Schulze, Dallas

by Gunfighter's Bride

  “Yes?” She shifted so that Angel was partially concealed behind her skirts.

  “Pardon me, ma’am.” The giant swept his hat off his head and twisted it between his hands. “I know it ain’t exactly proper, me stoppin’ you on the street and all, but I just got back to town after spending the winter working my claim. You’re the first female I seen in a long time and the prettiest one I seen in even longer. I was wondering if you’d be willin’ to just let me look at you awhile.”

  Lila stared at him, at a loss for words. She’d never heard of anything quite like it. He wanted to look at her? There was nothing threatening in his stance. In fact, other than the sheer size of him, he looked quite harmless. But that didn’t mean that she was going to stand there on the boardwalk in front of the offices of the Paris Examiner and let a complete stranger stare at her.

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Is there a problem?” Despite the way they’d parted earlier in the day, Lila had to admit that the sound of Bishop’s voice was not unwelcome. Apparently he’d seen what was happening from across the street and come to her rescue. Not exactly a knight in shining armor, Lila thought, viewing his plain black coat and pants. The brim of his hat cast a shadow across his upper face, leaving just his mouth and chin exposed. To tell the truth, he looked considerably more dangerous than the miner standing in front of her.

  “I’m not causing any trouble,” the other man said as Bishop stepped onto the boardwalk next to Lila.

  “That so?” Though the question was directed to Lila, Bishop kept his eyes on the miner.

  “He was ... perfectly polite,” Lila said truthfully. Something told her that it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell her husband why the man had stopped her.

  “I don’t want no trouble,” the miner said. Though he was as tall as Bishop and outweighed him by at least thirty pounds, he seemed anxious that Bishop not misunderstand him. “I didn’t mean any harm to the lady. Or to the little one,” he added, casting a quick glance at Angel who was watching the proceedings from behind the shelter of Lila’s rose-colored skirts.

  “The lady is my wife,” Bishop said softly. There was nothing overtly threatening in his tone, but the bigger man actually paled. At least Lila thought he did. It was difficult to tell when his face was covered by so much hair.

  “I didn’t know. I heard tell you had yourself a wife but I didn’t know she was it.”

  “Now you do,” Bishop said quietly.

  “I didn’t mean no harm, ma’am,” the miner said, throwing Lila a quick look.

  “I believe you,” she assured him. She actually found herself feeling sorry for the man. He seemed so anxious to reassure her.

  He bobbed his head nervously then turned and hurried off down the street, suddenly looking much smaller than he had only minutes before.

  Bishop turned his head to look at her. Though his eyes were in shadow, she could guess their expression. And he didn’t have to say anything for her to know that he was thinking of the discussion they’d had about the differences between Paris and the towns she’d known. Certainly she’d never been accosted by a man who just wanted to look at her nor could she imagine such a thing happening in Beaton, but, strange as the incident had been, no harm had come of it. Nor was she convinced any harm would have come, even without Bishop’s intervention.

  “I was handling things just fine on my own,” she told him, forgetting how grateful she’d been to hear his voice. “He was really quite harmless.”

  “And you recognized that right away?” he asked. She saw one black brow lift in sardonic question. “It must have been his civilized appearance that reassured you.”

  Despite her desire to remain annoyed with him, Lila couldn’t prevent her mouth from curving in a reluctant smile. “Civilized wasn’t quite the word I would have used. But he was polite and I could have discouraged him without your help.”

  “Maybe,” Bishop conceded. “But you’ll be safer if everyone knows you’re mine.”

  “Yours?” She bristled at that.

  “Mine,” he repeated without apology.

  “I’m surprised you don’t just slap a brand on me,” she muttered.

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Before she could respond to that, Angel interrupted them. Releasing her hold on Lila’s skirts, she held up her arms to Bishop. “I’m tired. Carry me.”

