Wind blew with a long, lonely cry, reminding Willow of the icy night she had endured. Sparks leaped up from the flames. Quickly she pulled apart the fuel, and the fire guttered and died. As she banked the few coals in ashes, she regretted the loss of warmth. She looked at the narrow strip of tarpaulin that remained and realized all over again what a big man Caleb Black really was. The thought was daunting, but not as dismaying as the idea of lying down on the cold, wet ground in her dry clothes.
Making no more motions than necessary, she removed her hat, jacket, and Levis, lowered herself to the tarpaulin, and eased beneath the blankets. The feel of Caleb’s body so close to her own was unnerving at first, but when he showed no awareness of her, Willow relaxed, enjoying the warmth that radiated from him. With a long sigh she fell asleep.
It took Caleb a lot longer, but he, too, finally slept. As was his custom, he awoke periodically, listened to the small sounds around him, and fell asleep once more. At one point, somewhere between waking and sleeping, he found himself with his arm around Willow, her head snuggled against his shoulder and her arm flung across his chest. Smiling, he eased the blanket higher, pulling it over their heads, shutting out the light, creating a world whose only inhabitants were himself and the girl who slept so trustingly in his arms. As Caleb fell asleep once more, the scent of rose petals curled around him, residue of clothes once worn by British aristocracy.
The last time Caleb awoke, the ravine was filled with the slanting golden light of very late afternoon and Willow was tucked against him spoon-fashion. Both of them were lying on their left side. His arm was around her waist, holding her close. The warm weight of her hips nestled intimately in his lap had a predictable effect on his body.
Motionless but for the heavy running of his blood, Caleb told himself all the reasons why he would be a damned fool for sliding his hands beneath Willow’s clothes and finding out if her nipples tightened half as much in response to a man’s caressing hands as they did in response to cold rain. None of the reasons for keeping his hands in his pockets sounded as good in the sleepy, intimate twilight beneath the blankets as they had in the full light of wakefulness.
Slow down, soldier, Caleb advised himself savagely. She may be married. And even if she’s not, she’s a woman alone in a mighty empty land. I’m not going to have her saying that 1 took advantage of her. If she wants me, she’ll have to look me in the eye and say so in plain English.
Before his body could overrule his brain, Caleb rolled out of the inviting, rose-scented nest of blankets. Willow murmured sleepily and rolled over, seeking the warmth that had been so close a moment before.
“Wake up,” Caleb said as he stamped into his boots. “This isn’t a fancy hotel. You want breakfast, you’ll have to stir your hind end for it.”
Hazel eyes opened and watched him from beneath long, thick lashes. She yawned, curling her tongue like a kitten, then sighed. Dense amber lashes fluttered down once more.
“I mean it, southern lady. When I get back from looking around, there better be a fire laid and fresh water in the pot. Your stud could use a grooming. If you don’t have a currycomb in your fat carpetbag, you’ll find one in my saddlebag.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
Willow waited until Caleb stalked out of sight before she threw off the blankets, pulled on her boots, and began arranging twigs for the fire. The new freedom of movement offered by pants kept surprising her at odd moments.
The air was warm, stirred only occasionally by a breeze. Hidden birds sang through the ravine, falling silent only when Willow went to the narrow stream. There were clouds overhead. Some of them had slate bottoms, but not all.
“Maybe it won’t rain tonight,” Willow said wistfully to herself.
The rustling of leaves in a curl of wind was her only answer. With a sigh, she made her pilgrimage to some dense brush, where she discovered a drawback of her new clothes. Unlike her pantelets, the longjohns were sewn together at the crotch. That would have caused no particular inconvenience for a man wishing to relieve himself; for a woman, it meant shucking out of every stitch of clothing. Grumbling, Willow bared her backside to the playful wind.
By the time Willow got back to camp, she was still grumbling under her breath about dealing with men’s clothing and a woman’s body. She was tempted to light the fire, but didn’t. If Caleb had wanted that done, he would have said so. For herself, Willow had lived in fear for too many years to be careless about starting fires that advertised her presence to anyone within sight or scent of the smoke.
