“Forced into marriage because of your brother’s gun,” Caleb said coldly. “Nice to know you think I’m a coward as well as the kind of conscienceless seducer who would turn an innocent girl into a whore.”
“Seducer? Don’t be ridiculous,” Willow said, clipping each syllable as she wrapped Caleb’s wound with a gentleness that was at odds with her voice. “Before you ever kissed me, I wanted you until I couldn’t take a breath without wondering if the air had touched you first.”
Caleb’s body tightened as though he had been cut with a whip.
“I’m sorry,” Willow said quickly, thinking she had been too rough in bandaging his wound. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. As for being a coward,” she continued as she carefully tied the bandage in place, “anyone who has the nerve to crawl into Jed Slater’s camp in full daylight isn’t a coward. You’re simply too pragmatic to walk into certain death and too much a man to run away. That left marriage.” She stepped back from Caleb. “That should do it.”
“Does that mean you’re finished tearing strips?” Reno asked dryly, turning around, facing them. “If so, it’s time to—Slater!”
Before the cry left Reno’s lips, Caleb spun around and drew his gun in a single, fluid motion that was so quick the eye couldn’t truly follow it. Thunder erupted on Willow’s right and then on her left as first Caleb and then Reno emptied their guns into the two men who were sixty feet away, creeping from the ravine to the edge of the grass, seeking a dear shot between the trees.
The sheer speed of Caleb’s and Reno’s response surprised the Slater brothers. Their aim was shattered as they fired quickly on the way to seeking better cover. But there was no cover within reach. Caleb and Reno were as accurate as they were fast. Realizing it, Jed Slater turned and fired even as bullets cut him down.
It wasn’t the men he aimed at, but Willow.
A blinding pain burst in Willow’s head, driving her to her knees. Darkness spiraled down from the sky, whirling around her. She heard Caleb’s voice calling her name as she reached out to him, needing him as the solid center of a world that was spinning blackly around her. She felt the strength of his arms supporting her, but even his power couldn’t hold the unnatural night at bay.
Willow was still trying to say Caleb’s name when midnight condensed in a soundless rush, claiming her.
Caleb felt the sudden slackness of Willow’s body, saw the blood welling from beneath her bright hair, and called her name in a voice that tore at his throat.
There was no answer. He hadn’t expected one. With fingers that shook, he probed gently around the bloody wound. Then he cradled her against his body and grieved in the dry, wrenching silence of a man who had never permitted himself to cry.
WHEN Wolfe rode into camp, the first thing he saw was Reno and Caleb sitting thirty feet away in the midst of sun-dappled shadows. Willow lay between the two men. Caleb flashed a quick look at Wolfe and the horses, then turned back to Willow as though afraid she would slip away unless he watched her every instant. Her hand lay between his. He stroked the smooth skin, trying to reassure both Willow and himself that she was still alive.
After a long look at his sister, Reno stood and walked to where Wolfe waited.
“I heard the gunfire. Was Willow hit?” Wolfe asked as he dismounted.
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
“We don’t know. Her pulse is strong and steady, but she’s unconscious.”
Wolfe’s dark eyes closed briefly. He turned and gave a brooding look to the girl who lay too quietly and the man who sat next to her, stroking her hand with a tenderness Wolfe wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t seen it.
“What happened?” Wolfe said, turning away, feeling as though he had intruded on Caleb’s privacy.
“Slater and his kid brother came up the ravine after us. They were sixty feet away when I spotted them.” Reno’s voice was heavy and worn. “Willow was fixing Caleb’s arm. There was no time to get her out of the way. When Jed Slater knew he was finished, he shot her. May God damn his soul to Hell.”
“Amen.” Wolfe sighed. “What about Kid Coyote?”
“Dead.”
Reno looked past Wolfe to the horses he was leading. Ishmael was among them. His head was high and his walk was strong. Other than a coat dulled by dried lather, the horse looked no worse for his long run.
“Thanks for fetching the stud,” Reno said, his voice husky with all that had not been said. “He’s a particular favorite of hers.”
