AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m surprised, given your obvious…irritation with the matter,” Sunshine said, “that you didn’t track him down and…umm…well…” He trailed off and grinned, though his meaning was clear enough.
“Oh, he did,” Adam said. “Only took him about a week before he found me and told me to keep quiet or else.”
Mrs. Woodson’s eyes grew round, and she looked at her husband. “You challenged him?”
Woodson grunted. “No. I threatened him. Thenhechallengedme.”
All eyes turned toward Adam, who shrugged. “What can I say? I was a naive kid who thought I was invincible.”
“So you let him walk away?” Mrs. Woodson asked, looking at her husband like she’d just found out he’d saved a litter of kittens from a rabid fox.
Adam raised his brows. She was either so loyal of a wife that she couldn’t believe her husband could ever lose a gunfight, or she knew just how good Woodson was and that no one walked away from him unless he allowed it. Maybe it was both.
Woodson scowled. It seemed to be his default expression. “I told you I’ve never killed anybody who wasn’t tryin’ to kill me first.”
His wife glanced Adam’s way. “And you weren’t trying to kill him?”
Adam gave her a sheepish grin. “Oh, no, ma’am, I was definitely trying. But like I said, I was just a kid who didn’t know what I was doing. I think ol’ Quick Shot there took pity on me.”
The gunslinger in question grimaced, and Adam went back to his explanation. “He did, however, fire a warning shot across my bow, so to speak. I’m pretty sure my bullet at least grazed his arm”—Woodson snorted and Adam ignored him—“but his took my hat clean off my head. I’ve never harbored any delusions that the bullet couldn’t have gone right on through my skull if Mr. Woodson had wanted, and he certainly could have taken a second shot while I was on my butt in the dirt. But whatever his reasoning, he let me walk out of there alive and with the reputation of the only man who’d survived a gunfight with old Quick Shot Woodson.”
“Right,” Woodson said, glaring at him again. “With the stipulation that you kept your mouth shut and never darkened my door again. Yet here you are.”
His wife laid a soothing hand on his arm. “Maybe we should all calm down a bit. I know you’ve got some…unresolved issues with this gentleman—”
Woodson glowered. “He’s no more a gentleman than I am. He told you: he’s a gunfighter. And a filthy, dirty one at that. What have you been doing with yourself?” he asked, his nose crinkling. “Rolling around in pigsties?”
“Horse dung,” Nora supplied helpfully.
Adam flashed her a glare and then turned back to the group on the platform. “Gambling, mostly. Gunfighting is more of an occasionally unavoidable hobby,” Adam said. Not that being a gambler along with being a gunfighter made him any more respectable.
“Another gunfighter, eh?” a buxom, flamboyantly dressed woman said, looking at him with interest. “We don’t get many of you. Get our fair share of train robbers and the occasional cattle rustler or two, but gunslingers are fairly rare. Have we heard of you, then?”
Adam returned her smile. “Probably not. I’m not nearly as good as ol’ Quick Shot there, reputation as his only survivor notwithstanding. I tried to keep that under my hat as much as possible, and after a few years, people forgot who exactly it was who’d walked away.” He flinched a little when Woodson’s face darkened a deeper shade of red.
“A courtesy you didn’t see fit to extend to me,” Woodson bit out through clenched teeth.
“I said sorry,” Adam muttered.
Woodson looked about ready to come out of his skin, and his wife patted his arm again.
“Well, whatever your background, you’re good enough to still be standin’ here,” the buxom woman said with a wink.
Adam chuckled. “True.” Then he turned back to Woodson, his amusement evaporating. “And I’d really like to keep on standing here, if you can keep from killing me long enough to hear me out.”
Woodson scowled. “Hear you out about what?”
Adam took a deep breath and blew it out. “I just want what you seem to have found. Peace and quiet. A safe place to retire.”
Woodson was already shaking his head. “No way in hell. You’re not staying. Yo—”
“Gray,” Mercy said. “We should at least discuss it. You can’t just tell him he can’t stay.”
“Yes I can. I—”
She leaned in and whispered something in his ear, and Adam watched Woodson’s anger visibly deflate. Fascinating. Who knew marriage could change a man so much? One of the many reasons why Adam remaining unmarried was his number one rule. He liked himself just as he was, thank you very much.
The sudden realization that rule number one may have just flown the coop hit him in the gut and made his apple breakfast curdle. He glanced at his possible wife again, but Woodson’s deep inhalation drew his attention back before he could say anything to her. Not that he had any clue what to say.
