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“Well, there you go,” Mrs. DuVere said, patting Mercy’s hand.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t worry,” she said quietly.
Mrs. DuVere gave her a gentle, knowing smile. “Of course not. That’s what you do when you love someone.”
Mercy’s eyes shot to hers. Love? “But I…I don’t think…”
Mrs. DuVere smiled again. “Don’t think about it too hard. It’ll just make your head ache.”
Mercy chuckled and Mrs. DuVere stood, holding out her hands to help Mercy up. “Come on, you can wait with me for a while. It’ll be several hours yet before they get back. No point in both of us being alone and worried when we could be worried together.”
Mercy didn’t question her about her worry for the preacher. She’d thought she’d seen something between them on more than one occasion. But they had never said anything publicly. Went out of their way, in fact, to avoid being too near each other much of the time. Which meant, whatever was between them, if anything, it wasn’t something they wanted to discuss. And that was respected in Desolation. Even if the curiosity was eating her alive.
“All right,” she said, getting to her feet. “I could do with a bit of company. Though I want to be home before he gets there. So I can kill him in private.”
Mrs. DuVere’s laughter rang out. “That’s my girl. Come on.”
She took Mercy’s hand and they walked past Doc and Jason Sunshine coming out of the church. Mercy didn’t acknowledge either of them. She probably owed them an apology. She was pretty sure she’d given Jason that swollen lip he was sporting. But at the moment, she was angry and worried, and they had kept her from following her husband. So, until he got back, safe and sound, in one living, breathing piece, she wasn’t speaking to either of them.
The men in this town were out of her good graces and would stay that way until she had Gray back.
…
Gray and Preacher rode up to Josiah’s sprawling ranch house, on the alert for any danger. But though there were several men about the yard and property, working with the horses or on other chores, none seemed to give them more than a curious glance or two. Still, Gray didn’t let down his guard.
They rode into the courtyard of the house and pulled their horses to a stop. Two men, a short, lean man with a handlebar mustache and a slightly taller and decidedly more portly man with a scar on his cheek, got out of their porch chairs and came to the steps.
“What are you doing here?” Scarface asked.
“We came to talk to your boss,” Gray said. “And give him back the man he’s missing.”
Scarface and Mustache exchanged a glance but didn’t respond to Gray’s unsubtle accusation.
“Wait here,” Mustache said before turning to go inside.
Gray didn’t wait to see if Josiah would see them. He knew he would. Instead, he dismounted and moved to Preacher’s horse to untie the body. Preacher dismounted and helped lift it down, then laid it on the barren ground for lack of a better place to put it.
Gray glanced around at the property and started to get an inkling of what might be driving Josiah’s attacks. There was a clump of dying cottonwood trees along the sides of a creek beside the house—a creek with barely enough water to flow. Mercy had mentioned her land had plenty of water. And it looked like Josiah’s did not.
Many a neighbor had been killed for their water rights. Same story, different villain, he supposed. Well, that wasn’t his or Mercy’s problem. Not unless Josiah kept making it Gray’s problem, and then he’d make him wish he hadn’t.
Footsteps clapped on the floorboards and Gray moved back to Birdie’s side, ready to ride off quickly if need be. He’d been keeping a side eye on the rest of the men in the yard as well. Most had continued to go about their business. A few were watching the scene unfold a little more closely than Gray would have liked.
Still, he didn’t think Josiah would gun them down out in the open like this. Not on his own property. No. Josiah wasn’t a man who liked to get his hands dirty. Aside from the anonymous hiring of who knew how many assassins, his threats and previous attacks had all been on Mercy’s property. Without witnesses, and without a direct tie to Josiah should there be anyone who saw. Josiah always left before the shooting started. Except the once. A fact he’d be reminded of every time he looked at the scar that would mar his hand.
“Mr. Woodson,” Josiah said, “to what do I owe the honor?”
His words were civil enough, but his eyes burned holes in Gray’s head.
“We thought you might want your man back,” Gray said, nodding at the body at his feet.
Josiah raised a brow. “I wasn’t aware I was missing a man.”
“No?” Gray bent over and whipped back the covering from the man’s face.
Being dead several hours and riding like a sack of flour over a horse’s hind end for another had not improved the man’s appearance.
Josiah’s lips drew up in distaste. “I have never seen that man before in my life. Your handiwork?”
