At the time, leaving had seemed like the best thing—the only thing—he could do. Caleb had married Marie, a pampered young woman who’d been expecting his child, and her immediate withdrawal had confused everyone. Unhappy in his marriage, Caleb had turned cold and distant, and Will’s competitive badgering wore on him. Will had resented Caleb being groomed to take over the ranch, and his jealously drove a rift between them.
Brock had been torn between his two older brothers. Though he’d been the troublemaker in his youth, he had kept his tomfoolery away from the ranch, wreaking havoc in the saloons and streets instead. As he’d been the youngest, his irresponsibility had been overlooked. Frustrated by his lack of position in the family and on the ranch, as well as by the constant rivalry between his siblings, Brock had taken a devil-may-care attitude. When Will stole money from Caleb’s safe and headed East, his actions had stabbed Brock like a knife to the heart.
That hadn’t been the final straw, however. He probably could have stuck it out, moved to town perhaps, away from Caleb and Marie, though he adored their fair-haired baby, Zeke. No, the event that had driven him to pack his bags and ride toward the horizon had taken place the day he’d shot and killed the boy—Abby’s brother.
Brock sat his horse in a flurry of swirling spindrift and gazed at his family home, at the well-kept barns and corrals and the cattle on the nearby hills. Caleb had done well. So well that he wouldn’t welcome Brock’s return?
He nudged the gray and headed forward.
A figure on horseback emerged from the concealment of trees to the north and rode swiftly toward the barns. Brock recognized the brown-and-white skewbald and the figure atop as John Whitefeather, half Cheyenne and a friend of Caleb’s.
Before Brock reached the yard, the tall, broad figure of his brother, dressed in denims and a flannel shirt, appeared in the open doorway of the barn. Shaggy, dark blond hair blew back from his face in the cold wind. But despite the wind and the frigid air, he stepped away from the shelter of the building and ran forward.
Brock reined in the gray several yards away and dismounted, closing the final steps that brought him face-to-face with his brother.
Caleb looked older, still muscled from hard work, his gray-blue eyes not revealing the thoughts or feelings behind them. He looked so much like their father that a wave of odd familiarity swept Brock, then disappeared when Caleb’s mouth turned up in a grin. “Little brother,” he said calmly. Those steely eyes scanned the mountains and the sky. “Some time of year you picked for traveling.”
“Yeah, well, you know I never had much sense when it came to practical things.”
Caleb’s gaze moved to Brock and seemed to warm with his assessment of what he saw. “Your room’s still there. Don’t think the shirts are going to fit, though. You’ve grown some.”
Brock took that as a welcome, and the reticence that had created a stone wall around his heart cracked.
“Bet you could use a bath and a hot meal.”
The crack widened and a thread of hope snaked through. “Sure could. Who’s cooking?”
Caleb reached for the reins and took them from Brock’s gloved hand, then led the animals toward the barn. “Things have changed around here. We have a lot to catch up on.”
Brock walked beside him. “I’m looking forward to it.”
The gray-blue eyes that met his held an unmistakable sheen. “Me, too, little brother.”
After unsaddling and brushing the horses, then throwing down hay for them, the two men walked toward the house, where a familiar dark-skinned woman with a glossy black braid met them at the back door and led them into the warm humid kitchen. She rested a chubby, dark-haired baby on her hip.
“Ruth is my wife now. This is our son, Barton.” At Brock’s puzzled expression, Caleb added, “I told you there was a lot to catch up on. Marie’s dead,” he explained, referring to his first wife. “She was thrown from a horse and stayed in a coma until she died.”
Brock was at a loss for words. “I’m sorry” didn’t seem adequate, yet he couldn’t help thinking guiltily how miserable Caleb had been with his first wife and how he was better off without her.
“I’m glad you’re home, Brock,” Ruth said with a warm smile, teeth white against her dark skin. “And don’t let your brother fool you, he’s glad you’re here, too.”
