After unsaddling and hobbling his stallion, Cody built a small fire on the edge of the lake. An evening breeze ruffled the azure surface, lapping small waves onto the sandy beach washed out on the side of the lake where Shanna had stopped to rest.
Small stones littered the area, glistening wetly, and Cody gathered a few to pile around the fire. On the far side of the lake, faint tinges of violet, gold and scarlet reflected on the water as the sun neared the mountain tops. The valley would be in shadow before long, when the sun dropped behind the sheltering vistas, bringing on an early twilight.
Cody leaned back on his heels as he fed a couple dry branches into the leaping flames, then glanced over his shoulder to where Shanna sat again on her bedroll.
They hadn't spoken beyond agreeing to spend the night there, after Shanna's admission that she still loved him. He didn't trust himself to even attempt to reply, not with the urge to turn her over his knee and pull down those baggy britches to give her a sound spanking still burning in his mind. He hadn't even told her that he'd fallen aseep against a tree when he stopped to rest his stallion, allowing her to get a lead on him.
God, her revelation had stunned him. It had almost been better when he thought she had changed her mind — had second thoughts after their lovemaking. Almost.
Yet here she was — riding deeper into the Ozarks to find a man she insisted she was going to marry. Did her love for him mean so little to her, then? After all, it wasn't common, but there was such a thing as divorce.
He gritted his teeth and shook his head at that foolish thought. Shanna wasn't the type to pledge herself to JT only long enough to get his help, then walk out on him. She kept her commitments — and he had to admit he would think less of her if she carried on a relationship with him while married to his long-time friend. And a divorce would still cost her Toby.
"Do you want me to try to catch a couple fish for supper, Shanna?" he asked finally into the quiet stillness.
Shanna shrugged her shoulders. Her stomach was knotted in response to Cody's unexpected presence, and she probably couldn't eat anyway. She had made the break — put him behind her, at least physically, though she would carry the ghost of his memory to her grave.
She watched him walk over to his saddlebags, lying a few feet away. When he squatted to unsnap the clasp on one bag, his denims pulled tight against his muscular thighs and firm rear. A wave of desire swept over her, and she closed her eyes, waiting until she heard his bootheels scrunching in the sandy soil as he approached the lake shore before she opened them.
The breeze ruffled his hair as he stood on the edge of the lake and tossed out his fishing line, the sun rays turning the chestnut color to molten gold. The fitted blue shirt stretched across his shoulders with his actions, outlining the sinews of his back. She stored these memories, too, in that special corner of her mind marked Cody Garret, unable to find the strength to deny them to herself.
Cody pulled in two bass within five minutes and cleaned them on the edge of the lake, while Shanna readied an iron skillet by the fire. When Cody carried the fillets to the fire, she reached for them, but he pulled them back with a smile.
"I think I better do the cooking. I don't reckon you've had experience fixing a meal on an outside fire, and I'm not much in the mood for burnt fish."
"You're probably right." Cody's light tone ran through Shanna like a caress, and the breeze blew his scent to her. She involuntarily took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of sweatiness and horse, but also the special odor she associated with Cody — a hint of sunlight and strength, the outdoors and tenderness.
His callused hands and long fingers expertly coated the fish with cornmeal spread on one of the tin plates, before dropping the fillets into the hot grease Shanna had melted in the skillet. Those same hands could gentle a frisky horse, soothe a frightened child — or play across her body softly, tenderly, more firmly, until she lost herself to the special feelings he created.
Shanna drew her knees up and clasped them in her arms, determinedly laying her head down and turning her face from the firelight. Though the smell of frying fish replaced the special Cody scent for the moment, she would always be able to dust the other scent off in her memory.
Cody touched her shoulder, holding a plate out.
"That didn't take long," she murmured.
"No? You've been staring off into the woods for over ten minutes. I finally decided the fish was going to get cold if I didn't interrupt you. What were you thinking about?"
"Just things." Shanna picked up a crispy piece of fish and bit into it. Finding her appetite returned, she ate the fillet and the beans Cody had heated in another pan, and even mopped her plate with a cold biscuit. Her hunger satisfied, she reached for Cody's empty plate.
"I'll wash the dishes in the lake. I read somewhere that the Indians used to scrub their plates with sand to clean them."
"The dishes can wait," Cody said with a shake of his head. He pulled Shanna's plate from her hand and laid it beside the fire. "I think we need to talk about which way we're going tomorrow."
Shanna dropped her gaze and sat back on her bedroll. "I suppose you think you're going to talk me into going back to Liberty with you. I can't do that, Cody. I just can't."
"I see. No, damn it, I don't see! Unless you were lying a while ago, when you admitted you still loved me!"
"I wasn't lying, Cody," Shanna said in a quiet voice in contradiction to his anger. "I do love you. I'll always love you, until the day I die."
"Then why don't you trust me to help you find another way out of this mess? You can't have love without trust."
"Trust you? Cody, how long have you known that JT Randolph was the man I was looking for? Toby's father? I had a lot of time to think while I rode, and I believe you knew it the first day I came to Liberty. You gave me such a strange look that day, after the bank robbers left town. And Zerelda told me that you and JT were close friends. She said JT still carried a picture of my mother, and that he had even told her the story of their love."
