Elizabeth Lowell - Only You

He spun toward Eve just as she mounted the lineback dun in a flurry of scarlet silk and rode across the meadow toward the people gathered around Reno.

Rafe and Wolfe looked up at her, saw the dress and the tightly drawn beauty of the girl with shining hair and golden eyes, and were too shocked to speak.

Jessi saw, too. Her eyes widened, but she said only, «Reno is much better. Steady pulse, good deep breaths. He’ll be coming around soon. I don’t think he’s badly injured at all. He’s strong as an ox.»

Eve’s smile was the saddest Jessi had ever seen.

«Yes,» Eve said softly. «He’s very strong.»

Caleb rode up, reined in beside Eve, and waited, saying nothing.

Jessi came to her feet and stood next to the girl who looked as though she had been pushed beyond her last reserves. Jessi knew what it was like to be pushed that hard by life.

«Caleb told me,» Jessi said in a low voice. «Reno didn’t know what he was saying. When he wakes up, he’ll call himself ten thousand kinds of fool.»

The compassion in Jessi’s blue eyes made Eve want to laugh and cry at the same time.

«You’re very kind,» Eve said huskily. «And very wrong. Reno knew exactly what he was saying. He’s said it often enough before.»

Jessi bit her lip and shook her head unhappily.

Eve continued speaking in an unnaturally calm voice.

«My half of the gold came to eight bars. I left two for you and Wolfe and two for Rafe. Caleb already has his.»

Wolfe and Rafe started to speak at the same time.

Eve ignored them. With breathtaking speed, she bent over and yanked Caleb’s belt knife from its sheath. The lethally sharp blade flashed, slicing through the tie that held Reno’s saddlebags to the saddle horn. They landed with a weighty thump a few feet from Reno’s legs.

«That gold belongs to Reno,» Eve said. «He can count on it.»

The lineback dun spun on its hocks and leaped forward as once again Eve left Reno behind in a drumroll of hoofbeats and a wild swirl of scarlet skirts.

Reno sat quietly in the shade of a fir tree, watching the meadow through narrowed eyes. For the first time in five days he wasn’t dizzy in the least. The ringing in his ears was gone, as was the nausea that had plagued him. Though his mouth was drawn in a flat line of pain, his headache had subsided until it was little more than a nuisance.

It wasn’t the headache that was hurting Reno. It was thinking about a girl who had loved her own comfort more than she had cared whether he lived or died.

Reno hadn’t seen Eve since he came out of the mine. When he had asked where Caleb was, Rafe told him that Caleb had taken Eve back to Canyon City. Reno hadn’t mentioned her name again. Neither had anyone else.

The sound of Wolfe laughing came back through the clean air, followed by the silvery music of Jessi’s laughter as her husband lifted her off the ground and spun her around and around. Finally he sank down with Jessi and disappeared in the meadow’s long, lush grass.

A bitterness that Reno refused to acknowledge as grief twisted through him, memories like razors slicing him, making him bleed in secret.

Once he had chased Eve through this meadow, caught her, and pulled her laughing down into the grass. Once, but no longer. Now even the memory of their shared passion was a pain he couldn’t face, so he shoved it down in his mind, condemning it to darkness.

Yet the pain remained, reflected in the new brackets on either side of his mouth.

Tried to cut a deal with Slater. Cut a deal with Slater. Cut a deal…

Slowly Reno became aware of his brother standing nearby, watching him with shrewd gray eyes, holding a pair of saddlebags over his arms.

«Sure is a wonder to hear Wolfe laughing,» Rafe said. «Makes a man feel good just watching them together.»

Reno grunted.

Rafe’s smile was a warning any man other than Reno would have heeded. Rafe had been waiting impatiently until concussion and physical pain no longer hazed his brother’s eyes. Rafe wanted to be certain that Reno would hear and understand each word with great clarity.

The waiting was finally over.

«How’s your head this morning?» Rafe asked blandly.

Reno shrugged.

«Glad you’re feeling better, baby brother,» Rafe said. «We were all real worried about you.»

The look Reno gave his older brother didn’t invite convesation. Rafe ignored it and kept talking.

«Yessir,» he drawled, «the story went through the countryside like wildfire. A gunfighter called Reno, a Spanish treasure map, and the girl from the Gold Dust Saloon.»

Reno’s eyelids flinched at the mention of Eve, but he made no other response.

If Rafe hadn’t been looking closely for a reaction, he would have missed it. But he missed nothing. His smile widened without becoming a bit warmer.

«I was in the Spanish Bottoms when I heard you were trapped in a blind canyon and were going to be cut to bloody rags by Slater and a passel of Comancheros,» Rafe said.

«They tried.»

«By the time I got there, nothing was left but coyote bait.»

Reno’s smile was a cold match for his brother’s. «It was a near thing.»

«That’s what Caleb said. He came up on me when I was reading sign after the fight, trying to figure out which way to go. That man’s like a ghost. Near scared me out of my boots.»

More laughter floated up from the meadow, a man and woman’s voices joined in celebration of the sheer joy of being alive.

Reno looked away from the sunlight and grass, trying to forget the time when he had laughed and breathed in the heady fragrance of lilacs from Eve’s hair, her skin, her breasts.

«Seems word had gotten to Cal through that Comanchero squaw one of his men keeps,» Rafe continued. «I’ll tell you, brother, that was one hair-raising trail you found out of the blind canyon.»

«It was better than what Slater had waiting for me.»

«Well, Cal and I decided on the sensible route. We took after Slater. He left a lot wider trail than you did.»

«I didn’t expect friends to be following me,» Reno said dryly.

«You left signs for me.»

«Just covering my bets.»

«Bets, huh?» Rafe said sardonically. «Appears you’ve turned into quite a gambler since Canyon City. Must have been Eve’s bad influence.»

Reno’s mouth thinned even more beneath the black stubble that covered his cheeks.

Rafe pretended not to notice his brother’s grim reaction each time Eve was mentioned.

«We hooked up with Wolfe and Jessi on the far side of that mesa you blazed a trail over,» Rafe continued. «One of Wolfe’s Indian friends had told him you were in too much trouble to shoot your way out of alone, so Wolfe and Jessi came on the run.»

Reno barely heard. He was too busy trying to shut out the sound of laughter coming from the meadow where Wolfe and Jessi enjoyed the sunlight and the day and each other.

The rippling music of feminine laughter haunted Reno, reminding him of everything he wanted to forget.

«…Caleb came on Slater’s guards just after they were changed,» Rafe said. «No sooner had he taken care of them than he heard someone go by. Turned out it was Eve, on her way to spy on Slater’s camp.»

Abruptly Reno started to get up.

Rafe uncoiled. A single swift motion of his foot brought his brother down. The blow was as unexpected as it was precise.

Reno looked at his brother in shock.

«Settle down, baby brother,» Rafe said flatly. «You’re not going anywhere until I’ve had my say. You want to fight about it, you go right ahead. I’ll beat you, and you know it.»

«You and those damned Chinese wrestling tricks,» Reno said angrily.

«I’ll teach you every one of them when you’re well. But right now you’re going to listen to me.»