Willow began putting the camp in order, shaking out and rolling blankets, stacking small pieces of kindling close to the fire, and getting fresh water. When that was done, she found Caleb’s currycomb and went to work on the horses. Deuce and Trey welcomed the attention without a fuss, for there was no flapping cloth to worry them now. Ishmael, as always, was a gentleman. She was hard at work on Penny, one of the little sorrel mares, when the Arabian nickered and looked over Willow’s shoulder. Only then did she realize that Caleb was standing a few feet away, watching her with unblinking golden eyes.
Abruptly Willow wondered what he thought of her dressed in buckskins like an Indian, her hair loose and tumbling down to her hips. But if Caleb noticed the change of clothes, he said nothing. Nor did he stare at the legs she had never before revealed in such a way to any man.
“Did my horses give you any trouble?” Caleb asked, wondering if Willow had even thought to check on his animals.
Relieved that he was going to accept her clothes without comment, Willow answered cheerfully. “Trey and Deuce were as gentle as could be while I curried them. They held up each foot in turn and didn’t try to lean on me while I cleaned their hooves.”
Caleb’s eyes widened a fraction as he realized that she had indeed cared for his horses. That was almost as much a shock as the instant he first had seen her wearing buckskins that fit her like a pale shadow, revealing every womanly line of her body. He was beginning to think that wearing pants had been a bad idea—for his comfort, not for hers.
Nor was the top she wore any better. It cupped her breasts as lovingly as a man’s hands.
“A freight wagon is headed south, going at a good clip,” Caleb said after a moment. “Wind is from the west. If we keep the fire small, nobody on the wagon will smell it. And about moonrise, with a cold wind coming down off the peaks, we’ll be glad for a canteen of coffee and a hatful of cold bread.”
Willow flashed a smile. “Can we have coffee now, too?”
The corner of Caleb’s mouth turned up almost unwillingly as he admitted, “I was looking forward to it myself.”
When Willow was finished with the horses, she took her camisole and pantelets and washed them in the tiny creek with a sliver of soap taken from her personal baggage. Carefully, she shook the garments out and draped them over the cottonwood log near the fire, knowing that the thin fabric would dry quickly.
In silence, Caleb stacked bacon and frybread on plates made from a slab of cottonwood bark. Willow finished pouring coffee into the canteen, sat, and began eating. As she reached for a chunk of frybread, Caleb brought out a small pot of honey, one of the many small luxuries Wolfe had thrown into the pack.
“Honey!” Willow cried softly.
“No call to go getting fresh,” Caleb said, deadpan.
When she realized what he meant, she blushed and said, “Caleb Black, you know very well I meant what’s in that pot rather than you.”
“I’m hurt.”
“And I’m Salome of the Seven Veils,” she muttered.
Caleb glanced at the nearly transparent lawn camisole and fine cotton pantelets that were draped over the cottonwood log to dry.
“Looks more like two veils from here.”
Willow said only, “Honey, please.”
“How can I resist when you ask so nicely?” he said, surrendering the clay pot.
She made a sound that was almost a giggle. His answering smile made her feel as ligh
t as fire. For a shivering instant, Willow felt almost at home again, the home that existed only in her memories and dreams—firelight and her parents and her brothers’ masculine teasing, and Matt’s affectionate deviling of the younger sister who worshipped him.
Silently, Willow tipped the jar and dribbled a tiny stream of honey over the bread. The thick liquid shimmered like captive sunlight as it was slowly absorbed into the bread. She licked up stray threads of sweetness before she sank her teeth into the unexpected treat. The complex flavor of honey spread through her mouth. Without realizing it, she made a small sound of pleasure at the back of her throat. It had been three years since she had tasted the sun-drenched richness of honey.
Caleb watched from the corner of his eye, telling himself that she wasn’t doing it on purpose, licking her lips and sending that quick little tongue out to scoop up stray drops of honey. She wasn’t putting on a show for him. She was simply enjoying the honey with a sensual intensity that aroused him as much as seeing her in nearly transparent underthings had.
