«Any better luck?» Shannon asked, looking up from the campfire.
«Same as yesterday,» Whip said, bending to scratch Prettyface’s ears.
Afraid that Whip would see her fear, Shannon looked away from him to Grizzly Meadow where the two horses and the mule were grazing, their tails lazily swatting flies. Golden, slanting light spilled over the land, infusing it with the first rush of true summer heat.
Six days.
For six days Whip had gone up to the Rifle Sight claim while she stayed in the camp. For six days he had hammered with pickax and determination on the stone shoulder of the mountain.
For six days all Whip had found was the sweat dripping down his nose.
«Tomorrow,» Shannon said. «It will be better tomorrow. Or the day after.»
Whip didn’t say anything. He simply slid his big hand under Prettyface’s chin and rubbed until the dog’s eyes glazed over with pleasure.
When Shannon turned back to Whip, she saw the dark smudges beneath his eyes and the trails perspiration had made through the rock dust coating his entire body. Each afternoon she washed in a basin and rinsed in the stream before he came back. Then she heated more water for Whip’s bath. Each night she washed his clothes, and the following day they came back to her stiff with sweat and grit.
Whip had protested that he could work in dirty clothes. Shannon had simply shaken her head and scrubbed harder. It was all she could do to make his work easier. She wished she could do more.
«You should take a day off,» Shannon said softly. «You look tired. You work too hard. All day. Every day. You hardly even take time to eat.»
«It makes me sleep well at night.»
That was true, as far as it went. But it said nothing about how often Whip woke up during the night, sweating from forehead to heels, aching, his body rigid with a kind of hunger he had never known.
Whip wondered if Shannon felt the same.
He wondered, but he didn’t ask. Six days ago he had shown her what passion was all about. If she didn’t want more, he wasn’t going to push himself on her.
It was Shannon’s turn to do the asking, and to do it plainly. Blushes and longing looks were for virgins who didn’t know what they were asking for, much less how to ask for it. Pretty widows who had just had their first taste of pleasure knew enough about men and sex to recognize the signs of male hunger.
«Sit down on that log,» Shannon said. «I heated enough water so that you could take a basin bath.»
«Are you saying I smell like old Razorback?»
Shannon ducked her head and looked at Whip from beneath her eyelashes, trying to decide if he was teasing her or simply asking a question. Since the hailstorm, her relationship with Whip had changed in ways she didn’t understand. He rarely teased her anymore.
And he never kissed her, held her, caressed her until the world came apart around her and she cried out with pleasure.
«You always smell good to me,» Shannon said hesitantly. «I just know that rock dust is uncomfortable.»
«Another thing Silent John told you?»
She shook her head. «I learned it the same way you did, at the dumb end of a pickax.»
Whip’s mouth opened but no words came out. He simply stared at Shannon, unable to believe that her slender arms had ever swung a pickax.
«Well, don’t look so shocked,» Shannon said. «I’m not nearly as helpless as you think.»
He grunted. «You’re not nearly as skillful asyouthink.»
«I can’t swing an ax or a pick like you,» she said tartly, «but I can get a job done if I stay with it, and getting the job done is what matters.»
With that, Shannon turned back to the fire. Irritation prickled through her. It had become a common sensation in the past few days. She was forever balanced on the razor edge of her temper…and she didn’t know why.
«Did you find any gold while you were swinging that pick?» Whip asked Shannon.
«No, but I was working a landslide that covered most of the Chute. Rifle Sight is richer.»
«According to Silent John.»
«I’ve seen some of the ore he brought back,» Shannon said. «There was so much gold in the quartz that the chunks came apart in your hands. He called it jewelry rock.»
«He must have cleaned out that vein. From what I’ve seen, you could work all summer in Rifle Sight and not find enough gold to pay for your supplies.»
Fear breathed coolly down Shannon’s spine. The gold claims were her freedom. Without them, she was at the mercy of strangers.
«The gold is there,» she said tightly.
Whip grunted.
