stripping to his underwear.
What underwear? I washed it all and spread it out in the meadow.
The thought of encountering Caleb naked among the horses was both daunting and…exciting.
Willow’s damp hair felt cool on her flushed cheeks as she walked out into the meadow, taking care to stay in plain sight. The horses’ heads came up as they spotted her. Ishmael nickered, catching the familiar scent of lavender on the breeze.
Caleb gave the stallion’s back another stroke of the brush before he bent down and retrieved the blanket he had thrown off as soon as Willow had vanished into the forest that fringed the meadow. He wrapped the blanket around his hips and went back to grooming the stallion. It wasn’t Caleb’s modesty he was interested in preserving, it was Willow’s. She had blushed like a virgin at the sight of his naked chest. She would go scarlet to her heels if she saw the rest of him bare.
«Your turn for a bath,» Willow said as she walked up to Caleb.
He nodded, but didn’t stop grooming Ishmael.
Willow tried not to admire Caleb’s powerful shoulders, long arms, and the tapering of his body into narrow hips. As he brushed the red stallion, she also tried not to stare at the supple flex and play of skin and muscle, and the wedge of chest hair that tapered down to a finger’s width at his flat navel, then flared once more where the blanket rode low on his hips.
She tried not to stare, but she didn’t succeed. When she realized that he was watching her watching him, she looked away hastily.
«I don’t mind,» Caleb said.
«What?»
«I don’t mind having you look at me.»
As Caleb spoke, he realized it was the simple truth. He never would have guessed how satisfying it could be to have a woman look at him shyly with admiration and sensual hunger in her eyes. Perhaps it was because the few women he had known were older widows to whom a man’s body was nothing remarkable. They had enjoyed his strength around the house and praised his self-control in bed, but they had never looked at him the way Willow was looking, as though the sun rose and set in his eyes and the moon lay cupped in his hands.
«In fact,» Caleb said, «I like having you look at me. It makes me feel like a special kind of man.»
«You are,» Willow said simply.
His crooked smile flashed briefly as he shook his head. «I’m just a man, honey. Smarter than some, dumber than others, and harder than most.»
«I think you’re special,» she whispered.
Caleb heard the soft words. His hand ceased making slow, sweeping strokes over Ishmael’s back. «You’re the special one, Willow.» Before she could speak, he slapped the stallion’s rump. «Go back to eating, horse. A bit of fat wouldn’t do you any harm.»
Ishmael trotted off to count his mares and remind them of his muscular presence. Watching, Caleb said quietly, «You better keep track of them, son. They’re as spirited as they are graceful. Tough, too. I don’t know of any flatland horses that could have stood up to what those mares did.»
«They were bred for stamina, loyalty, and courage,» Willow said.
«How did the Arabs manage that?»
«With rather brutal pragmatism,» she answered, watching her mares ignore the strutting stallion. «For century after century, the sheiks rounded up all the brood mares and drove them out into the desert without water. They kept going until the mares were mad with thirst, then they were driven toward an oasis.»
Caleb looked from Ishmael to Willow, caught by the husky intensity of her voice as she spoke of the horses she loved.
«When the mares scented water, they began to run,» Willow said. «When they were within a hundred yards of water, the battle horns were blown. Only the mares that turned away from water and ran back to their masters were bred.»
Caleb looked back at the Arabians for a long moment, measuring the results of the sheiks’ harsh method of determining which mares were worthy of breeding. The test might have been brutal, but the results were extraordinary. Even worn to the point of gauntness by hundreds of miles of hard trail, the mares were still elegant, still alert, still responsive. If Willow saddled one of the mares and pointed it back toward the pass, the mare would go until she dropped.
The Arabians were like their mistress in that. No give up in them. Caleb liked that in a horse. He respected it in a man. He valued it in a woman above all else.
«Maybe the sheiks had the right idea,» he said.
«Hard on the mares,» Willow said dryly.
Caleb smiled and changed the subject. «You ever shave a man?»
«Lot of times.»
«Good. Bring my razor to the pool in about ten minutes,» he said. Abruptly, Caleb turned away, wondering why it irritated him that Willow had shaved men before when it worked to his convenience now. «I put a real edge on the blade, so be careful of your fingers.»
«And your face?» she suggested innocently.
Caleb smiled in spite of his irritation. He looked back over his shoulder at the girl standing in the meadow wearing little more than long hair and a thin cotton blanket.
«If you don’t cut me,» he said, «I’ll brush your hair dry for you.»
Before Willow could answer, Caleb turned again, walking swiftly toward the trees. She stared at his retreating back, her thoughts scattering at the idea of shaving a naked man in a warm pool.
That wasn’t what hemeant, Willowassuredherself. Wasit?
She went toward camp, stopping long enough to turn over the clothes that were drying in the meadow. She had to shoo Trey away from her Levis — the tall gelding apparently was intrigued by the scent of freshly washed clothes. Willow felt the same way herself. Whether denim or wool or flannel, the cloth smelled of sunshine and meadow and a hint of lavender. She inhaled deeply, loving the mixture of fragrances.
By the time Willow got to camp, found the folding razor, and crossed the meadow again, more than ten minutes had passed. She hurried barefoot through the forest, watching for stones beneath the thick carpet of pine needles. When she saw the pool glimmering through the trees, she stopped.
Caleb was still in the water.
«Caleb?» she called. «Are you ready?»
«Sure. Come to the far side of the pool.»
With slowing steps, Willow approached the pool. Caleb was sitting at the opposite side of the pool, where a ledge formed an uneven kind of bench. Just behind him, the runoff from the hidden hot spring cascaded into the pool, sending water seething and swirling up to his breastbone.
«Don’t you want to get out?» she asked.
«I wouldn’t mind, but you would probably blush to your heels,» Caleb said calmly.
«Oh.» Willow’s breath caught. «Should I go away until you can put the blanket back on?» she asked quickly.
«Don’t bother. The water covers more of me than the blanket did.»
Willow tried to speak but her voice had dried up. She took a slow breath. «Caleb?»
«Hmm?»
«I’ve never been around a…» Her voice died as she remembered she was supposed to be a married woman. If she told Caleb she had never been close to a naked man, he would wonder what kind of a marriage she had. «That is, it’s been a long time since I…»
«Shaved a man?» Caleb finished for her. «Don’t worry, honey. I’ll hold real still.»
Uncertainly, Willow stood at the edge of the pool and nibbled on her lower lip. Caleb waited, seeing her ambivalence in the way she held her body. She was poised to flee, yet she was watching him with an expression close to yearning.
Wary little trout. She senses me coming closer and closer and knows she should swim away. But she likes the feel of my hands on her body too well.
God, so do I.
