Only Love (3 page)

Squinting, Murphy scratched the tangled hair that covered his chin.

“Can’t rightly say. Once, maybe, back in sixty-six,” Murphy said slowly. “And in sixty-one, when he fetched the gal from back east.”

“Seven years ago,” Whip said. “The War Between the States…”

“That be the one. Lot of folks come westering during them years.”

The thought of Shannon married to a “snake-mean old man” for seven years dug at Whip. He had been in Australia during much of the War Between the States, but he knew how brutal it had been for the people caught between North and South. His sister Willow had barely survived.

It could have been Willy forced to sell herself to an old man in order to survive,
Whip told himself silently.
But Willy was lucky. She managed to stay alive and single until she met a man she could love. Caleb Black is a hard man, and a damned good one.

“Yup,” Murphy said. “I figure the gal is a widow by now. There was a mess of avalanches this spring. Silent John’s probably froze solid as stone somewhere way up a fork of Avalanche Creek. Culpeppers must think so, else they wouldn’t be so free with their talk.”

Whip said nothing. He simply stood, listening. The bullwhip writhed and hissed at his feet like a long, restless snake.

“The gal will be froze solid, too, come fall,” Murphy said with faint satisfaction. “Them supplies she bought wouldn’t keep a bird alive. Now, if’n she been more neighborly and less uppity…”

The storekeeper’s voice died as Whip looked at him.

“I saw a crowbait black picketed just outside of town,” Whip said. “Would he be for sale as a packhorse?”

“You got gold, ain’t nothin’ you can’t buy in Holler Creek.”

Whip dug coins out of his pants pocket. Gold coins. They rang as they hit the counter.

“Start rounding up supplies,” Whip said.

Murphy’s hand flashed out and scooped up the coins with surprising speed.

“And when you weigh the dry goods,” Whip added gently, “keep your dirty thumb off the scales.”

Surprisingly, Murphy grinned. “Not many folks are quick enough to catch me.”

“I am.”

Murphy laughed and started gathering Whip’s supplies.

B
Y
the time Whip returned to the mercantile leading the thin black packhorse, his supplies were waiting. Within an hour everything was loaded and ready to go.

Whip swung into the saddle of his big, smoke-colored trail horse and grabbed the packhorse’s lead rope. He rode out with a storm building around him, tracking the girl with frightened eyes and a walk like honey.

It was sunset when Whip rode down a wooded draw into a clearing. At the far edge of the clearing a cabin was waiting, the cabin he had seen in his dreams.

And the girl he had dreamed was waiting, too.

But Shannon had a dog the size of Texas by her side, a shotgun in her hands, and an expression on her face that said she didn’t want a damn thing to do with the man called Whip Moran.

S
HANNON
stood in the doorway of the cabin and looked into the eerie radiance that came to the high country during a stormy sunset. All around her thunder rumbled and echoed like distant avalanches. She could smell the storm coming down the mountainside. She could taste it. She could feel it in the freshening wind.

But the fierce thunderstorm didn’t worry her nearly as much the lone man riding out of the sunset.

Lord, that’s one big man the storm is pushing toward me.

The rider was mounted on a silver-gray horse that was the exact color of the stranger’s eyes back in Holler Creek. When the rider turned to check on the progress of his packhorse, the long leather lash coiled over his right shoulder gleamed in the twilight.

Whip.

Is it really him? Cherokee said nobody alive could handle a long lash like the man called Whip.

But what brings him here?

The answer was a memory of Whip’s clear,
quicksilver glances following her, touching her like ghostly caresses.

Other men had stared at Shannon, followed her, wanted her…but none of them had looked at her like Whip. In his eyes there had been a combination of elemental male hunger and profound human yearning, as though he had spent a lifetime in darkness and she was sunrise shimmering just beyond his reach.

Shannon’s heartbeat hammered wildly inside her chest while Whip rode slowly closer. The double-barreled shotgun lay cold and heavy in her hands. The gun was loaded, the hammers were back, and her finger rested across both triggers.

Beside Shannon a huge brindle dog snarled softly, sensing his mistress’s unease. Bigger than a mastiff, leggy as a timber wolf, as thick through the chest as a pony, the dog clearly outweighed Shannon. Just as clearly, the dog was protective of her. Fangs as long as Shannon’s thumb gleamed whitely below the beast’s curled upper lip.

“Easy, Prettyface,” Shannon said softly to the dog.

Prettyface subsided, but the ruff still stood out on his powerful neck. His ears remained flat against his massive skull in blunt warning of his temperament.

Whip kept riding closer, until Shannon could see the clear silver of his eyes. His hunger was equally clear, a yearning both direct and complex. That yearning had haunted Shannon all the way back to the cabin.

It haunted her still.

“That’s far enough, mister,” Shannon said steadily. “What do you want?”

To her relief, Whip reined in his horse and tipped his hat politely to her.

“Evening, ma’am,” he said. “You left Murphy’s store so quickly that you forgot most of your supplies.”

Shannon’s eyes searched the quicksilver and shadows of Whip’s eyes.

