Page 18 of The Gunslinger’s Bride (Montana Mavericks: Historicals #1)

H is gaze fell across her breasts beneath the thin cotton chemise, and to her horror, Abby felt the peaks tighten.

His heated gaze darkened knowingly. She clutched her skirt over her scantily clad body and glared.

“It’s cold in here is all. How dare you walk into my home and into my bedroom without so much as a knock? ”

A reckless grin creased his handsome features, and he said lightly, “I knocked. Jonathon let me in.” He glanced at the door frame. “And there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to knock here.”

“March yourself back to the kitchen and wait for me. Make yourself useful and start a fire.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The curtain fell back into place, her heart resumed its pace and his retreating footsteps matched the heavy beat.

She scrambled into her clothing and took a clean apron from a drawer, dropping her hairbrush into its folds to use later when she had a few minutes.

Her awkward fingers fumbled over her stockings, but finally she got her shoes buttoned, and hurried out. “I have to get down to open the front door,” she told Brock, and kissed Jonathon on the way past. She picked up a loaf of bread she’d wrapped in a towel. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Okay, Mama. Mithter Brock and me’ll find our own breakfatht.”

She turned back, chagrined that she hadn’t seen to Jonathon’s morning meal.

Brock waved her on. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll do just fine.”

Abby hurried down to let Mr. Meeks and his strapping young sons into the store. Apologizing all the while, she started a fire and put on a pot of coffee. She sliced the boys bread and watched them slather it with apple butter and enjoy the treat.

“One of these days your boy will be eating like that,” Tom Meeks said with a laugh. “I don’t know where they put it all. Their mama fed us before we left.”

“They’re growing boys,” Abby said.

“That’s for sure. Can’t keep ’em in coats and boots. But they earn their way. They’re good, hardworking boys.”

His sons proved him right by carrying in kegs and crates and spools without any seeming effort.

Abby directed them where to stack items and, as she always did, paid them for the work.

Having the Meeks boys unload and stack saved her and Sam a lot of hard work and muscle strain.

“I’ve been saving a job for you!” she called.

Tom Jr. hurried to do her bidding, hoisting a cast-iron stove and carrying it to a new position. Abby marveled at his youthful strength and swept up the dust that had gathered beneath the stove.

When they were gone and her early customers had paid and loaded, she took the hairbrush from her pocket and loosened her disheveled hair, brushing it out and replaiting the heavy length.

A few minutes later, Sam arrived. He threw off his fur-lined cap.

“It’s going to be any day now,” he told Abby.

“She hasn’t slept much the last few nights. ”

Abby didn’t want to tell him she’d been too uncomfortable to sleep well for nearly a month at the end before Jonathon was born.

Haley Kincaid, Jesse’s wife, had visited Sam’s wife a few days ago, and she, too, thought that Mary had a few weeks left.

Haley had worked for a doctor before coming to Whitehorn, so she was accepted as the local expert on birthing babies.

“I’m sure it will be very soon,” Abby agreed.

Sam took his wraps to the back room and returned.

“I’m going up to check on Jonathon,” she told him.

“He’s not at school?”

“No, he wasn’t feeling well. He’s better, but I thought he needed another day of rest.”

“Abby, is he alone? I’m so sorry I was late again today.”

She held up a hand. “No, no, don’t worry. You need to be with Mary. I want you to be with her. Jonathon—isn’t alone.”

“Good.” He picked up a wooden toolbox and carried it toward the front of the store. “Who’s with him? Daisy?”

“You going to fix that door?” she asked, ignoring the question.

“Yep.”

She hurried toward the back, leaving him to his work.

The remains of breakfast sat atop the stove and table, the scent of flapjacks lingering in the warm air. Brock’s guns hung beside the door, she noted with grim appreciation.

She heard no sounds, so she walked curiously toward Jonathon’s room.

His bed was neatly made and his horses stood in a row on the night table, but no one occupied the room.

Alarmed, she turned and hurried down the hall, glancing into her own room, and noting with amazement that her bed had been made, too.

Upon entering the sitting room, she brought her hand to her heart.

There, a never anticipated, heart-stopping sight met her gaze.

