Elizabeth Lowell - Only His

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What if she isn’t?

The question went into Caleb like a knife, telling him how much he wanted the woman with the golden hair and the laughter to match.

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife.

It was easy enough to say. It had been easy enough to obey, before Caleb had met Willow. Now he wasn’t certain he could obey the letter, much less the spirit, of that ancient law.

What you don’t know won’t hurt you, right?

Wrong, fool. What you don’t know can —

«What’s that?» Willow asked, interrupting Caleb’s thoughts.

He turned toward her with a suddenness that made her flinch.

«I’m sorry,» she said quickly. «I didn’t mean to startle you.»

Caleb looked from Willow’s clear hazel eyes to the twin golden ovals of the locket lying open in his palm. Two unsmiling faces stared back up at him. With a casualness that cost a great deal, he held his hand out so that Willow could see the pictures.

«Just a locket,» he said, watching her intently.

Willow bent forward at the waist and rested her fingertips on the pad of flesh at the base of Caleb’s thumb. He responded to the light pressure by tilting his hand, giving her a better view of the pictures.

The man had an unremarkable face, light eyes, dark hair, a mustache, and the most outstanding pair of ears Willow had ever seen. The woman had an unremarkable face, light eyes, dark hair, no mustache, and the second most outstanding pair of ears Willow had ever seen. Surreptitiously, she glanced at Caleb, wondering if the couple was related to him. She saw nothing of them in the lines of his face, in the shape of his eyes, in the curve of his mouth.

And most especially, nothing of them in his ears.

She cleared her throat, swallowing the laughter that lurked just at the edge of her control, and murmured, «Birds of a feather…»

A corner of Caleb’s mouth lifted in a hard curl. «Yes, I thought the same thing when I first saw the pictures.»

«Then the people aren’t, er, related to you?» Willow asked carefully.

«I was going to ask you the same thing.»

Willow’s hands went to her head, lifting her thick, heavy hair away from her ears. «What do you think?»

Caleb thought he would like to take a gentle bite or two, but he said only, «What about your husband?»

Fighting a guilty tide of color, Willow looked away. «Matt’s ears are as flat as mine.»

«Not his parents, either, huh?» Caleb said, making his voice light, as though he was teasing her.

Golden hair flew as she shook her head emphatically. «No. I’ve never seen those people before in my life.»

«Sure?» he asked, smiling a slow, lazy kind of smile.

«Do you think I’d forget those ears?»

He laughed softly, feeling much better about life than he had when he awakened lusting after a woman who might have been another man’s wife.

«No, southern lady, I don’t. Those are the damnedest ears I’ve seen short of a Missouri mule.»

Willow wondered at the honey-licking satisfaction in Caleb’s smile and voice, but couldn’t help responding to it. She laughed softly, pleased that she had somehow slipped past his reserve for a few moments. Not until Caleb’s hand curled over hers did she realize that her fingertips were still resting on the hard flesh at the base of his thumb.

A shiver of awareness coursed through Willow, startling her. Instinctively, she pulled back. Sensing both the response and the wariness, Caleb released Willow’s fingers with a caressing motion that emphasized his strength and his restraint. Now that he was reasonably certain of her marital status, he was willing to conduct a careful campaign of seduction, one that would end with her pleading for him in no uncertain terms.

That wouldn’t happen today or maybe even the day after tomorrow, yetappen it would. The hunter in Caleb was as certain of his ultimate success as he was that he would find and kill the man called Reno.

The man whowasnot Willow’s husband.

«Better get your Levis on, honey,» Caleb said, standing and pulling Willow to her feet in the same motion. «We’ve got a long, hard ride ahead before we’ll be shed of Slater and his bunch.»

Shadows had already flowed down from the invisible peaks by the time Willow stood next to Ishmael, looking uncertainly at her new saddle. The stallion hadn’t objected to it. In fact, other than a flaring of his nostrils at the unfamiliar scent, he hadn’t seemed to notice any difference.

Willow did. When she bent to pick up the saddle for the first time, its unexpected weight startled her into letting it drop. Caleb reached past her, lifted the saddle one-handed, and secured it on Ishmael’s back.

«Up you go.»