“No thanks needed. I would have killed every outlaw in the camp to get my hands on that red stallion,” Wolfe said calmly. He waited, but Reno didn’t say anything more about what they were facing with Willow’s wound. “Did she bleed too much? Is that why she’s unconscious?”
Reno hesitated, then made an oddly helpless gesture with his left hand. “It’s a head wound. Caleb said the wound is shallow. He said he’s seen men walk around with a bullet in their head until the wound closed.” With a weary curse, Reno added, “He also said he’s seen men die without ever waking up, and their wounds were as shallow as hers.”
Wolfe swore softly and snapped the reins between his fingers as though they were a man’s neck. “Looks like we better make camp here.”
“It’s too close to Slater’s bunch.”
“They’re through,” Wolfe said flatly. “That repeating rifle of Caleb’s is a real ring-tailed wonder. You don’t need to take it off your shoulder to reload it. You just stuff the bullets in the side and keep on shooting. It beat hell out of the two repeating rifles Slater had.”
“Only because you were the one doing the shooting,” Reno said. “I’ve never seen your equal with a long gun.”
“Nor yours with a six-gun. Except, maybe, Caleb Black.”
Reno’s smile flickered sadly. “That Yuma man is quick, all right. I had to step around Willow to shoot. By the time I did, Caleb had emptied his revolver. He’s as smart as he is quick. He saw right off that Kid Coyote was slow and scared, so he put six bullets in Jed Slater and left the Kid for me.”
Wolfe nodded. “I’ve seen Caleb shoot. Not often, mind you, but when he does, he gets the job done. Glad the two of you sorted out your differences short of drawing your guns.”
Reno pinned Wolfe with a pale green glance. “Caleb and I didn’t get off to a friendly start, but that’s a damn good man over there, and he’s tearing himself up, blaming himself for what happened to Willy. That’s pure foolishness. It’s not his fault Jed Slater was snake-mean and tough enough to take six bullets and still shoot back.” Reno made an angry gesture with his hand. “But Caleb won’t listen to me. Can you talk sense to him?”
“I’ll try, but I doubt it. I’ve discovered men aren’t real reasonable where their women are concerned. Especially men like Caleb Black. Still water runs deep and quiet and looks real easy, but God help the fool who tries to make it run in a different course.”
Wolfe walked over to where Willow lay. When Caleb looked up, Wolfe’s throat tightened over protests he couldn’t voice. Caleb looked like a man who no longer believed in anything, even Hell.
“What can I do?” Wolfe asked quietly.
“Get her mares,” Caleb said, looking back at Willow. The back of his fingers caressed her cheek as lightly as a breath. “When she wakes up, I want her to see all her horses cropping grass nearby. I want her to open her eyes and see…”
Caleb’s voice frayed into silence. Wolfe put his hand on the other man’s right shoulder, squeezed, and turned away without saying anything. There were no words that could put the light back in Caleb’s eyes.
Caleb didn’t look up when Wolfe rode out. He didn’t look up when Reno made an oversized bed of evergreen boughs. But when Reno would have moved Willow, Caleb pushed the other man’s hands away and lifted Willow despite his wound. The pain in his arm simply didn’t matter except to tell Caleb he was still alive and Willow wasn’t, not quite.
“I’m going up on that rise,” Reno said. “I’ll be abl
e to guard better from up there.”
Caleb nodded without looking up. Gently, he put Willow on the bed, pulled the blanket over her once more, and lay down next to her. His fingertips sought her wrist again, needing the reassurance of her pulse. Its steady, strong beat was all that stood between Caleb and the kind of darkness he hadn’t known existed until he had turned at the sound of Willow’s cry and seen her falling.
But Willow had known such darkness existed. He had seen it in her eyes last night, when she stood in the moonlight and called herself his whore. He had been furious that she could so belittle herself and him and what they had shared. She had been furious in just the same way, a rage as deep as the passion they had shared.
Yet underneath all the hurt, all the rage, Caleb had heard Willow calling his name in silence, asking why something that had begun in such beauty had ended in such terrible darkness. He had been asking the same thing since he had known she was Reno’s sister.
