Whip reached for another round of bacon and biscuits. As he did, he found himself wondering how chickens would survive in Echo Basin. A few eggs would have gone very well with the meal.
You’re dreaming, Whip told himself sardonically. Eggs are for people who are settled enough to raise chickens, like Willow, or those folks who are rich enough to buy eggs that are damn near worth their weight in gold.
Whip bit into a tender biscuit and sighed with pleasure. The biscuit was steamy, fragrant, and light as smoke.
«I always thought no one could match my sister Willow’s biscuits,» Whip said, reaching for more. «Looks like I was wrong. These biscuits are pure heaven.»
Shannon watched Whip’s big hands move from biscuit to bacon and back again. He handled the food deftly, which didn’t surprise her. He was a man of rare coordination. What did surprise her was the care he took with the food itself. His manners told her more than words just how much Whip appreciated the meal.
Seeing Whip enjoy the food she had prepared was an unexpected pleasure. It was as though a little bit of her was in each bite…part of her becoming part of him. Quietly Shannon watched Whip eat, her mouth slightly curved, her eyes gentle, liking the thought of it.
«You keep looking at me like that,» Whip said finally, «and I’m going to do something that will put Prettyface on the warpath.»
Belatedly, Shannon realized she was watching Whip far too warmly.
«I’m sorry,» she muttered. «I’m not used to company.»
Whip’s smile was as gentle as his eyes.
«Honey girl, I’m just teasing you. You can look at me all you like. My head might get too big for my hat, but I’ll just go without one. It would be worth it to see your beautiful eyes watching me and liking what they see.»
Shannon’s color heightened, but she didn’t look away for more than an instant before her glance was drawn back to Whip. His sun-colored hair caught light with each motion he made. Thick, fair, shiny, his hair made Shannon itch to sink her fingers into it. Only then would she find out if it felt as warm and silky as it looked.
Whip glanced up, wondering what had caught Shannon’s attention so much that she sat without moving. When he realized that he was the source of her fascination, his eyes narrowed and his pulse kicked hard. There was approval in Shannon’s eyes, and a sensual curiosity that aroused Whip as much as a hungry kiss would have.
Damnation. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her she could look at me all she likes.
Something is growing fast, and it’s not my hat size.
With an effort Whip forced himself to look anywhere but at the sapphire eyes that were watching him with luminous pleasure.
«How did you come to Echo Basin?» Whip asked.
For a moment the question didn’t register on Shannon. Then she blinked and looked down at her coffee cup.
«Silent John brought me here seven years ago.»
«You must have been a child.»
«I was husband-high and had no relatives who wanted me. Even before the war…» Shannon shrugged. «A lot of children were orphaned.»
«Eve, my brother’s wife, was like that. She came west on an orphan train and was bought by two old gamblers to make their lives easier.» Whip looked at Shannon. «Echo Basin must have been a harsh place for you.»
Surprise showed on Shannon’s face. She shook her head, making the mahogany lights in her hair gleam.
«It’s better than where I came from,» she said. «Here I’m beholden to no one for my bread and salt.»
Whip waited, but Shannon said nothing more on the subject of her past or Echo Basin.
«What about you, Whip? How did you end up here?»
He smiled slightly. That was a question few westerners dared to ask a man.
On the other hand, he had just asked her precisely that question.
«Turnabout is fair play, is that it?» Whip asked.
«Unless you mind?»
«Not as long as you’re the one doing the asking. I came to Echo Basin because I’d never been here before.»
Shannon frowned slightly. «You sound like there aren’t many places you haven’t been.»
«There aren’t. I’m a yondering man. I’ve been all over the world.»
«Truly?»
Whip smiled. «Truly.»
«Have you seen the pyramids of Egypt?»
«I saw them,» Whip said.
«What are they like?»
«Big. They rise out of the desert all pitted and racked by time. There’s a city nearby, a place where women go veiled from head to heels so that only their eyes show.»
Shannon made a surprised sound. «Just their eyes?»
Whip nodded. «You would be a sultan’s prize, honey girl. Eyes as blue as heaven itself.»
And a walk that’s hotter than hell, he added to himself.
But Whip wasn’t about to say it aloud. If Shannon knew just how much he wanted her, Whip doubted that she would be sitting so at ease across the small table from him.
«Paris,» Shannon said. «Have you seen it?»
«Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Shanghai…I’ve seen them, and more besides. Do you like cities?»
«I don’t know. I haven’t been in one for years and years.»
Shannon looked past Whip to the strips of light coming between the ill-fitting shutters.
«But I think,» she said slowly, «having that many people pressing close would wear on me.»
«Are you eager to find out?»
«No. I only asked about cities because the history books are always going on about Paris and London and Rome. They’re the only places I could think of. And China, of course.»
Whip’s eyes took on a faraway look.
«China is a special place,» he said quietly. «It had empires and art and philosophy long before Christ was born. The Chinese have a real different way of looking at life, from music to food to fighting.»
«Did you like it?»
«Like, love, hate…» He shrugged. «Those words have no real meaning when it comes to China.»
«I don’t understand.»
Whip lifted his cup of coffee, sipped, and tried to find words to explain to Shannon what he had never explained to himself.
«Once,» he said slowly, «I stood on the banks of a river at midnight and watched men fish with lanterns and black birds instead of hooks and nets.»
Shannon made a startled sound.
«Did it work?» she asked.
«Oh, yes. It had been working like that for thousands of years, golden lantern light swirling with each dive the birds made, the fluting whistles of the fishermen as they called to their birds, midnight and the ebony river flowing by…. It was like breathing time itself to be there. China is old, older than I had ever imagined anything could be.»
A shiver coursed through Shannon as she watched Whip’s eyes. They were hazed with memory and distance and a black river flowing.
It was like breathing time itself.
«Are there other places like this?» Shannon asked when she no longer could bear Whip’s silence and distance.
«Echo Basin?» he asked.
«The Colorado Territory.»
