Читать книгу The Gunslinger's Bride - Cheryl St.John - Страница 10

Not now! Why now, of all times, did Everett have to show up? The tears Abby held inside threatened to burst through her defenses and engulf her, but she couldn’t allow Everett to see them, to sense even a glimpse of her torment. He would surely suspect something was wrong if she behaved the least bit odd.

Turning as he removed his coat, she plucked up the pencil and held it over the paper as if she could actually see or think to figure. “Oh, hello, Everett.” He wore a neat, brown serge suit and vest, and a matching bow tie at his neck. The perfect gentleman. “What brings you out today?”

He walked forward with his coat folded over his arm. “Why is Jonathon leaving with Brock Kincaid? What’s going on?”

“Jonathon’s going to play with Zeke for the afternoon. He’ll be home before dark,” she said, forcing lightness into her voice.

“I’ve never seen you let that boy out of your sight except to go to school.”

“Why, that’s not so. He’s gone to play with Zeke before. The winter days are so long. He needs a change of scenery now and again.”

“But Brock Kincaid?” Everett stepped closer, and she was forced to look up, somehow managing a tight smile. “You hate that man!”

Abby’s eyes wanted to clamp shut tight. She wanted to roll into a ball and disappear under the counter like a clump of dust. She would love to pound the floor and kick and scream that she did, in fact, hate that insufferable man.

She didn’t want to stand here all sweet faced and pretend to her betrothed that she didn’t loathe the man who had just walked out with her child! Instead, she scrambled for something—anything logical to say to prevent him from suspecting the worst. “All that was a long time ago. Caleb and Ruth are our friends, after all, and Jonathon and Zeke are best friends.” She took Everett’s coat and hung it on a brass hook. “Jonathon loves to play with him. Besides, Brock is Caleb’s brother, so I might as well let bygones be bygones.”

Had she said that? Had that atrocious lie rolled from her tongue? Abby tasted acrid bitterness and decided that, indeed, it had. She couldn’t abide deceptiveness, and here she was lying to the man she was going to marry. Once again, because of Brock Kincaid, she was going against her principles.

Everett shook his head of thick, neatly trimmed brown hair. One dark brow rose now, and coffee-colored eyes bored into hers in disbelief. “Pinch me to wake me up, because I can’t believe my ears. I must be dreaming, because I thought you just excused the man.”

“You’re not dreaming, silly. It’s not healthy for a person to go around with hard feelings locked up inside. I’ve decided to let the feud go. That’s all.”

“That’s all? That’s all, Abby? Did he apologize?” he asked in amazement. “Did Kincaid say he was sorry about your brother?”

“Oh, yes.” She told the bald-faced lie and turned to carry a lantern back to its shelf. “He regrets that they ever had a misunderstanding and that things got out of control so quickly. He’s a changed man.” Changed from bad to worse, anyway.

“I never really understood what it was they fought over,” Everett said, following.

“I don’t think anyone really remembers,” she said dismissively, as though the worst event of her life was of no importance. “It was a long time ago and they were probably too drunk to know what they were doing.”

“This is quite a change of heart for you,” her fiancé said, still seeming to have trouble understanding.

“Yes,” she agreed sweetly. “People are allowed to change.”

Abby glanced aside to note that Mr. Waverly, who still sat by the stove with his cane against his knee, watched her in silence, a shrewd expression on his grizzled face. He couldn’t have overheard her earlier restrained conversation with Brock, but he’d heard their original exchange and was now getting an earful of this one—and the two sure didn’t line up.

“Do we need a fresh pot of coffee, Mr. Waverly?” she asked.

“Couldn’t hurt. I lost m’spoon in the last cup.”

“I’ll get some water.”

She went about carrying the pot to the back room to rinse and fill. Everett waited while she stoked the fire and set the pot to boiling.

Taking her elbow, he led her aside, away from the old man’s curious gaze. “This is all such a…a surprise,” he said carefully once they were hidden in an aisle of garden tools. “I’ve never seen anything but scorn from you when the man’s name was mentioned, and now this sudden act of forgiveness.”

