“Sooo? Are you going to tell me what has you so distracted?”

Cora’s question barely cut through Shannon’s concentration. She was focused on removing the cookies from the hot tray without burning herself, and thinking about the conversation she’d had that morning with Lucas.

“Distracted? I’m not distracted,” she mumbled distractedly.

Her sister snorted. “You asked a question about my latest project, and you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?”

Shannon looked up, focusing momentarily on the wall in front of her. Cora was right; she hadn’t listened to her sister’s answer. In fact, she couldn’t even recall asking the question. So she shrugged, and once more bent over the hot sugar cookies. “Sorry. Are you still working on that landscape you were so excited about last week?”

This time Cora burst into laughter. “I swear, if this is what being pregnant does to your brain, I’m never going to try it!”

Shannon turned around indignantly, her hands on her hips and the cookies forgotten. “You know too?”

Her sister was sitting on the table, swinging her bare feet back and forth, and grinning proudly. “Not until you just confessed I didn’t!”

Shannon rolled her eyes in frustration and snatched up the cloth she’d used to take the hot tray out of the oven. Unfortunately, when she threw it at her sister, Cora had the bad manners to snatch it out of the air—laughing uproariously—instead of letting it slap satisfyingly around her face.

“So it’s true? You’re finally going to have a baby?” Cora asked between laughs.

“Finally?” Shannon asked indignantly. “I’ve only been married a month.”

Her sister’s response was almost by rote. “Not that marriage has anything to do with it. But are you happy? Feeling okay?”

Shannon’s expression softened, as both her hands met over her abdomen. “I am,” she answered all of Cora’s questions at once. She was going to have a baby, and she was thrilled.

Now, if only she knew her husband’s true feelings on the matter.

“And Lucas?” Her sister could be irritatingly insightful sometimes. “What did he say?”

Shannon opened her mouth to respond, but thought better of it, and instead turned back to her cookies. After a moment of silence, which stretched too long, she finally answered, “He’s very happy. This is what he’s wanted for a long time, as well.”

“Oh. Good.”

Cora didn’t say anything more for a long time. Then Shannon heard her hop down off the table, and pad barefoot across the kitchen towards her.

“Come here,” Shannon heard her sister say from behind her.

She turned to her Cora, and found the older woman’s arms open for a hug already. She pressed against Cora, grateful for the comfort, even if she wasn’t able to explain the need for it. Cora, for her part, just hugged her, willing to offer love and support without an explanation. Her big sister’s hands rubbed up and down Shannon’s back.

“Loving someone is hard, huh?”

Shannon nodded against her sister’s shoulder, willing herself not to cry.

“Well…” Cora sighed, then pulled away. “I’m happy for you, that you’re going to have the baby you’ve always wanted. And I’m glad you’ve found a place here, where you love your husband and he loves you.”

The comment jerked Shannon’s attention to her sister’s face. Lucas loved her? No, Cora was wrong. Lucas was glad he’d married, yes, but he undoubtedly would’ve preferred a prettier woman, one who didn’t lie. But Cora had sounded so sure…

Her older sister smiled and nodded, and Shannon’s heart gave a little flip. Could Cora be right? Could Lucas love her?

As if they’d conjured him, Shannon heard her husband’s boot-steps on the rear porch. “Shannon?”

Cora patted her shoulder. “I’m going to steal a cookie or two and get back to work. My landscapes have been popular, according to Mr. Ward’s telegrams, but I’m trying something new.”

Shannon nodded vaguely as her sister pilfered two of the warm cookies from the counter behind her. Cora’s paintings were popular back east, and she shipped them to a broker in St. Louis for sale. The money she brought in more than made up for her inability to cook, and her habit of getting lost in her art for days at a time.

Cora floated out the door toward the dining room just as Lucas stamped in, his hands and face still wet from the pump out back.

Inexplicably, Shannon’s palms went damp, and she began to tuck all of her little flyaway hairs back into place.

Why was she so flustered? Just because her handsome husband was coming toward her? Just because he might love her?

Their kiss was, as always, special. Even the gentle brushing of lips they shared caused warmth to spread through Shannon, and she wondered if it’d be appropriate to wrap her arms around him and pull them even closer together.

Maybe he’d had the same thought, because when she opened her eyes it was to find his golden-brown ones piercing them. “How are you feeling, wife?”

Shannon blushed at both his name for her and the intensity behind it. “Fine, husband.”

He smiled and ran the back of his finger down her cheek. Her left cheek, the one marred by that ugly birthmark.

Instinctively, she turned slightly so it was hidden from him…and watched the light in his eyes dim somewhat. He sighed and stepped back, running his hand through his hair.

