Only Love o-4

by Elizabeth Lowell

«Whip.»

  At Shannon’s soft cry, Cherokee turned, saw the man riding up, and laughed out loud in triumph. Hurriedly she stuffed shotgun shells into one of Shannon’s jacket pockets and the bottle of contraceptive oil and sponges into another.

  Shannon didn’t even notice. The lightning stroke of joy she felt on seeing Whip quickly turned to dismay. If he was happy to see her at all, it wasn’t reflected in his face. He looked angry enough to eat lead and spit bullets.

  «What are you doing here?» Shannon asked.

  «What the hell do you think I’m doing?» Whip asked bitterly, reining in just short of Shannon’s toes. «I’m chasing a girl who has no better sense than to leave a fine home and come back to a miserable shack where she’ll like as not starve to death this winter, if she doesn’t freeze first!»

  «You left out the part where a grizzly eats her,» Cherokee said dryly. «But since she’ll be froze to death first, it don’t make no never mind, do it?»

  «That’s not true,» Shannon retorted. «I’ve lived alone here for —»

  «Howdy, Whip,» Cherokee called cheerfully, overwhelming Shannon’s words. «Nice horse you got. Look of speed about him.»

  Whip didn’t even look away from Shannon when he spoke. He did, however, scratch the ears of the hound that had put his front paws on Whip’s thigh and was panting happily up into his face.

  «I left Sugarfoot to graze around the damned hovel Shannon calls home,» Whip said. «This is one of Wolfe Lonetree’s horses.»

  «Thought so. Get down and set awhile.»

  «Thank you, no,» Whip said, still not looking away from Shannon. «Likely it will be snowing before we get back to Silent John’s leaky old shack.»

  «It’s not leaky,» Shannon retorted.

  «Only because I shoved half the mountainside into the cracks,» Whip shot back.

  Cherokee snickered. «Well, children, I’ll leave you to it. My bones ain’t up to the chill.»

  With that, Cherokee backed away and shut the cabin door against the cold, questing wind.

  «Can Prettyface make it to your shack?» Whip asked.

  «You’re the man with all the answers, what do you think?» Shannon retorted.

  «I think you’re a damned fool.»

  «How quaint. Cherokee thinks the same of you. So do I. You’ve had a long ride for nothing, Whip Moran.» Shannon’s head came up, giving Whip a clear view of her eyes. «I’m not going back to the Black ranch.»

  Whip hissed a foreign word between his teeth. Not until he saw the anger in Shannon’s eyes did he admit how much he had wanted to see joy because he was back.

  Cherokee is right. I’m a damned fool.

  «Get on the mule,» Whip said curtly.

  Shannon spun on her heel and stalked toward the mule she had named Cully. She mounted swiftly, unaware of her own grace.

  Whip was aware of it. Just seeing her walk raised undiluted hell with his body.

  Deliberately Whip looked away.

  «If Prettyface starts limping, holler,» Whip said curtly. «He can ride across my saddle. Moccasin won’t mind. Wolfe breaks his horses to take anything in their stride.»

  Shannon reined Cully in behind Whip’s horse. It was a lean, longmuscled chestnut with the look of a hard ride just behind it.

  The man looked the same.

  By the time they reached the cabin, Shannon was stiff from the cold wind and the emotions churning behind her expressionless face. She dismounted, stumbled, and reached out wildly.

  Whip grabbed her. Though he was wearing gloves and Shannon was wearing heavy clothes, he swore he could feel her heat and sweetness radiating up to him, setting him on fire. Her eyelashes trembled, then opened fully, revealing eyes whose hunger and confusion matched his own.

  But there was no confusion about one thing. Shannon was his. All Whip had to do was take her.

  With a vicious word, Whip set Shannon on her feet and backed away even as she reached for him.

  «No,» he said coldly. «Don’t touch me.»

  Stunned, she froze in place, her hands held out to him, the love she felt for him so clear in her that Whip couldn’t bear looking at her. Nor could he force himself to stop.

  «Whip?»

