Hitched to the Gunslinger by Michelle McLean
Chapter Four
“Breakfast!”
Gray cracked an eye open and rubbed a hand over his face. His new fiancée had the lungs of a rooster getting his feathers plucked. He slowly pushed himself upright, pulled his suspenders back onto his shoulders, and shuffled out the door of the small bungalow that sat behind Mercy’s house.
It didn’t contain much more than a bed, a small dresser, and a chair, but that was all he required. It was quiet, separate from Mercy’s house, close to the outhouse, and even had little window boxes. Maybe he could plant some daisies. He’d always loved daisies, and he’d had a fair hand for gardening once upon a time. It was relaxing. He could use some relaxing. Best yet, the structure sported a small porch on which sat a rickety, but quite comfortable, rocking chair. He could live and die there a happy man.
“Are you coming?” she called.
Gray grimaced. The whole dying happy thing of course hinged on his landlady—sorry, fiancée—leaving him in peace. Which she seemed less and less likely to do.
Still, it was hard to complain too much when he was getting free lodging and free food. Well, such as it was. Dinner the night before had been blackened chicken with blackened beans and rice and hard biscuits. A choice he thought she had made on purpose. The smoke billowing from the kitchen this morning, however, suggested otherwise.
He shuffled into the house, running a hand through his knotty hair. Mercy glanced up at him, her forehead creasing with a frown as she took him in.
“What?” he asked, looking down at himself but finding nothing out of the ordinary.
“Did you sleep in your clothes?”
He shrugged and slouched into a chair. “I was just gonna put them on again, anyway. Sleepin’ in them saves me some time and aggravation.”
She opened her mouth to say something and then blew out a breath, instead going back into the kitchen, to reappear a few moments later with a pan of what he thought might be scrambled eggs. They were the right size and shape, though the color was more of a light brown than fluffy yellow.
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything as he loaded his plate. He gave it an experimental sniff and then shoveled a forkful of the mystery meal into his mouth. He chewed, contemplating for a moment, and then shrugged and ate another bite. Didn’t taste half bad if he didn’t concentrate on it too hard.
Mercy watched him eat for a moment as if she expected him to complain. It certainly wasn’t the best meal he’d ever eaten in his life, but it was free and he didn’t have to cook it, so she wasn’t gonna hear a peep from him. Especially while she was holding that wicked-looking frying pan in her hand. He ate another forkful, and she gave him a sharp nod before going back to the kitchen.
After breakfast, which he ate alone, he shuffled out to the front porch and collapsed into a rocking chair. He leaned it back as far as it would go, propped his crossed ankles on the railing, and shoved his hat down over his eyes. The morning was sunny, but not hot, with a nice breeze blowing in now and then. Perfect napping weather. The only sound in the yard was the twitter of birds and the occasional shuffle of the horses and goats Mercy kept. Pure heaven.
Until the scrape of a chair, rustle of skirts, and faint scent of charred apple suggested Mercy had sat down beside him.
He held perfectly still, hoping she’d go away if he pretended he hadn’t noticed her.
Ignoring a woman had never in all his long days made her go away, so he didn’t know why he’d hoped it would work this time. Mercy waited all of two seconds before she poked him in the ribs.
He swatted at her hand but didn’t remove his hat from his eyes. She poked him again.
“What?” he growled.
“Are you really not going to help me with Josiah?”
He sighed. Why did women feel the need to harp over the same conversation a million times?
“I am helping you. My big scary presence is supposed to keep him cowering under his bed, remember?”
She snorted. “We both know that won’t keep him away for long. He’s probably coming up with a plan even now. Gathering more men. Something.”
“I agreed to go along with the engagement story.”
“What if it takes more than that? What if we have to go through with it?”
This time, Gray did push his hat back enough to peek at her through one eye at that. “Go through with what? You mean…marriage?”
“Well, you can’t just stay on as my fiancé forever.”
“Didn’t plan on it,” he grumbled, ignoring the way his stomach was shimmying about at the thought of Mercy being his wife. It was that charred mess she’d called breakfast that was making him break out in a sweat. Nothing more.
“You don’t seem the type to plan anything,” she said wryly. “But doesn’t mean things won’t happen anyway.”
He sighed. “Damn, woman, if it’ll keep you quiet long enough for me to get a nap in, I’ll marry you or Josiah or my horse if that’s what it takes.”
She didn’t say anything, and for one shining moment he thought maybe she’d gone away. He wasn’t that lucky, though.
“Well, if you aren’t planning on providing any help aside from your presence on my porch…”
“I told you, I’m retired.”
He could have sworn he heard her curse under her breath, and he pinched his lips together to keep from smiling.
“Fine, teach me to shoot, then.”
He pushed his hat back again and frowned at her.
“You know, of all the ways I thought I’d spend my retirement, chasin’ off people who wanted me to teach them was the last thing that would have ever occurred to me. I’m no teacher. I told you, no teachin’, no killin’, no protectin’. You said just bein’ here would help. Well, I’m here. No fair tryin’ to change the deal now.”
“Well, excuse me, but it didn’t occur to me that this”—she gestured at him slouching in his chair—“was how you normally looked. Or behaved. Your name is only going to go so far. Eventually they are going to see you like this and…well…” She waved in his direction again.
He grunted. “I don’t know what you’re goin’ on about. I don’t look so bad.”
She raised both eyebrows at that, her gaze raking over him. He glanced down at his rumpled, travel-stained clothing and the small paunch that was starting to form above his waistline. “Okay, maybe I look a little worse for wear. But that’s nothin’ that a bath and some fresh clothes won’t fix.”
“You bathe?” she asked, eyes wide.
“Occasionally,” he said, scowling at her.
“And do you own any clean clothes?”
