“I can’t swing an ax or a pick like you,” she said tartly, “but I can get a job done if I stay with it, and getting the job done is what matters.”
With that, Shannon turned back to the fire. Irritation prickled through her. It had become a common sensation in the past few days. She was forever balanced on the razor edge of her temper…and she didn’t know why.
“Did you find any gold while you were swinging that pick?” Whip asked Shannon.
“No, but I was working a landslide that covered most of the Chute. Rifle Sight is richer.”
“According to Silent John.”
“I’ve seen some of the ore he brought back,” Shannon said. “There was so much gold in the quartz that the chunks came apart in your hands. He called it jewelry rock.”
“He must have cleaned out that vein. From what I’ve seen, you could work all summer in Rifle Sight and not find enough gold to pay for your supplies.”
Fear breathed coolly down Shannon’s spine. The gold claims were her freedom. Without them, she was at the mercy of strangers.
“The gold is there,” she said tightly.
Whip grunted.
From the corner of her eyes, Shannon watched Whip stretch his arms and shoulders, loosening muscles drawn tight from hour after hour of hard labor. The shirt he wore was dark with sweat, and it clung to every powerful line of his body.
Lord, but that is one beautiful man, Shannon thought. Just looking at him makes me all edgy and short of breath. When I think of him touching me again…
A delicious sensation cascaded through Shannon’s body at the memory of what had happened beneath the tarpaulin. She hadn’t imagined that pleasure like that existed short of paradise.
At first the experience had left her feeling shy with Whip. The fact that he hadn’t spoken about it in any way since then, or even so much as touched her in passing, had only increased her shyness.
And her irritation.
She didn’t understand what had happened when Whip touched her so intimately. She only knew that she wanted it to happen again. Soon.
But obviously Whip didn’t feel the same way. He hadn’t touched her.
Maybe I should try touching him.
“Would you like me to wash your hair?” Shannon asked. “I know how awkward it is to do in a basin.”
The thought of how good her fingers would feel rubbing over his scalp made Whip’s body tighten despite the punishing hours of labor he had just finished. His own relentless sexual response to Shannon made his mouth flatten into a harsh line. He didn’t like wanting a woman to the point that his body wasn’t his own anymore, no matter how hard he worked to exhaust himself.
“No,” Whip said curtly. “I’ve managed my whole grown life without a handmaid. No point in taking up such foolishness now.”
“Well, do go and eat some wasps,” Shannon retorted. “It will make your tongue seem sweet by comparison.”
Whip grabbed the basin of hot water and stalked off toward a nearby grove of aspen trees, where there was an icy creek to use for rinsing off soap. Prettyface followed, leaping and prancing like a puppy. He loved playing tag with shots of water from Whip’s quick hands.
“That’s it, Prettyface,” Shannon called after them. “Desert me! Go follow the yondering man who smiles like a fallen angel and has a temper fully suited to hell!”
Both males ignored Shannon.
With a frustrated sound, she turned back to camp, looking for something to vent her irritability on. All that came to hand was the pickax leaning against the log next to her shotgun.
“I’m not mad enough to hammer stone…yet,” she muttered.
She tested the water in the bucket, which was hanging from a cast-iron tripod over the fire. The water was lukewarm. Barely.
“Go ahead, take all day to heat up,” Shannon muttered. “I’ve got nothing better to do than stand around sticking my finger in cold water.”
She hovered around the campfire, feeding fuel into it, testing the water, and wondering if fire burned colder in the high mountains. Surely it didn’t take this long to heat water at the cabin.
“I’ve got the hot spring at the cabin,” Shannon reminded herself. “It takes no time at all to get a bucket of hot water for washing clothes.”
Sighing, Shannon tested the water for the fifteenth time. It was passably warm.
“Finally. Now I can do the wash. Thunder and blazes, I can see why folks run around in dirty clothes a Comanchero would be ashamed to wear. Heating water for baths and such could make a body crazy.”
