Only Love (7 page)

The third day Whip’s gift was onions and potatoes, luxuries Shannon hadn’t tasted in six months.

That night she lay half asleep, waiting for the sound of the flute. When it came she shivered and listened intently. Prettyface awakened, prowled the cabin briefly, and settled back into sleep once more. Finally Shannon slept, too.

The fourth day, Whip’s gift was a plot of jam that was like tasting a sweet summer morning, holding it on her tongue, and licking it from her fingertips.

The sound of the flute came early that night, whistling up the stars, giving them to Shannon like another gift. Prettyface cocked his head and listened, but didn’t bother to get up. The big mongrel no longer associated the sound of the flute with something unknown and, therefore, dangerous.

The fifth day, Shannon returned from hunting to find logs dragged up to the dwindling woodpile. The maul Silent John had used to split wood—and Shannon had broken—was repaired. The ax was sharpened. So was the crosscut saw.

Prettyface sniffed every object suspiciously, his ruff raised and his chest vibrating with a low growl. But nothing came forth to challenge him. Nor did he catch any sense of unease from his mistress.

The big dog’s ruff settled. Slowly he was coming to accept Whip’s scent as something normal.

That night Prettyface barely cocked his ears when the flute’s husky cries wove through the twilight. Shannon paused in the act of draping clothes across the line to dry over the stove. She titled her head back and closed her eyes, letting the beauty of the music caress her tired spirit.

On the sixth day that Shannon came back empty-handed from hunting, Whip’s gift was freshly chopped wood of the exact length to burn in her stove. The wood was neatly piled by the cabin door, close at hand whenever she needed it.

While she looked at the wood, Whip’s flute whispered to Shannon from the surrounding forest, a haunting three-note cry. When she turned, she saw nothing.

Nor did the flute sing again.

On the seventh day, a bouquet of wildflowers waited for her.

Shannon looked at the flowers and bit her lip against an unexpected desire to cry. Letting out a shaky breath, she searched the forest at the edge of the clearing, hungry to see more of Whip than a shadow slipping away at the edge of her vision. Sometime in the past six days, she had stopped worrying about Whip circling around behind her and catching her unawares. She no longer believed he would jump on her like an animal and rut on her whether she wanted it or not.

If that was what Whip wanted from Shannon, he could have taken her more easily than he had taken the grouse or the trout. She knew her vulnerability when she left the cabin as surely as he must have known it.

And the Culpeppers. She feared they knew it as well.

Shannon wondered if Whip, too, had come across the tracks of four saddle mules just two miles below the cabin. Seeing the tracks, Shannon had been relieved to know that Whip was just beyond reach in the forest somewhere, watching out for her.

Protecting her.

The thought made Shannon smile, though the smile quickly turned upside down. She knew Whip’s protection wouldn’t last very long. As soon as he realized that she wasn’t his for the asking, he would ride on until he found a more willing woman.

But until then, Shannon welcomed the knowledge that she wasn’t wholly alone.

Slowly Shannon bent down and picked up the flowers Whip had left for her. It was like holding a handful of butterflies. She looked at the glorious colors, brushed her lips against the smooth petals,
and tried to remember when someone had given her anything that wasn’t needed for sheer survival.

She couldn’t think of one time. Even Cherokee’s unexpected gift had been meant to further Shannon’s survival, like a box of shotgun shells or a haunch of venison.

With a ragged sound, Shannon put her face into the soft, fragrant flowers and wept.

When she looked up, she saw Whip silhouetted against the burning blue of the sky. She blinked away tears, trying to see him better.

She saw only empty sky.

W
HIP
walked down the far side of the rise to the place where his horse was tied. The sight of Shannon crying disturbed him in ways he couldn’t name.

Why would she cry over a handful of flowers?

There was no answer.

Whip muttered a curse and swung into the saddle. Then he cursed again and shifted his weight in the stirrups. Seeing Shannon walk through the clearing to the cabin had drawn a pronounced response from his body. She had a way of moving that could set fire to stone, and Whip was a long way from stone.

He was both annoyed and amused by his own arousal. He hadn’t been this hot and bothered over a woman since West Virginia, when Savannah Marie had set out to tease one of the Moran brothers into marrying her. Whip had known precisely what she was doing, but the scented sighs and rustling silk petticoats and peekaboo glimpses of her nipples still had made his body as hard as an ax handle.

