Promises Reveal

by Sarah McCarty

“Because your husband is the overly responsible type.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning his first instinct is always to protect you.”

  And what happened today wasn’t going to sit well with that. She hadn’t thought of that. “Thank you.”

  Doc dropped his hand from the knob. His fingers clenched in a fist. Opened. Blowing out a breath, he turned and met her gaze. He had old eyes, wise eyes. The kind that made everyone who met him trust him. Usually they held the light of humor. Right now, they were deadly serious. “Don’t take this wrong, Evie, but if you decide to go up those stairs, do it for the right reasons or don’t do it at all.”

  “And what would they be?”

  “Because you’re playing for keeps.”

  The door closed softly behind him, leaving Evie alone with her thoughts and two options—stay or leave.

  Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she shied away from the latter. Leaving wasn’t an option. She didn’t know if she should stay, or even could stay, but she was absolutely sure she couldn’t leave. Not now. No with things like this. Not without seeing him.

  She remembered how Brad had stepped between her and the bullets, thrown her down, and covered her. The sickening impact as the bullet had hit his flesh, and how he’d refused to move, just laid his big body over hers in the ultimate sacrifice.

  He was always making sacrifices. All too willing to trade his life for others.

  I guess if someone spends enough time telling you you’re nothing, somewhere along the line you begin to believe it.

  That had to stop. He was her husband, her source of laughter, her strength, and her support. The man she loved and trusted. He was this town’s uniting force. The man everyone looked to for guidance, laughter, solace. They didn’t need him sacrificing himself. They needed him around to do what he did so well.

  Climbing the stairs, she heard the sounds of drawers opening and closing. There would only be one reason for that. Brad was packing. It was ten steps from the top of the stairs to her bedroom. By the time she got there, Brad was shrugging into his shirt. A black satchel sat on the floor at his feet. The bandages on his abdomen were stark white against the tan of his skin. Looking at him now like this, she couldn’t understand how she’d ever believed he was merely a preacher. Everything about him spoke of an active, violent life. Just like everything about him spoke of integrity, strength, and reliability.

  Sometimes people who are lost need time to find themselves.

  Brad had never given her anything but time and patience. And room to grow, she realized as he flicked his collar straight.

  He caught her staring. His expression closed up tight. “I’ll be out of here by sundown.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the doorjamb the way she’d seen him do so many times. “If I can’t cut and run, neither can you.”

  He shot his cuffs and then paused as what she’d said sank in. With deliberate nonchalance that didn’t fool her for an instant, he buttoned the right cuff. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re married. Until death do us part, remember?”

  “You can’t want to stay married. I’m a goddamn outlaw.”

  “Shadow Svensen is dead.” And he was, she realized. Brad might have come here to hide, but somewhere along the line, he’d become what he’d pretended to be. A minister to the people.

  “Only until such time as somebody decides he’s not.”

  “Who’s going to tell? All of Casey’s people are dead, and unless you know something I don’t, they didn’t tell anybody who you were.”

  Brad fastened the button on the other cuff with the same care. “You could.”

  “You don’t think much of me if you think I’ll fall for a dare like that.”

  “It would be the easiest way out of our dilemma. An annulment would be simple. Within a year you could be on your way to Paris.”

  “Or I could just stay here.”

  “What’s for you here?”

  He stood there, his hair falling over his forehead in that sexy way, half naked, wearing bandages over wounds he’d received while saving her life, daring her to betray him. Taking a step into the room, she smiled. “You.”

  “Hell.” He fastened the cuff. “Walk out on the street and grab the first man you see, and you’d be doing better.”

  “Would you like that, Brad. Me with another, taking his kiss, his touch, his c—”

  He yanked her toward him with a viselike grip on her wrist. “Hell no, I don’t want that. I want to kill any man who gets near you, but what I want isn’t important.”

  “I disagree.”

  His teeth snapped together. “I lied to you.”

  She stood very still in his grip. Some things she did need to know. “Is your real name Brad Swanson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a preacher?”

  “Yes, but—”

  She didn’t let him finish, needed to make her points before his conscience got its chance to make his. “Then it doesn’t matter.”

  “The hell it doesn’t.” Grabbing her chin, he tipped her face to his. “You can do better.”

  “Nobody else sees me the way you do.”

  “They would, if you let them.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, the rightness of holding him, of being held by him flowing through her. “What if I won’t let them?”

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  She smiled. “I think this is where we started.”

  And it was. They’d come full circle, back to the point of decisions regarding their marriage, but this time there were no secrets, no fears, no one standing at the altar with a shotgun. It was just Brad and her and what they wanted. And he wanted her. She could see it in every line of his body. He just had to reach out and take it.

  “A smart woman would walk away.”

  “Where would the fun be in that?”

  His fingers left her chin, skimmed down her neck, skated inward from her shoulder to curve around her nape. “It would be safer.”

  He was weakening. Closing her eyes, wallowing in the knowledge that she had a second chance, Evie leaned into his hand. “I don’t need safe, Brad. I don’t even particularly like it.”