  Lila held her breath, wondering what Bishop’s reaction would be. She remembered making similar requests of her own father but the situation was hardly the same. She didn’t doubt that Bishop cared for his children—their presence in Colorado was proof of that. But he didn’t have much contact with them.

  He looked surprised and disconcerted but he hesitated only a moment before lifting Angel up. He balanced her against his hip with an awkwardness that Lila found oddly appealing. He always seemed so completely in control of every situation. It was amusing to see him thrown off balance by a five-year-old child.

  Her earlier annoyance with him forgotten, she walked home feeling almost in charity with him.

  CHAPTER 15

  It would have been impossible to say whether Lila or Bishop was more surprised to find the first few days in their new home passing quite peacefully. Lila had assumed it would take her some time to adjust to living with Bishop, let alone to become accustomed to sharing a bed with him. But it was pleasantly easy to accept the new arrangements.

  After that first night, he waited to come to bed until after she was asleep. Lila didn’t know whether this was out of consideration for her or a matter of personal preference. Either way, it made life easier for her. And since he was always up and gone when she woke, it was almost as if she had the bedroom to herself. Still, it was a little disturbing to wake and see the imprint of his head on the pillow and know that she’d slept soundly with him there.

  When she thought about it, she told herself that she was adapting to her new life with relative ease because there had been so much change in her life these past few months that she was numb. The problem with that theory was that she didn’t feel numb. She actually felt more alive than she had in years. She was filled with energy.

  Perhaps it was some mysterious effect of being pregnant. Or maybe it was that, after so many months of uncertainty, things had finally settled down. Her life might not be exactly the way she’d once imagined it would be. She couldn’t possibly have imagined all that had happened in the past few months. But good, bad, or indifferent—and there was a bit of each— things were settled, at least for the time being. There was a certain relief in that.

  She preferred that theory to the possibility that she actually liked being married to Bishop. Though, aside from his flat refusal to have separate rooms, he had not been difficult to live with. There was the matter of his sleeping attire—or lack thereof. She’d purchased a nightshirt for him. Buying such an intimate piece of male apparel at Fitch’s had been one of the most embarrassing experiences of her life. But she would be severely remiss in her duties if she allowed her husband to continue his barbaric habit of sleeping in the nude, not to mention that it would add considerably to her peace of mind to know that he was decently clothed.

  She hadn’t said anything to him about her purchase, thinking it better to just set the nightshirt and matching nightcap out for him. According to The Lady’s Journal of Home & Hearth, it was best to lead a man into proper behavior by gentle example rather than by confrontation. It’s never a good idea to demand that a man do anything, even when it’s clearly the right choice. Their natural inclination to direct can sometimes lead to a certain balkiness when thus approached. Better to gently point them in the proper direction and allow their feet to take the right path of their own accord.

  Lila wouldn’t have applied the word “balky” to Bishop. Pigheaded and stubbornly unreasonable were the phrases that came to mind. Still, the advice seemed sound. Surely, when he saw the nightshirt, he’d realize that civilized people did not sleep in the nude. The first night she put
the nightshirt out, she went to bed pleased at having found a simple solution to a tricky problem. The next morning she found the nightshirt and cap, still neatly folded and obviously unused, on top of the dresser.

  Some women might have accepted this as a sign of defeat. But Lila was made of sterner stuff. Given time, Bishop would see the error of his ways. Every night since then, she placed the nightshirt and cap on his pillow. Every morning she found it, still folded, on the dresser. The only variation in the pattern was the morning she found the nightshirt on the dresser and the nightcap in the trash. Though her mouth tightened a little, she took it as a positive sign. He could have thrown them both out.

  Other than that ongoing conflict, she was reasonably content with the pattern of her life, at least for the moment. Considering the rocky start of her marriage, things were better than she had any right to expect. She was starting to get used to the whole idea.

  ***

  Bishop couldn’t imagine ever getting used to the idea of himself as a husband and father. Though he’d been married to Isabelle for almost a decade, they’d lived together for a total of less than two years. During that time, she’d wanted him to be all father—to her as much as to the children.

