“I take it you’re an authority on the subject?”
“I did my share of doorjamb peeking.”
“Is that where you learned all your tricks?”
“Between the sheets you mean?”
“Brad!” She glanced pointedly at the child.
“Can’t say that wasn’t a good beginning. It definitely whetted my appetite for more in-depth exploration.”
She had to skip to keep up with his long strides. “It’s so hard to think of you as a preacher.”
“When it comes to me, sweetheart, you ought to just think of me as a man first.”
Truth be told, she had a hard time thinking of him as anything else. “And forget your position in the community?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Would that make you wilder?”
She could feel the blush creeping over her cheeks. “I don’t think it’s possible.”
His hat brim shaded his eyes. That short-brimmed black hat, that on any other man would look respectable, just enhanced Brad’s overt sexuality. “Now that, I’m going to take as a challenge.”
She tried to look upset. “Are you trying to shock me?”
“Excitement was more my aim.”
She licked her lips, and plunged forward. “Well, you’re succeeding.”
Her honesty got that half grin that so tickled her sense of adventure. “Dangerous territory, Evie darling, tempting a man after you’ve been holding him off for two weeks.”
“You were injured!”
“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t hungry.” They reached their house. He stopped her with a hand on her skirt as she got her foot on the first stair. Her eyes were level with the mischief and heat in his. The combination poured over her desire like a living flame. “Doesn’t mean I’m not fair to starving now.”
“I’m hungry, too,” a little voice added.
Brenna was awake.
“Are you now, darling?” Brad asked in that low drawl he used with all women. With the child, it didn’t hold the seductive undertones she noticed he used with women, but that didn’t reduce its mesmerizing effect on Brenna. She stared up at Brad with the same rapt fascination of all females. Still trapped under his spell, she nodded.
“Then, as soon as we get Doc to check out why you took such a long nap, we’ll see about filling up that tummy.”
“I want biscuits.”
“You’ll need something else, too.”
“I like biscuits,” she informed him in a tone that clearly said she could like him, too, if he brought her biscuits.
Brad chuckled and climbed the steps. “Is that a fact?”
Brenna nodded. “They’re my favorites in the whole world.”
“Better than apple pie?”
“I’ve never had that.”
“Apple pie is very good.”
“Better than sugar cookies?” Evie asked as she held open the front door.
Brenna perked at the word
cookies
. Brad gave Evie an amused look. “Hey, no fair siccing her on my sugar cookies.”
“You like sugar cookies?” Brenna asked.
“Almost as much as I like my wife.”
The glance Brenna sent her questioned Evie’s worth compared to a sugar cookie, but obviously a trend of loving all things Brad was starting, because she nodded. “I’ll like them, too. Do you like sugar cookies?” the little girl asked Evie.
Evie wished she could be as open as Brad. “Not as much as my husband does.”
Brad shook his head as he passed by. “You are a hard woman, Evie Swanson.”
Was she? Evie didn’t want to think so, but it wasn’t as easy for her to be as affectionate as Brad, so maybe she was. Maybe she’d spent so many years fighting that she didn’t know how to stop. Maybe she was as hard and crusty as a hermit.
“I don’t mean to be.”
Brad straightened, eyeing her with an expression she couldn’t interpret. Had she said the wrong thing? “Now that will be an interesting topic of conversation for later.”
Meaning they didn’t have time for it, but now that she’d brought the subject up, she found she was itching to discuss it. So much so that she felt as if she was coming out of her skin. “I’ll look forward to it.”
That got her another strange glance from Brad, and another complaint from Brenna. “I’m hungry.”
“I can’t get you something to eat until Doc clears you.”
Her face crumpled. “But I’m hungry now!”
For the first time, Evie saw Brad look helpless. It was both endearing and disturbing. She’d rather enjoyed thinking of him as invulnerable. Reaching over, she grabbed her sketchbook off the table by the couch. “Maybe we can have some fun to take your mind off your empty stomach.”
“What kind of fun?”
