Free Only Love by Elizabeth Lowell Page B

nerve.
    For a long time Whip sat on his horse, thinking about the Culpeppers and Silent John and the frightened girl with a walk like honey. Nothing Whip had found as he searched the Avalanche Creek watershed made him believe that Silent John was still alive, much less working any of his claims.
    I suppose he could be out man-hunting on the other side of the Great Divide.
    The thought made Whip frown.
    But if I had to lay money on it, I’d say Silent John was dead. No man as canny as he’s supposed to be would leave Shannon alone for six weeks when coyotes like the Culpeppers are sniffing around.
    But if Silent John were dead, Shannon was left to fend for herself without a husband’s help. She was a young girl in a woman-hungry land, a silky lamb among snarling coyotes. No matter how big and savage Prettyface was, no matter how carefulShannon was, sooner or later the Culpeppers would catch her off guard.
    Sooner, probably.
    Whip didn’t like to think about what would happen when the Culpeppers got their hands on Shannon.
    Silent John or no Silent John, it’s time for me to close in on my beautiful, almost-tamed mustang.

5
    T HE next day Shannon awoke not to the sound of Whip’s flute calling up the sun, but to the rhythmic sounds of a man splitting wood.
    It was a sound she hand’t heard for years.
    Instantly Shannon looked toward Prettyface. The dog was lying with his head on his massive paws and his ears cocked in the direction of the noise. He was growling slightly, but with no real menace.
    Shannon left the bed in a rush and ran to one of the cabin’s two windows. Neither window had glass. Instead, they were covered with shutters that were solid but for a gun slit plugged by a rag. Despite the plug, cold air came through the slit in a ceaseless, invisible flow.
    Removing the rag, Shannon eased the shutters apart just a bit and peeked out.
    Whip was standing just fifteen feet away. Despite the cold, sleet-streaked dawn, he had taken off his thick jacket. The red of his wool shirt burned like wildfire in the gray light and heat lifted from his big body in tongues of mist.
    Legs braced slightly apart, sleet lashing across his body, Whip lifted the heavy maul and broughtit swiftly down on a round of fir. The wood split cleanly into half circles. He bent, set one of the halves on end, and brought the maul down again, splitting the wood once more.
    The grace and power of Whip’s movements sent an add, glittering sensation from Shannon’s breastbone to her thighs. For a long time she stood motionless, watching the measured, masculine dance of maul and wood, strength and balance.
    Finally a stray piece of sleet stung Shannon’s nose, breaking her trance. Shivering, stiff from not moving, she stepped back and eased the shutter closed, sealing out the icy dawn.
    But there was no way Shannon could seal out the memory of Whip’s male beauty, the elegance and easy power of his body, and the heat rising like smoke from him s he warmed to the work.
    Feeling almost light-headed, Shannon went about her morning tasks. Because she wouldn’t have to spend hours gathering downed wood in the forest to replace whatever she burned, she decided to make a hot breakfast.
    Humming softly, not realizing that she was singing one of the tunes Whip played on his haunting flute, Shannon raked the coals in the wood stove to new life. She added wood and dipped up a bucket of steaming hot spring water, smiling in anticipation of breakfast.
    One of Whip’s gifts to Shannon had been coffee beans. It had been two years since she had ground beans and made coffee, but she hadn’t forgotten how.
    It wasn’t long before the smell of biscuits, bacon, coffee and a wood fire filled the cabin. When the coffee had brewed, Shannon carefully poured some from the battered kettle into an equally battered tinmug. Then she let herself out of the cabin and walked toward the man whose presence no longer alarmed her.
    When Whip bent down to stand another log on