«Have you?»
«What?»
«Been thinking of me?»
Shannon blushed, realizing what she had admitted.
Whip smiled and started toward her again.
«I said hold it!» she ordered.
«I’m already holding as much as I can,» Whip said reasonably, «but I’ll try.»
Shannon bit her lips against an urge to smile, to laugh, to put away the shotgun and trust the big stranger who seemed as familiar to her as her own breath.
Why didn’t Cherokee ever tell me I would react like this to a man? Lord above, no wonder women do fool things for men.
At least, for men like Whip.
«Don’t come any closer,» she said grimly. «Prettyface doesn’t like strangers.»
Whip blinked. «Prettyface?»
«My hound.»
Whip looked at the huge, snarling animal whose head came up to Shannon’s breasts.
«That’s Prettyface?» he asked.
«Of course. Or maybe you’d like to be the one to tell him he’s ugly?»
There was an instant of silence. Then Whip threw back his head and laughed with surprise and delight.
A ripple of pleasure went through Shannon at the sound. Whip’s laughter was even more beautiful than his smile.
«Prettyface it is,» Whip agreed. «You’d have to be dumb as a roomful of Culpeppers to call that brute anything else.»
This time Shannon couldn’t help smiling.
«Where do you want your supplies?» Whip asked.
Her smile vanished.
«They aren’t mine,» Shannon said flatly.
«That isn’t what Murphy said.»
«Murphy wouldn’t know the truth if it wore a sign.»
Whip smiled again. «Can’t argue that. So think of this as Murphy’s apology for all the times he kept his dirty thumb on the scales when he was weighing your supplies.»
With a hunger Shannon couldn’t entirely conceal, she looked at the sacks of beans and flour, bacon and dried apples, salt and spices, and other things she had gone so long without she could hardly remember their names.
Abruptly Shannon looked away from the bounty that was being offered to her. Her throat worked as she swallowed, for just the thought of food was enough to make her mouth water.
«I’ll take the baking soda and lard I paid for, and thank you for your trouble,» she said tightly. «You can take the rest back.»
Just as Whip started to speak, lightning slashed through the condensing night. Thunder rumbled, closer now. The air itself tasted of sleet. The storm was closing in on Shannon’s clearing, bringing the icy rains of high-country summer.
«If you think I’m going to ride all the way back to Holler Creek in this weather,» Whip said, «you’re crazy.»
«Where you go is your business. What you take with you is mine.»
For a long time there was no sound but that of the twilight storm, of wind rushing and trees bending, thunder growling, the muted drumroll of rain beating against the mountain with tiny silver hammers.
«You need the food,» Whip said bluntly. «You’re too thin.»
Shannon didn’t bother to deny it. She had lost so much weight during the past winter she could barely get Silent John’s cast-off clothes to stay on her. If it hadn’t been for the pronounced flare of her hips, Shannon would have found the pants around her knees every time she moved.
But Whip doesn’t have the right to notice something that personal, much less to take it upon himself to feed me.
Both Cherokee and Silent John had repeatedly warned Shannon about the problems that would come if she allowed herself to get beholden to a man during Silent John’s frequent absences. Shannon couldn’t allow herself to owe a man anything. Even a man with a smile like a fallen angel.
Perhapsespeciallynot that man.
When Whip saw the determined line of Shannon’s mouth, he knew before she spoke that she was going to refuse the supplies. That made him angry, but what really triggered his temper was the fact that he couldn’t force Shannon to take so much as a single bite of the food he had brought for her.
He had no right to take care of Shannon. Only her husband had that privilege, and obviously the man was no damned good at it.
«Think of it as a loan,» Whip said through clenched teeth.
«No.»
«Hell’s fire,» Whip snarled, «you’re so weak you can hardly hold that shotgun up!»
«I’m not too weak to pull the trigger.»
The sound Prettyface made then echoed Whip’s anger, a low rumbling like a storm coming.
Whip got a grip on his temper. The last thing he wanted to do was fight Shannon’s dog. As a way to get into a girl’s good graces, thumping on her dog was a losing strategy.
Besides, the damned beast was as big as a barn.
Yet, even knowing that, Whip had to struggle with his desire to yank the shotgun out of Shannon’s hands, clout the dog a good one, and then sit Shannon down to a real meal.
Realizing that his temper was at flash point shocked Whip. Normally he was the easygoing Moran and his brother Reno was the hardheaded one. But there was something about Shannon’s sheer stubbornness that put the spurs to Whip’s temper.
«There’s no harm in accepting a hand now and again,» Whip said, forcing himself to speak gently.
«Cherokee, the shaman, told me that men tame mustangs by offering them food when they’re hungry and water when they’re thirsty. Of course, the men run the mustangs nearly to death first, so they get plenty hungry and thirsty. Then the men offer the mustangs a hand — with a rope in it.»
Humor briefly softened the planes of Whip’s face.
«That’s one way to do it,» he agreed.
But Wolfe Lonetree taught me a better way, Whip remembered. You stay on the edges of the mustang’s senses, not crowding, not rushing, until the wild thing gets used to having you around. Then you get closer and the mustang gets nervous and you stop until you teach it to accept you at that distance.
And then you go closer and wait and go closer and wait and go closer until finally the sweet little beauty is eating right out of your hand.
Of course, damned few mustangs are worth that much trouble.
The wind swept down, billowing Shannon’s loose clothes one moment and molding them to her body the next.
Whip’s breath stopped. Shannon might have looked skinny, but underneath that frayed cloth were the kind of curves that would keep a man awake at night, thinking of new ways to get close to her.
Really close.
Damnation. If she were mine, I sure as hell wouldn’t be off chasing gold or hunting men. I’d be right next to her, seeing how many ways we could pleasure each other.
And I’d keep at it until we both were too tired to lick our lips.
«Shannon…»
As Whip spoke, lightning arced in white violence across half the sky. Thunder battered the mountains until the ground trembled. In the calm that followed, a rushing sound swept across the clearing toward the cabin, rain streaming down in wild silver veils.
Whip was fascinated by the beauty of the storm racing down toward him, but he wasn’t deceived. He knew all about the seductive, deadly beauty of the Rocky Mountain high country. Though it was early summer, at this altitude sunset brought a sharp chill to the air. By moonrise it would be freezing. By morning there might be snow chest-high on a Montana horse. The snow could be gone by the next day.
Or it could stay for a month, as it had late this spring.
The little bit of supplies Shannon had would barely keep her alive for two weeks.
«Where the hell is your husband?» Whip asked in exasperation. «You need him!»
Shannon hoped it was too dark for Whip to see the alarm in her eyes. Cherokee was right. Whatever had happened to make Silent John disappear, men had to believe that Silent John was still alive, still likely to appear without warning, still able to bring down a buck or a man at three thousand yards.