Page 29 of The Gunslinger’s Bride (Montana Mavericks: Historicals #1)

They were too different, and the past had built too many hindrances to conceive of any kind of compromise.

She had accepted part of the responsibility for his leaving, but how could she forgive him his part?

True, he hadn’t known she was going to have a baby, but if he’d cared in the least, he would have stayed to find out.

That thought jolted her into awareness and her head buzzed for a full minute while she collected her thoughts.

What if she’d gotten herself with child again?

Abby clutched the edge of the covers and squeezed her eyes shut.

It was highly unlikely that this one time had created a baby.

She was a little more knowledgeable than she’d been back then, and she knew the number of times they’d been intimate in the past had increased the likelihood.

This was one time, and she’d just finished her menses.

The time between cycles made a difference, too, she’d read.

Besides, fate couldn’t be that cruel twice—not that Jonathon was a mistake. She had never regretted her child a day of his precious life. And she never would.

“Abby,” Brock said from beside her.

“Don’t say anything,” she ordered, and pushed herself to a sitting position, taking the sheet with her. “You’ll only make it worse.”

“Worse than what? What just happened couldn’t have been any better.”

“For you. You have no responsibilities. No concern for tomorrow. If things don’t go your way, you simply leave and don’t look back.”

“You’re being unfair. And cruel.”

She got up and found her robe on a hook. “I told you not to talk.”

He sat; she heard the movement and saw his outline in the darkness.

“Just go,” she said, turning her back.

“I’m not leaving.”

She’d known that. But she didn’t have to condone his presence in her bed.

Behind her, movements indicated he was pulling on his trousers, picking up his guns, preparing to leave the room.

“I have something for you,” he said. “It’s in my coat. I’ll be right back.”

“I don’t want anything from you.” But he was gone. He returned a few minutes later, carrying an oil lamp.

The light embarrassed her, and she tightened her robe around herself, refusing to look at him.

He came to where she sat at the edge of the bed, and extended a tiny velvet pouch.

She glanced at it and away.

Brock set the lamp on her bureau and slipped something from the pouch to show her. A lovely opal-and-diamond brooch twinkled in the lamplight.

His offering cheapened what had happened even more, and a sick feeling cramped in her belly. “You don’t have to pay,” she choked out.

Anger flickered in his eyes. “I’m offering you a gift.”

“I can’t accept it.”

“It was my mother’s,” he said curtly.

Caught completely off guard by that announcement, she looked at the pin again. Why would he give her a piece of his mother’s jewelry when he felt nothing for her? Why did he imagine she would accept it? Did he think to appease her somehow?

Brock held the brooch out to her, suddenly feeling as vulnerable as he did when he went without his revolvers.

He’d thought of Abby the moment he’d seen it among the heirlooms he and his brothers had divided.

And he’d known there would never be another woman who meant what Abby meant to him. This was hers.

“I don’t want it.”

Her rejection bit deeply. With her scent still on his skin and the acute memory of what they’d just shared filling his mind, he absorbed the affront with stoic resolve. “Save it for Jonathon, then.”

Brock jerked her hand from the front of her robe and pried her fingers open, placing the jeweled pin in her palm.

“He should have something that belonged to his grandmother. Maybe it will mean something to him someday, even though it means nothing to you. He can give it to the woman he—” Brock stumbled over the word that almost fell from his lips.

She would take any declaration of love or affection and turn it against him.

“Marries,” he finished, and stalked from the room.

A night on her divan gave him a crick in his neck, and he woke constantly.

Occasionally, he checked on the dog or fed the heater.

By the time morning arrived he’d gone over every detail of their explosive joining the night before.

She had warned him. He couldn’t fault her for not being honest. She hated him more than ever.

But did she truly? Or was it her lack of control that she detested? If he’d made any progress in his quest to prove his sincerity and win her trust, it surely wasn’t apparent.

Seduction hadn’t been in his plan. Desire just erupted between the two of them as naturally as fire consumed dry tinder. And since last night had proved that she was still as crazy for him as he was for her, he was assured he was on the right track.