  “I can’t guarantee you that what happened here today won’t happen again, baby.”

  The way he said baby about broke her heart. He said it with the slow catch in the syllables of one letting go of a dream. He wasn’t losing any more dreams. Not if she had anything to say about it. And she intended to have a lot of say in his future.

  Opening her eyes, she declared, “We’ll start over.”

  “I’m an outlaw.”

  The truth lay between them, delivered with uncompromising bluntness. The reality he didn’t think she could get around. “You were a preacher first.”

  “I took the vows to escape a beating.”

  She rolled her eyes. He had all his walls up, braced for the reality he’d always dreaded. “But you took them.” And knowing what she knew about his personality, he’d meant them.

  He backed away. “And promptly broke every one.”

  To whom did he think he was talking? He’d stood for her, for Erica, for Gray, for Jenna. While bleeding to death he’d thought of Cougar first; when his position in the community had been shaken, he’d still taken on Bull and laid down an ultimatum that challenged everyone to do right. Brad had protected this town and its inhabitants in a hundred different ways while guiding them. He was a preacher to his core, the kind too rarely found. It was time he accepted that. “You were a lousy outlaw, Brad.”

  His chin jerked up. “The hell I was.”

  She waved away his indignation. “Outlaws are selfish, deadly men who prey on the weak. You spent your entire nefarious carer supporting those in need.”

  That earned her a glare. “I stole.”

  “And feel free to ask forgiveness for that.”

  “I killed.”

  “Only in self-defe
nse.”

  “I’m not some fucking saint.”

  No, he wasn’t. She took a step closer, watching his eyes. “Cattle Crossing would eat a saint alive.”

  His jaw set. “The town won’t want an ex-outlaw for their preacher.”

  “Your past is none of their business.”

  He blinked. “What the hell are you doing, Evie?”

  Another step. “You have a lot of courage, Brad. You have done a lot of things. I’m only asking you to do one more.”

  His lids flickered. He knew it was a trap. She took strength from the fact he responded anyway. “What?”

  “I need you to love me.”

  “Loving you is not the problem.”

  Closing the distance between them again, stepping in until her skirts wrapped around his legs and her breasts flattened into his chest, she placed her hand over his heart, feeling its steady beat, holding his gaze, aching for the pain she could see deepening his eyes. So many years of believing the worst of himself. “Then what is?”

  Beneath her palm she felt the leap of Brad’s heart that was hope. His hand covered hers, his fingers tucking beneath. “Keeping you safe. The things I love tend to get hurt.”

  If she could go back in time, Evie would shoot his father. Maybe not dead. Not at first, but she’d start low, likely with his foot and work her way up until she got his attention. “Bull-shit.”

  His smile was gentle. Sad. Final.

  “You’ll meet someone else. Someone better suited. And when you do, you’ll be glad I didn’t take you up on your offer.”

  She was getting sick of this.

  Grabbing his shirt front, Evie tried to shake him. It was like trying to shake a tree. Damn, he was stubborn. “I won’t give you a divorce.”

  “You won’t have a choice.”

  Planting her feet, she met the steel in his gaze with every bit of conviction inside. “You have no idea how much choice I can create when I set my mind to it.”

  His expression grew harder if possible. “No amount of stubborn’s going to change my mind about this. What happened today could happen again. Next week, next month, next year.” Letting go of her hand, he grazed the back of his fingers down her cheek. “I couldn’t live with anything happening to you because of me.”

  Evie pushed the growing softness away. Brad was very good at playing emotions to get his way. But not this time. This time he wasn’t doing the right thing for them, and she wasn’t going to allow it. However much time they had, no matter how it ended, she wanted him. “Then just imagine how harrowing it’s going to be with me tailing behind you all over the country.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  She could tell from the way the words trailed off that he knew she would.

  “Without breaking a sweat.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I might even consider it an adventure.”

  “Hell, Evie . . .”

  He didn’t know the half of it. Hell would be a picnic if he put her through chasing him down. “If you run, I’ll follow you. Make no mistake about it.”

  “I’m an outlaw. I’ve got a past.”

  “You’ve also got a future. People come West to start over every day. There’s no reason you can’t be one of them.”

  “It’s not the same. I’m Shadow Svensen.”

  He was using that as a shield. This time when she took a step forward, he didn’t step back, but he also didn’t reach out, didn’t take her hand, didn’t smile. Didn’t do one of a hundred things he could have done to let her know she was welcome. “I have it on very good authority that Shadow Svensen is dead.”

  “Which would be good if you could count on him staying buried.”

  He was determined to make this as difficult as possible. Slipping her hand under his shirt she opened her palm over his chest, feeling the strength, the warmth, the beat of his heart.

  Without opening her eyes, she said, “Tell me something.”

  “What?” There was nothing in that curt syllable to feed her belief and everything to sustain her doubt. The query caught. She cleared her throat.

  “Besides being Shadow Svensen, do you have any more skeletons in your closet? A child you haven’t claimed? A wife you left behind?”

  “No.”

