Chapter 11

Shaw's mouth slanted over hers, and joy buoyed up inside her as she savored his sweet, heady taste. How long the kiss lasted, she didn't know, didn't care. When it finally ended, she was trembling from head to toe.

"You're cold," he rasped. Tenderly, he pulled her onto his lap, enfolding her in his strong embrace.

Her heart swelled with joy.

"I spent one winter in the mountains," he went on, almost to himself. "Out on the coast. There's cold for you. Like nothing you can imagine. A white hell."

She took a breath, tried to remember why this was wrong, and kissed him again. Shaw's deep groan made her mind whirl. "You were alone in the mountains?" she asked him when they came up for air.

"Yes." His lips skimmed her cheekbones, eyelids, one ear, and her throat. She melted against him, molding herself to his chest and arms. Another kiss... longer... sweeter yet.

"You don't know... don't know what you do to me," he confessed hoarsely before claiming her mouth again.

And this time, she could not help herself. She parted her lips to welcome the seeking thrust of his warm, velvety tongue.

How had she lived so long without knowing that so much pleasure could come from the texture of a man's tongue or the pressure of his mouth? How had the world kept these secrets from her?

Shaw's caresses were becoming more demanding. Every fiber of her being urged her to give as good as she received. But instinct warned her not to go too far too fast—not to lose all control.

"Tell me." She took a deep breath. "Tell me about... about the mountains," she begged him. "About the cold."

Shaw stiffened and groaned. "Not now."

"Yes, now." She moistened her lips and whispered in his ear. "Please."

"All right." His voice deepened. "My partner was killed in a landslide just before first snow."

She nestled against him, feeling his need for her. "We heard it was... was you who was dead."

"No, it was Arturo." His hand moved over her shoulder, kneading, massaging. "Arturo Sanchez."

Tiny whimpers rose in her throat as he lifted the weight of her hair and nibbled the skin at the nape of her neck. She gripped his forearm tightly, trying desperately to anchor herself to earth, to keep herself from drifting away on a sea of dreams.

"Arturo Sanchez," Shaw repeated hoarsely. "A good man, none better."

He kissed the line of her hairline, and she shivered, wanting to be closer. "Go on," she urged. She twisted to sit astride him and slid her fingers through his thick hair, marveling at the silken sensations.

"Becca." He gasped. "You're playing with fire, woman."

Her uncle's words. But tonight, she was ready to dare that fire. She slipped a hand inside the neck of his shirt, boldly exploring the heat of his skin and the sleek ripple of hard, sinewy muscles beneath. "Arturo was killed," she repeated softly.

Surely, she was damned beyond redemption for what she was doing—what she was allowing him to do. But if they stopped, she would surely die.

They kissed again, and then he said, "Old-timers warned us about the Big Sur winters."

"But you didn't listen."

"We'd struck color." He sucked gently at her lower lip. "And... and we meant to hold the claim..." Another kiss. "...until spring."

She nuzzled her face against his. "You found gold? That must have been... before... the Sutter's Creek strike."

"It was." His mouth encompassed hers again.

She could smell the crushed grass beneath them, see the occasional flash of fireflies over the tumbling, dark water. Shaw's fingers massaged her spine—rubbing, stroking, crushing her closer against him.

"Arturo's father had come out of those mountains with a shattered knee... and a gold nugget the size of a man's thumbnail when my partner was just a kid." She could hear Shaw struggling for breath, too. "Arturo's father hung on for years, but... he never got well enough to try again. He drew a map before he died."

She became aware of Shaw fumbling the top button at the back of her gown and opened her mouth to protest. Instead, she found herself asking "And the two of you found the spot?"

She didn't want him to stop. It was wicked. Dangerous. She didn't care.

"That or close enough." He kissed her again, and she felt the cool night air against her skin. His fingers moved to the second button, and goose bumps rose on the nape of her neck. "We'd packed in plenty of supplies, even grain and a supply of hay for the animals, but neither of us was prepared for that high-mountain weather."

Another button came undone.