Ruth was John Whitefeather’s sister, and she had stayed with them for a time many years ago.
Brock nodded. “I’m glad to be back.”
“Dada!” the baby burbled, and flapped a chubby arm at his father.
With a wide smile, Caleb took the boy from his mother and tossed him in the air. The baby chortled and a string of drool hit Caleb on the chin. He shook his shaggy head and grimaced, which only made the baby giggle harder. Caleb brought the boy to rest against his wide chest and wiped his face with his shirtsleeve.
Ruth laughed and the couple exchanged looks of affection and pride. She turned to Brock then and said, “Let’s get you settled. I’ll heat water for a bath.”
“Do I smell?” he asked with a grin.
She laughed good-naturedly. “The first thing your brother wants to do after he returns from a trip is clean up.”
“Well, you’re right about that. I stayed at the hotel last night, but I didn’t take time for the niceties.”
“You were in town overnight?” A furrow dipped between Caleb’s brows.
“Yes. I needed a little time to collect myself. I wasn’t sure—well, I wasn’t sure how you were going to react to seeing me.”
“Ruth’s right. I’m glad to see you. About damned time is all I have to say.” Caleb handed the baby back to his wife. “We’ll talk at supper.”
With that, he turned and left the house, the door banging shut in a gust of wind.
“He doesn’t have a coat on,” Ruth commented.
“I think he was a little distracted,” Brock replied.
“He is glad you’re here.”
“I hope so.” For some reason it seemed easier to talk to this woman than to his brother. “I spent too long on the trail and I’m ready to settle in somewhere. Make up for the lost years, if I can.”
“Well, you’re welcome here. This is your home.”
He didn’t know if she’d feel the same if she knew what he’d been doing all those years, if she knew the things he had to put behind him: the violence and the bloodshed and the wavering line between right and wrong that he’d walked for so long. Too long.
Brock didn’t know if it was possible to put all that behind him, if the man he’d become could be the man he wanted to be. Even if he cut himself off from every person who’d known him or known of him, and started over, could he ever live at peace with himself?
“I’ll have the tub and water brought to your room.”
Brock thanked his new sister-in-law and climbed the stairs, his gun hand riding the glossy banister.
Catching up took Brock and Caleb most of the day, half a bottle of rum and several cigars. Ruth prepared lunch, something she claimed to enjoy, since Caleb normally ate in the bunkhouse with the hands at noon.
After telling the story of his and Ruth’s romance, Caleb related how Will had come home a year ago, wanting to return the gold. Caleb hadn’t wanted it, didn’t want money to be a factor between them, so they’d secretly buried it in a cornerstone of the Double Deuce Saloon, which Caleb owned.
“That doesn’t sound like the Caleb I remember,” Brock told him. “I can’t picture you doing something like that.”
Caleb grinned. “Hopefully I’ve changed—for the better.”
“I saw Zeke yesterday,” Brock told him.
Caleb slapped a hand against his thigh. “Are you the stranger he saw outside the hardware store?”
Brock grinned. “That’s me.”
“He was taken with the revolvers you wore. I see you don’t have ’em on today.”
And he had no idea how difficult it was for Brock to leave them in his room, even while in
this house.
Caleb’s eyes narrowed and he pierced Brock with a look he remembered too well, a look that said he’d see through him if he tried to lie. “So what have you been doing all these years, little brother?”
Chapter Two
Brock brushed his fingertips across the empty space on his denim-clad thigh where his holster should have been. The absence of that familiar weight kept surprising him. “I hired on in a range war in Wyoming after I left here. Occasionally I rode shotgun for Wells Fargo on special runs. But the ranchers kept hiring me to do their dirty work, and they paid too well to say no. After a while it seemed I was getting so many offers that I could choose.”
Brock stood and stretched his legs, striding to the window and gazing out at the snow-covered mountains. “I traveled with army details to recover stolen horses. Took a couple of U.S. Marshal jobs. Things like that.”
