Page 15 of A Dangerous Heart
“Not a breath left in her. We’ll put up the meat for the winter,” Nick said.
Drew nodded, still frowning. “Let’s get these boys settled.”
They’d almost left the clearing behind when Clare glanced back to see Isaac still standing in place, staring at the bear, his shooting hand flexing at his side.
She wanted nothing more than to get away from the bear and this place. She’d almost lost Eli.
The boys were riled up after the bear incident. It took a long time before they quieted in their bedrolls. Clare was too anxious to sleep. Curled in her bedroll, she watched the flames dance as the men spoke in low tones from across the fire.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Nick said as he took his rifle and a sharp knife from the chuck wagon and disappeared into the night.
Isaac sat near the fire, slowly breaking tiny pieces from a stick and tossing them into the flames. Drew stood slightlybehind the circle of bedrolls, and Clare saw how he watched Isaac, not the flames.
“That was a lucky shot,” Drew said quietly. There was something behind the words, something between the two brothers she couldn’t understand. Isaac hadn’t looked her way once since they’d returned to camp. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized no one had seen her take the shot. The boys had been too focused on the near danger, and Isaac had been holding the gun again by the time his brothers had made it to the clearing.
Isaac’s gaze jumped to her, and for a moment, his mouth opened as if he might say something more—reveal the truth. But then he pressed his lips together, a muscle in his cheek twitching. His voice dropped, low and strained.
“Yeah. Lucky.”
Drew’s chin dipped. “If you hadn’t been there, the bear might’ve killed the boys. I’m grateful today that you weren’t away chasing some outlaw with the Marshals.”
For the first time since they’d met, Isaac didn’t look away. Something burned deep in his eyes. It wasn’t anger but some other emotion she didn’t recognize. Why didn’t he tell Drew that he hadn’t made the shot? Was he ashamed? Swift Draw McGraw. If Isaac was with the U.S. Marshals and was some kind of gunman, why hadn’t he pulled the trigger? Why didn’t he carry a revolver?
He’d nearly lost his lunch after the bear had fallen. She could still see him half bent over, his hands on both knees, shaken and terrified, just before his brothers had appeared. Now he lifted his chin as if daring her to speak.
The secret seemed to shimmer in the air between them. Clare didn’t care whether anyone knew she’d killed the bear. It was Isaac’s show of weakness that had her holding her tongue.And the knowledge that her instincts had been right. He was a lawman.
Finally, he swallowed hard and glanced away.
He rose. “I’ll go help Nick,” he said before disappearing into the night, leaving her unsettled and sleepless.
Isaac kept everyone at arm’s length, even the family he clearly loved. Whatever demons were haunting him, they were his alone.
But now she and Isaac shared a secret.
Chapter 4
“You aren’t staying to eat?”
Isaac shrugged in response to Drew’s question. Two days after the run-in with the bear, two days spent pushing cattle into town, Isaac was covered in dust and craving some quiet. But with the bustling activity in the town square picnic area—farmers and ranchers from all over the county celebrating fall roundup—he wasn’t going to get any peace here.
He caught a sidelong glance from Clare, unloading a picnic basket beside Kaitlyn only a few feet away. Two days of wondering when she’d spill the secret—he hadn’t saved David and Eli—and he was strung tighter than a new barbed-wire fence.
“I’m gonna take a walk,” he muttered, turning and heading down the street, weaving through the crowd on the busy boardwalk. A female voice snagged his attention.
“No, it was Isaac. I’m certain that’s what I heard,” said a woman in a prim straw hat, red feathers jutting from the band, her voice dropping to a feigned whisper. “He tried to jilt her at the train station.”
The hair on the back of his neck rose. Clare Ferguson had only arrived in Calvin three days ago, and already the town gossips were squawking.
“But she’s right over there with his family,” the shortest of the women, dressed in bright yellow, chirped and lifted her pointed chin. The group paused to crane their necks in the direction of the town square.
“She’s a beauty. What I wouldn’t give for all that thick dark hair.” The woman’s fingers patted a few thin graying wisps under her hat. The feather bobbed.
Isaac didn’t want to think about Clare’s glorious hair, thick waves flowing around her delicate shoulders. It had gotten mussed on the trip into town. She’d let it loose, fingering out the tangles before braiding it into a long rope. His stomach had stayed knotted the entire time. He blinked the memory away.
“Those her boys? Seems too young to have children that age,” the tallest woman groused.
So, others had noticed too.