Just as Shannon bent to take the bucket from the tripod, Prettyface broke into a savage kind of barking that was more a snarling howl of rage than anything else.
A shot rang out.
Water sloshed as Shannon slammed the bucket handle back over the tripod and ran for the shotgun. The sound of another shot overwhelmed the dog’s furious sounds.
Whip’s shout came as Shannon broke into a run, heading for the aspen thicket. As she ran, she understood what her ears had been trying to tell her—the “shots” she was hearing were the sounds of a bullwhip at work, not a rifle.
The bullwhip cracked and then cracked again, splitting the air like lightning. Whip shouted something that Shannon couldn’t understand.
Then came a terrifying kind of chomping, snarling cough, as though the mountain was clearing its throat. Shannon had never heard the sound before, but Silent John had described it often enough.
Grizzly.
“Whip!” Shannon screamed, running harder than she ever had before in her life. “Oh, God, you don’t even have a gun!”
She leaped a fallen log, staggered for an instant on landing, then gathered herself and raced on, cocking the shotgun even as she ran.
Shannon saw the grizzly before she saw Whip. The bear was reared up on its hind legs, taller than Whip, wider, terrifying in its strength. The enraged bear was snapping its jaws together. Saliva showed stark white against the dark muzzle. The grizzly’s massive paws swatted at the bullwhip that cracked again and again around its head.
Naked to the waist, Whip stood with his back against a thicket of aspen that was too dense for him to penetrate. It wouldn’t have done any good even if he could have hidden among the trees—the grizzly would have broken through the aspens at a gallop.
Nor could Whip outrun the bear, even if the terrain had been flat and open. On level land, grizzlies were as fast as horses. On broken land, grizzlies were faster.
Prettyface leaped and snarled behind the bear, fangs slashing, seeking the grizzly’s hamstrings beneath the thick coat of fur. With horrifying speed the bear turned and slashed at the dog with claws longer than Shannon’s hand.
The bullwhip cracked and the grizzly straightened. It spun away from the dog and raged deep in its chest, jaws working as though crunching through bone. Blood glistened redly above the grizzly ’s right eye, proof that the bullwhip had reached flesh despite the protective fur.
But rather than driving the bear away, the slashing bullwhip seemed only to enrage the grizzly further.
It was obvious that sooner or later one of the bear’s massive paws would tangle with the long whip, ending its usefulness. Or the grizzly could simply charge the man like an enraged bull. Then the uneven fight would end very quickly.
Shannon ran harder, knowing she had to get in close enough to be certain of killing the bear. Silent John had warned her that a wounded grizzly was the most dangerous animal on earth.
As Whip’s arm moved, launching the lash like a bullet right at one of the bear’s eyes, he caught sight of Shannon running at the grizzly from the side.
“Get back!” he yelled.
If Shannon heard, she ignored him.
Whip worked the lash with startling speed, creating a high, ripping crackle that held the bear’s attention while Prettyface snapped at its heels.
Shannon kept running until the shotgun was almost touching the grizzly’s side. She triggered both barrels at a spot ju
st under the bear’s left arm.
There was no time for Shannon to brace herself before she fired. The shotgun’s fierce recoil knocked her flat in an instant. The grizzly gave an outraged roar and swung a massive paw at the place where Shannon’s head had been only an instant before.
Deadly leather coils whistled and snapped tightly around the bear’s neck. Whip set his feet and jerked hard, making muscles stand rigidly all the way down his back. Grimly he dragged the choking, mortally wounded grizzly off balance, forcing it to fall away from Shannon’s motionless body. The bear hit the earth, bucked and roared savagely, and slashed out with claws at an enemy it could no longer see.
Abruptly the grizzly jerked and went still.
The grove became silent but for the ragged sawing of Whip’s breath and Prettyface’s snarls as he stalked stiff-legged toward the unmoving grizzly.
