Page 33 of A Dangerous Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #4)

He’d started to ride away from Converse County entirely. Leave his family behind. Leave Clare. He’d gotten as far as the foothills and turned back. He couldn’t do it—couldn’t just ride off into the sunset.

He wasn’t the hero Clare needed, not the hero any of them needed. But he had to do something.

He was still trying to work out his next move when he heard a movement in the brush behind him. He swiftly rolled to his side and drew his gun.

His oldest brother’s head and shoulders appeared through the underbrush.

“I never could sneak up on you.” Drew smiled grimly. He glanced over at Bullet, standing with the pack horse Isaac had snuck out of the barn.

Isaac’s eyes followed the trajectory of Drew’s stare and caught sight of the soft brown shawl with its wispy fringe. He’d tied it around his saddle horn.

Clare’s shawl.

Isaac wasn’t proud of it, but he’d found the shawl in the barn and taken it. He couldn’t even say why he’d done it—only that he’d wanted a piece of her with him, even if he didn’t deserve her.

Drew’s glance swept the rest of the empty clearing, and he moved toward Isaac, eventually crawling on his belly to lie shoulder to shoulder with him.

Drew raised a pair of field glasses to peer out over the camp.

He pulled the strap over his head and handed them to Isaac. A rush of gratitude swept through him.

“What are you doing here?” Isaac asked, eyes on the camp.

“Same thing as you. Getting Eli back. Capturing Barlow.”

Isaac’s stomach knotted. Drew wasn’t finished, and his face was as serious as Isaac had ever seen it.

“Nick brought back Danna and reinforcements. Ed rode out and rounded up several neighbors. Got a baker’s dozen riding with us.”

Isaac let that settle on him. Thirteen riding with the McGraws. For so long, he’d tried to keep himself isolated from his family. From friends. Had tried to punish himself. And still, they’d come.

“I’m a little surprised to find you out here,” Drew said quietly. “Looked like you were leaving for good.”

Isaac lowered the field glasses. “We both know the family would be better off without me.”

“What?” Drew snapped.

“I’m not a hero.” The words cost him. He turned his face so Drew wouldn’t see the emotion he couldn’t keep from his expression. “Not the man Clare needs. Not the brother I should be.”

Drew shifted closer. “What exactly do you think a hero is?”

Isaac thought of Deputy Nerat. “A man who stands alone, protecting the innocent and leaving a town and its people better for him having been there.”

Drew put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “Look at me. I’ve got something to say to you.

And I’m going to say it looking you straight in the eye.

A hero isn’t some dime-novel character with a shiny badge and a pistol.

A hero is a man like Ed, working from sunup to sundown during calving season to help provide for the family.

A woman like my Kaitlyn, who comforts Tillie when she wakes up from a nightmare.

And it’s you, Isaac, showing those Barlow boys what it means to be an honorable man.

” Drew’s words felt like a relentless assault on everything Isaac believed. He wanted his brother to be right.

Isaac lowered his gaze and shook his head.

Drew squeezed his shoulder. He wasn’t done talking. “You were working a mission with the Marshals when Amanda left me.”

Isaac felt a beat of guilt. He should’ve written home more.

“Her leaving broke me. She walked away from me, from the kids…I kept asking myself why I hadn’t been enough for her to stay.

” He shook his head, his eyes focused on the far distance and his thoughts in the past. “I was still in that same dark place you are now when Kaitlyn arrived. Ed, Merritt, Kaitlyn. All of them worked at setting me straight.”

Was that what Drew was trying to do for Isaac now?

“I knew something had happened just before you came home for good,” Drew admitted. “Thought I’d give you time to sort it out. But maybe that wasn’t the right thing.” He paused, his eyes searching Isaac’s. “Nick told me what happened.”

Isaac let that sink in. He wasn’t angry with his younger brother. Maybe it was time to lay everything bare.

Drew wasn’t finished. “You’ve held on to this grief and shame for far too long. It’s like a wound you set festering till it’s poisoned everything. You weren’t to blame for the tragedy that happened.”

Drew’s blunt assertion hit like a hammer, battering against the self-blame Isaac had carried for so long.

“But even if you think in that cockeyed brain of yours that you’re to blame, you have to know that you’re forgiven. God has forgiven you. You know this as sure as the sun rises.”

Drew’s words hung in the air. A declaration that was too good to be true. One Isaac hadn’t dared believe until now.

“You’ve got to come to the end of yourself and let God be the hero in you. Who do you think gave you that quick draw?”

Isaac couldn’t speak. Emotion rolled through him.

Drew sighed. “It’s time to let it go.”

The words reminded Isaac of what Clare had said during that quiet, starry night. He wasn’t to blame. He’d never be a dime-novel hero. But he could be a good man.

His eyes went to the mountain range in the distance, turned back to the river, and the camp beyond.

He took in a cleansing breath, feeling steadier.

Cody was dead, and Isaac couldn’t bring him back.

But Isaac was alive. Eli was still alive, as far as he knew.

Isaac wasn’t going to squander any more of the time he had left.

He looked at Drew. His brother seemed to read this new peace stealing over him. Drew smiled. “Let’s go get Eli.”

Isaac stood and they walked together toward the horses saddled and waiting. A new determination filled Isaac. After this was all over, he was going to beg Clare to give him a chance to make things right.

He had to know. “Is Clare all right?”

“Clare?” Drew’s forehead creased. “She’s not here?”

Isaac stiffened in alarm. “Why would she be here?”

“She snuck out and rode off during the night. Everyone assumed it was to meet up with you.” Drew motioned to Isaac’s saddle. To the shawl. “Isn’t that hers? I figured she was somewhere close.”

“She’s not here.” Isaac’s heartbeat kicked up. Drew had made an assumption. It was a mistake, but one he could understand.

But if Clare wasn’t here with Isaac, and she wasn’t at the main house, that meant…

Clare wouldn’t ride out in the middle of the night to meet up with him. She’d gone after Eli.

Isaac strode to his horse, a new urgency gripping him. “We need to get down there.”