“I didn’t say I didn’t have a weapon.”
Her gaze shot back to his face, and he gave her an insolent, one-sided grin. Unconsciously, her attention dropped to the front of his dark jacket, and she couldn’t help wondering whether or not he concealed a deadly weapon beneath the elegantly tailored garment.
Surreptitiously, Brock leaned toward her, his gaze focused elsewhere, and slowly opened the front of his jacket, revealing only cranberry-colored satin lining and the crisp white fabric of his shirt. No gun lurked against his ribs or protruded from the inside pocket.
The dress shirt covering a chest she knew to be hard and warm struck Abby as the most teasingly masculine sight she’d ever seen, and her insides turned to liquid. Against her will, her gaze slid from his shirt to the impeccable black trousers covering his muscled thighs.
He turned his head slowly, and she brought her eyes to his, working to keep her breathing even. He had made that move deliberately, knowing the heated effect he had on her, and she had fallen into his sensual snare like a mindless strumpet.
In a graceful motion, he stood and reached a hand to her. “May I have this dance?”
“Don’t do this,” she begged softly.
He only waited, his hand extended.
An embarrassed glance proved that several pairs of curious eyes were on them. She had no choice but to force a friendly smile and take his hand.
The minute she did so, warmth shot up her arm, the contact, even through her gloves, a fatal mistake. He guided her to the dancing area, and without giving her time to balk, placed a hand at her waist and drew her smoothly into step.
For these few glorious moments, she was not the widowed proprietor of a hardware store. She became a genteel, sought after young woman in the embrace of a handsome admirer. Brock’s part in the fantasy was no stretch of the imagination, for he was unquestionably the best looking man in the room. Her slippered feet glided effortlessly in time to the music.
Abby’s senses were besieged by the masculine scents of starch and leather that enfolded her. Through her gloves and his jacket, she knew the strength of the arm and shoulder that she touched, however innocently. She knew what his skin felt like, sleek heat over corded muscle; possessed keen recall of the erotic sensations their bodies created pressed together in passion; could close her eyes and hear the sounds of pleasure coming from his throat.
Perspiration formed beneath Abby’s corset, heat spiraled from the inside out and she felt as though she were trapped in a drugged spell. Her eyes had drifted shut and she forced them open, focused her gaze on the dancers around them. She had control over her own reactions, and she refused to lose her head over this man again.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Abby.” His voice held admiration and perhaps a touch of regret.
She refused to look up. She didn’t reply, but turned her head aside as if interested in something she’d seen.
“You don’t really want Matthews,” he said.
She glanced up then. “Don’t presume to tell me what I want.”
His deep blue gaze studied her features, rested on her mouth and then met her eyes. “He cheats at cards.”
His words took a minute to register. “How do you know?”
“And he doesn’t even do it well.”
“You’ve played cards with Everett?”
“That says something about a man, Abby.”
She wanted to laugh, but she would have much preferred to stomp on his foot and scream in frustration. Instead, her fingers tightened on his arm. “What do you care?”
“You’re planning to marry him,” he said, carefully keeping his voice low. “He’s the man you’ve chosen to replace me as Jonathon’s father.”
“Replace you? Replace would mean that you’d been his father first. And you weren’t. Jed was Jonathon’s father.”
“In whose opinion?”
“Jonathon believed he was his father.”
A muscle ticked in Brock’s jaw. “He has a true father. It’s unfair of you to deny him.”
“Me? I’m not the one who denied him a father.”
“You are now, Abby.”
She glanced around, making certain their conversation wasn’t picked up. “I am giving him a father by marrying Everett,” she whispered. “I was going on with my life quite nicely before you came back.”
“And I told you. You don’t really want him.”
“And I told you…” She stopped, took a breath and changed gears. “You would say anything to get what you want. I’m not sure what it is you want, but I’m not a pawn. Neither is Jonathon.”
“I think you should smile.”
“What?”
“Smile. People are starting to look concerned.”
Somehow, she turned up the corners of her lips. “I think you’re a selfish, egotistical slug, and I regret the day I met you.”
Brock returned her smile. “Oh, really? Why is it then that I could pull up your skirts and bury myself inside you at any time and you would welcome it?”
Abby’s skin burned with humiliation. “I hate you.”
“So you’ve said.”
The music ended and she pulled from his easy embrace and marched across the floor, her chin high, the smile plastered to her scorching face. Everett stood near the table where she’d been sitting earlier, a frown creasing his features. He handed her a cup of punch, which she accepted and drank thirstily.
“You two seemed quite friendly,” he said.
“Simply a dance,” she replied. To her extreme displeasure, she realized Brock had been walking behind her.
“Thank you for the dance, Mrs. Watson,” he said, with a polite nod.
“You’re welcome.”
“Save me another, if your fiancé doesn’t monopolize all your time.”
“Why she’d want to dance with you, I can’t guess,” Everett said.
“I think it’s my suave execution of those tricky steps.” Brock’s grin was evidence of his refusal to be baited.
Abby sank onto the seat of a chair, and noticed Brock’s brother Will and his young wife approaching. “Good evening, Will. Lizzie.”
