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“If he’s the one behind it,” Doc said. “I don’t have any doubt that he is,” he added, before anyone could argue. “But as of yet, we don’t have any proof. No one has actually named him, and I doubt he’d be foolish enough to put anything in writing.”
Gray frowned, but he couldn’t argue. With a lack of hard evidence, they needed someone to crack and confess, or arresting Josiah wouldn’t do much good. At least legally.
Jason came back into the main room, and Gray was uncomfortably aware that all eyes were on him, waiting for words of wisdom or a plan of action or…hell, he didn’t know. All he did know was that with that large a bounty, more would-be assassins would come. And with bullets flying, Gray wouldn’t be the only one in danger. The events of that morning had already proved that. Ernie had gone to the tavern, attacked the men there. And what would have happened if Sunshine had been the one sitting behind the desk when Claude had shown up instead of Gray?
And Mercy…she had been at the tavern.
He cut off that line of thinking. She’d been upstairs with Mrs. DuVere. Not a target. Thinking of her in harm’s way made thinking of anything else impossible. And he needed to think.
The town was no longer the peaceful haven Gray had thought it might be. Everyone was already on edge, and it was just going to get worse. And it was his fault. He was the target and the bungling fools who’d come after him so far didn’t seem to care who they went through to get to him.
His eyes strayed to Mercy, and he took a deep breath, trying to ignore the panic that was clawing at his gut. The only reason Josiah was after Gray was so he could get to Mercy. She’d already turned down money and matrimony. Murder was the only way left to get her out of Josiah’s way. Once Gray was gone, she’d be his main target again. He couldn’t let that happen.
A quick glance at the faces around the room didn’t help matters. They’d all already been put in harm’s way because of him. He’d need to keep awake, alert. Naptime was certainly a thing of the past. And that pissed him right off.
“What do we do?” Mercy asked.
“We keep alert,” Doc said, echoing Gray’s thoughts. The others nodded.
Gray stood. “We watch every new face that rides into town.”
“More so than usual,” Preacher said with a wry smile that broke the tension in the room.
“Check with the man we sent to watch Josiah’s, see if he’s seen any movement,” Gray told Preacher, who nodded and immediately left on his errand.
Mercy rounded on Gray. “You didn’t tell me you’d left someone watching Josiah.”
Gray shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important. It was just a precaution, and not one that I expect will be useful. If Josiah was goin’ to make any outward moves, he wouldn’t have put a bounty on my head. He’d have just killed me outright. But it doesn’t hurt to be thorough.”
A slight shudder went through Mercy, and Gray put an arm around her. “Don’t worry about me,” he murmured to her. “I’ve gotten pretty good at avoidin’ the undertaker over the years.” She was the one he was worried about.
She leaned into him, wrapping her arm around his waist. “Yes, but you said yourself that a five-hundred-dollar bounty would—”
He kissed her. And kept on kissing her, ignoring the good-natured ribbing as people filtered out and left them alone.
He couldn’t kiss her into silence forever. And she was right to be concerned. Five hundred dollars was more than a year’s wages for a lot of men. An impressive amount, to be sure. Gray would be damn proud if his was the only life at stake.
He wrapped his arms tighter about Mercy, her warmth a sharp reminder of why he’d always avoided such entanglements in the past. If you didn’t love anyone, you couldn’t hurt anyone. And despite all his efforts to the contrary, his feelings for Mercy had evolved into something he couldn’t bring himself to name.
Because for all his joking that she would be the death of him, he was very much afraid it would be the other way around.
Chapter Twenty-three
“How’s our sheriff holding up?” Mrs. DuVere asked Mercy.
She sighed. “Not well. He acts like everything is fine, but he’s not sleeping much and when he does, it’s fitful.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. DuVere murmured, her brow creased with worry. “We just have to believe he’ll get to the bottom of this mess soon enough.”
Martha nodded. “Yes, we do.”
Mercy didn’t need to tell her that if Gray wasn’t sleeping, things were bad.
It had been nearly a week since the Brown brothers had been arrested in their horribly bungled attempt to collect the bounty on Gray’s head. And while Gray joked about the impressive amount, Mercy could tell it weighed on him. The more days that went by without anything happening or anyone new showing up, the more worried Gray became.
Mercy had asked him one day how they removed the bounty, and he’d just shrugged and said that typically you kill the guy who set it up. She’d discovered then she had a bit of a bloodthirsty streak, as she didn’t mind one bit if Josiah met an untimely death. But Gray had shaken his head. They still had no proof Josiah had set up the bounty. Details.
Mercy tried to look at the bright side, hoping that no news was good news. But if there was still a bounty on Gray’s head…well, someone would probably show up at some point to try and claim it.
