«Still all right?» he asked, his voice strained.

Shannon didn’t notice the roughness of Whip’s voice or the sweat standing on his skin. She was consumed by sensations that taunted her as much as they pleasured her. She twisted hungrily beneath his powerful body, seeking to increase the sensuous pressure of his presence within her.

Whip froze.

«Is it too much?» he asked, withdrawing.

«I want more, not less,» Shannon said raggedly. «I want everything you have to give me!»

Whip’s eyelids lowered for an instant as a shudder racked his body and soul. Then he looked straight into Shannon’s eyes and began rocking slowly, carefully. Her hips lifted insistently, demanding a more thorough kind of movement.

«Not yet,» Whip said, laughing, retreating.

«When…?» she cried.

«When your body is shivering and you’re all around me like hot, wild honey. Then I’ll take you, Shannon. And we’ll both scream with the pleasure of it.»

One of Whip’s hands moved down Shannon’s body, caressing her breasts and belly and hips. Then he found the satin knot of her desire once more. It was the same as she was — hot, slick, hungry. He teased her until she cried out and sought him even more urgently, her body coiling beneath his as forerunners of ecstasy raked through her.

Whip’s hand slid beneath Shannon’s hips, testing and caressing her resilient flesh. Then his arm moved fully around her bottom and he dragged her upward, lifting her, opening her completely to him, wondering if she would like it that way.

She did. He knew, because he felt the sultry pulses of her pleasure caressing his hungry flesh. The world darkened around him as desire coiled violently, pulling him down into the hot center of Shannon’s being.

«Shannon,» Whip said urgently. «Look at me!»

Dazed, shivering, Shannon opened her eyes. Whip was poised above her, his face dark with passion and his eyes like twin silver flames, burning.

«Now, honey girl. Now.»

He took her with a smooth, powerful thrust, not stopping until their bodies were as deeply joined as it was possible for a man and woman to be.

Shannon stiffened and gave a keening cry. Instantly Whip froze, hoping that her body would adjust to his presence if he didn’t move.

Then he felt the secret, deep pulses within Shannon and knew that she was transfixed by pleasure rather than pain. With a hoarse sound he began moving, no longer fighting the dark, elemental passion that called to him from her body. He drove into her tight satin depths, felt the honeyed kisses of her climax licking over him, and pulled her hips even more tightly against him.

Whip’s last thought was that he hoped Shannon meant what she had said about wanting everything he had to give, because he had just discovered it was too late for him to hold back anything at all. Life had become a hot, radiant darkness with neither beginning nor end; and its heartbeat was the hard, silken pulses of his release spilling into her welcoming body.

19

Reno rode up to Shannon’s cabin in a blaze of summer heat that made the snowstorm of three days ago seem impossible. Pearly wisps of clouds trailed from the highest peaks. The rest of the sky was as clear and blue as Shannon’s eyes. The smell of evergreens and meadow grass gave the air an extraordinary savor.

But whatever birdsongs the meadow and forest might have had to offer were being drowned out by Prettyface’s savage barking.

«That’s enough, Prettyface!» Whip said, walking out of the cabin. «Reno is a friend. Friend!»

Prettyface didn’t think so, but he subsided into snarls and then a grumbling kind of silence.

Reno’s green eyes looked at the dog with deceptive laziness. His left hand wasn’t exactly on the butt of his revolver, but it wasn’t very far away, either.

«Real sociable type,» Reno said dryly.

«He’ll warm to you,» Whip said.

«I’ll hold you to that.»

«Just don’t try to come here when I’m gone.»

«When will that be?» Reno asked coolly.

Whip didn’t answer.

Reno glanced from Prettyface to his brother, wondering if Whip was any closer to solving the problem of his conflicting passions for a distant sunrise and a pretty widow lady.

Then the cabin door opened and a woman with a walk as sultry as the summer day came toward Reno.

«Judas Priest,» Reno said beneath his breath as he dismounted in a fluid rush. «No wonder you’re between a rock and a hard place.»

Whip said nothing, simply watched Shannon with haunted, quicksilver eyes. Then he held out his hand to her and smiled gently. When she laced her fingers through his, he pulled her close, tucking her against his body.

Reno watched all of it, his brother’s tender smile and sheltering arm, Shannon’s loving blue eyes and equally loving smile. But most telling of all to Reno was their physical ease with one another.

