Only His

by Lowell, Elizabeth

  Caleb dismounted and went to help Willow. Before he could, Reno had already handed her down from the saddle. It wasn’t the first time Reno had moved to stand between his sister and the man who was obviously her lover rather than her husband.

  Caleb’s mouth thinned to a grim line, but he said nothing. He didn’t want Willow to be present when he and Reno thrashed out the subject of sisters and seducers.

  Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

  Unfortunately, the rough justice in the situation didn’t make Caleb feel any better about his position as a seducer.

  I’m begging you now, Caleb. Don’t stop. If you stop touching me I’ll die.

  He wondered if it had been that way for Rebecca, a hunger so deep that she begged for Reno. Had Reno tried to pull back from Rebecca, only to find that he could not?

  Willow. Push me away. Oh, God. Willow, don’t.

  I can’t help it. I’ve needed you all my life and didn’t know it. I love you, Caleb. I love you.

  Caleb closed his eyes and bowed his head as memories sleeted through him, heaven and Hell entwined.

  Am I hurting you?

  No. It’s good—so good. Like flying. Like riding fire. Don’t stop—don’t ever stop.

  And he hadn’t.

  When his eyes opened, Reno was watching him, noting Caleb’s fist clenched so hard on the reins that the leather buckled, seeing the savage, whiskey-colored eyes where ecstasy and anguish were inter-locked like flame and shadow.

  Curtly, Reno gestured for Caleb to begin leading the horses through the narrow passage.

  When all the horses were in the tiny valley, Caleb and Reno returned to remove what evidence they could of the passage of so many horses. By the time they got back to camp, it was dusk. Willow was just picketing the last horse in the valley’s deep grass. When Caleb and Reno walked into camp, she was struck by the similarity between the two men. Both were broad-shouldered, both were long-limbed, and both moved with the muscular coordination of healthy animals.

  The memory of Reno’s speed with a gun returned to Willow, telling her that the two men were alike in one other way as well. They both were dangerous.

  It frightened her.

  “Caleb,” Willow said, “I’m worried about the shoes on my Arabians. Would you check them for me?”

  Surprise showed briefly on Caleb’s face, but he said nothing. Although he always helped with Willow’s horses, it was the first time she had asked him to do so.

  “Sure.” Caleb glanced swiftly at Reno, then returned his attention to Willow. He smoothed the back of his fingers lightly down her cheek. “I won’t be far, honey. If you get tired of the company, come and get me.”

  She smiled despite her fear. “I’ll be all right.”

  Reno waited until Caleb was out of earshot before he turned to his sister.

  “All right, Willy. What the hell happened?”

  The icy green of her brother’s eyes told Willow how much of his rage he had been concealing. Numbly, she wondered how to begin.

  “Remember the summer evenings?” Willow asked finally, her voice low and husky. “Remember the dinners when the table was crowded with food and the air was filled with talking, and you and Rafe would see which one of you could make me giggle first? Remember the sound of crickets and the smell of new-mown hay?”

  “Willy—”

  She continued talking right over Reno’s attempt to interrupt. “Remember the warm nights when the men of the family sat on the veranda and talked about blooded horses and field crops and faraway places and I would sneak out and sit and listen and everyone would pretend I wasn’t there because girls weren’t supposed to care about horses and crops and faraway places?”

  “What does that have to do with—”

  “Do you remember?” Willow asked in a voice that trembled with suppressed emotion.

  “Hell, yes, I remember.”

  “That’s all I had. Remembering. Memories and a box full of Yankee notes and Confederate scrip that was worthless except for starting fires. The moon still rose, but the hayfields and white-fenced paddocks were gone. The veranda and house burned one winter night. The little church where Mama and Papa were married and we were all baptised burned, too, nothing left but crooked headstones looking like ghosts rising out of the weeds.”

  “Willy,” Reno began unhappily, but she wouldn’t let him talk.

  “No. Let me finish, Matthew. I couldn’t live on memories. I’m a girl, but I have dreams, too. I’d saved all your letters. When the last one came, asking for help, I sold what was left of the ruined land, wrote to Mr. Edwards, and headed West. There was just enough money for the trip. Caleb Black agreed to be my guide to the San Juans.” She smiled sadly. “But I can’t pay him the fifty dollars I promised.”

