He cursed volubly when he rode up the dr
ive and saw Emmet Farley's buggy parked at the gate. Still, he hadn't come all this way to be run off.
He pulled his horse up behind the buggy and clambered down. He was still clinging to the skirt of the saddle waiting for the dizziness to pass and his knees to stop wobbling when Lily burst out the kitchen door.
"Cammie! For goodness' sakes! What are you doing here?"
He raised his head and the yard swooped into focus around him. "I—I couldn't just let you walk away," he said, determined to get the words out. "Please, Lil, we have to talk, to work this out. I need to tell you—"
"What he needs," Emmet interrupted, bounding down the porch steps in Lily's wake, "is to have his head examined for getting out of a sickbed and riding all this way!"
"I'll be fine in a minute," Cam insisted.
Emmet didn't call him on the lie. He just eased an arm around Cam's shoulders and led him into the house. Cam wove toward the first chair he came to and sat down at the kitchen table breathing hard.
"Did you break open that wound with all your foolishness?" Emmet asked, kneeling and tugging at Cameron's clothes.
While Emmet poked and prodded, Lily brought Cam a cup of tea thick with sugar and cream. His ears had stopped buzzing by the time he'd drunk it.
"Well, I can't see that you've done any real damage," Emmet finally said. "Still, this was a damn fool thing for you to do. Didn't Shea try to talk you out of it?"
"Shea didn't have much say," Cam muttered. "What I came here to do was talk to my sister. Privately."
Emmet raised his eyebrows. "Well, you're going to have to say what you've got to say in front of me," he said, leaning back against the sink, "because I'm not going anywhere."
Cam bristled at Emmet's tone, but he needed to talk to Lily far too much to argue.
"What I came to do, Lil," he began on a long, slow sigh, "is to apologize. I was wrong not to tell you years ago that I'd ridden with the guerrillas. I only did what I thought was best."
Lily stepped nearer, bracing her hands on the top of the chair across from his. "All your life, Cam," she began softly, "you've done what you thought was right. It's what made you load me into that carriage and take me to meet the orphan train. It's why you brought us to Colorado and bought the farm. Most of the time what you've done has been wise and well-considered—and in my best interest. But just this once, you made a mistake."
"I know, Lil, and I'm sorry."
She stepped around the chair and settled herself before him. "You're such a good man, Cammie," she said taking his hand. "You try so hard and you care so much. But you have to accept you can be wrong sometimes—and that it's all right."
"Does that mean you're able to forgive me for the things I did," Cam heard the waver in his own voice, "and for all the things I didn't tell you?"
Lily tightened her warm, rough fingers around his hand. "I think that as much as I needed you to tell me about the raiders, I think you needed to tell me about them more. Maybe that's why Mama explained all of it before she died—so I'd be able to make you own up to what you'd done."
Cam ducked his head, thinking maybe his mother had been wiser than he knew.
"Getting this out in the open," Lily went on, sounding as if she was able to breathe again, "makes me feel as if I can finally stop being beholden to you, as if everything I have is something you've given me out of guilt."
"If I gave you things—" Cam tightened his hold on his sister's hand and waited for her to look up at him "—it was because I wanted you to have them. I wanted you to have a child to raise, a comfortable home, and a settled life."
"I always believed you gave me those things, Cammie, because you thought what you did had taken them from me." Lily lowered her gaze again, and the next admission came hard for her. "For awhile, right after mother told me where you were when I was burned, I—I thought you owed them to me, too."
Cam watched her face, hope pressing hard and hot behind his sternum. "But you changed your mind?"
"I grew up." Lily shrugged and gave him her onesided smile. "I became a woman, a mother. And when I did, I came to understand that what happened that day wasn't your fault. That you'd have sold your soul to prevent it. That it's made me who I am. All I've wanted since I realized that was for you to tell me the truth, so both of us could put this behind us."
"But I wouldn't let you do that."
"You wouldn't let you do that, either," Lily amended softly. "You wouldn't own up to riding with the guerrillas because you didn't think you deserved to be forgiven. Or to forgive yourself." Lily clasped his fingers one last time, then took back her hand. "I know this isn't how either of us wanted things to work out, but it's over now and time for us to make a new start. Or at least I intend to."
Emmet set another cup of tea down in front of Cam, then went to stand over Lily's chair.
"You see," Lily went on, "I mean to marry Emmet."
Cam stared at her, stared at the two of them as if he'd never seen them before. "Marry Emmet?" he echoed. "Just when did you decide to marry Emmet?"