Willow looked up from the leather-clad hands held out for her use as a stirrup. Caleb’s whiskey-colored eyes were watching her with a masculine speculation that startled her. Then he blinked, banking the passionate fires she sensed burning beneath his self-control.

«Shouldn’t I learn how to mount alone?» Willow asked, her voice husky.

Black eyebrows lifted. Caleb shrugged and stepped aside. «Suit yourself.»

Willow held reins and mane in her left hand, lifted her left foot up — way up — to the stirrup and grabbed the saddle horn with her right hand. Halfway up she stopped, remembering that she would have to swing her right leg over the stallion’s rump instead of over the saddle horn. A judicious boost from the flat of Caleb’s hand prevented her from dangling like an ornament from the stirrup.

«Thank you,» Willow muttered as she settled in the saddle, flushed from the tactile memory of his big hand on her bottom.

«My pleasure,» Caleb said gravely.

He hid his smile as Willow raised her left foot out of the stirrup. If he heard the swift intake of her breath when his hand closed around her ankle to move her leg back from the stirrup, he didn’t show it. «I’d better let this down a few notches. I’ve never seenJessi, but she must be an even smaller tidbit than you.»

The red in Willow’s cheeks deepened as she thought of the snug fit of the first two layers of her clothes. «I’m not small,» she muttered.

Smiling, Caleb ducked beneath Ishmael’s neck, gently removed Willow’s right foot from the stirrup, and let it down two notches, though he knew very well one notch would be enough. When he was finished, he fitted her foot in the stirrup with a care that was just short of caressing.

«Stand up, honey.»

Willow obeyed.

Caleb slid his hand along the leather beneath her bottom, testing the clearance between saddle and woman. There wasn’t enough room for his hand to move freely. It could, however, move.

At Caleb’s intimate touch Willow inhaled sharply as she went up on her tiptoes in shock. «Caleb!»

«Yes, I see,» he said blandly. «I’ll have to take the stirrups back up a notch. Sit down again.»

Slowly, Caleb removed his hand and began working over the stirrup leather again. Willow stared down at him. She could see only the black brim of his hat. Gradually, her heartbeat settled down and the feeling of not being able to breathe diminished. She took a rather ragged breath and tried to forget the staggering instant when she had felt his big hand sliding between her legs, sending unnerving sensations radiating up through her body.

Forgetting was impossible.

«Stand up again.»

«I’m sure the stirrups are just f-fine,» Willow said almost desperately.

Her low, shaken voice was as arousing to Caleb as the soft weight of her bottom pressed against his palm had been. He wanted to feel her again, to curl his hand around her heat and rock against her until she moaned.

But she wasn’t asking him to do that. She was askinghimnot to touch her.

«Suit yourself, fancy lady,» he said, turning away. «Just don’t come whining to me if you raise welts on your soft bottom because your stirrups are the wrong length.»

Before Willow could think of anything to say, Caleb swung onto Deuce with a quick, almost savage motion and reined the big black around on his hocks. They followed the ravine due west until the opening became too narrow. It was full dark when they emerged from the crease in the land. A brilliant moon shimmered overhead, alternately veiled and unveiled by wind-driven clouds.

Willow could see just enough of the constellations between the clouds to know that Caleb was heading west rather than south as he had since leaving Denver. She stood in her stirrups and peered ahead, trying to catch a glimpse of the stone ramparts she had never seen fully from top to bottom. Night and clouds defeated her.

Ishmael broke into a quick canter, following the horses in front of him as Caleb led them into the cover of another low ravine. Willow adjusted to the new pace without thinking. Riding astride was easier on her, especially when Ishmael trotted or scrambled up and down steep slopes.

After the first few hours, Willow was able to keep her balance automatically, as though she had always ridden astride. Caleb had been correct about one thing, however. The saddle was indeed harder than Willow’s bottom.

Suddenly, Caleb’s horse came toward her from the darkness ahead. When the two horses were side by side, Caleb bent over until his lips were so close to Willow’s cheek that she felt the warm rush of his breath.

«I smell a campfire up the draw. I’m going to scout a way around. Hold onto Trey until I get back. And don’t let Ishmael start hollering if he scents other horses.»

After handing over the pack horse’s lead rope, Caleb vanished into the darkness.