As Caleb spoke, he casually went behind Whip’s chair.
«What was that?» Whip asked.
«You, uh, overpaid her,» Caleb said.
«What the hell are you talking about?»
Caleb took a concealed breath, gathering himself for the fight he knew was coming.
«When Shannon learned the gold wasn’t hers,» Caleb said, «she went to Betsy and Clementine and asked them what the going rate for their favors was.»
«What?»
Whip would have shot to his feet again, but Caleb’s big hands were bearing down on Whip’s shoulders, holding him in his chair.
«Settle down and listen,» Caleb said grimly. «Shannon took whatever amount the girls told her, figured out how much she had been overpaid by you, and came down off that mountain like a blue norther to give you your change.»
When the meaning of the words penetrated, the fight went out of Whip.
Oh, God, honey girl. I never thought of you that way at all. You were as innocent as sunrise …
«She really said that?» Whip managed finally.
Caleb nodded.
«She thought that I’d paid her off like something I’d bought for the night?» Whip whispered.
Warily, Caleb nodded.
«I don’t believe it,» Whip said starkly.
Willow smacked the stew spoon against the kettle, knocking off clinging bits of meat.
«Believe it,» Willow said succinctly. «Shannon wouldn’t come inside the house, not even for a cup of tea.»
«Why?»
«She said she respected me too much to bring my brother’s whore into my home.»
Whip made an anguished sound and slammed his fist on the table. His coffee cup leaped and turned on its side, sending a wave of searing liquid over him. He barely felt it. The pain that was tearing his soul apart left no room for anything else.
Abruptly Whip twisted aside and stood up, throwing off Caleb’s restraining hands.
«I changed my mind about those biscuits, Willy,» Whip said in a strained voice. «Make a batch of them big enough to take me over the mountain.»
«But the pass is closed,» Willow protested.
Whip turned to Caleb. «You still have those snowshoes in the barn?»
«Nope. They’re outside by the back door. I’ll go with you as far as my Montana horses can take us. After that, you’re on your own.»
«Thanks.»
«But when you get there,» Caleb said, «be damned careful.»
«Why?»
«She was mad enough to set that hellhound on you.»
Whip looked at the scars on his hands and smiled slightly. «Wouldn’t be the first time we tangled.»
He grabbed his jacket and hat and headed for the back door.
«What about supplies?» Caleb asked as Whip opened the door. «Will the two of you make it through the winter?»
«I made sure Shannon had enough to feed two people until the melt came.»
«You were a little slow figuring out who the second person was, weren’t you?» Willow asked dryly.
The back door slammed, cutting off the sound of Caleb’s laughter.
«What if he can’t get to the cabin?» Willow asked.
«He will. Getting back in Shannon’s good graces will be the real trick. That was one purely pissed off woman who rode out of here.»
«He’ll have all winter.»
«He’ll need it,» Caleb said.
«I doubt it. He has an unfair advantage.»
«What’s that?»
«She loves him,» Willow said simply.
AS dawn began to take stars and darkness from the sky, Whip resettled the straps of his backpack and set out across the meadow toward Shannon’s cabin. Peaks lifted silently above the earthbound darkness, bathing their rugged faces in the first heady light of dawn.
The air was utterly still around him, as cold and sharp as freshly broken ice. His breath was a shimmering cloud around his face. Each step he took brought squeaks from the dry, frigid snow beneath his feet.
Whip didn’t notice the sounds, for he felt as though he was moving through a waking dream.
I’ve been here before, in the winter, with sunrise all around.
But he never had…except in his dream of a cabin and a woman waiting for him.
By the time Whip crossed the meadow, dawn was stealing down the mountains and touching the evergreens with gentle tongues of fire. The dark square of the cabin suddenly showed slivers of yellow light between the shutters. As he came closer, the door opened.
Warmth and golden light flowed out to meet him. Shannon was standing in the center of it, waiting for Whip, knowing that only one man could make Prettyface dance with silent eagerness.
«If you’re bringing that gold back,» Shannon said icily, «you can just take it and —»
The words ended in a muffled sound as Whip pulled Shannon into his arms and kissed her with the soul-deep need that had haunted him every step of the way since he had left her. When he finally lifted his head, she was holding him as hard as he was holding her, and dawn was riding their shoulders like a golden cape.
«I’m staying,» Whip said. «You can rage at me and pull strips from my hide for my damn foolishness, but I’m never leaving you again, ever, I —»
Her fingers touched Whip’s mouth, stilling the tumbling words.
«Don’t make promises it would kill you to keep,» Shannon said shakily. «I don’t want that. I never wanted that, once I understood about all those sunrises you’ve never seen.»
Whip looked into the dawn reflected by Shannon’s eyes and smiled oddly.
«That’s what I’m trying to tell you,» he said. «The sunrise I was chasing all over the world to find is the one that only love could give me. Nothing on earth calls to me the way you do. It just took me a while to get used to the idea.»
Shannon went still, afraid to hope again.
«I wasn’t searching for sunrises,» Whip said softly. «I was searching for something I couldn’t name, something unbearably beautiful, something unspeakably perfect that was waiting for me to discover it.»
Whip bent and kissed Shannon with a gentleness that brought tears to her eyes.
«I found it in you,» he said simply. «I love you, honey girl. You’re the only sunrise I’ll ever need.»
Epilogue
Shannon and Whip spent winter in the small cabin, laughing and loving while wild storms blew over the land. When the passes opened once more, they went to Canyon City and brought a preacher back with them over the mountains.
They were married at Willow and Caleb’s house, with Reno as best man, Eve’s pure alto singing of love everlasting, Ethan scampering through the maze of adult legs, and baby Rebecca Black watching from Willow’s arms with unblinking hazel eyes. Jessi and Wolfe brought the bride a shawl made of fine Irish lace and a mustang whose coat was the exact autumn shade of Shannon’s hair.
Whip and Shannon settled in a hidden valley that was a half day’s ride from the Black ranch, and not much farther from Reno and Eve’s home. The men worked together to build a house, and the women worked to give the touches that made a house into a home.
At the end of summer, Whip and Shannon went to Avalanche Creek and coaxed Cherokee to come back down the mountain with them, bringing with her a rich knowledge of herbs and healing and life.
Every year the families gathered for roundups and holidays, sharing work and play equally. Each gathering was bigger and more lively, with babies being born and children growing at a reckless pace, and adults laughing as they remembered how it had all begun, and how unexpected life could be in its gifts.
Baby Rebecca soon had a playmate named Catherine Wolfe. Within a year, John Rafael Moran was born. Whip’s son took his strength and yondering urge from his father, but it was his mother’s sapphire eyes that looked out on the world with wary curiosity. The sisters and brothers who followed had different eyes, different faces, different dreams.
In the midst of all the changes brought by the years that passed over the land like cloud shadows, one thing remained unchanged and certain. Whether Whip was gone for an hour or a week, Shannon was waiting for him, reaching for him even as he gathered her into his arms, and there was a light in their eyes that only love could bring.