“You never wrote.”
The words hung in the air, more of a hurt-revealing question than an accusation.
Brock hadn’t written because he hadn’t wanted his enemies to be able to track him to his family. The sugarcoated version of the past he was feeding his brother was enough. The less Caleb knew, the better. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“You could have said you were okay.”
“You were mad that I left, weren’t you?”
“I was mad at your hotheaded foolishness that got that boy killed.”
Brock stiffened and turned his gaze to Caleb. “I didn’t go looking for that kid, he came gunning for me.”
“Because you dishonored his sister!”
“What happened between me and Abby was our business.”
“Something like that becomes family business, Brock. Her father would have come after you himself if he’d known first. But it was Guy who found out and Guy who tried to protect his sister’s honor.”
“I never even had a chance to make it right,” Brock argued.
“What would you have done? Married Abby?”
The question sucked the tension from Brock’s body. He drew a palm over his face, then hung his thumb in his belt. “I don’t know.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Caleb answered for him.
“I was young.”
“You were a hothead.”
“Maybe I was, but I didn’t want to kill Guy.”
“I know that.” Those words were laced with sincerity and regret. “And things were ugly here, too. I knew why you left. I always knew. It wasn’t just the boy. You’d have been found innocent of his death—there were witnesses. You were protecting yourself. Guy was just the last straw.”
“I was all mixed up. You and Will were fighting…and then he left with the gold.”
“Don’t forget Marie,” Caleb added.
“And Marie,” he agreed with a nod. Caleb’s understanding eased away the burden of Brock’s worries. His brother had changed, and it was a change Brock liked. “You’re different now than before I left.”
“Maybe that’s why I understand that you’re different, too. It’s been a long time. We all change. And grow. Thank God.”
“And Zeke is so big, I can hardly believe it. He looks like you did.”
Caleb grinned and agreed.
Brock’s thoughts switched to the other boy he’d seen the day before. “What is Abby doing at Watson’s Hardware, anyway? Working there? Seems like an unlikely place for a female.”
“Might be an unlikely place for a female, but she’s been doing a fine job of running it since Jed passed on.”
“Running it? What for?”
“She owns the store now. She’s Jedediah Watson’s widow.”
Widow. The prickly news didn’t want to settle nicely in Brock’s mind. It poked around nervously, leaving stinging wounds. His breath grew short and he had a difficult time drawing air into his lungs. “She married Jedediah Watson?”
“Yep.”
“He’s an old man.”
“Was. And I don’t think he was over fifty when he died.”
“What the hell did she marry him for?”
“Why do most women marry? Security maybe.”
“She said the other boy is hers—the boy I saw with Zeke.”
“Jonathon. Smart as a whip, that one.”
“I thought he was yours.”
Caleb looked at him in surprise. “Mine? Why would you think that?”
“I saw him with Zeke. The two look like brothers, don’t they?”
Caleb’s expression closed before he pulled out a pocket knife and worked at a sliver in his thumb. “There’s a resemblance.”
“I was sure that boy was a Kincaid.”
“Hmm.”
Brock didn’t like his brother’s avoidance one bit. It made him nervous as hell. “Don’t you think it’s odd?”
“What?”
“That he looks so much like…”
“Like what?”
“Like we did.” His heart kicked in an unsteady rhythm as the pieces came together in his mind. “Caleb, how old is Jonathon?”
His brother folded the blade away and studied his knife. “About seven, I guess.”
Brock took a few frantic steps toward the chair where Caleb sat, the weight of wonder growing heavier on his chest. “When’s his birthday?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Caleb—”
“Brock, these questions are for Abby. Go talk to her.”
The tension inside Brock had built until he felt sick to his stomach. “You know something, don’t you?”
Caleb stood and drilled his blue-gray gaze into Caleb’s. The room around them took on an odd gray-tinged bleakness. “I don’t know any more than you do. Go ask Abby. And that’s all I’m saying about it.”