“Don’t concern yourself with it. It was time to lay things aside, that’s all.” She looked up and gave him a warm smile to distract him. She pulled her elbow from his gentle grasp and placed her hand on his forearm. “Have you heard any interesting news?”

Everett worked at the telegraph office. News passed through his fingers daily, and he loved to share what he’d learned. His curious demeanor seemed to change at her touch. “Seems they have a few cases of measles over toward Billings.”

Abby pretended interest. “Oh, really?”

“And the surrounding marshals have been alerted to watch for Jack Spade. No one’s sure where he headed, but he was reported crossing the Missouri at Helena and coming this way.”

She grew uneasier at that report. “Some are saying he’s the man who’s been in the saloons the last few nights.”

“I confess I stopped at the Four Kings last night to have a look-see.”

She cast him a playful frown. “Am I engaged to a drinking man, then?”

“You know better than that. I had a couple of rounds and a cigar, waiting to see if anything happened.”

“And what would you have done if it had?” Suddenly genuinely interested, she withdrew her hand and went on. “Those places are nothing but trouble. You could’ve been shot if guns had been fired.”

Everett didn’t carry a gun, one of the things she appreciated most about him. He didn’t try to charm her or intimidate her, either; in fact, Everett was everything Brock Kincaid wasn’t. Stable, levelheaded, responsible. He would make an adequate husband and a good father for Jonathon.

Her heart tugged with fresh insecurity at that thought.

She’d believed for the last year that she was making a wise choice for Jonathon’s well-being by saying she’d marry Everett. “A boy needs a father,” Brock and Laine had both said, and she knew that was a fact. But a father like Everett, not one like Brock.

“I would never want to worry you,” Everett said with a repentant tilt of his head. Moving forward, he took both her hands and clasped her fingers in his. “I’m looking forward to our dinner tonight. I would like to treat you to a meal at the hotel. You shouldn’t have to cook for me after you’ve worked hard all day.”

“That’s a tempting offer.”

“What have you planned for Jonathon?”

“I’ve planned for him to stay with the Spencers. They love his company.”

“Then you’ll have dinner with me at the Carlton.”

Abby didn’t have to think twice about not cooking their meal. “All right,” she agreed with a nod.

“Very well then.” He leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss against her cheek. Rarely did he kiss her on the lips, and whenever she turned her face to deliberately make that happen, he seemed embarrassed. “I’ll come for you at six-thirty.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Everett released her hands and hurried away to get his coat.

Mr. Waverly eventually headed for home, but not after observing her closely for another hour. He lived alone in a tiny room behind the livery, so he divided his days between watching Lionel Briggs at his forge and drinking coffee at the hardware store. Ordinarily Abby welcomed his presence. Today’s annoyance with his eavesdropping had been unusual.

She counted the day’s earnings, placed the money in a strongbox in the back room and swept the floor, starting on one side and working her way across the front of the building. The store was too big to do it all at once, so she made a point of cleaning a section each evening.

The sky had just begun to turn dark when a forceful knock sounded. Running forward, Abby opened the front door. Jonathon stepped in, followed by Brock, who helped the boy remove his neck scarf and hat.

“Come look, Mama!” Jonathon said, pointing through the windowpanes. “Brock din’t bring the wagon thith time. He rode me on hith horth! Ain’t it big?”

Abby observed the handsome gray tethered to the dock. “He’s big for sure.”

“Brock’th gonna teach me to ride all by mythelf. Won’t that be thomethin’?”

“That’ll be something, all right.”

“I’m gonna take ’im up and thow ’im my carved hortheth.”

“Jonathon, you need to wash up and eat. I’m having dinner out tonight, remember?”

“I already ate at Theke’th, Ma. Come on, Brock.” He took the man’s gloved hand, and Abby got a catch in her throat, seeing the familiarity, the worshipful expression on her boy’s face, the proud smile Brock couldn’t hide. A casual onlooker would think they’d known each other forever.

Abby tasted a grim measure of fear. “But I have to get ready.”

