Hitched to the Gunslinger by Michelle McLean

Chapter Five

Mercy hadn’t brought up shooting lessons again, but that didn’t mean she’d given up.

Gray may not like it, but he might have to actually do more than nap on her porch to get Josiah to go away. Frankly, she was surprised Josiah hadn’t tried something yet. Then again, it had only been a day since Gray had come wandering into their lives. And since Josiah hadn’t had the pleasure of watching Gray fall asleep on every surface he sat on for more than five seconds and move like a fly stuck in honey when he did decide to shuffle off somewhere, he was probably still playing it safe. For the moment.

She absolutely had to figure out a better plan soon, because the second Josiah and his men saw her ferocious gunslinger fiancé in action, they’d probably laugh until they peed themselves and then they’d come in and take what they wanted. And she’d be damned if she let anyone take what she’d worked so hard to build. Her orchard brought in enough on its own to pay for what little she needed, and quite a bit more. She had plans for her farm. Plans that did not include Josiah taking over and destroying everything she loved. She wouldn’t ever be beholden to any man. And to keep her independence, she needed her farm and orchard intact, under her control.

The familiar scent of charred meat drifted to her on the slight breeze through her open kitchen window.

“Damn,” she muttered, rushing inside to yank the pork chops off the stove.

She sighed. She wasn’t really a bad cook. Most of the time. She just got lost in her thoughts sometimes and forgot about whatever was cooking. And lately, she’d had a lot of concerning thoughts in which to get lost.

She opened the oven to remove the biscuits. At least they had turned out decently. She poked at one deep golden-brown lump. Mostly decent. Might be a bit dry, but it would taste just fine.

A snore echoed from the front porch and Mercy rolled her eyes. Gray was obviously not concerned about Josiah, but then he didn’t seem much concerned with anything. She, on the other hand, wanted to know what was going on. And she wasn’t going to find out by sitting at home waiting for Josiah or the sheriff to mount their next ambush. She’d also feel much better if more people than just Josiah and his men knew about Gray’s presence in their town. And on her team, as it were. It was harder to make a man disappear when there were people around to miss him.

So. It seemed a trip to town was necessary. She could use a few supplies, anyway, if she was going to be feeding the man three square meals and then some a day. A new needle and some thread wouldn’t be amiss, either. His clothes were definitely the worse for wear, and if she had to be engaged to him, she was going to clean him up a bit.

Mercy bent to have a quick look through her sewing supplies, stopping in surprise when she came across Gray’s guns buried in the basket.

She carefully extracted them, frowning as she considered what to do with them. The chambers were full. Who hid loaded guns? It would make much more sense to simply hide the bullets. Now what was she supposed to do with them? Give them back? Probably the sensible thing to do, but where was the fun in that?

She couldn’t stop the smile that formed when a thought occurred to her. She went out onto the porch as quietly as possible and tiptoed as close to Gray as she could. Then she raised a gun in the air and fired.

He came out of his chair with a yelp, knocking off his hat and overturning the chair in the process. His hands immediately went to his hips. She tried not to laugh at the utterly confused look on his face, though combined with hair that stuck out in all directions and his stammered half questions, it was a near thing.

“Misplace something?” she asked, holding the guns up, dangerous ends pointed to the side.

He glanced at the weapons, then up at the roof of the porch where a small hole rained dust down on him.

He brushed it out of his hair. “You shot a hole in your roof.”

“You can fix it later,” she said, handing him his guns. “Supper is ready.”

He took the pair and glared at her as she turned to go back inside.

“What happened to a dinner bell?” he called after her.

“Didn’t think you’d hear that over your snoring,” she said. “Hurry up, it’s getting cold.”

She went in the house, slapping a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter as his muttered cursing floated behind her.

He followed shortly after, without his guns, and slid into his seat at the table. He stared at the food on his plate with a dubious expression. She narrowed her eyes, and he cleared his throat and picked up the fork and knife.

“Hat,” she said.

He glanced up, brows drawn in confusion. “What?”

