Page 61 of The Scot Beds His Wife

“I killed Bennett.” Her monotone admission stalled time itself.

Gavin’s hand froze, cupped against her chin. Her eyes remained closed, her lashes fanned against her cheek. Neither of them breathed for what seemed like an eternity.

A thousand questions swarmed into his throat, and Gavin had to press his lips together to keep them at bay. Confessions, once they began, traveled at their own pace.

“It was on the train toward Cheyenne, on my way here,” she continued on a swift exhale. “The Masters Gang went after some government bonds and payroll. Something happened in a different car. I heard that federal marshals were shot. And then… Bennett burst in and killed a man in my railcar, then pointed a gun at… And I… And I shot him. I shot him right between the eyes.”

Hot tears began to flow again, and Gavin caught them, his own throat aching on her behalf.

“Ye did well, lass. Maybe even saved lives.”

“Only one life.” She sighed.

“Is it his brothers who are after ye, do ye think?”

“His brothers,” she whimpered in bleak response.

“Aye, what are their names?”

“Boyd and Bradley. Bradley saw me do it. I didn’t think that they would find me here. They somehow figured out that Alison Ross was on the train, and where she—I was going. Then they used their stolen fortune to send those men to Erradale. For revenge, I think.” She hiccupped around a sob; her limbs began to tremble once again as she valiantly fought the rattles of grief and fear in her chest.

Gavin gathered her to him, astonished when she clutched at his shoulders as though he were her bulwark against a battalion of sorrows.

“Shh, bonny, shh,” he soothed, attempting to comfort her with a bit of levity. “Ye doona mean for me to believe that ye’ve only shotoneman before today, do ye? For as many times as ye’ve nearly shot me, I was certain that America had turned ye into some sort of bloodthirsty Yankee gunslinger.”

To his delight, it worked. A burp of laughter interrupted her sobs, and she pushed at his shoulder with a self-conscious sniff that he found unutterably adorable.

“That’s only because all of this is your fault,” she accused with a slurring sort of churlishness. “If I’d never been on that train, maybe none of this would have happened. I could have gone to Oregon, like I’d planned. I would be married when—”

“Married?” The word hit him in the chest with all the power of a draft horse’s kick. “Married to whom?”

Her gaze sought to escape his again. “That isn’t the point.”

He caught her chin in a gentle grip, firm enough to force her to look at him. “Married. To.Whom?”

“You’ve never heard of him.”

“Try me.”

She wrinkled her brow again, as though sifting through elusive memories. “Grant… a… a banker.”

“I’ll be honest, bonny, I have a hard time picturing ye settled with a banker.”

Thunder gathered in her watery eyes. “What of it? He’s a gentleman. A self-made man with a fortune all his own. He’s honest and kind and virtuous. All the things you’re not. He keeps his word and he—”

“Oh?” Gavin interrupted, unwilling to hear anything else about this Grant bastard. “Then, pray, where is this paragon of honor, that I may kiss his boot?” She hadn’t, he noticed, mentioned the word “handsome” among her intended’s myriad of virtues.

“Back in San Francisco,” she hedged.

“He doesna write ye? He willna join ye, even after all ye’ve been through?”

Her lashes fluttered down again. “Circumstances don’t permit…”

“Fuck circumstances,” Gavin snarled, startling them both with the ferocity of his vehemence. “If he loved ye, he’d not let ye face yer enemies alone. He’d have learned of the robbery and have hunted every single one of the so-called Masters brothers to the edge of perdition. He’d have marched them to the gates of hell and handed them over to the devil, himself. Then, he’d return for ye. Claim every part of ye, with his hands, with his mouth, and not allow ye out of his sight again.”

She blinked up at him for several astonished minutes. “Is—is that what you would do?”

“Och, nay, lass, I’d do one better. If a man touched my beloved in violence, I’d tear off his limbs with my bare hands and beat him to death with them. Slowly. And I’d receive a pardon for it, as well, as it would be no less than he deserved.” His hand curled into a fist as he relished the idea. “While we’re at it, let’s hope I never meet this Grant—thisself-mademan—for I’d take him back apart again. I’d break his body first, then his will, and then I’d make him watch as I took ye, just to show him how amandoes it.”