But Shannon wasn’t wearing silk petticoats, and
her breasts were hidden unless the wind blew hard enough to press cloth against the surprisingly lush curves of her body. Whip hadn’t gotten close enough to discover whether Shannon’s breath was scented, but he had discovered the spearmint someone had planted by the creek, and he had seen her pick springs and take them to the cabin.

Whip wondered if Shannon would taste of cream and mint when he dipped his tongue into her.

Then he wondered again why she had cried over the flowers.

Maybe she’s just lonely.

He considered that possibility as he began casting for sign on the trail that led away from Shannon’s cabin to Holler Creek. He knew that widows were often lonely, especially if they had no children or nearby family or friends.

Hell, any woman would be lonely in those circumstances.

Of course, there’s that old shaman in the cabin on the north fork of Avalanche Creek. Shannon visits him often enough. That’s company, of a sort.

Whip had been surprised the first time he had tracked Shannon to the tiny, remote shack where the shaman lived. Then Whip had seen the old man’s crooked stance and realized that Shannon was helping him out.

She must be used to taking care of old men. If gossip can be trusted, Silent John is no spring chicken.

Or was.

Is he dead like the Culpeppers think, or did he take a bead on the wrong man and find himself ambushed in turn and is lying low until the other man gives up?

The only answer Whip could think of was another question.

Maybe Silent John is like that half-breed shaman,
bunged up and waiting to heal before he comes back. After all, he was seen riding out over Avalanche Creek Pass at the first thaw.

The thought made Whip’s mouth thin. Much as he wanted the pleasure he would find within Shannon’s body, he no more wanted to seduce a married woman than he did a virgin. It wasn’t something a decent man did.

That was why Whip had spent much of the past week quartering the land and scrambling up the various forks of Avalanche Creek, looking for any sign that Silent John was working on his claims or had gone to ground to wait out an injury.

Whip had found nothing for his trouble but a few ragged holes far up the mountainside, signs that someone had taken a pickax to hard rock and gone looking for gold. But there was nothing to tell Whip how long ago the holes had been worked. All he could be certain of was that the ashes of the various campfires he discovered hadn’t been disturbed since the last rain, three days before.

Three days.

Three weeks.

Three years. No way to tell.

Hell, Caleb told me of coming across charcoal from fires built against cliffs high in these mountains. Nothing had changed since his daddy surveyed those same charcoal remains thirty years ago for the army.

And the fires had been built by Indians three hundred years ago, before they had stolen horses from the Spaniards and learned how to ride.

I don’t have three hundred years to find Silent John.

Whip did’t know how much more time he would spend in the Rocky Mountains. Already he had stayed here longer than he had in any place since he had left West Virginia all those years ago,
when he was man-sized and boy-stupid.

Part of what still held Whip in the Rockies was the presence of his brother Reno and his sister Willow, and friends like Caleb and Wolfe. But the land itself was also an extraordinary lure. The taste of the wind and the colors of the land were like nowhere else on earth. Something about the clusters of high, icy peaks and the long, green divides between the groups of mountains fascinated Whip.

Yet as much as he loved the landscape, he didn’t expect to settle down and live in the midst of the wild Rockies. Sooner or later wanderlust would reclaim his soul and he would go wherever the mood took him, searching the earth for something he was able to describe only as the sunrise he had never seen.

But until the yondering urge comes, there’s nothing to keep me from enjoying the sunrise I have right here.

Accompanied only by his thoughts and a restless wind, Whip cast for sign in the long, raking light of late afternoon,. He saw tracks of elk and deer and mountain lion. He heard the high, fluting cry of an eagle calling to its mate. But he neither heard men nor saw signs of anyone moving over the land.

There were no new mule tracks where Holler Creek’s racing white water joined with Avalanche Creek’s eastern fork. The tracks of four mules were still there, blurred somewhat by a light rain but unmistakable.

The Culpeppers had ridden to the fork in the trail that led to Shannon’s cabin. Three of them had stayed there for a time, sitting on their mules and drinking while the fourth Culpepper scouted the east fork of avalanche Creek.

Whip had been on the rise behind Shannon’s cabin when he saw Darcy sneaking through the
woods. Whip had pulled his carbine out of the saddle scabbard, sighted, and send rock splinters peppering over Darcy’s chest. Darcy had run back to his mule and set off at a hard pace.

Whip had backtracked him to where the others sat their mules and awaited their brother’s return. The Culpeppers didn’t hang around for whoever had taken a shot at Darcy. They threw two empty whiskey bottles onto the rocks and put spurs to heir racing mules.

When Whip got there, all that was left were telltale tracks and shards of glass glittering in the sun.

