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“Again?”
Rafe shrugged.
“We’re not going hunting anytime soon, and I wanted something to do.”
Steven grunted.
“You really should just leave things alone. This isn’t England where things have to be tidied up.”
“I understand that….”
“You’ve been around us for five years, Mowbray. We don’t care if things are out of place. Especially not when it’s hay bales for the horses.” Steven beckoned him down. “Come on down. We may not be hunting right now, but we need to exercise the horses, so get a move on.”
Rafe didn’t argue. Nobody argued with the boss. He knew better than to do that, especially when Steven Marsh was in one of his moods. He seemed to have surges of grumpiness and anger that could snap at any moment. It made being around him a little nerve-wracking, as Rafe didn’t know when he was going to explode on them.
But he was a good employer, and he paid Rafe handsomely for his work. Especially when they were out hunting elk. With Rafe’s natural accuracy, they were able to bring more of them in and get the hides to sell.
Although there were days when Rafe wished he didn’t have to do any shooting. It reminded him of that day in England.
The day when people started to believe that he had shot and killed his friend.
An image of Richard’s dead body floated across his mind, and Rafe shuddered before pushing it away. He was not going to think about him now. It made him freeze up, and it wasn’t good when he was now working as one of the mountain men who ventured out to hunt animals. Steven didn’t like it when men froze up. They had a business, and they couldn’t stop because one of them freaked out at the wrong moment.
It was better not to think about him or about how he had ended up in the middle of nowhere being a hunter instead of living in England as a gentleman. In Colorado, nobody cared about a person’s upbringing or title. They only cared that you did your job and did it well.
That was all Rafe wanted. To do something well, seeing as he had ruined the rest of his life.
As Rafe saddled up his horse, Dark Ash, against his initial decision not to think about Richard and that fateful day, his mind went back to the morning when they had gone hunting. He had been furious at Richard at the time, knowing that the woman he loved had been seeing his best friend at the same time. But as the morning went on, and they were moving through the woods looking for pheasants, the more Rafe thought about it, and the more he realised that he was aiming his anger at the wrong person. Katherine was the one at fault, not Richard. Both of them had been duped by her, and they shouldn’t be fighting over someone who didn’t care. That was what she wanted.
Rafe wouldn’t give that to her.
He had told Richard that. He had asked Richard to speak with him privately once he had calmed down, and they had both apologised. They made amends, and Richard promised that he would not see Katherine again.
Rafe had made a decision to walk away from her as well. He couldn’t be with a woman who didn’t care that she was walking out with two friends, and they were fighting over her. She probably enjoyed the thrill of knowing she was doing it.
The talk had gone well. They were friends again, and Richard had even forgiven him for splitting his lip.
Less than ten minutes later, Richard was dead, and Rafe was being blamed.
The problem was, Rafe couldn’t fight it. He couldn’t even remember what happened after he walked away from Richard. Did he even walk away? He could remember the talk and how they loved each other in spite of everything. But after that, it was blank. Just nothing. Which left him confused. How could he not know what happened?
Even after six years, he still couldn’t remember what happened next. One second he was embracing Richard and saying he would always love him, and the next, he was waking up on the ground by shouts, blood coming from his head and the world spinning around with Richard dead close by. And Rafe’s rifle was close by, covered in blood, as were Rafe’s hands and his shirt.
One look at the situation, and everyone believed that Rafe had killed Richard in a fit of rage over a woman. Rafe had tried to deny it, that they had made up, but there had been no witnesses. Nobody believed him.
There were times, though, when Rafe didn’t believe himself. Had he and Richard gotten into a fight anyway? Was what he was remembering beforehand just a fantasy to hide the fact he had actually killed Richard? Was anything of that hunt before Richard was killed actually real?
Rafe didn’t know anymore. All he knew was he was glad that he had been given an opportunity to leave with his life. The Hayward family had been furious, and initially, they had wanted to see him hang. They believed it was an act of cold blood, no matter what Rafe said. Viscount Selkirk, especially, believed that Rafe was lying about not remembering what he did so he could get out of being punished for killing the Viscount’s son.
So, he had been given a one-way ticket to the New World. America was a place where everyone seemed to be travelling to, and if Rafe went the same way with no intention of coming back, they would not pursue charges. Rafe had agreed, terrified at the thought of being charged with murder. He would never do that to Richard. He couldn’t have killed him.
Or had he? Rafe had searched his head for answers, trying to figure out what had happened. But it was like that part of his life was completely gone now. Even the memories of him and Richard reconciling were sketchy. Rafe didn’t know what to think anymore.
He was stuck in America, his only contact coming from letters that his parents and brother sent him. They knew where he was, and while they didn’t approve of what he was doing, they knew he was alive and safe. That was enough for them.
It wasn’t enough for Rafe. He wanted to come back. He wanted things to go back to how they were before.
But it couldn’t. It could never get better.
