The Gunslinger's Bride

by Cheryl St. John

  “What are you afraid of?”

  He was calm, too calm for a man tearing someone’s life apart. His cool detachment frightened her more. “I mean it! Stay away from him.”

  “He’s a Kincaid.” He said it with deadly calm.

  Was her heart still beating? Of course. That was what the deafening drumbeat in her ears was all about. She fought to keep her expression bland.

  “I knew it the minute I saw him. He looks like a Kincaid through and through. You can’t deny it.”

  “What are you insinuating?”

  “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m stating a fact. He’s either Caleb’s or Will’s…or mine.”

  Caleb’s or Will’s! Indignant at the insult, Abby shot from her seat and swung her right hand toward his face. Too swiftly, he caught her wrist and held it fast, her braid whipping across her shoulder and smacking him in the chest. She struggled against his hold and raised her other hand, but he grabbed her upper arm.

  “Leave us alone!” she managed to bite out past the mounting fury.

  “Why did you marry Jed Watson?” he said, staring down into her face.

  Her entire body trembled with anxiety, and she hated that he could feel her weakness. “He was kind. He was good to me and to Jonathon.”

  His strong hands gripped her painfully. A disturbing light flared in his eyes. “Why did you marry him?”

  “I don’t have to explain anything to you. I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “I have a lot of time, Abby.” His hold relaxed a measure.

  “I’ve come to Whitehorn to stay. I can sit here all day, every day, and wait for you to tell me the truth.” And he demonstrated by releasing her.

  She almost fell at the loss of support, bumping into a counter and sending a tool flying with a clang, then catching her balance. She wrapped her arms around herself, massaging the places on her arms where she could still feel his biting touch.

  He sat on a chair, propped his feet on another and rested his arms behind his head in an infuriatingly nonchalant pose. How dare he come back here after all this time and act as though he had any rights whatsoever! This man had taken every girlish dream she’d ever had, shot them full of holes and left them to die an agonizing death.

  Anger boiled up and she wanted to throw something at him. She glanced around at the rows of tools and boxes of springs and bolts. The bell over the door clanged, saving her from a violent act she would have regretted.

  Brock looked up and gave her a cruel grin. “You have a customer.”

  She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. She would not give the malicious man the satisfaction. She’d shown weakness once before, but she’d learned a harsh lesson. She turned away, composed her quaking chin and picked up a cast-iron utensil that had been knocked off a shelf, replacing it with trembling fingers.

  “I’ll wait right here,” he said from behind her.

  The “customer” was Harry Talbert, the barber. He made his way past spools of wire and down the long row of silver-nickled, dome-top, coal-burning stoves. “The coffee doesn’t smell burnt yet.”

  “No, no, it’s still drinkable.”

  He took his stained mug from the rack on a nearby shelf and poured himself a cup of dark brew, turning slowly to see who occupied the chair. Coffee sloshed onto the stovetop and hissed. “Brock Kincaid? Good Lord, you haven’t been in these parts for—how long? Five, six years?”

  “Almost eight.”

  The words grated along Abby’s nerves like a shiver.

  “Has it been that long? Well, I guess so. Since that day—” His gaze shot to where Abby stood. The day Brock had killed Guy was what he didn’t finish saying.

  She turned and hurried away, checking the orders she had started writing the day before. She overheard bits and pieces of their conversation as they discussed cattle and snow, and Harry brought Brock up to date on some of Whitehorn’s residents and businesses. The low rumble of Brock’s laughter grated on her nerves. The nerve of the man to make himself comfortable in her establishment, at the expense of her peace of mind.

  She moved on to dusting oil lamps and the endless length of glass showcases, and then inventoried the kegs of nails she’d already counted that morning. Brock could afford to sit about and converse merrily. He hadn’t a care in the world, save the killing of innocent men, which obviously didn’t worry his conscience a whit.

