The Gunslinger's Bride

by Cheryl St. John

  Brock walked the gray around the log structure and the still-adequate barn, then halted and studied the winter-white landscape. A sound like thunder echoed in the distance, and he recognized the noise as an avalanche in a high canyon. A startled rabbit leaped from the underbrush several yards away and bounded toward a concealing thicket.

  Brock had been too young and too headstrong to appreciate the legacy his father had left him here on the rugged Montana frontier. This land provided everything needed to sustain a man and his family: fresh water, abundant game, virgin timber and good soil. It wasn’t too late to start over. Not here, anyway.

  And he’d see to it that it wasn’t too late to start over with Abby and his son, too.

  On Friday night the Double Deuce was filled with cowhands restless from the winter isolation and impatiently waiting for calving season. Brock sat in a poker game with Will and John. Linc Manley, Harry Talbert and a hand from Matt Darby’s ranch filled out the table. The hand, who went by the name of Ajax, dealt the cards, then leaned his chair back on two legs, watching the others with a tick in his whiskered cheek. He’d been nursing a bottle of cheap whiskey for the last hour.

  Brock had been on a winning streak, having reaped a stack of coins and as much paper money. He had another good hand this time and only took one card, which filled a queen high straight. He tossed five coins in the pot.

  Ajax gave a menacing scowl when the bid came to him, and used his thumb to still the twitch in his cheek while he considered his bid. Only two coins still lay on the green cloth at his right hand. “I got a horse to bet,” he said in a gravelly tone.

  It always disturbed Brock to see a man so desperate for a winning hand that he’d bet his last dollar or his property, and this time was no different. He almost wished he’d stayed home and played checkers with Caleb.

  “Okay by me,” Harry said with a shrug.

  Murmurs of agreement went around the table. A bad feeling rose in Brock’s chest.

  Final bids were made, John and Harry folded, and the other men revealed their hands. Ajax laid down his full house, a cocky grin on his lips, and waited expectantly.

  Brock spread his hand on the table.

  The man sprang from his chair, knocking it backward with a clatter. “You cheated! Nobody’s that damned lucky!”

  “You dealt those cards, partner,” Brock said, raising both hands above the table. He would not kill this man over a game of poker.

  “Sit down and cool off,” Will said calmly.

  “The son of a bitch cheated,” Ajax declared, swinging his arm in an arc that knocked glasses and cards and coins flying. He reached for the Colt at his hip.

  Brock’s lightning-fast reaction was instinctive. Half a dozen guns cleared holsters and were aimed at the man, but their appearance came precious seconds after Brock had drawn.

  The disgruntled cowboy glared wildly, first at Brock, then at Linc Manley, one of those with a revolver drawn, and finally at Will. The tick in the man’s cheek had started to involve the corner of his eye.

  “Put the gun down,” Brock said in a calm tone.

  The cowboy knew he’d made a mistake. He would either shoot to save face now or he’d back down, and Brock was betting he’d rather back down than take several slugs at close range. The odds were stacked against him. Wisely, he lowered the Colt to the table.

  Will reached over to secure it. A collective breath was released in the room. “Somebody go get James,” Will said.

  John holstered his gun. “I’ll go.” He picked up his money and donned his coat before heading out into the cold.

  Ajax made an awkward break for the door, knocking into a chair, bumping one of the saloon girls with his shoulder. Brock and Will were right behind him; Brock caught his arm and stopped his momentum, spinning him around. Will closed in just as Ajax fell, and jammed his foot in his back. Brock caught a length of rope that Cam tossed from behind the bar, and together they tied the struggling man’s wrists and ankles.

  Brock stood and met Linc Manley’s intense stare. No one else had seemed to make too much of Brock’s speedy draw; he’d always been faster than his brothers, faster than James or any of his youthful friends. But the man who apparently fancied himself a gambler and a gunfighter appeared affected by the scene—or the knowledge he’d just ingested. Brock looked away and gathered his things.

