Betina Krahn.

Love's Brazen Fire.

For the Cohens in my life.

Ruth Cohen, my agent, whose insight and dedication are priceless gifts, and Carin Cohen, my editor, whose sensitivity and caring are without peer.

All my gratitude.

This work is a novel. Any resemblance to actual persons, organizations, or events is purely coincidental.

Chapter One.

October, 1794.

Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

"Come on, Whit... give it to me..."

There was only a hitch in Whitney Daniels's fluid stride as she moved along the well-disguised forest path. She was careful not to disturb the early fallen leaves with the toes of her boots, and she gently batted away overhanging branches so there would be no broken twigs to mark their passage through the woods. Continuing down the trail, she cast a quick glance from under the brim of her old felt hat at the muscular young man who strode beside her. Whitney had learned at her pa's knee how to tell when a man was serious about striking a bargain... and Charlie didn't show any of the usual signs.

"Well... whadda ye say, Whit?" Charlie Dunbar was watching her long, muscular legs work beneath the soft deerskin of her man's breeches, appreciating the exceptionally fine bit of joinery where those sleek limbs met her firm young buttocks. He was beginning to heat seriously in the warmth of the early afternoon sun and the fact irritated him, for Whitney Daniels didn't seem to be the slightest bit warmer than when they'd started out... in any sense of the term. He set his mind to thinking up something of equivalent worth.

"I'll... chop an' split a cord o' wood for the winter... off n our best stand of timber."

"No." Whitney responded casually, then stopped, searching the twiggy herbs on the forest floor. "Help me look for some teaberry, Charlie. I located some along the other trail two days past."

"Mebee a bolt of cloth... flowered... fer dresses? I brung some back wi' me fer ma and the girls when I come back from th' fort."

She responded with determined absence of attention, stooping to sift through the herbaceous growth at her feet, looking for the rounded leaves of the sweet, pungent herb she loved to chew.

"Did ye hear me, Whit?" Charlie squatted beside her on his heels and dipped his head to catch her gaze in his, but he couldn't hold it. Big golden-flecked green eyes, the color of the impending riot of autumn around them, swept over him in a conquering wave, then casually resumed their search for teaberry. "A whole bolt of flowered cloth... fer dresses," he prodded.

"I hate dresses, Charlie." She scowled at him and rose, adamantly concentrating on looking for her treat. Charlie rose beside her and stepped closer, blocking her line of sight. He was bigger than she'd remembered, and just now his plain homespun shirt was only half buttoned and his hairy chest was damp and glistening. The cumulative impact of his nearness and his strangely blatant heat and maleness confused Whitney. She whirled and struck off down the path again, shoving her hands into her breeches pockets and keeping an eye out for teaberry.

"You bucks have the best end of it when it comes to clothes, Charlie. Breeches and boots... you don't even have to wear a shirt when you're workin', if you don't want to. Dresses-" She shuddered for effect and, as Charlie caught up with her, she launched into a treatise on the bondage imposed by fashionable female dress: "They're intolerable. Why, do you have any idea of just what and how much gals have to put on and cinch up underneath one of those proper dresses? Why, it's purely stultifying... that's what it is. A body can scarcely manage to move in the wretched things. Bone corsets and corset covers and shifts and petticoats... yard after yard, layer after layer of heavy homespun-and starch! Ugh! Chafing and rubbing-" She realized Charlie had stopped again a few paces back and turned to see what had halted him.

He was staring at her with an odd expression on his face and a discomforting glint in his eyes that said he was well acquainted with what gals wore under their dresses... chafing and rubbing...

"Are you coming with me or are you just going to stand there all day?" She pivoted and strode off down the path with a new furrow in her smooth, clear brow.

Charlie watched the womanly sway of her ripe, nicely shaped buttocks and had to agree that it would be a shame to bury the sight of them beneath layers and layers of muslin and homespun. But on another level, it might be good to watch her in skirts... since he was already privy to the knowledge of just what curvy delights would be gliding and working beneath them.

The look in Charlie's eyes remained in Whitney's mind as she walked along, and it bothered her more the more she thought of it. He hadn't been acting the same since he came back to the valley a fortnight ago from his three years of soldiering at Fort Pitt. They'd been friends, rivals, companions before he went off to serve in the army. He'd adventured a bit, it was said... and likely that included a bit of adventuring in the ways of women. Such "adventuring" probably changed a body, she realized. Made them see things differently, made them want different things... Her nose curled up on one side at the thought.