“I thought maybe I’d draw a picture of you to take to your momma.”
Her lips trembled. “They locked her up.”
Evie started sketching. “I know, but the Reverend will get her out.”
“He will?
“I will?”
She didn’t look up from her drawing, working fast, adding detail to the bolder outline. “Yes, he will.”
Brenna’s lips kept trembling. That wasn’t the expression Evie wanted to capture. Evie worked on the girl’s hair, wishing she had paints to capture the vibrant red.
“Bull is very mean and very big,” Brenna said.
“The Reverend has God on his side. There’s no one bigger and meaner.”
Brenna didn’t look convinced.
Brad grunted and sat on the arm of Evie’s chair. “How about I call the McKinnelys to come with me?”
“Gray, too?”
Obviously, the child thought the boy could walk on water. “I was thinking I’d assign him to guard you.”
That got a smile. A big one, complete with a missing tooth. Evie sketched like a mad woman, wanting to catch the essence of the child for her mother. Brenna’s mother might be a prostitute, but she’d taken a lot of care with her daughter, teaching her manners and diction. Enough so that it was clear she truly loved her. Any mother who could instill manners under those circumstances deserved to see her daughter shine. And Brenna did shine when she grinned. Her rather ordinary features took on a gamine charm when she smiled, giving a glimpse of the woman she was going to be. An unconventional beauty, but a beauty for sure.
“Are you almost done?”
“Almost.”
“Will my momma like it?”
“Your momma will smile for sure when she sees it.”
Adding a last bit of shading, Evie studied the work. “Not bad.”
Brad took the pad from her.
“Hey.”
She couldn’t believe how long the seconds stretched before he offered his opinion. “Better than not bad. I’d say it’s perfect.” He turned the pad around. “What do you think?”
Brenna didn’t say anything for the longest time. She reached out and touched the portrait. “Is that really how I look?”
It was moments like this when Evie loved her talent. “I only draw what I see.”
“And I look like that?”
It was Brad who answered. “Exactly like that.”
Brenna pulled her free hand back and tucked it against her stomach. “Not an ugly, freckled whore’s get?”
Brad stilled. The glance he cut Evie contained a question.
“Some children were teasing Brenna about her freckles,” Evie offered.
“Those must have been some very jealous children.”
Brenna’s chin came up defensively, as if she heard the undertone and suspected the cause had to do with her. “Gray thinks I’m beautiful.”
Brad removed the page from the pad and handed it to Brenna, his voice too soft, his moves too controlled.
“Gray has excellent taste.”
THE MCKINNELYS ARRIVED with a flourish. Two buggies and three horses pulled up to the house, making enough noise to wake the dead. Brad opened the door. Jenna rushed past, carrying little Bri. Dorothy and Doc were not far behind.
“Where is she?” Doc snapped, all business.
“She’s upstairs with Evie.”
“She’s awake?”
“And hungry.”
“That’s a good sign, right?” Jenna asked, gripping the railing at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’d say so.”
Doc couldn’t get past. “Jenna, you need to move.”
She looked over Doc’s head to where Clint was coming in the door. With her chin she motioned to Bri.
“I need help up the stairs.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Brad took a step forward.
Clint shouldered past. “Because she knows I’d have trouble with a good-looking bastard such as yourself getting near her.”
“Clint!”
“What?” Clint grumbled, slipping his arm around Jenna’s waist. “It’s the truth.”
Doc shooed them with rapid motions of his hands. “I have a patient waiting.”
“No one’s keeping you from her,” Brad argued.
“Jenna is.”
Jenna’s square chin set in a stubborn line. “I promised Gray I’d be there.”
“What does the boy think I’m going to do to her?” Doc growled in his gravelly voice.
“Nothing. I just promised.”
Cougar came through the door carrying Mara. Shit. More trouble.
“Doc!”
Doc didn’t bother looking over his shoulder. “Cougar still being a fool?”
“He’s carrying Mara.”
“Call me when he stops being a fool.”
Brad turned. On closer inspection, Mara looked more furious than sick. “Exactly how foolish are you being?”