  “Is that what happened? Did you sell yourself just to—” Reno began, his voice harsh.

  “No!” Willow interrupted. Then, more calmly, “No.” She closed her eyes for a moment before she opened them and faced her brother unflinchingly. “I wish Caleb could have come courting me on a West Virginia farm. He would have complimented Papa on his blooded horses and Mama on her spinet playing and me on my pies. After dinner Caleb would have sat on the veranda to talk with my brothers about crops and horses and weather…”

  Reno started to speak, only to find he had no words to equal the yearning in Willow’s eyes.

  “But it wasn’t to be,” she said. “Mama and Papa are dead, all but a few of the horses are gone, the land is laid waste, and my brothers are scattered across the face of the earth.”

  Reno reached out toward Willow, only to have her step beyond his reach.

  “I don’t know what the future holds for me,” she said in a low voice. “But I know this. If I must, I’ll walk away from the past like a snake shedding skin. All of the past, Matthew. Even you.”

  “Willy…” Reno whispered, holding out his arms. “Don’t back away from me.”

  With a choked sound, Willow went to her brother, returning his hug as fiercely as he gave it.

  “It will be all right,” Reno said, closing his eyes, concealing the cold purpose in them. “Everything will be all right, Willy. I’ll see to it.”

  When Caleb came back to camp, he found Willow putting out the last of the venison jerky they had made during their stay in the small, distant valley. Reno picked up a piece, chewed it, and made a sound of surprise.

  “Venison.”

  Willow nodded. “We smoked it in the valley while Deuce healed up.”

  “I’m surprised Caleb risked shooting a deer.”

  “I didn’t,” Caleb said from behind Reno. “I stalked it, then cut its throat.”

  Reno turned with a swiftness that was startling. His left eyebrow raised in dark surprise. “You’re real quiet on your feet for a man your size. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Why?” Willow asked tartly. “You’re not a deer.”

  The smile Reno showed Caleb wasn’t comforting. Nor was it meant to be. But when Reno turned back to Willow, his smile gentled.

  “Go ahead and make a small fire,” Reno said. “It’s been too long since I’ve had a good biscuit. Even when you were a kid, you made the best biscuits I ever ate.”

  “Are you sure?” Willow asked, looking up.

  “Darned sure. I used to come in from the fields for supper, sniffing the wind like one of Papa’s hounds. If I smelled biscuits, I’d run to the kitchen and hide a hatful of them before Rafe came in. I never could eat as much as he could at one sitting.”

  Willow laughed, remembering. Then her laughter stilled as she remembered other times that were gone and the people who were gone with them. “I meant, are you sure about the fire. Is it safe?”

  “Tonight it’s safe enough. Tomorrow night?” Reno shrugged. “Make a lot of biscuits, Willy. It could be a while before we have another fire.”

  “All right.”

  Saying nothing to one another, Caleb and Reno watched Willow work over the fire. When the food was rea
dy, both men ate quickly, neatly, leaving nothing behind. Afterward, when Reno started to ask about family things, Caleb got up and went out from the small fire to make a bed. The muted voices of brother and sister followed him into the darkness, soft laughter and murmured words remembering a time that would never come again.

  The knowledge of how much Willow loved her handsome, green-eyed brother was a chill spreading through Caleb’s blood, quenching his hope that she would understand what he must do. Willow had never seen the careless side of Reno, the side that took his ease at the cost of weaker people. Nor had Wolfe seen that part of Reno. Only Rebecca had, and she had paid for the bitter knowledge with her life and that of her baby girl.

  Grimly, Caleb cut and piled spruce boughs, making a mattress behind a windbreak of low-growing fir. At some point, he became aware of the silence of the night, no voices murmuring, only the wind and the tiny brook. Instants later, he sensed Reno moving almost soundlessly toward him.

  Caleb turned with the swift, lethal silence of a striking snake. Reno stood in the moonlight at the edge of the meadow, looking at the bed Caleb had made.