From the corner of her eyes, Shannon watched Whip stretch his arms and shoulders, loosening muscles drawn tight from hour after hour of hard labor. The shirt he wore was dark with sweat, and it clung to every powerful line of his body.
Lord, but that is one beautiful man, Shannon thought. Just looking at him makes me all edgy and short of breath. When I think of him touching me again…
A delicious sensation cascaded through Shannon’s body at the memory of what had happened beneath the tarpaulin. She hadn’t imagined that pleasure like that existed short of paradise.
At first the experience had left her feeling shy with Whip. The fact that he hadn’t spoken about it in any way since then, or even so much as touched her in passing, had only increased her shyness.
And her irritation.
She didn’t understand what had happened when Whip touched her so intimately. She only knew that she wanted it to happen again. Soon.
But obviously Whip didn’t feel the same way. He hadn’t touched her.
Maybe I should try touching him.
«Would you like me to wash your hair?» Shannon asked. «I know how awkward it is to do in a basin.»
The thought of how good her fingers would feel rubbing over his scalp made Whip’s body tighten despite the punishing hours of labor he had just finished. His own relentless sexual response to Shannon made his mouth flatten into a harsh line. He didn’t like wanting a woman to the point that his body wasn’t his own anymore, no matter how hard he worked to exhaust himself.
«No,» Whip said curtly. «I’ve managed my whole grown life without a handmaid. No point in taking up such foolishness now.»
«Well, do go and eat some wasps,» Shannon retorted. «It will make your tongue seem sweet by comparison.»
Whip grabbed the basin of hot water and stalked off toward a nearby grove of aspen trees, where there was an icy creek to use for rinsing off soap. Prettyface followed, leaping and prancing like a puppy. He loved playing tag with shots of water from Whip’s quick hands.
«That’s it, Prettyface,» Shannon called after them. «Desert me! Go follow the yondering man who smiles like a fallen angel and has a temper fully suited to hell!»
Both males ignored Shannon.
With a frustrated sound, she turned back to camp, looking for something to vent her irritability on. All that came to hand was the pickax leaning against the log next to her shotgun.
«I’m not mad enough to hammer stone…yet,» she muttered.
She tested the water in the bucket, which was hanging from a cast-iron tripod over the fire. The water was lukewarm. Barely.
«Go ahead, take all day to heat up,» Shannon muttered. «I’ve got nothing better to do than stand around sticking my finger in cold water.»
She hovered around the campfire, feeding fuel into it, testing the water, and wondering if fire burned colder in the high mountains. Surely it didn’t take this long to heat water at the cabin.
«I’ve got the hot spring at the cabin,» Shannon reminded herself. «It takes no time at all to get a bucket of hot water for washing clothes.»
Sighing, Shannon tested the water for the fifteenth time. It was passably warm.
«Finally. Now I can do the wash. Thunder and blazes, I can see why folks run around in dirty clothes a Comanchero would be ashamed to wear. Heating water for baths and such could make a body crazy.»
Just as Shannon bent to take the bucket from the tripod, Prettyface broke into a savage kind of barking that was more a snarling howl of rage than anything else.
A shot rang out.
Water sloshed as Shannon slammed the bucket handle back over the tripod and ran for the shotgun. The sound of another shot overwhelmed the dog’s furious sounds.
Whip’s shout came as Shannon broke into a run, heading for the aspen thicket. As she ran, she understood what her ears had been trying to tell her — the «shots» she was hearing were the sounds of a bullwhip at work, not a rifle.
The bullwhip cracked and then cracked again, splitting the air like lightning. Whip shouted something that Shannon couldn’t understand.
Then came a terrifying kind of chomping, snarling cough, as though the mountain was clearing its throat. Shannon had never heard the sound before, but Silent John had described it often enough.
Grizzly.
«Whip!» Shannon screamed, running harder than she ever had before in her life. «Oh, God, you don’t even have a gun!»
She leaped a fallen log, staggered for an instant on landing, then gathered herself and raced on, cocking the shotgun even as she ran.