If Willow had been teasing him, Caleb would have had no difficulty ignoring or accepting her invitation, depending on how he felt at the moment. But she wasn’t issuing invitations, which put him at a real disadvantage. He wanted her. She didn’t want him.
Or if she did, she was keeping it under her hat better than any woman he had ever met.
Maybe she really is Reno’s wife. Not every man buys his woman a ring.
Then why does she blush like a kid caught stealing apples each time the word husband is mentioned?
There was no answer but the obvious one—Reno wasn’t Willow’s husband.
Absently, Caleb fingered the locket he carried safely within his watch pocket. Then he looked at the angle of the sun. Three more hours of daylight. Less if a storm came. But it didn’t look like it was blowing in the right direction for a storm. A few showers here and there, maybe, but nothing like it had been last night or the night before.
With a reluctance he didn’t understand, Caleb pulled out the locket, flicked it open, and studied the two pictures inside. From what Willow had said, she was more familiar with Reno’s parents than she was with her own. All he had to do was show her the locket. If she recognized the photographs, she was Reno’s wife. If she didn’t, she wasn’t. Cut and dried.
Show it to her. Find out if she’s available.
What if she isn’t?
The question went into Caleb like a knife, telling him how much he wanted the woman with the golden hair and the laughter to match.
Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
It was easy enough to say. It had been easy enough to obey, before Caleb had met Willow. Now he wasn’t certain he could obey the letter, much less the spirit, of that ancient law.
What you don’t know won’t hurt you, right?
Wrong, fool. What you don’t know can—
“What’s that?” Willow asked, interrupting Caleb’s thoughts.
He turned toward her with a suddenness that made her flinch.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Caleb looked from Willow’s clear hazel eyes to the twin golden ovals of the locket lying open in his palm. Two unsmiling faces stared back up at him. With a casualness that cost a great deal, he held his hand out so that Willow could see the pictures.
“Just a locket,” he said, watching her intently.
Willow bent forward at the waist and rested her fingertips on the pad of flesh at the base of Caleb’s thumb. He responded to the light pressure by tilting his hand, giving her a better view of the pictures.
The man had an unremarkable face, light eyes, dark hair, a mustache, and the most outstanding pair of ears Willow had ever seen. The woman had an unremarkable face, light eyes, dark hair, no mustache, and the second most outstanding pair of ears Willow had ever seen. Surreptitiously, she glanced at Caleb, wondering if the couple was related to him. She saw nothing of them in the lines of his face, in the shape of his eyes, in the curve of his mouth.
And most especially, nothing of them in his ears.
She cleared her throat, swallowing the laughter that lurked just at the edge of her control, and murmured, “Birds of a feather…”
A corner of Caleb’s mouth lifted in a hard curl. “Yes, I thought the same thing when I first saw the pictures.”
“Then the people aren’t, er, related to you?” Willow asked carefully.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Willow’s hands went to her head, lifting her thick, heavy hair away from her ears. “What do you think?”
Caleb thought he would like to take a gentle bite or two, but he said only, “What about your husband?”
Fighting a guilty tide of color, Willow looked away. “Matt’s ears are as flat as mine.”
“Not his parents, either, huh?” Caleb said, making his voice light, as though he was teasing her.
Golden hair flew as she shook her head emphatically. “No. I’ve never seen those people before in my life.”
“Sure?” he asked, smiling a slow, lazy kind of smile.
“Do you think I’d forget those ears?”
He laughed softly, feeling much better about life than he had when he awakened lusting after a woman who might have been another man’s wife.
“No, southern lady, I don’t. Those are the damnedest ears I’ve seen short of a Missouri mule.”
Willow wondered at the honey-licking satisfaction in Caleb’s smile and voice, but couldn’t help responding to it. She laughed softly, pleased that she had somehow slipped past his reserve for a few moments. Not until Caleb’s hand curled over hers did she realize that her fingertips were still resting on the hard flesh at the base of his thumb.