  Lila showed no sign of needing him to be a father to her. Of course, she didn’t show much interest in him being a husband, either, Bishop admitted ruefully as he let himself into the kitchen through the back door. The house was dark and quiet. Though it had long been a habit of his to make one last circuit of the town after dinner, the last few nights, he’d been lingering over that last stroll, giving Lila plenty of time to be in bed and asleep before he got home. He didn’t know what interpretation, if any, Lila put on his absence every night. Maybe she was too relieved to care. Maybe she thought he was doing it out of consideration for her. But the truth was, he delayed his return home for purely selfish reasons.

  Sleeping with Lila without touching her was difficult enough without lying next to her knowing that she was awake and as aware of him as he was of her. If he waited until she was asleep, the torture was not quite so acute. A man with more sense and less stubbornness might have been willing to admit that the idea of sharing a bed yet keeping a distance between them was not as good as it had at first seemed. Bishop’s mouth tilted in a self-deprecatory smile as he silently shut the door behind him. He’d certainly have gotten more sleep if he’d agreed to Lila’s request that they have separate rooms, but he was damned if he’d back down now.

  The smell of roasting meat lingered in the air, along with the slightly earthy scent of biscuits. He winced a little at the memory of those biscuits. He hadn’t expected Miss Lila Adams of River Walk to have spent much time in a kitchen, so he’d been surprised when she turned out to be a more than decent cook. Her stews and roasts were as good as any he’d ever eaten, but her biscuits were another story. Bridget Sunday was teaching her to bake, and he sincerely hoped there were more lessons on biscuit making. The ones she’d served tonight had looked fine but the golden brown exterior had been a trap for the unwary. The interior had been the color of old glue and roughly the same consistency.

  “I think these biscuits are much better than last night’s,” Lila had said as she pried one open.

  Bishop’s eyes met Gavin’s across the table and a rare moment of communication passed between them. Without a word being spoken, they agreed to lie through their teeth.

  “Much better,” Bishop said. If he put enough honey on the biscuit maybe he wouldn’t notice that it was only half cooked.

  “They’re good,” Gavin said, managing to look as if he believed it.

  Angel poked a finger into the doughy center of her biscuit. She gave her father and brother a dubious look but refrained from comment.

  Bishop shook his head as he hung his hat on one of the hooks beside the door. A few months ago, he’d had no one to answer to but himself. Living in a room at the jail, his life had been relatively simple. He did his job and kept to himself with no one expecting anything more of him. Now he was lying about biscuits and avoiding nightshirts and having dinner with the minister’s family.

  Looking around the tidy kitchen, Bishop had to remind himself that he lived here. After so many years of living in rented rooms when he had money or sleeping under the stars when he didn’t, he felt oddly out of place in this homey atmosphere. He’d been too long without roots to feel completely at ease with the idea of putting them down now. He’d already been in Paris longer than he’d stayed anywhere in more years than he cared to think about. His peripatetic ways had been a matter of necessity as well as preference.

  One disadvantage of having acquired a reputation for being a fast man with a gun was that, if he stayed in one place too long, it was all but guaranteed that some kid would show up, packing a brand-new Colt, anxious to prove himself faster than Bishop McKenzie. He’d avoided the fights he could and handled those he couldn’t. A combination of skill and luck had kept him alive this long, but he knew that the day would come when he’d be a little too slow or the luck would turn against him and he wouldn’t be the one walking away. Over the years, he’d found it easier to move on before the next kid had time to show up and get himself killed.

  He’d been drifting for so long that he’d forgotten what it was to stay in one place. He’d always assumed that he’d just keep moving on until a bullet found him. But a man with a wife and children didn’t drift from town to town, blowing where whim and wind took him. A family meant putting down roots, making plans for the future.

