Only 04 - Only Love

argue that. So think of this as Murphy’s apology for all the times he kept his dirty thumb on the scales when he was weighing your supplies.”
    With a hunger Shannon couldn’t entirely conceal, she looked at the sacks of beans and flour, bacon and dried apples, salt and spices, and otherthings she had gone so long without she could hardly remember their names.
    Abruptly Shannon looked away from the bounty that was being offered to her. Her throat worked as she swallowed, for just the thought of food was enough to make her mouth water.
    “I’ll take the baking soda and lard I paid for, and thank you for your trouble,” she said tightly. “You can take the rest back.”
    Just as Whip started to speak, lightning slashed through the condensing night. Thunder rumbled, closer now. The air itself tasted of sleet. The storm was closing in on Shannon’s clearing, bringing the icy rains of high-country summer.
    “If you think I’m going to ride all the way back to Holler Creek in this weather,” Whip said, “you’re crazy.”
    “Where you go is your business. What you take with you is mine.”
    For a long time there was no sound but that of the twilight storm, of wind rushing and trees bending, thunder growling, the muted drumroll of rain beating against the mountain with tiny silver hammers.
    “You need the food,” Whip said bluntly. “You’re too thin.”
    Shannon didn’t bother to deny it. She had lost so much weight during the past winter she could barely get Silent John’s cast-off clothes to stay on her. If it hadn’t been for the pronounced flare of her hips, Shannon would have found the pants around her knees every time she moved.
    But Whip doesn’t have the right to notice something that personal, much less to take it upon himself to feed me.
    Both Cherokee and Silent John had repeatedlywarned Shannon about the problems that would come if she allowed herself to get beholden to a man during Silent John’s frequent absences. Shannon couldn’t allow herself to owe a man anything. Even a man with a smile like a fallen angel.
    Perhaps especially not that man.
    When Whip saw the determined line of Shannon’s mouth, he knew before she spoke that she was going to refuse the supplies. That made him angry, but what really triggered his temper was the fact that he couldn’t force Shannon to take so much as a single bite of the food he had brought for her.
    He had no right to take care of Shannon. Only her husband had that privilege, and obviously the man was no damned good at it.
    “Think of it as a loan,” Whip said through clenched teeth.
    “No.”
    “Hell’s fire,” Whip snarled, “you’re so weak you can hardly hold that shotgun up!”
    “I’m not too weak to pull the trigger.”
    The sound Prettyface made then echoed Whip’s anger, a low rumbling like a storm coming.
    Whip got a grip on his temper. The last thing he wanted to do was fight Shannon’s dog. As a way to get into a girl’s good graces, thumping on her dog was a losing strategy.
    Besides, the damned beast was as big as a barn.
    Yet, even knowing that, Whip had to struggle with his desire to yank the shotgun out of Shannon’s hands, clout the dog a good one, and then sit Shannon down to a real meal.
    Realizing that his temper was at flash point shocked Whip. Normally he was the easygoing Moran and his brother Reno was the hardheaded one. But there was something about Shannon’ssheer stubbornness that put the spurs to Whip’s temper.
    “There’s no harm in accepting a hand now and again,” Whip said, forcing himself to speak gently.
    “Cherokee, the shaman, told me that men tame mustangs by offering them food when they’re hungry and water when they’re thirsty. Of course, the men run the mustangs nearly to death first, so they get plenty hungry and thirsty. Then the men offer the mustangs a hand—with a rope in it.”
    Humor briefly softened the planes of Whip’s face.
    “That’s one way to do it,” he agreed.
    But Wolfe Lonetree taught me a better way, Whip remembered. You stay on the edges of the mustang’s senses, not crowding, not rushing, until the wild thing gets used to having you around. Then you get closer and the mustang gets nervous and you stop until you teach it to accept you at that distance.
    And then you go closer and wait and go closer and wait and go closer until finally the sweet little beauty is eating right out of your hand.
    Of course, damned few mustangs are worth that much trouble.
    The