Only 04 - Only Love

eyes?”
    Whip said something terrible beneath his breath, lifted his hat, raked his fingers through his hair, and yanked his hat back into place.
    Without a word or a glance toward his brother, Whip turned to Sugarfoot and uncinched the saddle. With one hand he lifted the heavy saddle and flipped it onto the highest rail of the corral. With his other hand he took the saddle blanket, turned it over, and laid it out to dry on top of the saddle.
    Bending swiftly, Whip hobbled the gelding and turned him out to graze. Sugarfoot went forward eagerly, for the margin of the river that ran within a hundred feet of Reno and Eve’s home was lush with grass.
    Reno watched Whip with green eyes that missed nothing, especially the ease of his brother’s movements. Seeing Whip’s muscular grace made some of the tension in Reno loosen; he had feared that Whip had some injury or illness he was trying to conceal.
    “Cal and Willy and Ethan are all right,” Reno said.
    It wasn’t exactly a question, but Whip nodded.
    “You’re as fit as a cougar, despite a ride that took the starch out of that tough gelding of yours,” Reno said.
    Whip shrugged.
    “You haven’t had bad news about any of our brothers?” Reno pressed.
    “No.”
    Reno waited.
    Whip said nothing more.
    “Well, that cinches it,” Reno said, smiling slightly. “It must be woman trouble.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Whip asked, nettled.
    “The lines around your mouth and the look in your eyes that says you’d like to kill something, and God help anyone who gives you the excuse.”
    Whip flexed hands that kept wanting to become fists. He had come to talk about gold, not about a woman he shouldn’t take and couldn’t leave alone.
    “Are you going to talk,” Reno asked mildly, “or would you rather fight first?”
    “Hell,” Whip said in disgust. “I came here to ask a favor, not to fight you.”
    “Sometimes a fight is a favor.”
    Whip made a low sound that could have been a curse or laughter or both combined. Then he looked up, straight up. The sky was as deep and blue as Shannon’s eyes.
    “Have you ever wanted two things,” Whip said slowly, “even though having one of them means giving up the other, and you can’t give up either one, because you really want both of them, so you keep turning in tighter and tighter circles like a dog chasing its own tail until finally you don’t know which end is up?”
    Reno’s smile was oddly gentle for a man who looked as hard as he did.
    “Of course I have,” Reno said softly to his brother. “It’s called being human. Stupid, but human.”
    “What did you do?” Whip asked curiously.
    “When you finished tearing strips off me, I figured out what was important. Then I married her.”
    Whip’s mouth turned down. “I’d make a piss-poor husband. I’d always be looking over the fence and pacing like a mustang fresh off the range.”
    “Still chasing sunrises?”
    “I can no more help my yondering streak than you can help being left-handed and hell on wheels with that six-gun of yours,” Whip said flatly.
    “Probably, but you never know.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “When you started yondering,” Reno said slowly, thinking as he spoke, “you were hardly more than a kid. Like me, you left home as much because our older brothers were restless—and Pa had a heavy hand with the belt on our backsides—as for any wanderlust of your own.”
    “Was that it?” Whip shrugged. “It’s so long ago now, and I’ve seen so many places and done so many things since then, it’s hard to remember what started me yondering.”
    “But you don’t want to give it up.”
    “How do you give up your soul?” Whip asked simply, his eyes haunted.
    Reno had no answer except the quick, hard embrace he gave his brother.
    “Come on,” Reno said after a moment. “Eve will be fretting about what’s wrong with you. It galls me to admit that she has such poor taste, but she cares about you almost as much as she does about me.”
    Whip smiled slightly. “I doubt that. But I have a real fondness for her. She has the kind of laughter and sheer courage that I admire in anyone, especiallya woman. Eve is solid gold. What she ever saw in you I’ll never know.”
    A crack of laughter and a slap on the shoulder was Reno’s answer. Side by side, the two brothers walked toward the house with long strides. When they reached the back door, Whip looked dubiously at his boots, and then at