The Gunslinger's Bride

by Cheryl St. John

  Sheriff Kincaid was James Kincaid, Brock’s cousin. “Why doesn’t the sheriff just ask him to leave before there’s trouble?”

  “The law can’t just run off every stranger without sure cause. The man seems harmless enough.”

  “But what type of unsavory people is he likely to draw? I don’t think we can be careful enough in protecting our town from his kind.”

  “He is good for commerce. The saloons have been full every night since he’s been here.”

  “Commerce!” she scoffed. “Drinking and gambling aren’t respectable businesses. Sounds like trouble waiting to happen, if you ask me.” As soon as she said the words she remembered Brock’s asking if she was hateful to all the men in her life, and she could have bitten her tongue. But facts were facts.

  Everett changed the subject, and after a few more minutes, he stood and excused himself. Grateful, Abby hurried ahead of him to get his coat and hold it open. He turned his back to her and accepted her assistance. “Thank you. Have a pleasant evening.”

  “I shall do that.” She closed the door behind him and wilted against the wood in relief. The last thing she needed was for him to see Brock here and get suspicious. Lord, what if someone saw Brock arrive or leave, and told Everett? Where was Brock’s horse? she wondered belatedly.

  “Jonathon’s hungry,” Brock said from the kitchen doorway.

  Abby spun to face him. “Where is your horse?”

  “At the livery. I walked.” He rested a palm against the door frame. “I held Jonathon off until your guest left.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m not the ogre you think I am.”

  She yanked her apron from over his guns. “I’ll heat some soup. Ask him if he’d like bread and cheese.”

  Brock left and returned a moment later. “He said yes, please.”

  Stirring soup in a pan on the stove, Abby nodded that she’d heard him.

  “He’s not your type.”

  She turned her head. “Excuse me?”

  “Matthews. He doesn’t seem like your type.”

  “And how would you know what my type is?”

  “I don’t know. Just seems to me that since you didn’t have a choice with your last husband, you’d be particular with the next one.”

  “I am particular. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s a perfect gentleman.”

  “Oh, I’ve noticed.”

  His tone was mocking, and she didn’t care for it. “And he doesn’t have to wear guns to prove anything to anyone.”

  Brock crossed the kitchen and stepped close beside her. “What do you think I’m proving by wearing guns, Abby?”

  His voice from so close unnerved her.

  “You start these arguments, you know,” he said.

  “But you continue them without any effort whatsoever on my part.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what you see in him.”

  “I’m sure that escapes you.”

  “Does your pulse beat faster when he stands this near?”

  Abby’s heart hammered against her rib cage. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Does the smell of your hair make him want to lean close and fill his lungs with you?”

  She dropped the wooden spoon into the pan and fished for the handle. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

  “He’s never said so?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Of course not. Does your breath come hard and fast when he touches you?” Brock touched her neck with a featherlight caress, and she couldn’t draw a breath.

  “Do his kisses start a fire in your veins that spreads through your whole body?” His warm breath against her neck made gooseflesh rise along her shoulders. She closed her eyes and felt her nipples harden into tight buds. The pleasurable sensation washed over her, gripping her in its bone-deep intensity. Part of her realized how much she’d missed these feelings, but another part was shocked at her wanton response to Brock’s aggressive behavior.

  Fighting the mortifying hunger he aroused so easily, she gathered her composure and inched away, wrapping a towel around the handle and removing the broth from the stove. She carried the pan to the mug on the table with trembling hands.

  “Here.” He took the pan from her, brushing her fingers with his strong, callused ones in the process. Abby watched him perform the task with steady hands, feeling the heat from his body, recognizing the heady smell of his shaving soap and the fainter scent of horse and leather. He poured the savory-smelling beef broth into the mug without spilling a drop.

