Cheryl St.John - The Gunslinger's Bride

The brick smokestack at Watson’s Hardware belched a steady gray cloud. He’d watched until dark and Abby hadn’t left the place. Caleb had come with a team and wagon and taken one of the boys away. If Abby’d left, it had been late, or she’d exited by a rear door, but Brock couldn’t imagine why she would bother.

He dressed and continued his vigil at the window. One by one, lamps came on in the businesses below. Merchants arrived and shoveled boardwalks. Shades rose. A man with a key entered the hardware store, a man too young and fit to be Jedediah Watson.

A team and buckboard pulled up alongside the dock that fronted the hardware store, and the driver climbed the stairs and tried the door. He knocked. Lights came on and the door opened to admit the customer.

Sometime later, the rancher came out, followed by the man who’d entered earlier, and together they carried boxes, rolled barrels across the dock and loaded the supplies into the wagon bed.

Abby appeared at the doorway, wearing a white apron. She waved as the rancher pulled away. The young man entered the store behind her and the door closed. She looked as though she belonged there. If the man was her husband, why had he just arrived, when it was apparent she’d been there all night? If she worked there, perhaps she had a room over the store. Brock glanced at the lace curtains at the upper windows.

He could stand here supposing all day, but he had business to see to with his brother, so he packed his bags and left.

Lionel had fed and groomed the horses, and Brock paid him an extra dollar for their care, loaded his belongings and rode out. He followed the ice-crusted creek, from time to time spotting wolves sunning themselves on outcroppings that jutted from the rock walls of the foothills. The horses startled an occasional deer or rabbit. He’d missed the wide-open spaces of this country, missed a sense of belonging and of family, more and more as the years passed.

At the time, leaving had seemed like the best thing—the only thing—he could do. Caleb had married Marie, a pampered young woman who’d been expecting his child, and her immediate withdrawal had confused everyone. Unhappy in his marriage, Caleb had turned cold and distant, and Will’s competitive badgering wore on him. Will had resented Caleb being groomed to take over the ranch, and his jealously drove a rift between them.

Brock had been torn between his two older brothers. Though he’d been the troublemaker in his youth, he had kept his tomfoolery away from the ranch, wreaking havoc in the saloons and streets instead. As he’d been the youngest, his irresponsibility had been overlooked. Frustrated by his lack of position in the family and on the ranch, as well as by the constant rivalry between his siblings, Brock had taken a devil-may-care attitude. When Will stole money from Caleb’s safe and headed East, his actions had stabbed Brock like a knife to the heart.

That hadn’t been the final straw, however. He probably could have stuck it out, moved to town perhaps, away from Caleb and Marie, though he adored their fair-haired baby, Zeke. No, the event that had driven him to pack his bags and ride toward the horizon had taken place the day he’d shot and killed the boy—Abby’s brother.

Brock sat his horse in a flurry of swirling spindrift and gazed at his family home, at the well-kept barns and corrals and the cattle on the nearby hills. Caleb had done well. So well that he wouldn’t welcome Brock’s return?

He nudged the gray and headed forward.

A figure on horseback emerged from the concealment of trees to the north and rode swiftly toward the barns. Brock recognized the brown-and-white skewbald and the figure atop as John Whitefeather, half Cheyenne and a friend of Caleb’s.

Before Brock reached the yard, the tall, broad figure of his brother, dressed in denims and a flannel shirt, appeared in the open doorway of the barn. Shaggy, dark blond hair blew back from his face in the cold wind. But despite the wind and the frigid air, he stepped away from the shelter of the building and ran forward.

Brock reined in the gray several yards away and dismounted, closing the final steps that brought him face-to-face with his brother.

Caleb looked older, still muscled from hard work, his gray-blue eyes not revealing the thoughts or feelings behind them. He looked so much like their father that a wave of odd familiarity swept Brock, then disappeared when Caleb’s mouth turned up in a grin. “Little brother,” he said calmly. Those steely eyes scanned the mountains and the sky. “Some time of year you picked for traveling.”

“Yeah, well, you know I never had much sense when it came to practical things.”

Caleb’s gaze moved to Brock and seemed to warm with his assessment of what he saw. “Your room’s still there. Don’t think the shirts are going to fit, though. You’ve grown some.”

Brock took that as a welcome, and the reticence that had created a stone wall around his heart cracked.

“Bet you could use a bath and a hot meal.”

The crack widened and a thread of hope snaked through. “Sure could. Who’s cooking?”

Caleb reached for the reins and took them from Brock’s gloved hand, then led the animals toward the barn. “Things have changed around here. We have a lot to catch up on.”

Brock walked beside him. “I’m looking forward to it.”

The gray-blue eyes that met his held an unmistakable sheen. “Me, too, little brother.”

After unsaddling and brushing the horses, then throwing down hay for them, the two men walked toward the house, where a familiar dark-skinned woman with a glossy black braid met them at the back door and led them into the warm humid kitchen. She rested a chubby, dark-haired baby on her hip.

“Ruth is my wife now. This is our son, Barton.” At Brock’s puzzled expression, Caleb added, “I told you there was a lot to catch up on. Marie’s dead,” he explained, referring to his first wife. “She was thrown from a horse and stayed in a coma until she died.”

Brock was at a loss for words. “I’m sorry” didn’t seem adequate, yet he couldn’t help thinking guiltily how miserable Caleb had been with his first wife and how he was better off without her.

“I’m glad you’re home, Brock,” Ruth said with a warm smile, teeth white against her dark skin. “And don’t let your brother fool you, he’s glad you’re here, too.”

Ruth was John Whitefeather’s sister, and she had stayed with them for a time many years ago.

Brock nodded. “I’m glad to be back.”

“Dada!” the baby burbled, and flapped a chubby arm at his father.

With a wide smile, Caleb took the boy from his mother and tossed him in the air. The baby chortled and a string of drool hit Caleb on the chin. He shook his shaggy head and grimaced, which only made the baby giggle harder. Caleb brought the boy to rest against his wide chest and wiped his face with his shirtsleeve.

Ruth laughed and the couple exchanged looks of affection and pride. She turned to Brock then and said, “Let’s get you settled. I’ll heat water for a bath.”

“Do I smell?” he asked with a grin.

She laughed good-naturedly. “The first thing your brother wants to do after he returns from a trip is clean up.”

“Well, you’re right about that. I stayed at the hotel last night, but I didn’t take time for the niceties.”

“You were in town overnight?” A furrow dipped between Caleb’s brows.

“Yes. I needed a little time to collect myself. I wasn’t sure—well, I wasn’t sure how you were going to react to seeing me.”

“Ruth’s right. I’m glad to see you. About damned time is all I have to say.” Caleb handed the baby back to his wife. “We’ll talk at supper.”