The Gunslinger's Bride. Cheryl St.John

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