Promises Reveal
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
For Better or for Worse
Shoot. Evie did not need him here now. But he was. She turned to find Reverend Brad standing in the tiny alcove between her and the door. Dressed in black, his thick blond hair combed back from his face, there was no missing the anger in his dark blue eyes, the impatience thinning his normally wide mouth. No telling herself he’d see this as a good thing. “What are you doing here?”
“Collecting my bride.”
She tightened her grip on the bouquet of roses her mother had given her. Roses from her mother’s prized bushes. The roses she’d always told Evie were going to bring her luck when she married the man she loved. “I’ve decided this is a bad idea.”
“Your input is not required.”
“I’m the bride.” Nothing was going to happen without her cooperation.
Brad took a step forward. For all that he was reputed to be a man of God, there was a wild side to him. A dangerous edge lurking beneath the civilized facade he presented to the world.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PROMISES REVEAL
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / October 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Sarah McCarty.
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eISBN : 978-1-436-28998-6
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To Karen S., the Reverend’s Lady of Ingenuity:
You always keep the torch burning bright
for your Alpha, and those who know you.
May that never change.
One
HE WAS STANDING on the wrong end of the shotgun.
Of all the ways the Reverend Brad Swanson thought he’d be trapped, this wasn’t it. He’d imagined it often enough—a posse, a tree, a hanging noose. But this, well ... he glanced behind the fat judge, who waited Bible in hand, to where Asa MacIntyre stood by the white satin-draped altar, the shotgun in his arms gleaming dully in the sun streaming through the large windows. He’d never seen this as his end. He shook his head. This was beyond imagining. Not only because he hadn’t seen it coming, but because this had to be the first time a mother had ever seen him as fit husband material for her daughter.
“Don’t bother trying to change your mind,” Pearl warned in a voice too low to carry far.
Brad glanced toward the first pew of the full church to where Pearl Washington sat dressed up in her mother-of-the-bride best. From the glare she shot him from under the feather bobbing on the elaborate creation she called a hat, and the pat she gave the outline of the peashooter she called a gun in her reticule, she still wasn’t believing his side of the story.
“I’m not changing my mind.” Just doubting the intelligence contained within. How in hell had he let himself get trapped like this?
Pearl narrowed her eyes, packing as much menace as she could into the look. “Good.”
Sugar cookies. He blamed his addiction to sugar cookies for the entire situation. If Pearl and her cohorts hadn’t convinced him to slip them whiskey on a regular basis in exchange for the cookies, they might have believed his claim that he hadn’t set his sights on Pearl’s eccentric daughter, but apparently a minister who would supply the good women in town with the whiskey they requested for their meetings was considered capable of anything. Just another reminder that no good deed went unpunished.
In response to her threat, Brad gave Pearl a mocking smile that was guaranteed to piss her off. Her chin jerked up. The old satisfaction at getting under someone’s skin perked—a minor pleasure in a day full of annoyance. He might be posing as a minister, but it was a thin veneer. Inside, he was the same outlaw he’d always been. In many ways the two-faced role of an upright preacher suited him. Kind of an ongoing joke between past and present. Between upbringing and choice. Still, considering it was saddling him with a wife, the joke just might be on him.
To his right his best man, Cougar McKinnely, cleared his throat. Cougar’s half-Indian ancestry showed in the strong angles of his face and the darkness of his skin. His impatience showed in the jerk of his chin toward the back of the small church. Cougar’s long, dark hair swung about his shoulder as he turned to look up the aisle. Beside him, his cousin Clint—equally big, equally dark, and with an equally disapproving expression on his face—turned with him. They were symbolically standing up for him now, but earlier, when the finger pointing in the wake of Evie’s art show had worked up to its inevitable hysteria, both men—enemies turned friends—had sided with the Washingtons, putting the final nail in Brad’s coffin. He didn’t know why he’d expected differently, but he had. Which only went to show that faking respectability had gone and made him soft.
Over Judge Carlson’s shoulder, Asa MacIntyre regarded him with the same threat as the rifle cradled in his
arms. Somehow, Pearl had pressed him into her side of the dispute. Or maybe it had been Cougar or Clint. Or maybe the man just had reasons of his own. There was no telling with MacIntyre. He went his own way, made up his own mind. Brad probably should be grateful the man hadn’t decided to just plug him for messing with an innocent. That’s what Brad would have done.
That was what galled the most about Asa’s defection, Brad decided. Brad might be a lot of things, but he didn’t hurt women, and the only mercy he had for men who did was a bullet through the heart. Asa knew that, was cut from the same cloth, yet he’d taken the Washingtons’ side.
Taking a slow breath, Brad ran his fingers through his hair. Hell, since when did he care if the men around him believed him? In him? As long as they followed orders and didn’t land him on the working end of a noose during a job, he’d always been satisfied.
The organ music began, launching into the long treble that heralded the beginning of his wedding. Asa arched an eyebrow at him. Brad resisted the urge to flip him off. His minister image had lost enough of its shine, and since his best bet for survival was still to hide in plain sight, he couldn’t afford to let it slip further. Even if it meant marrying a woman totally inappropriate to a man in his role.
Taking another breath, he turned and faced the music. Good people from the town filled the pews. People he’d come to know better than he’d planned. He was used to seeing smiles on their faces, but right now all he was looking at was a sea of disapproval under the illusion of gaiety provided by the sprays of wildflowers tied to the pews with streams of ribbons that blew gently in the breeze from the open windows. The organ music stopped and started again, holding the last note, prolonging the dramatic moment. Everyone looked to the back. Wood creaked, voices murmured. The bride didn’t show.
“If your luck holds, Rev, the bride just might not put in an appearance.”
Brad cut Cougar a glare. He knew damn well his luck had never been that good. “That would only make things worse.”
“Can’t see how they can get much worse than a minister taking advantage of a sweet innocent like Evie Washington,” Jerome muttered from the second row. Franny, his wife of forty-some years, covered his hand.
“I’ve gotta admit that’s a scandal, for sure.” The apology in her tone didn’t make up for her support of the case against him.
“The Reverend Swanson is a good man. I don’t believe for a minute he took advantage of Evie.” All heads turned as Jenna McKinnely stood up, looking like a Rubenesque angel with her blonde hair pulled back in a long braid and those big blue eyes looking at him with determination. Her adopted daughter, Bri, a small bundle of white, squirmed for freedom on her hip. “And neither should any of you. He’s our minister. He deserves our support.”
Thank God for Jenna’s sweet nature and belief in the innate goodness of people. She was the only one who didn’t see this as a disaster. She was probably the only one on his side. And all because he’d answered “No” when she’d asked if he’d taken advantage of Evie. As if his word was good for anything.
“Then how do you explain the painting?” Jerome asked.
“I can’t explain what I haven’t seen.”
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.