"All right," Charlie's energetic stride soon caught up with her, "I just brought in a brood from one of the sows marked as mine. Might be at least six good shoats-"

"Got all the pigs we can use," Whitney said flatly.

"Whit-ney!" he groaned, pulling her back by the arm so that she faced him, and then he was surprised to see her heart-shaped face light up with a pure enchantment of a smile. It took a moment for him to realize that she wasn't looking at him, but past him.

"There it is!" She pulled her arm away, then climbed gingerly over several scraggly bushes to reach a small patch of the glossy, low-growing leaves. She pulled several and started to pop one into her mouth... then suddenly remembered the mission of this trek through the woods. She stared at the crisp, inviting coolness of the leaves in her hand. "Guess I'll have to wait till after the beer," she murmured, stuffing the leaves into her pocket. She smiled as she rejoined Charlie on the path, visually scouring the area around her, committing it to memory. "Help me remember this place, Charlie. That's the nicest patch of teaberry I've seen in a long time."

"Whit-"

But she was off again, and when he caught up with her and took her by the arm this time, it was only to be cautioned, "Shhhh! We're getting close and if you don't want your tail shot off, you'd best hush and let me give the signal."

While he decided how or even whether to protest, she led him on through the emerging colors of autumn in western Pennsylvania. The canopy of leaves was still thick above them, though now edged with gold and yellow and brown, and the shade-loving ferns and herbs were still abundant among the growing leaf litter on the forest floor. It was Indian summer; the sun was warm and the ground was still damp and fragrant from recent rains. But the cool kiss of the breeze and the musk of new-fallen leaves bespoke the coming end of another cycle of life and preparation for the oncoming bleakness of winter.

They were soon scrambling down an incline that dropped gently toward a deepening ravine. He tried to help her down the last rugged step or two but she wrested away as if she didn't want the help... or didn't like the feel of his hands on her. He frowned determinedly, then followed her farther down into the winding, rock-littered depression.

They climbed over and around weathered boulders and past fresh, jagged, shelflike outcroppings of sandstone that had been exposed by the elements, and they began to descend toward the mouth of the ravine. It was a purposefully torturous path, chosen to dissuade unwelcome visitors to the secluded clearing where Whitney's pa, Blackstone Daniels, had secreted his great copper-pot still.

Whitney's pa, like most of the folk in the valley, farmed corn and rye and miscellaneous barley. But if asked to identify his trade, he would identify himself with the activity which gave him the most pride and earned him the most gain: distilling.

The folk who farmed the bottomlands of the rugged western part of Pennsylvania faced all the hardships common to farmers everywhere; drought, pestilence, spoilage, floods, and disease. But they faced one additional hardship not shared by their counterparts along the eastern coast... isolation. Even if they withstood the capricious elements of nature to wrest good crops from that stubborn earth, there was still the overwhelming problem of how to transport those crops to markets in the east. The cost of driving grain wagons over the intervening hills and the labor involved in such an undertaking was staggering. So, with the ingenuity born of necessity, and characteristic of the proud Scotch-Irish who had settled the region, the farmers had learned to convert their surplus grains into a far more lucrative and more portable commodity... whiskey.

Of all the small distillers in Westmoreland County, Blackstone Daniels was the acknowledged best. He had both the senses and the soul for brewing and distilling fine Irish-style whiskey. It was a pure gift, some folks said. For miles around, they brought him their precious surplus grain for making into his marvelously refined brew, and just now, with harvest nearly complete, Black Daniels's still was in full production.

Whitney stopped near the mouth of the ravine, silently waving Charlie to a halt behind her. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she made a very convincing imitation of a whippoorwill, then poised, tensed with expectation, until she heard it returned. Her shoulders eased and she flashed a quick grin at Charlie as she proceeded with a good bit less stealth.

The clearing was actually the broadened end of the ravine, sheltered on two sides by sheer sandstone cliffs that were topped by thick brush and trees. On the floor of the clearing were a hastily erected lean-to, a stack of empty casks, a mound of bags of surplus grains, and a makeshift stone hearth bearing a great contraption that resembled two pudgy copper kettles, stacked one on top of the other. From the top of the fused and enclosed kettles came a pipelike copper spout with several odd turns and kinks in it. The contraption was Black Daniels's pride and joy.

"Uncle Julius, Uncle Ballard!" Whitney called in greeting as she reached the edge of the clearing. She grinned at the two grizzled old men who were tending her pa's "makin's" in his absence.