"All right," Cody admitted in a gruff voice. "I had my suspicions. JT and I served together throughout that whole damned war and, yes, he told me about Diedre. But, Shanna, you're living in a dream world if you think you can talk a man like JT into marrying you. And even if you could, I can't let you throw your life away like that — throw away what we could have together."
"I don't have any choice, Cody. Remember when I went into Judge Howard's chamber to talk to him alone?"
"Yeah."
"You're an attorney, Cody. Lord, we even talked about this before, in the b...barn that night. Judge Howard confirmed it. He said he would give JT custody of Toby if JT admitted Toby was his son and asked for it. And he agreed that I don't have any valid claim on Toby, unless I get it as JT's wife. Cody, how could we ever find happiness together at the expense of a small child? How can you ask me to choose between you and Toby?"
"You've already made your choice!" Cody snarled.
The firelight illuminated Shanna's face, where two tears trickled down her cheeks. Cody scrambled over to sit beside her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tightly against him.
"Jesus, Shanna, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. Oh, God, Shanna, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what I'm saying any more. I just know that I love you, and that I can't stand the pain of thinking about you with another man. Shanna, Shanna, I love you. I love you so damned much. How am I going to live without you?"
Shanna buried her face against his neck and her arms crept around him. The desire she had been fighting all evening raced through her veins and her nipples crinkled against his chest. She turned her face to his, and Cody took her lips harshly, without preamble. His body covered hers as he pushed her back onto the bedroll and pulled her beneath him. His tongue ravaged her soft inner mouth, laying claim to that part of her while his hands did the same to the rest of her body.
Cody's newly-grown whiskers rasped against Shanna's cheeks when he tore his mouth away and kissed her neck, his fingers working on the buttons of her blouse. Her breasts sprang free, one going into his mouth at once. She arched against him, losing herself in the sweet fire his caresses and seeking mouth spread through her.
Suddenly Cody wrenched free and stiffened his arms to raise himself. Shanna moaned in loss and reached for him, her eyelids shadowing the passion in the blue depths. The breeze whispered over her wet breast, spreading chill bumps over the area Cody had suckled.
"No. Damn it, no!" Cody rolled away and hunched before the fire, his broad back stiff and his body rigid.
"C...Cody?" Shanna whispered.
"I won't do it, Shanna," he said in a ravaged voice, without turning. "I won't take the chance of putting my own child in your belly, then having you raise it with another man as its father!"
Cody heard Shanna sob, then the rustle of her blouse as she sat up and began to close it around her. He clenched his fists and waited until he was sure she had covered her beautiful breasts before he turned.
Her blond hair was tousled from his fingers, lying in wild disarray around her shoulders. His fingers opened of their own accord, yearning to bury themselves in the silky mass again. Drawn by a force he couldn't resist, his eyes travelled down her bodice and lingered on the soft swells he could still taste in his mouth.
"I...." Cody gulped back the moisture in his mouth. "Shanna, you have to tell me something. You...you did have your monthly flow after we made love, didn't you?"
"I'm not pregnant, Cody," Shanna admitted in a soft voice. "I worried about that myself for a while. I'm well aware of what could have happened after that night, but my...my flow started that next morning."
Shanna gazed yearningly at him. "I had mixed feelings about it, you know," she conceded. "I knew in one part of my mind how awful it would be if I was carrying your child. But another part of me wanted it — wanted a part of you with me, instead of just my memories of our love."
Cody groaned and sprang to his feet. "I'm going for a swim," he said over his shoulder as he strode toward the water, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. He threw the shirt aside and sat down long enough to remove his boots. Still wearing his denims, he plunged into the cold water, hoping it would soften the turgid rigidness between his legs. If it didn't, he was in for a mighty uncomfortable night from the ache in his sac.
Shanna watched Cody swim in the dark water, his arms windmilling and splashing a white froth. He finally halted and dove beneath the surface, and she rose to her feet, her hand on her breast as she waited for him to come back up. She let her breath out in a soft whoosh when his head broke the surface a little farther down the shoreline, and her hand smoothed down over her breast, resting on her stomach.
She thought of her friend, Zerelda, and the growing life in Zerelda's stomach. In only three short months now, Zerelda would have another babe suckling her. By then, Shanna might have a life growing in her, too, but not a life given to her by the man she loved.
How would she feel, giving birth to a baby fathered by her mother's ex-lover? It almost seemed like incest. Sometimes she wished she wasn't so well read — hadn't run across that word one day and searched out the meaning of it.
Toby's face wavered before her, and Shanna latched onto the vision. Toby. Whatever children she had with JT would be Toby's half-brothers or sisters. She would love them because they were a part of her, she resolutely told herself. It wouldn't matter that they were conceived in a bed with a man she didn't love.
Wondering if making love with one man while closing her eyes and pretending it was someone else was considered adultery, Shanna sank to the ground and added some more wood to the fire. Cody would be cold when he returned. Whatever had made him decide to take a swim after the sun had set, taking the warmth in the valley with it?
She welcomed the cold air on her own body, not deigning to draw the bedroll over her shoulders while she waited for Cody to return. It dimmed the warmth in her that was completely unrelated to the renewed flames of the fire.