  Feeling like she was running in the dark with obstacles all around, she played her hand. “So the only thing standing between you and me is . . . you?”

  Beneath her palm, she felt that leap of his heart again. She was afraid to read too much into it. Afraid to read too little.

  His hand closed over hers, but he didn’t immediately break the contact, and against her stomach she felt the hardness of his erection. A thing like that could give a woman ideas. After all, how often had he used the passion between them to influence her?

  “There’s a hell of a lot more than that.”

  She decided that he could tell her in bed.

  Taking his hand, the calluses abrading her palm, reminding her how good that roughness felt against her skin, she backed toward the bed, tugging him along. She got to be in charge for three steps before he pulled her up against him, anchoring her with a hand at the small of her back.

  “What are you doing?”

  Reaching up, making sure to arch her back so he could enjoy the thrust of her breasts, she started pulling the pins from her hair. “You’re not much of a teacher if you don’t recognize when you’re being seduced.”

  His grip loosened. She danced back the remaining four steps. Scared, exilherated, sick to her stomach with the possibility of rejection, she challenged him, tempted him, lured him into taking the last two steps to the bed before falling backward. He caught her with those lightning reflexes, holding her by the hands, keeping her arched and suspended just above the mattress. Her bun unraveled under the weight of gravity. She shook her head and let her hair tumble around her the way he liked.

  He tugged her up just a bit and his gaze met hers. Beneath the cold facade she could see the fear of a boy who’d been taught nothing good was ever meant for him. “Be sure, Evie.”

  She didn’t flinch. “I love you, Brad Swanson, probably since the first moment I laid eyes on you. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. How you feel about me is what seems to be in doubt.”

  He let her go. There was a momentary sensation of tumbling before the mattress cushioned her fall. Brad followed her down. Catching his weight on his forearms, he lowered his forehead to hers. “You know damn well I love you.”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  When he looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, she shrugged. “It shouldn’t shock you that I’ve never considered myself particularly lovable.”

  “That’s because you’re a nut.”

  “But you love me anyway.”

  With every damn breath in his body, and it was never going to stop, Brad knew. And it scared him. Because it was good. Gently, carefully, she slid her hands around his neck and stroked lightly, holding him to her. “Want proof?”

  She cuddled her hips to his in blatant invitation. “Yes.”

  The laughter caught him by surprise, though it shouldn’t have. He had in his hands the one miracle of his life—the only woman he could ever love. He might never get over the miracle of her loving him back. Not the man he showed the world, but the man behind the mask. Not only that, she loved him enough to give him a second chance. From here on out, every morning was going to start with a prayer of thanks. For bringing him here, for sparing her life. He kissed her temple, relishing the pulse that beat against his lips before moving on to gently kiss the bruise on her jaw. “Fair warning, it’s going to take me a hell of a long time to forget the sight of you running headlong into a hail of bullets.”

  “If you hadn’t been standing in the open like a sitting duck, I wouldn’t have had to come rescue you.”

  She called that a rescue? “I was the distraction, so Elijah and Jackson could pick off the men holding you and Nidia hostage.”

  “What would’ve ha
ppened if they’d missed?”

  “They never miss.”

  “It was still a terrible risk you took.”

  “It was a calculated one.”

  She slapped his shoulder and said, “Well, don’t do it again.”

  “Then stay where I put you.”

  She huffed, and that tantalizing mouth of hers drew up in a pout. He could easily imagine her lips moving over his torso and lower in soft presses of flame while he unbuttoned her blouse and exposed her equally tantalizing breasts.

  “Then you’ll need to make it worth my while.”

  The challenge caught on the edge of his desire, taunting it. “I’ll work on it. Anything else?”

  As if reading his thoughts, her attention turned to the first button. It slipped free of its slot.

  “Actually there is.” The second button put up no more fight than the first. “I need you to tell me you want me.”

  Before he could tell her she was crazy, she placed her palm over his mouth. “Not physically, but the forever kind. The kind that means you’d marry me again, not because you had to, but because you wanted to.”

  The whole length of the speech, her other hand was busy working those buttons free of their holes, revealing intriguing bits of lace and then a hint of cleavage. Heaven.

  “There is no penalty if you don’t want that,” she continued, her speech picking up speed. “I’ll never tell anyone who you are, so you can walk way with no consequences.”

  Just leave the other half of his soul behind. Cupping his hand around hers, Brad pressed her palm into his kiss. “I don’t want to walk away.”

  She blinked. A tear rolled down her cheek. He caught it on his fingertip, interrupting its journey. How could she doubt how much he wanted her? If he could, he’d bind her to his side so she’d never be out of his sight, always be under his protection, always be safe.

  Parting the lapels of her shirt with one finger, he traced the edge of her camisole. “I love you, baby. More than I could ever convey.”

  “Good, because I do have a couple more terms.”

  He watched the flush color her torso.

  “Name them.”

  “I don’t want to live here. I realize we might not be able to afford to live elsewhere for a while, but I need to know we’ll have a home of our own that suits us.”