Shannon saw the grizzly before she saw Whip. The bear was reared up on its hind legs, taller than Whip, wider, terrifying in its strength. The enraged bear was snapping its jaws together. Saliva showed stark white against the dark muzzle. The grizzly’s massive paws swatted at the bullwhip that cracked again and again around its head.
Naked to the waist, Whip stood with his back against a thicket of aspen that was too dense for him to penetrate. It wouldn’t have done any good even if he could have hidden among the trees — the grizzly would have broken through the aspens at a gallop.
Nor could Whip outrun the bear, even if the terrain had been flat and open. On level land, grizzlies were as fast as horses. On broken land, grizzlies were faster.
Prettyface leaped and snarled behind the bear, fangs slashing, seeking the grizzly’s hamstrings beneath the thick coat of fur. With horrifying speed the bear turned and slashed at the dog with claws longer than Shannon’s hand.
The bullwhip cracked and the grizzly straightened. It spun away from the dog and raged deep in its chest, jaws working as though crunching through bone. Blood glistened redly above the grizzly ’s right eye, proof that the bullwhip had reached flesh despite the protective fur.
But rather than driving the bear away, the slashing bullwhip seemed only to enrage the grizzly further.
It was obvious that sooner or later one of the bear’s massive paws would tangle with the long whip, ending its usefulness. Or the grizzly could simply charge the man like an enraged bull. Then the uneven fight would end very quickly.
Shannon ran harder, knowing she had to get in close enough to be certain of killing the bear. Silent John had warned her that a wounded grizzly was the most dangerous animal on earth.
As Whip’s arm moved, launching the lash like a bullet right at one of the bear’s eyes, he caught sight of Shannon running at the grizzly from the side.
«Get back!» he yelled.
If Shannon heard, she ignored him.
Whip worked the lash with startling speed, creating a high, ripping crackle that held the bear’s attention while Prettyface snapped at its heels.
Shannon kept running until the shotgun was almost touching the grizzly’s side. She triggered both barrels at a spot just under the bear’s left arm.
There was no time for Shannon to brace herself before she fired. The shotgun’s fierce recoil knocked her flat in an instant. The grizzly gave an outraged roar and swung a massive paw at the place where Shannon’s head had been only an instant before.
Deadly leather coils whistled and snapped tightly around the bear’s neck. Whip set his feet and jerked hard, making muscles stand rigidly all the way down his back. Grimly he dragged the choking, mortally wounded grizzly off balance, forcing it to fall away from Shannon’s motionless body. The bear hit the earth, bucked and roared savagely, and slashed out with claws at an enemy it could no longer see.
Abruptly the grizzly jerked and went still.
The grove became silent but for the ragged sawing of Whip’s breath and Prettyface’s snarls as he stalked stiff-legged toward the unmoving grizzly.
«Get back!» Whip ordered.
Prettyface froze.
A deceptively lazy movement of Whip’s wrist sent the tip of the lash flicking over the bear’s open eyes.
The grizzly neither flinched nor blinked. It was truly dead.
Whip ran to Shannon’s side and knelt in a rush. He let out a rough sound of relief when he saw that her eyes were open and she was breathing.
«Where do you hurt?» he demanded.
Numbly she shook her head.
«The hell you don’t hurt,» Whip muttered. «I saw that grizzly hit you.»
Whip’s hands hadn’t shook during the fight, but they were shaking now as he gently touched the back of Shannon’s head, searching for the wound he was sure she must have.
«I’m — all right,» Shannon said jerkily, trying to catch her breath and speak at the same time.
«Easy, honey girl. Just lie still until I see how bad you’re hurt.»
«Just — breath. Shotgun — knocked me —»
Whip’s hands hesitated. He looked down into the beautiful sapphire depths of Shannon’s eyes.
«Recoil?» he asked.
She nodded and concentrated on breathing.
Saying nothing, Whip probed Shannon’s hair with long, surprisingly gentle fingers. When he found only the warmth of her scalp, he moved on down her body. His hands ran over every bit of her and found nothing but heat and a silky female softness that made him feel like he was caressing fire.