  A future. Hell, who would have thought he’d even have one? He was suddenly aware that he’d been standing in the kitchen for several minutes, staring at nothing in particular. Shaking his head, Bishop walked through the silent house. He must be getting old. He was spending too damned much time thinking these days.

  ***

  Bishop had gotten into the habit of lingering over his coffee on Sunday mornings. That was where he’d gone wrong, he saw now. If he hadn’t had that second cup of coffee, hadn’t taken time to savor an unaccustomed feeling of contentment, he would have been out of the house before Lila and the children were up. As it was, he’d been a sitting duck.

  Seeing him sitting at the kitchen table, Angel ran up up to him, her face lighting with that easy affection that he found so disconcerting. He’d done nothing to earn that affection, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. She leaned against his knee and smiled up at him.

  “We’re going to church,” she told him.

  “Are you?” Looking at her was like looking at a miniature replica of Isabelle. The same china-blue eyes and pale skin, the heart-shaped face and cupid’s bow mouth. But the chin was not her mother’s. Isabelle’s chin had been as soft and gentle—as weak— as the rest of her features. Purely feminine and as delicate as the rest of her, Angel’s chin showed promise of stubborn determination. For her sake, he hoped it wasn’t a false promise. The world had sent Isabelle running back to the smothering security of her childhood home. He didn’t think this child of theirs would run from anything.

  Either of their children, he amended as Gavin came into the kitchen just ahead of Lila. God knew, his son would probably stand toe to toe with a grizzly if the mood struck him. He felt a sense of pride at the thought, a feeling so unfamiliar that it took him a moment to recognize it for what it was.

  “How come you’re not dressed?” Angel’s question dragged Bishop out of his unaccustomed introspection.

  “Not dressed?” He glanced down at his black pants and white shirt, confused by the question. “Dressed for what?”

  “For church,” she clarified, giggling with amusement at what she deemed a silly question.

  “Church?” he repeated blankly. Church? “I don’t go to church.”

  “But aren’t you going to go with Lila and Gavin and me?”

  “I haven’t gone the last few weeks, have I?” he said, hoping that would be answer enough.

  “That’s ’cause we wasn’t settled into a house,” An
gel told him, looking surprised that he didn’t realize that himself. “That’s what Lila said when I asked how come you weren’t going with us.”

  “She said that, did she?” He glanced at Lila, who was busy putting together a cold breakfast for the four of them. She met his look but offered no help. He returned his attention to Angel.

  “I haven’t been to church in quite a while,” he said, stalling for time.

  “Don’t you want to go to church so you can go to heaven?” Still leaning against his knee, his daughter looked up at him, her big blue eyes questioning.

  Now, how was he supposed to answer that one? He could hardly tell Angel that he didn’t believe going to church guaranteed your ticket to heaven, anymore than he believed not going guaranteed your ticket to hell. Church was good enough for most folks and certainly he wanted his children to be raised with a respect for the Lord’s teachings. But he didn’t feel the need for it himself.

  Unconsciously he glanced at Lila for help, but she was busy spreading butter on the slices of bread she’d just cut. Though she said nothing, something in the set of her spine told him that she was waiting for his response. He looked back at Angel.

  “I haven’t really given going to heaven much thought,” he admitted.

  Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a perfect

  O of surprise. “You should always think about heaven, Daddy. Grandmother said it was never too soon to start worrying ’bout your immoral soul.”

  “Your immortal soul,” Lila corrected briskly. Her eyes met Bishop’s for a moment. “Though I suppose, in some cases, either word would suffice.”

  “But don’t you want to go with us?” Angel asked. Her voice held an edge of hurt that went straight to Bishop’s heart. But go to church?

  “I—”

  “Of course he wants to go,” Lila said, setting a plate of sliced and buttered bread in the middle of the table. A jar of jam hit the table with a militant thud. Though her words were directed to Angel, her eyes were on Bishop’s face. “Your father wants to set a good example for you and your brother.”