“We won’t bother you,” Brock said. “I’ll keep an eye on the boy while you get ready.”

“Come on, the thepth ith back here.”

Speechless, Abby watched her son tow Brock into the back room toward the stairs that led to their living quarters above. Anger simmering at Brock’s audacity, she yanked down the shades and locked the front door. After double-checking the banked fire in the potbellied stove and pouring a pail of hot water, she headed up the stairs.

Jonathon was excitedly showing Brock his carved horses when she entered her own kitchen, feeling like an intruder. She carried the bucket past them into her room. Seeing them like that, their heads together and their hair the same shimmering fair shade, her chest got tight. Jonathon deserved a father.

A simple cotton curtain separated the bedroom from the living area, and the sounds from the kitchen carried down the hall. Abby shrugged out of her work dress. Having no door on her bedroom had never bothered her until now. Now she wished for something more than flimsy fabric between her vulnerable undressed state and that unscrupulous man out there.

She bathed self-consciously in the water she’d poured into her basin. Her gaze was constantly drawn to the curtain, and every little sound nearly made her jump. Hurrying, she slopped water on the floor and spent several minutes cleaning it up. Finally dry and dusted with talcum powder, she selected her rose-colored wool skirt and cotton blouse with ruffled cap sleeves and ruffled waistline, because she felt competent and attractive in them. She brushed out her hair, rebraiding the thick length into order. An upswept curled style would be more fashionable, but her heavy straight hair never cooperated with current fashion.

Abby buttoned her boots, picked up her reticule and pushed past the curtain. Taking a deep breath, she hurried down the narrow hall. Jonathon and Brock still sat in the kitchen, their heads bent together over a small wooden horse.

Jonathon looked up. “You look pretty, Mama!”

“Thank you.”

Brock’s blue gaze traveled over her clothing, face and hair. “If you’d told me you had plans for the evening, I’d have kept the boy at the ranch.”

“Aw, Ma!” Jonathon whined. “I coulda thayed at the ranch!”

“You always have a good time with the Spencers,” she said. “And Asa looks forward to your company.”

“I think that’th ’cuz Mizz Thpencer ain’t a very good checker player,” Jonathon confided to his new friend.

Amusement turned up one corner of Brock’s full lips, giving Abby another hitch in her chest. “Is that so?” he asked.

“This way Jonathon only goes across the hall, and I don’t have to take him out in the cold to bring him home and put him to bed.”

“I can see the advantage to that,” he replied. Relief flowed through Abby, since she’d been fully expecting Brock to insist on staying or on taking Jonathon back to the Kincaid ranch. Surprisingly, he seemed to have accepted her explanation and her wishes. “Do you have a room all your own?” he asked the boy.

“Yup. Wanna thee it?”

Brock stood, his revolvers coming into view above the tabletop and making Abby queasy. He’d hung his coat over the back of a chair as if he’d been invited to stay. “Sure do.”

Jonathon cheerfully ran ahead and flung aside the pleated fabric that covered his doorway. “Here’th my bed an’ my chetht o’ drawerth and my box o’ writin’ paper an’ them are bookth I’m learnin’ to read.”

Abby’s gaze followed Brock’s broad back as he dwarfed their kitchen, the hall and the doorway to Jonathon’s room with his height and breadth. His intrusion into their home, their life, made her feel helpless, and she hated the feeling. He had her over a barrel and he knew it. They both knew it.

So she stood, waiting nervously for him to decide that he’d done enough bullying for one day and be gone.

A knock sounded on the outside door behind her, and she stifled a startled shriek. She opened the door to Everett, who stood at the top of the stairs, his wool collar pulled up around his ears against the wind.

“I thought you had a customer, but it’s all dark downstairs.”

“No, I closed up.”

“There’s a horse out front.”

Boots sounded on the floor of the hall. Everett’s dark gaze traveled beyond Abby’s shoulder. He hid his surprise well, turning and gently closing the door behind him.

“Don’t think we’ve met,” Brock said, striding forward and stating his name.

“Everett Matthews,” he said, removing his glove to take the hand Brock offered.

