“Since that’s the case, I’ll call you Matt.”
“Darlin’, what made you want to come to this wild place all on your own?” His hand slowed until the rub softened to a caress. The caress tugged her up tight against his chest. “It’s a bold thing for a little lady to do.”
Warmth flooded her until she felt liquid rather than jittery. “I thought you were going to call me Emma.”
“That’s exactly what I’m calling you. Emma, darlin’, why’d you do it?”
“I needed something of my own.” She shrugged her shoulders. It was a simple dream, really, a common one that came true hundreds of times a day for other folks.
“All my life I’ve been doing for others,” she said. “This was going to be my place in the world where I could stay and stay. No one to tell me ‘Emma, we no longer need your services. Time to find a new home and a new family.’ I vow, I’ll never keep another person’s home or raise another person’s child again.”
Emma nodded her head to emphasize the point. She felt the air hitch in Matt’s lungs.
“Don’t you like younglings?”
“Oh, I like them just fine.” Emma enjoyed the brush of Matt’s strong shoulder shifting up and down under her cheek with each of his deep, slow breaths. She snuggled in closer to it. “I’m much too fond of them, in fact. About the time I think of them as my own, I’m off to another position. I don’t believe my heart could take losing another one.”
A horse stomped and snorted. The wind whistled and moaned inside, but it roared like a fury outside.
“Why do you rob banks?”
“Not for any love of thievery. I’m not a natural criminal. Though I do admit that I leaned that way when I was a kid, but I learned quick enough that I wanted to live past fifteen.”
He rested his cheek on the top of her head with a sigh that shuddered through his chest. Emma felt every bit of it, being hugged close for the shared warmth.
“I rob banks because of a promise I made to a dying friend.”
“Do you believe in keeping promises, no matter what? Like as not, your friend wouldn’t want you to hang.”
“I keep all my promises, Emma. Especially this one.”
Matt started to sing. His mellow crooning soothed her. The curve of her breast lay on top of his muscular forearm. Surely it was common sleepiness making her feel like honey being stirred in hot tea.
For some reason she didn’t mind that. She took the lovely sensation right along into a dream.
Chapter Three
Moments before sunrise, Matt opened his eyes. As a cowboy he was accustomed to waking early. He enjoyed night shifts watching over the herd, as well. Trail dust and cowhide were perfume to him.
Spring had been his last roundup, but he had set enough money aside to last for some time. With Hawker getting out of prison, he’d be moving to California and fall roundup would go on without him.
Apparently Emma was an early riser. The horses had been taken out of the dugout. Her gown lay folded in a corner of the sod cube with his hat set on top of it.
Matt stood, smoothed out his clothes and grabbed his hat. Morning light could be bright as the dickens, so he tugged the brim low and went outside. No doubt his bride was waiting for him to hitch up the team for the ride back to town. He felt her sorrow. Dreams had a way of dying hard.
At some point on the long ride back, he’d have to tell her about Lucy and the boys.
He didn’t see Emma or the horses, but he noticed that she’d been going through the boxes in the wagon. A few of them lay open on the ground beside the wheel.
A horse whickered near the creek. He couldn’t see it beyond the brush, but he figured Emma must be there, as well.
Near the water, a whiff of coffee teased his nose. The things a mind could conjure way out here. First thing back in town, he’d take Emma for a late breakfast, and then over a cup, he’d break the news about Lucy. That seemed safe enough. In a public place she might not make a scene.
Matt stepped through the shrubbery. He froze with his mouth half-open in greeting.
Emma sat on a wood crate beside the creek wearing only her underclothes.
“Considering everything, Pearl, I believe we’ll make out just fine,” she said.
She twisted a hank of wet hair in her hands. Water dribbled over her chemise and sucked it to her skin. She might as well have left the frilly thing off for all that it shielded her well-favored curves from his gaze.
She picked up a brush and tugged it through the mass of soaking hair.
Because he was standing stiff as a stick, she didn’t notice him at first. When she did, she smiled up through a beam of sunshine.
“Morning, Matt.” She set down her brush and pointed to a pot of coffee that she had heating on a small fire beside the crate. “If that marriage license is as genuine as you claim it is, sit here with me and have a cup.”
He took the pot and poured a mugful. He sat across from her, but blamed if he could keep his eyes from darting to the sweet pink nipples poking at the thin fabric of her chemise.
“Your face is blushing. Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed to see your wife in her shift?” Emma picked up her own cup of coffee and took a deep swallow. Her damp throat muscles constricted.
“I’ve seen a shift or two in the past, but darlin’, yours is soaked right through.”
Emma plucked at the fabric. “If it troubles you, you can turn your back, but with the way the day is heating up, it’ll be dry by the time we finish this pot.”
Matt grinned. So far married life didn’t seem so bad.
“I’ve been wondering about that right pretty gown you had on yesterday. You must have planned it special for some man.”
Emma set the brush in her lap and sighed. The drying fabric of her shift tightened over curves that a man could fill his hands with. “Not so long ago I thought I could find contentment with a Mr. Fredrick Winn. Just in time, I realized that all he wanted was a wife to do for him. He figured he’d get for free what others had paid me for. Just in time, I got Mrs. Harkins’s letter and knew I had another choice.”
Hoofbeats pounded the earth. Matt stood and peered through the brush. Hell, if it didn’t look like the boys coming on fast, and there was Lucy, her blond curls bouncing like springs, riding in the saddle in front of Jesse.
He sure wouldn’t be able to explain their existence to Emma gently now.
“Company’s coming,” he announced.
“Blast!” Emma jumped up beside him to peer through the brush. “My first guests and I’m half naked!”
Emma plucked her calico dress from its resting place on a bush and wriggled it over her head. In her haste she had some trouble with the buttons, so he helped, starting with the ones just over her breasts.
“You seem to have some experience with buttons, Matt.”
Just when the last little button slipped into place the visitors reined in before the dugout. Matt took his wife by the elbow and led her out into the open.
With Jesse’s help, Lucy slid off the horse.
“Papa!” She ran to him as fast as her four-year-old legs could go. “Papa!”
Matt squatted low and opened his arms to the little girl. He scooped her up and swung her in a circle. Emma’s mind reeled.
The