Only Love (31 page)

“Did he?” Caleb asked warily.

“Once I figured out what had happened, I suspected Whip had paid me too much, but I didn’t know the going rate, so I tracked down Clementine and Betsy and asked.”

Caleb measured the flat rage in Shannon’s eyes and decided not to ask who Clementine and Betsy were, and what they had to do with any of it.

“I was right,” Shannon continued. “Whip paid far too much for what he got from me. So I brought his change. Every damned speck of it.”

“Wait!” Willow called as Shannon picked up the reins. “You’ve had a long ride. At least come in and rest a while before you set out.”

“Thank you, no,” Shannon said. “The passes could close at any moment.”

“But—” Willow began.

“In any case,” Shannon continued with icy pride, “I respect you too much to bring your brother’s whore into your home.”

With that, Shannon spun the mule and kicked it into a long, ground-eating lope. The other mule and Prettyface followed at a rapid clip.

For a time neither Willow nor Caleb spoke. Then Willow let out a long, harsh breath.

“I wish I knew where my dear brother was,” she said. “I would like to see him again.”

“So would Shannon,” Caleb said dryly. “Preferably skinned out and nailed to her cabin wall.”

I
T
was an icy dusk when Whip rode up to Willow and Caleb’s home, his collar turned up against the wind. Snow flurries gleamed and swirled around him.

“Hello, stranger,” Caleb said, stepping down off the porch. “We thought you were headed for San Francisco and the high seas. I didn’t expect to see you for a year or two.”

There was a question buried beneath Caleb’s words, but Whip didn’t know how to answer it.
He was as puzzled as anyone else to find himself on this side of the sunrise.

“Neither did I,” Whip said. “But here I am.”

“And here you’ll stay. The passes are closed every way but the south.”

“I know. I came in that way. Damned cold on the desert now.”

Whip dismounted and shook Caleb’s hand.

“Where have you been for the past three months?” Caleb asked.

“Here and there,” Whip said, shrugging. “I got as far west as that big canyon where the Rio Colorado lies like a silver medicine snake at the bottom of a deep gorge.”

“Hell of a place, from what Wolfe tells me.”

“It will do,” Whip agreed. “I chased sunrise all the way around that canyon’s edge until I found myself back where I started from. Wild, lonely country, every inch of it.”

“Come on,” Caleb said. “Willow should be finished putting Ethan to bed by now.”

Whip hesitated.

“If you’re thinking of riding off to the high country,” Caleb said, “think again. The passes have been closed for months. They won’t open again for months.”

“I know. That’s why …” Whip’s voice died.

“That’s why you came back? You know you can’t get to her?”

Whip grimaced. “Yes.”

“Just as well,” Caleb said. “Last time we saw Shannon, she—”

“You saw her?” Whip interrupted instantly. “When?”

“Just before the passes closed.”

“Did she finally get smart and stay with you?”

“Nope. She wouldn’t even stay for a cup of coffee.”

Whip frowned. “Was she looking for me, then?”

“After a fashion,” Caleb said sardonically.

“What in hell does that mean?”

“I’ll tell him,” Willow said from the doorway. “Come on in, Whip. Shannon left a message for you.”

“Is she—” Whip’s voice dried up. He swallowed visibly. “Is she, uh, all right?”

“‘All right’ as in ‘not pregnant’?” Willow asked with false sweetness.

A red that had nothing to do with the cold wind appeared on Whip’s cheekbones.

Caleb took the reins from Whip’s hand and headed for the barn.

“Don’t take too many chunks out of his hide,” Caleb said to Willow over his shoulder.

“Why not?” Willow retorted.

“Shannon will want some to nail to her cabin wall.”

“Don’t worry.” Willow’s smile was all teeth and not one bit of comfort as she turned away. “Whip is a big boy. There will be plenty of hide to go around. Come inside, brother dear.”

Whip looked at Caleb’s retreating back and then at Willow’s. With swift, hard strides he followed his sister. When they were inside, he shut the door and grabbed her arm.

“Tell me straight up, Willy,” Whip said in a flat tone. “Is Shannon pregnant?”

“If she is, she didn’t mention it to us.”

Whip’s breath came out with a harsh sound.

“I didn’t think Shannon would come here unless she was pregnant,” he admitted.