Lily tilted her chin defiantly. "While you and Shea were off in the mountains looking for the boys, Emmet came to the house to be sure I was all right here by myself. He stayed to supper and we talked. Talking lead to other things, and well—" Color suffused her cheeks. "Emmet stayed the night."
Cam blinked, not entirely sure what his shy, virtuous sister was admitting. "He stayed because it snowed."
"I stayed because I love her," Emmet clarified, curling his hand possessively around Lily's shoulder.
"He's loved me for years." There was pride in Lily's eyes. "He's been waiting for me to spread my wings, to find myself. He's been waiting for me to be ready to be his wife."
Cam took a long swallow of tea and wished it was something stronger. "And you're sure this is what you want?"
Lily looked up at Emmet, a sweet, soft glow coming into her face. "Oh, I'm sure," she murmured. "I've never been more sure of anything."
Emmet squeezed Lily's shoulder and smiled at her. Together they radiated a warmth the sun might envy, created a bond to keep the world at bay. Even Cam.
Cam watched them as he sipped his tea, thinking that for years he'd taken belonging for granted. He'd been one of the faces around this table, two of the hands that clasped as they spoke the blessing, a third of this family. Now the equation had changed. Emmet had taken a place in the circle. Cam couldn't have been more pleased for his sister's sake, but he was deeply aware of that shift, that alteration.
Here in his own house he suddenly felt like a stranger. Here where he'd always belonged he seemed oddly separate from the people he loved.
This must be why Shea had been so determined to come with him this morning, he found himself thinking. She believed she'd become part of this home and family, part of their lives. And he'd denied her her connection, shut her out. He'd seen confusion and hurt in her eyes, but he hadn't understood it.
Now he did.
Or maybe he'd been afraid to acknowledge how much a part of his world Shea had become. He'd been in love with her for a good long while. He'd loved her kindness and her integrity since that night in the kitchen when she came to him for Rand's sake. He'd loved her generosity and compassion for what she'd done for Lily. He loved her for what she was and what she'd been to him—a friend and confidante, a bulwark at his back. He loved her because she was a woman of character and strength, a lover whose passion and tenderness knew no bounds.
He hadn't been able to tell her any of that. He hadn't been able to offer her more than he'd given her already.
But now he could.
Seeing how Emmet and Lily looked at each other, thinking about the lies and guilt he'd cast aside made him realize all at once that he was free. Free to tell her how much he loved her. Free to show her what she meant to him.
Free to offer her...
"I have to get back to Denver!" Setting aside his cup, Cam shoved to his feet.
Both Emmet and Lily hurried over to stay him.
"Goodness, Cammie, you only just got here!" his sister protested, wrapping her arm around his waist.
"It would do you a world of good to rest a spell," Emmet agreed.
"I need to see Shea. We—we had words before I left, and I need to tell her she was right." Cam turned to his sister, his voice gone soft. "I need to tell her that I love her."
"I should think you do," Lily answered, smiling.
"I need to ask her—" A wave of sudden dizziness washed over him. "I need to ask Shea to be with me. To marry me. I only just realized how much I need—"
The dizziness came again, stronger this time. Cam wavered on his feet, and Emmet slung his arm around him, too. Together he and Lily eased Cam down into the chair as his head spun and his knees gave.
He stared up at them through a thickening haze of lethargy. Then all at once Cam recognized what this woozy, head-stuffed-with-cotton feeling was. He did his best to glare up at the man who was soon to be his brother-in-law.
"Goddamn you, Emmet! Did you put laudanum in my tea?"
Emmet didn't even bother to deny it. "You'd have fallen off that horse before you got halfway back to Denver. This saves us the trouble of having to search for you in the ditches."
"But I need to talk to Shea," Cam insisted.
"We'll drive you into town in the morning. You can ask Shea to marry you then."
"That isn't good enough," Cam slurred as the room faded around him and his eyes closed. With the protest still on his lips, he slumped across the table, dead asleep.
Chapter 20
Will you marry me, Shea?
Too straightforward, too simple. Women liked romance.
I love you, Shea. I want you to be my wife.
Better, but it didn't address the problem at hand.
Shea, I've been a fool! Will you marry me?
Now wasn't that a sterling recommendation for a husband?
"Cammie?" his sister interrupted from the front seat of the carriage. "What are you mumbling about back there?"
Cam looked up and realized where he was. Emmet had stopped at the foot of the steps to Shea's studio. A jolt of pure, raw panic rippled through him. God knows, he wasn't anywhere near ready to face Shea yet. Not when he knew their future hinged on what he said to her in the next few minutes.
Painted by the Sun Page 33