Abruptly Whip came to his feet. He looked down at the breathless but otherwise uninjured Shannon for a long, tense moment.
Then he held out his hand to her.
«Can you stand?» Whip asked quietly.
Too quietly.
Warily Shannon looked at Whip’s eyes. Where there had been tender concern a moment before, now there was only wintry gray. His eyes were almost opaque.
She had seen Whip look like that only once before, when the Culpeppers were baiting her. Whip had been furious then.
He was furious now.
Shannon scrambled to her feet without touching his outstretched hand.
«I’m fine,» she said. «See?»
«I see that you’re a fool, Shannon Conner Smith.»
She winced. «Why are you yell —»
«You could have been killed!»
«But you were —»
«I told you to get back,» Whip continued, talking over Shannon harshly. «Did you listen? Hell no! You came running up and shoved that antique shotgun right up the grizzly’s ass!»
«It was his arm, not his —»
«If the recoil hadn’t knocked you down, you would be dead right now! Do you hear me, you little idiot?You would have died and I couldn’t have done a damn thing about it!»
Adrenaline and anger combined to overcome Shannon’s good sense. She put her clenched fists on her hips and glared right back up into Whip’s face.
«So what was I supposed to do?» she demanded. «Stand by and darn socks while that grizzly clawed you into pieces too small to use in a rag rug?»
«Yes!»
«Ha! Andyouhave the gall to callmea fool! Well, let me tell you something, yondering man. When it comes to being a fool, you not only win the race, you also take second, third, and fo —»
Shannon’s tirade ended in a surprised sound as Whip yanked her off her feet and buried his tongue in her mouth. She fought for an instant, then gave back the kiss every bit as fiercely as he was giving it to her.
Prettyface snarled and circled the grizzly again, then darted in and set his teeth into the furry hide. He shook his head hard, harrying the prey.
Neither Whip nor Shannon noticed.
It was a long time before Whip let Shannon slide down the length of his torso until her feet touched the ground once more. The rigid arousal of his body told Shannon the same thing the kiss had.
Whip wanted her. All of her.
And all of him was doing the wanting.
«Oh, my,» Shannon said raggedly, hanging on to Whip as her knees buckled. «I’ve been hoping you would kiss me like that every day since the hailstorm.»
Whip let out a long, long breath. Then he tilted back Shannon’s head and looked at her with eyes that were no longer the color of winter.
«Why didn’t you say something?» he asked. «I thought you didn’t want me to touch you anymore.»
«What was I supposed to do? Walk up to you and say I wanted you to — to —»
«Yes,» Whip said simply.
Shannon blushed, bit her lip, and looked up at Whip with eyes as wide and deeply blue as the sky.
«Cat got your tongue?» he teased.
She made a fist and hit him lightly on his muscular shoulder.
Laughing softly, Whip gathered Shannon close and rocked her slowly from side to side, resting his chin on top of her head.
«How anyone can be so fierce and so shy at the same time is a pure wonder,» he said after a few moments.
«I’m not fierce. And I’m not shy.»
«Of course not,» he said gravely. «You’re a tender little mouse who cowers at the first hint of danger. And you’re a brazen little hussy who throws herself at a man.»
«You’re teasing me.»
«Not just yet. I’m thinking about it, though.» Whip smiled like a cat licking cream. «I’m giving it a lot of thought, in fact.»
Shannon couldn’t see Whip’s smile, but she could hear it in his voice. She smiled in turn and nuzzled against his chest.
Hair tickled her nose.
She made a startled sound as she realized anew that Whip wasn’t wearing a shirt.
«What is it?» he asked, holding Shannon away so that he could see her face. «Are you hurt after all?»
She shook her head.
«Then what?» Whip asked.
«You.»
«What about me?»
«You’re not wearing a shirt.»
«I was just getting dressed when the bear showed up. But if it will make you feel better, you can take off your shirt, too.»