“Is that why you’re not halfway to China? You
were worried that Shannon might be carrying your child?”

“I don’t know why I’m not halfway to China,” Whip said, his eyes bleak, haunted. “I only know that I’m not.”

Compassion softened the angry set of Willow’s face. She could sense her beloved brother’s unhappiness as though it were her own. With a sigh for Whip’s untamed, restless soul, she touched his sleeve gently.

“Come to the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll pour you some coffee. I’ll make up a batch of biscuits, too. You look like you could use a good meal.”

“I’ll settle for bread, if you have it. I’ve kind of lost my taste for biscuits. They remind me too much of …”

Whip’s voice trailed away. With a weary curse he lifted his hat, ran his fingers through his pale hair, and tossed the hat onto the kitchen table. Automatically he pulled off the bullwhip, hung his jacket by the back door, resettled the bullwhip on his shoulder, and sat down.

With eyes that reflected too many memories, Whip watched his sister go about the homey rituals of stirring up the fire, pouring coffee, and slicing bread. If he looked through nearly-closed eyes, he could pretend that it was Shannon moving around the kitchen, fixing supper, bringing him warmth and food with her own hands.

But it wasn’t Shannon, and Whip knew it all the way to the bottom of his painful, seething soul.

There was a rustling sound and a thump at the back door, as though someone had brought firewood and stacked it outside. Then the door opened and Caleb walked in with a pair of saddlebags thrown over his shoulder.

Whip didn’t even look up from his coffee.

Caleb shut the door and glanced at his wife. Willow shook her head slightly. Caleb almost smiled. He had guessed that Willow would be too tenderhearted to tear much of a strip off Whip’s thick hide.

Caleb, however, wasn’t.

“You said Shannon left a message for me,” Whip said. “What was it?”

Willow looked at Caleb.

“You forgot your change,” Caleb said sardonically.

Two saddlebags thumped heavily onto the kitchen table.

Whip glanced at them without interest. Then his eyes narrowed and one hand shot out. Muscles corded in his arm as he lifted the joined saddlebags, testing their weight.

He hissed a word that made Willow flinch.

“That tears it,” Whip snarled, letting go of the saddlebags. “Of all the stupid—”

“Did that gold come from Shannon’s claims?” Caleb interrupted.

“What damned difference does it make?”

“To me, none,” Caleb retorted. “It made a hell of a lot of difference to Shannon, though. The difference between being a widow and a whore.”

Whip uncoiled out of the chair and slammed into Caleb, pinning him against the kitchen wall in a single wild rush.

“God damn you, she isn’t a whore.”

“Whip! Stop it!” Willow cried, grabbing one of her brother’s arms.

Caleb stared into the quicksilver violence of Whip’s eyes and smiled almost gently.

“Hell, I know that,” Caleb said. “But if you’d feel
better trying to beat the same words out of me, we can do a turn or two around the back yard.”

Whip stared at Caleb’s level, compassionate eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped back.

“Sorry,” Whip said, looking at his hands as though he had never seen them before. “I’ve been on a hair trigger, lately.”

“Then you better sit on your hands for a few minutes,” Caleb suggested dryly. “I’d hate to have my brisket parted by that damned bullwhip of yours.”

Slowly, Whip sat down.

“The long and the short of it,” Caleb said, “is that Shannon came here riding one fine racing mule and leading another. She had a hellhound as big as a pony at her side.”

“Prettyface,” Whip said.

“If you say so,” Caleb muttered. “Looked to me more like the north end of a southbound burro. Anyway, Shannon got off her mule and asked me to take the saddlebags. As soon as I did, she peeled the saddle off the first mule and put it on the other.”

Whip frowned. “Sounds like she was in an almighty rush. Something must have been wrong. Really wrong.”

“Same thought occurred to me,” Caleb said. He hesitated. “Do you know some women by the name of Betsy and Clementine?”

Whip shot a look toward Willow, who was fussing over some stew she Was warming up for him.

“I don’t exactly
know
them,” Whip said in a voice that went no farther than Caleb’s ears. “I’ve never even met them. They live around Holler Creek. They’re, uh, saloon girls, if you take my meaning.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“How did you hear their names?” Whip asked.

“Shannon mentioned them.”

