Hardly anyone had seen that painting. Pearl, Evie’s uncle Paul, and Doc were the only ones. A fact for which Brad was profoundly grateful.
Jerome thumped the wooden floor with his cane. “I’m thinking you don’t have the right end of this particular stick, Jenna, and should just stay out of it.”
Next to Brad, Clint stirred the way he always did when someone focused on Jenna, pulling up to his full six foot two inches of height, an unnatural stillness surrounding him. “Did you just call my wife a liar, Jerome?”
A pew creaked, and a boy as dark as the McKinnelys got to his feet. Gray, the McKinnelys’ adopted son. Eleven years old, with the promise of size in his bones, and damn near feral—especially when it came to Jenna. He’d killed for her once, saving her life. Brad didn’t doubt he’d do it again. Apparently, neither did Jenna. Jenna grabbed Gray’s arm. Not a muscle in his body relaxed and not once did he take his eyes off Jerome. In the last couple of months, since he’d been with the McKinnelys, Gray had started settling into being civilized, but he was a long way from tame.
Jenna glared at her husband. “Clint, this is a wedding.”
“I’m aware of that.”
She glanced pointedly at Gray. “Arguing is not good manners at a wedding.”
“Neither is another man giving my wife orders and calling her a liar.”
“I didn’t call her a liar.”
Gray jerked his arm free. Jenna stumbled on her bad leg. The boy steadied her immediately. She leaned against his shoulder, holding him with emotion when strength wouldn’t do it.
“For the love of Pete, Clint!” Jerome snorted, rapping his cane again. “Who would want to hurt Jenna’s feelings that way?”
Clint studied Jenna’s face, searching, Brad knew, for any sign that her feelings were hurt. “No one in his right mind, for sure.”
Whatever Clint saw in Jenna’s expression seemed to satisfy him. He relaxed. Gray didn’t. Those too old eyes scanned the room, looking for more threats. The boy was a powder keg waiting to explode and there were two things guaranteed to set him off. A slight to his sister or his adoptive mother. If it wasn’t for the fact that the overprotectiveness of the McKinnelys toward Jenna had spread to the townsfolk, he’d probably be behind bars for murder. The tension within the room escalated.
With almost desperate fervor, the organ again landed on the starting note, holding it until it reverberated down Brad’s spine. Everyone turned to face the back. No bride appeared.
Jenna smiled encouragingly over her shoulder at Brad. “I’m sure she’s just having trouble with her dress.”
Only Jenna would worry that the groom’s feelings were hurt at a shotgun wedding. Then again, only a McKinnely would be perverse enough to sit on the groom’s side of the church because “It wasn’t right that everyone jumped to conclusions” when the whole town was feeling like assembling a castration party.
And where one McKinnely went, they all went, so instead of his side of the church being a glaring testament to his outcast status, the pews were filled with McKinnelys and their friends. Cougar’s wife, Mara, sat beside Cougar’s aunt and uncle, Doc and Dorothy. Mara waved her fingers at Brad in open support. If Jenna was sweetness and light, Mara was pure fire. A good match for her uncompromising husband. One would think a woman Mara’s size would be cowed by a look from Cougar, but all his glaring accomplished was bringing Mara’s stubborn side to the fore. Their clashes of will were the stuff of town legend. Not because they ever got violent, but because both were intelligent and liked to get their way and it was never a sure thing who would win. It was for sure, however, that there’d be some laughs along the way.
If they’d start one of their infamous discussions about now, Brad would appreciate it. He could use the distraction. He was hiding in plain sight, not auditioning for a traveling show.
A baby cried in the next pew back. Elizabeth, Asa’s wife, crooned to their daughter Tempest. From the primness of her dress and the perfection of her hair one would think Elizabeth a very proper woman, but a person would be better served taking their cue from the tendrils of brown hair escaping from her bun and the mischief in her green eyes when deciding her personality. Elizabeth MacIntyre was as wild as the crew that’d come through Cheyenne laying the tracks for the railroad. And as good at stirring up trouble. Beside her, Millie pulled a bottle from a basket, popped the cork, and dipped her finger in the contents before rubbing them over the baby’s gums. Tempest stopped fussing and smiled. Millicent dipped her finger again.
“That’ll be enough, Millicent.”
