Only 03 - Only You

warning.
    Reno’s free hand flashed out and snagged the flying needle. With no break in the motion, he flipped a rod in each hand like a circus juggler.
    Whatever the problem in using the rods, lack of dexterity on the part of the men wasn’t it.
    “Good thing you’ve read enough geology books to stock a university,” Caleb said. “Those needles are as useless as teats on a boar hog.”
    Eve’s hand shot out, catching one of the dowsing rods as it somersaulted obediently above Reno’s palm.
    “May I?” she asked calmly.
    The question was unnecessary. She had already leveled the forked end of the rod in Reno’s direction. The metal stick was balanced between her palm and her thumb, so lightly held that a breath could sway the metal.
    Reno hesitated, shrugged, and carelessly pointed the forked end of his rod toward her. He held the rod as she did, balancing it between his palm and his thumb.
    Eve moved her hand slightly. The notches met, brushed, and came back together like lodestone and iron.
    As they caught and held each other, a ghostly current rippled through the rods to the flesh holding them, startling both people.
    With a gasp, Eve let go of her needle. So did Reno.
    Caleb caught both pieces of metal before they hit the floor. Giving Eve and Reno an odd look, Calebreturned the rods to them.
    “Something wrong?” he asked.
    “I was clumsy,” Eve said quickly. “I knocked the rods together.”
    “Didn’t look clumsy to me,” Caleb said.
    Reno said nothing. He simply watched Eve through narrowed green eyes.
    “Let me try it this time,” Reno said.
    Eve positioned her needle and held still. “Ready.”
    Reno brought his rod close, then closer, then closer still, brushing the prongs and then the cup of the Y on the end of Eve’s Y.
    Ghostly currents rippled.
    This time Reno and Eve managed to hold on to the rods, but their breath came in hard and fast. Even that small a motion should have jerked the needles apart.
    It didn’t.
    “On three,” Reno said.
    His voice was unusually deep, a sound like black velvet. The tone was a caress as intangible and undeniable as the subtle currents flowing through the Spanish needles, stitching together two halves of an enigmatic whole.
    “Yes,” Eve whispered.
    Reno counted. As one, they took a step forward.
    The prongs interlocked yet moved readily, as though faintly magnetized.
    Deliberately Reno jerked his hand. Instantly the needles came apart.
    “Again,” he said.
    The needles came to each other as though alive, eager, hungry for the fragile currents that would both join and define them.
    “I will be damned,” Reno whispered.
    He looked up from the oddly shimmeringneedles to the woman whose eyes were the color of purest gold.
    And he wondered what it would be like to be buried within Eve, feeling her shiver as delicately and as completely as the two rods touching, two halves interlocked, moving freely, joined by currents of fire.

8
    L ONG before first light, Eve was awake, dressed, and sneaking quietly out of the house. Carrying her saddlebags and bedroll, she headed for the barn. She expected to find Reno already there, getting the horses ready, for she had heard Caleb get up earlier and leave the silent house. A few minutes later she had caught the faint rumble of men’s voices coming from the barn.
    Despite the fact that Eve had slept little the night before, she had been too restless to stay in the Blacks’ guest room a moment longer. She had told herself she was simply excited at starting the hunt for gold that had both possessed and eluded generation after generation of the Leon family.
    Yet it wasn’t gold that had haunted Eve’s waking dreams. It was the memory of two dowsing rods touching and ghostly currents flowing.
    The barn door was open. Just outside, two tall men were working over four horses. A lantern suspendedon a nearby corral pole glowed pale gold against the fading darkness of night.
    As Eve quietly approached, she could hear Caleb talking.
    “…coming down out of the high country. Most of them are too busy moving to winter camp to be a problem, but keep a sharp eye out. The warriors are raising hell with the army, and the shamans are all off looking for a powerful new vision.”
    Reno grunted.
    “And then there’s the rest of it,” Caleb continued.
    “The rest of what?”
    “Oh, I just feel that as your friend—and brother-in-law—I should warn you what can happen when a man takes a pretty girl into wild