She sighed. “I think we’ve established your manners are little better than a barn animal’s, and I haven’t said anything about your habit of wearing your hat at all times, even in the house. But you could at least remove it at the table.”

“I like my hat,” he said with a frown.

She kept staring at him until he shook his head and took it off, dropping it onto the table next to him.

“Better?”

She nearly bit her lip off trying to keep from laughing at his thick mane of hair that was somehow both matted to his head on the top but also sticking up in all directions on the sides and back. The man needed a haircut like a fish needed water. Among other things. But she wasn’t going to criticize his hair when she’d been the one to insist he uncover it.

“Marginally,” she said. She would have preferred he hang it on the rack by the door, but frankly the fact he’d given in and removed it at all surprised her, so she didn’t want to push things too far.

He started sawing at the pork chop with a look of deep concentration. After a few moments, he dropped his utensils, picked up the chop with his hands, and tore into it.

“Really?” she said.

He shrugged. “I’ll waste away from starvation if I have to hack this thing into bite-size pieces. This is easier.” He raised the chop in a little salute and bit into it again.

She shook her head. “Trust you to take the easiest way.”

It took him a bit of work to take a healthy bite. He gestured at her with the pork chop. “You’re awful opinionated for someone who wants my help so badly.”

She smirked at him. “You must bring out the best in me.”

“I could just leave, you know.”

“You could, but the weather will be turning bad soon and there’s not another town for thirty miles in any direction. Unless you want to go back the way you came, of course. I’m guessing you don’t, because if you’d wanted to stay there you wouldn’t have left in the first place. That doesn’t give you much time to find another town that’ll take you in for an entire winter. And with your reputation…”

Something flashed in his eyes that made Mercy’s heart clench. It was gone in an instant, but a great flood of sympathy for the gunslinger suddenly washed over her. For all his bravado, he was a man who had no one. No home. No family. Nowhere he could go.

She had no doubt that he wouldn’t thank her for her thoughts, so she took a hasty sip of water, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat.

“Well,” she continued, though her eyes no longer met his. “I think we both know Desolation is your only choice. Since we’ve already established if you want to stay here, I’m your best option for a roof over your head and food on your table.”

“The food’s debatable,” he grumbled.

She glared at him, and he held his hands up in surrender. “I’m kidding. It’s…” He stabbed the black lump on his plate with his fork. “Edible.”

Her lips twitched into a smile before she could stop it. “All right, fine. Since we are stuck with each other for the time being, I suggest a compromise.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“If you’ll try harder to be more…agreeable,” she said with a small smile, “I’ll try harder to be more…lenient with your shortcomings.”

His eyebrow raised higher, but he gave her a half grin that made her stomach flip and held out his hand. “All right. Truce.”

She shook his hand and wondered how long she’d be able to keep her side of the bargain.

…

Seventeen hours. She made it seventeen hours. But if she had to bite her tongue one more time, she was going to bite the damn thing in half.

Gray had grunted his way through breakfast, ignored her suggestion that he accompany her into town, and was now sitting out in her rocking chair on the porch, whittling a stick into nothingness.

In anticipation of their trip, she’d dragged her hip tub into the kitchen and started the laborious process of filling it with warm water. A courtesy she didn’t often bother with for herself. But, in the spirit of hospitality and their truce, she’d thought she’d go the extra mile for her “guest.” It just hadn’t occurred to her he wouldn’t want to bathe. It was fairly obvious he didn’t indulge in the pastime often, but…still…

She took a deep breath, wincing a bit at the odor coming from his direction, and tried again.

“You know, I would be happy to wash those for you,” she said, glancing down at his clothing.

“What for?” he asked.

She stared at him for a moment, not sure how to answer that. Did he really not understand why she might think his clothes were in need of a washing?

“I just thought you might prefer some clean clothing. You don’t seem to have brought any spares with you.”

He shrugged and continued to whittle the stick in his hand.

She bit her lip, trying to go about this the tactful way, since she’d promised and all. But the man was trying her patience.