He folded the bedding and left before Jonathon awoke and found him there, but returned as the two of them were eating breakfast.

“Hey, Mithter Brock,” his son said with a welcoming smile. “We got more oatmeal in the pan—enough for you.”

“Why thanks, partner,” he replied, and, after hanging up his coat and holster, seated himself at the table.

Abby, a clean white apron over her church dress, spooned globs of cereal into a bowl and placed it before him without ever meeting his eyes.

“Thought I’d stay with the dog while you go to church,” Brock said.

“Mama thaid we could give him more broth when we wath done here,” Jonathon told him. “He’th prob’ly real hungry.”

Abby didn’t sit back down, though her bowl was only half-empty. She took some broth from the ice box and heated it in a pan.

“Do you go to the Epithcopal church?” the boy asked.

“I didn’t ever thee you at our church.”

Abby still hadn’t looked at him. “I—uh, haven’t gone to church for a long time,” Brock replied.

“You din’t?” Jonathon said, eyes wide in his innocence. “You could come with me an’ Mama.”

“I have to take care of the dog,” he replied.

Abby set a bowl on the table with a thud.

“I’m done, Mama.” Jonathon pushed his own bowl away and stood. “I’ll feed the dog.” He took the dish and carried it carefully toward the other room.

“Got a lot to repent of this morning?” Brock asked when they were alone.

“You keep your gloating to yourself,” she told him, pointing a spoon. “You’d be sorry, too, if you had a decent bone in your body.”

“I’m not a bit sorry,” he replied.

“I’m so surprised.”

“And you’ve been reacquainted with every bone in my body, so you’d know what’s there and what’s not.”

With a sputter, she threw the spoon, missing his head, but hitting a cupboard.

He couldn’t hold back a chuckle. Her skin was pink and glowing, her green eyes ablaze with an internal fire. It seemed the night had done her a world of good. “Glad you haven’t lost your pluck.”

“Anything I ever lost, you took,” she said hotly.

“Oh, no,” he disagreed. “You gave it all up willingly.”

Turning away, her shoulders tight, her spine stiff, she rested her hands on the counter and let her head fall back. “I hate you.”

He got up and carried his empty bowl to the pan of water and dropped it in before pausing behind her. He studied the nape of her delicate neck, where her auburn hair had been pulled up and fashioned into a knot. He remembered kissing that very spot and the way she’d shivered and melted against him.

“You just keep telling yourself that,” he said, and saw his breath flutter the fine hairs. He strode away to join his son.

He couldn’t spend all of his nights at Abby’s.

He did care about her reputation, no matter what she believed.

The dog improved enough so that Brock came in the morning to carry the mutt down the outside stairs and stand with him in the alley while he did his business. He returned at night to do the same.

On one of those return trips in the middle of the week, Abby had a late customer, so Brock joined Jonathon in the back room.

The child jubilantly showed him that the dog could get up and take a few shaky steps to retrieve a rubber ball.

The boy scratched the animal’s fur and let him lick his cheek.

“He liketh playin’ ball, don’tcha, Dilly? ”

“Dilly?”

“That’th hith name.”

“I see. How’d he get that name?”

“Well, I wath eatin’ one o’ Mama’th pickleth, and he kept lickin’ the juithe off my hand. He liketh pickleth.”

“Dilly. Well, that’s as good of a name as any. Do you think he’s well enough to move now?”

Jonathon’s face fell. He looked at the pet with yearning in his luminous eyes. “Where ya gonna take ’im to?”

“The ranch. I just had to make sure he could travel.”

“Doeth he have to go, Brock? Couldn’t you leave ’im here? I can take good care of ‘im. I’ll feed ‘im and take ’im out to the alley an’ everything. He won’t be no trouble.”

“Well…” Brock rubbed his chin and considered the boy’s sincere wish. “That would be fine with me, but your mama is the one who would have to decide.”

“Can we athk her?”