  An hour later, he sat in James’s tidy office, sipping strong coffee. Ajax had been locked in a cell, and James, after remembering he’d seen a paper with a drawing that looked like this cowboy, had sent a wire to Butte.

  Irritated at being called away from his game to send the message and wait for the reply, Matthews flung the jail door open and slapped a paper on James’s desk.

  “You were right. Man who looks like him is wanted for horse stealing and various other crimes. Any more messages can wait until morning.” He gave Brock a sideways glare and left as quickly as he’d entered.

  “Looks like the horse you won may be stolen,” James said.

  “I don’t want the damned horse,” Brock replied.

  “Why don’t you look it over for a brand?” James straightened the papers on his desk. “Stayed as fast as ever with those guns, did you?” he asked, referring to the reports about what had occurred in the saloon.

  Did James suspect anything? Brock shrugged. As youngsters they’d practiced on apples from Daniel Pratt’s orchard, which they’d lined up along the top of the fence. Brock, James and Daniel had all three received a licking with a switch when their fathers had to replace a twelve-foot section of the Pratts’ fence. Brock had always been the quickest, the most accurate shot. It had been something he’d done well, and the only thing that gained him much attention after his mother’s death. “Stayed alive,” he said finally.

  “You think Linc Manley is this Jack Spade fellow?” James asked. “Seems Spade hasn’t been seen anywhere else since the man got here.”

  “He acts the part,” Brock replied noncommittally.

  “Maybe. But what would he be doing here? We don’t have any range wars or need for a marshal. S’pose he’s followed someone here for bounty?”

  “This Spade fellow’s a bounty hunter, too? Where’s he find time to change his drawers?”

  “Granted, the dime novels probably have him drawn a little larger than life,” James said with a wry grin.

  “You’ve read them?”

  “Hasn’t everybody?”

  “I haven’t.”

  James opened a drawer and shuffled through until he found what he wanted. Handing a dog-eared, softcover book to his cousin, he grinned. “It’s winter, you know?”

  Brock studied the drawing of the mustached gunfighter, garbed in black, captured in a lethal-looking stance with a blazing revolver in each hand. He raised a finger to rub his bare upper lip thoughtfully. Slipping the book into his coat pocket, he headed for the door. If James did have real questions, he was keeping them to himself. “I’ll check out that horse for you.”

  Lionel Briggs was eager to talk to someone who’d witnessed the excitement firsthand. Brock gave him a quick explanation and asked to see the horse belonging to the cowboy.

  The superbly proportioned gelding, a chestnut with a white blaze and white stockings, was healthy, with good teeth. It bore a clearly altered brand. “This is the stolen baby,” Brock told him. “I’ll let James know and someone will come for him.”

  “I don’t mind the horse,” Briggs assured him. “Horses are my business, but I ain’t takin’ care of that mangy mutt.”

  “What mutt?”

  “The one came in with that fella. I let it rest in a stall back there and gave it water, but I ain’t no vet. Hasn’t gone farther than a few feet. Don’t think it can, really. Somebody ought ta put a bullet in its head.”

  In the stall indicated, Brock discovered the animal, a yellowish, long-haired breed of some sort, with a well-shaped head and muzzle. The poor thing was half-starved, its hair matted, and a raw wound glistened on one sho
ulder.

  The creature raised its head in a weak greeting when Brock entered the stall and bent down on his haunches to look it over. The mutt wagged his sweeping tail a few sluggish times.

  Brock reached out a hand to let him sniff. The dog licked his fingers with a warm dry tongue, a display of needy affection and desperate trust that injected Brock with instant sympathy. “What happened to you, boy?”

  Dark eyes showed flickering interest.

  “What’re you going to do with him?” he asked the livery man.

  “Put ’im out of his misery, I reckon,” Briggs replied.

  “Think he belongs to someone?”

  “Couldn’t say. He showed up when that Ajax feller rode in.”

  “Can’t leave him here to suffer,” Brock murmured, thinking aloud.

  “Can’t leave ’im here period.”

  Brock touched the dog’s bony head, petted his silky long ear. “Got a bucket and water I can use to wash his cuts?”