“I’m heating some water on the stove for you. I’m afraid I only have a hip bath, but it is preferable to the creek, especially at this time of year.”

He didn’t look at her, just kept rocking and whittling. “Don’t need it.”

Her temples began to throb. Could he really not smell himself?

“If that’s all you wanted… Go away,” he said.

All right. That was it. She’d tried the nice approach, and, in her opinion, he’d broken the truce first. She stood in front of him, hands on her hips, until he looked up at her.

“My head is beginning to pound, and I’m not sure if it’s from you aggravating me or from the smell coming off you. You may not notice it, but the rest of us would like to walk around and still use our noses.” She waved to encompass herself, Birdie the horse, and the goats who were munching happily on some crabgrass nearby. “Now, I know you’re used to being on your own, but for the time being we are stuck with each other, and since I’m housing you and feeding you, the least you can do is bathe occasionally.”

“No, thanks,” he said and went back to his whittling.

She nodded. “All right, then.”

She marched around the side of the house where the rain barrel sat, grabbed the bucket beside it, and filled it with the cold water. Then, before she could change her mind, she took it around the front again and tossed the bucket of water right in his face.

He jumped up with a shout and dropped his stick and knife while sputtering and wiping the water out of his eyes.

“What in the tarnation are you tryin’ to do, woman? Drown me?” he shouted, trying to wring the water out of his shirt.

Mercy’s heart pounded, whether it was from fear at having just antagonized a known killer, excitement at upping the stakes in their little game, or just plain enjoyment she wasn’t sure. Maybe a bit of all three. Whatever it was, she had never felt so alive.

She let out a peal of laughter, which froze him in his tracks, his gaze pinned to her.

She shrugged. “You wouldn’t go to the bath, so I brought the bath to you.”

He glared at her, though she was pretty sure she caught a flash of amusement in his eyes. “You are tryin’ my last nerve.”

“Good, because you’ve already trampled the hell out of mine.”

He shook his head. “I have never heard a woman with a mouth on her like yours.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I sincerely doubt that. Any woman in a five-mile radius of you is probably driven to curse like a drowning sailor. Now, would you prefer to get into the nice warm bath by the kitchen fire or do you want me to get another bucket of rainwater?”

He snorted, his gaze taking in her crossed arms as though measuring her conviction. “I don’t know why your ma named you Mercy. There ain’t a merciful bone in your body.”

Mercy gave him the sweetest smile she could dredge up. “My mother said she was always thankful for the Lord’s tender mercies, of which I was the best.”

He snorted again, finally lifting his gaze to meet hers, and she held out her hand toward the door and raised her brows, waiting for him to decide.

He glared, his chest heaving while he stood staring at her, probably mulling over various ways in which to kill her. Finally, he slapped his hat against his leg a couple times and then with an exasperated growl, he marched into the house.

Mercy turned to Birdie with an earsplitting grin. “I can’t believe that worked.”

The horse softly whinnied at her in commiseration—because of course, the poor old girl had been dealing with Gray for a while—and went back to eating.

Mercy grinned again. “Now for the second part of the plan.”

She waited a few minutes until the sounds from the kitchen let her know that Gray was in the bath. Then she took a deep breath and marched in.

…

Gray sat in the small tub, his knees almost to his chest, and picked up the bar of soap and scrub brush Mercy had left sitting nearby.

Mercy. He ground his teeth. If ever there was an inappropriately named woman, it was her. Only a mother could think otherwise.

The scent of apples tickled his nose, and he brought the bar closer to give it a good sniff. He sighed, his lips crinkling with distaste. No wonder the blasted woman always smelt like apples. As far as he could tell she used it to scent everything including, apparently, her soap. A more unpleasant smell drifted to him from the direction of his armpit, and he grimaced again. Well, she may have had a point about his need for a bath. It had been while. Still, he hated to lose an argument.

He got to work scrubbing at his hair and body, not caring how much water he splashed onto the floor. In fact, every drop that hit the floorboards made him grin with satisfaction. She wanted him to bathe so badly? She could clean up the mess. He ignored the guilt that nagged at him at the thought. She’d started it.