Shannon stared at him, then laughed out loud.
«Now youareteasing me,» she said.
She smiled, but didn’t rest her head on Whip’s bare chest again.
«Does it really bother you to see me like this?» he asked.
«No,» Shannon admitted softly. «It’s just that the sight of all that silky fur makes me want to pet you like Prettyface.»
«Head to heels and back again?» Whip suggested in a deep voice.
For a shimmering instant Shannon looked at Whip from head to heels and back again. The thought of touching him in the same way made her almost dizzy.
«The look on your face…» Whip said, laughing. «Come on, honey girl. We’ll leave Prettyface to worry over the bear in peace.»
Whip swung Shannon up in his arms like a child and began walking back toward camp. He didn’t stop until he reached the opposite edge of the forest, where he had made a night camp separate from hers.
«I’ve been meaning to ask you why,» Shannon said, looking at his bedroll, «but you were so darned touchy I thought better of it.»
Whip made a questioning sound.
«Why did you camp over here instead of by the fire with me?» she asked.
«This is close enough to hear you if you need me, and far enough that I don’t lie awake listening to you breathe, listening to you move, listening to the blankets slide over you the way I want to.»
Shannon tried to speak but couldn’t. The look in Whip’s eyes stole her breath and made heat glitter through the center of her body.
«You couldn’t sleep either?» she managed to whisper.
«Passion is a two-way street. Didn’t you know?»
She shook her head.
Whip opened his mouth to say something about Silent John’s limitations as a lover, but thought better of it. Right now Whip didn’t want to think about Silent John.
And he sure as hell didn’t want Shannon thinking about Silent John, either.
«Tell me again,» Whip said almost roughly. «Tell me that you want me.»
«Yes,» Shannon whispered. «Oh, yes. I didn’t know this kind of wanting existed.»
Her words aroused Whip fiercely, yet gave him more self-control than he had had since he first saw Shannon’s hips swinging gently as she walked past him in Holler Creek.
The waiting was finally over. She was going to be his lover. Nothing could stop it now.
«It’s going to be good, honey girl,» Whip said, lowering Shannon to his bedroll. «It’s going to be so damned good.»
«As good as before?»
«Better.»
«I think I’ll die of it, then.»
Whip’s smile was as sensuous as his lips brushing over Shannon’s mouth.
«Lie still for me,» he whispered against her mouth. «I’ve been dreaming about how it would be to undress you, look at you, touch you. Now I won’t have to live on dreams anymore.»
A shiver that was part nervousness and part delicious anticipation went through Shannon. With half-closed eyes, she watched Whip kneel at her feet and remove her boots. He peeled away her much-darned socks and wrapped his hands around her slender feet.
«You’re always as clean as sunshine,» Whip said.
«The hot spring,» she said, and could say no more.
«The Culpeppers ride by hot springs every day, and those boys are dirtier than any Comanchero.»
Whip looked at Shannon’s long, shiny braids and creamy skin.
«At first I thought you bathed so often because you wanted to be pleasing to me. Then I realized it was just your way. Spearmint and fresh water, honey and cream.»
Whip’s hands shifted, caressing the sensitive soles of Shannon’s feet. She made a throttled sound as her feet arched in sensual reflex.
«Ticklish?» he asked.
«Not…quite.»
«How about this?»
Whip bent his head and smoothed his mouth over the arch of her foot. Just at the point it would have tickled, he sank his teeth delicately into her skin.
Shannon gasped as she discovered how deliciously sensitive the arch of her foot was.
«Am I tickling you?» Whip asked.
«No,» she whispered, staring at him with wide, luminous eyes. «I just didn’t know that men kissed women there.»
«Did you like it?»
«Yes…»
She shivered and made a low sound of pleasure as Whip caressed her other foot. Her response sent an answering tremor through his powerful body.
«There’s so much of loving you don’t know about,» Whip said, looking at Shannon hungrily. «All the sweet tastes and hidden textures of passion. I’m going to know every last one of yours, honey girl. And when we’re too tired to breathe, I’m going to fall asleep deep inside you and wake up with the taste of you on my tongue and then we’ll begin all over again, touching and tasting and knowing, being alive in each other.»