“Everett is my fiancé,” Abby managed to say, then watched Brock for a reaction.

“Well,” he said, his face void of emotion. He took his coat from the chair. “I’ll be going now. Have a nice evening.”

“Where’th your hat, Brock?” Jonathon asked.

“Left it on my saddle, half-pint.”

“Thank you for lettin’ me ride your horth.”

“You’re welcome. We’ll do it again.”

Jonathon grinned jubilantly. “Hear that, Mama? Brock’th gonna let me ride hith horth again!”

“Yes, I heard. Gather your things to take to the Spencers’ now.”

“G’night.” Brock nodded at Abby and exited onto the outside stairs.

She could tell Everett didn’t know what to say. He studied the door for a moment, then turned his dark gaze, almost accusingly, on Abby.

Jonathon appeared with his bundle, and Abby walked him across the hall to the Spencers.

“There’s my checker buddy!” Asa called from beside the hard-coal heater identical to the one that kept Abby and Jonathon’s quarters cozily warm.

“I made Jonathon some bread pudding,” Daisy said with a cheerful smile.

“You spoil him,” Abby admonished.

“Well, we have to have somebody to spoil, don’t we? Have a good time.”

“Thank you.”

Everett walked ahead as they descended the narrow stairs, and Abby clutched his shoulder for support in the dark. They reached the ground and walked toward the hotel, several buildings away and across the street.

Once inside the Carlton, Everett hung their coats, and the two of them were promptly seated in the dining room. Most of the tables were full, but Amos Carlton had extra help on Saturday evenings.

“News has it Amos’s wife is barely hanging on,” Everett reported. “He wired her sister back East.”

“Poor thing.” The woman had been ill for some time. “I’ll make a point to send her a little something.”

Abby knew everything on the menu, but read it anyway, avoiding the subject she knew Everett would bring up next, though the queries were inevitable. When the waitress took their orders, Everett ordered pot roast, potatoes and carrots, as she knew he would. Pot roast was the special, and Everett was frugal.

“I was quite surprised to see Kincaid in your home,” he said finally.

Not any more surprised than she was to have him there. Her stomach fluttered nervously. “I’m sure you were. Jonathon wanted to show him his horse collection.”

“I don’t know if it’s wise, allowing Jonathon to get friendly with the man.”

Abby was certain it wasn’t wise, but she was helpless to keep Brock from his son. She shrugged.

“I can’t see as how this will do anything except confuse our relationship,” Everett pressed. “Jonathon has to get used to a new father.”

Her heart raced at his words, and her mind went blank for a moment.

“Kincaid’s presence is only going to muddy the waters while I’m trying to be his father.”

Of course he didn’t know Brock was Jonathon’s father. He was referring to himself! The waitress brought strong tea and she laced hers with cream, something about the thought of Everett being Jonathon’s father making her uneasy. She wanted a father for him, so she should just be thankful for his concern and willingness to take on a ready-made family.

“You could be referring to half the population of Whitehorn when you refer to him as Kincaid,” she said lightly, without touching the subject.

“No one even knows where he’s been all these years,” Everett continued quietly, flattening a palm on the tabletop.

Abby finally found her voice. “I heard him mention he’d been a U.S. Marshal.”

“There’s a fine line between marshals and hired guns,” he replied.

His comment brought even more awkwardness to their meal. Their food arrived and Abby tasted her glazed chicken.

Several minutes later, Everett laid down his fork with a clank. She turned her head and followed his scowling gaze to the patrons being seated several tables away. Accompanying Will and Lizzie Kincaid was Brock. Big as you please, he folded himself onto a chair directly facing their table. The three Kincaids got settled, greeted neighbors on either side of their table and glanced around.

Brock’s gaze unerringly met Abby’s. One side of his mouth inched up in that provocatively irritating manner, and he gave her an exaggerated nod.

Her heart jumped.

Abby didn’t want to greet him civilly, but Everett was watching her reaction, so she returned the nod with a stiff smile and jerked her head back to their own table. The nerve of the man! He’d known she was going out to dinner and he’d deliberately come here to torment her!

