The trust implicit in Eve’s caress had burned through Reno like lightning through night. He had almost slid in bed beside her. The amount of self-control it had taken not to peel off the blankets and run his hands all over her had shocked Reno.
It told him how much he wanted a girl who didn’t want him. Not really. Not enough to give herself to him out of sheer passion.
«Did you find water?» she asked.
«That’s why we’re not on the trail right now. The horses need rest.»
So did Eve, but Reno knew she would insist they get on the trail if she thought he was stopping only for her. The exhaustion implicit in her deep sleep last night had told Reno how close Eve was to the end of her strength.
They ate breakfast in a lazy kind of silence that was more companionable than any conversation could have been. When they were finished, he smiled at her as she hid a yawn.
«Feel up to a little walk?» he asked.
«How little?»
«Less than a quarter of a mile.»
Eve smiled and got to her feet.
She followed Reno into the narrow slot at the head of the feeder canyon. Her shoulders fit without walking sideways, which gave her an easier time of it for the first few yards. Then she, too, had to wriggle and twist to make any progress. Gradually the stone passage widened until two people could walk abreast. The rock walls became cool and damp. Puddles gleamed on the solid rock floor of the canyon.
Twisting, turning, the slot canyon widened as it snaked through layers of rock. Small pools appeared. Some were only inches deep. Some were a foot or more. The water was cool and clean, for it was held in basins of solid stone.
The sound of falling water came from somewhere ahead. Eve froze, listening with her breath held. She had never heard anything so beautiful as the musical rush of water in a dry land.
Moments later Reno led Eve into a bell-shaped opening in the slot canyon. A stream of water no wider than Reno’s hand leaped from a shelf ten feet high and fell into a plunge pool carved from solid stone. The sound the water made was cool, exquisite, a murmur of prayer and laughter combined. From every crevice, ferns trailed, their fronds a green so pure it burned like emerald flame against the stone. Rays from the overhead sun touched the mist-bathed opening, making it blaze with a million tiny rainbows.
Eve stood for a long time, lost in the beauty of the secret pool.
«Watch your step,» Reno said in a hushed voice as he finally started forward.
Moss softened the stone floor, making the footing tricky. The small marks left by Reno’s passage on the previous day were the only sign that anything living had visited the pool for a long, long time.
But men had come there before. Indians and Spaniards had picked out messages and names in the surface of the sheer sandstone walls.
«Fifteen-eighty,» Reno read aloud.
Next to the date, a man had written his name in an arcane, formal script: Captain Cristobal Leon.
«My God,» Eve breathed.
She traced the date with fingers that trembled, thinking of the man who had left his mark centuries before. She wondered if he had been as thirsty as they were when they found the first pool, and if he had been struck by the uncanny beauty of the final pool veiled in thousands of shimmering rainbows.
There were other marks on the rock wall, figures that owed nothing to European traditions of art or history. Some of the drawings were easy enough to puzzle out — stick deer with spreading antlers, arrowheads, a ripple that probably meant water or river. Other figures were more enigmatic. Faces that were not human, figures that wore ghostly robes, eyes that had been open for thousands of years.
The shaman had worn such drawings. Perhaps other men had once. But now no men built stone cities and came to drink from the pool. No women came to dip gourds and water jars in the cool silence of the canyon. No children wet small fingers and made fleeting drawings on the rock walls.
Yet there was an odd peace within the crystal laughter of the pool. Orphaned or not, saloon girl or saint, friend or friendless, Eve knew she was part of the vast rainbow of life that stretched from the unknowable past to the unforeseen future. Hands like hers had created engimas on rock walls countless centuries ago. Minds like hers would try to solve the riddles countless years ahead.
Reno bent down, found a cobble the size of his palm, and began hammering carefully on the rock wall. With each strike of stone against stone, the thin black veneer that time and water had left upon the stone chipped away, revealing the lighter stone beneath.
Within a surprisingly short time, he had picked out the date and the name Matthew Moran.
«Is your name really Evening Star?» Reno asked without turning around.
«My name is Evelyn,» she said in a husky voice. «Evelyn Starr Johnson.»
Then she blinked back tears, for she was no longer the only one alive who knew her real name.
EVE floated on her back, watching the sapphire sky overhead and the inky shadows that shifted slowly against sheer rock walls. The ripples made by falling water rocked her gently. From time to time she steadied herself with a hand on the smooth stone or on the cool bottom of the pool a few feet beneath her body.
Suspended in time as well as water, turning as slowly as the day, Eve knew she should go back to camp, but she wasn’t ready to leave the pool’s peace just yet. She wasn’t ready to face the smoldering green of Reno’s eyes as he watched her with a hunger that was almost tangible.
Eve wondered what Reno saw in her own eyes when he turned suddenly and found her watching him. She was afraid he saw a reflection of her own hunger for him. She wanted to know again the surprising, sweet fire that came when he held her close.
Yet she wanted more than Reno’s passion. She wanted his laughter and his dreams, his silences and his hopes. She wanted his trust and his respect and his children. She wanted everything with him that a man and a woman could share: joy and sorrow, hope and heartache, passion and peace, all of life ahead of them like an undiscovered country.
And most of all, Eve wanted Reno’s love.
He wanted her body. And nothing more.
I’ll keep the ring and the pearls until I find a woman who loves me more than she loves her own comfort.
And while I’m at it, I’ll find a ship made of stone, a dry rain, and a light that casts no shadows.
Eve closed her eyes on a wave of unhappiness. Yet no matter how tightly she shut her eyes against the truth, it was there behind her eyelids, haunting her.
There was one way to convince Reno that he was wrong about her. One way to convince him that she wasn’t a cheater and conniver, a strumpet in a red dress. One way.
Give herself to him, paying off a bet that never should have been made and betting her future once more at the same time.
Then he’ll see that I didn’t lie about my innocence, that I keep my word, that I am worthy of his trust. Then he’ll look at me with more than lust. He’ll want more from me than the use of my body until we find the mine.
Won’t he?
There was no answer to that question except to bet herself once more. A chill coursed through Eve at the immensity of the risk she would be taking.
What if he takes everything I have to give and gives nothing in return but his own body?
That was the danger, the risk, and the probable outcome. Part of Eve knew it with the cool logic of an orphan who had learned to survive whatever life threw her way.
And part of Eve had always believed there was more to life than simple survival. Part of her believed in miracles such as laughter in the face of pain, the joy of a baby discovering raindrops, and a love great enough to overcome distrust.