  «I mean it,» Whip said fiercely. «Don’t touch me. I came here to dig gold, not to dig a deeper hole with you. When Reno and I find enough gold to see you through the winter, I’m gone. Do you hear me, Shannon? I’m gone! You can’t hold me with your body. Don’t even try.»

  Waves of hurt and humiliation swept through Shannon, making her cheeks alternately pale and flushed.

  «Yes,» Shannon whispered through trembling lips. «I hear you, Whip. You won’t have to say it again. Ever. I’ll hear you pushing me away until the day I die.»

  Whip closed his eyes against the humiliation he saw in Shannon’s eyes, her face, her whole body. He hadn’t meant to hurt her like that. He had just felt a cage door closing and had lashed out without thinking about the cost.

  «Shannon,» he whispered in agony. «Shannon.»

  There was no answer.

  Whip opened his eyes. He was alone with the cold wind.

  He told himself that it was better this way, for Shannon and for himself, better to hurt now than to spend a lifetime regretting a choice made because his blood was running hot and she didn’t have enough sense to say no.

  It’s better this way.

  It has to be.

  Nothing else would be worth the pain I saw in her eyes.

  SHANNON awoke at the first unearthly notes of the panpipes. She had never heard the tune before, but she knew it was a lamentation. Grief resonated in the keening, minor key harmonies and shivering, wailing echoes, as though a man was breathing in pain and exhaling sorrow.

  The haunting music closed Shannon’s throat and filled her eyes with tears. As remote and desolate as moonrise in hell, the music mourned for all that was untouchable, unspeakable, irrevocable.

  «Damn you, Whip Moran,» she whispered to the darkness. «What right have you to mourn? It was your choice, not mine.»

  There was no answer but a soulful cry of loss and damnation breathed into the night.

  It was a long time before Shannon slept again, and she wept even in her sleep.

  When Shannon awoke again it was still dark. There was nothing to hear but the peculiar hush of a fresh snowfall mantling the land in silence. Shivering, she went to the badly fitted shutters and peered out.

  Beneath a clear sky and a waning moon, snow lay everywhere, soft and chill and moist. Too thin to survive the coming day, the layer of snow waited for its inevitable end in the rising heat of the sun.

  But until that came, every twig, every leaf, everything touching the snow would leave a clear mark. Especially the hooves of deer.

  Hurriedly Shannon dressed, forcing herself to think only of the coming hunt. Thinking about yesterday would only make her hands shake and her stomach clench. If she was to have any chance at all of bringing down a deer, she would have to have steady hands and nerves.

  Don’t think about Whip. He’s gone whether he’s here or on the other side of the world.

  He doesn’t want me. He couldn’t have made it any plainer if he had carved it on me with that bullwhip of his.

  The unexpected weight of her jacket made Shannon check its pockets. The first thing she found was the shotgun shells. The second was the jar and its accompanying bag.

  With a grimace of remembered humiliation, Shannon shoved the jar onto a cupboard shelf. The shotgun shells she kept, for she would have a use for them. Blindly, forcing herself not to think of anything but what must be done, Shannon shrugged into the jacket, grateful for its warmth. She felt cold all the way to her soul.

  Shivering, she lifted down the shotgun from its pegs, checked it, and found it clean and dry and ready to fire. She grabbed a handful of jerked venison, drank a cupful of cold water from the bucket, and eased out of the cabin into the dense, featureless darkness that preceded dawn.

  B
reathing softly, Shannon stood just beyond the door and waited to see if Prettyface was going to object to being left alone. As much as she would appreciate his company, he still wasn’t fully recovered. He tired too quickly and was a bit stiff in his hindquarters where he had been shot. Another week would see the dog entirely healed, but she couldn’t wait that long to go hunting. A tracking snow such as this one was too good to pass up.

  Prettyface whined at the door and began scratching to get outside.

  «No,» Shannon whispered.

  Quickly she moved to the side of the house, where the wind couldn’t carry her scent inside.

  Prettyface’s whining increased in volume and intensity. So did the scratching sounds.

  Shannon knew Prettyface well enough to predict what would happen next. He would start to howl. That would awaken Whip, wherever his campsite was, and he would come investigating.