Days ago,
Whip thought, looking around the valley where the two creeks joined.
The Culpeppers haven’t been back since.

But they’ll get around to it. Soon as they work up the nerve.

For a long time Whip sat on his horse, thinking about the Culpeppers and Silent John and the frightened girl with a walk like honey. Nothing Whip had found as he searched the Avalanche Creek watershed made him believe that Silent John was still alive, much less working any of his claims.

I suppose he could be out man-hunting on the other side of the Great Divide.

The thought made Whip frown.

But if I had to lay money on it, I’d say Silent John was dead. No man as canny as he’s supposed to be would leave Shannon alone for six weeks when coyotes like the Culpeppers are sniffing around.

But if Silent John were dead, Shannon was left to fend for herself without a husband’s help. She was a young girl in a woman-hungry land, a silky lamb among snarling coyotes. No matter how big and savage Prettyface was, no matter how careful
Shannon was, sooner or later the Culpeppers would catch her off guard.

Sooner, probably.

Whip didn’t like to think about what would happen when the Culpeppers got their hands on Shannon.

Silent John or no Silent John, it’s time for me to close in on my beautiful, almost-tamed mustang.

T
HE
next day Shannon awoke not to the sound of Whip’s flute calling up the sun, but to the rhythmic sounds of a man splitting wood.

It was a sound she hand’t heard for years.

Instantly Shannon looked toward Prettyface. The dog was lying with his head on his massive paws and his ears cocked in the direction of the noise. He was growling slightly, but with no real menace.

Shannon left the bed in a rush and ran to one of the cabin’s two windows. Neither window had glass. Instead, they were covered with shutters that were solid but for a gun slit plugged by a rag. Despite the plug, cold air came through the slit in a ceaseless, invisible flow.

Removing the rag, Shannon eased the shutters apart just a bit and peeked out.

Whip was standing just fifteen feet away. Despite the cold, sleet-streaked dawn, he had taken off his thick jacket. The red of his wool shirt burned like wildfire in the gray light and heat lifted from his big body in tongues of mist.

Legs braced slightly apart, sleet lashing across his body, Whip lifted the heavy maul and brought
it swiftly down on a round of fir. The wood split cleanly into half circles. He bent, set one of the halves on end, and brought the maul down again, splitting the wood once more.

The grace and power of Whip’s movements sent an add, glittering sensation from Shannon’s breastbone to her thighs. For a long time she stood motionless, watching the measured, masculine dance of maul and wood, strength and balance.

Finally a stray piece of sleet stung Shannon’s nose, breaking her trance. Shivering, stiff from not moving, she stepped back and eased the shutter closed, sealing out the icy dawn.

But there was no way Shannon could seal out the memory of Whip’s male beauty, the elegance and easy power of his body, and the heat rising like smoke from him s he warmed to the work.

Feeling almost light-headed, Shannon went about her morning tasks. Because she wouldn’t have to spend hours gathering downed wood in the forest to replace whatever she burned, she decided to make a hot breakfast.

Humming softly, not realizing that she was singing one of the tunes Whip played on his haunting flute, Shannon raked the coals in the wood stove to new life. She added wood and dipped up a bucket of steaming hot spring water, smiling in anticipation of breakfast.

One of Whip’s gifts to Shannon had been coffee beans. It had been two years since she had ground beans and made coffee, but she hadn’t forgotten how.

It wasn’t long before the smell of biscuits, bacon, coffee and a wood fire filled the cabin. When the coffee had brewed, Shannon carefully poured some from the battered kettle into an equally battered tin
mug. Then she let herself out of the cabin and walked toward the man whose presence no longer alarmed her.

When Whip bent down to stand another log on end, he saw Shannon standing quietly a few feet from him. Sleet was tangled in her shiny chestnut hair. In her hands was a steaming cup of coffee.

She was holding the cup out to him.

Whip took it, careful not to touch Shannon as he did, even though he was wearing leather work gloves. He didn’t want to do anything to spook his shy mustang.

Not now.

Not when she was so close to eating from his hand.

“Thank you,” Whip said, his voice deep.

Shannon’s breath caught.

“You’re welcome, Whip.”

Her voice was as sweet and husky as Whip had remembered. Smoke and honey combined. Hearing him name on her lips was like being licked by a tender flame.

And looking at Shannon was like breathing pure fire.

Her eyes were sapphire gems gleaming in the midst of the colorless dawn. Her silky chestnut hair had refused to be completely confined by braids. Soft tendrils escaped to brush against her cheeks and curl against her vulnerable neck.