Brock nodded. Jonathon leaped up and flung himself against Brock’s chest in an enthusiastic display. Brock’s heart opened completely to this child he’d grown to love more than he’d ever dreamed possible. He placed his hand on his son’s hair and stroked it, a knot forming in his throat.

The curtain moved and Abby appeared in the doorway. Her expression flashed from tenderness to indifference like quicksilver.

“Mama?” Jonathon asked excitedly. “Brock thaid I can keep Dilly. Can I? I’ll take care of him and you won’t even know he’th here. I’ll feed ’im and let ’im out….” He went through his list of promises, while Abby held her face impassive. “Can I plee-eth keep him?”

She let her gaze touch Brock for the first time all week, but returned it rapidly to Jonathon and the dog. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to have a watchdog for the store,” she said finally.

“Yes!” Jonathon jumped up and down and did a little jig around Dilly, who thumped his tail and yipped a couple of times, as if celebrating his good fortune.

Jonathon stopped and ran to his mother. “Thank you, Mama.” He hugged her around the waist.

She returned the hug as best she could from her position above him. “Don’t thank me. Mr. Brock brought him to you. He’s the one responsible.”

“Thank you, Brock.” The “mister” that he’d recently dropped when addressing Brock was blatantly noticeable.

“You’re welcome, Son.”

The word had slipped out, natural-like. Jonathon thought nothing of it, enamored as he was with his new pet. He gave Brock another hug and knelt to scratch Dilly’s ears.

Abby had noticed, however. Her shoulders stiffened and tears came to her eyes. She blinked them back and turned away to remove her apron.

Brock would feel better with a dog here to alert them to anyone who might approach the place during the night.

This twist of events had turned out better than if he had planned it, he thought, mollified.

Good old Dilly had provided a night of passion with Abby, a couple of hugs from his son, and now would look after them when Brock couldn’t be here.

After a trip to the alley, Brock carried the mutt up the stairs and got him settled.

“Can you thtay and play checkerth with me while Mama maketh dinner?” Jonathon asked. “Mama, can he?”

She had washed up and tied on a fresh apron. Brock had begun to realize how hard Abby worked, morning to evening in the store, and then taking care of Jonathon and their quarters.

“Why don’t I go buy us supper from the hotel?” he suggested. He would have asked her to go to the hotel for a meal, but knew she’d never agree to be seen with him.

Abby seemed hesitant to accept the offer, though he knew the idea had to be appealing. “I’m going,” he said. “You two play checkers till I get back.”

Abby watched him go, her emotions ragged after the last few days of constant self-reproach, and his insistence on showing up morning and night.

Saying the dog was Jonathon’s should take the responsibility away from Brock now.

The more he ingratiated himself into Jonathon’s graces, the harder it was to discourage him.

They had played three games before Brock returned with their meal. “I had to make a deposit for their lousy plates, can you believe it?” he asked.

“I’ll return them,” Abby assured him.

He had selected huge cuts of beef, fresh cooked vegetables and spicy fried potatoes. Abby enjoyed the treat tremendously, and managed to thank him when they were finished.

“Shall I carry Dilly down one more time?” Brock asked Jonathon. The boy agreed, and the two of them bundled up to take the dog out. Upon their return, Brock gathered his hat and guns and wished them a good night.

“I really like Brock, Mama,” Jonathon told her as he put his checkers away.

She didn’t know how to reply, so simply nodded.

She remembered the way Brock had called him “Son.” It had sounded more like an endearment than just a casual term, and maybe that’s because she was sensitive to everything the man said and did, as though trying to find an underlying motive.

As though she needed to preserve his true nature in her mind, so she wouldn’t be caught off guard.

Jonathon took out his schoolbooks and went to work on a paper. Abby used the extra time she had gained by not cooking to wash out a few of her underclothes and stockings. She hung them on a rope she stretched across the kitchen. Some time later, there was a knock at the door.

Abby’s heart leaped nervously, and Jonathon scurried out of his chair to answer it.