  The thought of having to face Whip again made Shannon’s skin clammy and her stomach churn.

  Even if she could face Whip, he would pitch a fit about her taking off to hunt by herself. Yet that was exactly what she had to do. She had to hunt and hunt successfully, without depending on Cherokee. If Shannon couldn’t manage that, she faced death in the coming winter or a lifetime of taking care of other people’s homes, other people’s children, other people’s lives.

  And never having her own.

  Shannon wasn’t certain which was worse, dying or never having lived in the first place.

  «Quiet.»

  The low command stilled Prettyface for a few moments. Then he began a high whimpering that would soon escalate into true howling.

  «Damnation,» Shannon said beneath her breath.

  She opened the door, grabbed Prettyface’s muzzle with both hands, and clamped down.

  «You can come with me, but you have to be quiet.»

  Prettyface quivered eagerly. And quietly. He knew the hunting ritual too well to make noise now that he was going to be included.

  Silently Shannon and the big dog set out in the darkness. She knew that Whip could follow her tracks as easily as she hoped to find and follow deer, but it was several hours until daybreak.

  In any case, Whip was going to be waiting around for his brother to show up, not looking for Shannon. Whip had made it savagely clear that he had no desire for more of her company.

  With luck, Whip wouldn’t even come to her cabin. Then he wouldn’t even notice she was gone.

  *

  THE sound of a shotgun being triggered woke Whip up. He lay beneath the tarpaulin and a layer of fresh snow and listened intently. Another shot came, sounding the same as the first.

  One man. One shotgun.

  No answering fire.

  A hunter, probably, taking advantage of the tracking snow.

  Whip lay half awake, half asleep, feeling worn out and used up, as though he had spent the night in hell rather than in a comfortable bedroll while snow fell softly, making another warm blanket for him to lie beneath. Through slitted eyes, he measured the peach-colored light in the eastern sky. True daybreak was two hours away, for the sun had to climb over some tall peaks before its brilliant rays could fall directly on Echo Basin.

  A third shot came echoing through the cold air, quickly followed by another.

  Whip smiled thinly.

  Must be a miner. No other kind of hunter would take four shots to bring down a deer. Sounded like he was using both barrels, too.

  No sooner had the thought come than Whip sat bolt upright in his bedroll, scattering snow in all directions.

  She wouldn’t!

  But Whip knew that Shannon would. He had never met a girl more stubborn.

  Whip crammed his feet into cold boots, adjusted his bullwhip on his shoulder, grabbed his rifle, and ran to the stony outcropping that overlooked the clearing.

  There was no smoke coming from the cabin.

  She could be asleep.

  Then Whip saw the tracks leading away from the cabin. He began swearing under his breath.

  A very short time later, Sugarfoot was saddled, bridled, and crow-hopping his way across the clearing. It was the horse’s way of letting Whip know how much it resented a cold blanket and a colder saddle.

  Whip rode out his mount’s tantrum without really noticing it. He was still consumed by the knowledge that Shannon was out prowling the gray, icy predawn, hunting her next meal as though she had no other choice but to fend for herself.

  Does she think I’m such a bastard that I won’t hunt a winter’s worth of game for her before I leave? Is that why she’s walking around in worn-out boots and clothing that’s fit only to be made into a rag rug?

  The answer lay in the tracks showing starkly against the gleaming silver snow. Shannon obviously believed she had to hunt for her own winter supplies.

  A harsh wind keened down from the peaks, stirred up by the rising sun. Whip shivered and swore and pulled the collar of his jacket higher against the icy fingers of wind.

  She must be cold.

  The thought only increased Whip’s anger.

  Why didn’t she wait for me to hunt for her? I’m not so much a bastard that I wouldn’t help her out. She must know that by now.

  Christ, other men would have taken what she offered and never looked back when they left.

  But Shannon hadn’t offered herself to other men. Only to Whip.

  And he had turned her down flat.

  Remembering Shannon’s pain and humiliation, Whip suddenly knew why Shannon was out hunting in the icy morning alone. She wouldn’t take food from his hand if she was starving to death.

