“The deputy is your good buddy, I know, but listen up good—”
Claire caught a glimpse of the intruder as the rolling thunder drowned out their argument. He sat on horseback, a big bold cut of a man as dark as the night, as powerful as the thunder, and as lethal as the fierce lightning that pounded overhead.
Ham’s fingers inched to his revolvers, ever present in their holsters, strapped to his thighs within easy reach. How many times had he threatened her with those guns?
Claire closed her eyes, trying to find strength where there was none. Hope when she’d given up. Whatever tiny drop of relative safety she’d been able to forge for herself in her marriage was about to be gone, but she couldn’t let Ham hurt this man, she couldn’t—
Ham’s fingers curved around a beloved revolver. She could smell his glee—he loved to cause harm, or worse. And the mounted man, he didn’t see the danger, Claire realized as she tried to shout a warning, but there was no voice. Something was wrong with her throat.
Hell exploded. Thunder merged with bullets, lightning with gunfire, and the pummeling ice that fell like hunks of granite from the vengeful sky beat so loudly she could not hear or see, only feel the danger as violence and murder rose on the heartless wind.
Ham fell to the ground beside her, cursing in pain and clutching his shoulder. It wasn’t over, she knew with chilling certainty as Joshua Gable kicked the fallen revolvers out of harm’s way and consciousness faded. She heard Ham’s threat to kill Gable come from very far away, and then steeled arms lifted her from the ground and carried her away.
She woke up later in her own bed, alone. She heard the echoing sound of a single gunshot, and knew by the silence that followed that someone was dead.
Chapter One
Eight Days later
It was a bad day for a funeral.
Joshua Gable swiped snowflakes from his eyelashes so he could see into the heavy gale, then jammed his gloved fist back into his coat pocket.
It had taken the grave diggers most of the week to cut through the frozen ground. As if the Fates had done everything in their power to hold back this death. There would be no peaceful passing for Halbert Hamilton, Jr. Instead, a fury of cutting north wind and vicious iced snow made it feel as if hell had frozen over, had burst up from the new grave in the ground to welcome a like soul.
For a man few could stand and most despised, a lot of the local folks on this sparse corner of the county had come. Some attended out of relief, Joshua suspected, that the hard man was gone. A few grieved his passing. But most were here out of curiosity, for no one knew what had befallen the rancher—if one could call him that—and what had rendered him dead.
Well, some knew.
Joshua swallowed hard, glad he stood back from the bulk of the crowd. It took all his self-control to fight down the tight grip guilt had on his stomach. If he’d had his way, he wouldn’t have come. He had no respects to pay the man who’d been his sworn enemy. He had not an ounce of grief or sorrow to express.
He was damn glad the man was gone—not glad that he was dead, but relieved that Ham was no longer a thorn in his side and a drain on the family’s income. He hadn’t killed the man—just left him lying in the road with a flesh wound, although he’d have been in his rights to have killed the man in self-defense that night. But knowing the woman would never forget seeing her husband killed before her eyes stopped him.
I shouldn’t have left like that. But the woman, half-unconscious, had begged him to go. His conscience had told him not to listen, but she’d been so desperate. He wondered if she remembered that time now. And if she’d been the one to pull the trigger later that night in self-defense.
No, I never should have left her.
Across the crowd spread out on either side of the grave came the curious probe of the deputy’s gaze. Coop Logan, his badge obscured by the thick snow covering the front of his fur coat, seemed one of the genuine mourners. He and Ham had been friends as far back as any could remember. And now the lawman studied the crowd as if looking for vengeance.
Yep, it sure would have been good if he’d had his way, Joshua thought, wishing he’d been able to stay at home and far away from the deputy’s measuring stare. Home, where he had fencing to replace and a troublesome cougar to track. The bitter winter weather wouldn’t have kept him from it, not on this one day. He’d come only because of his grandmother.
“We have to be there, Blythe would have wanted it,” Granny had insisted, and he’d never had the heart to say no to her. He adored the cantankerous old woman, and he knew she’d been close friends with Ham’s grandmother. With the dear woman gone from this earth, Granny Adelaide felt it her duty to attend.
He couldn’t let her out in these near-blizzard conditions alone, and he’d been unable to convince her to take one of his other brothers—lazy Jordan especially, who had nothing better to do as the youngest and the baby of the family. Gran had thought taking Jordan along with them was a fine idea and made the boy help with the driving.
Not that she needed either of their help. He studied her sideways rather than make eye contact, which would only invite her criticism. His grandmother seemed as fierce as always and attending a funeral did not soften her. The wind blew to him the faint scent of her Irish whiskey. She remained the epitome of a no-nonsense pioneer woman, stoic as the snow began to cloak her in white.
“Stop looking at me, boy, be respectful and mind your manners,” she scolded him in a low, commanding voice, as if he were still a small child. “By the grace of God, that could be you dead in a grave. Life is fleeting.”
Granny, you have no notion how right you are. Re minded of his fate, and of Ham’s, Joshua drew soldier straight and knew that nothing would ever be powerful enough to make him forget this day, this moment.
If he shifted his weight onto his left foot and tilted a bit, he could see past the mourners and over the minister’s shoulder to where the new widow stood, shrouded in white so that the ragged black coat she wore was barely discernible. She could have been a snow angel tipped back against the white earth for the way she stood motionless.
No tears stood on her face, so pale the snow clinging to her eyebrows and eyelashes had more color. The crying that came from those who mourned did not come from her.
Ham’s mother cried, his brother, Reed, choked back tears, but the young widow, who did not look to be a day over twenty, bowed her face toward the ground, as if watching the snow accumulate on the toes of her Sunday-best shoes. She appeared to be in silent grief.
Joshua knew the truth.
She stood before the opened scar in the earth where Hamilton’s casket lay. As the reverend intoned on, his words whipped and battered by the cruel winds, she dipped her head, then covered her face with both slim hands. Rich dark curls tumbled down from beneath her woolen cloak.
“Such a pity,” Granny’s whisky-rough voice could not be disguised by a whisper but rang as loudly as if she’d bellowed. “So young to bury a husband. How long were they wed?”
“Several years, Granny,” he answered in a low whisper while those mourners surrounding them turned to give them scolding, be-quiet looks.
“While none of my grandchildren have yet wed.”
“Not here, Granny.”
“What will become of the poor thing now?”
A good question. Joshua said nothing more as his youngest brother, Jordan, who had no desire to be here as well, gave Joshua a pained, telling look. She always embarrasses us when we take her anywhere.
Jordan was young. He’d had less experience with embarrassment. And since he had his eye on the young Potter girl with whom he’d