"Thar ye be! Stay right thar, gal." White-hairedUncle Julius jabbed a weathered finger at her and hitched up from his seat on an overturned keg. They'd obviously been waiting for her. Both the stooped-shouldered Julius and wiry, bristled Uncle Ballard hurried over to a huge oak barrel and lifted its wooden lid, fanning the contents with it to send an unseen vapor toward Whitney. It was a ritual they'd enacted too many times to even count. Charlie Dunbar, Uncle Julius, and Uncle Ballard all watched intently as Whitney braced and closed her eyes, breathing deeply several times to analyze the pungent smell. It filled her head, her lungs, and seeped into her blood. And at every point of contact it was judged against years of experience with the rash, potent bouquet of newly fermented grain.

She shivered visibly as an expression of pleasure was born on her heart-shaped face. Her green eyes opened and her full, gently curved lips turned up at the corners with the same slow-spreading delight.

"It's good," she pronounced a partial verdict. "But I'll have to taste it to know just how good."

"Yer pa alwus knows jus' from the smell... from twenty paces out," Julius chided with a twinkle in his aged eye and beckoned her forward. "When'll he be back? Ye heared anythin' about the meetin's?"

"Nothing yet. I don't expect him back for another week or two," Whitney strolled forward and beckoned Charlie along with her. "You're stuck with me, Uncle Julius. And I always taste first."

That she did. They had expected she would. Through the years the two old uncles had helped Black Daniels with his still; they knew his routines, his habits, and his superstitions about brewing and distilling. And through the years, they had watched Black Daniels's little daughter; the way she trailed Black like a worshipful shadow, the way she absorbed his speech and manner and knowledge like thirsty ground. Black had proudly tutored her quick reason and acute senses, and wryly indulged her quixotic spirit. Now, in Black's absence, they'd sent for Whitney Daniels's to come and judge the brew. For they knew that Whitney Daniels had inherited her father's gifts... every one of them.

Julius squinted and began casting around him for the long handled copper dipper that was used for tasting. "Whar be that dipper, Ballard? Ye had it jus' this mornin'..."

Uncle Ballard looked confused, scratched his head, and, as Julius grumbled and searched, he began to cast around himself. He ambled around kegs and the cold remains of their breakfast fire, and finally into the lean-to, where he spotted it in the water bucket and hauled it up with a flourish.

Whitney took the dipper solemnly, wiped the water from it on her homespun sleeve, and proceeded to plunge it with great ceremony down into the barrel of "distiller's beer." One slow swirl beneath the pungent, foamy mass that floated at the top of the barrel, and she raised the dipper to her nose, inhaling the tangy, fermented aroma. Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she skimmed the remains of the foam from the liquid with the side of her hand, just as Black Daniels had taught her. While the others watched and searched the nuances of her expression, she lifted the brew and took a goodly sip, wallowing it about in her mouth for what seemed a short eternity.

Then she turned and spat, inhaling through pursed lips, judging every minute part of every sensation. Tingling occurred on the edges of her tongue, and little tendrils of warmth radiated through her cheeks and palate. There was a jagged almost-sweetness in her mouth and a clear-vapored redolence filled her head and lungs. It was wonderful!

"Pure ambrosia," she announced her judgment, her clear, fine-featured face breaking into a smile of distilled joy. Uncle Julius and Uncle Ballard weren't exactly sure what "ambrosia" was, but Black Daniels sometimes talked that way and they could tell from the pleasure in Whit's face that it was good. They whooped that they'd known all along it was a great batch of brew, and they danced around, clasping both Whitney and each other in great, bearlike hugs of glee.

Immediately, they set about skimming and transferring the precious "beer" into the bottom half of the still. Charlie proved valuable in the hefting and pouring, and Uncle Ballard set about laying his special even-burning fire under the great pot. While Julius and Ballard positioned and sealed the copper still, Charlie split an extra bit of wood for the fire and Whitney restacked it near the makeshift hearth.

Uncle Julius watched Whitney's lithe young body as she moved about the clearing, stooping, lifting, and stacking. It took her long enough, the old man mused, but she'd filled out right womanly in the last two years; straight, broad shoulders, a small waist, and a nicely rounded bottom. And precious little of her womanliness was disguised by the soft deerskin breeches, heavy belt, and loose homespun shirts she always wore. Just now, she straightened and arched over her hands at the small of her back, she unwittingly thrust full, hard-tipped breasts against her plain shirt so that they were clearly outlined. Uncle Julius sighed at this reminder of the passage of time and looked away... just in time to catch sight of a sweaty Charlie Dunbar, leaning on his axe handle, taking in the same sight. Uncle Julius scowled deeply, reading the lay of the young buck's interest in the reddening of his face.