  Her heart pounded so hard she could sense it thrumming in her ears, her fingertips, the very core of her woman’s body. She couldn’t look away from him now, her greedy gaze climbing from his strong hand, up the length of his cotton-clad arm to his broad chest…to his eyes, a sultry, hungry blue she remembered well…his mouth…and she could barely breathe at the remembered delights of those lips….

  Chapter Six

  His hot gaze caressed her face, her mouth, and the blatant desire in his expression sapped her resolve, drew her instead, like a nail to a magnet. Abby didn’t realize she’d moved, but in the space of a heartbeat she was in his arms, pressed against the hard, delicious length of his body. She met his mouth greedily, tasting the heady maleness of him, glorying in the sensual slide of heat and texture as their tongues met and melded in an enthusiastic dance.

  Every place their bodies touched, she was fiercely aware of him—of the slight scrape of beard against her tender cheek, her breasts crushed against his hard chest, his biceps beneath her exploring palm, his arousal through layers of denim and cotton and crinoline. Abby raised a hand and thrust her fingers into the cool thickness of his hair, lifted her other palm to the front of his shirt and pressed against hard muscle in an explorative caress.

  His chest and shoulders were broader, his arms more muscled, but she still fit against him perfectly.

  Years fell away. Everything that had happened since their first physical encounter was seared into temporary oblivion by the explosive heat of this passion they shared. Abby pressed both hands to his cheeks and kissed him hard. She pulled away long enough to breathe, and their combined breaths sounded ragged and hot in the silent room. This was never enough with him. She craved more, needed more of the delightful indulgence she found in his embrace.

  He pressed his hips against her rhythmically and her eyes fell shut. He turned his face and darted his tongue against her palm. Her entire body quivered and wept with pleasure. She ran her thumb over his lip, touched his teeth. He nipped the pad and released it.

  Their lips met again, this time more tenderly, this time with a care for the artful finesse of the act. He kissed the corner of her mouth, caught her lower lip, a sensuous move that had never failed to elicit a moan, and didn’t now.

  He caught her cry with another kiss, tormenting her until her body trembled and her knees grew too weak to support her weight.

  Abby wanted to drop back to the floor and pull him hard against her. Nothing would suffice now but to have more of him, feel more of him, relish the heat of his flesh, taste him, take him….

  She took a moment to get her bearings, thinking of where they were, where they could go…. His lips nibbled the column of her neck in exquisite torture, but she opened her eyes.

  Her kitchen came into focus. Yellow-and-white gingham curtains at the window. Brock’s coat and hat hanging by the door, his gun belt slung over a hook beside them.

  Reality crashed down on her like a wave of ice water.

  She pushed at his shoulders. “Stop.”

  Brock’s arms were a band of steel around her.

  “Stop!” she said more forcefully, and pulled back.

  His grip loosened. He studied her with passion-glazed eyes, and blinked as if trying to orient himself.

  Abby disentangled her limbs and took two steps backward, reaching for the back of a chair for support. She thrust a hand into her hair and caught her breath. What kind of woman was
she that she fell so easily into the same old trap of sensual ensnarement? Where had propriety and sensibility flown?

  She wasn’t a foolish young girl with unrealistic dreams. She was a mother, responsible for herself and her child, and she knew better than to think that anything more than momentary physical satisfaction—and perhaps even a baby—could result from her senseless lack of judgment.

  Humiliation welled inside her and scorched her cheeks. She jerked her gaze up to his. This man! Not her kind and gentle husband! Not her respectful, amenable fiancé, but this man! This corrupt, irreverent traitor had the power to unleash these stunning feelings and make her greedy for more. She covered her face with a shaky hand.

  “Mama? You bringin’ me thoup?” Jonathon called.

  She heard Brock pick up the tray she’d prepared and carry it toward the other room.

  Abby stood, still gripping the chair, still hiding her face and still castigating herself for her loss of control. She hated that Brock knew her weakness. And he knew. Oh, he knew. She’d practically torn his clothes from him and straddled him on her kitchen floor! That picture brought another flash of heat, and to cast it aside she dipped a cloth in cool water and pressed it against her cheeks.