Shannon and Whip had become lovers. Reno had no doubt of it. If the radiance of Shannon’s eyes hadn’t told Reno, the shadows in Whip’s would have.

Reno touched the rim of his hat to Shannon in silent greeting.

«Shannon,» Whip said, «this is my brother Matt Moran, but we all call him Reno. Reno, this is Shannon Conner Smith.»

My woman.

Though the words weren’t said aloud, Reno sensed them very clearly.

So did Shannon. Red tinged her cheekbones for a few moments. She held out her hand and searched Reno’s vivid green eyes anxiously, wondering if he would condemn her.

Reno’s hard fingers lifted Shannon’s hand to his lips. He bowed as elegantly as though he were in a Paris ballroom rather than in a wild mountain meadow.

Shannon startled both men by sinking into a deep, graceful curtsy, as though she were wearing yards of silk and crinolines rather than ragged men’s clothing. Then she peeked up at Whip’s dark, startlingly handsome brother with laughter and relief in her beautiful eyes.

«A pleasure, Mr. Moran,» she murmured, rising.

«Reno, Mrs. Smith,» he corrected gently, holding Shannon’s hand between both of his. «I left Mr. Moran behind a long, long time ago.»

«Then you must call me Shannon. I never was truly Mrs. Smith. Silent John was my great-uncle.»

For an instant Reno’s dense black eyelashes shuttered his reaction.

No wonder Whip is having such a wrestling match with his conscience, Reno told himself silently. Shannon is a virgin.

Or was.

«In any case, Silent John is dead,» Shannon said clearly.

«A lot of men will be relieved to hear that,» Reno said beneath his breath as he released Shannon’s hand.

«I beg your pardon?» she said.

«Silent John was, um, well-known around Colorado Territory,» Reno said.

«His reputation — and Prettyface — went a long way toward keeping me safe while he was gone,» Shannon said.

«Prettyface,» Reno said, glancing toward the huge brindle hound. «Hell of a name for something that, um …»

Tactfully, Reno didn’t finish the sentence.

«Maybe you’d like to be the one to call him ugly,» Whip offered, smiling as he remembered Shannon’s saying something similar to him.

Shannon snickered.

«No, thank you,» Reno said promptly. «My mama didn’t raise any dumb ones.»

Whip laughed out loud.

«Come on inside,» Whip said. «We were just sitting down to lunch.»

«Only if you’ll let me put something on the table. Eve packed enough food for two.»

«Why?»

«She wanted to come along, but when we got to Cal’s place, Ethan was feeling puny and so was Willow.»

«Are they all right?» Whip and Shannon asked simultaneously.

«They’re fine. Just a summer cold. I told Eve I could look the claims over by myself. If nothing looks good, I’ll go and bring her back up here. If there’s gold here, the two of us will find it.»

What Reno didn’t say was that he doubted there was any gold worth mentioning up Avalanche Creek, which was why he had brought Eve along in the first place. He had prospected Avalanche Creek’s high, dangerous reaches years ago and found mostly chilblains and bruises for his efforts.

«Did you bring the Spanish needles?» Whip asked.

«In my saddlebags,» Reno said. «They don’t work worth a tinker’s damn without Eve, though.»

«What are Spanish needles?» Shannon asked.

«Dowsing rods made of metal,» Reno said. «They respond to gold or silver rather than to water. The Jesuit priests brought them to the New World hundreds of years ago.»

«Do they really work?» Shannon asked him.

«Count on it.»

«But only for Reno and Eve,» Whip put in. «Damnedest thing you ever saw. If any other people hold the needles together, they’re just so much junk.»

«Truly?» she asked.

«As ever was. Makes the hair on your arms stand straight up to watch Reno and Eve using those needles.»

«Then you found gold?» she asked Reno.

«Yes. Way up in the Abajos, in a crumbling old mine that had been dug by Indian slaves for Jesuit priests. There were ingots of pure gold so heavy Eve could hardly lift more than one at a time.»

«Oh, my,» Shannon said. «Those needles must be something!»

«They were a doorway to hell,» Whip said curtly.

Shannon looked at Whip, shocked.

«The mine came down around my ears,» Reno explained. «Eve and Whip damn near died digging me out.»

Shannon went pale. She touched Whip’s sun-bright hair with fingers that trembled.

«I don’t want gold that much,» she said starkly.

«It’s all right, honey girl,» Whip said, brushing his lips over her hand.