They all stood together, some time later, watching for the first drops of the clear, potent whiskey to issue from the end of the pipe. It was a proud and solemn moment that prompted Uncle Julius to whisper reverently: "If n only old Black wus here..."

"No, Pa's where he needs must be, Uncle Julius," Whitney spoke resolutely and crossed her arms over her chest. "If he can just keep a proper rein on his temper... he's got to speak for us distillers, to help Mr. Gallatin make those federals see how unjust their cursed taxes on stills and spirits are. He has to show them we won't be bullied and coerced into handin' over our precious freedoms. Maybe those fat congressmen have forgotten how dearly they were bought, but we haven't... and I'll wager General George hasn't forgotten, either. He'll listen. Pa fought long and hard for those freedoms; took two British balls himself, back in the War of Independence. He's already paid for our freedom with his very blood and he shouldn't have to pay for that war a second time by surrendering up his livelihood to satisfy those federals' piles of debts. It's not right." Her voice dropped to a husky pulse of determination. "And by the raging Sons of Thunder, we won't stand for it."

"Naw sir... we won't." Uncle Julius lifted his shrunken chin, stirred to pure patriotic fervor by Whitney's impassioned speech.

The sentiments were familiar, coming on the lips of a Daniels, and were almost universally shared in the western counties of Pennsylvania. The new federal government of the United States had lurched from crisis to crisis, beleaguered by power-hungry internal factions and beset by nagging debts carried over from the War of Independence. The brilliant and aristocratic Alexander Hamilton proposed a solution that had been used by rulers since ancient times: tax that which folk loved best, yet could subsist without... spirits. The harassed Congress passed what became known as "The Act," levying a substantial tax on both distilled liquors and the stills that produced them. And the tax was payable only in cash money; something which hardly existed in the rugged hill country of western Pennsylvania, where whiskey itself had become the preferred currency.

The sturdy Scotch-Irish farmers found the meager profits from their whiskey now claimed in entirety by the hungry federal excise tax collectors. They who had fought with such distinction and bravery in the war for independence, now found the personal and economic freedoms they had fought for annulled by the stroke of a bureaucrat's quill. It was an-outrage. And they had pledged to resist that unholy tax just as they had pledged to uphold their fledgling country... with everything in them.

Resistance to the tax had been passive, almost playful, at first; hiding stills, confusing and outwitting the collectors of revenue who came into the remote valleys to establish excise offices. But the collectors learned, and with each humiliation became more determined to succeed in their commissions. Resistance hardened and deepened as each successive meeting with government officials offered hope, only to have it crushed in the next wave of political maneuverings in Philadelphia. In raw frustration, the farmer-distillers had finally taken up arms and were now poised on the edge of a full, armed rebellion. President George Washington himself was rumored to be on his way, with federalized state militia, to quell the resistance.

With the weight of such an uncertain future on their minds, Whitney and the old uncles and Charlie Dunbar watched and collected those precious first few drops of new whiskey. Whitney sampled them and declared they'd be as fine as any to come out of the Daniels still, given a bit of mellowing "barrel time." Then, using a recipe that was locked deep in her very senses of smell and tastes, she evaluated the grains from the burlap bags stowed around the camp, tasted the clear water from the nearby spring, and helped Julius and Ballard set a new batch of mash to fermenting.

Carrying water, splitting wood, tasting and mixing grain; the afternoon slipped by quickly. She located the lowering sun through the gold and russet leaves, gave each of the old uncles a brief hug, then struck off for home with Charlie Dunbar trailing behind.

Uncle Julius andUncle Ballard stood in the descending quiet, watching Whitney and Charlie as they picked their way up the rocky ravine. The casual tightening of Whitney's breeches across her lush young bottom as she climbed around the boulders drew Uncle Julius's eye again. He crossed his bony arms over his chest and scratched his salt and pepper whiskers.

"Black oughten'ta let that gal strut about like that... in them breeches no less," he declared. "She be filled out right womanly, now. Just ain't fittin'."

Uncle Ballard cast a consternated look at his brother, then at Whitney's nubile form. His age-grayed eyes widened. Nodding vigorously, he echoed, "Ain't fittin'."

