Page 18 of A Dangerous Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #4)

I saac had brought her flowers.

Clare dawdled over the jar of flowers in the windowsill, the rag she’d used to wipe down the table after a late lunch still clutched in her hand while her thoughts meandered.

The bouquet of mountain poppies, with their papery white petals and sunny yellow centers seemed to smile at her.

She shook herself out of her woolgathering, grabbed a shirt in need of mending, and went to sit on the porch step.

A cool breeze rattled the curling yellow leaves in the trees as she sewed the frayed edges of a sleeve cuff with tiny stitches.

Boys being boys, Eli and Ben had collected sticks to use as swords. She heard the click, click of their jousting and a few “Ha, I gotchas” in the clearing a few yards away.

It had been a week since the family supper. A week since Isaac had opened up to her. Things between them were changing, slowly but surely. He’d stayed at the table after supper last night, lingering over coffee. Listening to her chatter about the boys.

And then this morning, he’d left after a quick breakfast and a warning to stick close to the cabin. When she’d gone out to fetch water, she’d found two full pails on the stoop. And the pretty poppies. She didn’t want to read too much into the gesture. Isaac remained quiet and guarded.

“Bang!”

She glanced up to see Ben had turned his sword into a gun and was pointing it at Eli.

“You missed,” Eli crowed from behind a tree.

Clare tucked the last bit of ragged shirt sleeve into the cuff and sewed it together.

On the surface, things were going smoothly, but guilt ate at her insides when she thought about the secrets she was keeping.

Blood will out . Her father’s words rang in her ears and thickened her throat.

If she wanted to stay, wanted to deepen this…

friendship with Isaac, she needed to find a way to tell him.

Or she needed to figure out a way forward for herself and the boys.

“Come out, Victor Barlow. You’re a bad man, and you’re gonna meet your maker!” Ben shouted.

Eli stepped from behind a tree into the open, his face growing red with outrage.

Clare’s pulse kicked up at the name Barlow. “Eli!” she shouted.

Her warning came too late. She threw aside her mending and sprang to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Isaac approaching from the river.

“You can’t kill Pa!” Eli cried. “And don’t you say he’s a bad man.”

He hurled his stick aside and charged at his little brother, knocking him off his feet so that he hit the ground with a hollow thud.

Her mind raced as she ran to stop Eli from pummeling Ben.

Isaac reached the fighting boys first and swiftly yanked Eli off Ben.

His arms formed a tight band around Eli’s torso, but the boy kicked his arms and legs like a beetle turned on its back.

“Stop!” Isaac ordered as he strode a few yards to the cabin stoop and set Eli down. “Stay here. Don’t move a muscle from this step.” He paused for a moment, his mouth grim, waiting to see if Eli obeyed.

He moved back to Ben and picked him up. The boy threw his arms around Isaac’s neck, sobbing and sniveling.

She took a few steps toward the two of them, arms extended. Her breath hitched. “I can take him.”

He ignored her, avoiding her eyes and setting Ben on his feet again in the clearing a few yards from the stoop.

He straightened Ben’s torn shirt. Like a loving father would do.

Clare blinked away tears—saw it then, a gold star pinned to Ben’s dirty shirt.

And the gun belt that lay in the dirt and pine needles near Isaac’s feet.

How had she not noticed they’d gotten into Isaac’s things?

She maneuvered between Isaac and Ben. “I’m so sorry—they should know better. Stealing is not?—”

“Enough, Clare,” Isaac said, quietly resigned.

Eli, mulish, snarled from the step, “We didn’t steal nuthin’.”

Ben wiped at his eyes, leaving dirty streaks. “I didn’t steal. It’s right here. I can give it back.” He fumbled with the star on his shirt, and it tumbled to the ground.

Isaac swept it up and shoved it into his pocket.

When Ben tried to throw his arms around Isaac’s leg, the marshal held him in place with a hand on his shoulder.

“Go sit on the step next to your brother.”

Ben did as he was told, lowering himself next to his brother. Eli gave Ben an evil side-eye, his left eye swelling from Ben’s kick.

Clare’s stomach knotted. What could she say? How could she fix this?

She moved to hover near the stoop.

Isaac reined in his anger, didn’t lash out at the boys, but it was there, simmering under the surface.

He didn’t crouch or kneel, didn’t put himself on the boys’ level like he had when he’d caught Eli brawling in town. This was Isaac, the marshal, with arms crossed and a stormy frown.

“I’ve never met your pa, but from what I just heard, you boys have some disagreement about the kind of man he is.

One thing I do know, from what your aunt has told me—your ma was a good woman who raised you according to the Good Book, just like my ma raised me.

So you know right from wrong. Doing right or doing wrong is like a path that you choose to take.

Paths lead to somewhere.” Isaac jerked his chin toward the path that led to the river. “Like that path to the river.”