"After our mule froze solid in the lean-to..." He nibbled at her upper lip. "I... I had to bring my... horse into the cabin."

And another button.

"By then the snow had started," Shaw whispered. "It snowed like the end of the world." He parted the top of her bodice, then leaned around and kissed the exposed skin.

She drew in a shuddering breath.

"Deep snow?" Her eyes were half closed, her heart thudding against her ribs. She felt divided, as though she were two people. One was here, close enough to feel the rise and fall of Shaw's chest as he breathed; the other woman, detached, was able to speak to him, almost normally, without shame or fear of discovery.

"I had to climb on the roof to keep pushing off the snowfall," he said. "The weight was so heavy, I thought it would crush the rafters." He undid another button and slipped the material of her dress aside so that he could nibble the top of her shoulder.

Tendrils of her hair came loose, and he brushed them aside.

And each time Shaw touched her, she felt a jolt of cold fire against her bare skin. She moaned softly, wondering at her growing restlessness and the warm dampness between her thighs.

What was wrong with her? She could see what Shaw was doing to her, could feel the exquisite sensations, but it was impossible for her to stop him. Had he bewitched her? Was this how her sister had fallen into sin?

"Once the hay and grain ran out, I had to shoot the horse," Shaw continued. She heard the regret in his voice. "I thought about turning him loose, but he wouldn't have survived a night outside, and the snow was too deep for him to make it down to the valley."

Rebecca closed her eyes and tried to imagine being alone for so long. But she couldn't concentrate, couldn't think of anything but the delicious feeling of Shaw's body pressed against hers. Not even her tangled petticoats or all-encompassing pantalets could hide the proof of Shaw's arousal. That should have frightened her. Instead, it added to her excitement.

He slid a hand beneath her camisole and stays, cupping her breast, and suddenly she did explode. Ribbons of molten fire unfurled, spreading up from deep within her cleft through her belly and up her spine.

"Oh. Oh!" She gasped and clung to him.

He chuckled, removing his hand and kissing the crown of her head. "Glad somebody saw the elephant," he said.

"I never..." she began. "I didn't..." She felt the blood rise in her throat and cheeks, scalding proof of her wantonness.

"Shh, shh," he soothed. "It's all right. I can take the pain."

She made a small agonized sound.

But he rocked her against him. "I said it's all right," he repeated. "You think I don't know you're an innocent, Becca? I started this. It's only fair that I suffer for it."

Reason flooded back, filling Rebecca with shame for what she'd done and what she'd almost let him do. "This isn't right," she said. "I'm sorry... It's my fault. I—"

He kissed her mouth tenderly. "Shhh, just listen. Let me finish my damned story."

She nodded, and he began to button the back of her dress. "Sometime in January, or maybe it was February," he went on, "a cougar tried to claw its way down the chimney. I had to stay up all night to keep the fire burning. I didn't have wood to waste, and if the flames had died down... What the hell are you wearing, woman? Armor?" He rapped on the back of her whalebone stays and chuckled.

She ducked her head and tried to breathe normally.

"You kept me sane that winter, Bee." He finished the last button. "There. You're decent."

She sat up. "Me? How did I keep you sane?" She could still feel the aftershocks of what had happened, sweet currents washing through her from head to toe. And the wonder of it amazed her.

He pushed her back on the grass and sprawled beside her. She could feel the scalding heat in her face. She was no better than her sister was. Worse even, to lead a man so far and then stop.

And then she realized that she hadn't stopped. He had.

Shaw propped himself up on one hand and leaned over her. "You and Walter Scott, you kept me from losing my mind that winter," he whispered. He chuckled again and began to recite, "'Now here you're nine, and I'm but one. But yet I'm not in sorrow. For here I'll fight you, man for man. For my true love in Yarrow.'"

She sighed, remembering even in her confusion how they had read and reread the epic story-poem The Dowie Dens of Yarrow, until both had committed it to memory."'Hold your own tongue, my father dear,'" she quoted."'I cannot help my sorrow. A fairer flower never sprang in May, than I have lost in Yarrow.'" It was a song of tragedy and lost love, one that had never failed to bring tears to her eyes. It did the same tonight.