  “Where are you sleeping?” Reno asked coolly.

  “Here.”

  “You don’t look like a man who needs a mattress.”

  “Willow likes them. Underneath all that determination, she’s a soft little thing.”

  Even moonlight couldn’t blur the lines of anger on Reno’s face. “Don’t push me, you son of a bitch.”

  Caleb’s smile was savage. “If you don’t like being pushed, get out of my way.” He glided closer, his walk soundless, predatory. “I was hoping Willow would be asleep before we had our talk, but so be it.”

  “I should kill you.”

  “You could try,” Caleb offered.

  His voice seethed with barely repressed violence. The thought of a rank seducer such as Reno being protective of his own little sister’s virtue made Caleb furious. But he could say nothing, for Reno was only reacting as Caleb had when it was his own sister’s virtue under discussion.

  In any case, Caleb had already returned the favor, seducing Reno’s innocent little sister.

  Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.

  The thought didn’t comfort Caleb.

  Reno watched Caleb with eyes turned silver by the cold moon. “A shot will bring Slater down on us like a cold rain,” Reno said.

  “That’s why you’re still alive. I don’t want Willow put at risk for a snake like you.”

  The flat hatred in Caleb’s voice shocked Reno. It puzzled him, too.

  “I know why I’d like to kill you,” Reno said slowly, “but I don’t know why you want to kill me. It’s more than Willow, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Then Caleb’s breath came in hard as he realized that wasn’t true. Not any longer. He had very little time left with Willow. He would fight for every minute of it any way he could and every way he had to, short of endangering her. “Don’t stand between me and Willow, Reno. You’ll only get hurt and that will hurt her. But she’s my woman. If she wants to sleep next to me, she will.”

  Willow’s voice called softly from the fire. “Caleb? Matt? Is something wrong with the horses?”

  “They’re fine, honey,” Caleb called in return.

  “Are you too tired to play the harmonica? Matt has a wonderful voice.”

  “I’ll be glad to play for you.”

  Reno gave Caleb a glittering look of frustration and said in a low voice, “When she’s asleep, we’ll talk.”

  “Count on it.”

  Caleb brushed past Reno and walked toward the tiny fire and the girl who stood smiling and holding out her hands, watching him with a combination of worry and relief in her eyes. She was uneasy whenever her brother and Caleb were alone.

  “Are you sure you aren’t too tired?” Willow asked Caleb.

  He brushed a quick, fierce kiss over her lips. “I’m never too tired to please you.”

  Willow clung to him and whispered hurriedly, “Matt means well. Please don’t be angry.”

  After a gentle squeeze, Caleb released Willow and sat a few feet back from the fire. Before she could say anything else, the haunting notes of an old ballad lifted softly above the flames, a song telling of a young girl’s certainty that she had discovered the love of her life.

  After the first few seconds, Caleb faltered. He hadn’t known what he was going to play until he heard the notes. His heart contracted at the cruel trick his mind had played. The song had been one of Rebecca’s favorites, for the words told of a girl newly in love and thinking of the future that soon would be hers.

  I know where I’m going.

  I know who’s going with me.

  Willow and Matt sang a harmony that was all the sweeter for its simplicity. The beauty of Willow’s voice surprised Caleb, for she had never sung when he played the harmonica in the valley. She had simply curled up next to him and stared into the fire with a dreamy smile of pleasure on her lips.

  The next song Caleb played was also a ballad of love, but the woman walked away, leaving the man to face a future that held nothing of children or a woman’s softness. In the third ballad it was the man who was inconstant, the woman who mourned. Without hesitation, Reno and Willow sang each song, their voices blending effortlessly, for the Moran family had spent many a cold winter night singing in front of a fire.

  But both sister and brother gradually stopped singing halfway through the fourth song, the lament of a man torn between duty and love, damned no matter which way he turned. The harmonica’s supple voice wept over choices in chords no human voice could match.

  Willow listened and felt chills coursing over her skin. She had heard the song many times before, had sung it often herself as a girl, and she had smiled, for the tragic words only made her own life more sweet by contrast. But this time when the final note shivered into silence, there was no laughter in her. Tears glistened in Willow’s eyelashes and made thin silver trails down her cheeks.