Cougar headed for the parlor. “She’s carrying my baby.”
“So you have to carry her?”
Mara, arms folded over her chest, glared at Cougar before blowing her bangs off her forehead.
“To him, it makes sense.”
“I’m not losing you.”
“But you’re not worried about driving me away?”
He set her on the horsehair sofa with infinite care, before squatting before her. “If you run, you know I’ll come after you.”
“For all the good it will do you.”
He sat back on his heels. “You planning on hiding?”
“You’re making it sound awfully good. At least until the baby’s born.”
He frowned. “You’re not having that baby without me.”
Mara frowned right back. “Keep it up, and just watch me.”
“Goddamn it, Mara.”
Mara ignored him and asked Brad, “How is Gray’s friend?”
“Hungry for biscuits.”
“Do you have any?” Dorothy asked.
“No.” Why did he feel he was remiss?
“Then I’d better get on making some,” Dorothy offered with her usual cheer.
“I’ll help,” Mara chimed in, scooting out from under Cougar’s arm. Cougar caught her when she would have skipped past. “Walk.”
When she spun around and glared at him, he used her momentum to pull her into his arms. The kiss he pressed on her lips was hard and fraught with the emotion simmering under the surface. His “I worry” was gruff.
Mara melted like butter. Patting his chest, she stepped back. “I know, but you have to stop.”
“Coming?” Dorothy asked.
“Yes.”
Cougar watched her go.
“She’s right, you know,” Brad said.
“What the hell do you know about it?”
“Enough to know when someone’s had enough.”
“Worry about your own wife.”
He did, every day. This was getting very ugly, very fast, and he was living on borrowed time. “I’ve got her under control.”
Cougar snorted. “That why she’s spending her evenings facing down Bull in the saloon alley with nothing more than bravado and an empty gun?”
Shit. The gun wasn’t loaded? He and Evie were definitely going to have to talk. “She knew what she was doing.”
“Sounds to me like she was winging it.”
“Something for which I’m grateful,” Clint interjected, coming down the stairs. “From the parts Gray glossed over, he had himself in way over his head.”
“You need to get that boy under control.”
“He’s touchy about things he cares about.”
Brad ran his hand through his hair. “And he cares about Brenna?”
“Enough to knife Bull.”
First Casey coming back, and now Bull bent on revenge. Life was complicating fast. “Bull will be out for his blood.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Not alone, you won’t,” Brad muttered.
“Cougar and I can handle it.”
“The bastard pulled a gun on my wife. Threatened her.”
“I’ve never dragged a preacher to a hanging before.”
“Just think of it as saving time. Brenna is Brenda’s daughter.”
It only took Cougar a second to put the picture together. “That would make Casey—”
“Brenna’s father,” Brad finished for him.
“Why didn’t she recognize you?” Cougar asked.
“She was tiny last time I saw her.”
“At least that’s one bit of luck.” Clint ran his fingers through his long hair. “You do like to complicate things, don’t you?”
Apparently to the point of keeping the inevitable explosion contained. “Lately, I seem to have developed a knack.”
The front door opened, and Asa and Jackson strolled in. “For finding trouble?” Asa asked.
“I didn’t go looking for it.”
“Got to disagree there,” Jackson interrupted. “It’s clear you have a soft spot for women; otherwise, they wouldn’t always see you as their savior.”
Brad glared at Jackson. With his long blond hair, ever-present smile, and skill at turning a joke, a person could be misled into thinking there wasn’t any substance to the man. But Jackson was as practical as the day was long and his sense of fair play had caused more than one outlaw to find his life cut short because he didn’t understand the skill that backed that smile. Or else underestimated the practicality that said the most efficient means to an end was to kill the son of a bitch standing between Jackson and right.
“You implying you have better things to do with your time?”
Jackson leaned against the wall just inside the door. “Absolutely. With you out of the running, there are lots of broken hearts that need consoling and I’d much prefer lounging in a soft bed to digging a grave.”