  “Buckets are in the tack room. Horse tank out back’s had the ice busted off. You can heat it on the stove back there.”

  “Thanks.” Brock strode off to heat water.

  It was nearly midnight by the time he’d washed the dog’s cuts and gotten him to drink. He needed food and something for the wounds, but Brock couldn’t see making him endure a ride, even if he carried him carefully to the ranch. He could take him to Will’s or James’s, he supposed, but at this hour their wives wouldn’t appreciate an intrusion from their troublesome Kincaid in-law.

  There was always Abby’s place, he surmised. He’d intruded on her so much already that another time probably wouldn’t make a difference in her opinion of him. She couldn’t get any angrier than she already was. Anyway, it would just be a couple of days until the dog was able to travel farther.

  Borrowing a horse blanket, he wrapped the animal and let Lionel know he was taking the dog. Keeping an eye out for anyone observing, Brock carried him through the alley, around the corner of the building and up the flight of stairs. He waited, cringing inwardly at imagining her reaction, but feeling rather clever at having thought of another means to wile his way into her place.

  Sitting at the kitchen table with a ledger and a lamp, Abby was startled by a light knock at the door. Her heart lifted in an odd little tug. No one had ever come to her door late until Brock’s return.

  She stepped close to the wooden barrier. “Who is it?”

  “Brock. Let me in.”

  “It’s late.”

  “I know it’s late. Open the door.”

  “You told me to ask who it was before I opened the door. Since I know it’s you, I don’t want to open the door.”

  “Open the door or I’ll cause a scene.”

  She considered his threat. A heartbeat later, before he had a chance to fulfil it, she opened the door. He stood silhouetted against the dark sky, his hat pulled low over his forehead, a covered bundle in his arms. He pushed past her impatiently. “Got an old blanket?”

  “What is that?”

  He moved toward the other room and the heater.

  She followed.

  “Please bring me an old blanket,” he asked almost civilly, so she did his bidding. “Leave it folded some for padding and spread it out here on the floor.”

  Once she’d done that, he lowered his burden to the pile. The blanket made a sound and moved, startling her.

  Brock pulled the cover away to reveal a pathetic-looking mongrel. A rather large one. The beast barely moved, only beseeched Brock with doleful eyes and then cast pitiful dark eyes on Abby. What had the man been thinking to bring this near-dead animal to her home? What was she to do with it?

  Her attention was drawn to a nasty gash in his golden fur. “Oh, he’s hurt!”

  “Do you have anything? Ointment maybe?”

  “I think so.” She hurried to the kitchen, wondering what she was doing, answering Brock’s beck and call in the middle of the night, and returned with a tin Laine had given her for an infected cut on her wrist. She handed him the salve. “Why have you brought this dog here?”

  “Didn’t know what else to do with him. Briggs was gonna shoot him.”

  Warily, Abby studied the dog’s sad expression and warm eyes. The pathetic thing was so thin that perhaps shooting him would have been the kindest thing to do. “And you couldn’t let him do that?”

  “Let him sniff your hand,” Brock said.

  She looked from the dog to him and back again. Something drew her to tentatively extend her hand.

  The mutt raised his head enough to lick her fingers. At the pleading touch, Abby’s heart went out to the poor thing, even though she knew caring would be a mistake. “What if he dies?”

  Brock hunkered down on one knee, his wrist dangling over the other one. “Then I tried.”

  She let herself rub the bony head. “But what if he lives long enough for Jonathon to get attached, and then dies?”

  Brock looked up with a worried frown, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “I won’t let him die.”

  Gazing into Brock’s impassioned blue eyes, she wondered what it would be like to have such confidence in oneself, to believe you held the power over life and death just by the strength of your will. Oddly enough, when he spoke the vow, she believed it, too. He was a man who got what he wanted.

  Together they doctored wounds, bandaging the largest one so the dog couldn’t lick off the medicine. Abby warmed some broth and offered it, watching while the animal used what little strength he had to lap it up. All through those tasks she kept thinking about Brock getting what he wanted, and wondering exactly what it was he wanted from her.