Brock turned to greet his brother and sister-in-law. Lizzie took a seat beside Abby and brushed a lock of curly blond hair away from her face. “I’ve been looking forward to this evening. Winter can get so dreary, can’t it?”
She engaged Abby in conversation, and the men took a few steps away. Abby paid scant attention to Lizzie’s dialogue, while half listening to make sure Everett wasn’t causing a scene. He simply stood in their midst as the brothers were joined by Matt Darby and Bart Baxter, and the subject of seeking a new town doctor came up. She relaxed.
“When is the wedding?” Lizzie asked.
“What wedding?”
“Your wedding, of course!”
“Oh!” Abby clapped her hand to her cheek and gave an embarrassed laugh. “March.”
“You’ll let me know what I can do to help?”
“I will, Lizzie. Thank you.”
A hush ran through the crowd and Abby followed Lizzie’s blue-eyed gaze. A lean, dark-haired man dressed in black, with silver spurs and a silver conch at his throat, had arrived with a young woman on his arm.
“Who is that?” Lizzie asked.
“I think it’s the man some say is Jack Spade.”
“Whatever is he doing here?”
Abby shook her head. “I can’t imagine Asa or Daisy inviting him,” Abby replied. “Sylvia Banning must have asked him as her escort.”
Daisy had been friends with the widowed Sylvia for several years. Some said she was a former saloon girl. Daisy had never been one to hold people’s past or heritage against them, so Abby wouldn’t be surprised if it were so.
“It’s glaringly obvious that none of the ladies from the Benevolence Society accepted this invitation,” Lizzie said with amusement.
The gathering was a rather odd mixture of types, Abby realized. She couldn’t help but take note of E
verett’s frown as the newly arrived couple were greeted by the hosts and shown to the table of refreshments.
Everett at last asked Abby to dance, and she spent the time during several musical selections working hard not to compare his effect on her with Brock’s. Brock made her angry, and that’s why her heart raced when she was with him. She had made up her mind about this joining, and she and Everett had long ago announced their engagement. If Brock hadn’t returned to Whitehorn, she would never have questioned her decision. Darn the man for placing doubts in her head. In her heart, she knew marrying a reliable man like Everett was the right thing to do for her son.
The evening grew late, and Abby became weary. She’d worked the better part of the day, reserving only minimal time to run up and bathe and dress. “I’m tired,” she told her fiancé a little before ten. “May we leave now?”
Everett glanced around the gathering and pulled out his gold pocket watch. He flipped the cover closed with a snap. “Whatever you’d like. I’ll get our wraps.”
Several others had thanked Asa and Daisy and were making their way toward the door as Everett helped Abby into her coat. They followed the crowd through the open double doorway, and Everett turned back to pull the door shut.
A shot rang out, and the wood above Everett’s head splintered. Women screamed and Everett ducked to a crouch. In a moment of confusion, men and women scrambled and cried out. Abby glanced around at the chaos, caught in a rapidly unfolding scene that seemed like a dream.
From out of nowhere, a heavy weight launched itself against her, and she found herself flattened into the crusty snow, an enormous body pressing her down.
Chapter Nine
Abby tried to see what was happening. “What the—”
Another shot rang out.
“Keep your head down,” Brock cautioned, and pressed her cheek into the snow. Abby sputtered, but lay still, her heart thundering. From the corner of one eye, she could make out the enormous barrel of the gun Brock held at the ready in his bare hand. Panic welled up in her chest and her body began to tremble with cold and fear.
“A rider heading west, fast. Between the buildings over there.” Caleb’s voice.
Brock’s weight lifted immediately. He lunged toward a horse standing at the post and vaulted into the saddle. “Tell Darby I have his bay. Someone get James,” he called, referring to his cousin, the sheriff.
“I’ll go.” John Dillard pushed his wife, Tess, toward Will and ran toward the sheriff’s office.
Brock hesitated, glancing back at Abby, then at Will. “Will?”
“I’ll make sure Abby’s looked after,” Brock’s brother assured him.
Without another word, Brock kicked the horse into a run.
Will guided Lizzie and Tess back into the hotel, pausing briefly to wait for Everett to move away from the door, then he came back for Abby. “You all right?”
“My cheek is frozen,” she said, rubbing warmth into it with her gloved hand.
Everett stepped between them and brushed snow from Abby’s coat and hair. “I can take care of her.”
“See that you do.” Will gave him a steely-eyed, warning glance before joining his wife and Tess Dillard inside.
“This is the last time we join an event attended by this class of people,” Everett declared when they were alone.
Abby stared at him. “How can you blame the people here?”
“Look at the guest list, Abby,” he scoffed. “What did the Spencers expect? Someone probably came gunning for the half-breed or that gunslinger. Because of them everyone here is in danger. Let their enemies pick them off somewhere else, I say. Spare civilized people.”
Abby pulled from his grasp in disgust. “I’m going home.”
“You need to come inside with the others until it’s safe.”
“Whoever it was is long gone, and Brock and the sheriff have ridden after him.”
“Come back immediately, Abby.”
She turned and stared at him. “Don’t order me about as though you have a right. I want to go home, and I will.”