Brock lay stretched along the divan, his fair head on a brocade pillow, one booted foot hanging off the end, the other grounded securely on the carpeted floor.

One hand lay on his gently rising and falling chest. The other arm was wrapped protectively around her sleeping son.

Jonathon lay with his head on Brock’s chest, nestled in the curve of his arm, his face sweetly pink and slack in slumber. The similarity between the two was unmistakable. Anyone seeing them like this would know they were father and son.

Abby studied the two for a full minute, her heart fluttering crazily in her breast. She raised both hands and laced her fingers before her lips. The touching picture of serenity and trust brought tears to her eyes. Not wanting to intrude on the idyllic scene, she observed in awed silence.

What had she done? She’d created a child out of wedlock with this man. What could she have done differently once that had happened? Told her father the truth. Made him go after her baby’s father. But she hadn’t wanted Brock that way. And she hadn’t wanted him because he’d killed Guy.

Sleeping peacefully, Brock didn’t look like the murderer she’d believed him to be.

Lying with their son in his embrace, he didn’t seem at all like the man with whom she’d been so angry that day.

If she truly believed him to be a cold-blooded killer, would she have allowed him in her home?

The protective wall she’d constructed around her heart now had a crack, and that frightened her.

She wanted to hate him. She needed to hate him. For if she didn’t, what were the alternatives? For her son’s benefit, could she let the world know the truth?

Jonathon breathed easily enough, no sign of a cough apparent.

What was Brock’s presence going to do to him?

He craved the attention of a fatherly man, which Brock provided.

Jonathon was loving this, eating up every minute.

And why shouldn’t he? Why should her son be deprived of the attention he so rightfully deserved?

But what if Brock left again? It would break the boy’s heart.

As much as she’d wanted Brock gone, the prospect of him leaving again now was devastating.

Brock’s eyes opened and he looked right at her. She realized she’d made a pathetic little sobbing sound, and placed her fingers over her lips. Had he actually been asleep?

She hadn’t known she was standing so close until he reached out a long arm and caught her skirt, tugging her toward him.

She grasped the fabric. “Don’t you dare hurt my son,” she warned in a deadly quiet voice. Then she yanked the material from his grasp and hurried from the room.

Brock watched her go, a mixture of regret and anticipation chugging through his veins. He loved her.

He’d loved her from the beginning, when she’d been the only one who accepted him and showed him any concern. He’d loved her from the first time he’d looked into those green eyes and lost himself. He’d loved her since the night she’d eagerly surrendered herself, body and soul, to his touch.

He’d loved her all those years he’d spent trying to make up for disappointing her—by rooting out outlaws and risking his life and proving his merit.

He’d loved her the nights he’d bedded auburn-haired whores and found them sadly lacking. He’d loved her as he’d planned his return and cautiously disappeared from his previous life without a trace, spending months making certain no one followed or knew his true identity.

He’d loved her the day he’d seen her appear on the dock in an apron, a look of startled recognition on her lovely face.

And he loved her now. Even though she couldn’t stand the sight of him and he had to blackmail her into allowing him to know his son.

Even though she wanted to marry another man.

Even though she wished he’d never come back.

Jonathon was the icing on the cake. He smoothed the child’s hair and inhaled his little-boy scent. Jonathon made it all worthwhile.

The sound of Abby washing dishes roused him from his musings. They’d made a game of cooking breakfast, and Jonathon had been dutifully impressed at Brock’s flapjack skills. Then they’d set about righting his messy bedroom. While the child dressed himself, Brock had peeked into Abby’s room.

Fascinated by the feminine sight of crocheted lace on the pillow slips and the delicate powdery scent in the air, he’d stepped in and absorbed that place where she slept and dressed and…he’d glanced at the mirrored dressing table scattered with pins and ribbons…and brushed out her hair.

Drawn to touch something of hers, he had reached down and straightened her pillow, pulled up the white linen sheets, and been struck anew by her soft, familiar lilac scent. It had suddenly seemed so intimate to be touching her bed, knowing she slept beneath these sheets and blankets. Alone.

But she hadn’t always been alone here, he couldn’t help thinking. She’d shared this bed with her husband. The knowledge pierced him cruelly.