Renegade Most Wanted
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Matt jumped off the wagon. His footfalls crunching over the dirt echoed across the prairie. Somewhere, not too far off, a cow bellowed and another, farther out, answered.
“This is what you filed on. It’s the old Harkins place.”
“But this can’t be it.” He’d come up close enough to hear the swallowed sob in her throat. “Where’s my house? Where’s Pearl’s barn?”
“There’ll be a dugout around here, most likely. Was your Mrs. Harkins prone to tall tales? Well, even if she wasn’t, the house wouldn’t have lasted the month. Out here, lumber is like gold. Mrs. Harkins’s house is scattered all over the county by now.”
“Mercy, I don’t even see a single tree.” Emma made a full turn, looking far and wide over her land. “Do you suppose my neighbors took them, too?”
How was he to tell her that her nearest neighbor was probably a two-hour ride back to town? Pendragon’s crew had taken up so many homesteads circling Dodge that Matt was surprised this one had been overlooked.
A sudden gust of wind snatched Emma’s skirt. The satin snapped and twisted. Out over the plains, dust began to stir. Cowboys would be herding their beeves toward the shelter of gullies and shallow hills. In another ten minutes a man wouldn’t be able to see his own boots.
“Darlin’.” Already Matt had to raise his voice to be heard over the moan of the wind. “Unhitch Thunder and Pearl. Take them over to that rise and see if you can find the dugout. Call out if there’s still a door on it.”
Matt took the canvas cover off the wagon without looking at it. He kept his gaze on the blur of Emma’s gown. For now he could see it, but in a minute or two she could blow all the way back to Dodge and he wouldn’t know it.
“I found it!” Luckily her voice blew right at him. “There’s no door!”
He hadn’t expected a door. “Go inside, yell if there’s enough room for the other horses!” He wasn’t sure if she heard his voice, but the half-obscured glow of her gown vanished, telling him that she had gone inside.
Matt leaped up on the wagon, praying that his bride was a sensible sort and had brought along a few tools.
“There’s room and more, Mr. Suede.”
Emma’s voice came from the rear wheel of the wagon.
“Hell, ma’am, what are you doing out here? You should have stayed put, where it was safe.”
“You don’t expect me to stay inside while my goods blow to kingdom come?”
“That’s just what I expect.” Matt hopped down from the wagon. “Here, take hold of my arm and don’t let go.”
Matt gripped the team’s reins and with the wagon in tow, made slow progress toward the dugout tucked into the hillside.
Praise be that the trip from town hadn’t taken a few minutes longer. The last thing he needed was to be caught out in a sandstorm with a defenseless woman who fancied herself capable of living in the wild with a blind horse as her protector.
Emma had taken only a few steps, with her skirts tangling about her shins, before she started to cough. She’d never known a wind that could steal the breath right out of a body. Sand and grit stung her face, forcing her to close her eyes. Thank goodness Mr. Suede had a strong arm to clutch onto.
“Stand still a minute, darlin’.” A cloth smelling like dust and hardworking male came across her face. She felt Matt Suede’s fingers at the back of her head, tying a knot in it.
She took a deep, sand-free breath, with her new husband leading the way toward the dugout. She couldn’t see, but she felt safer beside this big, solid man.
Matt let go of the horses and led her inside. She took the bandanna from her face and shook it out. Even with her eyes uncovered, she couldn’t see Pearl or Thunder at the far end of the cavelike home.
With no door on the dugout, the wind whipped inside, swirling and moaning off the walls.
“Mr. Suede, are you in here?” No answer. What could have happened to him? “Mr. Suede?”
“I’ll be along.” His words came out coughed more than spoken. “Stay inside.”
Emma heard the jingling of a harness just beyond the opening to the soddie. She took four dust-blinded steps outside before she ran smack into his vest.
“Hell, woman, I thought I told you to stay inside.”
“You’ll need this.” Emma felt for his face. Her fingers touched his unshaven cheek. She tied the bandanna around it. “And you can’t tell me what to do.”
Leather snapped, metal jingled and Matt Suede pulled her and the rented team into the dugout.
He yanked the bandanna off his face. If she stared hard, she could make out his features in the dark. He didn’t look pleased.
“Didn’t you vow before God and Mrs. Sizeloff to obey your husband?”
“You are not my husband, not really.”