"If anyone had seen me, pacing back and forth across that cabin, shouting Scott's poetry for all I was worth..." Shaw groaned. "Maybe I was crazy, but..." He pressed a chain into her hand. "I want you to have this," he said. "It was Arturo's."

An antique silver cross glittered in the moonlight. "It's beautiful," she said, "but didn't he have a family? Someone who—"

"No. No one. He was an only child, and his mother died when he was born. It belonged to her. He said her name was Estrella. Arturo gave it to me, Bee, and I'm giving it to you."

"I'll cherish it." She slipped the necklace over her head.

"Estrella means star in Spanish." Shaw brushed his lips to her forehead in a gentle caress.

Closing her eyes, she laid her head against him, willing herself to commit this night to crystal, solidifying it so that she would never forget. "It can't happen again," she whispered. "Never again."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

"Shaw... please. You know—"

"I know I've been with a lot of women, Becca. But never—not once—has it ever been like this for me."

"Maybe it's just—" She searched for the right word. "—lust?"

He laughed. "It was that all right. But it was something more."

"What?" She wanted to hear him say it, say it once. Love.

He shook his head. "Trouble," he answered. "Maybe more trouble than either of us can imagine."

"Yes," she agreed. "Go on, now. I'll find my own way back."

"I'll take you."

"No, please. I'll just follow the creek." She got up and tried to smooth her disheveled hair. "Someone will have missed me by now. They'll be looking. I don't want them to find us together."

"No," he answered. "I guess not." He reached out to take her in his arms again, but she pulled back. "All right," he said.

She waited until he was gone. And then she sank down on the stream bank beneath the glittering night sky and wept for all that might have been.

* * *

Rebecca was convinced she'd been able to slip into her bedroll beneath the wagon without rousing any of her family. But the following morning, her father, uncle, and brother Corbett all glared in disapproval. The men, except for Noah, barely spoke to her as the family shared an early breakfast before Sunday worship.

As Pilar cleared away the dishes, Rebecca's grandmother pulled her aside and hissed a warning. "Have you lost your mind, girl? The quickest way to see more dead Raeburns and MacCades is for you to—"

Rebecca began to protest. "But I—"

"No lies. Where were you at last night? I may be half blind, but I'm not deaf. I heard you sneak in after your father was asleep. You heed me. You're thinking of yourself, not your family. I'm ashamed of you. I thought you had better sense. If Quinn catches you together, he'll put a bullet through Shaw's head and ask questions later."

"Mother, are you ready?" her uncle asked.

Her grandmother removed her apron, put on her black straw bonnet, and picked up her Bible. "Ready, Son," she answered. Uncle Quinn took Grandma's arm, and they all made their way into the church.

Rebecca joined in the singing and went through the motions, but it was impossible to concentrate on the sermon with Shaw's cross hanging hidden between her breasts. She couldn't stop thinking about him or the intimacies she had allowed him.

Even now, desire curled in the pit of her belly, and forbidden thoughts nudged the dark corners of her mind so that it was nearly impossible to sit still. What kind of woman am I, she wondered, that I can sit in church remembering the feel of a man's mouth on mine and the touch of his hand on my bare flesh?

How could she turn her back on Shaw, forget him? Dying would be easier than giving him up. Yet if she didn't, she might be the cause of his death. And that was too horrible to contemplate.

The congregation rose to their feet for a final prayer and the minister's blessing before filing outside. Pilar, Rebecca, and her grandmother followed Corbett outside. The rest of their men came close on their heels. In minutes, everyone had said their good-byes, and Corbett and Noah had harnessed the mules and hitched them to the wagon.

As the covered wagon bumped along the narrow dirt road, Rebecca's father and uncle discussed the high points of Reverend Jarrell's sermon while Noah hummed to a toad that he'd picked up in the churchyard. Corbett drove the team with Rebecca on the board seat beside him. Grandma rode in the back with Pilar, easing her old bones as much as possible on a pile of quilts.