Brock couldn’t leave the room fast enough.
Abby tied up a brown paper package with a length of twine and handed it to Etta Larimer, her first customer in an hour.
“Did you hear there’s a gunslinger in town?” Etta asked. There was an edge of excitement in the reedy voice of the newspaper man’s wife.
“No, I hadn’t heard.”
“He got off the stage yesterday, all dressed in black. Fancy clothes and fancy guns. Henry Hill saw him and says he wears silver-plated six-shooters in silver-studded holsters and a scarlet silk neckerchief.”
“Henry noticed his neckerchief?”
“Well, it would be a striking contrast to the dress in this town. People are saying he’s that Jack Spade fellow.”
Abby had heard the rumors of the famous Jack Spade being in the area for some time now. Her fiancé, Everett Matthews, worked at the telegraph office, and he’d been seeing conflicting reports of the dime novel hero’s supposed whereabouts. Her immediate thought was of Jonathon at the schoolhouse, but she dismissed her motherly fears as being intensified by the appearance of Brock Kincaid yesterday. “Those kind of men are trouble wherever they go, and I hope Sheriff Kincaid sends him on his way immediately. We don’t need his kind in Whitehorn.”
Etta’s expression grew subdued. “Of course, you’re right, dear.” She lowered her voice. “I just hope I get to see him before he leaves.”
“Not me. I hope I don’t have to set an eye on him or anyone like him.”
The front door opened, and even clear across the cavernous interior of the fully stocked store, Abby could feel the cold snake in and wrap around her ankles. She thanked Etta for her business and moved to add more fuel to the fire in the stove. She was poking the coals with an iron tool when boot heels sounded loudly behind her.
“I was wondering where all the customers were this after—” She stopped abruptly as she turned, the sight of Brock Kincaid’s formidable figure in a long, snow-dusted coat bringing her up short. His dark blue eyes radiated as much heat as the stove behind her. She set the tool aside. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“This isn’t the place or the time.”
“I think it is.”
Abby gl
anced around. Her only customer had departed, and Sam Rowland, her hired man, was gone for the day, since his wife was expecting a baby soon and hadn’t been feeling well. A shiver of fear slipped up her spine. Rarely was she frightened to be alone here where men gathered and shopped. They held a healthy respect for the widow of Jedediah Watson, but this man wasn’t one of them. He was a stranger now. A killer. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“You’ll answer my questions.”
A statement. A threat? She made herself look at him again.
He was bigger than she remembered, taller, with wider shoulders and the expressionless face of a hard man. She would not let him see the sudden rush of fear that sent a cold chill through her blood. She seated herself abruptly on one of the worn wooden chairs near the stove and folded her hands in her lap. “Hurry then. I run a business here.”
Brock took his time removing his sheepskin coat, hanging it on one of the brass hooks that protruded from the nearby post for just that purpose. A pair of embossed leather holsters were strapped to the length of his thighs, ivory-handled revolvers gleaming deadly in the light. Her heart slowed to almost no beat, then raced alarmingly. She drew a shaky breath and quickly looked down at the floor.
His boots left puddles of melted snow on the scratched varnish. He stepped closer and she closed her eyes in keen trepidation of the inevitable.
“How old is Jonathon?”
She swallowed, knowing what was coming, dreading it from the depths of her wounded soul. Countless sleepless nights and innumerable days of wondering and waiting had culminated in this moment. She felt light-headed and disconnected, as though this was happening to someone else and not to her. “Seven.”
“When’s his birthday?”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“It makes a difference.”
“I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“I think it is.” His voice was quiet, but held a tone that brooked no argument.
She argued, anyway. This was her life at stake. “I don’t have to tell you.”
“Then I’ll ask him.”
She opened her eyes finally, her head clearing and her protective instincts on full alert, and brought her gaze up to his. “You stay away from him.”
The Gunslinger's Bride Page 2