“Do I have to frame that marriage license and hang it on the wall?”
The wind slapped Matt Suede’s shirtsleeves against his arms. It whirled the dirt on the floor, making it dance about his boots.
“Did you bring any tools or lamps in the wagon?”
“Yes, of course. I’m not a half-wit.”
He gave her a long stare through the gloom.
“If you tell me where they are I’ll tack the canvas over the doorway. We’ll be able to light a lamp.”
“You won’t be able to get to them. They’re in the bottom crate toward the front.”
He yanked the bandanna over his nose and turned to go out. She caught his arm.
“Please stay inside—we’ll get by until the wind lets up.”
“It could turn bitter cold.”
“I’ve been cold before. It never lasts.”
Emma felt her way to a corner of the room. The wind was quiet here, but he had been right about the cold. The temperature seemed to be dropping by the second. She sat down in the dirt and drew her knees up to her chest.
This ought to finish off her hard-earned gown. She had hoped to sell it after today, but there was no chance for that now. Still, the fabric might be salvaged for curtains when the day came that she had windows to put them in.
She heard Matt settle into the corner across from her.
Thank glory for the darkness. She couldn’t bear it if he saw the way her shoulders shook with cold and disappointment. How would she ever make her dream come true now? Had she saved ever so long to end up in a cave? Oh, the tales she’d spun for herself and Pearl.
She did have land, though. Some of it turned to mud on her face while quiet tears slipped down her cheeks.
Boot steps thumped on the packed floor. Her husband settled down beside her with one lean thigh brushed up beside hers. He tucked the canvas that had covered the wagon over them both and laid his arm around her shoulder.
“I believe that since we’re wed, I’ll start to call you Emma.”
The chill that had made her tremble faded under his hand rubbing briskly up and down her arm.
“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 girl had called Matt Papa … twice. Her small hands hugged his neck while she smacked kisses all over his beard-shadowed face.
What had she gotten herself into?
The three men who had ridden in with the little girl dismounted their horses, grinning as wide as faces would allow.
“Good to see you again, ma’am.” This was the redheaded boy from the land office. He took off his hat and covered his heart with it. “I’m Red, Texas Red.”
“Mrs. Suede.” A man about Matt’s age with a heavy black mustache and curly hair to match extended his gloved hand in greeting. Warm leather folded over Emma’s fingers. “Name’s Cousin Billy.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Emma murmured to be polite, but “astounded” would be a more honest thing to say.
Who were these men and why did they feel a need to show up at her doorstep, or what would be her doorstep, an hour after sunup? Surely it didn’t take three men to deliver one little girl.
“Congratulations, ma’am.” Emma recognized the third man, grinning and slapping his thigh with his hat, as Jesse, the owner of the livery in Dodge.
“Papa.” The little girl’s voice grew suddenly shy. She tucked her blond curly head under Matt’s chin and peered at Emma with shining blue eyes. “Is that my new ma?”
Matt’s mouth tugged down at the corners. He looked tense.
“Lucy, baby, we talked about your ma, remember?” He rocked her while he spoke in a voice so soothing it made Emma wonder what it would be like to be held up in those big strong arms, safe from all the troubles going on down below.
Lucy nodded her head.
“Your mama loved you so much. I recall how she held you close and kissed your little bald head on the day you were born. The last thing she said before the angels came to take her was that we should call you Lucy.” Lucy stuck her thumb in her mouth and began to suck. While Matt spoke, she gazed at Emma with wide eyes, her expression a mixture of hope and doubt. “Your mama sees you every day from heaven.”
Lucy glanced up at her father. She plucked her thumb from her mouth.
“But I don’t see her. I want a mama that I can see. I want that lady to be my mama.”
“Darlin’, you can’t just pick out a ma like you pick out candy in the mercantile.”
“Silly Papa, I know that. Red said since you married that lady, she’s my ma.”
“For now, let’s just call her Emma.”
Lucy frowned, then wiggled down out of her father’s arms. She looked up at Emma.
“Mama, can I go to the creek and look for frogs?”
“Don’t go into the water and stay away from the horses,” she said without thinking. How many times had she given such an answer to a child? “And stay out in the open where we can see you.”
“You’d make a fine mother if you had a mind to do it.” Matt had stepped close, whispering while she watched Lucy skip toward the creek.