"Jarrell's plainspoken and to the point," Corbett said, adding his opinion to the older men's conversation. "That last preacher we had was too long-winded. He took an hour just to—" He broke off abruptly and reined in the matched bay mules. "Pa, look!"

A thick, black column of smoke curled over the treetops from the far side of the river. "That's our place!" Rebecca cried. "It looks like a fire at Angel Crossing!"

Reaching the house was more difficult than Rebecca had expected. Not only had someone set fire to a hay shed, but the vandals had cut several ferry ropes, which had to be replaced before they could safely cross. The scoundrels had knocked down fence rails, scattered livestock, and turned pigs loose in the house.

The twins were ashen faced. The attack had come in early morning, and neither of them had been at home when it had happened.

"Where were you?" Uncle Quinn demanded. "Why weren't you here?"

"You were supposed to guard the place while we were away!" her father yelled. "Where were the dogs?"

Drummond hung his head. "We locked them in the barn so they wouldn't follow us."

Uncle Quinn seized the front of Welsh's plaid shirt and heaved him off the ground. "Drunken sots, the both of you." He raised a sinewy fist, then pinched his lips together and let Welsh drop to the ground. "You're not enough of a grown man to hit. I should turn you over my knee."

"We're not drunk," Drummond protested. "Sure, we had a few—"

"Not one word!" Rebecca's father warned. "Not unless it's to give me the names of who did it."

"Didn't see them," Welsh said. "We tried to put out the fire in the hay shed, but it was too late."

Corbett spat in the dust. "Idiots!"

Welsh glared back defiantly. "It was Saturday night," he began. "We went to a wedding at Beau Littleton's. We didn't think—"

"That's the trouble," Uncle Quinn snapped. "You two never think. You were out carousing while the MacCades had the run of Angel Crossing." He scanned the ground for tracks.

"We don't know it was MacCades," Rebecca said.

"Up to the house with you girl," her father said. "You're blind if you can't see that this is Murdoch MacCade's boys' work."

"But why?" she asked. "Why would he do such a thing?"

"He wants us out of Angel Crossing. It's what he's always wanted."

"I think we should wait for more proof before we accuse anyone," she argued. It couldn't be Shaw, she thought. She couldn't believe that Shaw had anything to do with this. But even as she spoke up to defend his family, she remembered the wild, drunken sprees that the MacCades had been involved in over the last few years, including that at yesterday's baptism.

"Use common sense, girl. Who else has a grudge against us?" He pointed an accusing forefinger at her, and his tone turned harsh. "Use your head, girl. If not the MacCades, who? Common trash don't linger to turn pigs into a man's house. They do their evil then ride like the devil's on their heels." His brow furrowed with strain. "Can't be nobody else."

"It was the MacCade bunch all right," Corbett agreed fiercely. "They saw us at the preaching, last night. We should have come home, but we figured that Drummond and Welsh could be trusted to defend the place." He glared at the twins in disgust. "Worthless shit-kickers," he muttered. "Noah's got more brains than both of them put together."

"Mind your tongue in front of your sister," their father admonished. "And you, Becca. I told you to get to the house."

She could still hear their hot words as she hastened to the house to help Pilar and her grandmother clean up the filth left by the pigs. Pilar had reverted to her native tongue and was cursing the intruders, their fathers, and their grandfathers back to the fourth generation.

"We'll tend to this mess," Grandma said. "You go and see if those egg-sucking dogs stole anything from the store."

There was no inside passage from the living quarters to the attached cabin that served as a mercantile. Rebecca went out the front door and around to the side. One window shutter on the storefront hung crazily, and two glass panes were broken, but the iron padlock on the door held fast.

She turned the big key in the lock and stepped into the dim interior. Two rocks lay in the middle of the floor amid shards of glass, but nothing else had been damaged. Still, Rebecca studied the room carefully for signs of the intruders.

