Any woman who would be so bold as to marry into their family may as well know the hazards beforehand.
Felicity, plump and glowing rosy from the cold, offered a shy wave to Jordan across the cemetery, and it made Joshua feel old. Infinitely, accusingly old. Thirty-six was not so ancient, but as he glanced around, he was the only one of an adult age unmarried.
Except for Claire Hamilton. Her heartbreak echoed in great silence that reached him all the way across the cemetery, carried by the persistent wind. The feel of it left him hollow and cold inside.
What have I done?
The minister’s final amen ended the ceremony. At last. Aware of Deputy Logan’s focus on him, he knew he could not leave yet. It would look suspicious if he did not stand in line, but the hell if he could stomach pretending any amount of sorrow.
“Have you no manners, boy?”
He felt a hard tug on his sleeve. His little grandmother looked sweet, but she was nothing of the sort and he liked her for it. Respected her more for it. In her day, Granny had been one of the first pioneer women in this county. Even now, her skirt hung low on one side, her dark woolen hem skimming the snow from the weight in her pocket.
Good old Granny carried a pistol deep in her skirt pocket, as she had since she was a bride of sixteen. Although the land was no longer untamed and wild.
“Come! Hurry along!” she demanded.
He didn’t argue with her and besides, she wouldn’t want to stand in the condolence line alone. For with the way Jordan was smitten with Felicity, he was as good as absent.
That’s why I’m never falling in love.
He wasn’t about to give that much control of his life, his faculties and his freedoms to a woman who, even if kind, would do anything to get exactly what she wanted.
His own dear sister was no exception.
He swore never to hand his life over to a woman, sweet or harsh, pretty or plain, for they were all the same. They wanted utter and complete control over a man.
No, thank you. He’d rather visit the brothel in town and burn in hell. Or, if his mother ever found out she’d likely send him there herself.
“She’s such a lovely thing,” Granny felt it her duty to add as they took their place in line. “Probably will be looking for a husband. You oughta court her.”
“No. And don’t talk about that here of all places.”
“It was just a suggestion.” She leaned around the Potter family to get a better look at the young widow. “She’d make a fine wife. Seems as quiet as a mouse. Not at all like Ham’s mother. All drama, that one.”
“And you’re not?” He couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious, even if it earned him a playful cuff on his ear. The woolen earflap from beneath his hat took most of the blow. “Careful, Granny, I’m no longer five and shorter than you.”
Her face wreathed up into a crinkled network of laugh lines. For all her hardships and her advancing years, Granny had lived. Not merely existed. She’d wrung the most out of her life.
He envied her that. He was likely to spend the rest of his days branding and fencing and tracking and haying and endlessly looking after his family. A man’s duty, even if unmarried, came with responsibilities as it was.
The line shuffled forward, giving him a perfect view of the widow Hamilton.
Now I have one more responsibility.
In no time, he was at the head of the line and there was Claire, looking up at him with her melted-chocolate eyes. Guilt washed over him and in an instant scudded away like wind-driven snow, gone forever. She’d tried to cover it, but a faint bruise darkened her left eye. What purple coloring remained could be mistaken for the shadows of sheer exhaustion.
He knew better.
Her small, gloved hands curled around his big one, and she shook casually as she’d probably done with everyone else. But he felt the squeeze of emotion that came with the contact.
“Mr. Gable?” Her voice was as delicate as spring wildflowers and out of place on this harsh winter day. “I’m so glad you came. Thank you.”
In her dark eyes shone a glint of genuine gratitude. She wasn’t thanking him for attending the burial but for carrying her to her bed while Ham lay bleeding after their fight. Behind him yawned the cruel wound of a grave with the gleaming walnut casket within, becoming lost beneath the accumulating snow, making him remember how furious he’d been that night.
He fought to swallow past a throat dust-dry and past the lump of emotion lodged beneath his Adam’s apple. “It was no trouble.”
He was not speaking of attending the funeral. But of protecting her from her husband. He hadn’t done enough, his conscience scolded him.
The bruise beneath her left eye was not the only mark on her face. No one would notice it if they did not know to look, but she’d arranged her chestnut tresses so that a wedge of hair, twisted down to hide most of her jaw and cheekbone, was pinned carefully to her cloak and collar. Hiding the bruise Hamilton had obviously given her that night.
The clutches of memory gripped him. Faint, dark images of that brutal night crept up like a wraith and took hold. Images of lightning streaking through a merciless sky and of snow falling like rain threatened to take him back in time.
He’d had more than enough of his own problems, but he’d gotten involved. And, in truth, he’d wanted revenge. When he’d returned from carrying her to the house, Ham was gone, leaving a bloody trail. He’d been forced to fetch the doctor for the woman instead of tracking Ham. And if he had, then he and Haskins wouldn’t have returned to find Ham dead behind the barn with a second bullet in his chest. Not the one Joshua had given him.
Guilt choked him. Don’t think about it.
But the woman before him did not deserve the consequences. It was not grief, he suspected, but fear and deep worry that pushed fine lines into her soft oval face. She hadn’t asked for this to happen. She deserved nothing but his kindness.
Maybe even his pity. Life with Ham could not have been easy. Had she been able to sleep at all? he wondered. Her eyes looked puffy and not from crying, he would wager. The thought of her lying awake throughout the night, aching with anxiety and fear, tore at him.
If only he could do something, say something, anything to comfort her. But whatever he tried, he knew he could not make things right.
I’m sorry, Claire. He willed the words into her. Did she sense them?
Tears filled her eyes, the first of the service that he’d been able to notice. It gave him hope.
As if too overcome to speak, she only nodded her thanks.
He released her hand and moved on, and anyone watching would think she was nothing more than a grieving widow. And, in truth, she was too tenderhearted not to be sad. Love, he knew, was a complicated matter. Once spoken, wedding vows were powerful bonds.
He let Granny step forward to offer her terse condolences—she wasn’t one to soften blows. “He was the only family you really had, that’s a shame. What? Speak up, girl!”
Joshua kept Claire in his peripheral vision—those tears on her soft white cheeks could have been liquid drops of silver—when he felt a blow strike the middle of his chest and knock him back a step—and perilously close to the edge of the grave.
What the devil? Before he could recover, Ham’s mother struck him again with all her might. She was a substantial woman, and when the flat of her palm beat against his breastbone, he swore she had the strength to break ribs.
“You!” Her eyes had