“Well, you’re stuck with me for the rest of the day.” Without explaining why, he continued, “So I figured I’d keep you company and sort through that pile of papers from my mother’s box at the bank.”

Shannon nodded a little more enthusiastically than the announcement warranted, grateful for the distraction. She whirled away to pick up a plate and slid a half-dozen warm cookies onto it. There was just enough milk left from the pail he’d brought in that morning to pour Lucas a small glass. She placed both in front of him just as he sat down at the small desk in the corner, and he smiled thankfully up at her.

She left him in silence while she cleaned up from the cookie-making, but he wasn’t having any of that. He began to talk to her about the papers he was finding as he sorted through them. There was correspondence from his mother’s family—some of which he read aloud—which then led to stories about his cousins and relations back in Cincinnati.

When he began pulling out the legal documents, he even asked her advice once in a while.

He held up a particularly fat bundle and waved it at her as he opened it. “This is my father’s will, I think.” He glanced at the first page. “Yep. Real official-looking, isn’t it?”

She let him read quietly for a few minutes, before joining him in reading over his shoulder. Thomas Ryan had left the ranch and land and all the goods to his wife Laura or to his son Lucas, “if the boy was of age.” Since Lucas had been a few months shy of eighteen when his father died, Shannon assumed his mother had legally inherited.

She pointed to another thick bundle. “Is that your mother’s will?”

When Lucas nodded distractedly, she picked it up and opened it to read. Sure enough, Laura Ryan had inherited the entirety of her husband’s estate, and had managed it well. And she left all of it to her only child, Lucas.

“Can I ask a question?” She didn’t want to disturb him, but something had been nagging her.

“Uh-huh.” He flipped a few pages in his father’s will.

“Do you know if your father and Mr. Pierce had a legal arrangement?”

Her question must’ve surprised him, judging from the way Lucas dropped his hands—and his father’s will—and frowned at the wall in front of him.

After a moment, he flicked his gaze up at her, confusion still pulling his lips downward. “No. I mean, no they didn’t. I know that for sure. I can remember my father saying it was a gentleman’s agreement, that they’d inherit each other’s land if either passed away. Since they used to be partners.”

“So,” she began as she placed his mother’s will down on the desk beside his elbow, “your father’s legal will—the one that left everything to your mother—that takes precedence, right? I mean, legally, Mr. Pierce doesn’t have any claim to your land at all.”

Lucas sighed, and dropped his head to his hand. “Nope.” He groaned, then ran his hand through his hair.

Shannon’s fingers itched to caress the back of his head, and she finally gave into the urge, kneading the tight muscles beneath his wavy curls.

Her husband groaned again slightly, then said, “But my father and Pierce were two peas in a pod. I mean, the way Pierce has decided he wants this land? Yeah, my father was like that too. If he saw something he wanted, he went after it, without question and with no regards to anyone he might hurt.”

Shannon’s fingers dug into a knot at the base of his neck. “He doesn’t sound very, um… Nice.”

Lucas snorted, his eyes still closed, and dropped his chin forward to give her better access. “Not at all. He used to berate me all the time because I wasn’t tough enough, wasn’t as strong as he was. Apparently, having compassion was a sign of weakness to him.”

“I’m glad you didn’t turn out like him,” Shannon whispered, thinking of how blessed she was to have a compassionate husband.

“Me too. Once I realized what he was like, once Mother helped me understand, I did my best to be the opposite of him. I never wanted to command fear. I’d rather earn respect. He once told me a loaded gun was the best way to get what you want, but I knew even then I didn’t want to be a killer.” He paused, as if thinking about something, then shook his head. “I didn’t see a good enough reason to be a killer. I wasn’t going to be like him.”

“But if Pierce is just like him…?”

“Yeah.” Lucas sighed, then dropped his head back against the chair, catching her hand in his and bringing it to his lips. “Yeah, that’s the problem. Pierce is a killer too, and he hires killers. But the law doesn’t seem likely to stop him. The sheriff won’t do anything until we can prove it’s Pierce causing all this trouble, and he’s covered his footsteps. I’m afraid…” He squeezed her hand, then looked back to the two wills in front of him. “I’m afraid by the time he does something the sheriff can’t ignore, it’ll be too late.”

Like Baker killing Lucas.

Shannon swallowed, unwilling to think of that. Her husband was smart. He’d hired the west’s most notorious gunslinger to keep him safe, and for some reason, she trusted Verrick. She trusted him to keep Lucas safe.