Shannon didn’t understand most of what Whip was saying, but she didn’t care. The sensual blaze of his eyes and the gentleness of his big hands told her everything that mattered.
No matter how great Whip’s strength, no matter how fierce his hunger, she was safe with him.
Watching with curious, hungry eyes, Shannon allowed Whip to unfasten her shirt and ease it down her arms. Her breasts peaked before he touched them, for she had seen the smoky approval in his glance. Then his head bent, his mouth opened, and he shocked her to her toes by taking the tip of one breast into his mouth.
«Whip.»
He made a hungry, questioning sound, swirled his tongue around the hardened nipple, and drew her deep into his mouth.
The rhythmic movements of Whip’s mouth sent pleasure stabbing through Shannon, arching her back even as her fingers blindly raked through his hair, holding him close. She had no breath, no thought, nothing but the changing pressures and textures of his mouth as he suckled her, shaping and hardening the nipple even more with each stab of his tongue.
By the time Whip lifted his head, Shannon was twisting slowly beneath him and whimpering softly, feverishly. He looked at her breast, taut and glistening from his mouth, and he let out a ragged breath.
«I’ve been around the world three times,» Whip said in a husky voice, «and I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you all shiny and proud from my loving.»
«I — didn’t — know,» she said raggedly.
«You’ve never been kissed like that?»
Shannon shook her head even as she watched Whip’s mouth with shocked, curious eyes.
«Does it matter that I’m as naive as an egg?» she whispered.
«No,» Whip said. «Teaching you, watching you respond…it gives me a kind of pleasure I’ve never known.»
Whip bent down to Shannon again, and again he taught her something about pleasure. She learned that it could build and build until her body was burning with a need so great she pleaded helplessly with him to end the sweet torment.
He laughed softly and refused to be drawn closer.
«Not yet, honey girl. There are a whole lot of ways of touching and kissing left to explore.»
Shannon’s eyes opened in disbelief.
Smiling, Whip raked his teeth lightly over one proud breast, then the other. Then he sheathed his teeth with his lips and tested the velvet tension of her nipple.
Pleasure lashed Shannon, making her gasp.
«Whip?»
The husky voice licked over him like fire.
«What?» he asked.
«I can’t — take it.»
«If I can, you can.»
«But I’m not kissing you.»
«Not this time. I’m way too hungry for that. Next time, though. Next time I’ll teach you how to make me sweat and shake with need of you.»
Whip’s hands moved with the quickness that was as much a part of him as his fallen angel smile. Shannon felt the rest of her clothes sliding down her legs. Unease went through her, but far stronger was the memory of pleasure she had once known at his hands.
«That’s what you’re going to be doing before I’m through,» Whip said in a low voice. «Sweating and shaking with need of me.»
Slowly he ran the back of his fingers up between her legs from her ankles to the dark mahogany cloud just above her thighs. His big hands shifted, circling the top of her thighs, flexing deeply, urging her legs farther and farther apart even as he caressed them.
Then Whip became very still but for the quickness of his breathing.
«I thought nothing could be more beautiful than your breasts,» Whip said finally. «I was wrong.»
Shannon followed his glance down her body and made a startled sound. She was sprawled wantonly, wholly naked to his eyes, his touch. Reflexively she moved to cover herself, but found that impossible. Whip was kneeling between her thighs, bracing them apart with his knees while he caught both of her hands in one of his own. He was holding her in a gentle, immovable vise.
«Too late, honey girl,» he said huskily. «You set free something in me that no other woman has. I don’t know what it is, but I’m damned sure I’m going to find out.»
One of Whip’s fingertips circled the lush flower that had opened for him. Shannon trembled and made a broken sound.
«Tell me again that you want me,» Whip said thickly.
As he spoke, he parted the flushed petals with two fingertips, seeking the honey within.
