She swallowed, flushed scarlet, and said in a faint voice, «I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare at you.»
«You’re still staring.»
«Oh.» Guiltily, she closed her eyes.
Caleb took a step forward, bent, and kissed Willow’s cheek lightly. «Look all you like. I’m just teasing you. You’re so sweet to tease. Like licking honey.» He leaned over, scooped up his razor and his own blanket, and held out his free hand to her. «Come on. I promised to brush your hair dry.»
Her eyes opened. «And you always keep your promises, don’t you?»
«Always. Even the ones I don’t want to.» Caleb’s mouth flattened into a grim line. «Especially those.»
An eye for an eye.
«You don’t have to brush my hair if you don’t want to,» Willow said hesitantly. «I know it’s a lot of trouble getting all the tangles out.»
Caleb smiled and threaded his fingers more deeply between hers. «I love brushing your hair. It’s like brushing sunlight.» He saw her shiver and squeezed her hand. «Come on. It’s warmer in the meadow.»
Ishmael’s head came up the instant they stepped from the cover of the trees out onto the grass. The stallion watched for a few moments before he returned to eating.
«He’s wary for a horse that’s never run wild,» Caleb said.
«That wariness saved my life during the war. He’d smell the soldiers coming and set up a ruckus. Mama and I would run for the forest if she was well enough, or the cellar if she wasn’t.»
Caleb’s hand tightened. He brought Willow’s fingers to his mouth and stroked across them with his mustache.
«I don’t like thinking about you being in danger, being hurt, being scared, being hungry.» He hesitated, baffled by the fierce protectiveness he felt toward Willow. «It unsettles me.»
«Lots of women had a worse time of it than I did. I was lucky. The only soldier who ever found me looked the other way.»
«Maybe he had a sister.»
Something in Caleb’s voice reminded Willow that he, too, had a sister. «Maybe he did. Like you.»
«Rebecca is dead.»
Willow flinched at the barely repressed savagery she sensed beneath Caleb’s words. «I’m sorry.»
«She was seduced and then abandoned by a man. I went out looking for her lover to bring him back to marry her. She died of childbed fever. Her baby girl died a few hours later. I didn’t find out for a month.»
«Dear God,» Willow said. «I’m so sorry, Caleb.»
He looked down into her clear, compassionate eyes and wondered what she would say if he told her that the baby who had died was her niece.
«I swore to kill him,» Caleb said evenly. «When I find him, I will.»
Willow looked at the bleak expression in Caleb’s eyes and had no doubt that he would do just that. She remembered her first impression of Caleb. Dangerous. And her second. An implacable, dark angel of justice.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.
A chill moved over Willow’s skin, roughening it. There was an intensity and a power in Caleb that was almost frightening.
«You’re shivering,» Caleb said, frowning. He wrapped his blanket around Willow’s shoulders, led her across the meadow, and spread the cotton blanket she was carrying. «Lie down here. You’ll be warmer next to the grass where the breeze can’t get to you. I’ll get your brush and comb.»
Caleb left before Willow could tell him that she wasn’t cold, not in the way that he had meant. After a moment, she stretched out on her stomach on the blanket, trying not to think about the sister Caleb had lost and the man he had sworn to kill because of it.
Very soon, Willow realized Caleb had been right about getting warmer out of reach of the breeze. Before he had gone the hundred feet to camp, she pulled off the wool blanket and tossed it aside. The fine cotton and lace of her underwear dried quickly in the direct sun. Within minutes, heat infused her, making her feel languorous. She stretched luxuriantly, smiling at the sheer pleasure of being alive.
«You look like a kitten that’s just discovered cream,» Caleb said.
«That’s what I feel like,» Willow admitted.
She opened her eyes as Caleb knelt beside her. A single glance told her that he was still as naked as the sunlight, still powerful, still potent. When her eyes returned to his, the smile he gave her was both amused and rueful.
«You have a pronounced effect on me,» he said.
«I noticed.»
«Not frightened anymore?»
She shook her head.
«Embarrassed?»
«Well…» But she was unable to deny the blush that crept up her body.
Caleb laughed softly and brushed the back of his fingers over Willow’s flushed cheek. «You’ll get used to me, little one. Just like I’ve gotten used to being naked with you.»
She gave him a puzzled look.
«In some ways,» he admitted, «I’m as new to this kind of play as you are.»
Willow blinked. «You are?»
Caleb hesitated, wondering how to explain something he wasn’t sure he understood himself. He wanted Willow to know this was the first time he had found a woman whose sensuality increased and enhanced his own, each driving the other higher and then higher, teaching and learning with every touch, every cry, every kiss.
«None of the women I’ve known made me want to be buck naked with them in a sunny meadow,» Caleb said finally. «I doubt if any of them would have wanted to be naked with me. Not one of them could make me hard with a look, a word, a casual touch.» He made a baffled sound and added ruefully, «It’s damned unsettling, if you want the truth. You reach places inside me I didn’t know were there.»
«You do the same to me.»
Willow’s husky admission made Caleb want to ravish and cherish her at the same instant. The force of the conflicting urges held him motionless. Letting out his breath in a soundless curse, he picked up the wool blanket and began drying Willow’s hair, working quickly yet gently, touching her in the only way he would permit himself.
Soon Willow’s hair was lying in a rippling, shining fan over her shoulders. Long after the strands were dry, Caleb continued brushing, sifting through her hair, loving the feel of it caressing the sensitive skin between his fingers as he worked.
«You have the most beautiful hair,» Caleb said, finally setting aside the brush.
Willow sighed and stirred, sitting up with a fluid movement, her legs curled to one side. The wild electricity of her hair made it cling to her even as it divided over her breasts and fell to her hips. Caleb stroked a flyaway handful back from her face. She kissed the masculine fingers that were gently tangled in the golden strands.
«Thank you.» She smiled, remembering what he had once said. «In spite of your disdain at the idea, I think you would make a wonderful lady’s maid.»
Caleb’s smile flashed beneath his mustache. «Southern lady. My God, what a surprise you were,» he said huskily.
«Not southern,» Willow said. Then she looked down at the fine lace clinging to her body, clothing whose dampness emphasized rather than concealed her breasts, her waist, the shadowed secrets at the apex of her thighs. «And not a lady.»
«Hush,» Caleb said, putting his fingers across Willow’s mouth. «What happened wasn’t your doing. It was mine. But I can’t feel ashamed of what we did. It was too good for shame or regrets. Even if I could give you back your innocence, I wouldn’t. I’ve never been given a gift half so sweet. Don’t belittle yourself because of it.»
Willow’s smile was as beautiful and haunting as her eyes watching the man she loved, the man who had yet to talk of love to her. Yet Caleb was very gentle with her despite the harshness she knew he was capable of, a dark angel of justice, dangerous, deadly.
But not with her. Whether he ever spoke of love or not, he cherished her.
Willow kissed Caleb’s fingers and admitted to herself that he was right about what they had shared. She
