Only 04 - Only Love

it. She could feel it in the freshening wind.
    But the fierce thunderstorm didn’t worry her nearly as much the lone man riding out of the sunset.
    Lord, that’s one big man the storm is pushing toward me.
    The rider was mounted on a silver-gray horse that was the exact color of the stranger’s eyes back in Holler Creek. When the rider turned to check on the progress of his packhorse, the long leather lash coiled over his right shoulder gleamed in the twilight.
    Whip.
    Is it really him? Cherokee said nobody alive could handle a long lash like the man called Whip.
    But what brings him here?
    The answer was a memory of Whip’s clear,quicksilver glances following her, touching her like ghostly caresses.
    Other men had stared at Shannon, followed her, wanted her…but none of them had looked at her like Whip. In his eyes there had been a combination of elemental male hunger and profound human yearning, as though he had spent a lifetime in darkness and she was sunrise shimmering just beyond his reach.
    Shannon’s heartbeat hammered wildly inside her chest while Whip rode slowly closer. The double-barreled shotgun lay cold and heavy in her hands. The gun was loaded, the hammers were back, and her finger rested across both triggers.
    Beside Shannon a huge brindle dog snarled softly, sensing his mistress’s unease. Bigger than a mastiff, leggy as a timber wolf, as thick through the chest as a pony, the dog clearly outweighed Shannon. Just as clearly, the dog was protective of her. Fangs as long as Shannon’s thumb gleamed whitely below the beast’s curled upper lip.
    “Easy, Prettyface,” Shannon said softly to the dog.
    Prettyface subsided, but the ruff still stood out on his powerful neck. His ears remained flat against his massive skull in blunt warning of his temperament.
    Whip kept riding closer, until Shannon could see the clear silver of his eyes. His hunger was equally clear, a yearning both direct and complex. That yearning had haunted Shannon all the way back to the cabin.
    It haunted her still.
    “That’s far enough, mister,” Shannon said steadily. “What do you want?”
    To her relief, Whip reined in his horse and tipped his hat politely to her.
    “Evening, ma’am,” he said. “You left Murphy’s store so quickly that you forgot most of your supplies.”
    Shannon’s eyes searched the quicksilver and shadows of Whip’s eyes.
    She hadn’t made a mistake. She wasn’t dreaming. The stranger called Whip was here, in her clearing.
    And he wanted her.
    “It is you,” she said huskily. “Whip. That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”
    “Out here, yes.”
    Shannon knew better than to ask if Whip had any other name, a given name, a Christian name, a home and a family. West of the Mississippi you called a man sir, mister, or whatever nickname he accepted. If he wanted to be called something else, he would tell you quickly enough.
    Shannon’s glance went over Whip with a curious longing. The rhythm of his words and his muted drawl were those of a man who hadn’t been raised in eastern slums or crude western gold camps. He was southern, but not from the Deep South. Perhaps not even Confederate.
    “Are you…Did you…?” Shannon took a quick breath. “Did those Culpeppers hurt you?”
    Whip smiled slowly.
    Shannon’s breath lodged in her throat, making her ache. Whip had the smile of a recently fallen angel, gentle and rueful and so darkly beautiful it almost brought her to her knees.
    “No, Shannon,” Whip said. “They didn’t hurt me.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yes.”
    The breath Shannon had been holding came out in a ragged sigh.
    Lightning raked the mountain peaks that rose around the clearing. Wind surged, bending delicate aspens whose branches were still bare of leaves. With the wind came a prolonged rumble of thunder and a quicksilver taste of rain.
    “You shouldn’t have interfered,” Shannon said earnestly. “The last man who stood up for me against the Culpeppers got stomped so bad that he died.”
    Gray eyes narrowed.
    “Those boys have the manners of a wolverine,” Whip said.
    “I tried to warn you.”
    “And I tried to warn them. They didn’t listen. So as Caleb would say, I read to them from the Book. Maybe they’ll listen better in the future.”
    Shannon’s dark eyes jerked toward the braided leather coils riding so comfortably on Whip’s powerful shoulder. She hadn’t seen the lash strike Beau, but she knew it had. At the first sight of blood on a