Her chicken tasted like sawdust, and she had trouble swallowing the delicately browned potatoes. All she had to do was turn her head and she’d find him staring at her. Using every ounce of her resolve, she ate her entire meal without glancing over once. Why did he have the power to make her heart race so erratically, then stop altogether? Why did she want to know where he was looking and who he was talking to? That he held so much control over her was a revelation she would have rather never faced.

The waitress cleared their plates and brought them fresh tea, and Abby sipped hers as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

“He’s making himself right at home,” Everett said.

“Whitehorn is his home,” she replied, hoping Everett hadn’t noted her wry tone. And Whitehorn being Brock’s home was the problem. Most of the problem, anyway. She could have continued her life the way it had been, married Everett and been perfectly happy to never set eyes on Brock again. Instead he’d come back and deliberately turned her world upside down at every opportunity. Where was this going from here? She couldn’t begin to imagine. She gave Everett a sweet smile for no reason, and he became flustered under her gaze.

They finished their tea and sat speaking about the weather and the telegraph news for nearly half an hour, as though Everett, too, was loath to let Brock run them off. Finally, Everett pushed his chair back and stood, coming around to assist Abby.

She refused to look again, though she could feel Brock’s gaze on her back the whole time she walked to the foyer and slipped into her coat. The cold night air felt gloriously refreshing on her heated skin. Everett took her arm and guided her over the treacherously icy boardwalks.

“Thank you for dinner,” she told him at the top of the stairs. “Would you like to come in?”

“Just for a moment. It’s getting late.”

It wasn’t late at all, but rarely did he come inside to be alone with her. She had always appreciated his thoughtfulness, knowing he was protecting her reputation, but she grew lonely, too, and craved adult company on these long winter nights. Her relationship with Jed had been warm, but never passionate or truly personal. Sometimes she imagined a man who would wrap his strong arms around her, kiss her with more than duty or perfunctoriness.

They stood inside the door in their coats, and Everett leaned toward her as was expected of him. Abby raised her face and accepted his kiss. She was older now, wiser and more mature. Not having to hide her relationship with Everett stole the excitement she’d known in her impetuous youth. Those were factors in the lack of passion they shared, and she was glad for it. Not being crazy in love allowed her to make better choices. What was passion compared to stability, anyway?

When they pulled apart, he kissed her cheek and went down the stairs. His form disappeared into the darkness beyond the gas lamp, and she closed the door, leaning her forehead against the cool wood and blotting out acute disappointment. She had herself to blame. She’d allowed Brock liberties before marriage. She had never been courted properly, and the proper way was slowly. Everett was a gentleman.

Abby remained at the Spencers’ for over an hour, since Jonathon wouldn’t let Asa stop reading to him. Daisy chatted to Abby about this and that.

Descriptive words caught her attention, and she realized the story Asa read was one of the many dime novels glorifying Jack Spade, the legendary gunfighter. She had never told Asa not to read such a book to her son, so he wasn’t going against her directions, but the man should know better than to fill a boy’s head with such violent tales!

“Mama, did you know how Jack Thpade got that name? Cauth he leavth a jack of thpadeth on the body of the bad men he killth.”

She had never heard about the gunman leaving a jack of spades on his victims, and she didn’t think Jonathon had needed to know it, either. She would talk to Asa the following day and let him know she disapproved of his bedtime stories.

“Jack Thpade ith in town, Mama, did you know that?”

She took her son home and put him to bed, then undressed herself and climbed beneath her heavy quilt. An hour later, she had barely begun to doze when Jonathon’s cough woke her. She checked on him, finding his skin warm and his hair damp. After bathing his face with cool water, she sat at his side until he slept peacefully, then tiredly lay down beside him.

The following morning, Jonathon was still warm and the cough nagged. Abby went to get Daisy, who’d been preparing for church, to sit with Jonathon while she went to Laine’s. The town council had been looking for a new doctor since Dr. Leland’s death. Harry Talbert took care of teeth and boils and the like, but Abby had complete confidence in her Chinese friend’s herbal remedies.

