Still, a Calder kept what he had and got what he wanted.  Where a man stands for what he believes, there Stands A Calder Man.

*            *            *

    It was already evening, but the summer sun was still up and the air was warm. . .

    The band was starting to play again, but the music drifted away from her on a dying breeze.  As she reached the wagon, a low voice called her name.

    “Lilli.”  Webb Calder was framed against the backdrop of the plains.

    “Hello,” she greeted him easily.

    As he walked to her, Webb studied the outline of her body, slim and lovely against the velvet curtain of shadows.  There wasn’t much left in his whisky bottle, propped against the wheel a few wagons away.

    “Are you leaving?”  His voice stayed low-itched.

    “Yes. Stephan stopped to speak to a neighbor, so I came on ahead.”

    Her words ripped at the fine feeling he’d known so briefly.  She belonged to another man.  Webb swayed, like a heartsick, wild animal.  His hands closed on her shoulders and he felt her stiffen in startled resistance as he gathered her to his body.  A tiny animal cry of struggle came fro her paralyzed throat, but it was silenced by the driving pressure of his mouth on her lips.  He claimed them with a hunger and need that were jolting. The sensation was a crazy, downward spiral that seemed to reach all the way to her stomach.

    “Lilli, you don’t belong with him,” Webb muttered thickly.