As soon as they were on level ground and striding along the unmarked path once more, Whitney recalled her teaberry and fished in her pocket to produce one of the fragrant leaves and pop it into her mouth. Charlie saw the little shiver of pleasure that coursed through her as she chewed, and took a deep breath to renew his attempt at bargaining. The heat of his exertions in the long afternoon had baked his resolve like a brick in an oven. "Well, whadda ye say, Whit?"

Whitney walked on a few paces then, realizing he'd stopped, turned to face him with her hands on her waist and an impatient look. But the determined set of his husky shoulders and very square jaw surprised her and she looked immediately to his familiar brown eyes. And there it was; that acquisitive glint, that light of yearning in his eyes, which was the unmistakable first sign of a dead-earnest bit of bargaining. She felt his eyes slide meaningfully from hers, and stiffened at their blatant downward path.

"Don't be ridiculous, Charlie." She turned and shoved her hands into her pockets as she walked, feeling oddly conspicuous beneath the front of her plain homespun shirt. She thought of where Charlie's gaze had just drifted and rounded her shoulders a bit.

"What'll ye take, Whit?" he demanded as he caught up with her again. His breath came faster, and there was an edge of determination to his voice that skewered Whitney's attention. It was the second sign. In striking a proper bargain, a fellow always tried to get the owner to state what he thought his goods or services were worth. Whitney swallowed uneasily. She'd thought he wasn't serious, had taken his wheedling and bargaining as a variation on the old taunts and the games they used to play. But that look and that question said he was getting serious now and she didn't like it. Not one bit.

"Don't need a thing, Charlie... don't want a thing, either." She lifted her chin and busied herself with batting away small branches and stepping over fallen trunks and snags.

"Well, if n ye were dealin'... would it be a whole winter's wood... or my next foal, or what?" he persisted, following her as she deliberately abandoned the easy, leaf-littered ground to climb onto a low sandstone ledge and walk along the rocks.

"I'm not dealin', Charlie, and there's no good in discussing it further." She was scowling now, wishing with all her heart that she hadn't let Charlie talk her into coming along today. He surged past her on top of that jutting rill and as the narrow ledge came to an end, jumped down onto the soft leaf bed and turned to her with his arms raised.

"Come on, Whit."

She couldn't tell exactly what he was urging her to do; to accept his help getting down from the ledge or to accept one of his several offers. When she hesitated, he grabbed her by the waist and his heavily muscled arms flexed and lowered her easily to the ground beside him. Then his brawny hands refused to leave her waist and drew her stiff body close to his as he searched her flushed face beneath the rim of her hat.

"I jus' ain't found the right trade yet, have I?" he insisted, looming big and hard and heated against her.

"Don't be... absurd," she grasped his wrists and succeeded in pushing them away as she jerked back. It was downright disconcerting, the way her heart was beginning to thud lower in her chest, setting her stomach aflutter. "I'm not dealing and I don't want to talk about it anymore. What's gotten into you, Charlie? We used to be friends, good friends. We used to hunt and fish and wrestle... like... you recall that time on Little Bear Creek, when we decided it was time for Hal Dobson to learn to swim?" Her face lit with a mischievous grin. "Lord! Recall how I swam out into the deepest spot in the pool-"

"I don't want to recollect, Whitney Daniels," he interrupted stubbornly, setting his square fists at his waist and staring at her with that discomforting determination in his gaze. She knew that look. He was going mulish on her. "That was then... this be now. And there ain't nothin' on God's green earth that don't have its price."

Whitney felt his assertion like a slap of cold water and drew back her chin. The alarm that Charlie's single-minded heat had failed to produce in her was now generated by his reversion to that primal and inescapable philosophy. Everything had its price. The Good Lord knew that was the truth. It was the code she and her people lived by in their cashless society. There wasn't anything a body wouldn't surrender up if the trade was right. She turned and struck off down the path, feeling roundly irritated that he'd throw her own ethic in her teeth to serve his ends. She'd probably underestimated him... and that irritated her too.

"I swear, that army put some queer notions in your head," she growled, feeling a bit relieved as he fell into step beside her. But a minute later her anxiety was booted again.

"It ain't like ye can keep it forever," he proclaimed, watching the hint of a jiggle beneath her shirt as she stalked along, and feeling his temperature rising. "Sooner or later somebody'll get it. Might as well be me."

"No." Her volume rose slightly, keeping pace with her heart.