“Get back!” Whip ordered.
Prettyface froze.
A deceptively lazy movement of Whip’s wrist sent the tip of the lash flicking over the bear’s open eyes.
The grizzly neither flinched nor blinked. It was truly dead.
Whip ran to Shannon’s side and knelt in a rush. He let out a rough sound of relief when he saw that her eyes were open and she was breathing.
“Where do you hurt?” he demanded.
Numbly she shook her head.
“The hell you don’t hurt,” Whip muttered. “I saw that grizzly hit you.”
Whip’s hands hadn’t shook during the fight, but they were shaking now as he gently touched the back of Shannon’s head, searching for the wound he was sure she must have.
“I’m—all right,” Shannon said jerkily, trying to catch her breath and speak at the same time.
“Easy, honey girl. Just lie still until I see how bad you’re hurt.”
“Just—breath. Shotgun—knocked me—”
Whip’s hands hesitated. He looked down into the beautiful sapphire depths of Shannon’s eyes.
“Recoil?” he asked.
She nodded and concentrated on breathing.
Saying nothing, Whip probed Shannon’s hair with long, surprisingly gentle fingers. When he found only the warmth of her scalp, he moved on down her body. His hands ran over every bit of her and found nothing but heat and a silky female softness that made him feel like he was caressing fire.
Abruptly Whip came to his feet. He looked down at the breathless but otherwise uninjured Shannon for a long, tense moment.
Then he held out his hand to her.
“Can you stand?” Whip asked quietly.
Too quietly.
Warily Shannon looked at Whip’s eyes. Where there had been tender concern a moment before, now there was only wintry gray. His eyes were almost opaque.
She had seen Whip look like that only once before, when the Culpeppers were baiting her. Whip had been furious then.
He was furious now.
Shannon scrambled to her feet without touching his outstretched hand.
“I’m fine,” she said. “See?”
“I see that you’re a fool, Shannon Conner Smith.”
She winced. “Why are you yell—”
“You could have been killed!”
“But you were—”
“I told you to get back,” Whip continued, talking over Shannon harshly. “Did you listen? Hell no! You came running up and shoved that antique shotgun right up the grizzly’s ass!”
“It was his arm, not his—”
“If the recoil hadn’t knocked you down, you would be dead right now! Do you hear me, you little idiot? You would have died and I couldn’t have done a damn thing about it!”
Adrenaline and anger combined to overcome Shannon’s good sense. She put her clenched fists on her hips and glared right back up into Whip’s face.
“So what was I supposed to do?” she demanded. “Stand by and darn socks while that grizzly clawed you into pieces too small to use in a rag rug?”
“Yes!”
“Ha! And you have the gall to call me a fool! Well, let me tell you something, yondering man. When it comes to being a fool, you not only win the race, you also take second, third, and fo—”
Shannon’s tirade ended in a surprised sound as Whip yanked her off her feet and buried his tongue in her mouth. She fought for an instant, then gave back the kiss every bit as fiercely as he was giving it to her.
Prettyface snarled and circled the grizzly again, then darted in and set his teeth into the furry hide. He shook his head hard, harrying the prey.
Neither Whip nor Shannon noticed.
It was a long time before Whip let Shannon slide down the length of his torso until her feet touched the ground once more. The rigid arousal of his body told Shannon the same thing the kiss had.
Whip wanted her. All of her.
And all of him was doing the wanting.
“Oh, my,” Shannon said raggedly, hanging on to Whip as her knees buckled. “I’ve been hoping you would kiss me like that every day since the hailstorm.”
Whip let out a long, long breath. Then he tilted back Shannon’s head and looked at her with eyes that were no longer the color of winter.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t want me to touch you anymore.”
“What was I supposed to do? Walk up to you and say I wanted you to—to—”
“Yes,” Whip said simply.
Shannon blushed, bit her lip, and looked up at Whip with eyes as wide and deeply blue as the sky.