  She’d never dreamed this could happen. She de tested the man. She did. She hated what he stood for and what he’d done. Climbing all over the man who had killed her brother was more than disloyal, it was sick. She must be depraved to have let that happen. She should have let him go hungry. She should have let him sit there until he died of starvation, she thought irrationally.

  Abby straightened her apron, smoothed her hair and garnered all her courage to walk into that room and see to her son in the presence of that man.

  Brock had tucked the curtain back over a hook, so Jonathon saw her approach. “Brock thaid you had to let the thoup cool a little bit. I like it.”

  She smiled weakly and seated herself on the opposite side of the bed from where Brock sat, helping Jonathon with the heavy mug.

  “You okay, Mama?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You look kinda funny. Maybe you got a fever, too.”

  Brock turned his head to look at her, but she ignored his gaze.

  “No, I’m fine,” she assured Jonathon. “The stove was hot, is all.”

  “Sit in the rocker and cool off, Abby,” Brock said, his voice deliberately solicitous.

  She moved to the rocking chair and watched her son eat his meal.

  Brock enjoyed holding the mug for Jonathon, tearing off bits of bread and cheese and seeing him savor them. How many mealtimes had he missed? How many childhood sicknesses and sleepless nights and bedtime stories? “What’s your favorite food?” he asked.

  “Licorith,” the boy answered immediately.

  Brock chuckled. “How about your favorite food that your mama makes?”

  “Mmm. I think prob’ly her fried chicken. Mama’th a real good cooker and maketh a lot of food I like.”

  “What’s your favorite story?”

  “The one where Jack Thpade trackth the bank robber through the mountainth an’ hith horth dieth, an’ he walkth all the way to Cheyenne with a bullet in hith leg. That prob’ly hurt.”

  Brock blinked. “There’s a story about that?”

  “Yup. Mr. Thpencer read it to me.”

  Brock glanced at Abby. Her lips were pursed in disapproval, but she held her silence. If she’d just found out about this, he’d bet Asa Spencer had an earful coming. “What do you think about your mama marrying Mr. Matthews?”

  “Brock,” Abby cautioned, finally looking at him.

  “I’m just asking the boy his opinion. He can have one, can’t he?”

  She slanted a glance at Jonathon.

  “Go ahead, Jonathon,” Brock said. “What do you think of their wedding plans?”

  Jonathon looked a little sheepish as he said, “Mama thaid I’d alwayth be her favorite.” He handed Brock the empty mug. “Mithter Matthewth don’t like me very much.”

  Abby’s brows furrowed in concern. “He likes you, dear.”

  Jonathon shrugged his narrow shoulders.

  “Go ahead, Jonathon, speak your piece,” Brock said, and cast Abby a look to silence her again.

  “He only talkth to Mama,” Jonathon continued, “but when he doeth talk to me, he tellth me how to thay wordth better.”

  “He corrects your speech?”

  “Yeah. I mean yeth. Ye-s-s.” He struggled to get out the correct sound.

  Brock glanced at Abby. Looking displeased, she studied her hands in her lap. “But your mama doesn’t tell you to say words better?”

  “Nope. Well, I ain’t th’poth to thay ain’t. Uh-oh, I thaid it, din’t I?” He glanced at his mother.

  “That’s okay,” she said with an indulgent smile.

  Brock had recognized the bond between mother and child from the very first, but every hour that passed pointed out how badly Everett Matthews fit in this picture. What did Abby see in him? Did she love him? How could she fall into Brock’s arms and respond to him so quickly if she did? No, she didn’t love Matthews.

  After she took away the tray and Jonathon chattered for a while longer, Brock told him he was going to leave.

  “Can you come back tomorrow?”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow,” he promised. The wrenching desire to touch his child, to hug him close, left Brock feeling incomplete. He ruffled the boy’s hair instead, but the gesture felt empty. He could hardly hug him or kiss him or Jonathon would wonder at his forwardness. This was a need Brock had never experienced. He walked away with a hollow ache in his gut.