Millicent, being Millicent, just snorted at Asa’s order with the confidence of a woman on the back side of fifty who’d successfully made her way in a man’s world and applied the brandy again. “The good Lord doesn’t want this sweet thing hurting.”
“He doesn’t want her drunk in church either.”
“She’s not drunk.”
That was from Elizabeth.
Asa frowned. “For sure, she’s getting happy.”
Millicent frowned and rubbed gently at the tiny gums. “Happy is good. You don’t want her crying, do you?”
Asa grunted. “Do me a favor. At least keep her this side of sotted.”
Elizabeth smiled at Asa as if the man’s weakness when it came to his daughter was a good thing. “I can probably manage that.”
“Good.”
Brad smothered a chuckle. Asa zeroed in on the sound with the ruthlessness he hadn’t shown when his daughter was being soothed with spirits. “For a man who is being stood up, while standing at the altar with a shotgun pointed at him, you’ve sure got a lot to say on things that don’t concern you.”
“I think the feeding of spirits to an infant is a concern to all righteous citizens,” Judge Carlson interrupted.
Brad had had enough. “Shut up.”
The arrogant bastard might be the only one available to marry him to Evie, but it didn’t give him the right to inflict his views on the rest of the wedding party.
Asa shifted the rifle to a more active grip, the grey of his eyes reflecting the steel of the gun. “You stole the words from my mouth.”
Carlson thumped his Bible against his thigh. “I won’t be spoken to like this. I am a member—”
Growing up, Brad had had a bellyful of men like the judge. Self-righteous prigs who used their standing to bully everyone around them. Stepping up onto the altar, he moved close enough that he could smell the man’s pomade. “What you’re a member of does not give you the right to come into
my
town and criticize
my
people.”
Carlson sneered. “The same people sitting here in church railroading you into a marriage you don’t want?”
Brad didn’t flinch. He knew what he was. “The same.”
“Judge, I’d shut the hell up if I were you,” Cougar offered in that quiet voice that served as a warning to all sensible enough to hear it.
It didn’t have any effect on Carlson. “Or what? You’ll gut me?” He sniffed. “I know your reputation, breed, and I’ll have you know I’m not impressed with it or the pardon the governor gave you.”
An angry growl came from the pews.
“How dare you!” Jenna gasped. “Clint?”
Cocking an eyebrow at his normally gentle wife, Clint asked, “Want me to flatten him, sunshine?”
“Yes!”
“If he won’t, I will,” Mara bit off, working her way out of the pews, her red brown hair catching the light in flashes of fire. Behind her, Gray followed protectively, his knife gleaming against the black of his shirt. He loved his aunt as much as he loved his mother, and he worshipped his uncle—the man Carlson had just insulted.
Clint towered over the judge. “It’d be my pleasure.”
Son of a bitch, his wedding was turning into a brawl. Brad caught Mara’s hand as she came alongside. With a careful twist, mindful of the delicacy of her build, he removed the knife tucked into her hand. “Not today, Mara.”
She didn’t look away from the judge. Fury vibrated in the muscles under his grip. “Why not? He just insulted my husband.”
“Because I’m reasonably sure it’s bad luck to start a wedding with bloodshed.”
She looked up at him, cheeks flushed with outrage, her cinnamon brown eyes narrowed. “Well, shoot.”
“Will it soothe your sensibilities if he apologizes?”
“Maybe.”
“Apologize, Judge.”
“For speaking the truth?”
An ugly murmur went through the wedding guests. Pews creaked and floorboards groaned as men got to their feet. A baby wailed.
It was a wonder someone hadn’t killed the fool long before now. Brad gritted his teeth. “We don’t take kindly to strangers coming in here insulting one of our valued citizens.”
“I’m not a stranger. I’m a respected judge—”
“You’re going to have to trot out some proof on that ‘respected’ claim,” Clint interrupted.
Carlson continued as if he hadn’t heard, “In the circuit court of these United States—”
Brad grabbed his shoulder and hauled him around so he was staring square at the crowd. “What you’re going to be is a dead man if you don’t apologize and then shut up. Cougar is one of ours.”
Carlson’s gaze followed his. His face paled as he looked at the wedding guests. Brad couldn’t blame him. They did look more like a lynch mob than a wedding party.
