Only 03 - Only You

a few minutes,” Willow said firmly.
    “How about if I sing him to sleep?”
    Willow laughed and gave in. “It’s a good thing you’re going gold hunting. You spoil your nephew shamelessly.”
    Smiling, Reno followed his sister into the bedroom. A few moments later, the gentle strains of a hymn floated out into the room, sung by Reno’s fine baritone. Willow’s clear soprano joined in a few moments later in flawless harmony.
    Eve’s breath came in with surprise and pleasure.
    “Had the same effect on me the first time I heard them,” Caleb said. “Their brother Rafe sings like a fallen angel, too. I’ve never met the other three brothers, but I imagine they’re the same.”
    “Think of sitting next to them in church.…”
    Caleb laughed. “Something tells me the Moran boys ran more to fighting than to sitting in church.”
    Absently Eve smiled, but it was the voices that claimed her attention. Music had been one of the few pleasures in the orphanage, and had been practiced under the demanding yet patient choirmaster from the nearby church.
    Eyes closed, Eve began humming to herself. She didn’t know the particular verse they were singing, but the tune was familiar. Automatically she took the counterpoint, letting her smoky alto voice weave through the simple harmony created by brother and sister.
    After a few minutes, the music claimed Eve, making her forget where she was. Her voicesoared, skimming between the light of Willow’s soprano and the deep shadow of Reno’s baritone, enriching both like a rainbow stretched between sunlight and storm, radiant with all the hopes of man.
    Eve didn’t realize what she had done until the harmony stopped abruptly, leaving her voice alone. Her eyes snapped open.
    She found herself being stared at by Caleb, Reno, and Willow. Color rose in Eve’s cheeks.
    “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to—”
    “Don’t be a goose,” Willow interrupted quickly. “Where on earth did you learn that gorgeous harmony?”
    “The church choirmaster.”
    “Could you teach Caleb to play that on the harmonica?”
    “No time,” Reno cut in. “We’ve got journals to work on tonight, and we’re leaving at first light tomorrow.”
    Willow blinked at the roughness in her brother’s voice. It hadn’t escaped her that Reno was reluctant to involve Eve in his family. Willow couldn’t imagine why.
    The look in Reno’s eyes told her not to ask.
    “I found where the journals cross,” Caleb said into the uncomfortable silence.
    “Good,” Reno said.
    “I doubt it,” Caleb said dryly.
    “Why?”
    “It leaves you with half the West to explore for gold.”
    Reno took the chair on the other side of Eve and sat down.
    Bracketed by the two men, Eve felt frankly petite. As she was every bit of five feet, three and one-half inches tall, the feeling was unusual; most ofthe men she met were barely a hand taller than she was.
    Trying not to touch either of the pair of wide shoulders she was wedged between, Eve reached for the old Spanish journal.
    So did Reno. Their hands collided. Both jerked back with a muttered word—an apology in Eve’s case and a curse in Reno’s.
    Caleb looked away so that neither of his companions would see the broad smile on his face. He had a good idea what was making Reno so touchy. Wanting a particular woman very badly and not having her had been known to shorten the tempers of men much more easygoing than Reno Moran.
    And Reno looked like a man who was wanting a particular woman. Badly.
    “Now,” Caleb said, clearing his throat, “you say the Cristóbal expedition came up from Santa Fe to Taos.…”
    “Yes,” Eve said quickly.
    She reached for the journal once more, hoping that the slight tremor in her fingers didn’t show.
    Her skin burned where Reno had touched it.
    “Some of the early expeditions went past the Sangre de Cristos and into the San Juans before turning west,” Eve said in a carefully controlled voice.
    As she spoke, she turned pages, tracing routes on maps that had been drawn by men long dead.
    “They crossed through the mountains about…”
    She turned to Caleb’s journal.
    “…here. They must have passed very close to this ranch.”
    “Wouldn’t surprise me,” Caleb said. “We’re on the flats, and only a fool climbs mountains.”
    “Or a man looking for gold,” Reno said.
    “Same thing,” Caleb retorted.
    Reno laughed. He and Caleb had never seen eye to eye on the subject of hunting gold.
    “But here the trail