No answer had come to Caleb, only a pain that grew greater with each breath, each shared touch, each instant of knowing that eventually love would end and hatred begin.
And it had.
Reflexively, Caleb closed his eyes as though that would somehow erase the painful memories. It didn’t. He kept hearing Willow’s husky voice calling his name, haunting echo of a love lost before it could be truly found.
Caleb, what’s wrong? Caleb? What happened? Why won’t you answer me? Caleb? Caleb!
Then he realized that it was Willow, not memory, calling his name.
“Caleb.”
Slowly he opened his eyes, afraid to believe he wasn’t dreaming.
Willow looked at Caleb anxiously, her heart turning over at the expression on his face. Even as she winced at the headache that had come from nowhere, she touched his cheek with trembling fingertips, wanting to soothe the pain she saw in his eyes.
“You’re hurt,” Willow said, seeing the bloody bandage as though for the first time.
“I was shot.” Caleb looked at her intently, wondering at the concern in her, the emotion that made her look at him as though the past night had never happened. “So were you.”
Hazel eyes widened, revealing every shade of blue and green, amber and gray. Caleb felt his tension ease even more when both pupils contracted evenly in response to the increased light. The men who had died of their head wounds hadn’t been able to respond to light with both eyes.
“Shot?” she asked. “How? When? I don’t remember.”
“Don’t try to sit up,” he said, but it was too late.
A low sound came from Willow. Caleb caught her and eased her back down onto the bed.
“My head hurts.”
“Running into a bullet will do that.” He kissed her very gently and stroked her cheek. When she didn’t withdraw, but instead turned her face toward his caress, he felt a relief so great it was dizzying. He brushed his lips over hers and whispered, “Lie still, love. You’re weak as a kitten.”
“When did all this happen?”
Caleb looked at his watch and couldn’t believe so little time had passed. He felt as though he had spent months watching Willow’s unnatural sleep.
“Less than an hour ago,” he said.
She frowned, trying to remember. “Matt? Is Matt all right? Are you?”
“Your brother is up on the hill guarding us. My wound isn’t worth mentioning. Wolfe is getting your mares. He brought Ishmael back, too. Everything is fine. Except you. How much do you remember?”
Caleb couldn’t quite keep the hope from his voice. Amnesia sometimes followed head wounds. He would give a great deal if Willow could forget what had happened last night.
He knew the exact instant when Willow remembered. The light and loving concern left her eyes. Very slowly, she turned her face away so that his fingers were no longer touching her cheek.
“I remember riding out on Ishmael rather than have you marry me under the threat of Matt’s gun,” she said finally.
“Yes, I can see you remember that. Anything else?” Caleb asked tonelessly.
Willow frowned and lifted her hands to her temples , trying to rub away the pain. “I remember running Ishmael much too long, too hard.”
“Ishmael came through it just fine. Jed Slater didn’t have any use for people in general and women in particular, but he was the finest horseman Kentucky ever raised. He cooled out Ishmael personally. Do you remember anything else?”
“Fighting the man who grabbed me. It didn’t work. He slapped me so hard I couldn’t see or hear.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened. “You clawed him pretty good just the same.”
“Yes, I remember his face. He was the one guarding me.” Willow’s expression changed as she recalled the blood on Caleb’s knife. “I thought he was taking a nap, but he wasn’t, was he?”
“What else do you remember?”
“You,” Willow said simply. “You cut me free, crawled behind me out of camp, and when the shooting started, you covered me with your own body,” She looked at him through the thick amber screen of her eyelashes. “That’s when you were wounded, wasn’t it? I felt you jerk.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“I’m sorry, Caleb,” she whispered, ignoring his attempt to change the subject. “I never meant for you to be hurt. I was the seducer, not the seduced. I knew Matt wouldn’t see it that way and I didn’t want him to shoot you for a seduction that was my fault, not yours, so I left. My brother is so fast with—”
Willow’s words were chopped off as her breath came in with a harsh sound. She remembered seeing Caleb turn and draw his gun in a flashing instant and thunder rolling, and it had happened all at once, all of a piece.