A shiver of awareness coursed through Willow, startling her. Instinctively, she pulled back. Sensing both the response and the wariness, Caleb released Willow’s fingers with a caressing motion that emphasized his strength and his restraint. Now that he was reasonably certain of her marital status, he was willing to conduct a careful campaign of seduction, one that would end with her pleading for him in no uncertain terms.
That wouldn’t happen today or maybe even the day after tomorrow, yet appen it would. The hunter in Caleb was as certain of his ultimate success as he was that he would find and kill the man called Reno.
The man who was not Willow’s husband.
“Better get your Levis on, honey,” Caleb said, standing and pulling Willow to her feet in the same motion. “We’ve got a long, hard ride ahead before we’ll be shed of Slater and his bunch.”
6
S HADOWS had already flowed down from the invisible peaks by the time Willow stood next to Ishmael, looking uncertainly at her new saddle. The stallion hadn’t objected to it. In fact, other than a flaring of his nostrils at the unfamiliar scent, he hadn’t seemed to notice any difference.
Willow did. When she bent to pick up the saddle for the first time, its unexpected weight startled her into letting it drop. Caleb reached past her, lifted the saddle one-handed, and secured it on Ishmael’s back.
“Up you go.”
Willow looked up from the leather-clad hands held out for her use as a stirrup. Caleb’s whiskey-colored eyes were watching her with a masculine speculation that startled her. Then he blinked, banking the passionate fires she sensed burning beneath his self-control.
“Shouldn’t I learn how to mount alone?” Willow asked, her voice husky.
Black eyebrows lifted. Caleb shrugged and stepped aside. “Suit yourself.”
Willow held reins and mane in her left hand, lifted her left foot up—way up—to the stirrup and grabbed the saddle horn with her right hand. Halfway up she stopped, remembering that she would have to swing her right leg over the stallion’s rump instead of over the saddle horn. A judicious boost from the flat of Caleb’s hand prevented her from dangling like an ornament from the stirrup.
“Thank you,” Willow muttered as she se
ttled in the saddle, flushed from the tactile memory of his big hand on her bottom.
“My pleasure,” Caleb said gravely.
He hid his smile as Willow raised her left foot out of the stirrup. If he heard the swift intake of her breath when his hand closed around her ankle to move her leg back from the stirrup, he didn’t show it. “I’d better let this down a few notches. I’ve never seen Jessi, but she must be an even smaller tidbit than you.”
The red in Willow’s cheeks deepened as she thought of the snug fit of the first two layers of her clothes. “I’m not small,” she muttered.
Smiling, Caleb ducked beneath Ishmael’s neck, gently removed Willow’s right foot from the stirrup, and let it down two notches, though he knew very well one notch would be enough. When he was finished, he fitted her foot in the stirrup with a care that was just short of caressing.
“Stand up, honey.”
Willow obeyed.
Caleb slid his hand along the leather beneath her bottom, testing the clearance between saddle and woman. There wasn’t enough room for his hand to move freely. It could, however, move.
At Caleb’s intimate touch Willow inhaled sharply as she went up on her tiptoes in shock. “Caleb!”
“Yes, I see,” he said blandly. “I’ll have to take the stirrups back up a notch. Sit down again.”
Slowly, Caleb removed his hand and began working over the stirrup leather again. Willow stared down at him. She could see only the black brim of his hat. Gradually, her heartbeat settled down and the feeling of not being able to breathe diminished. She took a rather ragged breath and tried to forget the staggering instant when she had felt his big hand sliding between her legs, sending unnerving sensations radiating up through her body.
Forgetting was impossible.
“Stand up again.”
“I’m sure the stirrups are just f-fine,” Willow said almost desperately.
Her low, shaken voice was as arousing to Caleb as the soft weight of her bottom pressed against his palm had been. He wanted to feel her again, to curl his hand around her heat and rock against her until she moaned.
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