Carlson’s “I’m sorry, McKinnely” was grudging, but at least it gave Brad something to work with. Brad cocked a brow at Mara. “Good enough for you?”
She held out her hand for the knife. “For now.”
Cougar snagged the knife from Brad’s hand before he could hand it back. “I wouldn’t do that.” With a jerk of his chin, he indicated Mara’s mutinous expression. “
For now
is a rather unspecific term.”
Mara stamped her foot. “Darn it, Cougar!”
The smile on Cougar’s face was gentle. He stroked the back of his fingers down his wife’s cheek. His skin was very dark against hers, the size of his hand emphasizing the differences between them. Where Cougar was tall and big boned, Mara was tiny and slight. “I appreciate the thought, Angel, but it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“You shouldn’t have to listen to garbage like that from men like him.”
“It’s not important.”
She opened her mouth to argue. Cougar bent his head, silencing her in the oldest way known to man, his long hair falling around them, hiding the kiss from view, but nothing could hide the passion and trust that had Mara stepping in to lean against his much bigger body. She’d come a long way from the shattered woman who’d once struggled so hard to rebuild her life.
There was a time Brad might have set his cap for the ex-prostitute, but Mara had been Cougar’s since the day she’d seen him. He’d never stood a chance, and he wasn’t one to fight pointless battles. Cougar raised his hand and touched the corner of Mara’s mouth with his thumb. All the love in the world was in that fleeting caress. “You’re all that matters to me.”
There wasn’t a soul in the room that didn’t believe it.
She blinked. The hard line of Cougar’s mouth softened as tears welled in her eyes. “Gray, take your aunt back to her seat.”
Gray took Mara’s arm. Brad couldn’t resist. The kid was too damn young to always believe the worst. “Killing isn’t always the answer.”
The twitch of the boy’s lips could have been a smile. He looked a lot like Cougar in that moment. “It would be better that you tell my aunt this.”
“I was hoping you’d be more open to the idea.”
He shrugged. Brad sighed as he watched him walk away. The kid had the world by the tail if he would open his eyes to see it.
Clint clapped his hand on his shoulder. “Thanks.”
Brad shook his head. “He’s packing a lot of anger.”
“With reason, but he’ll get through it.”
“Hopefully sooner rather than later.” Cougar sighed before looking up. “The rest of you take your seats, too. We’ve got a wedding to witness.”
“Not without a bride,” Jerome offered in his overly helpful way. The tension evaporated in a flurry of chuckles. Pearl frowned and called to her brother. There wasn’t an answer, just a bit more commotion. Mara resumed her seat. The chuckles grew to laughter, highlighting the farce the wedding had become. But if Evie thought she’d leave him here as the laughingstock, she had another think coming. Brad nodded to the judge.
“Excuse me. I’ll just go check on things.”
Pearl stood as he reached her side, the reticule clutched tightly in her hand. He met her glare with one of his own. “You’ll get your damn wedding.”
Or hear from her own daughter’s lips why it wouldn’t be taking place.
Pearl rapped his hand with her fan. The feather on her hat bobbed in his face. “You can’t swear in church.”
Mara huffed. “Seems to me the good Lord will make excuses for a man being stood up at the altar.”
“Angel,” Cougar warned. “Now is not the time.”
“I can’t think of a better one.”
Cougar shook his head. “Not now.”
Mara’s fingers tightened on the back of the pew. “Would you be forbidding me, Cougar?”
“Sounded like it to me,” Brad offered, feeding the light of battle in Mara’s eyes.
“Aren’t you in enough trouble, Rev?”
No one could tuck a challenge into a smile like Cougar. Brad smiled right back. “Nah. I can always fit in a little more.”
The other man nodded, his muscles taking on a certain tension that every man recognized as preparation. “That’s obliging of you.”
“I try.”
Millie stood, garishly attractive in her bright purple dress that clashed with her equally bright red hair. “Boys, don’t make me go get my spoon.” Millie wielded her giant wooden spoon like other men wielded a knife—with devastating efficiency.
“No need to fetch anything. The Rev and I are just working our way to an understanding.”
“I’m not going to take kindly to anyone who throws Millie off her cooking,” Asa cut in.
“You’re welcome to join in,” Brad invited.