“You’re as fast as my brother.”
“Maybe, but probably not,” Caleb said evenly. “In any case, fast doesn’t always count. What counts is hitting what you shoot at and being willing to take a bullet in return.”
“You did.”
“So did Jed Slater. He’s lucky he died. I would have hung him for what he did to you.”
Willow sighed and pursued the only subject that mattered to her. “You aren’t afraid of Matt’s gun, so why did you agree to marry me rather than face him?”
“I didn’t want to kill someone you loved,” Caleb said simply. “You loved your brother. You said you loved me. One of us would have been killed, Willow. Probably both. That’s what happens when well-matched men are stupid enough or unlucky enough to meet over drawn guns. Since I planned on marrying you anyway, it seemed foolish to fight Reno over it. I’d just as soon your brother was alive to give you away.”
“When…” Willow swallowed dryly. “When did you figure out how good Matt was with his gun?”
“The minute Becky said the name Reno. Your brother has earned a reputation as a bad man in a fight. He’s never hunted that reputation, but that didn’t keep people from talking. Wolfe warned me, too. He said Reno and I would likely kill each other.”
“You knew all this and you went after Matt anyway?”
Caleb frowned down at Willow. “Of course. If I turned my back and walked away, who else would see that no more innocent girls were seduced and abandoned to die birthing Reno’s bastards?”
“Matt would never do such a thing!”
“I know. Now. And I won’t do it, either. We’re getting married, Willow.”
“You didn’t seduce me!” she said through clenched teeth.
“Horseshit,” Caleb said roughly. Then he touched Willow’s cheek in silent apology. “Honey, no man ever crept up on a girl’s blind side as carefully as I did on yours. Your combination of innocence and passion made me ache until I thought I would go crazy. I was determined to have you, but I was even more determined to make you ask for me. My pride couldn’t take the thought of anyone saying that I had taken you against your will.”
“So that’s why you told me to push you away,” Willow said in a faint voice, understanding too late.
“That’s not why,�
� Caleb said in a low voice. “I had just learned you were the sister of the man I had vowed to kill. I knew if I took you, you would hate yourself as much as you hated me when you faced me over Reno’s dead body. I didn’t want that, but I wanted you so much I couldn’t force myself to turn away.”
Willow’s eyes widened in shock as she understood what Caleb had tried to spare her…but even his formidable self-control hadn’t prevented him from taking her.
“That’s when I told you to push me away,” Caleb whispered, “when I knew you were Reno’s sister. The thought of you hating me ripped me apart, but I didn’t know what I could do to stop it. I couldn’t live with myself if I let Reno go on and seduce other girls. Yet I wanted you so much I couldn’t let you go. No matter what choice I made, I lost.”
Understanding wrenched Willow as she remembered facing the choice of marrying a man who didn’t love her or watching the man she loved die beneath her brother’s gun. Neither choice had been bearable, so she had simply walked away, leaving both choices behind. Caleb hadn’t had even that unhappy escape. Duty or desire or death had made a complete, seamless trap. No room to plead or hide. No way to be free. No way to change what would happen. No way to live with what would happen.
Willow didn’t know what she would have done if there had been no escape for her. She made a low sound, caught in the painful understanding that Caleb had paid a high price for the passion she had created in him.
Long fingers touched Willow’s cheek again, then withdrew because Caleb feared her reaction.
“I took you because I couldn’t stop myself,” Caleb admitted, his voice husky. “I held nothing back from you. I couldn’t. I’ve never been with a woman like that, passion and peace and laughter all mixed together. You taught me how much I had been missing. And I knew every instant of every hour I was with you that I was going to lose you as soon as I found Reno.”
Caleb fought against the emotion closing his throat and burning his eyes like naked flame. He took a slow breath, trying to ease the brutal tension in his body. It was futile. The tension had never been wholly banished since he had known that Willow was Reno’s sister.
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