A single counter ran the length of the structure, and that was heaped with blankets, bolts of material, and bags of seed. Tools, lanterns, halters, coils of rope, and traps hung from the ceiling and hooks along the front and right walls. There were barrels filled with flour, salt, cornmeal, and dried beans, and a glass-topped case containing needles, thread, scissors, and knives behind the counter. Buckets of nails, wood screws, and horseshoes were stacked on the left. Money and expensive items such as guns, bullets, and compasses, Poppa kept hidden in the cellar under the main house.

Rebecca gathered a hammer, a screwdriver, and several screws and fixed the shutter, bolted it from the inside, and re-locked the heavy wooden door. The store was closed on Sundays, and unless a traveler was desperate for some item she wouldn't open it again until Monday.

When Rebecca returned to the front porch, she found Corbett sauntering out carrying his good rifle and a box of shells. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Why do you need your gun?"

"We're going to pay a call on our neighbors. Uncle Quinn found tracks leading toward MacCade's. The five of us are riding over and—"

"No!" she protested. "This is wrong. If you go over there, someone could get shot. Even killed."

"Maybe that's the idea," Drum swaggered out of the house carrying a Kentucky rifle. A Colt pistol was jammed in his belt. "You women best lock up tight once we ride out," he said.

"Don't do this, Corbett," Rebecca pleaded. "Drum, this isn't like rabbit hunting. You could end up dead. Grandma! Can't you stop them?"

Her grandmother stepped onto the wide stoop, her capable hands knotted into fists and resting on her hips. "Save your breath, Becca. Men never listen to sense. But they needn't take Noah with them." She gestured to Quinn. "You leave Noah. He's one of God's innocents, a man with a child's brain. He shouldn't be sheddin' blood or sufferin' in this cursed feud."

"He'll be all right, Mother. You worry too much. Noah's a Raeburn, isn't he? And he's a far better shot than most of those godforsaken MacCades."

Rebecca grabbed Corbett's arm. "Go for the sheriff. Do you want to see bloodshed over a burned barn?"

Drum shouldered past. "They get away with it, Bee, they'll burn us out in our beds."

Welsh rode up leading his twin's gray gelding. "This is men's business," he said. "Leave it to us."

"Poppa!" Rebecca ran out into the yard. "Don't go, please."

"You see to your grandmother," he ordered.

Despite Rebecca's protests, the five mounted and rode out at a gallop amid the excited yapping of the dogs and the squawks of scattering chickens. Rebecca dashed into the barn, but she didn't heed Pilar's shouted demands that she return to the house. Instead, she hurried through the barn, mentally choosing and discarding mounts from those the men had left behind.

She found the horse she was looking for pacing restlessly in the back stall. "Echo," she called softly. The three-year-old, a spirited dun with four black stockings and a black stripe down her spine, was only green broke, but she was as fast as any horse on the place. If Echo didn't buck her off, she stood a chance of getting to MacCade's in time to prevent her hotheaded brothers from escalating mischief into a shooting war.

Seizing a bridle, she slipped it over the mare's head, threw a blanket and saddle on her back, and yanked the cinch tight Guessing that her grandmother and Pilar would be halfway to the barn to try to prevent her from following the men, Rebecca led the horse out a side door. She shoved her skirt and petticoats out of the way and thrust her foot into the stirrup.

Echo stiffened, put her weight on her hindquarters, and started to rear. "Easy, easy," Rebecca soothed, leaning forward. The mare straight-legged sideways, clamped the bit between her teeth, and ducked her head. Rebecca hauled back on the reins with firm hands. "None of that, now." She kneed the horse in the sides, and Echo broke into a trot.

"Get off that wild horse!" Pilar cried. "You come back here, Becca. Your grandmother says—"

"Don't worry," Rebecca shouted as she headed for the back gate. "I'm a woman, and I'm unarmed. No one will shoot at me."

When she reached the road, Rebecca was still in the saddle, and her father, uncle, and brothers were tiny figures silhouetted against the slope. She guided her skittish mount left, back toward the river. Her father and the others might have a head start, but she knew a shortcut through the woods.

She wrapped her fingers in the little dun's mane, crouched low over the animal's neck, and slapped the reins across the animal's rump. Wind streamed through Rebecca's hair as the fiery mare shot forward like an arrow from a bow.