Prettyface’s head appeared from the corner of the meadow where he had been dining on scraps from Whip’s latest hunt. She had heard Prettyface bark wildly earlier, followed by Whip’s stern command for silence.
“Go on,” Shannon called, waving her hand at the dog. “It’s Whip I’m looking for, not you.”
Prettyface vanished back into the tall meadow grass.
“Whip? Where are you?”
No answer came from the meadow, where three hobbled mules grazed. No answer came from the woodpile, which now held little but chips. No answer came from the lean-to, where strips of venison and fish cured over a slow, smoky fire. No answer came from the ridgeline, where trees stood tall and windswept, lifting green arms to the sky.
Abruptly Shannon spun back toward the meadow, finally realizing what was wrong.
Whip’s horses weren’t there.
“Whip can’t have gone,” Shannon whispered. “It’s been only four days since we left Reno and Eve at the mine. They haven’t come back with news of gold.”
Surely Whip hasn’t left.
Oh, God, not yet. Not yet!
Shannon leaned against the door frame as her bones turned to sand and her skin went cold. Her hands clutched at the ragged hem of the shirt she wore. The worn cloth gave way beneath the pressure of her fingers, ripping with a muted sound.
“Whip, where are you?”
The ghostly keening of panpipes breathed over Shannon, whispering to her of exotic mysteries, distant sunrises and the unbound soul of a yondering man.
The haunting music came from behind Shannon. Inside the cabin.
She drew a swift breath and spun around.
There was no one behind her.
“Whip? Where are you?”
The trembling harmony of the pipes curled around Shannon like an invisible leash, pulling her toward the cupboard that opened into the cave.
Of course, Shannon thought in relief. Whip just came in the back way after dressing out that last elk. He’s probably washing off in the hot spring pool right now.
Quickly Shannon shut and barred the cabin door. When she opened the cupboard passage, light from a single candle danced in silent welcome. As she closed the cupboard behind her, the husky keening of the panpipes faded into a spectral whisper, then into silence.
Shannon searched darkness that seethed with mist from the hot spring. She couldn’t see Whip. Impatiently she kicked off her boots and socks and tugged off the leather belt that held up her worn men’s pants.
“Whip, are you in the pool?”
There was a hissing whisper as a long lash curled out of the darkness. Shannon felt a tug at her shirt and heard a soft tearing sound. Before she could do more than gasp, she sensed another swift movement, another tug, then another and another. Very quickly her old flannel shirt vanished, floating to the rocky floor in uneven ribbons.
Shannon made a surprised sound as the bullwhip’s supple lash licked over her trousers. There was a soft pop followed by a metallic clink as the single button on her pants hit the ground.
She looked around and saw nothing but twists of steam and the dark curl of the lash returning. Though she saw it coming, she still made a startled noise when the leather whip delicately, precisely, sheared cloth away from her body without touching her skin at all.
She shivered as the remnants of her trousers fell to the stone floor, leaving her wearing the shabby pantalets that were her only underwear.
“W-Whip?”
“I wanted to do this the first time I saw you dressed in ragpicker’s clothes that were an insult to your beauty. But I knew the bullwhip would frighten you then. Does it frighten you now?”
Shannon closed her eyes as a delicious shiver of anticipation went through her.
“No,” she whispered. “Nothing you do could frighten me, Whip.”
The lash curled, tugged, and the worn ribbon came untied, leaving nothing to hold up the pantalets. They slid to the floor. Shannon stood motionless, wearing only candlelight and the seething mist rising from the hot spring.
“You’re like the sun, honey girl. Beautiful. Perfect.”
Whip’s voice was as dark and sultry as the cave itself.
“I’ve seen myself in your shaving mirror,” Shannon said. “I’m not perfect or beautiful.”
“You are to me.”
The truth in Whip’s voice was another kind of caress licking over Shannon as softly as the mist, as gently as the smooth leather kissing her cheek, her shoulder, the swell of a breast, the full curve of one hip, the sensitive skin behind one knee. The cool, delicate touches were swift, always unexpected, shockingly arousing in their restraint and sensual promise.