“This is unbecoming behavior.” Everett moved forward and took her coat sleeve. “Do as I say until we’re certain the streets are safe.”
“Go back inside if you wish. I’m going home.” She pulled her arm away and hurried along the snow-packed path, muttering to herself. “Do as I say…humph!”
Brock followed the tracks as best he could in the light of the half-moon. It didn’t help that it hadn’t snowed off and on for a few days and that a myriad of tracks led every which direction in and out of town.
James met up with him at the base of a narrow gully overgrown with scrub and drifted with snow. There they discovered a campsite that had been used for several days, but was now deserted.
“Man’d have to be crazy to stay out here in the weather when there’s a hotel and a boardinghouse within an hour’s ride,” James commented.
Brock had seen many a night when he’d preferred the elements to the possibility of being spotted in a populated area, but said, “He’d have to be crazy to take shots at half the town when they were gathered with their womenfolk, too, but someone did.”
Together they examined the campsite, discovering a few buried remains of meals. Brock was no tracker; he would ask John Whitefeather to accompany him to this spot tomorrow and see what the Cheyenne could decipher about the man and the horse.
Riding back toward town, Brock felt a sick worry settled like a rock in his belly. He’d been so careful. He was sure no one had been able to follow him. The shooter, whoever he was, was probably after Linc Manley, and the fact that Brock had been there was merely a coincidence. But until he was sure, he wasn’t taking any chances with Abby or Jonathon’s safety.
It wouldn’t do to place Caleb and Ruth in any additional danger, either, so he’d stay in town for a few days.
It would be more difficult for a stranger to go unnoticed in town, and after tonight the population would be wary.
After discussing with James his plans to engage John Whitefeather’s help, he located Matt Darby and returned his horse.
Making a furtive inspection of the saloons, Brock found them for the most part quiet and sparsely populated. Matthews occupied his usual seat at the Double Deuce, which meant Abby was alone. Without making his presence known, he stood at the bar and observed the game for a moment. A girl in a tight yellow dress with black beads twined around her neck and wrists carried a foamy pitcher of beer to Matthews. He tucked a bill into her powdered cleavage and hooked her around the waist to pull her onto his knee.
Disgust boiled in Brock’s chest. With a woman like Abby, a man had no need of the crude attentions of these girls. Matthews’s behavior cheapened what he could have with Abby, and Brock was embarrassed for her, even though she was unaware. He would love to tell her what kind of man Matthews was, about his lack of commitment, but Brock was no saint himself. He’d taken his pleasure with any number of nameless women over the past several years, but since his return, just the thought brought a sense of regret. Anyway, she’d only think he was making it up to bully her.
After leaving the Double Deuce, he turned into the alleyway across from the hardware store and observed the building and the street for several minutes. The structure was dark, except for a light in an upper window he knew to be Abby’s room. Crossing the street, he ducked into the alley, watched and listened, making certain no one followed or had seen him, then he bounded silently up the stairs and gave a light tap.
Moments later, the door opened a crack, exposing the yellow glow of a lantern and Abby’s shiny auburn braid as she peeked out.
“You should have asked who it was,” he said, and pushed the door open wider to enter. “Don’t open the door unless you know who it is.” He closed the door behind him and locked it.
“What are you doing here?” She clutched the neck of the simple white cotton nightdress with one hand and held the lamp in the other. Dainty bare toes peeked beneath the voluminous he
m.
“I’m staying tonight.” He removed his coat and hung it on a peg, then pulled out a chair and sat to remove his wet boots.
“What? You—what are you doing? You’re not staying here.”
“I’m staying to make sure you and Jonathon are safe, and that’s that.”
“What did you find when you rode after that man? And why would we be in danger?”
“All we found was a campsite. He could be anywhere, could be gone for all I know. I thought about taking you to the ranch, but it’s more isolated. It’s safer here.”
“Safer from what? I don’t have any enemies. Jonathon and I have been alone for two years. We don’t need your concern now.”
“You don’t even own a gun,” he told her, standing and placing his boots on spread newspaper near hers.
“And I never will,” she replied.
“Go on to bed.” He motioned for her to precede him into the hallway.
“You can’t stay here!” she insisted, refusing to move.
“Abby.”
“What?”
“Shut up.”
She blinked. Her mouth opened and closed. Her skin appeared pinker than usual in the lantern light. Finally, she seemed to find her voice again, and when she did it was laced with indignation. “Put on your coat and boots and leave my property at once. I have no need for your protection.”
Brock moved into the hallway and checked the door that led downstairs to make sure it was locked. Satisfied, he paused to peek in on Jonathon, but couldn’t see anything until Abby came up behind him with the lamp. The child slept peacefully on his side, his knees curled up beneath the blankets, his fair hair tousled. Brock had missed a lot of bedtimes. A good many evenings and mornings and all the simple pleasures, like just watching his son sleep.
He glanced back and discovered Abby’s expression gentled as she, too, observed their son’s serene slumber. Her gaze lifted to his and questions troubled her brow in concerned lines, but she remained silent.
At last he moved past her toward the sitting room.
She padded behind, shadows bobbing and weaving upon the walls. “I don’t understand,” she said finally.
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