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Gray lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. “It tends to happen when someone walks into my town and attempts to kill me.”
Josiah smirked. “I’m sure there must be a long line of men wanting to kill you, Sheriff. You can’t possibly mean to lay them all at my door.”
“Of course not, Banff. Just the ones who come to town already knowing I’m there.”
Josiah’s face hardened. “You can’t blame me for someone trying to kill a known gunslinger.”
“Sure I can. No one in town is particularly interested in telling people where to find me. No one but you.”
Josiah lifted his weak chin in the air. “I’m sorry for your troubles, Sheriff. But you have no proof I had anything to do with this attack.”
“Don’t need any.” Gray gave him a cold smile. “And you can stop right now thinking you’ll ever get access to Mercy’s water rights. Best you find another way, or I’ll end this here and now.”
“What are you going to do? Gun me down on my own front porch? With all these witnesses?” Josiah said, gesturing at the men who had started to close in. “Even a lawman can’t get away with cold-blooded murder. What would that spirited little wife of yours do if she were left all on her own because you were hanged for murder?”
The mention of Mercy made Gray’s vision bleed red. Preacher laid a hand on his arm and Gray glanced down at it, confused for a moment. He hadn’t even noticed the man getting closer to him. He was letting Josiah get to him, goad him into reacting. That was a good way to get killed. Something that never would have happened before he’d met Mercy, but just the thought of the evil bastard in front of him getting his hands on her…
Gray forced himself to take a deep breath and focused on Josiah, gratified to see the man had paled in the face of Gray’s rage.
“I won’t bother trying to put the fear of God into you,” Gray said, his voice deadly quiet. “If you believed in God, you wouldn’t be such a prick.”
Josiah straightened, his eyes flashing with anger at the insult.
“But I did come to warn you. Stay out of my town. Stay away from my wife. Call off the bounty and forget you’ve ever even seen me. Or there will be hell to pay.”
Josiah smiled, though his eyes stayed dead and flat. “And you think you’re the man to best me?”
Gray returned the smile, his adrenaline surging as Josiah blanched. “Step foot in Desolation again, and you’ll find out.”
He swung back into his saddle and wheeled about, Preacher right on his heels. He needed to get away from Josiah. If he stayed in that man’s presence for one second longer, one of them was going to end up dead.
Chapter Twenty-one
Mercy headed home when the sky began to grow dark. Jason had mounted up and followed her without a word. She hadn’t fought him. She was angry, but not stupid. If there were other gunmen out there in the dark, she didn’t want to get ambushed on her own. But she hadn’t expected him to stay once she was safe in her own house.
She watched him dismount with her eyebrows raised. “I’m home now. You don’t need to stay.”
His cheeks flushed a little and he played with his hat rim and wouldn’t meet her eyes. But he didn’t budge from her porch, either. “Sorry, ma’am, but the sheriff said not to leave your side until he returned.”
She stared at him, debating the merits of arguing with him. Finally, she sighed and opened the front door, waving him in. “Better come inside, then.”
The relief on his face would have made her laugh if she wasn’t so angry about the whole situation.
She pulled out some cheese, bread, and apples, and they had a light dinner. She couldn’t dredge up the energy to actually attempt to cook anything. Afterward, they sat quietly in the front room. Jason chose a chair that had its back to the wall and was positioned so he could watch both her and the front door. It was the chair Gray usually chose. Mercy hadn’t realized until that moment that he’d always chosen the most strategic seat. She wondered if he did it on purpose or if it was just natural to him.
Jason didn’t try to draw her into conversation, for which she was grateful. He was a good man who didn’t deserve her harsh tongue. But she couldn’t really promise that she wouldn’t snap at him again with her nerves so on edge. Better to just sit in silence.
After a while, though, she couldn’t take sitting with nothing but her own thoughts rattling around in her head. There was something she was curious about.
“Why do you want to be a gunfighter, Mr. Sunshine?”
He gave her a gentle smile. “Have you ever seen the way people react to the sheriff when he walks into the room? Or watched the way he carries himself when he walks down the street? Even when interrogating a man he’d just shot for trying to shoot him, he didn’t flinch.”
Mercy nodded, smiling faintly. “I think I know what you mean.”
Jason nodded. “He told me once, the way people react to him…it isn’t respect, it’s fear.”
“And you want people to fear you?”