“The one that leads to a good life is narrow, and not many men choose it. Know why? Because it’s hard to do what is right.

The path that leads to destruction—it’s wide.

When I was a marshal, the men on this path were the ones I had to catch and arrest. Lying, cheating, stealing may seem easier at times.

But men who take that path meet a bad end. ”

Ben, so much like his tenderhearted mother, broke the silence with a small and earnest cry. “I want to take the good path, Isaac.”

Clare’s heart squeezed.

Ben wore his adoration for Isaac like the star he’d pinned to his shirt.

Eli scowled at his brother, but it was Isaac’s impassive expression and silent fury that twisted the knot in her belly tighter.

“Go on and start your chores. Clean the ashes from the fireplace and sweep the floors.”

Eli looked like he might protest, until Isaac clapped his hands, the sound like a clap of thunder in the quiet clearing. Both boys scattered like startled birds.

“Isaac—”

He cut her off with a quelling glare. Pulled off his hat, swept his hand through his hair, and shoved it back on again.

A gesture he made whenever he had finished talking and wanted to move on.

A muscle in his cheek jumped as he jerked his chin toward the far side of the clearing.

She followed him away from the cabin and the boys’ listening ears.

“Victor Barlow is the boys’ father?” His words were ice cold and hard, his eyes the same.

Everything she wanted to say—her apology, her plea for him to understand—was lodged in her throat, choking her.

He stared at her, waiting for an answer.

“You’re a Barlow?” he demanded.

Blood will tell.

Blood will out.

* * *

“You’re a Barlow?”

The question hung in the air.

Isaac saw the answer in her face before she spoke.

Clare was related to a notorious outlaw.

One who’d robbed and murdered in cold blood.

She wrapped her arms around her middle, fingers grasping her elbows like she was holding herself together.

At the same time, her chin hitched up stubbornly. All contradictions. That was Clare.

“I’m not my brother,” she said.

“You’re a Barlow,” he repeated.

He saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes before she blinked them away. Part of him wanted to comfort her, and that just increased his fury. She’d lied to him, keeping this from him.

“You took those boys from their pa? Barlow?” She had to know Victor would search far and wide for his sons. And exact retribution on her. “You know what he’ll do if he finds you.”

He saw the answer to that, too, on her expressive face—a flash of fear, then a fierce frown.

“He won’t find us!”

A bitter-sounding laugh escaped him. He looked down at his boots and took a calming breath. It didn’t work. He shoved his hands on his hips and confronted her again. “A dozen people saw you get off the train in Calvin with the boys in tow.”

Including Quade. His gaze instinctively went to the river. Quade would love nothing more than to stir up trouble, even murderous trouble, for the McGraws.

“All it will take is a few questions to find out who you left the train station with.”

Fear blasted through him. This was worse than imagining David going up against one of Quade’s men. If Victor Barlow tracked Clare here, he’d shoot anyone who tried to get in his way.

“I couldn’t stay.” She took a few steps toward him, shaking her head. “You can’t imagine what it was like…”

He could. He’d tracked plenty of men like Victor. Met the wives, children, and saloon girls who were the victims of their violence. Imagining Clare with the kind of bruises he’d seen made him feel sick. His eyes went to the scar on her wrist.

“I couldn’t stay any longer. I told you the truth about Anne and my promise to her. I wanted to get the boys out before?—”

“And now you’ve laid a trail right to our door. Right to Kaitlyn and Jo and Tillie.”

“Stop!” she demanded. This time the tears spilled down her cheeks. She swiped at them. “Victor has no idea where we are. We took two different trains to cover our tracks.”

“You can’t run away from who you are.” He saw the words hit, saw her shoulders fold in. He turned away, berating himself. He’d known, hadn’t he? That she was keeping secrets. He’d gone soft. Let down his guard. He should never have spoken a word to her.

He swung back around to confront her one last time. “This changes everything—keeping this secret from me.”

She closed her eyes against this last assault. The wind loosened some of her golden-brown hair and swept it across her face.

He jammed his hands in his pockets. His fingers met metal.

His mind flashed to the star half buried in the dirt.

And then to another scene—Cody, his lifeless body set in a pine coffin and lowered into the ground.

He couldn’t let that happen to David. Couldn’t bear for Drew to know that grief.

His first duty was to protect his family.

The points of the star stabbed his palm where he gripped it in his pocket. “We’re done playacting, Clare.”

Her face went pale.

“I’ll take you back to town in the morning and turn you over to Marshal O’Grady. She’ll help you find a safe place, but it can’t be here.”

He turned his back to her and stalked up the path to the lean-to. Halfway up the narrow path, he glanced back. Clare stood, eyes fixed upriver, bleak, her fingers tracing the scar on her arm.