Her stomach clenched, and she forced herself to relax. For the baby’s sake, if nothing else. Lucas was going to be okay. He had to be, so she could determine if there was any truth to her sister’s claim. Did Lucas love her, or was she in love with a man who would be happy to put her aside now that she carried his heir?

Desperate to distract them both, she reached for another folded piece of paper. “What’s this? More letters?”

Lucas exhaled, straightened, and took it from her hand. “Let’s see.”

She heard the forced cheerfulness in his voice, and wondered if he was looking for a distraction too.

“The handwriting looks familiar, but I can’t place it…”

Absentmindedly, she stroked his hair while he read, thinking how much she enjoyed touching him, and how heartbroken she’d be if—

No. Stop thinking about it.

“Huh.” Lucas was scanning the letter. “Looks like it’s a letter from a friend or some—” He cut himself off with a curse and dropped the letter, jerking his hands back as if he’d been burned.

“Lucas?”

He continued to stare at the piece of paper as if it were a snake.

“Lucas, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer, but just shook his head once, twice. She picked up the letter to find out what had upset him so much.

It began “Dear Laura,” then proceeded to update Lucas’s mother on the sender’s attempts to find work since leaving Sunset Valley. She read quickly, not sure what had Lucas so spooked.

She found it in the last two paragraphs.

I’m finding there aren’t many men willing to hire an eighteen-year-old on the basis of his own word, but my skill with a revolver has proven my claims. Even now I’m being contacted by men who wish me to solve their problems in a more permanent manner. It isn’t the future I’d hoped for, nor the one I spoke of with you last year, but I am surviving.

This will be my last letter to you. I don’t wish to anger Thomas, nor to risk revealing your secrets to him. I suspect the name I am making for myself will be deemed useful, if you—or young Lucas—ever need to reach me. Despite our differences, you must know I will do anything to protect our son.

Give him my love,

Verrick

The paper fluttered from Shannon’s hand and came to a rest on the desk.

Our son.

Lucas’s palms were flattened against the desk as he stared at the wall.

Our son.

Verrick had written a letter to Lucas’s mother twenty-two years ago—the date had been scrawled across the top in strong handwriting—referencing their mutual son. He could’ve only meant Lucas.

“Maybe…” Shannon swallowed. “Maybe it’s a different Verrick?”

Her husband’s bark of laughter was harsh enough to make her wince. “There’s only one Verrick, Shannon. Besides, I recognize his handwriting from the maps he made.”

“But he’s not that old. How could he possibly—”

“He’s old enough, if he was eighteen when—” Lucas dropped his forehead to his hands. “My father… Oh my God. My father isn’t really my father? How could Mother— Why would Mother…?”

Shannon felt her knees go weak as she understood all the implications. Verrick was a handsome man, for all of the cold aura of deadliness he wrapped around himself. But what would he have been like when he was young? Younger than Lucas, at least? Had the late Mrs. Ryan been enamored with him? Had he taken advantage of her? The letter made it sound as if it had been a mutual relationship, but…

Verrick was the only one with the answers. Lucas was going to have to ask him. Talk to him. Find out the truth, if he could be trusted to give it.

She crossed to the table where Cora had been sitting earlier and gratefully leaned against it. Her stomach fluttered, and she wondered if she was going to lose her last meal. Again.

Lucas was Verrick’s son. Everything they’d thought they’d known about the ranch, about his inheritance, was wrong.

Suddenly, Lucas slapped a palm against the desk, and Shannon’s attention jerked back to her husband. “No! My mother wouldn’t betray my fath—her husband like that! She wouldn’t have willingly…” He trailed off as his eyes—only a few shades darker than Verrick’s—met hers, seeking reassurance. “Would she?”

But Shannon could only shrug, sorry she couldn’t give him more. “I don’t know. If he had—had forced her, then he surely wouldn’t have stayed on the ranch long enough to know about you, and I doubt very much he’d have written at all.” The letter was dated six months after Lucas’s birth. “And he certainly wouldn’t have sent you his love.”

His eyes closed on a curse, and she knew he saw the truth.

“How could she have done that?” he whispered, and her heart broke a little for him.

No matter the state of her knees or her stomach, her husband needed her more. She crossed back to his side. Without even looking up, he snaked his arm around her middle as soon as she drew within reach, and pulled her against him.

The breath squeezed out of her, Shannon could only stroke his hair as Lucas buried his face against her belly.

“Everything I thought I knew…”

“This doesn’t change who you are, Lucas,” she whispered. “You’re still my husband. The father of my baby.” He squeezed her a little tighter. “The man I—” She swallowed. “The man we all respect and admire.”

“My father is a gunslinger.” His voice was muffled, and her lips quirked a little.

