'Shannon—'
'Never mind. Forget it. Sometimes I forget consequences and…'
He took a long sip of coffee, watching her over the rim of his cup. 'Have you forgotten them this time?'
'What?' she murmured. It was her turn to be confused.
He stood and walked over to her. Malachi was irritated by the touch of malicious mischief in his own heart. He would set her to thinking and worrying for days, he thought.
But then he had spent these last hours in a type of hell, and he would surely spend all their moments together in torment from this day forth.
'Consequences. Procreation. Infants. Sweet little people growing inside a woman's body…'
Her eyes widened. She hadn't thought about it at all, he saw, and he was right—now she would worry for days.
He kissed her on the forehead. 'Good night.'
She was still standing there when he walked back to the fire.
'What do you think?' Shannon murmured. It was late the next afternoon, and they had spent the day riding westward, avoiding the major roads, and had slipped quietly through the countryside.
'I think it's Kansas,' Malachi replied flatly, turning toward her.
They sat on their horses looking down a cliff to a small, dusty town. On the distant rolling plains they could see farmhouses and ranches. Before them they could see a livery and a barbershop and a saloon. A sign stretching across the top of a long building advertised Mr. Haywood's Dry Goods and Mercantile, and next to it was a smaller sign, advertising Mrs. Haywood's Haywood Inn, Rooms to Let by the Day, Month, Year.
'Haywood, Kansas,' Shannon murmured. She could still feel Malachi looking at her, and she couldn't bring herself to look his way. She'd had trouble looking at him ever since…
She couldn't believe what she had done. She hadn't had a single drop of liquor inside her. She hadn't been dragged, forced or coerced. She had done it all of her own free will, and if it were possible to live a thousand years, she would never be able to forget it. Or Malachi…
She could not look at him anymore and not remember everything. When his eyes touched her now she started to tremble deep inside. When she watched his hands resting on the reins, she remembered them against her body. The low male tenor of his voice moved against her now as if it touched her every time, as if it stroked the length of her back, just brushing over her flesh. And too often, way too often, she would grow hot and shivery all at once, and at the very core of her, and she would be ashamed to remember the feeling of unbelievable ecstasy that had burst upon her at the end.
She had never denied him his appeal, even in her moments of most vehement hatred. Even as the war had waged on and on, even as he dismissed her again and again as a child. And now she knew even more about him that she could not deny. That he was wonderfully muscled and sleek and bronze. His back was riddled with scars, and she knew that they were the result of cavalry battles, that he had been nicked time and again, and that he fought on, because a man just didn't walk away from a war, or from his duty as he saw it
She knew that his chest was tufted with short red and gold hair, and that the hair narrowed enticingly at his hips, and that it flared out again to frame a demanding…masculinity.
He was an attractive man.
But she should have never been attracted, and each time she thought of her own behavior, it hurt. She knew that he thought that she had wanted to see him as a substitute for Robert. But he hadn't allowed it, and by then… she hadn't cared. She could make excuses. Maybe she had been striking out against the loss. Maybe she had just felt the need to be held.
No, the need to be loved.
But there really was no excuse. They hadn't even been friends. Passionate enemies, at best. What he must really be thinking of her, deep down inside, she couldn't even imagine…
And then she suddenly knew what her greatest fear was— that it had been a swift, casual fling for him, when for her it was a nightmare that changed her entire life and left her wondering if she had any morality whatsoever. And of all men to humiliate her so, it just had to be Malachi…
She had to be mature about it. She had to learn to forget it, and she had to learn to…quit worrying. Malachi had brought up a consequence that hadn't even passed through her mind. She'd never been that innocent, not on the ranch. She always knew what men and women did to create sons and daughters. It was just that she couldn't afford to think about it. She had to put it behind her now as well. Kristin was out there, somewhere. And Shannon did need Malachi's help. She didn't know the first thing about Kansas, or the awful man, Fitz. She needed Malachi.
'We need to go down,' he said slowly, reluctantly. 'We need to buy some food, if there's any to be had. And I'd give a hell of a lot to see a newspaper and try to find out what's been going on in the world.'
'I'll go—' Shannon began.
'Don't be a fool,' he told her impatiently. 'I can't let you go down alone.'
'I would be perfectly safe, and you wouldn't be.'
'No one is safe anywhere around here. It wasn't safe before the war, and it surely isn't safe now.'
'But I'm a Yank, remember?'
'Yeah, but they may not see it like that. To some, anyone from Missouri is a bushwhacker. Anyone at all.'
'So what do you suggest?'
He gazed at her, lifting a brow. 'Why, we pretend like hell, Miss McCahy, what else. We go in together—man and wife. Our place has been burned out. We're looking to keep on moving westward. Don't mess up, you hear?'
She eyed his hat pointedly. 'You're riding in with a lantern of truth atop your head, captain,' she said sweetly.
He swept the hat from his head and looked at it for a long moment, then dismounted and walked toward some bushes. He set the hat carefully in the midst of them.
'Is this a funeral?' Shannon asked sarcastically. 'Maybe we should run down and bring the preacher out to mutter a few last words.'
His face was savage when his eyes lit on hers. She swallowed, wishing that she hadn't spoken. He didn't reply. He walked around and mounted the bay again and reached out for her horse's reins, holding the horse there before him. 'Follow my lead, Shannon. I don't mind dyin' for Kristin, and I don't even mind dying for you—when it can't be helped. I will be bloody damned, though, if I'll die just because you can't keep a civil tongue in your body.'
His words fell into silence. Shannon stared at him without a word for what seemed like an endless time. She had only been teasing him. She hadn't realized how her words might wound, and she didn't know how to explain that or apologize.
'What about your saddle?' she asked him coldly. 'Are there any Confederate markings on it, or on any of the other trappings on your horse?'
'My saddle came off a dead Ohioan's plow horse,' he said. 'And the bridle is from your ranch. No markings at all.'
'Shall we go then?' she said tautly.
He released her horse's reins and they started down the slope. 'We're going to buy some supplies and get some information,' he told her. 'You keep careful.'
'Me?' she inquired sweetly. 'You should be grateful to have me along, Malachi Slater. They aren't going to take your Confederate currency here. I've got Yankee dollars.'
He turned to stare at her. 'You keep your Yankee dollars, Shannon.'
'Oh?'
'I've got gold, Miss McCahy. Last I heard, they're still taking that stuff everywhere. Come on now, I want you close.'
He continued down the slope. Their horses broke into smooth canters as they crossed the empty plain and entered the town by the single road that cut through the line of buildings. Malachi reined in, nodding to Shannon to do the same. They dismounted in front of the mercantile and tethered their horses on the wood rail that ran the