Shannon whimpered Whip’s name as her body shimmered and caught fire. She captured the teasing, flicking lash and tugged hard, only to find herself pulled in turn toward the steamy darkness where Whip waited. Beneath her feet cool stone gave way to the soft, thick blankets Whip had spread near the edge of the hot spring.
There was a swirl of water and the secret rush of drops onto stone as Whip came out of the seething pool. Wearing only coils of steam and a glistening sheen of water, Whip loomed in front of Shannon.
He was as beautiful to her as a pagan god, but the shadows haunting his eyes were those of a man whose powers were merely human.
I wish I were a different man!
Don’t love me, Shannon. Please. Don’t. It hurts too much.
An eerie stillness wrapped around Shannon’s heart, making it stop. She knew in an instant of total silence that Whip would leave her soon.
Very soon.
Shannon’s heart turned over and beat frantically. She bit back a cry of protest at all that could have been and now never would be, shared laughter and intertwined lives, building a home and holding babies, children with his eyes and her smile and their love like a sunrise bringing light to the landscape of their lives….
But it was not to be.
All Shannon had was this moment when she would share her body and soul with Whip for the last time.
As graceful as candlelight and mist, Shannon walked to Whip. And like candlelight and mist she flowed over him, touching him, tasting him, learning every bit of his body in a rage of silence that left Whip shaken.
“Honey girl,” he said through his teeth. “My God.”
Shannon’s answer was a delicate movement of her tongue over the blind eye of his passion.
“Stop,” he said hoarsely.
“Not yet,” she whispered, touching him tenderly again. “I haven’t memorized all of you yet. Let me…memorize you.”
Whip didn’t know what to say, nor did he have any breath left to speak. Shannon was a living warmth enfolding him, a sigh and a caress and a tender, searching flame that set his body afire. Softly, wildly, she surrounded him, knowing him in ways he had never expected. Her loving was a sunrise sweeping across his very soul, illuminating more of himself than he could bear to see.
Whip shuddered and fought for control when he realized that Shannon was making love to him as though it were the last time.
She knows, Whip thought bleakly. Somehow she knows.
Shannon’s name was dragged from his lips, but the word was unrecognizable. A sudden, violent ecstasy was raking Whip with claws of fire. He fought it even as he desired it, shaking with the wanting.
When Whip could endure no more, he took Shannon down onto the rumpled blankets and buried himself inside her, trying to ease the bittersweet agony of her love for him. Yet even as he spent himself deep within her clinging heat, Whip wasn’t free of pain or knowledge. When he looked into her eyes he saw the desolate future; and when he kissed her, he tasted her intimate knowledge of him, a knowledge no other woman had ever wanted.
Whip tried to speak but could not force words past the anguish and passion constricting his throat. He bent and began kissing Shannon’s hair, her forehead, her eyebrows, the curves of her ears, her cheekbones, her trembling lips. As he kissed her, he rocked gently withi
n her, caressing her, leading her toward ecstasy, knowing her in a silence that seethed with all that had been and would not be again.
With a rippling cry, Shannon gave herself to the ecstasy Whip had summoned. He smiled to feel the tender shuddering of her flesh around his…and he kept rocking against her. Gently, relentlessly, he moved within her even as ecstasy itself did, driving her higher with every powerful, restrained movement of his body.
Shannon’s eyes widened as unexpected, intense pleasure speared through her. He moved again and again, rocking against her in primal rhythms, and each time he moved, her body answered with frightening intensity.
A hoarse cry was dragged from Shannon’s throat and her nails dug into the rigid muscles of Whip’s back. Her body arched helplessly, shuddering with the violence of her release.
Whip laughed and kept driving rhythmically into Shannon. His motions were both measured and fierce, demanding everything she had to give as a woman. Her whole body arched once more. Sharp, wild lightning surged through her until she cried out and simply clung to Whip, shaken by savage waves of ecstasy.