  In the kitchen, he buckled on his gun belt. “Will you keep him home from school tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. I think he might need another day of rest.”

  “What will you do? Stay here with him?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. I’d have to take him downstairs with me. I have to be in the store in the morning because Sam’s been staying home with his wife until about ten.”

  “Sam works for you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, but his wife’s baby is due soon, and she’s not feeling well. Her family are all back East. I could send for Laine, I suppose.”

  “I’ll come,” he said simply.

  “You can’t do that,” she said, keeping her voice low.

  “Why not? I did just fine today, didn’t I?”

  “As long as I was cooking and checking on him.”

  “I can heat up soup and slice bread,” he assured her.

  “It just wouldn’t look right,” she told him in an irritated whisper. “You can’t keep coming here without people becoming suspicious.”

  “Matthews, you mean,” he said, careful not to let the boy hear their conversation.

  “Anyone!”

  “Why are you marrying him?”

  She blinked. “Everett?”

  “Who else are you engaged to?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  “I think you do. You’re taking my son into a marriage with you, and I have a right to help decide what’s best for him.”

  “No one knows he’s your son,” she whispered.

  Brock tugged on his coat. Caleb had known, but had said nothing. Jonathon’s hair and eyes were unmistakable clues that he was a Kincaid. Perhaps Abby was the only one fooled. He paused to look at her thoughtfully, but dared not shatter her illusion. She needed no fuel for her hatred. “I know.”

  “You can’t order me around,” she affirmed. “You rode out of my life and I got by the best I could. I don’t want to be alone. I have a right to marry and be happy.”

  Brock took his hat down and curled the brim absently. “Nobody gave me any choices, Abby. I have rights, too. You do have a right to marry, I guess. But he’s not going to make you happy.”

  “You can’t say that.”

  “I said it.” He leaned forward and emphasized the words. “He’s not going to make you happy. My God, woman, you
’d eat him alive.”

  She blinked, confusion apparent in her luminous green eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Think about it.” He settled his hat on his head and went out, closing the door behind him.

  It felt good to get away, to feel the crisp cold, to smell wood smoke and evergreen in the air. He inhaled deeply to clear his head. Turning left at the foot of the stairs, he trudged through the alley, instead of entering the street from beside the hardware store, making sure no one saw him leaving her place. It was almost surprising to find the snow around the hardware store hadn’t been melted away by the heat they’d generated with those kisses. The frigid air cooled his heated face.

  Since leaving all those years ago, Brock had tried to put Abby out of his mind. A man couldn’t concentrate on the tasks at hand if he allowed the past to dull his senses. But she had been hard to forget. And all it had taken was seeing her again to bring it all back: the passion, the hunger, the confusion. All it had taken was to kiss her again to know that nothing had changed. The years hadn’t taken away one degree of desire.

  She was fooling herself about more than just believing no one knew about Jonathon’s parentage. She was fooling herself to think for a moment that she’d be satisfied with a husband like Matthews. Abby needed a man to match her fire and her passion.

  Being Sunday night, the saloons were closed up tight. All the talk about the man in black had Brock wondering if he shouldn’t check out the situation, see who this fellow really was and what he was up to in Whitehorn. Brock decided to visit the establishments tomorrow night. He got his gray at the livery and rode for the ranch.

  Abby read Jonathon a few of his storybooks before he drifted off to sleep. She was sure he was better, but one more day of rest was in order. She tidied his room, wiped the kitchen table and checked the fire in the hard-coal stove, finding tasks to keep her thoughts busy.

  Finally, she went to her room and prepared for bed. She had avoided disturbing thoughts all evening, but once she’d changed into her cotton nightgown and extinguished the lamp, the troublesome memories besieged her. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she hugged her elbows and remembered the hungry, unconstrained kisses she and Brock had shared.