Page 20 of The Gunslinger’s Bride (Montana Mavericks: Historicals #1)
“Everyone know Brock Kincaid?” George asked.
A couple of the men who introduced themselves were ranchers Brock had met at one time or another. The one named Alvin Waverly dealt Brock in.
“You related to the old fellow who occupies a chair at the hardware store?” Brock asked.
“My uncle,” the man replied. “Hasn’t had anything to do with my family for a dozen years. Some feud between him and my father.”
A saloon girl in a low-cut red dress with a sagging feather in her upswept hair delivered a bottle and placed a spotted shot glass in front of Brock. George handed her a coin and she poured Brock’s drink.
Thanking her, Brock studied his cards.
“What’re you doing in Whitehorn, anyway?” Matthews asked, his tone deliberately probing.
Brock took stock of everything from the expression in his eyes to the way he held his cards. “Brock is from Whitehorn,” George said by way of explanation.
The others grew silent.
Everett leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Way I hear it, you hightailed it out of here a long time ago. What brings you back?”
“A man don’t have to explain himself,” George said.
“It’s all right,” Brock assured him. “Mr. Matthews is obviously quite concerned about my business. I don’t mind setting him straight.”
The silence at the table was palpable.
“My family’s here,” he said easily. “And my family’s ranch. I have every reason to come home.”
“Why now?” Matthews asked. “You killed Abby’s brother and took off. Why come back now?”
His forwardness brought a quick intake of breath from the girl who stood beside Brock’s chair.
Brock’s gaze didn’t waver. “I defended myself. If you know anything about that, then you know he came after me intent on murder. And if you knew me, you’d know I never wanted to kill him. A dozen witnesses can tell you it was self-defense.”
“There weren’t even charges against you? I guess it pays to have a rich, powerful family in Whitehorn.”
Now an ever-widening circle of silence eddied across the smoky room.
If the fool drew a gun, he would never know what had hit him. He wasn’t wearing one where it could be seen, but he could have one beneath his jacket. Brock couldn’t let that happen. Kill Abby’s brother and then her fiancé? No, the situation had to be diffused.
“I’ll take your remarks as coming from a position of ignorance,” Brock said calmly.
“I would guess you’ve heard somewhere that Abby and I were friends before that happened, and now that I’m back, I suppose your confidence in her affections is shaky.
I’d be a little nervous if I were in your place, too. So your manners are excusable.”
Matthews face glowed as red as a beet. He sat with his lips clamped shut, his fingers white as he mangled the cards in his grip. “You can go to hell, you cocky son of a bitch,” he managed to choke out.
Brock chuckled. “Thanks for your permission, but I don’t think I needed it.”
A few uncomfortable laughs erupted around the table.
The girl in the red dress sidled up against Brock’s shoulder and rubbed his neck. “Win a hand with those cards and buy me a drink,” she said, placing her red-painted lips near his ear. Her cheap perfume mixed with the cloying scent of cigar smoke, whiskey and fear.
“Do I know you?” he asked, averting his attention only when he was satisfied that Matthews wouldn’t pull a gun. “ Ruby, darlin’,” she said, gesturing with a hand flattened on her spilling white bosom.
Recognition dawned. She’d been all of fifteen or sixteen the first time he’d bought her a drink in this saloon. The years hadn’t been particularly kind to her. “Of course,” he said, with a smile just the same. “Ruby, darlin’. I’d love to buy you a drink.”
She smiled gratefully.
The men around the table exchanged knowing glances, and the attention shifted away from Matthews.
Brock sat through several hands, Ruby at his shoulder, Matthews glaring. George called it a night for himself and the game broke up. Grabbing his coat, Brock let Ruby take his hand and lead him through the doorway to the back stairs.
Out of sight now, Brock pulled his hand from hers. She stood on the bottom step and gave him a curious frown. Brock took a gold coin from his pocket and placed it in her palm.
Skirts swishing, she turned and started up the stairs, then, realizing he wasn’t following, stopped and faced him. “You coming?”
He shook his head. “Enjoy a night to yourself. On me. No offense intended.”
She wrapped her fingers around the coin and blinked rapidly. “None taken.”
“’Night, Ruby.”
“Good night, Brock.”
He left through the kitchen, the only one there to see him a Chinese woman washing glasses in a tin tub. He nodded a greeting and shrugged into his coat, quickly opening and closing the door as he let himself out into the frosty night air.
Lionel Briggs let him into the livery, and they exchanged a few comments about the weather before Brock saddled his horse and headed for the ranch.
The snow glistened beneath the luminous white moon, and he gave the gray his head, sensing his restlessness and trusting his keen ability to retrace their earlier tracks.
Brock had defrayed the challenge from Matthews this time.
The man didn’t seem the type to actually draw a gun and have a face-off, but men who had their territory threatened never let up.
Matthews seemed more the type to cause dissention in a less flagrant way.
Especially if he knew he wasn’t going to win in a straightforward confrontation.
Brock needed to stay more alert than ever, especially watching his back.
Matthews’s attack might not be from a bullet.