Holding her, sheltering her, Whip took Shannon’s mouth as completely as he had taken her body, trembling even as she did, sharing the sweet fury of her release. When Shannon no longer shuddered with each breath, Whip began to move within her again.
And again lightning raked her violently sensitive flesh.
“Whip?” she asked, dazed, almost frightened.
“It’s all right, honey girl. I just have to know.”
“W-what?”
“How high you can take me. Each time higher and then higher again.”
“Me?” Shannon laughed brokenly. “You’re the one who—”
Her words became a hoarse cry of pleasure as Whip put his arms behind her legs and surged forward, opening her to the full power of his body. Then he began to move deep within her, where ecstasy welled up hotly, endlessly.
Whip’s name came from Shannon’s lips with every broken breath, every wild cry, every shattering wave of pleasure driving through her, consuming her utterly.
Deeply sealed within her, Whip held Shannon shivering and wild, letting her sink into him, through him, caressing him body and soul; and then an endless, rippling release raged through him, fusing him to her in an elemental union unlike anything he had ever known.
Finally, slowly, Whip pulled away from Shannon. Saying nothing, he struck a match and lit the lantern that sat on a wooden box nearby.
The sudden blossoming of light revealed two heavy saddlebags. A ragged tongue of gold spilled from one of them.
Shannon looked, and knew without any doubt that she had lost Whip to the sunrise he had never seen.
“Shannon, honey girl, I…”
She shook her head, touched Whip’s mouth with her fingers, and watched him with eyes that held no tears. Tears come from hope, and she had none left.
“I will always love you,” Shannon whispered. “Now ride on, my sweet yondering man. Just…ride on.”
21
SHANNON walked into Murphy’s mercantile with Cherokee’s six-gun shoved into a belt at her waist and an irritated Prettyface at her side. She didn’t know how much time had passed since Whip left. She knew only that the aspens had been a vivid, living green while he was here and had turned to beautiful, unliving gold since he left.
She felt the same as the leaves. There had been a time of pouring sunshine and growth and beauty; and then the world had turned and everything had changed.
A pity that I’m not like those bright, lifeless leaves, able to lift on the wind and be whirled away forever.
But I’m a woman, not a leaf, and Cherokee needs me. That ankle of hers will never be the same.
Maybe one day I’ll get used to Whip’s loss the same way Cherokee is getting used to her changed ankle. Maybe one day the pain will no longer surprise me, making me feel as though it has just happened all over again for the first time.
As Shannon quietly looked over the merchandise, a miner she had never seen before started arguing with Murphy over the weight of the slab of bacon he had on the scales.
“Five pounds?” scoffed the miner. “Hell’s fire, man, back home I have me a redbone hound what whelps bigger pups than that there miserable hunk of bacon.”
“Then maybe you oughta go back and smoke one of them pups to et with your beans, rather than waste my time with all yer whining and—”
Murphy’s words stopped cold when Prettyface walked out from behind a stack of dried goods near the front door. The storekeeper stepped back from the counter so quickly that the scales jumped, rattled and settled into a new weight.
“Three pounds and some for good measure,” the miner said with satisfaction. “That’s more like it. Folks in Canyon City tell me you’re a real cheeseparing son of a bitch, but I guess they was thinking of some other Murphy.”
The storekeeper grunted unhappily, took the miner’s money, and sacked up the remaining supplies without another word. When the miner turned around with his supplies in hand, he spotted Shannon.
“Well, Lordy me, would you look at this sweet little thing,” he said, walking toward Shannon. “You Clementine or Betsy?”
“Neither,” she said tightly. “I’m Silent John’s…widow.”
Murphy’s eyebrows shot up but he kept quiet.
The miner halted. He looked chagrined at his error, but was no less eager to talk to Shannon.