  Silently, Caleb stood and held out his hand to her. She stood and took it without a word. Relief coursed through him. Only then did he realize how afraid he had been that Willow wouldn’t come to him in the presence of her brother.

  “Good night, Matt,” Willow said.

  Reno nodded curtly, for he didn’t trust himself to speak. If he hadn’t seen the naked love in Willow’s eyes when she looked at Caleb, Reno would have gone for the other man’s throat. But the love was there beyond any doubt. It might enrage Reno that Willow was no longer innocent, but there was nothing he could do to change it. Nor did he want to destroy her happiness, for there had been little of it for her in the past years.

  Abruptly, Reno had some sympathy for the man in the ballad, caught between duty and love. Reno, too, was between a rock and a hard place, nowhere to turn, no comfort possible.

  Caleb stood by the bed he had made and listened for a long moment. He heard no sound behind them. Reno was a man of his word—he wouldn’t force the issue until after Willow was asleep.

  “It’s all right,” Willow said as she took off her boots and jacket and slid beneath the blankets. “Matt isn’t pleased, but he accepted it.”

  “I don’t think so, little one,” Caleb said as he stretched out beneath the blankets.

  But when Willow would have spoken, he took her mouth in a possession that was as gentle as it was complete. When he finally lifted his head, it was only to return again and again, as though she was a spring and he was a man who had spent too long without water.

  “Caleb,” she whispered, trembling. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  His only answer was another haunting kiss, then another, until Willow forgot the question. She could feel only the restraint and hunger warring for control of Caleb’s body. He held her lightly, sheltering her rather than demanding anything of her. With every kiss he knew he should stop. He didn’t want Reno looking at Willow in the morning, knowing she had coupled with Caleb the night before. He didn’t want Willow sh
amed.

  Yet he wanted her more than he ever had before.

  Finally, Caleb lifted his head a fraction, just enough so that he could talk without losing contact with Willow’s lips. “We should sleep.”

  “Sooner or later, yes.”

  “Willow,” Caleb whispered, sliding his hands down her body, wanting her too much to deny himself. “Do you want me?”

  “Yes,” she breathed into his mouth. “I’ll always want you, Caleb. I love you.”

  Willow’s words ended in a soft, low sound of pleasure as Caleb claimed her mouth once more. Despite the hard urgency she felt in his body, the kiss was tender, slow, a sweet consummation that foreshadowed the deeper joining to come. His hands moved over her, taking away clothes, bringing the greater warmth of his palms caressing her. It was the same for his own body, his own clothes pushed away by her hands, her skin hot and smooth against his.

  Familiar, ever-new sensations whispered through Willow, the exciting heat of Caleb’s kiss, the silken rasp of his beard against her thighs, the exquisite caresses within her, his mouth consuming her. When he asked for her melting passion, she gave it, bathing both of them in the fire he called from her with each touch, each intimate glide of tongue and fingertips. When she could bear no more, she gave herself to ecstasy. He put his hand over her mouth, stilling her small wild cries of completion.

  Finally Caleb lifted his palm, kissing Willow gently but making no move to join his body with hers.

  “Caleb,” Willow whispered. “Don’t you want me?”

  “I—”

  His breath broke as Willow’s hands found him and held him as gently captive as she herself had been held.

  “You always surprise me,” she whispered, gliding down his length. “So smooth. So hard.”

  “And you so soft.” His fingertips caressed her sultry, responsive flesh, loving her. “I want you, Willow. More each time. I want you.”

  Shivering with pleasure, Willow watched the moonlit face of the man she loved as he took the gift of her body, giving his own in return until they were fully joined.

  “Better each time,” Caleb whispered.

  With each slow movement he felt the fine shivering of his lover, a trembling, radiating anticipation that was also his own. He felt her warm breath against his mouth, tasted her sweet kiss, saw her eyes watching him in a silver haze of passion, and sensed the tension gathering in her body once more. Despite the cruel claws of need raking him, he moved gently inside her, rocking slowly, wanting to give her more pleasure than she had ever known in his embrace.