Authors: Susan Mallery
Justin's Bride
Fall back in love with 1800s Kansas in Susan Mallery's fan-favorite tale of love, loss, and redemption.
Justin Kincaid is the local bad-boy-turned-sheriff, and now he's got to prove himself to his people and his town. When a saloon girl is murdered, it's up to him to lead the investigation and to find a home for the dead woman's young daughter. But what he hadn't counted on was Megan, the only woman he's ever loved, volunteering to take in the young girlâ¦
Megan Bartlett had all but given up on ever seeing Justin Kincaid again when he returned to assume the sheriff's position. And the man who returnsâthe man with a bitter, mocking smileâis not the man she remembers. But when she notices how tender he is with the orphaned girl, she can't help but see glimpses of the man she fell in love with, and she wonders if life has granted them a second chance after allâ¦
JUSTIN'S BRIDE
SUSAN MALLERY
CHAPTER ONE
Landing, Kansasâ1878
J
ustin Kincaid was back.
Between the rustling petticoats of the ladies looking at the current issue of
Godey's
and the rattling of nails being weighed on their scale in the back corner, Megan Bartlett heard talk in her general store. The nearby farmers, in town to buy their spring supplies, mentioned the news to one another. The old-timers said it couldn't be the same boy. He wouldn't dare show his face back in Landing after what had happened to him. The newer settlers wanted to know what exactly this Justin Kincaid was supposed to have done. Vague talk about boyhood pranks and no one's ever having seen his father made them shrug. The town needed a sheriff, they said. If this Kincaid fellow could protect them and keep peace, they didn't much care about his past.
The women, clustering by the bolts of fabric and the new shipment of fashion books, whispered that he'd been as handsome as sin.
“And sin makes its own kind of trouble,” Widow Dobson said, shaking her head as she walked away from the group of women toward the front of the store and her small table and dresser that served as the United States Post Office. She maneuvered her considerable bulk around the furniture and plopped down in her chair.
Megan looked up from the inventory papers in front of her. The first big shipment from the East had arrived. Spring was always a busy time. Settlers and farmers came into town more often. They needed seed and new tools, clothes and whatever supplies they'd run out of during the cold Kansas winter.
“Who's making trouble?” Megan asked, even though she knew the answer. Like everyone else, she wanted to talk about Justin. Had he really come back? Did he remember her? She shook her head. She was being silly. Of course he remembered. How could he have forgotten the way they'd parted seven years ago? Megan drew in a deep breath. Who could have known he would come back?
Mrs. Dobson stopped counting her small inventory of stamps and raised her head. She tugged at the bodice of her jet black gown. Ten years after Farmer Dobson's passing, she still wore mourning. From her perky feather hat set at an angle, clear down to her shoes, she wore black. Privately, Megan thought it was because the buxom widow, with her fading red hair, knew she looked especially striking in that color.
“Those women.” The widow jerked her head toward the small group clustered at the far counter. “They're jawing on about Justin Kincaid. Saying he's handsome. Well, the boy was always more handsome than a body had a right to be, but he was always trouble, too. That kind never wants for female attention.”
Megan set down the papers she'd been examining and smoothed her suddenly damp hands over her full skirt. “Maybe he's changed.”
Widow Dobson turned in her chair. Her bright green eyes narrowed as she looked across the dresser, pinning Megan with her stare. “You weren't one of those harebrained misses who was sweet on that Kincaid boy, were you?”
Megan raised her chin and met the other woman's gaze. Her light laugh sounded confident, even to her own ears. “Did you ever once see me with him? Can you imagine him coming courting at my house?”
The older woman leaned back in her chair and smiled. “Of course not, Megan. You always were the right kind of girl. Respectable.” She turned to her stamps. “Not that I would have blamed you for noticing him. Hard not to. And he wasn't all bad. I'm willing to admit that. Still, he's going to be trouble. You mark my words.”
Megan gathered her papers together and escaped to the back of the store. Behind the calico curtain was a short hallway. To the left was the large room holding her inventory. To the right, a tiny cubbyhole that served as her office. She closed the door behind her and leaned against the desk.
Like the rest of the store, this small space was clean and tidy, with everything in its proper place. Even as she struggled to still her pounding heart, Megan placed the inventory papers in the right pile on her desk, and slipped around her chair to the little table in the corner. After pouring some water from the pitcher into the basin, she rolled up her cuffs and washed her face.
It didn't help. The oval mirror above the basin showed her that the flush she'd felt on her cheeks was still visible. Her eyes glowed, although whether from panic or excitement, she couldn't say. Her mouth quivered. She touched her finger to her lips but couldn't still the trembling.
Justin Kincaid had come back.
Maybe it wasn't him, she thought as she refastened her cuffs. It could well be another Justin Kincaid. Both names were common enough. She'd met a family of Kincaids two springs ago when a wagon train had camped close to Landing. She'd asked a couple of the women settlers, but they'd never heard of Justin.