“What!”

Caleb took a deep breath and hoped that Whip had a good grip on his temper. If the two of them got into a fight in the kitchen, there wouldn’t be enough left of the room to make breakfast in.

“Seems that someone named Murphy told Shannon that her gold couldn’t have come from Silent John’s claims,” Caleb said.

“Murphy! Damn his blood-sucking soul! I figured he would just take the gold and shut up.”

“According to Shannon, you figured wrong on something else, too,” Caleb said.

As Caleb spoke, he casually went behind Whip’s chair.

“What was that?” Whip asked.

“You, uh, overpaid her,” Caleb said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Caleb took a concealed breath, gathering himself for the fight he knew was coming.

“When Shannon learned the gold wasn’t hers,” Caleb said, “she went to Betsy and Clementine and asked them what the going rate for their favors was.”

“What?”

Whip would have shot to his feet again, but Caleb’s big hands were bearing down on Whip’s shoulders, holding him in his chair.

“Settle down and listen,” Caleb said grimly. “Shannon took whatever amount the girls told her, figured out how much she had been overpaid by you, and came down off that mountain like a blue norther to give you your change.”

When the meaning of the words penetrated, the fight went out of Whip.

Oh, God, honey girl. I never thought of you that way at all. You were as innocent as sunrise …

“She really said that?” Whip managed finally.

Caleb nodded.

“She thought that I’d paid her off like something I’d bought for the night?” Whip whispered.

Warily, Caleb nodded.

“I don’t believe it,” Whip said starkly.

Willow smacked the stew spoon against the kettle, knocking off clinging bits of meat.

“Believe it,” Willow said succinctly. “Shannon wouldn’t come inside the house, not even for a cup of tea.”

“Why?”

“She said she respected me too much to bring my brother’s whore into my home.”

Whip made an anguished sound and slammed his fist on the table. His coffee cup leaped and turned on its side, sending a wave of searing liquid over him. He barely felt it. The pain that was tearing his soul apart left no room for anything else.

Abruptly Whip twisted aside and stood up, throwing off Caleb’s restraining hands.

“I changed my mind about those biscuits, Willy,” Whip said in a strained voice. “Make a batch of them big enough to take me over the mountain.”

“But the pass is closed,” Willow protested.

Whip turned to Caleb. “You still have those snowshoes in the barn?”

“Nope. They’re outside by the back door. I’ll go with you as far as my Montana horses can take us. After that, you’re on your own.”

“Thanks.”

“But when you get there,” Caleb said, “be damned careful.”

“Why?”

“She was mad enough to set that hellhound on you.”

Whip looked at the scars on his hands and smiled slightly. “Wouldn’t be the first time we tangled.”

He grabbed his jacket and hat and headed for the back door.

“What about supplies?” Caleb asked as Whip opened the door. “Will the two of you make it through the winter?”

“I made sure Shannon had enough to feed two people until the melt came.”

“You were a little slow figuring out who the second person was, weren’t you?” Willow asked dryly.

The back door slammed, cutting off the sound of Caleb’s laughter.

“What if he can’t get to the cabin?” Willow asked.

“He will. Getting back in Shannon’s good graces will be the real trick. That was one purely pissed off woman who rode out of here.”

“He’ll have all winter.”

“He’ll need it,” Caleb said.

“I doubt it. He has an unfair advantage.”

“What’s that?”

“She loves him,” Willow said simply.

A
S
dawn began to take stars and darkness from the sky, Whip resettled the straps of his backpack and set out across the meadow toward Shannon’s cabin. Peaks lifted silently above the earthbound darkness, bathing their rugged faces in the first heady light of dawn.

The air was utterly still around him, as cold and
sharp as freshly broken ice. His breath was a shimmering cloud around his face. Each step he took brought squeaks from the dry, frigid snow beneath his feet.

Whip didn’t notice the sounds, for he felt as though he was moving through a waking dream.

I’ve been here before, in the winter, with sunrise all around.

But he never had…except in his dream of a cabin and a woman waiting for him.

By the time Whip crossed the meadow, dawn was stealing down the mountains and touching the evergreens with gentle tongues of fire. The dark square of the cabin suddenly showed slivers of yellow light between the shutters. As he came closer, the door opened.