He’d just dumped a bucket of water over this head when the sound of footsteps marching in his direction froze him in place. She wouldn’t dare. Would she? He wiped the water from his eyes and tried to shove his dripping hair from his face.

She rounded the corner into the kitchen before the thought of what he’d do if she did dare had fully formed in his mind. A startled shriek left his lips before he could stop it, and he dropped his hands to his lap, blocking his tender bits from view.

“What the hell are you doing, woman?” he asked.

She had stopped at his decidedly outraged, and not a little feminine, shriek and stood looking at him with a grin pulling at her lips.

“Miss Douglas!” he said, sounding much more like a disapproving schoolmarm than he intended.

Mercy seemed to tear her eyes away with difficulty and a burst of male pride scorched through his chest. He might be getting on in years, and his middle might be a bit softer and more abundant than it had been a few years ago, but he could obviously still command the ladies’ attention. He was tempted to drop his hands and let her look her fill.

He changed his mind as she came toward him with a determined smile, and he sank as far under the water as he could. No good could come from that grin.

“Miss Douglas… Mercy… What are you doing?” he asked.

His pounding heart stopped altogether when she stooped over near the edge of the tub. She came up holding his clothing and his jaw dropped. She wouldn’t dare!

She crinkled her nose but gathered the entire bundle in her arms, right down to his socks. And his drawers.

“Where you goin’ with those?”

“They need a washing.” She jerked her head toward a linen towel draped over the chair. “Wrap up in that when you’re finished. It’s a nice sunny day. Your clothes will be dry in no time. And while you wait, I’ve laid out some clothes that you can wear.”

He sputtered a bit and half rose from the tub to pull his clothes from her grip. Her cheeks pinkened, but she didn’t avert her gaze. In fact, it zeroed in on him. He remembered just in time that standing would give her far more of a view than he’d prefer, and he sank back down with a scowl.

She winked at him and then continued out of the kitchen.

Oh. The truce was over.

He finished rinsing as quickly as he could. Maybe he’d be able to get to her before she soaked all his clothes. He slipped and skidded out of the tub, wrapping the towel around his body as well as he could as he trotted out of the house.

No such luck. Mercy had marched straight to her laundry bucket and shoved the whole mass of clothing into it, pushing them under the water. Then she grabbed his shirt and a bar of soap—apple-scented, unless his nose deceived him—and got to work with the washboard.

He stopped beside her, waiting for her to acknowledge his presence. She glanced over at him, and her lips immediately started to twitch.

“Your feet are getting muddy,” she said, studiously not meeting his gaze.

“You stole my socks.”

She shrugged and scrubbed harder at a particularly tough spot on his shirt. “You both needed a bath.”

“I did not.”

Her eyebrow rose. “Yes, you did.”

Yes, he did. But still. “I’m a grown man. I should be able to choose when I wish to bathe,” he insisted, though it was hard to maintain an aggressive tone when he was standing nearly naked in her yard. And she couldn’t keep her gaze off him, though she worked hard to pretend otherwise. Couldn’t hide the blush in those apple cheeks of hers, either. He let his towel drape a little lower around his waist, unable to resist a grin when her eyes followed.

Her gaze snapped back up to his and narrowed when she saw his smile.

She wrung his shirt out so tightly she was probably imagining it was his neck. “You were making the wrong choice. I helped.”

Oh, this woman. “Just because it wasn’t the choice you wanted me to make doesn’t make it the wrong choice.”

“I disagree.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or strangle her.

“Look—”

She sighed and shook his shirt out with a snap. “Your stench was peeling the paint off my walls. I did what I had to do.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but he’d smelled the evidence himself. He grimaced. “Well now I smell…”

“Much better,” she said with a grin.

“Like apples,” he corrected.

Her brow furrowed. “You don’t like apples?”

“Not particularly.”

She snorted. “Then you are definitely in the wrong place.”

He nodded. “That might be the only thing we agree on.”