"Dammit!" he jerked her back by the arm. "Just what makes your blessed virtue so almighty precious? Half the gals in the valley been flickin' their skirts at me since I got back." He straightened, goaded by the heat of his own complaints, and released her arm with a show of disdain. "You ain't nothin' special, Whitney Daniels."

Whitney stopped, stock still, to stare at him. That was the third sign of dead-to-rights bargaining. A fellow always pointed up the flaws, the undesirable characteristics of the thing he wanted, angling to keep the cost down by belying his own interest in it. But just now she was relieved to recognize it, for that particular bargaining tactic gave her the logical edge she needed.

"Exactly! I hate dresses, I ride wrong, and I drink in Harvey Dedham's tavern every chance I get. I'm not the least bit womanly, Charlie Dunbar. You can have near any gal in the valley. What in Holy Heaven would you want to bed me for?!" She turned her head and blew the chewed teaberry leaf from her mouth for a masculine bit of emphasis as she finished. Her green eyes were blazing with flecks of golden fire and her chest was heaving, bringing the hard tips of her breasts against her shirt in a tantalizing rhythm.

It struck Charlie, for the first time, that she really meant it. She honestly didn't understand what about her had changed... and caused such a change in the way he treated her.

"God, Whit, it ain't got nothin' to do with ridin' nor drinkin' nor wearin' dresses. Don' ye know that? Ye went and filled out proper whilst I was gone... uppers and lowers." He swept the air with his hand to indicate her body, and suffered another excruciating wave of heat all through him. He clenched his jaw as he mastered it. "Ye got smooth skin and a purty face-I swear Whit, I'll make it fine for ye. I'm good at it. All the gals 'round Fort Pitt say so..." He made to put his hands on her shoulders and she lurched back, her eyes spitting sparks.

"No." She breathed it through clenched jaws and stomped off down the trail, trying to swallow the confusion that had settled in her throat like a great lump.

"Lord, Whit-I want to be the one-th' first-" he jolted into motion after her. "I'll teach you how it's done... real slow and easy. God, Whit it feels so good... and with you..." he groaned in frustration.

"Don' ye want to know what it feels like?"

"No!" she rasped, trying to keep a quick, even pace as she began to calculate just how much farther they had to go to reach the main wagon road that followed the river. But the prime fruit of her calculation was anxiety, for the road was still some distance away, over two rock-strewn ridges. And Charlie was building fast toward the fourth and final stage of negotiations... offer and counteroffer. She honestly didn't want his bargain, no matter what he offered, and she could tell by the ruddy glow on his face and half-bare chest that he was determined to strike a deal here and now. Joseph's Coat! Why hadn't she seen this coming?!

"I ain't a skinflinty man, Whit." The sight of her sleek legs working and her full young breasts heaving had inspired Charlie to take an entirely new tack with his persuasions. "I'll e'en give yea taste of it to help ye make up yer mind-" And before she knew what was happening, he pulled her back and into his arms, clamping her fast against his taut body.

"Charl-" she gasped indignantly, just as his mouth came down on hers. His lips were as hard as the rest of him at first, but, amazingly, they seemed to soften as she stilled. He dragged his lips over hers, turning and pressing and mashing them around, as though he hadn't quite found the right spot, somehow. Then came the crowning indignity... his tongue thrusting, seeking entrance through her clamped lips. Her eyes widened... she knew what this was... she'd heard the young bucks' low, desultory laughter about which gals had allowed them to "do the French" with them. That was back in the days when they still welcomed her into their midst as an equal...

"No!" she exploded in his arms, shoving back with enough force to surprise and break his hold on her. She jolted away, trying to swallow, trying valiantly to muster that famed Daniels gift for talking her way into, or out of, most anything. It seemed to have totally deserted her.

"Come on, Whit... Whitney," Charlie's chest was heaving just like hers. "You liked it... say you did."

"I did not," she squeaked, humiliated by her constricting throat and cracking voice. "It was like kissing... Uncle Ballard!" she insisted. It was true; she felt the same uneasiness, the same roiling, stomach-turning sense of wrong she imagined would accompany such a kiss from one of the old uncles-or from her own brother -if she'd had one.

In the instant it took Charlie to digest that little morsel, she turned on her boot heel and made straight for the crest of the first ridge, at a very fast clip. She heard him tromping up behind her and braced for another round.

"My stallion, Bearcat, he's yours. You always wanted him."

"Keep him!" she panted furiously, just managing a glance at his flinty jaw and ruddy face. His fists were balled at his sides and a distended vein was now visible in his temple. She recognized that vein... it boded ill.