“Then you called yourself my whore,” he whispered, “as though what we had was nothing more than two strangers rutting in the dark. Yet to me what we had was…beautiful.”
Willow felt the tension in Caleb’s fingers, a fine trembling that rippled from him to her, telling her of the turmoil beneath his controlled surface.
“So I gave you what you wanted,” Caleb said. “I left you to sleep alone, a woman not a whore. And when I woke up, I found out that even though I hadn’t killed your brother, you still hated me so much you would rather ride into certain death than marry me.”
“That’s not true!” Willow said, sitting up. There was an instant of lancing pain that made her wince, but it passed quickly, submerged in the urgency of making Caleb understand. “I wasn’t planning on dying. I just didn’t want to spend my life living with a man who thought all that existed between a man and a woman was a simple trade—she scratches his itch and he gives her marriage or a handful of silver, depending on what kind of woman she is. That way of thinking makes all women the same kind. Whores.”
As Caleb sat up, he struggled for the self-control he had always taken for granted before he met Willow Moran. Very gently, he turned her face against his neck, embracing her without hurting her.
“I never thought of you that way,” Caleb said after a moment, his voice hoarse. “When you gave yourself to me…” His voice faded, then returned, even more ragged than it had been before. “It was the most beautiful gift I’ve ever been given. I had nothing to give you in return but the ugly choices that were tearing me apart. My only hope of changing those choices was to give you a pleasure so great that you wouldn’t be able to hate me, no matter what happened after I found your brother.”
Caleb forced himself to breathe deeply, evenly. It didn’t work. The raw pain he felt was slipping out of control.
“When I discovered Reno hadn’t seduced my sister, I thought God had heard my prayers. I was free of the trap. But you hated me anyway.” Caleb drew a tight breath as his voice broke. He closed his eyes and fought to finish saying what had to be said before he lost the ability to speak at all. “You could be carrying my baby right now. I can’t let you go off alone and pretend to be a widow. We’re getting married. We owe it to the baby we might have created. Accept it, Willow. Don’t fight me anymore. You’ll only hurt yourself.”
“Duty,” Willow said, trying and failing to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Damn duty,” she whispered despairingly. “A whole lifetime of cold duty. I didn’t want that. That’s why I rode out. I wanted so much more from my marriage than duty.”
A small shudder went through Caleb, control slipping away, his voice roughening even more. “I’m sorry, Willow. I wanted so much more, too. I wanted to sleep with you in my arms and wake up to your smile. I wanted to see love in your eyes when you looked at me. I wanted to build a house for you and give you babies. I wanted a passion so deep that I’d sink into your soul the same way you had sunk into mine. I wanted…everything.”
“So did I,” she whispered.
“We could still have it,” Caleb said against her hair. “Can’t you forgive me and learn to love me again? I need that, Willow. I love you so much I can’t even breathe.”
She flinched and wanted to scream at having to listen to duty masquerading as love, but she hadn’t the strength to scream. She hadn’t even the strength to sit upright without leaning against the man who had always been stronger than she was, harder, needing nothing but himself and his God and duty.
“Don’t.” Willow sighed wearily. “You don’t have to tell me sweet, loving lies to get me into your bed. I’m not an innocent girl anymore. I’m a—”
“No more, Willow,” Caleb interrupted in a low voice. “I won’t have you call yourself a whore again. I know you hate me. I know I never should have seduced you, but I can’t go back and change what happened. All I can do is live with it and try not to hurt you anymore.”
“Duty,” she summarized.
“Damn duty,” Caleb said, shaking. “I love you.”
Willow felt a single drop on her cheek and shuddered. She had thought herself beyond tears. Even as she lifted her hand to wipe away the evidence of her despair, she realized that it wasn’t her tear that burned against her skin.
Hesitantly, afraid to believe, she touched her trembling hand to Caleb’s cheek. His tears scalded her, burning through her hurt and confusion to the truth beneath. A sense of duty could force a man to avenge his sister at the risk of his own life. Duty could force him to risk his life to rescue Willow. Duty could force him to marry the girl he had seduced.
But not even duty could force tears from a man as hard as Caleb Black.
With a sound of wonder, Willow rested her cheek against Caleb’s, then turned and kissed him, tasting the bittersweet tears that were his and her own combined. It was the same for their whispered phrases, two voices combined in discovery and joy, a man and a woman bound to one another by the irresistible passion known as love.
Epilogue
W IND from the mountain peaks rushed cool and sweet over the land, setting yellow aspen leaves to dancing. Ishmael’s head came up and his nostrils flared as he caught the familiar scent of the man and woman who walked together into the meadow. Behind them, at the edge of the forest, a large log house and barn gleamed in golden shades of unweathered wood. Window glass from Denver sparkled like jewels in the sun, a wedding gift from Wolfe.
Ishmael watched Caleb and Willow approach for a moment longer before the horse lowered his head, snorted, and resumed cropping the rich grass of high-country autumn. Around him grazed four Arabian mares whose bodies shielded and nurtured the foals they would bear in the spring. Nearby, tall Montana mares with rangy lines and deep chests grazed in the lush basin. They, too, would bear foals when winter released the country from its white embrace. Cattle grazed at the south end of the winding meadow, their bodies fat and sleek with the bounty of Colorado grass. Long rows of meadow hay lay drying in the sun, sending the fragrance of a captive sun across the land.
Caleb lifted Willow over the brook that sang down from the forested canyon at the end of the basin. Smiling, she wound her arms lightly around his neck and watched the tawny eyes of the man she loved. A circle of gold gleamed on her left hand. The ring was made from nuggets Reno had found in a high, hidden valley.
“And by next year,” Caleb continued, brushing his lips over his wife’s, “the home pasture should be fenced. Until then, Ishmael will have to keep an eye on his mares.”
“He’s done a good job so far,” Willow said.
Caleb grinned. “I can’t argue that. My Montana mares might have been bigger than what he was used to, but it didn’t put that stud off his stride a bit.”
Willow tried not to laugh, but the gleam of amusement in her husband’s eyes was too beguiling. Laughing softly, she kissed the line of his jaw.
“Will it put you off your stride when I get big?” she asked against his skin.
Caleb went very still and his arms tightened. “Are you going to get big?”
“Come spring, I suspect I’ll be as big as any of the mares.”
“Are you certain?” he asked, trying and failing to keep the concern from his voice as he remembered his sister.
“I’m strong,” Willow whispered. “Don’t worry, love.”
Joy and fear were mixed in the tawny intensity of Caleb’s glance as he looked at the woman who had become the center of his life.
“I’ll be with you,” he said simply.
*
AND he was.
Their first child was born when high-country streams ran full with the wild rush of spring. Like the brothers and sisters who followed, he grew tall and strong and straight, fed by the dean western land and the love that wove brightly between Caleb and Willow Black.
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