She hadn’t made a mistake. She wasn’t dreaming. The stranger called Whip was here, in her clearing.

And he wanted her.

“It
is
you,” she said huskily. “Whip. That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”

“Out here, yes.”

Shannon knew better than to ask if Whip had any other name, a given name, a Christian name, a home and a family. West of the Mississippi you called a man sir, mister, or whatever nickname he accepted. If he wanted to be called something else, he would tell you quickly enough.

Shannon’s glance went over Whip with a curious longing. The rhythm of his words and his muted drawl were those of a man who hadn’t been raised in eastern slums or crude western gold camps. He was southern, but not from the Deep South. Perhaps not even Confederate.

“Are you…Did you…?” Shannon took a quick breath. “Did those Culpeppers hurt you?”

Whip smiled slowly.

Shannon’s breath lodged in her throat, making her ache. Whip had the smile of a recently fallen angel, gentle and rueful and so darkly beautiful it almost brought her to her knees.

“No, Shannon,” Whip said. “They didn’t hurt me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

The breath Shannon had been holding came out in a ragged sigh.

Lightning raked the mountain peaks that rose around the clearing. Wind surged, bending delicate aspens whose branches were still bare of leaves. With the wind came a prolonged rumble of thunder and a quicksilver taste of rain.

“You shouldn’t have interfered,” Shannon said earnestly. “The last man who stood up for me against the Culpeppers got stomped so bad that he died.”

Gray eyes narrowed.

“Those boys have the manners of a wolverine,” Whip said.

“I tried to warn you.”

“And I tried to warn them. They didn’t listen. So as Caleb would say, I read to them from the Book. Maybe they’ll listen better in the future.”

Shannon’s dark eyes jerked toward the braided leather coils riding so comfortably on Whip’s powerful shoulder. She hadn’t seen the lash strike Beau, but she knew it had. At the first sight of blood on a Culpepper mouth, she had grabbed her supplies and run for old Razorback.

“Caleb?” Shannon asked.

It was the only thing she could think of to say, for the smile was gone from Whip’s face. Now he was looking at her like she was food and he was a man who had gone hungry far too long.

What frightened Shannon was how much a part of her wanted to ease this one man’s hunger.

I’m still scared after what happened in town,
Shannon told herself stoutly.
Tomorrow I’ll go see Cherokee. Then I won’t feel so alone that a stranger’s smile turns my heart upside down and makes my knees shaky.

“Caleb Black,” Whip explained gently, “is my sister Willow’s husband. They have a ranch west of here. So does my brother Reno, and his wife, Eve.”

“Oh.”

Shannon forced herself to breathe normally. Her hands ached from being clenched around the heavy shotgun, but she wasn’t about to put the weapon down. She had seen how terrifyingly fast that bullwhip could move.

“I’m Shannon Conner, uh, Smith,” she said. Then added hastily, “Smith is my married name.”

Whip frowned as though he didn’t like the reminder that she was married.

“Is it all right if I get down and give you the supplies you left behind?”

“All right?” she asked, perplexed.

“The shotgun,” Whip said gently.

“Oh. That.”

Whip made no attempt to hide his amusement at his effect on Shannon Conner Smith.

“Yes,” he said in a deep voice. “That.”

Shannon flushed.

And she kept the shotgun’s muzzle where it was, pointing just in front of Whip’s horse.

“Go ahead,” Shannon said. “Get whatever Murphy figured he couldn’t cheat me out of.”

Whip dismounted with a muscular grace that did nothing to set Shannon’s mind at ease.

Lord above, this is one dangerous man.

Beautiful, too.

The second thought was so startling to Shannon that she almost laughed out loud.

I must be going cabin happy. Flowers are beautiful, and butterflies, and a baby’s smile.

Whip isn’t like those things.

Lightning burned whitely across the indigo base of clouds whose towering heads were still washed in crimson light. The mountain wore the storm with the muscular ease of a man carrying a bullwhip coiled on his shoulder.

But mountains are beautiful, too. And thunderheads. And lightning burning through the storm.

Whip is like that. Lightning and storm and a mountain’s strength.

Prettyface’s rippling snarl brought Shannon’s wandering attention back to the clearing.

Whip was walking toward her.

But instead of the small parcels of baking soda and lard she had expected, his big arms were filled to overflowing with supplies.

“Hold it, Mr. Whip.”

The shotgun was no longer pointing at Whip’s horse.

Whip stopped where he was.

“My name is Rafael Moran,” he said calmly, “but call me Whip if you’d rather.”

“It’s how I’ve been thinking of you,” she said.

“Have you?”

“What?”

“Been thinking of me?”

Shannon blushed, realizing what she had admitted.

Whip smiled and started toward her again.

“I said hold it!” she ordered.

“I’m already holding as much as I can,” Whip said reasonably, “but I’ll try.”

Shannon bit her lips against an urge to smile, to laugh, to put away the shotgun and trust the big stranger who seemed as familiar to her as her own breath.