“Yes, but a handsome one.”

He stirred, and she found herself wanting to tease him a little.

“I didn’t fully realize it before, but you have the same eyes, and jaw, even though you smile a lot more.” She could think of a half dozen other ways the two men looked alike, from the shape of their shoulders, to the way they carried themselves when they walked, but he didn’t need to hear all that at the moment. “You do resemble him, and I’ll be happy if you looked that good when you’re forty.”

He pulled away slightly to glare at her, and she was able to kiss his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Lucas, but you were just telling me how dissimilar you were from your fa—from your mother’s husband. And how you didn’t want to be anything like him.”

“I said I didn’t want to be feared. Verrick is a killer—the most feared man in the west!”

Shannon struggled to make him understand, even though she herself couldn’t truly understand it. “He is honorable though. I trust him. I don’t think he wants to be feared—”

Lucas pulled away from her with a curse, and she felt as if part of her heart had been pulled away too. She’d rather have his love—well, if not his love, then at least his good will—than defend Verrick. “Lucas…”

“He’s a killer, Shannon. Heartless and cruel, and I don’t want to be like him.” Lucas pushed against the desk and stood, knocking the chair over behind him. “I don’t want anything to do with him!”

“I understand the way you’re feeling, husband, but—”

“How?” Lucas spun back to her. “How am I feeling?”

Folding her hands in front of her, Shannon took a deep breath and tried to stay calm in the face of his anguish. “Angry. Betrayed and confused. Hurt, I imagine.”

When he didn’t reply, but just stood there, breathing heavily, she pushed on. “I understand this information will take some getting used to, but you’re not alone, Lucas. Your past doesn’t define you, and your parentage certainly doesn’t.”

She watched as the muscles in his jaw loosened slightly and the look in his eyes turned a little less angry. Hesitantly, she reached out to clasp his arm. “Verrick is the one with answers, Lucas. I know you don’t want to talk to him about this“—she could see the distaste in the curl of his lip—“but it’s the only way to understand, if that’s your goal.”

“I don’t want to talk to him, Shannon.”

She wondered at the emphasis. Did he want to hit Verrick instead? Hurt him? Ignore him?

“He’s worse than my fath—the man I thought was my father! He’s killed dozens of men, for money! How could I possibly look him in the eyes, knowing I’m his son? How could I respect him?”

There was a noise from the doorway. Shannon and Lucas both swung around to see Verrick standing there in his usual impeccable black, his thumbs hooked on the front of his gun belt, his hat pushed up on his forehead.

His face was his usual unreadable mask, but his eyes… Shannon saw the pain there. If Lucas had wanted to hurt Verrick, he’d succeeded.

The older man didn’t say anything, or acknowledge their presence or comments. Instead, he turned on one heel and strode away toward the front of the house.

Shannon watched her husband watch his father leave. Lucas’s expression was a mixture of guilt and anger, and she wasn’t sure how to make it better. All she knew was that the man who had raised Lucas had never shown him affection. And because of the type of man Thomas Ryan had been, Mr. Pierce thought he had a claim to Lucas’s land, which is why Verrick was here in the first place.

Wasn’t it?

She took a deep breath, and touched his hand. When his attention swung her way, she forced a small smile. “I don’t have any answers, Lucas, but I do know that—at one time, at least—Verrick loved you. That’s worth something.”

Her husband stared down at her for much longer than her comment warranted, and she could see he was thinking. Remembering something which had passed between him and Verrick? Or could he see the love she felt for him?

Finally, he drew himself up, and nodded, glancing once more toward the door. “Should I…should I go after him?”

The hesitation in his question nearly broke her heart. She saw, simultaneously, the young boy yearning for his father’s affection, and the man determined to do the right thing. Was the right thing to focus on God’s commandment about not killing? Or to remember God alone could judge a man? Or was it to recognize sometimes there are exceptions, and to try to understand what drove a gunslinger to become the man he was?

So Shannon just shrugged and resisted the urge to wrap her arms around her husband to keep him safe.

Lucas grabbed her hand though, and raised it to his lips for a kiss. For a moment, she could pretend he did love her as much as she loved him, and she smiled. But when he dropped her hand and brushed past her, heading for the door his father had disappeared through, Shannon remembered the truth.

Her husband’s world was crumbling, between Baker’s threats and his mother’s letters, and she was just a distraction. Shannon wrapped her arms around her middle—around their child—and blinked back tears.

Their baby would be Verrick’s grandchild, and she wondered what that would mean. For Lucas’s sake, she hoped the danger from Pierce and Baker could be resolved quickly and safely, so that they could figure out this mess.