Despite Caleb’s grim warning, they found nothing that afternoon but tracks. The land began rising slowly beneath their feet. The river became faster, more narrow, more rocky, and mountains crowded in on both sides. Willow could tell from the horses’ breathing that the altitude was higher than the little valley had been, and they were climbing higher with each step.
The water course they had been following forked as the land rose once more. The tracks of shod horses followed the right fork. Caleb took the left, for it led toward the place where five lines had intersected on the map that he had burned to ash, wishing that he could burn the past with it.
But burning all the bitter yesterdays wasn’t possible.
So be it.
The words were like rifle fire in Caleb’s mind. Their echo came back as Wolfe’s warning.
You hear me, amigo? You and Reno are too well matched.
And Caleb’s own answer, the only one there could be, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, the past echoing into the present, the savage circle complete.
So be it.
Except that it could not be. Caleb could not leave Willow alone in the mountains, no one to protect her, a woman abandoned unwillingly by her man, but abandoned just the same….
Will she die the way Rebecca did, in agony and exhaustion, bearing her lover’s dying child?
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.
Bile rose behind Caleb’s clenched teeth as he rebelled against the very idea of hurting Willow. He could not do that to the girl whose only sin was to love too much. She had done nothing to earn such betrayal.
Nor had Rebecca. Yet betrayal had come, and agony, and death. The man who had brought disaster to her walked free, able to seduce another innocent, abandon her, and create another savage circle of betrayal and vengeance.
In an anguish that grew greater with each step forward, Caleb searched for a way out of the trap of duty and desire and death. He found none except to let the seducer live, and in so doing condemn some unknown girl to a seduction and abandonment she had done nothing to earn, and then another girl, and then another; for a man’s desire rose with the sun and set only in the dark warmth of a woman’s body.
As Caleb rode into the dark canyon, he wondered how he could let Reno live and still call himself a man.
15
Walls of rock loomed on either side of the narrow cleft, blocking out all but a thin swath of sky overhead. High above, the mountain peak was still washed with clear sunlight, but in the bottom of the ravine dark forerunners of night flowed out of every crevice. The dense shadows were exactly what Caleb had been seeking. He dismounted and went back to Willow.
«No fire,» he said in a low voice.
Willow nodded her understanding. She had heard the gunfire clearly half an hour before. Two rifle shots. It was impossible to determine the direction of the shots, for the sounds had echoed off stone walls too many times before reaching her ears.
«How close?» Willow asked quietly.
Caleb knew she was asking about the shots they both had heard. He looked up at the rim of the gully and shrugged. «Could be the next ravine over. Could be a mile across the basin and up on another peak. Sound carries real well up here.»
While Caleb picketed the horses fifty feet downstream, Willow rinsed the canteen in the tiny brook that leaped and foamed from a notch high in the rock wall. The water was so cold it made her hands ache. A chill wind blew down the gully from the hidden peak, making her shiver despite her heavy wool jacket.
«I’ve never felt water so cold,» Willow said as she handed Caleb the canteen. «It made my teeth ache.»
«Meltwater,» Caleb said briefly. He took Willow’s hands and rubbed them between his own, warming them. «Damn near ice. There’s a snowfield at the top of that notch.» He breathed heat over her fingers before he opened hisshearling jacket, pulled her hands inside, and smiled down at her. «Better?»
«Much.»
Willow smiled and made amurmurous sound of approval as she smoothed her hands over Caleb’s warm chest. Within a few moments, she had picked apart the button just above his belt buckle and eased one hand inside to rest against the heat of his skin. His breath hissed in as her fingers tangled gently in the line of hair that ran down his torso.
«You’re better than any fire,» Willow whispered as she turned her hand over to warm the other side. «Heat but no smoke to give us away.»
«Keep that up and there might be.»
«Really?» she asked softly, laughing up at him. «Where?»
«Don’t tempt me, honey.»
«Why not? I’m so very good at it.»
Caleb’s eyes narrowed and his heart beat with redoubled force. In the sudden, hushed silence between Caleb and Willow, the sound of the tiny creek was like a river, but it wasn’t loud enough to cover the break in his breathing when her cool fingers dipped below his belt. The width of thegunbelt defeated her attempts to touch him.
Smiling, Caleb removed hisgunbelt and big knife and set them aside. «Try it now.»
Willow nibbled at the dimple in his chin and the beard stubble that had grown once more. He caught her teasing lips in a hard kiss that made him forget for a few moments the bleak future that was coming closer with every moment they looked for Reno. When her cool fingers slipped inside the waistband of his pants, Caleb made a hungry sound.
«Much, much better,» she said approvingly as she ran her fingernails down the long muscles of his torso.
«I’ve got an idea for making it even better.»
Caleb smiled as he unfastened Willow’s coat and tugged at buckskin laces until he could ease his fingers between folds of cloth and buttons to brush the silky flesh beneath. Her breath caught, broke, then came out in a rush of pleasure.
Yet Willow’s greatest pleasure was in watching Caleb respond to her. She loved seeing the darkness and tension of his expression change as the result of her touch. She loved taking shadows from his eyes, replacing them with fire. She loved caressing him, feeling his body change. She loved bringing him laughter and release. She loved…Caleb.
And someday soon he would realize that he loved her in return. Willow was certain of it. No man could come to a woman with such intense passion, such overwhelming tenderness, and not love her at least a little.
Smiling, watching Caleb, Willow stood on tiptoe, asking for his mouth, needing to taste him once more, to have the small consummation of his kiss. With a growling sound, he took what she offered and gave what she needed, joining their mouths hungrily.
«Well,» said a sardonic male voice behind Willow, «now I know what you were doing for the weeks you were missing.»
It was too late to reach for thegunbelt and Caleb knew it.
«Matt?» Willow cried, spinning around, facing the voice.
The man had come from downwind of the horses, taking Willow and Caleb by surprise. She peered into the shadows, then made a choked sound and ran into the stranger’s arms.
«Matt!» she said in delight, hugging him. «Oh, Matt, is it really you?»
«It’s really me, Willy.» Reno hugged her in return, but there was anger as well as relief in his expression. After a few moments, he set her aside and measured the tall, hard-faced man who was at the moment flipping agunbelt into place around his hips. «Caleb Black.»
Caleb didn’t acknowledge the question buried in the two words. He simply settled hisgunbelt with a smooth movement and faced the bitter future. «Matthew Moran.»
Reno’s pale green eyes narrowed at the bleak hatred in Caleb’s voice and at the violence implicit in the other man’s stance — legs braced slightly apart, hands loose and relaxed at his sides, ready to draw the six-gun whose thong had already been slipped off.