At first the experience had left her feeling shy with Whip. The fact that he hadn’t spoken about it in any way since then, or even so much as touched her in passing, had only increased her shyness.

And her irritation.

She didn’t understand what had happened when Whip touched her so intimately. She only knew that she wanted it to happen again. Soon.

But obviously Whip didn’t feel the same way. He hadn’t touched her.

Maybe I should try touching him.

«Would you like me to wash your hair?» Shannon asked. «I know how awkward it is to do in a basin.»

The thought of how good her fingers would feel rubbing over his scalp made Whip’s body tighten despite the punishing hours of labor he had just finished. His own relentless sexual response to Shannon made his mouth flatten into a harsh line. He didn’t like wanting a woman to the point that his body wasn’t his own anymore, no matter how hard he worked to exhaust himself.

«No,» Whip said curtly. «I’ve managed my whole grown life without a handmaid. No point in taking up such foolishness now.»

«Well, do go and eat some wasps,» Shannon retorted. «It will make your tongue seem sweet by comparison.»

Whip grabbed the basin of hot water and stalked off toward a nearby grove of aspen trees, where there was an icy creek to use for rinsing off soap. Prettyface followed, leaping and prancing like a puppy. He loved playing tag with shots of water from Whip’s quick hands.

«That’s it, Prettyface,» Shannon called after them. «Desert me! Go follow the yondering man who smiles like a fallen angel and has a temper fully suited to hell!»

Both males ignored Shannon.

With a frustrated sound, she turned back to camp, looking for something to vent her irritability on. All that came to hand was the pickax leaning against the log next to her shotgun.

«I’m not mad enough to hammer stone…yet,» she muttered.

She tested the water in the bucket, which was hanging from a cast-iron tripod over the fire. The water was lukewarm. Barely.

«Go ahead, take all day to heat up,» Shannon muttered. «I’ve got nothing better to do than stand around sticking my finger in cold water.»

She hovered around the campfire, feeding fuel into it, testing the water, and wondering if fire burned colder in the high mountains. Surely it didn’t take this long to heat water at the cabin.

«I’ve got the hot spring at the cabin,» Shannon reminded herself. «It takes no time at all to get a bucket of hot water for washing clothes.»

Sighing, Shannon tested the water for the fifteenth time. It was passably warm.

«Finally. Now I can do the wash. Thunder and blazes, I can see why folks run around in dirty clothes a Comanchero would be ashamed to wear. Heating water for baths and such could make a body crazy.»

Just as Shannon bent to take the bucket from the tripod, Prettyface broke into a savage kind of barking that was more a snarling howl of rage than anything else.

A shot rang out.

Water sloshed as Shannon slammed the bucket handle back over the tripod and ran for the shotgun. The sound of another shot overwhelmed the dog’s furious sounds.

Whip’s shout came as Shannon broke into a run, heading for the aspen thicket. As she ran, she understood what her ears had been trying to tell her — the «shots» she was hearing were the sounds of a bullwhip at work, not a rifle.

The bullwhip cracked and then cracked again, splitting the air like lightning. Whip shouted something that Shannon couldn’t understand.

Then came a terrifying kind of chomping, snarling cough, as though the mountain was clearing its throat. Shannon had never heard the sound before, but Silent John had described it often enough.

Grizzly.

«Whip!» Shannon screamed, running harder than she ever had before in her life. «Oh, God, you don’t even have a gun!»

She leaped a fallen log, staggered for an instant on landing, then gathered herself and raced on, cocking the shotgun even as she ran.

Shannon saw the grizzly before she saw Whip. The bear was reared up on its hind legs, taller than Whip, wider, terrifying in its strength. The enraged bear was snapping its jaws together. Saliva showed stark white against the dark muzzle. The grizzly’s massive paws swatted at the bullwhip that cracked again and again around its head.

Naked to the waist, Whip stood with his back against a thicket of aspen that was too dense for him to penetrate. It wouldn’t have done any good even if he could have hidden among the trees — the grizzly would have broken through the aspens at a gallop.

Nor could Whip outrun the bear, even if the terrain had been flat and open. On level land, grizzlies were as fast as horses. On broken land, grizzlies were faster.

Prettyface leaped and snarled behind the bear, fangs slashing, seeking the grizzly’s hamstrings beneath the thick coat of fur. With horrifying speed the bear turned and slashed at the dog with claws longer than Shannon’s hand.

The bullwhip cracked and the grizzly straightened. It spun away from the dog and raged deep in its chest, jaws working as though crunching through bone. Blood glistened redly above the grizzly ’s right eye, proof that the bullwhip had reached flesh despite the protective fur.

But rather than driving the bear away, the slashing bullwhip seemed only to enrage the grizzly further.

It was obvious that sooner or later one of the bear’s massive paws would tangle with the long whip, ending its usefulness. Or the grizzly could simply charge the man like an enraged bull. Then the uneven fight would end very quickly.

Shannon ran harder, knowing she had to get in close enough to be certain of killing the bear. Silent John had warned her that a wounded grizzly was the most dangerous animal on earth.

As Whip’s arm moved, launching the lash like a bullet right at one of the bear’s eyes, he caught sight of Shannon running at the grizzly from the side.

«Get back!» he yelled.

If Shannon heard, she ignored him.

Whip worked the lash with startling speed, creating a high, ripping crackle that held the bear’s attention while Prettyface snapped at its heels.

Shannon kept running until the shotgun was almost touching the grizzly’s side. She triggered both barrels at a spot just under the bear’s left arm.

There was no time for Shannon to brace herself before she fired. The shotgun’s fierce recoil knocked her flat in an instant. The grizzly gave an outraged roar and swung a massive paw at the place where Shannon’s head had been only an instant before.

Deadly leather coils whistled and snapped tightly around the bear’s neck. Whip set his feet and jerked hard, making muscles stand rigidly all the way down his back. Grimly he dragged the choking, mortally wounded grizzly off balance, forcing it to fall away from Shannon’s motionless body. The bear hit the earth, bucked and roared savagely, and slashed out with claws at an enemy it could no longer see.

Abruptly the grizzly jerked and went still.

The grove became silent but for the ragged sawing of Whip’s breath and Prettyface’s snarls as he stalked stiff-legged toward the unmoving grizzly.

«Get back!» Whip ordered.

Prettyface froze.

A deceptively lazy movement of Whip’s wrist sent the tip of the lash flicking over the bear’s open eyes.

The grizzly neither flinched nor blinked. It was truly dead.

Whip ran to Shannon’s side and knelt in a rush. He let out a rough sound of relief when he saw that her eyes were open and she was breathing.

«Where do you hurt?» he demanded.

Numbly she shook her head.

«The hell you don’t hurt,» Whip muttered. «I saw that grizzly hit you.»

Whip’s hands hadn’t shook during the fight, but they were shaking now as he gently touched the back of Shannon’s head, searching for the wound he was sure she must have.