She smoothed her hair, then made her way back into her store. Andrew, her assistant, was wrapping up a purchase of bleached muslin for one of the young women in town. No doubt she would be making a pretty dress for the Fourth of July dance. The celebration was months away, but people started preparing well in advance. Thinking about that dance didn't ease her mind nor make her forget Justin. In fact, it made her think of other dances when she'd been held by proper young men but had watched Justin out of the corner of her eye. He'd danced with almost everyone but her. He'd made those girls laugh with his easy humor and flirtatious winks.
Once, at one of the dances, on a magical night filled with stars, he'd found her out walking through a grove of trees. No one had been around, although they could still hear the music of the fiddler. Without saying a word, Justin had taken her into his arms. He'd pulled her closer than the other boys did. Close enough that she'd felt the heat of his body, his warm breath on her face. Close enough that her heart had pounded harder in her chest. They'd danced for what felt like a lifetime, circling, staring into each other's eyes. His fingers had burned into her back. For a moment, while they'd waited between songs, his head had dipped low and he'd brushed his mouth against her cheek. Then he'd looked at her andâ
“Oh, Megan,” she heard someone say. “I need to order a few yards of silk.”
Megan blinked several times and found herself standing in her general store. The woman in front of her went on about her daughter's upcoming wedding and the need for the young woman to have something pretty to wear her first night married.
Megan flushed. She'd never had a wedding night. Had never had a wedding. At twenty-four, she was an old maid. And a businesswoman, she reminded herself as she hurried forward to help the customer. So what if Justin had come back? She didn't care. She didn't have time to care. But as she continued to work that afternoon, she could hear the faint sounds of the fiddle from that long-ago night and her cheek tingled with the soft echo of Justin's kiss.
* * *
By three-thirty, Megan couldn't stand it anymore. If one more person came into the store and asked if it was true that Justin Kincaid had come back, she was going to scream. Everyone wanted to talk about the possibility, but no one was willing to find out the truth.
Widow Dobson talked on and on about what a mistake it was going to be, and how someone born to trouble usually died from trouble. Even if it wasn't his fault.
“You mark my words,” the older woman said for at least the fortieth time that day. “It's easy to hope a boy like that will turn out right. But a body never knows for sure. I can just seeâ”
Not willing to listen to the widow for one more minute, Megan marched to the rear of the store and slipped behind the curtain. In her tiny office, she picked up her hat and set it on her head. She paused in front of the oval mirror long enough to make sure the hat was straight and that no stray hairs had escaped from her morning coiffure, then she picked up her cloak and drew it over her shoulders. After closing the fasteners at her throat, she reached for her gloves and reticule, and headed back into the store.
“Andrew, watch things for me, please,” she called as she sailed down the center aisle.
“Where are you going?” the widow asked.
Megan paused by the door and pulled on her gloves. “To find out the truth.”
The older woman gasped. “You meanâ”
“I'm going to the sheriff's office.”
“But you can't. My dear girl, if it
is
him, well, he's one of
those
kind of men. What will people think?”
The question made her hesitate. Megan knew the power of what other people thought. She lived her life by what other people would or would not think of her actions. Between her late father's rules and having a minister for a brother-in-law, she always had to think about other people's opinions.
But she also had to know. She would go mad if she didn't find out the truth. If it wasn't the Justin Kincaid she knew, then she would simply introduce herself and come back. And if it was him...well, she would figure that out when she saw him.
“It's the middle of the day,” she said, and opened the door. “The sheriff's office
is
a place of business. It's not as if I'm going to a man's hotel room, Mrs. Dobson. Why would anyone say anything?”
Before she lost the little courage she had, she stepped out into the afternoon and turned right.
Her ankle-high buttoned shoes clicked on the wooden planking in front of her store. The boardwalk continued to the stage office, then came to an abrupt end ten feet from the butcher shop. From there it was a wide river of mud until the planking started again in front of the sheriff's office.
Spring was almost here, she thought as she took a firm grip on her skirts and pulled them up several inches. She eyed the moist muck, planning out her path to avoid the worst of the puddles and a still-steaming pile of manure left by the stagecoach horses. With a quick prayer for the state of her shoes, she stepped daintily across to the planking several feet away.
A couple of farmers nodded as she passed them. A lady she knew said hello. Megan smiled and kept on moving, hoping no one would ask where she was off to.
When she reached the safety of the wooden sidewalk, she stamped her feet to get rid of the loose mud, then dropped her skirts to the ground. Her heart thundered loudly. She raised her chin slightly, trying to ignore the fear that fueled the pounding in her chest and made her palms damp against the kid leather of her gloves.
She approached the one-story wooden building. Two windows flanked the door. They hadn't been washed in weeks, so she couldn't just peek inside and find out if the man in question was the Justin Kincaid she had known. Besides, she scolded herself, it wasn't seemly for her to go around spying on others. She would simply open the door and step inside, as any good citizen could. She would see for herself, then leave.