Page 1 of A Dangerous Heart
Chapter 1
“You can’t catch me!”
Shrieks and laughter from young voices carried on the early-autumn breeze as Isaac McGraw strode through the yard between the barn and the original family homestead—now his older brother Drew’s home.
His six-year-old niece Tillie had sprouted up while he’d been gone on his last mission for the U.S. Marshals. Eleven-year-old Jo had grown lanky and awkward and looked more like her mother every day. But when Isaac looked at them, sometimes he saw the little tykes they’d been before.
Isaac’s younger brother Nick trailed the girls toward the barn. He was within shouting distance but only raised his hand in a wave.
Isaac returned it half-heartedly and continued toward the main house.
He steeled himself and slowly pulled in air through his nose, the smell of damp hay and musky horses mingling in the fall air—familiar scents that now felt suffocating. A low-hanging fog clung to the grass and the bottom rails of the paddock as Isaac trudged through the mist and climbed the steps. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee greeted him as he crossed the threshold.He stalked to the dry sink, reached for a cup on the shelf above, and snagged the tin pot from the stove.
“Were you out all night, Uncle Isaac?”
Isaac had seen his nephew David stacking plates in the corner as soon as he’d come inside. It was too much to hope the fourteen-year-old would keep his silence.
Isaac nodded, setting the coffeepot down and turning to lean his hips against the counter. He lifted his cup to take a sip but avoided looking directly at the boy. It was too hard. David reminded him of another boy, one who hadn’t lived to see his fourteenth birthday.
“Are you going again tonight? Can I come with you?”
David’s questions tumbled over each other. The boy had idolized Isaac since they’d pinned the marshal’s badge to his chest. And even now, when Isaac had given it up.
“No.” Isaac hadn’t meant to growl the word, but there it was.
David went quiet, subdued.
Drew hadn’t asked Isaac to keep watch, but it gave him an excuse to keep his distance, and it felt like penance for not having been here when the well had been poisoned a few months ago. According to their middle brother Ed, the family had been so ill they might’ve died.
Voices carried from the adjoining living and dining room, along with a husky laugh that belonged to his new sister-in-law Kaitlyn.
Moving to the doorway, he caught sight of Rebekah, Ed’s wife of only a few weeks.
Two of his brothers had settled into marriage recently. It was another sign he didn’t belong here anymore. He preferred the isolation of the hill country, his only companions a few varmints and a herd of cows.
But the ongoing feud with their neighbor made the solitude impossible. For now.
Isaac knew that any man willing to poison and kill wasn’t going to give up easily. That’s why Isaac needed to keep watch. Heath Quade wasn’t going to give up, not when the McGraws owned the best water in the county. Quade had made that abundantly clear as he’d bought out two more neighbors over the past weeks. It wasn’t enough for him to own the biggest ranch in the county. He’d bought or finagled nearly every piece right up to the McGraws’ property lines.
Isaac’s chest cinched tight at David’s disappointment. He moved into the dining room to join Ed and Rebekah and Drew and Kaitlyn.
“What’s this?” his brother Ed asked, bewildered. He was looking down at a white piece of paper on the table. Rebekah stood behind him, hands on her hips.
“It came to the mail-order bride postbox addressed to Isaac, postmarked a week ago. I found it in the mail when we were in town yesterday.” She narrowed her eyes on her husband. “I thought I was the only one you were writing to.”
Isaac watched color rise into Ed’s cheeks, and a tiny part of him liked that his brother’s new wife was sassing him. Months ago, Ed and Drew and Kaitlyn had cooked up a plan to find Isaac a bride—without bothering to ask him if he wanted one. The letters that were exchanged after the family had placed the mail-order bride ad on his behalf had caused a mess of trouble—and resulted in a match between Ed and Rebekah.
It gave Isaac a perverse kind of pleasure to see his brother squirming from the consequences of meddling in his life. Isaac was still angry.
“You are the only person I wrote to,” Ed said.
Rebekah softened. “Then why does this Clare Ferguson say she’s arriving on the train tomorrow?”
Isaac went still.
There was a jerky movement in the doorway at Rebekah’s question.
“Hold up, son,” Drew said at the same time as Isaac swiveled his head.