She laughed softly and his stomach dropped to the bottom of his bare feet. The woman was a witch. That’s all there was to it. He’d never been the amenable sort. Never done what he was told. Yet there he stood, naked in her yard, bathed and scented and fixing to go to town to spread the news of their engagement. That she had orchestrated. And what was he doing about it? Standing there in nothing but the skin God gave him, hoping she’d laugh one more time because he’d never heard anything so beautiful in his life. And he’d only known her two days.

Lord, he needed help.

“I’ve laid out some clothes on your bed,” she reminded him, hanging his shirt over the line.

“I’d just as soon wait on my own clothes, if it’s all the same to you.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. That’ll set a few more tongues wagging than I had in mind, though.”

He frowned. “What are you jabberin’ about now?”

She sighed. “We are going into town this afternoon. Remember?”

“I recollect you mentioning it, yes. But I never agreed I’d be going.”

Her expression didn’t change much, but she scrubbed at the pants in her hands hard enough he was surprised they didn’t burst into flames.

“I need supplies.”

“Then go get them. I don’t see any reason why I need to tag along.”

She slapped the fabric in her hand against the washboard. “You are supposed to be my fiancé. This whole engagement farce does me no good if no one is aware you exist. Besides, with Josiah and the sheriff being curiously quiet the last couple of days, it would be a good idea to see what they’re up to.”

“The whole reason I came here was to be in a place where no one knew me. And now you want to go introduce me to the whole town? Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

Mercy stopped her furious scrubbing. “I know that was your original plan. But with the sheriff and Josiah and his men already knowing you are here, it’s a bit of a moot point. If they’ve spread the word that you’re here, then everyone already knows. And if they haven’t…well, then they are probably up to no good. Maybe devising a way to remove you from the situation. If that’s the case, then the more people who know you’re around the better. Makes it more difficult to make someone disappear if there are people who will miss him.”

Gray raised an eyebrow. “I’m touched that you’d miss me—”

Her mouth dropped open. “That’s not what I sa—”

“However, I’m more than capable of dealing with anyone Josiah or that weaselly sheriff might send after me.”

She resumed her attack on his clothing. “Be that as it may, I think we’d both be a lot safer if I wasn’t the only person who knew you were here.”

Gray sighed. She had a point. He didn’t like it. But he also couldn’t argue against it.

“Fine,” he ground out. “But don’t expect me to act happy to be meetin’ everyone.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “The thought never occurred to me. Now…” Her gazed roved over him until he had the inexplicable urge to blush. “Unless you want to be the talk of the county—and I’m assuming you don’t, since you don’t even want to be the talk of the town—I suggest you go put on those clothes I laid out for you. They should fit you well enough until these are dry.”

He raised a brow. “And what unfortunate man did they belong to?”

Her jaw tightened. “My father.”

His gaze flicked toward the orchard where the grave stood out like a fresh wound. He swallowed hard. He’d known loss himself. Giving him the clothes had probably been a difficult thing for her to do. An act worthy of his respect. “I thank you for the use of them, then.”

Her head jerked up, her eyes wide with surprise. Yeah, his response had surprised him as well. Maybe he wasn’t a complete ass after all. Who knew?

He didn’t dally but quickly put on the clothes she’d left him—and she was right, they did fit surprisingly well, though maybe a bit tight about the middle—and went to find Mercy again. If he had to go parade around town, he’d like to get it over with. He made it out to the yard where she was hitching her horse to a small wagon before he realized he wasn’t wearing his guns. If there was a possibility of running into anyone who might have an issue with his company, he’d want those on his hips. Even if he was loath to use them.

He frowned, his hands absently slapping at his thighs. Where had he left the damn things?

“They’re in the woodpile,” Mercy said, not even turning to look at him as she went about her task.

His frown deepened, and he marched over to the woodpile by the door to extract his guns. Hiding them from her wouldn’t do much good if she always knew where they were. He’d have to find a better spot next time.

That is, if he survived the meet and greet in town. It’d been his experience these things rarely went well when he was around.