When the breath Shannon exhaled touched Whip in a silver rush, he breathed in deeply, hungry to touch her in even so small a way.

A color that had nothing to do with the cold dawn appeared on Shannon’s cheeks. Belatedly Whip realized he was staring at her. He lifted the tin cup to his mouth, silently cursing himself for
acting like a boy who had never seen a pretty girl before.

“Careful!” Shannon said quickly, reaching out to prevent Whip from lifting the cup any farther.

Whip froze, but not because of the warning. Shannon’s fingers had slipped from his glove to rest on bare skin just above his wrist. Her fingers were warm, amazingly delicate, and smelled of spearmint. Her breath was the same.

The realization that Shannon had eaten mint so that she would smell sweet to him made Whip want to pull her into his arms and show her just how much he liked the taste of spearmint.

But he didn’t do it. He had come too far to lose his sweet, silky mustang by startling her into flight.

“The coffee is devilish hot,” Shannon explained.

Whip smiled, revealing teeth as clean and white as her own.

“It’s best that way,” he said slowly. “Hot. Steaming hot. And sweet.”

Shannon’s smile was a little shaky, but then, so was her heartbeat. Whip radiated heat like a big stove, only nicer, because she didn’t have to worry about burning herself.

“I’m sorry,” Shannon said. “I didn’t think to put sugar in your coffee.”

“No need. I like it black.”

“But you just said it was best when it was steaming hot and sweet.”

“Did I?”

Shannon nodded.

Whip smiled slightly. “I must have been thinking of something else.”

He took a sip from the battered metal cup, closed his eyes, and savored the heat and taste of the fragrant brew.

“Now that’s fine. Really fine,” Whip said. “And no sugar on earth could be sweeter than having you bring me coffee.”

Color burned on Shannon’s cheeks, but she almost smiled before she looked shyly away.

“Breakfast will be ready soon,” she said, turning back toward the cabin. “I’ll leave warm water by the door so you can wash up.”

“I’ll eat out here.”

Shannon turned around, surprise clear in her extraordinary eyes. She pushed a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear and frowned at Whip.

“There’s no need to eat in the cold,” she said. “I may be poor as a church mouse, but I have two chairs for the table.”

“It’s not that. I just don’t want to make you nervous by coming inside.”

Shannon’s glance went to the bullwhip that lay neatly coiled on a log, easily within reach of Whip’s long arm.

“My cabin isn’t as big as Murphy’s mercantile. Once you’re inside, that bullwhip of yours won’t be much use,” she said dryly. “Prettyface is quicker, anyway.”

Whip looked back down at his coffee, not wanting Shannon to see the light of amusement in his eyes. There were more ways to fight than with a bullwhip, as his travels in the Far East had taught him. As for Prettyface, the dog was quick enough—and big enough—to kill a careless man.

Whip wasn’t a careless man.

But it would be stupid to point that out to Shannon. Whip didn’t want to disturb her peace of mind. It was pure pleasure to see a smile on her mouth rather than the grim lines of a girl trying to do work that would have taxed many a man.

“Then I’ll be honored to share breakfast with you,” Whip said. “Call me when you’re ready.”

He took another deep drink of coffee, set the tin cup aside, and picked up the maul once more.

“I’ll do that,” Shannon said.

She lingered for a moment longer, hoping to catch another glimpse of Whip’s unusual, quicksilver eyes, but he didn’t look in her direction again. He simply braced his legs slightly apart, lifted the heavy maul, and brought it down with an easy motion.

The fir split cleanly, but Shannon hardly noticed. She had eyes only for the casual, purely male grace of the man called Whip. She Wondered what it would be like to be that skilled, that sure, to feel power flowing through her with every motion of her body.

Then Shannon realized she was staring at Whip as though she had never seen a man before. Cheeks bright, she turned and hurried back into the cabin as though pursued.

Whip split four more round logs into eights before he trusted himself to look over his shoulder.

Shannon was gone.

He let out a long, whistling breath. He was aching from his forehead to his heels, and the knowledge that she liked watching him move hadn’t helped to cool him off one bit.

But he had to cool off.

The closer Whip got to Shannon, the more he realized that she wasn’t like the windows he had met from time to time and shared a few days or weeks with. She blushed when she looked at him. She glanced away an instant after she met his eyes. Yet it wasn’t flirting. She no more knew how to flirt than she knew how to stalk deer.