  Harry stayed over an hour, before he called out a goodbye and the bell rang. Abby had waited on a few customers in the meantime, all of them raising eyebrows or asking her about the man occupying a seat near her stove. Ready to order him out, she stomped back to where he sat calmly twining a scrap of fuse around his index finger.

  “You were about to tell me why you married old Jed.”

  His words and his insolence were intolerable. “Don’t call him that! He was a decent man! A responsible man willing to marry a woman and provide for her—and her son!”

  “Her son. But not his.”

  She clenched and unclenched her hands in raged frustration. “I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything. And I don’t want anything from you. Except for you to leave us alone.”

  “I can’t do that, Abby.” His voice was as hard and cold as his steely blue eyes. “I want the truth.”

  She shook her head and her own voice came out annoyingly weak. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you. Abby, I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “You killed Guy!”

  “What should I have done? Let him kill me?”

  “He wouldn’t have killed you—he was a poor shot, as you found out. He was a stupid angry boy, but he didn’t deserve to die!” Tears stung behind her eyes and she fought to keep them back.

  “He shouldn’t have come after me with a loaded Colt. He didn’t leave me any choice.”

  “Just leave me alone, Brock,” she pleaded again. “Please.”

  Heat radiated off the iron stove. A rafter in the lofty ceiling creaked.

  “He’s my son, isn’t he?” His gaze dropped to her breasts, to her belly, as though he imagined her with his child growing there.

  A never-soothed ache swelled and burned in her chest. Abby had an empty feeling that a lot more people suspected the truth than had ever let on. They had pitied her, and she had married a respected businessman, so the truth had been overlooked. Caleb found ways to help and to get the boys together without embarrassing her. Never once had he asked her about Jonathon’s parentage. But he knew. And she had accepted his help and the tie to the family, because it was the truth.

  Brock brought his attention back to her face, which burned anew with humiliation. “Say it, Abby. Say he’s my son. Tell me the truth.”

  She stared at him long and hard, remembering all the days and nights after he’d ridden away. Remembering her father’s outrage at discovering her condition and his insistence that she marry Jed. She remembered her fear and her loneliness and her final resignation. When dreams died, they died hard. “The truth?” She looked him in the eye. “You want the truth, Brock? Jonathon is your son. And I despise you more than words can say.”

  Countless times, Brock had stared into eyes that radiated hatred and he’d stared back, unfazed. Uncaring. Unfeeling. Not caring or feeling had kept him alive. Being quick on the draw wasn’t the only critical factor in winning a showdown. Most victories were won by gaining the upper hand before a gun ever cleared a holster. Mental strategy, confidence and a complete lack of emotion had given him the edge.

  This time, God help him, he cared. The two facts struck like poison arrows and spread numbness through his chest and belly.

  Jonathon was his son.

  Abby hated him.

  He’d missed seven years of his son’s life. Missed seeing the squalling infant come into the world, missed his first smiles and first teeth. Brock had spent his life on trains and horseback, in saloons and jails, taking pay to do things men were afraid to do for themselves. He’d been sleeping
in strange hotel rooms and beside campfires, while Abby had been raising his son.

  “Who does he think his father is?”

  “He called Jed papa.”

  Brock swallowed a groan and let the piercing hurt sink in. “Jed knew he was my son?”

  “He knew I was expecting Jonathon before he married me.”

  “Why did you marry him, Abby?” He still couldn’t comprehend her reasoning.

  “My father arranged it. He was furious when he discovered I was going to have a baby. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Surely there was something—”

  “Such as what? My father had just buried a son, if you’ll recall. Guy didn’t tell him about us, and I was too afraid. I never told him anything, but when he knew I was getting sick in the mornings, he figured it out. He made all the arrangements, then he hauled me off to Whitehorn, watched Reverend McWhirter marry us, and rode back to the ranch without a backward glance.”

  Brock imagined Abby, young, afraid, bearing her father’s anger, mourning her brother’s death, and married to a stranger.

  “What did you do?”

