I never meant to hurt you, honey girl.
Yet Whip would, and he knew it.
20
Torn between hope the gold hunt would succeed and certainty that success meant the end of her time with Whip, Shannon watched Reno work the valley next to a slender woman whose hair was the color of gold dust. Their movements were smooth and elegant, in complete harmony.
As Reno and Eve turned, Shannon could see that each held a Spanish needle between one thumb and palm. The forked end of the needles rested against each other, interlocking gently.
There was no pressure from either Reno or Eve that forced the needles into contact. Nor was there any attempt to keep the needles touching. In truth, there was no visible reason for the dowsing needles to remain interlocked while Reno and Eve walked over the rugged land.
Yet the needles did.
«It’s…incredible,» Shannon said.
Her voice was a whisper, though there was no chance of being overheard.
«The needles?» Whip asked.
«The way Reno and Eve move together. As though the Spanish needles were connecting them rather than the opposite.»
«Reno once told me that if moonlight were water flowing, the feel of its currents would be like the needles when he and Eve use them. Ghostly, but very real.»
«Like the feeling that comes when I remember how we…» Shannon’s voice died as a flush climbed her cheeks.
The quicksilver gleam of Whip’s eyes told her that he knew what she was thinking.
«Just like that, honey girl. Interlocking, moving, rocking. Only with us, it’s more like currents from the sun than the moon.»
Shannon smiled and took a shivery kind of breath. «Yes.»
The back of Whip’s fingers brushed lightly down Shannon’s hot cheek. His thumb slid lower, caressing first her lips and then the race of her pulse in her neck.
«Time to go,» Whip said, his voice unusually deep. «Crowbait is packed and ready for the trail.»
Shannon spun to face Whip fully. Pain made her features bleak and her voice raw.
«But I thought you wouldn’t leave until they found gold,» she protested shakily.
Whip gathered Shannon close, wrapping his arms around her, feeling her pain as though it was his own.
«Shannon,» he whispered against her hair. «I wasn’t talking about leaving alone. I was talking about taking you back to the cabin and doing some deer hunting.»
For an instant Shannon’s arms tightened almost harshly around Whip. Then she pulled back and forced a smile onto lips that would rather have done anything else.
«Of course,» she said, looking away from Whip’s too-knowing eyes. «Silly of me. I don’t know what I was thinking of.»
Whip’s eyelids flinched. He knew exactly what Shannon had been thinking of. The fact that he would leave her soon had been haunting him, too.
I don’t want to hurt her.
I can’t stay.
God, why did I ever come to Echo Basin in the first place? Before now I never guessed how much a man could hurt and never show a wound.
Nor how much a woman could cry and never make a sound. Looking at Shannon’s sad eyes is tearing my heart out.
But all Whip said aloud was, «You’ve learned a lot about tracking and stalking in the last few days. By the time deer and elk start coming down out of the high country, you’ll be a good hunter.»
Not that she needed to be. Whip had shot enough game for Shannon, Cherokee, and a starving bear to winter on. Most of it was at Cherokee’s cabin right now, curing over slow fires.
«Hunting. Of course,» Shannon said distantly, her voice as empty as her smile. «Well, we’d better get cracking, hadn’t we? Should I say good-bye to Reno and Eve now, or will they come by the cabin before the three of you leave for good?»
«Shannon …» Whip’s voice dried up.
He swallowed hard, trying to banish the emotion that kept ambushing him without warning.
«Reno and Eve like you a lot,» Whip said finally. «They would be happy to have you visit them.»
«Of course,» Shannon said for the third time.
And for the third time, the words meant nothing.
«Will you?» Whip pressed.
«Will I what?»
«Visit Reno and Eve.»
«Don’t worry,» Shannon said, her voice neutral. «You won’t trip over me if you come back from yondering and want to see your own family.»
«That’s not what I meant!»
«Isn’t it? Well, in any case, it’s what I meant.»
«What about Caleb and Willow?» Whip demanded. «Are you just going to walk away from them, too?»
Shannon gave Whip a look from narrowed blue eyes.
«They’re your family, not mine,» she said distinctly. «I’m not walking away to anywhere but home, yondering man.»
«Damn it, that shack isn’t a home,» Whip said between his teeth.
«It is to me. Nothing you can say or do will change that. Accept it. Just as I’ve accepted that you’ll leave me as soon as your conscience lets you.»
Shannon turned away from Whip. In silence she watched the two people who moved as one over the rough slope. Just beyond Reno and Eve the mine’s mouth opened like a black, empty eye. They began quartering the area carefully, walking out from the mine’s entrance.
Whip watched, too. A muscle at the side of his jaw worked visibly as he fought to control his temper at Shannon’s maddening, stubborn insistence that she would keep on living in a place he didn’t believe was safe for her.
But there was nothing he could do about that, any more than he could take the darkness from Shannon’s beautiful eyes and replace it with light.
«It’s getting late,» Whip said finally.
Shannon nodded without looking away from the intricate dance of Spanish needles, woman, and man.
And love.
Shannon felt Eve’s and Reno’s love for one another like a knife turning in her soul. She would never have its like. When Whip left, he would take her love with him.
And he wouldn’t come back.
I never go to the same place twice.
«It takes time to find gold,» Whip said, keeping his voice level. «We have better things to do than watch Reno and Eve working.»
«How long does it take?»
For a moment Whip didn’t answer. He was too shocked by the flatness in Shannon’s voice. Where laughter and hope and love had once been, there now were only harshly controlled syllables and no life at all.
«It could be days,» Whip said. «The needles are tricky and tiring to use.»
«Days.»
The word was almost a ragged sigh, telling Whip that Shannon had hoped the answer would be weeks, perhaps months.
Perhaps even until the snows came, closing the trail to Avalanche Creek’s highest reaches.
«Then you’re right,» Shannon said. «We can’t waste any more time stalking sunlight through the forest, or picking flowers, or playing with Prettyface, or holding hands and watching sunset and moonrise, or lying together at night and pretending that tomorrow will never come.»
«Shannon —»
«No,» she said, speaking over Whip’s interruption. «You’re right. It’s time to move on.»
«Damn it! You make it sound like I’m saying good-bye right now. I’m not!»
«You should be. It might be easier that way.»
«Is that what you want? For me to walk away right now?»
«What I want?» Shannon laughed oddly. «What in God’s name does what I want have to do with it?»
Tears flashed unhappily in her eyes.
«Shannon,» Whip whispered. He reached for her. «Honey girl, don’t cry.»
«No.»
Shannon stepped back from Whip so quickly that she almost tripped.
«Don’t touch me.»
Her voice was raw from the fierce grip she had on her emotions.