Страница 45 из 74
Willow’s honey-colored eyebrows rose. «How did you know?»
«Whip is good for two pans all by himself.»
«So is Caleb.»
Sha
«If we’re quick enough,» Willow said, her voice dry.
«I’ll stand over them with a loaded shotgun.»
«The men?»
«The biscuits. The men are big enough to look out for themselves.»
Laughing, Willow went to her son, whose cries were getting louder with each moment.
By the time everyone sat down to breakfast, Ethan had been fed, bathed, and dressed in clothes Willow had made for him. He sat next to Willow in a highchair that Caleb had carved from an old fir tree. Sha
The habits learned while tending to her stepcousins quickly came back to Sha
The kitchen was warm and rich with the scent of food. Small dishes of jam studded the wooden table like rubies. Whip had brought in bright yellow wildflowers and put them in a ca
«Sha
She started and looked at her plate. It was empty. Whip was patiently holding a basket of biscuits out to her.
«I was just trying to remember the last time I saw a matched set of dishes and flatware and napkins,» Sha
«Eat anyway. You’re too thin.»
«I’ve done nothing but eat ever since you showed up,» she muttered.
«Good thing, too. When I first saw you, you were ski
«How could you tell?» she challenged. «I was wearing a man’s jacket and trousers!»
«I could tell.»
The raking, sideways look Whip gave Sha
Caleb looked down at his plate, hiding his amusement. Clearly Whip had a powerful male interest in Sha
But they certainly didn’t lack the fire. The air fairly burned when Whip watched Sha
Whip had told Caleb that he believed Silent John was dead. Sha
Caleb hoped it wasn’t lack of proof of Silent John’s death that was keeping Whip and Sha
«Whip tells me you have a cabin up above Echo Basin,» Caleb said.
«Yes, on the north fork of Avalanche Creek,» Sha
«I remember chasing Reno through there a few years back,» Caleb said. «Pretty place, once you get used to the altitude.»
Sha
«Hard to grow much food up there,» Caleb said.
«It’s worse than hard,» she said. «Sometimes there are only six weeks from the last frost of spring to the first frost of winter.»
«It must be lonely for you, being the only woman,» Willow said.
Sha
«To be lonely,» Sha
«But you spend so much of your time alone,» Willow said.
«I have Prettyface.»
«Prettyface?» Willow asked.
«The biggest, meanest, ugliest quarter-breed wolf you’ve ever seen,» Whip said dryly. «He was still healing up from indigestion, so we left him with the shaman.»
Caleb snickered, for Whip had told him about the Culpeppers.
«Indigestion, huh?» Caleb asked mildly. «Is that what you call it?»
«Yeah,» Whip said. «The Culpepper he tried to eat would have gagged a skunk.»
«Honestly, Rafael,» Willow said. «How can you make a joke out of it? They had you at gunpoint!»
«Not when I jumped them. They were no more expecting my Chinese fighting tricks than they had expected the bullwhip.»
Sha
«All the same, big brother,» Willow muttered, «one of these days you’re going to bite off more than you can chew all by yourself.»
«He already did,» Sha
Caleb turned swiftly toward Sha
«What happened?» Caleb asked Sha
«Whip took on a grizzly with a bullwhip.»
Caleb turned on Whip. «A grizzly? Judas Priest! I thought you had better sense!»
«It wasn’t exactly my idea,» Whip said wryly. «I was having a bath quiet as you please, and then Prettyface went on the warpath and I turned around and there that damned bear was reared up on his hind legs. All I had was the bullwhip, so I used it.»
«You drove off a grizzly with a bullwhip?» Caleb asked, astonished.
«No. Sha
«My shotgun is cleaner than your bullwhip,» Sha
«— up against the grizzly’s heart and let him have it with both barrels,» Whip said, ignoring her interruption. «Killed him deader than a stone.»
Caleb looked back at Sha
«That took a lot of courage,» Caleb said.
«Courage?» Sha
«So you ran right up and blew that grizzly to kingdom come,» Caleb said, watching her with unblinking amber eyes.
Sha
«Are you going to yell at me too?» she asked.
Caleb smiled, making his black mustache shift and gleam in the lantern light.
It struck Sha
«Is that what Whip did?» Caleb asked. «Yell at you?»
«Yes.»
«No,» Whip said simultaneously. «I merely pointed out that Sha
Caleb snorted. «Did the grizzly know it?»
Whip shot his friend a hard look and then concentrated on demolishing the pile of biscuits on his plate. It still bothered him that Sha
Instead of thanking her, he had yelled at her. That bothered him, too.
No surprise there, Whip thought sardonically. Everything about that girl bothers me.