  She raised her chin and met his eyes. “I cooked and cleaned and learned about hardware, and I had a baby. There wasn’t anywhere for me to run.”

  He had no explanation that would change her mind about him. He’d been young and confused, but she’d been young and confused, too. Nothing he said now would change what had happened back then. She was acting as though he’d had a lot of choices. Even if he’d wanted to make it right, he couldn’t have. If he’d asked her to marry him then and there, she would have refused. Even if he’d known he had a son, still he couldn’t have come back. “I want to see him.”

  “No. I forbid it.”

  “You can’t forbid me from seeing my son.”

  “You won’t do anything to hurt him. You have that much decency. If people caught on, they would treat him cruelly, and you don’t want that. You’ve left us alone all these years. Why should that change now?”

  “Because now I know.”

  “You’d have known back then if you had stayed and faced what you’d done.”

  “We both know it was self-defense.”

  “I have a feeling that everything is self-defense with you,” she said in a tone meant to inflict injury. “Have you ever taken responsibility for anything?”

  Those words penetrated armor that bullets had never pierced. It was easy for her to blame him, easy for her to think the worst of him. Brock had never intended to kill her brother; he’d never even wanted to hurt him. The boy had drawn first, moved into the bullet. But he was dead all the same.

  Little did she know Brock had taken responsibility for her safety and that of the son he hadn’t known existed—as well as his entire family—by staying away.

  All the things she took for granted, things like a good night’s sleep in a familiar bed, like eating a meal without looking over her shoulder, like being able to live here, were the things he’d lost.

  “I won’t do anything to hurt him. But I will see him.”

  Fear clouded her expressive eyes. Did she think he would hurt her? Did she think he’d take the boy and disappear? She hadn’t tried to hide her contempt, but she’d done a poor job of covering other emotions. She thought he was a monster. Let her think it. Utilizing fear had always given him an edge.

  “I want to know my son. It can be as hard or as easy as you make it, but a boy needs a father.”

  “As usual, your feelings are the only ones that count,” she said with cool accusation. “Not mine. Not Jonathon’s.”

  The bell over the door rang, echoing across the expansive interior and sparing him a reply.

  A small figure dropped a scarf away from her head, revealing jet black hair, parted down the middle and pulled away from her oval face. She made her way toward the seating area near the stove, shaking the wool scarf as she went. “It is starting to snow again.”

  Abby glanced uncomfortably from the girl to Brock.

  He coolly lifted one brow.

  “Am I interrupting a sale?” the young woman asked.

  Up close, Brock observed her dark, almond-shaped eyes and obviously Asian features. She was exceptionally pretty, with an open, friendly face.

  “I was just leaving.” He reached for his coat.

  “We haven’t yet met,” she said, ignoring the dark look Abby shot her. “You are either the infamous Jack Spade that everyone is talking about—”

  Brock wore the expressionless mask he’d perfected and didn’t so much as flicker a lash.

  “—or you are the Kincaid brother who has been gone for years. You don’t look to me like the gunfighter everyone talks about.”

  “Brock Kincaid,” he said easily.

  “I’m Shan Laine Mei.”

  “How do you do, Shan Laine Mei,” he said, uncertain of how to address her properly. “Is it Miss Shan?”

  She smiled broadly. “It is. The Shan family runs the fish market.”

  “The structure made of…oil cans?”

  She nodded. “Cans are filled with stones and dirt. Fireproof. Bulletproof, too.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. “How is business this time of year?”

  “My father and brother cut wood to sell during the winter. I sell canned vegetables that I garden during the growing season. Come by if you want good squash.”

  “I will.” He situated his hat on his head and touched the brim. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  “And you, Mr. Brock.”

  He gave Abby a strong look. “I’ll be back.”

  She pursed her lips and looked away.

  The bell over the door clanged at his exit.

  “Laine, how could you stand there and converse with the man as though he were a gentleman?” Abby said to her friend in irritation.

  “Mr. Brock is not a gentleman?”

