The Gunslinger's Bride

“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?”