Page 3 of The Gunslinger’s Bride (Montana Mavericks: Historicals #1)

B rock brushed his fingertips across the empty space on his denim-clad thigh where his holster should have been.

The absence of that familiar weight kept surprising him.

“I hired on in a range war in Wyoming after I left here. Occasionally I rode shotgun for Wells Fargo on special runs. But the ranchers kept hiring me to do their dirty work, and they paid too well to say no. After a while it seemed I was getting so many offers that I could choose.”

Brock stood and stretched his legs, striding to the window and gazing out at the snow-covered mountains. “I traveled with army details to recover stolen horses. Took a couple of U.S. Marshal jobs. Things like that.”

“You never wrote.”

The words hung in the air, more of a hurt-revealing question than an accusation.

Brock hadn’t written because he hadn’t wanted his enemies to be able to track him to his family. The sugarcoated version of the past he was feeding his brother was enough. The less Caleb knew, the better. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“You could have said you were okay.”

“You were mad that I left, weren’t you?”

“I was mad at your hotheaded foolishness that got that boy killed.”

Brock stiffened and turned his gaze to Caleb. “I didn’t go looking for that kid, he came gunning for me.”

“Because you dishonored his sister!”

“What happened between me and Abby was our business.”

“Something like that becomes family business, Brock. Her father would have come after you himself if he’d known first. But it was Guy who found out and Guy who tried to protect his sister’s honor.”

“I never even had a chance to make it right,” Brock argued.

“What would you have done? Married Abby?”

The question sucked the tension from Brock’s body. He drew a palm over his face, then hung his thumb in his belt. “I don’t know.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Caleb answered for him.

“I was young.”

“You were a hothead.”

“Maybe I was, but I didn’t want to kill Guy.”

“I know that.” Those words were laced with sincerity and regret. “And things were ugly here, too. I knew why you left. I always knew. It wasn’t just the boy. You’d have been found innocent of his death—there were witnesses. You were protecting yourself. Guy was just the last straw.”

“I was all mixed up. You and Will were fighting…and then he left with the gold.”

“Don’t forget Marie,” Caleb added.

“And Marie,” he agreed with a nod. Caleb’s understanding eased away the burden of Brock’s worries. His brother had changed, and it was a change Brock liked. “You’re different now than before I left.”

“Maybe that’s why I understand that you’re different, too. It’s been a long time. We all change. And grow. Thank God.”

“And Zeke is so big, I can hardly believe it. He looks like you did.”

Caleb grinned and agreed.

Brock’s thoughts switched to the other boy he’d seen the day before. “What is Abby doing at Watson’s Hardware, anyway? Working there? Seems like an unlikely place for a female.”

“Might be an unlikely place for a female, but she’s been doing a fine job of running it since Jed passed on.”

“Running it? What for?”

“She owns the store now. She’s Jedediah Watson’s widow.”

Widow. The prickly news didn’t want to settle nicely in Brock’s mind. It poked around nervously, leaving stinging wounds. His breath grew short and he had a difficult time drawing air into his lungs. “She married Jedediah Watson?”

“Yep.”

“He’s an old man.”

“ Was. And I don’t think he was over fifty when he died.”

“What the hell did she marry him for?”

“Why do most women marry? Security maybe.”

“She said the other boy is hers—the boy I saw with Zeke.”

“Jonathon. Smart as a whip, that one.”

“I thought he was yours.”

Caleb looked at him in surprise. “Mine? Why would you think that?”

“I saw him with Zeke. The two look like brothers, don’t they?”

Caleb’s expression closed before he pulled out a pocket knife and worked at a sliver in his thumb. “There’s a resemblance.”

“I was sure that boy was a Kincaid.”

“Hmm.”

Brock didn’t like his brother’s avoidance one bit. It made him nervous as hell. “Don’t you think it’s odd?”

“What?”

“That he looks so much like…”

“Like what?”

“Like we did.” His heart kicked in an unsteady rhythm as the pieces came together in his mind. “Caleb, how old is Jonathon?”

His brother folded the blade away and studied his knife. “About seven, I guess.”

Brock took a few frantic steps toward the chair where Caleb sat, the weight of wonder growing heavier on his chest. “When’s his birthday?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Caleb—”

“Brock, these questions are for Abby. Go talk to her.”

The tension inside Brock had built until he felt sick to his stomach. “You know something, don’t you?”

Caleb stood and drilled his blue-gray gaze into Caleb’s. The room around them took on an odd gray-tinged bleakness. “I don’t know any more than you do. Go ask Abby. And that’s all I’m saying about it.”

