Only 04 - Only Love

trees into the full sunlight of the meadow.
    To the girl hiding and catching her breath after a reckless scramble down through Silent John’s bolthole to the cave and from there into the cabin, Whip’s appearance was dream and nightmare combined.
    It can’t be Whip! He rode away.
    Seeing Whip captive to the Culpeppers wrenched Shannon’s mind away from her fear for Prettyface, forcing her to concentrate on saving herself, for only then could she save Whip.
    Still unable to believe that Whip had come back,Shannon leaned forward and peered through the ill-fitting shutters again.
    There was no mistake. Sunlight flashed on hair as pale as corn silk. Sunlight outlined clean, powerful limbs and wide shoulders. And sunlight showed that Whip’s hands were empty of weapons.
    Nor did the bullwhip lie in quiet coils on his shoulder.
    Shannon bit her lip against a hunger to cry out to Whip, to tell him that he wasn’t alone, that she would help him. But crying out would be as foolish as walking barefoot through a campfire.
    Quickly Shannon turned away from the shutters, went to the front door, and lifted the shotgun down from its pegs. As she reached to open the door, she heard a voice call from just beyond her cabin.
    “Told ya you’d get him!”
    “Yah. Easy as shootin’ a hen on a nest,” called someone from the meadow.
    Heart beating wildly, Shannon shifted the shotgun and lowered the heavy bar into place across the door. She tiptoed back to the shutter and peered out again.
    Whip was walking across the meadow toward the cabin. Behind him rode two men on mules. Another man stood ten feet from the cabin door, watching the three men approach. The ripped state of the nearest man’s clothes—and the bloody marks on his face and arms—told Shannon that this was the Culpepper who had grabbed her, only to go down beneath Prettyface’s attack.
    Shannon’s hands tightened on the shotgun as she thought of her loyal dog. Then she forced herself to think of here and now, and the danger to Whip and herself.
    There was no time to claw her way back out the bolthole and down the mountainside to surprise the Culpeppers. Whatever she did would have to be done from here.
    And soon.
    I could open the cabin door, aim at the man closest to me, and let fly with both barrels of buckshot.
    Frowning, Shannon thought about it. She would certainly take one man out of the fight that way, but it would leave Whip still captive to the other Culpeppers, who would likely shoot him out of hand before she could reload her own shotgun.
    Then there was the fourth Culpepper to worry about. He had to be around somewhere. Probably he was still in the forest trying to figure out which way she had gone. If he heard shots, he would come on the run.
    Maybe I only need one barrel on the closest Culpepper. Then I could fire the second barrel at the other two.
    After a moment Shannon decided that was her best bet. She would wait until the other two Culpeppers were within range, and then she would tell them to let Whip go. If it came to shooting, surely Whip would have enough sense to drop to the ground. Knowing his quickness and size, he probably would take a Culpepper down with him.
    White-knuckled, Shannon stood by the shutters and watched her front yard with the intensity of a cat at a mouse hole, counting each step Whip and his captors took toward the cabin. If she were really lucky, Whip would manage to separate himself from the group somehow. That way she wouldn’t have to worry about wounding him when the buckshot spread out in its characteristic deadly pattern after it left the barrel.
    Slowly, carefully, moving by fractions of inches,Shannon opened the shutters enough to rest the shotgun on the windowsill. She cocked the hammer on one barrel, settled her finger lightly around one of the two triggers, and waited, watching the man who held a gun on Whip.
    “Any sign of the gal?” dim asked, dismounting.
    Darcy shook his head. “She took off into the forest.”
    Beneath Whip’s predatory readiness, relief spread through him, warming the soul-deep cold that had begun when he thought of Shannon’s fate at the hands of the Culpeppers.
    “But we’ll get her, just like we got her damned hound,” Darcy added. “Beau’s tracking her now.”
    “Looks more like Prettyface got you,” Whip said. “Chewed you up and spit you right out. No hound likes the taste of skunk.”
    Darcy shifted his cud of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other