Promises Reveal

Table of Contents

Shoot. Evie did not need
him
here now. But he was. She turned to find Reverend Brad standing in the tiny alcove between her and the door. Dressed in black, his thick blond hair combed back from his face, there was no missing the anger in his dark blue eyes, the impatience thinning his normally wide mouth. No telling herself he’d see this as a good thing. “What are you doing here?”

“Collecting my bride.”

She tightened her grip on the bouquet of roses her mother had given her. Roses from her mother’s prized bushes. The roses she’d always told Evie were going to bring her luck when she married the man she loved. “I’ve decided this is a bad idea.”

“Your input is not required.”

“I’m the bride.” Nothing was going to happen without her cooperation.

Brad took a step forward. For all that he was reputed to be a man of God, there was a wild side to him. A dangerous edge lurking beneath the civilized facade he presented to the world.

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PROMISES REVEAL

 
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

 
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / October 2008

 
Copyright © 2008 by Sarah McCarty.

 
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eISBN : 978-1-436-28998-6

 
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HE WAS STANDING on the wrong end of the shotgun.

Of all the ways the Reverend Brad Swanson thought he’d be trapped, this wasn’t it. He’d imagined it often enough—a posse, a tree, a hanging noose. But this, well ... he glanced behind the fat judge, who waited Bible in hand, to where Asa MacIntyre stood by the white satin-draped altar, the shotgun in his arms gleaming dully in the sun streaming through the large windows. He’d never seen this as his end. He shook his head. This was beyond imagining. Not only because he hadn’t seen it coming, but because this had to be the first time a mother had ever seen him as fit husband material for her daughter.

“Don’t bother trying to change your mind,” Pearl warned in a voice too low to carry far.

Brad glanced toward the first pew of the full church to where Pearl Washington sat dressed up in her mother-of-the-bride best. From the glare she shot him from under the feather bobbing on the elaborate creation she called a hat, and the pat she gave the outline of the peashooter she called a gun in her reticule, she still wasn’t believing his side of the story.

“I’m not changing my mind.”
Just doubting the intelligence contained within.
How in hell had he let himself get trapped like this?

Pearl narrowed her eyes, packing as much menace as she could into the look. “Good.”

Sugar cookies.
He blamed his addiction to sugar cookies for the entire situation. If Pearl and her cohorts hadn’t convinced him to slip them whiskey on a regular basis in exchange for the cookies, they might have believed his claim that he hadn’t set his sights on Pearl’s eccentric daughter, but apparently a minister who would supply the good women in town with the whiskey they requested for their meetings was considered capable of anything. Just another reminder that no good deed went unpunished.

In response to her threat, Brad gave Pearl a mocking smile that was guaranteed to piss her off. Her chin jerked up. The old satisfaction at getting under someone’s skin perked—a minor pleasure in a day full of annoyance. He might be posing as a minister, but it was a thin veneer. Inside, he was the same outlaw he’d always been. In many ways the two-faced role of an upright preacher suited him. Kind of an ongoing joke between past and present. Between upbringing and choice. Still, considering it was saddling him with a wife, the joke just might be on him.

To his right his best man, Cougar McKinnely, cleared his throat. Cougar’s half-Indian ancestry showed in the strong angles of his face and the darkness of his skin. His impatience showed in the jerk of his chin toward the back of the small church. Cougar’s long, dark hair swung about his shoulder as he turned to look up the aisle. Beside him, his cousin Clint—equally big, equally dark, and with an equally disapproving expression on his face—turned with him. They were symbolically standing up for him now, but earlier, when the finger pointing in the wake of Evie’s art show had worked up to its inevitable hysteria, both men—enemies turned friends—had sided with the Washingtons, putting the final nail in Brad’s coffin. He didn’t know why he’d expected differently, but he had. Which only went to show that faking respectability had gone and made him soft.

Over Judge Carlson’s shoulder, Asa MacIntyre regarded him with the same threat as the rifle cradled in his arms. Somehow, Pearl had pressed him into her side of the dispute. Or maybe it had been Cougar or Clint. Or maybe the man just had reasons of his own. There was no telling with MacIntyre. He went his own way, made up his own mind. Brad probably should be grateful the man hadn’t decided to just plug him for messing with an innocent. That’s what Brad would have done.

That was what galled the most about Asa’s defection, Brad decided. Brad might be a lot of things, but he didn’t hurt women, and the only mercy he had for men who did was a bullet through the heart. Asa knew that, was cut from the same cloth, yet he’d taken the Washingtons’ side.

Taking a slow breath, Brad ran his fingers through his hair. Hell, since when did he care if the men around him believed him?
In
him? As long as they followed orders and didn’t land him on the working end of a noose during a job, he’d always been satisfied.

The organ music began, launching into the long treble that heralded the beginning of his wedding. Asa arched an eyebrow at him. Brad resisted the urge to flip him off. His minister image had lost enough of its shine, and since his best bet for survival was still to hide in plain sight, he couldn’t afford to let it slip further. Even if it meant marrying a woman totally inappropriate to a man in his role.

Taking another breath, he turned and faced the music. Good people from the town filled the pews. People he’d come to know better than he’d planned. He was used to seeing smiles on their faces, but right now all he was looking at was a sea of disapproval under the illusion of gaiety provided by the sprays of wildflowers tied to the pews with streams of ribbons that blew gently in the breeze from the open windows. The organ music stopped and started again, holding the last note, prolonging the dramatic moment. Everyone looked to the back. Wood creaked, voices murmured. The bride didn’t show.

“If your luck holds, Rev, the bride just might not put in an appearance.”

Brad cut Cougar a glare. He knew damn well his luck had never been that good. “That would only make things worse.”

“Can’t see how they can get much worse than a minister taking advantage of a sweet innocent like Evie Washington,” Jerome muttered from the second row. Franny, his wife of forty-some years, covered his hand.

“I’ve gotta admit that’s a scandal, for sure.” The apology in her tone didn’t make up for her support of the case against him.

“The Reverend Swanson is a good man. I don’t believe for a minute he took advantage of Evie.” All heads turned as Jenna McKinnely stood up, looking like a Rubenesque angel with her blonde hair pulled back in a long braid and those big blue eyes looking at him with determination. Her adopted daughter, Bri, a small bundle of white, squirmed for freedom on her hip. “And neither should any of you. He’s our minister. He deserves our support.”

Thank God for Jenna’s sweet nature and belief in the innate goodness of people. She was the only one who didn’t see this as a disaster. She was probably the only one on his side. And all because he’d answered “No” when she’d asked if he’d taken advantage of Evie. As if his word was good for anything.

“Then how do you explain the painting?” Jerome asked.

“I can’t explain what I haven’t seen.”