“I will come,” Laine said after Abby woke her and told her of Jonathon’s symptoms. She packed several small cloth bags and a few tiny bottles in a basket, and they trudged along the paths in the shin-deep snow and up the flight of stairs.

“It’s nothing serious,” she told Abby, after checking Jonathon over, looking in his eyes and mouth, and listening to his heart and lungs. “The fever will run its course and he will feel better. I will make a tonic for his cough, though. He will sleep better, then.”

“Thank you, Laine. You’ve attended Jonathon through all his childhood ailments, and I wouldn’t trust a licensed physician as much as you.”

“Thank goodness many of the families in Whitehorn feel the same.” Laine grinned. “And my father is none the wiser about the nice nest egg I have set aside.”

Her father didn’t approve of her practicing herbal medicine on the townspeople, so over the last few years she had deposited her earnings in the bank without his knowledge.

Abby sat at the kitchen table while Laine crushed herbs into a fine power and added tinctures from her bag. “You and I aren’t like most women this far West,” Abby told her. “We aren’t dependent on a man for our livelihood.”

“Your inheritance is not a secret, however.” Laine added a few drops of boiling water to her mixture. “My savings are. But my father did not force me into the marriage he wanted for me, and for that I am thankful. I work as hard as my brother, and unlike many fathers, mine sees my value.” She poured the mixture into a bottle and corked it. “Your father forced you to marry your husband?” she asked quietly.

Abby nodded.

“I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been for you.”

“Doing what I did, I didn’t give him much choice, I guess,” she replied with a shrug.

“You believe you lost your head with Mr. Brock because you were young and foolish?” her friend asked.

“Definitely young and foolish,” Abby agreed. “Stupid.”

“And if you could live it over, you would do it differently?”

“I would do it differently. But I’m not sorry about Jonathon. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Is it not the same regarding Mr. Brock?”

Abby frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Was he not young and foolish, too?”

“I didn’t carry a gun and look for trouble,” she said.

“If he had it to live over, would he not do it differently?”

“He still flaunts those guns,” Abby declared. “He never learned anything!”

“Abby, most every man I see carries a gun. This land where we live requires them to do so for protection.”

“Using them against bears and cougars is one thing,” Abby protested. “Shooting people is different.”

“We need protection from people as well as animals.” Laine sighed. “I am talking about you and Mr. Brock, and you are avoiding the discussion by talking about guns.”

Abby stood and pulled out ingredients to bake bread. “I’m not going to agree with you, so stop trying to make me change my mind.”

Laine shrugged. “All right. Let me show you how to give this to Jonathon.”

They dropped the subject, and Laine stayed for another hour, helping Abby knead dough and entertaining Jonathon. Finally, she said her goodbyes and hurried out.

While the dough was rising, Abby heated water and washed her hair, then sat before the stove, drying the heavy length.

A light tap sounded on the outside door, startling her into dropping her brush with a clatter. She picked it up and hurried forward, expecting Laine to have returned. Instead, Brock stood in the cold, wearing a stern expression she had begun to recognize and resent. His handsomely carved features softened slightly as he took in her loose hair flowing over her shoulders and down her back.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I came to see Jonathon. I heard he was sick.”

“How on earth could you have heard that?”

“Daisy told Will and Lizzie, and they told me when they got home from church.”

“Of course,” Abby said, throwing up the hand with the hairbrush.

Brock glanced at the brush and back at her hair, and her face grew warm, remembering. He’d loved her hair. All those years ago, he’d loosened her braid and run his fingers through the tresses, bringing them to his face, touching her skin through her hair.

He obviously remembered, too, the recognition changing his features and darkening the blue of his eyes.

Abby’s pulse beat faster. She became aware of her femininity as she hadn’t for a long time, feeling his gaze touch her hair and face and infuse her with sudden heat.

As she moved back and allowed him to shut out the cold, the rustle of her skirts seemed loud, the fit of her modest dress suddenly revealing a woman’s body.

And he noticed. Lord help her, he noticed.