Cheryl St.John - The Gunslinger's Bride

“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?”

She smiled broadly. “It is. The Shan family runs the fish market.”

“The structure made of…oil cans?”

She nodded. “Cans are filled with stones and dirt. Fireproof. Bulletproof, too.”

He hadn’t thought of that. “How is business this time of year?”

“My father and brother cut wood to sell during the winter. I sell canned vegetables that I garden during the growing season. Come by if you want good squash.”

“I will.” He situated his hat on his head and touched the brim. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“And you, Mr. Brock.”

He gave Abby a strong look. “I’ll be back.”

She pursed her lips and looked away.

The bell over the door clanged at his exit.

“Laine, how could you stand there and converse with the man as though he were a gentleman?” Abby said to her friend in irritation.

“Mr. Brock is not a gentleman?”

“No, he most certainly is not. He’s a selfish, infuriating, cold-blooded killer, that’s what he is.”

Laine’s dark eyes widened. “You know this for a fact, Abby?”

Abby turned and placed a kettle of water on the stove. “I watched him shoot and kill my brother.”

Slowly Laine removed her coat and hung it up. “You have not told me of this before.”

Abby rubbed her palms together. Few people in town associated with Laine socially, so she’d never been filled in on the gossip surrounding Brock Kincaid. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

“If he murdered your brother, why isn’t he in jail? Or why wasn’t he hanged?”

Abby grew flustered at the question. “Guy had his gun drawn. It looked like self-defense.”

“The law said it was self-defense?”

“But Guy was seventeen years old. Just a boy.”

“I am sorry. I knew your brother died young, but I did not know the circumstances. Mr. Brock, he is sorry for his part in your brother’s death?”

“He thinks of nothing but himself.”

“You know he was not sorry? He has said so?”

“He didn’t take time to say anything. He turned and ran.”

“But you said Guy had his gun out. Did he mean to shoot Mr. Brock?”

Now look what she’d done. She’d opened a can of worms she didn’t want to discuss, and her friend wasn’t one to back down. Abby chastised herself for letting her anger place her in this uncomfortable position, and measured tea into a metal strainer. “My brother was furious with Brock—for good reason. He was doing what he thought was right. Brock, on the other hand, was doing what he always did—wearing a gun and looking for a reason to fire it.”

Laine came and stood beside her. “You knew Mr. Brock well?”

Abby closed her eyes, and the anguish of those days washed over her in an oppressive wave. Tears burned her throat. How could she answer that question and not lie?

Laine’s hand touched her shoulder in a comforting gesture.

Did Abby want to deny the truth any longer?

“Abby, are you all right?”

She nodded silently, but her cheeks blazed with the heat of humiliation. She had never shared what had happened with anyone. She’d been too ashamed and embarrassed. For nearly eight years she’d held her silence about what had been a painful and life-changing turn of events.

Brock’s return had resurrected old hurts, all those chaotic feelings of confusion and apprehension. His insistence on seeing Jonathon endangered the secure life she’d grown comfortable with. She would go crazy if she couldn’t release the tension by at last telling someone.

Opening her eyes, she turned, seated herself upon a chair and patted the one beside her. She couldn’t carry this burden alone any longer. “I foolishly fancied myself enamored with him when I was young,” she confessed matter-of-factly, knowing her confidence was well-placed in Laine.

“You had feelings for Mr. Brock?” Her friend sat beside her, their skirts touching.

Abby nodded, incredibly relieved to make the confession at last. “But he barely gave me a second glance. I always knew when he was at a gathering because I watched for him and observed his every move. I knew the way he walked and the way he smiled and how he held a partner on the dance floor. When he looked my way I could barely breathe.” She shook her head at her childishness.

“So you see, it was a one-sided admiration. Until one summer all those years ago.” She paused to think about that particular year, and could still remember the scent of the pines in the high country, the vivid splashes of paintbrush streaking the mountainsides and the unique paleness of pink sunsets. That summer had defined all that was beautiful—and what had happened had characterized all that was ugly.

“He was miserable at home. His brother Caleb was married to an insufferable woman. Brock had no father or mother by this time, and his brothers fought all the time. He used to ride into town with the ranch hands and shoot up the saloons, then sleep off the liquor in jail.”

Laine gave her a puzzled look. “And you were sweet on this young man?”

“I knew him before all that,” Abby replied with a dismissive shrug. “I remembered him from when his mother was alive and our families were friends. Obviously I had an image of him that wasn’t the real person. I thought he was misunderstood. Humph.” Again she shook her head at her youthful foolishness. “I was the one who misunderstood. I thought he possessed redeemable qualities.”

Laine took Abby’s hand. “What happened the day your brother died?”

Abby studied their fingers. “It was night. And he was murdered.”

“How?”

“Brock had asked me to meet him in the foothills by the river. It was our secret place. I took a horse like I always did.” She turned a pleading gaze on Laine. “I was so in love with him. I thought he felt the same. I thought…”

“What?”

“Well, I thought our—relationship was quite romantic and forbidden and exciting. He was the most handsome young man—those sad blue eyes and that wavy hair—and he had this…this appeal. I can’t explain it.”

“I think I understand.” Laine’s sympathetic eyes said as much, too. “But what about Guy? He did not like you with Mr. Brock?”