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mouth of that tunnel. We are not getting separated. But there’s no sense you hopping along in one direction, then back in another. Let me find out which way we’re going first.”
    Shannon smiled, stood, and was jerked right back down on her knees. She frowned. “What now?”
    “Help me get turned around.” Tucker’s hand clamped like a vise on her wrist. “I want to be able to see you every second. A cave like this can be a mighty dangerous place. We should be tied together, but my whip’s not long enough.” Tucker got a little dizzy thinking of all that could happen in a cave. He’d climbed around in plenty of them and seen some real strange sights.
    Shannon nodded. “Whatever will put your mind at ease.” Her tone of voice was one that might be used with a child. She was humoring him. Well, good, so long as she did as she was told.
    “Let me help. I’ll lift your legs while you turn.”
    He really hadn’t ever been around a woman. Only Sunrise and her daughters, and they were all older. They’dtormented him like big sisters, so it’d been easy to think of them as such. He’d made a rule about women: never marry one.
    He’d seen Sunrise raise a crowd of young’uns mostly alone. Tucker liked her husband, Pierre Gaston, admired him and ran around with Pierre and Tucker’s own pa, though Pa had died before Tucker became a grown man. He liked the life these tough old mountain men lived and wanted it for himself.
    But that didn’t change the fact that Pierre left Sunrise behind to a hard, lonely life. She’d fed and clothed and even birthed all her young’uns almost completely alone. Pierre had spent most of the winter with her, which usually ended up bringing another child. Then he headed for the high-up hills come spring, summer, and fall. And there she’d be with a growing family, a baby on the way, and whatever work she had to do to keep things going.
    Tucker had loved Sunrise, and quiet as she was, he’d known it hurt her to be left over and over again. Mostly he’d known it because it had hurt him to be left by his pa, and it’d hurt worse because, kind as Sunrise was, Tucker didn’t really belong to the Gaston family.
    Not only was a woman hurt by a mountain man’s life, his children were, too.
    Sunrise’s sons grew up and took to the mountains and trapping like their pa, and they’d taken wives and left them mostly alone to raise lonely kids. Sunrise’s daughters had lives mostly the same with their trapper husbands, who left them behind.
    Tucker didn’t want that life for a woman and childrenhe cared about. And he wanted the mountain life he’d been born to. So he’d decided to steer clear of women altogether.
    And then when he’d gone over a cliff with Shannon Wilde, that’d settled the whole thing as far as he was concerned. He had a feeling things weren’t settled at all for Shannon. And a man needed to be able to stand up if he had a woman who needed chasing. So he was going to just put the whole notion of Shannon aside until his leg was better.
    But she needed to keep her hands off him for him to abide by his own decision. And her hands were all over him right now.
    Carefully she slid her arms under his legs and lifted. Doing his best to let the pain keep his mind off other things, Tucker pivoted on his backside while Shannon guided him around and eased his feet back to the floor. She really was gentle with him.
    She’d make a great mother to the children he’d no doubt leave her to mostly raise alone, poor sweet, pretty lady. He wasn’t looking forward to her finding out about that.
    She smiled, and dimples popped out on both her cheeks. “Now you watch me every second. I will be careful and won’t go out of your sight, I promise.”
    She spoke as though he were a small child, and not a very bright one.
    He’d prove to her soon enough that he was a fully grown man, and when he was done with her she’d never forget it.
    “Why do you think this cave is streaked with