Why didn’t Cherokee ever tell me I would react like
this to a man? Lord above, no wonder women do fool things for men.

At least, for men like Whip.

“Don’t come any closer,” she said grimly. “Prettyface doesn’t like strangers.”

Whip blinked. “Prettyface?”

“My hound.”

Whip looked at the huge, snarling animal whose head came up to Shannon’s breasts.

“That’s Prettyface?” he asked.

“Of course. Or maybe you’d like to be the one to tell him he’s ugly?”

There was an instant of silence. Then Whip threw back his head and laughed with surprise and delight.

A ripple of pleasure went through Shannon at the sound. Whip’s laughter was even more beautiful than his smile.

“Prettyface it is,” Whip agreed. “You’d have to be dumb as a roomful of Culpeppers to call that brute anything else.”

This time Shannon couldn’t help smiling.

“Where do you want your supplies?” Whip asked.

Her smile vanished.

“They aren’t mine,” Shannon said flatly.

“That isn’t what Murphy said.”

“Murphy wouldn’t know the truth if it wore a sign.”

Whip smiled again. “Can’t argue that. So think of this as Murphy’s apology for all the times he kept his dirty thumb on the scales when he was weighing your supplies.”

With a hunger Shannon couldn’t entirely conceal, she looked at the sacks of beans and flour, bacon and dried apples, salt and spices, and other
things she had gone so long without she could hardly remember their names.

Abruptly Shannon looked away from the bounty that was being offered to her. Her throat worked as she swallowed, for just the thought of food was enough to make her mouth water.

“I’ll take the baking soda and lard I paid for, and thank you for your trouble,” she said tightly. “You can take the rest back.”

Just as Whip started to speak, lightning slashed through the condensing night. Thunder rumbled, closer now. The air itself tasted of sleet. The storm was closing in on Shannon’s clearing, bringing the icy rains of high-country summer.

“If you think I’m going to ride all the way back to Holler Creek in this weather,” Whip said, “you’re crazy.”

“Where you go is your business. What you take with you is mine.”

For a long time there was no sound but that of the twilight storm, of wind rushing and trees bending, thunder growling, the muted drumroll of rain beating against the mountain with tiny silver hammers.

“You need the food,” Whip said bluntly. “You’re too thin.”

Shannon didn’t bother to deny it. She had lost so much weight during the past winter she could barely get Silent John’s cast-off clothes to stay on her. If it hadn’t been for the pronounced flare of her hips, Shannon would have found the pants around her knees every time she moved.

But Whip doesn’t have the right to notice something that personal, much less to take it upon himself to feed me.

Both Cherokee and Silent John had repeatedly
warned Shannon about the problems that would come if she allowed herself to get beholden to a man during Silent John’s frequent absences. Shannon couldn’t allow herself to owe a man anything. Even a man with a smile like a fallen angel.

Perhaps
especially
not that man.

When Whip saw the determined line of Shannon’s mouth, he knew before she spoke that she was going to refuse the supplies. That made him angry, but what really triggered his temper was the fact that he couldn’t force Shannon to take so much as a single bite of the food he had brought for her.

He had no right to take care of Shannon. Only her husband had that privilege, and obviously the man was no damned good at it.

“Think of it as a loan,” Whip said through clenched teeth.

“No.”

“Hell’s fire,” Whip snarled, “you’re so weak you can hardly hold that shotgun up!”

“I’m not too weak to pull the trigger.”

The sound Prettyface made then echoed Whip’s anger, a low rumbling like a storm coming.

Whip got a grip on his temper. The last thing he wanted to do was fight Shannon’s dog. As a way to get into a girl’s good graces, thumping on her dog was a losing strategy.

Besides, the damned beast was as big as a barn.

Yet, even knowing that, Whip had to struggle with his desire to yank the shotgun out of Shannon’s hands, clout the dog a good one, and then sit Shannon down to a real meal.

Realizing that his temper was at flash point shocked Whip. Normally he was the easygoing Moran and his brother Reno was the hardheaded one. But there was something about Shannon’s
sheer stubbornness that put the spurs to Whip’s temper.

“There’s no harm in accepting a hand now and again,” Whip said, forcing himself to speak gently.

“Cherokee, the shaman, told me that men tame mustangs by offering them food when they’re hungry and water when they’re thirsty. Of course, the men run the mustangs nearly to death first, so they get plenty hungry and thirsty. Then the men offer the mustangs a hand—with a rope in it.”

Humor briefly softened the planes of Whip’s face.

“That’s one way to do it,” he agreed.

But Wolfe Lonetree taught me a better way,
Whip remembered.
You stay on the edges of the mustang’s senses, not crowding, not rushing, until the wild thing gets used to having you around. Then you get closer and the mustang gets nervous and you stop until you teach it to accept you at that distance.

And then you go closer and wait and go closer and wait and go closer until finally the sweet little beauty is eating right out of your hand.

Of course, damned few mustangs are worth that much trouble.

The wind swept down, billowing Shannon’s loose clothes one moment and molding them to her body the next.