Brock couldn’t leave the room fast enough.

Abby tied up a brown paper package with a length of twine and handed it to Etta Larimer, her first customer in an hour.

“Did you hear there’s a gunslinger in town?” Etta asked. There was an edge of excitement in the reedy voice of the newspaper man’s wife.

“No, I hadn’t heard.”

“He got off the stage yesterday, all dressed in black. Fancy clothes and fancy guns. Henry Hill saw him and says he wears silver-plated six-shooters in silver-studded holsters and a scarlet silk neckerchief.”

“Henry noticed his neckerchief?”

“Well, it would be a striking contrast to the dress in this town. People are saying he’s that Jack Spade fellow.”

Abby had heard the rumors of the famous Jack Spade being in the area for some time now.

Her fiancé, Everett Matthews, worked at the telegraph office, and he’d been seeing conflicting reports of the dime novel hero’s supposed whereabouts.

Her immediate thought was of Jonathon at the schoolhouse, but she dismissed her motherly fears as being intensified by the appearance of Brock Kincaid yesterday.

“Those kind of men are trouble wherever they go, and I hope Sheriff Kincaid sends him on his way immediately. We don’t need his kind in Whitehorn. ”

Etta’s expression grew subdued. “Of course, you’re right, dear.” She lowered her voice. “I just hope I get to see him before he leaves.”

“Not me. I hope I don’t have to set an eye on him or anyone like him.”

The front door opened, and even clear across the cavernous interior of the fully stocked store, Abby could feel the cold snake in and wrap around her ankles.

She thanked Etta for her business and moved to add more fuel to the fire in the stove.

She was poking the coals with an iron tool when boot heels sounded loudly behind her.

“I was wondering where all the customers were this after—” She stopped abruptly as she turned, the sight of Brock Kincaid’s formidable figure in a long, snow-dusted coat bringing her up short.

His dark blue eyes radiated as much heat as the stove behind her.

She set the tool aside. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“This isn’t the place or the time.”

“I think it is.”

Abby glanced around. Her only customer had departed, and Sam Rowland, her hired man, was gone for the day, since his wife was expecting a baby soon and hadn’t been feeling well.

A shiver of fear slipped up her spine. Rarely was she frightened to be alone here where men gathered and shopped.

They held a healthy respect for the widow of Jedediah Watson, but this man wasn’t one of them.

He was a stranger now. A killer. “I don’t have anything to say to you. ”

“You’ll answer my questions.”

A statement. A threat? She made herself look at him again.

He was bigger than she remembered, taller, with wider shoulders and the expressionless face of a hard man.

She would not let him see the sudden rush of fear that sent a cold chill through her blood.

She seated herself abruptly on one of the worn wooden chairs near the stove and folded her hands in her lap. “Hurry then. I run a business here.”

Brock took his time removing his sheepskin coat, hanging it on one of the brass hooks that protruded from the nearby post for just that purpose.

A pair of embossed leather holsters were strapped to the length of his thighs, ivory-handled revolvers gleaming deadly in the light.

Her heart slowed to almost no beat, then raced alarmingly.

She drew a shaky breath and quickly looked down at the floor.

His boots left puddles of melted snow on the scratched varnish. He stepped closer and she closed her eyes in keen trepidation of the inevitable.

“How old is Jonathon?”

She swallowed, knowing what was coming, dreading it from the depths of her wounded soul.

Countless sleepless nights and innumerable days of wondering and waiting had culminated in this moment.

She felt light-headed and disconnected, as though this was happening to someone else and not to her. “Seven.”

“When’s his birthday?”

“What difference does it make to you?”

“It makes a difference.”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business.”

“I think it is.” His voice was quiet, but held a tone that brooked no argument.

She argued, anyway. This was her life at stake. “I don’t have to tell you.”

“Then I’ll ask him.”

She opened her eyes finally, her head clearing and her protective instincts on full alert, and brought her gaze up to his. “You stay away from him.”

“What are you afraid of?”

He was calm, too calm for a man tearing someone’s life apart. His cool detachment frightened her more. “I mean it! Stay away from him.”

“He’s a Kincaid.” He said it with deadly calm.

Was her heart still beating? Of course. That was what the deafening drumbeat in her ears was all about. She fought to keep her expression bland.

“I knew it the minute I saw him. He looks like a Kincaid through and through. You can’t deny it.”

“What are you insinuating?”