  “No, he most certainly is not. He’s a selfish, infuriating, cold-blooded killer, that’s what he is.”

  Laine’s dark eyes widened. “You know this for a fact, Abby?”

  Abby turned and placed a kettle of water on the stove. “I watched him shoot and kill my brother.”

  Slowly Laine removed her coat and hung it up. “You have not told me of this before.”

  Abby rubbed her palms together. Few people in town associated with Laine socially, so she’d never been filled in on the gossip surrounding Brock Kincaid. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “If he murdered your brother, why isn’t he in jail? Or why wasn’t he hanged?”

  Abby grew flustered at the question. “Guy had his gun drawn. It looked like self-defense.”

  “The law said it was self-defense?”

  “But Guy was seventeen years old. Just a boy.”

  “I am sorry. I knew your brother died young, but I did not know the circumstances. Mr. Brock, he is sorry for his part in your brother’s death?”

  “He thinks of nothing but himself.”

  “You know he was not sorry? He has said so?”

  “He didn’t take time to say anything. He turned and ran.”

  “But you said Guy had his gun out. Did he mean to shoot Mr. Brock?”

  Now look what she’d done. She’d opened a can of worms she didn’t want to discuss, and her friend wasn’t one to back down. Abby chastised herself for letting her anger place her in this uncomfortable position, and measured tea into a metal strainer. “My brother was furious with Brock—for good reason. He was doing what he thought was right. Brock, on the other hand, was doing what he always did—wearing a gun and looking for a reason to fire it.”

  Laine came and stood beside her. “You knew Mr. Brock well?”

  Abby closed her eyes, and the anguish of those days washed over her in an oppressive wave. Tears burned her throat. How could she answer that question and not lie?

  Laine’s hand touched her shoulder in a comforting gesture.

  Did Abby want to deny the truth any longer?

  Chap
ter Three

  “Abby, are you all right?”

  She nodded silently, but her cheeks blazed with the heat of humiliation. She had never shared what had happened with anyone. She’d been too ashamed and embarrassed. For nearly eight years she’d held her silence about what had been a painful and life-changing turn of events.

  Brock’s return had resurrected old hurts, all those chaotic feelings of confusion and apprehension. His insistence on seeing Jonathon endangered the secure life she’d grown comfortable with. She would go crazy if she couldn’t release the tension by at last telling someone.

  Opening her eyes, she turned, seated herself upon a chair and patted the one beside her. She couldn’t carry this burden alone any longer. “I foolishly fancied myself enamored with him when I was young,” she confessed matter-of-factly, knowing her confidence was well-placed in Laine.

  “You had feelings for Mr. Brock?” Her friend sat beside her, their skirts touching.

  Abby nodded, incredibly relieved to make the confession at last. “But he barely gave me a second glance. I always knew when he was at a gathering because I watched for him and observed his every move. I knew the way he walked and the way he smiled and how he held a partner on the dance floor. When he looked my way I could barely breathe.” She shook her head at her childishness.

  “So you see, it was a one-sided admiration. Until one summer all those years ago.” She paused to think about that particular year, and could still remember the scent of the pines in the high country, the vivid splashes of paintbrush streaking the mountainsides and the unique paleness of pink sunsets. That summer had defined all that was beautiful—and what had happened had characterized all that was ugly.

  “He was miserable at home. His brother Caleb was married to an insufferable woman. Brock had no father or mother by this time, and his brothers fought all the time. He used to ride into town with the ranch hands and shoot up the saloons, then sleep off the liquor in jail.”

  Laine gave her a puzzled look. “And you were sweet on this young man?”

  “I knew him before all that,” Abby replied with a dismissive shrug. “I remembered him from when his mother was alive and our families were friends. Obviously I had an image of him that wasn’t the real person. I thought he was misunderstood. Humph.” Again she shook her head at her youthful foolishness. “I was the one who misunderstood. I thought he possessed redeemable qualities.”