Silent John mustn’t have been any great shakes when it came to making a girl feel like a woman
, Whip thought as he slammed the maul into a big log.
Shannon acts more like a nervous bridge fresh from the church than a window who’s done it all a thousand times before.

Damnation. I wonder just how green she is when it comes to being a woman with her man?

The thought was unnerving.

Whip shifted his grip and brought the maul down so hard it whistled through the air. The wood broke apart violently and leaped beyond his reach.

With a muttered curse at his own clumsiness, Whip grabbed one of the chunks and set it on the chopping block once more.

“It’s hot and waiting for you,” Shannon called from the window.

The maul missed its target completely.

“Well, son of a bitch,” Whip muttered softly. “Looks like I’m no more use than a broken handle.”

He lifted the maul over his head again and swung down, using less force. The log obediently fell into two pieces and lay within easy reach.

Let that be a lesson,
Whip told himself sardonically.
Whether it’s logs or women, finesse beats raw strength any day of the week.

Whip split the log again for good measure before he set aside the maul, removed his leather work gloves, and stuffed the gloves into the back pocket of his pants. From long habit he picked up and settled the bullwhip on his shoulder.

As he went to the cabin, sleet fell against his face and lodged in his clothes. When he removed his hat to wash up, sleet mixed into his hair. He bent
down over the washbasin, then stopped, sniffing the steam that rose from the water. Through it was mint rather than Willow’s favorite lavender scent rising from the basin, the smell of the water kindled a memory in him.

Willow’s bathhouse. All full of warmth from the hot spring water Wolfe and Reno piped in for them. No real sulfur to it, just a richness of minerals.

Whip scooped up steaming water and lowered his face into his palms. He made a sound of pleasure as the water spilled over him, washing away sweat and sleet alike.

Wish I’d had this when I shaved this morning. Cold water is pure hell, no matter how sharp the razor is.

Whip paused as a though struck him. He looked at the surrounding forest and the clearing itself. No telltale plumes of white rose into the cold, clear air.

I haven’t seen sign of a hot spring around here for miles in any direction, either. It must be in a cave somewhere.

“Come and get it before I feet it to Prettyface,” Shannon said from the window.

“Don’t you dare, woman!”

Quickly Whip splashed hot water over his face and hands. He followed it up with the morsel of soap that was balanced on the basin’s wide rim. Then he rinsed again, making certain he was clean. When he lifted his head, dripping, the cabin door was closed and Shannon was standing very close.

“Here,” she said softly.

Whip looked at the piece of cloth Shannon was holding out to him. It was faded and threadbare, but enough remained for him to see that the fabric once had held a vivid pattern of flowers and birds. It was a very feminine design, as clean and graceful as the hand that held it.

Looking at the rag, Whip guessed that it was the remainder of a favorite dress. Or perhaps Shannon’s
only
dress. Certainly he had seen her in nothing but secondhand men’s clothing that had been cut down to fit her slender frame.

“Thank you,” he said huskily.

When Whip took the towel, he thought he felt the silky brush of Shannon’s fingers against his own, but he couldn’t be certain.

Yet Shannon was certain she had touched him. Whip could see it in the sudden expansion of her pupils, the rush of color to her cheeks, the breath that hesitated and then came out in a ragged sigh.

“I’ll—I’ll wait by the door,” she said breathlessly.

“You don’t have to,” Whip said. He lowered his face into the fabric Shannon had once worn against her skin. “I won’t bite.”

“Prettyface might. That’s why I’m keeping him inside for now. He’s not used to being around men.”

“How old is he?”

The question was muffled, but Shannon understood.

“Oh, a little more than two years, I guess,” she said.

Whip’s head came up quickly.

“What about Silent John?” Whip asked. “He’s a man, isn’t he?”

Shannon blinked, bit her lip, and flushed.

“Silent John is the exception, of course,” she said, looking at her hands.

Whip had a strong suspicion that Shannon was lying. He just didn’t know why.

Maybe she doesn’t want anyone to know how often Silent John is gone. And for how long.

Then Whip understood more than he wanted to: Shannon’s husband had been absent so much that her dog never had a chance to get used to men.

Judas Priest!

Shannon has had God’s own luck keeping out of reach of gold miners and renegades. But she can’t count on luck to keep the Culpeppers at bay forever.

Before I go yondering, I’ll have to have another talk with those boys. Make them understand all the way to their black souls just how lacking in Christian charity their manners have been.

Absently Whip wiped off his hands and started toward the cabin door.

“Wait,” Shannon said, stepping closer.