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It’s that people would
think
it had.”
    He turned and stalked toward his horse.
    Shannon watched him go, wondering just what a woman was to do in such a situation. She couldn’t quite wish he’d never come along. “We’ll have to use the caves for sleeping.” She looked up the wall. The lowest one was a ways up. Horrible, dark, nasty place. With a shiver of dread, she tore her eyes away from a hole in the rock that was now deeply shaded as the sun went lower. She felt her throat swelling shut with terror at the thought of poor Gabe having to sleep in that cave.
    “All right, if that satisfies your fears about what people would say.” Gabe pulled the leather off his horse and began unpacking his saddlebags. “Or I’ll ride off a piece so everything is good and proper. I don’t want you to be shamed by my presence.”
    Shannon almost started crying at the thought of his riding off.
    He crouched down and began snapping a mesquite bush into kindling. He wheeled on the toes of his boots and glared at her. “But if it’s improper to be out here, because of what people will say, then when we ride into town together, the same people who are
not
here to see the truth are going to look at us and believe whatever they want.”
    “A man and woman traveling alone together like this is shameful unless they’re—” Shannon wasn’t about to say it.
    “Married.”
    And she wished he wouldn’t have either.
    “I saw a spring nearby.” Gabe got a small fire going.
    The comforting crackle of wood and the soothing aroma of wood smoke eased some of the crazy out of her. “That’s probably why whoever lived here picked this spot.”
    Pushing a few larger sticks into the fire, Gabe said, “I’ll go get water and we’ll eat. Then we’ll do whatever it is you decide we need to do so the people that aren’t here won’t be scandalized.”
    He stood and would have walked away if she hadn’t grabbed his arm. “
What?”
    The man could surely growl.
    “Thank you. You saved me today.” Shannon had all she could do not to hurl herself into his arms again. “I’m sorry about this. I do trust you, and you’re absolutely right that in the end people will just have to believe what they wish. Besides, so what if we go riding in late tonight or early tomorrow? For all they know, we could have been riding around together for weeks.”
    “And if they wish to believe something terrible, then what?”
    “Then I’ll go on my way with a bit of shame attached to my name and never see these people again.”
    Gabe’s jaw tensed as he looked at her. Shannon realized his eyes weren’t pure black but such a deep brown that it was hard to see where the center of his eye quit and the color began.
    Silence stretched between them. Shannon felt caught by his gaze, unable to break free.
    Finally, he spoke so quietly she almost thought the words came from inside her own head. “What were you doing up in that cave, Shannon?”
    “I’ll tell you everything. I promise. But first I would desperately love a drink of water.” Which was nothing less than the truth. Desperate thirst definitely described it.
    “It probably wouldn’t hurt for you to wash the blood off your face either.”
    She’d forgotten how she must look. Following him to the spring, she did her best to clean up. The blood was dried in her hair and behind her ears. It was awful. She was grateful for the absence of a looking glass to tell her the horrible truth.
    After she was done, she drank her fill of the cold spring then went back to the camp where Gabe was pulling provisions from his saddlebags. She wasn’t that eager to tell Gabe everything. She thought he might decide, especially considering the utter lack of gold in this city they’d just found, that he had someone on his hands who might easily be named Delusional Dysart.
    “You did a good job. You look a sight better without the blood.” Gabe studied her as if he was trying to probe her brain for the information