Elizabeth Lowell - Only His

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 shamed.

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 eachtime. Iwant 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.

The soft sounds Willow made went no farther than Caleb’s mouth as sheunravelled beneath him, captive to ecstasy once more. He continued moving slowly, rocking, caressing her with his whole body, loving her gently, relentlessly, sending streamers of fire radiating up through flesh that was still shivering from a tender storm of fulfillment.

«Caleb,» she whispered. «I —» Her back arched as pleasure speared through her.

«Again,» Caleb whispered. «Again, Willow. Until there is nothing else but you and me. No brothers. No sisters. No yesterday. No tomorrow. Just us and the kind of pleasure you can die of.»

Willow’s eyes opened as a sweet violence consumed her. She tried to speak but could not. She had no voice, no thought, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but Caleb and the kind of pleasure she could die of.

Willow stirred, awakened from her dreams by the absence of Caleb’s warmth. Sleepily, she sat up. Just as she was going to call his name, she heard his voice from the direction of the campfire where her brother had made his bed. Reno’s voice answered. Neither man sounded friendly.

Adrenaline went through Willow in a wild rush, sweeping away all chance of going back to sleep. She began dressing quickly, fearful of the argument that might develop if she left Caleb and her brother alone.

«You took your damned time,» Reno said.

«I wanted to be sure.»

«I’ll bet.» Reno’s voice was sarcastic. «Is she finally asleep?»

«Keep your voice down if you want her to stay that way.»

«Don’t tell me what to do, you son of a bitch. I don’t take orders from the likes of you.»

«When it comes to Willow, you do,» Caleb said, his voice as hard as Reno’s had been.

Reno moved abruptly, a man composed of midnight and the slicing silver light of the moon. Every muscle in his body was poised to strike at Caleb.

«You better plan on getting Willow to a preacher real quick,» Reno snarled. «If you don’t like that idea, you can reach for that six-gun you’re wearing. Frankly, I’d rather you went for the gun.»

«Don’t be a damned fool,» Caleb said coldly. «At the first shot, Slater’s bunch would be all over us like a rash. Even if we’re quiet as stone, we’ve left tracks from here to Hell and back. Slater’s no fool. He’s getting closer to us all the time. It’s going to take at least two of us to shoot our way free of him.»

«That will be my problem, not yours. You’ll be dead.»

«What about Willow?» Caleb demanded. «Do you know what Slater’s bunch would do to her?»

«Same thing you did.»

Fury snaked through Caleb’s body, testing his self-control. «I didn’t rape Willow. She wanted it just as much as I did.»

Reno’s breath came in hard and fast. «Shut your foul mouth.»

«No,» Caleb said in a flat voice. «I’m tired of listening to you carry on as though you never lay with a girl.»

«I never seduced a virgin!»

«Liar.»

Caleb took a single, predatory step toward the other man before he brought himself under control once more.

«My sister was just as innocent as Willow,» Caleb said in a low, savage voice. «You seduced my sister, you left her, and she spent her days crying and watching the road, waiting for the man who said he loved her and would come and marry her. He didn’t come back and he sure as hell didn’t love her. All he loved was the pleasure he got between her legs, and any woman could give him that. When gold fever called, he left her and never looked back.»

Ten feet away from the men, Willow stood frozen in darkness, her hand jammed in her mouth so that she wouldn’t cry out from the pain that grew greater with every word she overheard.

You seduced my sister, you left her….

He sure as hell didn’t love her. All he loved was the pleasure he got between her legs, and any woman could give him that.

«My sister died after giving birth to your bastard,» Caleb said, and his eyes promised vengeance for that death.

Reno saw the barely controlled rage in Caleb and had no doubt that the other man was telling what he believed to be the truth.

Reno also had no doubt that it wasn’t the truth.

«When?» he asked flatly.

«Last year.»

«Where?»

«Listen, you —»

«Where?» demanded Reno, cutting Caleb off.

What Reno really wanted to know was the girl’s name, but he knew if he asked, Caleb would reach for his gun. A minute ago, Reno would have been glad to provoke the fight.

But not now.

Caleb was right. As long as Slater and his men were around, the real loser in any fight would be Willow.

«Arizona Territory,» Caleb said, biting off each word.

Reno’s eyes widened in surprise as he put facts together. «You’re the Man from Yuma.»

«Dead right, Reno. I’ve been hunting you for a long time.»

Willow flinched at the hatred in Caleb’s voice. She remembered something Eddy had said, something about letting Caleb know if he heard anything about a man called Reno. A new fear grew in Willow, a fear so great she could barely breathe.

Had Caleb known all along that her brother was called Reno? Was that why Caleb had seduced her? Eye for eye…

The thought went through Willow with an agony as great as her love. She prayed that Caleb hadn’t known her brother’s nickname before tonight.

«You’re dead wrong, Yuma man. I never touched your sister. Marty did, though. He was crazy for her.»

There was a taut silence as the two men measured each other across the ashes of a dead campfire. The temptation to believe Reno was so great that it shook Caleb, telling him how much he didn’t want to kill Willow’s brother.

«Who,» Caleb asked softly, «is Marty?»

«MartinBusher, my partner. At least he was until he met Becky Black. I saw the way things were going and drifted.»

«Where is he now?»

«Dead.»

The breath came out of Caleb in a long sigh. «Are you certain?»

«He was supposed to meet up with me here about eight months ago,» Reno said. «We were going prospecting. He never showed up. I waited two weeks, then went prospecting on my own. I figured he got married and settled down.» Reno’s expression changed, hardening. «One day I heard shots. I went to take a look. When I got there, the fight was over. Marty was dead.»

«Utes?»

«Probably. None of the horses wore shoes.»

Caleb hesitated before he very slowly reached into his pocket with his left hand, making certain that every motion was illuminated by moonlight.