  He wanted to be a part of Jonathon’s life. Fighting him was futile. But she didn’t have to let him hurt her again. She couldn’t. One time of having her dreams dashed and her heart severed into tiny bleeding pieces had been enough pain for a lifetime. And he hadn’t changed.

  Except physically. His face was that of a man—leaner, harder, with weathered wrinkles at his eyes and across his forehead. His hands were corded and strong, and fair hair dusted his wrists. He was taller and broader than the young man she remembered. Her appreciative gaze couldn’t miss the added span of his wide shoulders beneath the wrinkled chambray shirt or the flex of thigh muscle beneath his trouser legs as he bent and moved.

  But there, tethered to those strong legs, were the guns she hated and feared. Those weapons represented everything that had gone bad between them, still held a sickening connotation in her heart and mind. She bent to pick up the empty bowl, but her trembling fingers lost their grip and it clattered to the floor, hitting the corner of the heater with a clang.

  Brock bent to retrieve it, pointed to a chip. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “No, it’s old. It doesn’t matter.” She took the bowl from him.

  “Mama? What wath that?” Jonathon scuffed out barefoot and rubbed his eyes sleepily. “Mithter Brock? Whatcha doin’ here?”

  “I needed your mom’s help,” Brock replied.

  Jonathon caught sight of the dog and bounded forward. “A dog? Where’d we get a dog?”

  “He’s not our dog,” Abby cautioned.

  “I found him sick and hurt, and I brought him here for your mom to help me take care of him.”

  “Bad hurt?” the boy asked, and he knelt cautiously.

  “Not too bad,” Brock replied. “But his cuts haven’t been tended and he looks like he hasn’t eaten for a long time.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a fight with an animal. Maybe… maybe, I don’t know.”

  Abby was grateful he hadn’t suggested that a person might have done that harm. She hoped Jonathon had a lot of time left before he had to learn the cruel reality of this world.

  Brock didn’t have to suggest that Jonathon let the dog smell him. The child patted his furry head and the animal immediately turned his face to lavishly lick his hand. Jonathon laughed delightedly. “He liketh
me! Look, Mama!”

  “I see.”

  Situating himself more comfortably on the floor, Brock explained the dog’s injuries and how they were going to help him get better and stronger. Jonathon wore the same excited expression he’d worn on Christmas morning, his innocent delight and enthusiasm tugging at Abby’s heart. She prayed the dog would survive.

  The canine fell into exhausted sleep and Jonathon covered him with the blanket, continuing to stroke his head.

  “Time for you to go back to your bed,” Abby told him.

  “Do I have to?”

  She nodded. “Yes, darling. It’s late and you’re a growing boy.”

  “Can Mithter Brock tuck me in?”

  Both sets of blue eyes appealed to her. She nodded her assent. Brock held out his hand. “Come on, partner.” Together they strolled into the bedroom.

  Abby added fuel to the heater. Rather than put up a futile struggle, she scurried to her room for blankets and a pillow, and placed them on the divan. Brock returned at the same time. “He fell right to sleep,” he reported.

  “You’re staying to watch over the dog, I suppose.”

  He leaned back from the waist, stretching his spine and emphasizing his imposing size, and nodded. Unable to pry her hungry gaze from him, she watched as he carried the basin, towel and tin to the kitchen, and listened as he apparently washed at her sink.

  He returned, carrying his shirt, his chest bare, droplets glistening in the golden hairs. Abby swallowed. His hair looked as though he’d run his fingers through it; his powerful arms were sleek and solid. “Do you have a shirt?” he asked. “Mine smells like a wet dog.”

  She managed a nod and found one of Jed’s flannel shirts in the back of a drawer. Brock accepted the folded garment and laid it on the back of the divan, before he sat and removed his boots. Abby came to life and arranged the blankets and pillows, making him stand aside.

  She finished and stood back.

  “Thank you,” he said finally.

  “That must have hurt,” she said, referring to the words she couldn’t remember hearing him speak before.