«Yes,» she said huskily. «Yes.»
Shannon’s hips moved as she cried out, and his fingertips knew the hot, silky kiss of her desire.
«Honey girl,» he whispered. «God, I love feeling your pleasure.»
She started to speak, but her breath wedged in her throat as she felt Whip’s caress slowly deepen. The feeling of having him within her even by so small a measure was as unexpected as it was extraordinary. Heat swept through her, leaving her skin flushed, sultry, exquisitely sensitive.
But nothing was as sensitive as the flesh Whip was softly stretching even as he caressed her. Pleasure coiled relentlessly inside Shannon, twisted, redoubled, and then held her arched and quivering on a rack of need.
Shannon moaned and moved her hips in a reflex as old as desire, seeking to draw Whip more deeply inside her body.
Instead, Whip’s touch lessened as he forced himself to withdraw all but his fingertips.
«Not yet,» Whip said, his voice hoarse with fierce restraint. «You’re not ready. You’re so tight, honey girl. And I’m not as small as your husband was. We’ll have to take this slow and gentle for a little longer. Like this.»
Shannon moaned as pressure and pleasure built inside her once more, pushing her toward the shivering culmination she had known once before at Whip’s hands. Yet before she could touch that sweet ecstasy, he began withdrawing again, leaving her aching, restless. Then he returned, bringing pleasure with him, a hot teasing that promised heaven and delivered only a bittersweet kind of hell.
Sweating, shaking, Shannon begged him to end her torment. Whip closed his eyes as sweat broke over his whole body. He couldn’t look at her, touch her, hear her pleas, and not take her.
«Hold on, honey girl,» he said hoarsely. «Just a little more. You’re so damned tight. And so hot. Just a little deeper and —»
Whip’s words stopped as though cut by an ax. He stared at Shannon in fury and disbelief.
«You’re a virgin.»
Shannon simply looked at him, not understanding what had made him so angry.
Whip shot to his feet and stood over Shannon.
«Naive, huh?» he said savagely. «Ha! You’re naive like a fox, pretty littlewindowlady. You figured I would give you a wedding ring if you could tease me into taking your maidenhood.»
Dazed, trembling, Shannon understood only that the culmination she desperately needed had been yanked away from her without warning. She wanted to weep and scream and rail at Whip, but she had no breath.
Whip didn’t have the same problem with breathing. And talking. He had never been more furious — or more frustrated — in his entire wandering life.
«What kind of twisted marriage did you have with that old man-hunter?» Whip demanded.
«I don’t understand,» she said shakily.
«The hell you don’t. Silent John was a piss-poor gold prospector, but he was first-class when it came to tracking down men and killing them where he found them, then collecting rewards for their sorry hides.»
Shock widened Shannon’s eyes.
«He never said —» she began.
«Hell,» Whip interrupted savagely. «He never said anything, right? Silent John. Silent as a tombstone. And that was what some folks called him. Tombstone John. He earned that moniker, too.»
Whip’s glance raked Shannon from forehead to heels. Shame flooded her as she looked at her own nakedness. Her groping fingers found her shirt. She pulled it on and fastened it with shaking hands.
«That man must have had ice water in his veins,» Whip said through clenched teeth, watching as Shannon’s beautiful breasts vanished beneath worn, faded fabric. «He had you for seven years and barely touched you.»
«Henevertouched me.»
«Never?» Whip laughed harshly, not believing a word of it. «Even an old killer like him must have liked undressing you and —»
«Silent John was my great-uncle!» Shannon cried, cutting across Whip’s words. «He never touched me! Not ever! Not a handshake when I brought down my first deer. Not a quick tug on my braids when he passed my chair. Not even a pat on the head when I learned to make biscuits the way he liked. Nobody has touched me in a tender way since Mama died!»
Blindly Shannon pulled one of Whip’s blankets over her hips, shielding her nakedness from him.
«And then you cam with your hungry eyes and fallen angel smile and gently hands,» she whispered.
Shannon closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of Whip’s face hard with anger and contempt.
«Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?» Whip asked, his voice flat.
«I did.»
«Horseshit.»
«Go to hell, yondering man. Go Soon.»
Whip looked at the girl huddled in a crookedly buttoned shirt with part of his bedroll drawn up over her hips. There was nothing of the hot temptress about her now. She wasn’t pleading for his mouth, his hands, his body locked with hers in primal ecstasy.
Whip drew a quick, sawing breath and fought for self-control. Shannon didn’t know what she was missing.
But, by God, he did.
«When did you tell me you were a virgin?» Whip asked less harshly.
«When we were talking about me not having a baby.»
He thought about it, frowned, and shook his head.
«The subject of virginity didn’t come up,» Whip said.
Shannon threw him a glittering glance. Her eyes were as brilliant as sapphires.
And twice as cold.
«I asked how you could be sure that you didn’t leave any bastards behind,» Shannon said flatly. «You said the same way Silent John knew how not to get me pregnant. Well, the way Silent John used was —»
«He never touched you,» Whip interrupted, finally understanding, believing. «You’ve really never been touched at all. My God.»
«Hallelujah,» Shannon said sarcastically. «If I repeat something often enough, even a gray-eyed yondering man finally learns.»
Whip opened his mouth, closed it, and stared at the virgin widow who had turned to honey and melted all over him at a touch.
«My God,» Whip repeated. «I —» He shook his head as though coming out of deep water. «It never occurred to me that Silent John and you had’t been truly man and wife.»
«No more than it occurred to me that you didn’t understand why I didn’t get pregnant,» she shot back.
«Chastity. The oldest way of all. Judas H. Priest.»
Shannon’s anger drained away as she saw how shocked Whip was. In the wake of anger came a fatigue so great that she wanted to put her head on her knees and cry. It was all too much to take in — the grizzly and her fear for Whip and his rage that she had come running up, then the heady sensuality of his touch, and then his fury.
«Shannon?»
«What.»
«What did you think would happen after I had you?»
«Think?Think?Yondering man, when you touch me I can’t think worth a handful of cold spit.»
«You weren’t trying to trap me into marriage?»
Shannon lifted her head. Between the grizzly and the lovemaking, her braids had come mostly undone. Long, dark strands slid over her cheeks and down over her breasts. Her eyes were dark, unreadable.
«Why on earth would I want to do that?» she asked.
For the second time Shannon had managed to shock Whip speechless.
«What possible use is a man who puts a baby in you and then flits off around the earth until it’s time to come back and put another baby in?» she asked.
«I’d never get you pregnant and then leave you,» Whip said coldly. «You know me well enough to know that.»
Reluctantly Shannon nodded. «You’re not the kind to run out on your responsibilities.»
«Is that what you were counting on? Getting pregnant so I would’t leave?»
Anger stirred in Shannon, but she was too tired to sustain it.
«I’m naive about sex, but I’m not stupid about life,» she said wearily.
«What does that mean?»
«Pregnant or not, I will never marry a man who wants me less than he wants a sunrise he’s never seen.»
Whip flinched at the conflicting emotions in Shannon’s voice, in her eyes, in her hands clenching the blanket over her nakedness.
«But you would have given yourself to me,» Whip said, angry for no reason.
A shiver of memory and desire went through Shannon.
«Yes,» she said.
«Why?»
«Why do you care?»
«Because I’m afraid you’re naive enough to believe you love me,» Whip said bluntly.
Shannon gave Whip a shuttered glance.
«Either way, it’s not your worry,» she said. «It’s mine.»
«I don’t want you to love me,» Whip said, biting off each word.
«I know.»
«Love is a cage.»
«Yes. I know that too. Now. Someday I’ll thank you for teaching me how to build cage of sunlight. But not today.»
She put her forehead back on her knees, shutting Whip out.
«Shannon?»
«Go away, yondering man. You don’t want my body, you don’t want my love, you don’t want anything but the sunrise you’re never seen. Go chase it and leave me be.»