«Henevertouched me.»
«Never?» Whip laughed harshly, not believing a word of it. «Even an old killer like him must have liked undressing you and —»
«Silent John was my great-uncle!» Shannon cried, cutting across Whip’s words. «He never touched me! Not ever! Not a handshake when I brought down my first deer. Not a quick tug on my braids when he passed my chair. Not even a pat on the head when I learned to make biscuits the way he liked. Nobody has touched me in a tender way since Mama died!»
Blindly Shannon pulled one of Whip’s blankets over her hips, shielding her nakedness from him.
«And then you cam with your hungry eyes and fallen angel smile and gently hands,» she whispered.
Shannon closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of Whip’s face hard with anger and contempt.
«Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?» Whip asked, his voice flat.
«I did.»
«Horseshit.»
«Go to hell, yondering man. Go Soon.»
Whip looked at the girl huddled in a crookedly buttoned shirt with part of his bedroll drawn up over her hips. There was nothing of the hot temptress about her now. She wasn’t pleading for his mouth, his hands, his body locked with hers in primal ecstasy.
Whip drew a quick, sawing breath and fought for self-control. Shannon didn’t know what she was missing.
But, by God, he did.
«When did you tell me you were a virgin?» Whip asked less harshly.
«When we were talking about me not having a baby.»
He thought about it, frowned, and shook his head.
«The subject of virginity didn’t come up,» Whip said.
Shannon threw him a glittering glance. Her eyes were as brilliant as sapphires.
And twice as cold.
«I asked how you could be sure that you didn’t leave any bastards behind,» Shannon said flatly. «You said the same way Silent John knew how not to get me pregnant. Well, the way Silent John used was —»
«He never touched you,» Whip interrupted, finally understanding, believing. «You’ve really never been touched at all. My God.»
«Hallelujah,» Shannon said sarcastically. «If I repeat something often enough, even a gray-eyed yondering man finally learns.»
Whip opened his mouth, closed it, and stared at the virgin widow who had turned to honey and melted all over him at a touch.
«My God,» Whip repeated. «I —» He shook his head as though coming out of deep water. «It never occurred to me that Silent John and you had’t been truly man and wife.»
«No more than it occurred to me that you didn’t understand why I didn’t get pregnant,» she shot back.
«Chastity. The oldest way of all. Judas H. Priest.»
Shannon’s anger drained away as she saw how shocked Whip was. In the wake of anger came a fatigue so great that she wanted to put her head on her knees and cry. It was all too much to take in — the grizzly and her fear for Whip and his rage that she had come running up, then the heady sensuality of his touch, and then his fury.
«Shannon?»
«What.»
«What did you think would happen after I had you?»
«Think?Think?Yondering man, when you touch me I can’t think worth a handful of cold spit.»
«You weren’t trying to trap me into marriage?»
Shannon lifted her head. Between the grizzly and the lovemaking, her braids had come mostly undone. Long, dark strands slid over her cheeks and down over her breasts. Her eyes were dark, unreadable.
«Why on earth would I want to do that?» she asked.
For the second time Shannon had managed to shock Whip speechless.
«What possible use is a man who puts a baby in you and then flits off around the earth until it’s time to come back and put another baby in?» she asked.
«I’d never get you pregnant and then leave you,» Whip said coldly. «You know me well enough to know that.»
Reluctantly Shannon nodded. «You’re not the kind to run out on your responsibilities.»
«Is that what you were counting on? Getting pregnant so I would’t leave?»
Anger stirred in Shannon, but she was too tired to sustain it.
«I’m naive about sex, but I’m not stupid about life,» she said wearily.
«What does that mean?»
«Pregnant or not, I will never marry a man who wants me less than he wants a sunrise he’s never seen.»
Whip flinched at the conflicting emotions in Shannon’s voice, in her eyes, in her hands clenching the blanket over her nakedness.
«But you would have given yourself to me,» Whip said, angry for no reason.
A shiver of memory and desire went through Shannon.
«Yes,» she said.
«Why?»
«Why do you care?»
«Because I’m afraid you’re naive enough to believe you love me,» Whip said bluntly.
Shannon gave Whip a shuttered glance.
«Either way, it’s not your worry,» she said. «It’s mine.»
«I don’t want you to love me,» Whip said, biting off each word.
«I know.»
«Love is a cage.»
«Yes. I know that too. Now. Someday I’ll thank you for teaching me how to build cage of sunlight. But not today.»
She put her forehead back on her knees, shutting Whip out.
«Shannon?»
«Go away, yondering man. You don’t want my body, you don’t want my love, you don’t want anything but the sunrise you’re never seen. Go chase it and leave me be.»
11
W HIP slammed the pick into rock and felt the shock wave all the way down his arms to his ankles. Stone splintered and sheared away from bedrock, showering him with biting pieces of grit in the process.
Nothing useful lay behind the rock Whip had hammered from the end of the short tunnel. The faint signs of gold he had been pursuing like a demon for the past two days weren’t in evidence anymore. Nor could he guess where the faint trace of gold had gone. There were no visible faults, no layering of stone, no way to decide which was the best direction to dig — up, down, sideways, straight ahead, or not at all.
Reno might be able to make this sorry claim pay, but not me.
No wonder Silent John took to man-hunting. It’s a damned sight more interesting than hammering on stone.
Despite Whip’s sour thoughts, he kept on swinging the pick with all the power in him. He hoped if he worked long enough, hard enough, his body wouldn’t stand up and howl every time he thought of Shannon crying out with hunger, opening herself to him, shivering with pleasure at his touch.
Sun-warmed honey in my hands.
Steel pick slammed into the mountain of stone.
A virgin.
Whip swung harder. Rock chips exploded.
Hotter, sweeter, wilder than any woman I’ve ever known.
Steel met stone and rang like a bell.
A goddamned virgin!
Whip tried to drown out the endless circling of his thoughts with the sound of steel hammering into rock, but it was impossible. He hadn’t been in control of his own mind since two days before, when he had knelt between a virgin’s legs and learned more about sensuality than he had since he was a man-sized fourteen and a widow woman had hired him to make repairs on her hayloft.
The pick struck, stone shattered, and new rock surfaces appeared. They looked even less promising than the stone Whip had been hammering on.
With a weary curse, he stopped, wiped sweat and rock dust from his face, and lifted the pick again. He didn’t want to go back to Shannon with more bad news about Silent John’s useless gold claim. He didn’t want to watch her trying to hid her fear of being alone and broke. He didn’t want to fight himself not to take her in his arms, comfort her, kiss her until cold fear became wild, searing oblivion….
Rock chips exploded, scoring Whip’s skin. He barely noticed. He was too busy wrestling with his conscience and his body’s driving need for a virgin widow who would give him everything he asked for as a man and take from him everything he had to give to a woman.