“Sorry, ma’am,” said the miner. “Mean no insult. No one told me there was more than two women loose in Echo Basin. Can I make it up to you over supper?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Can I come calling?” he asked, walking forward again.
Prettyface’s upper lip lifted in a rippling, gleaming snarl.
The miner stopped dead.
“There would be no purpose in calling on me,” Shannon said neutrally. “I will never offer the kind of companionship you’re seeking.”
“And if you’re of a mind to just help yourself anyway,” Murphy said from behind the counter, “this here gal belongs to a man called Whip Moran. He told me that most particularly, just ‘fore he went off looking for gold. He been gone a month or two, but he be comin’ back soon enough, and there be pure fiery hell to pay if’n his woman is bothered.”
Shannon wanted to object that she was no longer Whip’s woman, he wasn’t off looking for gold, and he wouldn’t be back at all. But she kept her mouth tightly shut. For a time, at least, Whip’s reputation would help to protect her in the same way Silent John’s had.
“Whip?” asked the miner unhappily. “Be that the one what sent them four Culpeppers straight to hell?”
“Yeah,” Murphy said with malicious pleasure. “And if that ain’t enough to take the starch out of your pecker, Whip’s brother is a gunfighter called Reno.”
The miner looked even less happy.
“And Whip told me right forcefully,” Murphy continued, “that Caleb Black and Wolfe Lonetree think of this little gal as one of the family. Any man goes to botherin’ her will answer to them. And her dog ain’t no bargain, neither.”
Shannon gave Murphy a shuttered look and wondered just how “forcefully” Whip had presented his arguments to the storekeeper. Whatever had been said or done, the result was a remarkable improvement. It was clear that Murphy wouldn’t be acting anything but respectful toward Shannon.
The thought of Whip trying to see to her welfare from afar was another knife turning deep in Shannon’s soul. Whip had left the larder full of store-bought supplies, Cherokee’s smokehouse full of venison and fish and grouse, and firewood stacked to the eaves all around both cabins. Reno had found enough gold that Shannon could leave Echo Basin and live in comfort anywhere she wished.
There was no doubt that Whip had cared for her very much.
But not enough to stay.
May God keep you, yondering man, Shannon prayed silently as she had many, many times in long, painful weeks since Whip had left. May you som
eday find what you want.
And may it want you in return.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” the miner said politely. “I’ll be getting along, now.”
Shannon tore her thoughts from Whip to the miner, who was standing with his arms full of supplies and watching Prettyface with wary eyes.
“The dog is betwixt me and the door,” the miner explained.
“Prettyface,” Shannon said, stepping to the side. “Come here and be quiet.”
After another seething snarl, Prettyface subsided. When Shannon walked toward the counter, the dog followed. But he never took his wolf’s eyes off the miner.
The front door of the mercantile slammed shut behind the miner, shoved by a gust of cold September wind.
Shannon felt the chill and pulled her worn jacket more closely around her body. September had been filled with storms and wild, icy winds. Elk and deer had already left the high country, sensing that the first heavy snows of the season could come at any time.
That was what had forced Shannon to come into town. She needed to buy warm clothes for herself and supplies for Cherokee. The old woman was in no shape to make the trip herself…although Shannon suspected that Cherokee was lying in ambush somewhere back up the trail as Silent John often had, making sure that Shannon wasn’t followed.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Murphy,” Shannon said, approaching the counter. “Would you please fill this order for me while I select some warmer clothes?”
Murphy grunted.
“And Mr. Murphy?”
He grunted again.
“Keep your thumb off the scales,” Shannon said crisply.
The storekeeper grinned. “Whip told you.”
“He didn’t have to. I’ve known for years that you cheated me. Silent John accepted it as the price of doing business close to home. But I don’t. If that means going into Canyon City for supplies, I will do so.”
“No need to get your water hot, missy. I’m not about to go and get in Whip’s bad graces.”
“Or mine?”
“Or your’n,” Murphy agreed. “Folks what is smart enough to come in out of the rain don’t have no trouble with me.”