The Gunslinger's Bride

“Just leave me alone, Brock,” she pleaded again. “Please.”

Heat radiated off the iron stove. A rafter in the lofty ceiling creaked.

“He’s my son, isn’t he?” His gaze dropped to her breasts, to her belly, as though he imagined her with his child growing there.

A never-soothed ache swelled and burned in her chest. Abby had an empty feeling that a lot more people suspected the truth than had ever let on. They had pitied her, and she had married a respected businessman, so the truth had been overlooked. Caleb found ways to help and to get the boys together without embarrassing her. Never once had he asked her about Jonathon’s parentage. But he knew. And she had accepted his help and the tie to the family, because it was the truth.

Brock brought his attention back to her face, which burned anew with humiliation. “Say it, Abby. Say he’s my son. Tell me the truth.”

She stared at him long and hard, remembering all the days and nights after he’d ridden away. Remembering her father’s outrage at discovering her condition and his insistence that she marry Jed. She remembered her fear and her loneliness and her final resignation. When dreams died, they died hard. “The truth?” She looked him in the eye. “You want the truth, Brock? Jonathon is your son. And I despise you more than words can say.”

Countless times, Brock had stared into eyes that radiated hatred and he’d stared back, unfazed. Uncaring. Unfeeling. Not caring or feeling had kept him alive. Being quick on the draw wasn’t the only critical factor in winning a showdown. Most victories were won by gaining the upper hand before a gun ever cleared a holster. Mental strategy, confidence and a complete lack of emotion had given him the edge.

This time, God help him, he cared. The two facts struck like poison arrows and spread numbness through his chest and belly.

Jonathon was his son.

Abby hated him.

He’d missed seven years of his son’s life. Missed seeing the squalling infant come into the world, missed his first smiles and first teeth. Brock had spent his life on trains and horseback, in saloons and jails, taking pay to do things men were afraid to do for themselves. He’d been sleeping in strange hotel rooms and beside campfires, while Abby had been raising his son.

“Who does he think his father is?”

“He called Jed papa.”

Brock swallowed a groan and let the piercing hurt sink in. “Jed knew he was my son?”

“He knew I was expecting Jonathon before he married me.”

“Why did you marry him, Abby?” He still couldn’t comprehend her reasoning.

“My father arranged it. He was furious when he discovered I was going to have a baby. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Surely there was something—”

“Such as what? My father had just buried a son, if you’ll recall. Guy didn’t tell him about us, and I was too afraid. I never told him anything, but when he knew I was getting sick in the mornings, he figured it out. He made all the arrangements, then he hauled me off to Whitehorn, watched Reverend McWhirter marry us, and rode back to the ranch without a backward glance.”

Brock imagined Abby, young, afraid, bearing her father’s anger, mourning her brother’s death, and married to a stranger.

“What did you do?”

She raised her chin and met his eyes. “I cooked and cleaned and learned about hardware, and I had a baby. There wasn’t anywhere for me to run.”

He had no explanation that would change her mind about him. He’d been young and confused, but she’d been young and confused, too. Nothing he said now would change what had happened back then. She was acting as though he’d had a lot of choices. Even if he’d wanted to make it right, he couldn’t have. If he’d asked her to marry him then and there, she would have refused. Even if he’d known he had a son, still he couldn’t have come back. “I want to see him.”

“No. I forbid it.”

“You can’t forbid me from seeing my son.”

“You won’t do anything to hurt him. You have that much decency. If people caught on, they would treat him cruelly, and you don’t want that. You’ve left us alone all these years. Why should that change now?”

“Because now I know.”

“You’d have known back then if you had stayed and faced what you’d done.”

“We both know it was self-defense.”

“I have a feeling that everything is self-defense with you,” she said in a tone meant to inflict injury. “Have you ever taken responsibility for anything?”

Those words penetrated armor that bullets had never pierced. It was easy for her to blame him, easy for her to think the worst of him. Brock had never intended to kill her brother; he’d never even wanted to hurt him. The boy had drawn first, moved into the bullet. But he was dead all the same.

Little did she know Brock had taken responsibility for her safety and that of the son he hadn’t known existed—as well as his entire family—by staying away.

All the things she took for granted, things like a good night’s sleep in a familiar bed, like eating a meal without looking over her shoulder, like being able to live here, were the things he’d lost.

“I won’t do anything to hurt him. But I will see him.”

Fear clouded her expressive eyes. Did she think he would hurt her? Did she think he’d take the boy and disappear? She hadn’t tried to hide her contempt, but she’d done a poor job of covering other emotions. She thought he was a monster. Let her think it. Utilizing fear had always given him an edge.

“I want to know my son. It can be as hard or as easy as you make it, but a boy needs a father.”

“As usual, your feelings are the only ones that count,” she said with cool accusation. “Not mine. Not Jonathon’s.”

The bell over the door rang, echoing across the expansive interior and sparing him a reply.

A small figure dropped a scarf away from her head, revealing jet black hair, parted down the middle and pulled away from her oval face. She made her way toward the seating area near the stove, shaking the wool scarf as she went. “It is starting to snow again.”

Abby glanced uncomfortably from the girl to Brock.

He coolly lifted one brow.

“Am I interrupting a sale?” the young woman asked.

Up close, Brock observed her dark, almond-shaped eyes and obviously Asian features. She was exceptionally pretty, with an open, friendly face.

“I was just leaving.” He reached for his coat.

“We haven’t yet met,” she said, ignoring the dark look Abby shot her. “You are either the infamous Jack Spade that everyone is talking about—”

Brock wore the expressionless mask he’d perfected and didn’t so much as flicker a lash.

“—or you are the Kincaid brother who has been gone for years. You don’t look to me like the gunfighter everyone talks about.”

“Brock Kincaid,” he said easily.

“I’m Shan Laine Mei.”

“How do you do, Shan Laine Mei,” he said, uncertain of how to address her properly. “Is it Miss Shan?”