“Cat got your tongue?” he teased.
She made a fist and hit him lightly on his muscular shoulder.
Laughing softly, Whip gathered Shannon close and rocked her slowly from side to side, resting his chin on top of her head.
“How anyone can be so fierce and so shy at the same time is a pure wonder,” he said after a few moments.
“I’m not fierce. And I’m not shy.”
“Of course not,” he said gravely. “You’re a tender little mouse who cowers at the first hint of danger. And you’re a brazen little hussy who throws herself at a man.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“Not just yet. I’m thinking about it, though.” Whip smiled like a cat licking cream. “I’m giving it a lot of thought, in fact.”
Shannon couldn’t see Whip’s smile, but she could hear it in his voice. She smiled in turn and nuzzled against his chest.
Hair tickled her nose.
She made a startled sound as she realized anew that Whip wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“What is it?” he asked, holding Shannon away so that he could see her face. “Are you hurt after all?”
She shook her head.
“Then what?” Whip asked.
“You.”
“What about me?”
“You’re not wearing a shirt.”
“I was just getting dressed when the bear showed up. But if it will make you feel better, you can take off your shirt, too.”
Shannon stared at him, then laughed out loud.
“Now you are teasing me,” she said.
She smiled, but didn’t rest her head on Whip’s bare chest again.
“Does it really bother you to see me like this?” he asked.
“No,” Shannon admitted softly. “It’s just that the sight of all that silky fur makes me want to pet you like Prettyface.”
“Head to heels and back again?” Whip suggested in a deep voice.
For a shimmering instant Shannon looked at Whip from head to heels and back again. The thought of touching him in the same way made her almost dizzy.
“The look on your face…” Whip said, laughing. “Come on, honey girl. We’ll leave Prettyface to worry over the bear in peace.”
Whip swung Shannon up in his arms like a child and began walking back toward camp. He didn’t stop until he reached the opposite edge of the forest, where he had made a night camp separate from hers.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you why,” Shannon said, looking at
his bedroll, “but you were so darned touchy I thought better of it.”
Whip made a questioning sound.
“Why did you camp over here instead of by the fire with me?” she asked.
“This is close enough to hear you if you need me, and far enough that I don’t lie awake listening to you breathe, listening to you move, listening to the blankets slide over you the way I want to.”
Shannon tried to speak but couldn’t. The look in Whip’s eyes stole her breath and made heat glitter through the center of her body.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” she managed to whisper.
“Passion is a two-way street. Didn’t you know?”
She shook her head.
Whip opened his mouth to say something about Silent John’s limitations as a lover, but thought better of it. Right now Whip didn’t want to think about Silent John.
And he sure as hell didn’t want Shannon thinking about Silent John, either.
“Tell me again,” Whip said almost roughly. “Tell me that you want me.”
“Yes,” Shannon whispered. “Oh, yes. I didn’t know this kind of wanting existed.”
Her words aroused Whip fiercely, yet gave him more self-control than he had had since he first saw Shannon’s hips swinging gently as she walked past him in Holler Creek.
The waiting was finally over. She was going to be his lover. Nothing could stop it now.
“It’s going to be good, honey girl,” Whip said, lowering Shannon to his bedroll. “It’s going to be so damned good.”
“As good as before?”
“Better.”
“I think I’ll die of it, then.”
Whip’s smile was as sensuous as his lips brushing over Shannon’s mouth.
“Lie still for me,” he whispered against her mouth. “I’ve been dreaming about how it would be to undress you, look at you, touch you. Now I won’t have to live on dreams anymore.”
A shiver that was part nervousness and part delicious anticipation went through Shannon. With half-closed eyes, she watched Whip kneel at her feet and remove her boots. He peeled away her much-darned socks and wrapped his hands around her slender feet.
“You’re always as clean as sunshine,” Whip said.
“The hot spring,” she said, and could say no more.