«Yup,» Murphy said. «I figure the gal is a widow by now. There was a mess of avalanches this spring. Silent John’s probably froze solid as stone somewhere way up a fork of Avalanche Creek. Culpeppers must think so, else they wouldn’t be so free with their talk.»

Whip said nothing. He simply stood, listening. The bullwhip writhed and hissed at his feet like a long, restless snake.

«The gal will be froze solid, too, come fall,» Murphy said with faint satisfaction. «Them supplies she bought wouldn’t keep a bird alive. Now, if’n she been more neighborly and less uppity…»

The storekeeper’s voice died as Whip looked at him.

«I saw a crowbait black picketed just outside of town,» Whip said. «Would he be for sale as a packhorse?»

«You got gold, ain’t nothin’ you can’t buy in Holler Creek.»

Whip dug coins out of his pants pocket. Gold coins. They rang as they hit the counter.

«Start rounding up supplies,» Whip said.

Murphy’s hand flashed out and scooped up the coins with surprising speed.

«And when you weigh the dry goods,» Whip added gently, «keep your dirty thumb off the scales.»

Surprisingly, Murphy grinned. «Not many folks are quick enough to catch me.»

«I am.»

Murphy laughed and started gathering Whip’s supplies.

BY the time Whip returned to the mercantile leading the thin black packhorse, his supplies were waiting. Within an hour everything was loaded and ready to go.

Whip swung into the saddle of his big, smoke-colored trail horse and grabbed the packhorse’s lead rope. He rode out with a storm building around him, tracking the girl with frightened eyes and a walk like honey.

It was sunset when Whip rode down a wooded draw into a clearing. At the far edge of the clearing a cabin was waiting, the cabin he had seen in his dreams.

And the girl he had dreamed was waiting, too.

But Shannon had a dog the size of Texas by her side, a shotgun in her hands, and an expression on her face that said she didn’t want a damn thing to do with the man called Whip Moran.

2

Shannon stood in the doorway of the cabin and looked into the eerie radiance that came to the high country during a stormy sunset. All around her thunder rumbled and echoed like distant avalanches. She could smell the storm coming down the mountainside. She could taste 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.

«Itisyou,» 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 Culpepper mouth, she had grabbed her supplies and run for old Razorback.

«Caleb?» Shannon asked.

It was the only thing she could think of to say, for the smile was gone from Whip’s face. Now he was looking at her like she was food and he was a man who had gone hungry far too long.

What frightened Shannon was how much a part of her wanted to ease this one man’s hunger.

I’m still scared after what happened in town, Shannon told herself stoutly. Tomorrow I’ll go see Cherokee. Then I won’t feel so alone that a stranger’s smile turns my heart upside down and makes my knees shaky.

«Caleb Black,» Whip explained gently, «is my sister Willow’s husband. They have a ranch west of here. So does my brother Reno, and his wife, Eve.»

«Oh.»

Shannon forced herself to breathe normally. Her hands ached from being clenched around the heavy shotgun, but she wasn’t about to put the weapon down. She had seen how terrifyingly fast that bullwhip could move.

«I’m Shannon Conner, uh, Smith,» she said. Then added hastily, «Smith is my married name.»

Whip frowned as though he didn’t like the reminder that she was married.

«Is it all right if I get down and give you the supplies you left behind?»

«All right?» she asked, perplexed.

«The shotgun,» Whip said gently.

«Oh. That.»

Whip made no attempt to hide his amusement at his effect on Shannon Conner Smith.

«Yes,» he said in a deep voice. «That.»

Shannon flushed.

And she kept the shotgun’s muzzle where it was, pointing just in front of Whip’s horse.

«Go ahead,» Shannon said. «Get whatever Murphy figured he couldn’t cheat me out of.»

Whip dismounted with a muscular grace that did nothing to set Shannon’s mind at ease.

Lord above, this is one dangerous man.

Beautiful, too.

The second thought was so startling to Shannon that she almost laughed out loud.

I must be going cabin happy. Flowers are beautiful, and butterflies, and a baby’s smile.

Whip isn’t like those things.

Lightning burned whitely across the indigo base of clouds whose towering heads were still washed in crimson light. The mountain wore the storm with the muscular ease of a man carrying a bullwhip coiled on his shoulder.

But mountains are beautiful, too. And thunderheads. And lightning burning through the storm.

Whip is like that. Lightning and storm and a mountain’s strength.

Prettyface’s rippling snarl brought Shannon’s wandering attention back to the clearing.

Whip was walking toward her.

But instead of the small parcels of baking soda and lard she had expected, his big arms were filled to overflowing with supplies.