“All right, you’ve made your point. Go away.”
She sighed. “Look, Mr. Woodson—Gray—I wasn’t aiming to insult you. Frankly, the fact that you agreed to this whole scheme was more than I dared hope, and I really am grateful.”
He grunted and gave her a sharp nod.
“However…”
He sighed and laid his head back against the chair again.
“I can shoot well enough to bring down small game, sometimes, and scare off predators. My daddy made sure I knew that much. But I’ve never shot a man before. Never even held a gun on one. I’d be no match for Josiah and his men. Or even the sheriff. For all his lily-livered ways, he still has the skills that got him the job. Plus, all I have is my shotgun. That’s good enough for my purposes, usually, but it won’t do me much good if whoever comes gets too close.”
Gray grunted again. She had a point.
“But pistols like yours…” She pointed at the guns he still wore strapped to his hips. “Those would be much better if I needed to fight closer range.”
He shook his head, though a twinge of what might have been regret poked at him. “Even if I wanted to teach you, and I don’t, these guns are much too big for your hands. They wouldn’t do you any good.”
“Ah, I’m sure they’d do just fine. Look,” she said, leaning forward to grab one from its holster.
“What—?” he yelled, right as she yanked it loose and it went off with an earsplitting bang. He yelped and jumped out of the chair with a little hop.
She froze. “Oops.”
The gun had blasted a hole in the porch near his foot. He stared at her silently for a moment.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing with my gun, woman?” he spat out when he could finally gather his wits about him again.
She looked down at the pistol in her hand, mouth wide open in shock. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to go off. Seems a bit more sensitive than my old shotgun.”
“Yeah, because these guns are actually worth a damn. Just what are you doin’ going around grabbin’ the gun out of a man’s holster?”
Her cheeks flashed red, and her eyes quickly darted to an area much more central than his holster—the double meaning in his words registering.
His anger wavered for a second. He liked a woman with a naughty mind on her. But that was not the point at that exact moment.
She straightened her spine. “Well, what are you doing sitting around the house with loaded guns on your hip?”
He looked at her, incredulous. “I’m a gunfighter, darlin’. It wouldn’t do me much good if they were empty.”
“Retired gunfighter,” she retorted.
He glared at her throwing those words back at him. “Well, since everyone else around me doesn’t seem to want to let me retire, I figured better to be safe than sorry.”
“Well, like I said, I’m sorry,” she said, holding the gun out to him between two fingers.
He scowled and yanked it from her grasp then gave the butt of it a little shake in her direction. “You’re a menace, that’s what you are.”
She folded her arms and stuck her stubborn little nose in the air, her lips working like she was chewing on words she couldn’t release. Finally, she said, “I didn’t realize you could move that fast.”
He just blinked at her. “I can move fast enough with the proper motivation.”
She grumbled under her breath, “Maybe I should shoot at you more often.”
“I heard that.”
She blinked up at him innocently, and he scowled. “I guess it’s just a good thing my reflexes kicked in or I’d have a hole through my foot right now.”
She snorted. “I didn’t think you had any reflexes lef—”
“All right,” he said, cutting her off. “First you shoot me, then you insult me. I’m startin’ to understand why you’re not hitched yet.”
“Oh,” she said with a forced laugh. “You don’t want to get me started on all the reasons it’s apparent why you aren’t hitched.”
“I never said I wanted to be hitched.”
“Well neither did I!”
“Why are we arguing about getting hitched?”
She threw her hands up. “I don’t know. You started it!”
“I did no— Ow!” He jumped out of the way of a small goat that was getting ready to headbutt his leg again. “What the devil is that thing?”
Mercy glared at him. “Be nice to Lucille. She’s only upset because you’re yelling.”
He closed his eyes, his head pounding, and sucked in a deep breath through his nose. When he looked at her again, she was watching him with narrowed eyes, like he was a snake getting ready to strike.
She started to argue, but he held up a finger. “Shh.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You can’t shush me.”
“Shh,” he said again.
She took a deep breath, no doubt ready to unleash a world of aggravation on him, but he turned his back on her to walk into the house.
“Where are you going?” she asked, making to follow him.
Again, he held up that finger and shook his head at her. “You just…you just stay. Right there. And keep the goat with you.”
She glared again but dropped onto the rocking chair next to the one he had vacated, her arms crossed firmly over her chest. Lucille nudged Mercy’s leg until she reached down to give her a pet and then, with a last look at Gray, turned tail and wandered off across the yard.
Gray marched into the house and looked around. If Mercy was gonna go around grabbing at guns, he needed to find a good spot to hide the damn things. Only there didn’t seem to be a suitable spot. He’d never seen a house so clean and uncluttered in his life. He couldn’t put them in the couch cushions, or somebody was liable to get their ass shot off. He didn’t want to put it under her bed. That was just putting it more within her reach. He pushed open the door to the kitchen and looked around. A large basket that looked like it hadn’t been touched in a while sat in one corner, full of odd scraps of material and sewing supplies.
That would do until he found a better spot. He dug to the bottom of the pile and shoved the guns into it.
Infuriating woman. He didn’t like not having his guns on his hips. Felt damn-near naked without them. But if he was gonna retire and all, she was right. Wearing loaded guns to breakfast was a bit unnecessary. Might as well start this retirement thing right.
Of course, he’d already made a serious misstep on that front by agreeing to Mercy’s proposal. But he could try and lessen the consequences as much as possible. Not getting accidentally shot would go a long way toward that peace and quiet he was chasing so hard.
As he moseyed back out onto the porch, Mercy’s gaze narrowed on his empty holsters. She crossed her arms over her ample chest, and his head spun a little. Damn woman had probably given him food poisoning with her cooking. He’d have to keep an eye on her.