  Grimly Whip followed the tracks, making the best speed that the land allowed — certainly much better speed than Shannon had made, for she was on foot.

  She at least could have ridden one of the damned racing mules. They’re hers, after all. Sure as hell the Culpeppers don’t need them anymore, and Razorback will be lucky to make it through the winter.

  Whip knew that Silent John’s old mule wasn’t the only creature that would be lucky to survive the coming winter. The thought of Shannon struggling against hunger and cold was like a splinter jammed deeply under Whip’s thumbnail, aching with each heartbeat, painful no matter what was done to ease it.

  She’s too damned poor to be so proud. There would have been no shame for her in accepting a place with Cal and Willy. It’s honest work. And they liked her.

  But Whip didn’t fool himself about his chances of getting Shannon to be practical and take the job with Caleb and Willow. After what Whip had said to Shannon yesterday, she wouldn’t go anywhere near relatives of his.

  It’s for her own good. Surely she can see that. If only I had put it more gently….

  Just how many gentle ways are there to tell a girl not to touch you, especially when you would move heaven and earth and take on hell just to be touched by her?

  The thought of being caressed by Shannon’s warm and loving hands made Whip shift uncomfortably in the saddle. His own swift, pulsing arousal made him angry with himself, with her, with everything. He had never been this vulnerable to a woman in his entire life.

  He didn’t like it one damned bit.

  Hurry up, Reno. Find the gold that will free Shannon from this place.

  And me.

  The tracks Whip was following veered abruptly. As soon as he looked up, he understood why. Off to the right was a small clearing. Through the screen of trees he could see that deer tracks circled the clearing partway and then dashed across the fresh snow in the center as though the deer had been startled into flight.

  Whip reined Sugarfoot over to the edge of the clearing and confirmed what he had already guessed. Several deer had been browsing along the margin of forest and meadow. The wind must have been on Shannon’s side, because she got within one hundred feet of them before they discovered her.

  There was an area of trampled snow where Shannon had stood. Spent shotgun shells lay where they had been pulled out of the chambers and dropped as she relo
aded.

  A closer examination of the deer tracks gave a picture of animals eating shrubs one minute and running flat out the next. There was no sign of blood in the tracks.

  Must have been a clean miss, Whip thought.

  The rest of the tracks made it clear that Shannon and Prettyface were in hard pursuit of their quarry. The deep, skidding impressions in the snow told of a girl running recklessly across the meadow and into the forest, leaping small obstacles and scrambling over larger ones. The tracks of a large canine ran alongside Shannon’s. The raggedness of the dog’s stride told Whip that Prettyface was favoring his wounded haunch.

  Abruptly Whip flung his head up toward the peak looming above and listened with every sense in his body.

  He heard only silence.

  Uneasiness blossomed darkly in him. He had a clear, uncanny certainty that Shannon had just called his name.

  He listened again with an intensity that made him ache. Nothing came to him but the increased wailing of the wind.

  Grimly Whip forced his attention back to the tracks in the snow.

  Shannon never should have taken Prettyface along. What was she thinking of? he asked himself bitterly.

  Hell, if she was thinking at all, she never would have left the cabin.

  But Whip was too late to do anything about that, just as he had been too late to prevent Shannon from setting off into the frigid morning in search of food he could have — and would have — hunted for her.

  A tracking snow might be pretty as the devil’s smile, but like the devil, it hides a lot of mischief.

  The tracks led across a boulder-strewn creek where snow hid broken branches and logs slick with snow and water. Sugarfoot was a fine trail horse, but he had to pick his way with care.

  Suddenly, spots of blood gleamed brightly among the tracks. The spots dogged one deer’s tracks, sticking with them no matter what the terrain or where the other deer veered off to find cover.

  Shannon didn’t miss after all. Not completely.

  When Whip saw clear signs that Shannon had slipped and fallen, his temper mounted. A bleak, unspeakable anxiety was pressing against his guts, chilling him.

  He kept hearing Shannon calling his name with an urgency that was making him wild.