“Well, I don’t have a mind to.” She grabbed her drying hair and twisted it in a bun at her neck. “I’ve done all the raising of children that I intend to do.”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Suede.” Cousin Billy’s boots crunched across the dirt. He stood before her twisting his hat in his leather gloves. Red and Jesse peeked out from behind his tall, broad back. “The boys and I wonder if we’ve come too late and missed breakfast.”
“Breakfast!” Why, her life hadn’t changed a bit! Now it was worse. Strangers wanted to be fed instead of employers.
“Whoa there, boys.” Only a blind man would miss the red-hot temper flaring in her cheeks. Matt grimaced. “Take a look around and tell me where you’d expect my wife to fix you a meal. There’s nothing here but a flea-bitten dugout.”
Matt stepped between her and the three offended-looking men, and just in time. If they’d stood there a second longer, gaping at her as though she’d betrayed her womanly calling, she’d have done something regrettable.
With an arm slung about Red’s shoulders Matt pointed the half-famished trio toward the creek.
“Just because Emma married me doesn’t oblige her to keep your bellies filled. There’s coffee down by the creek. After you’ve had your fill, get the horses hitched up for the trip back to town.”
Relief kicked the breath back into her lungs. Her heart slid out of her throat and back into her bosom. For one heart-fluttering moment she had feared that these men intended to stay. As soon as they unloaded the goods remaining in her wagon, it would be just Emma and Pearl.
Down by the creek Emma heard Lucy’s laughter. Red hopped about in the water, apparently hot on the trail of the little girl’s frog.
“He’s a fat one!” Emma heard Red call out.
She watched Lucy hop up and down, clapping her hands in delight. If the men hadn’t eaten before they rode out this morning, odds were that they hadn’t thought to feed Lucy, either.
She could certainly spare a can of peaches and some crackers for the child. A bite or two for Texas Red wouldn’t be out of line, since he wasn’t yet fully a man.
The others didn’t deserve anything, since grown men should have thought to tend to their own needs. All except Matt, who hadn’t had time for even a bite since they’d left Dodge last night.
“Oh, drat!” If she was going to feed some, she had to feed all. This hungry gang would use up a fair portion of her supplies. She’d have to go back to town to make up for it, but she needed a new front door before nightfall, anyway.
“Matt!” Emma picked up the hem of her skirt and hurried after him as he strode toward the creek. “Tell your friends I’ll cook them breakfast, but just this once.”
The breakfast that Emma had rustled up was as good as Matt had ever tasted, but it hit his stomach uneasily.
From a quarter mile across the blowing grass, he watched Emma astride her blind horse. She rode about gazing at land that looked pretty much the same one direction as another.
She would be saying goodbye to it and the dream that had brought her so many miles from home. Matt knew about giving up land that lay so deep in the soul that the tramp of the beeves’ hooves upon the soil felt like a heartbeat.
“Papa, can I keep Mr. Hoppety?”
Matt snapped his gaze back to his circle of family seated on the ground, absorbed in Emma’s fine vittles. He swallowed his melancholy and smiled at his daughter.
“Mr. Hoppety wouldn’t take to town living. Frogs need to be near the creek.”
Lucy climbed onto his lap and opened her palms, revealing the frog. “But I’d take some creek water along.”
“Some things can’t take to a new home, darlin’. Hoppety would be one of them.” He thought of his mother—she had been another. “You take him on back to the creek, now. We’ve got to load things up and get back to town.”
“I’ll come and visit you some day,” Lucy crooned into the frog’s ear. She sighed, deep and resigned, but turned and with slow steps walked toward the creek.
“Speaking of keeping things,” Billy said, wiping a crumb from his mustache, “what are you going to do with a wife?”
Last night in the dark he’d had an idea of what to do with her, but now, in the practical light of day, he wasn’t so sure.
He’d made a vow to protect her, but a nagging voice deep in his gut warned him that his bride didn’t want protecting.
“For now, I’m going to take her back to town.” Matt stood. He watched Emma riding back with a sunny smile on her face. Maybe she had a better idea of where they were going than he did. “Let’s load up that wagon and head on back to Dodge, boys.”
Emma’s pretty face lifted his spirits enough to let him sing while he walked down to the stream to get the rented team.
Lucy plopped the frog into the water. Her lower lip trembled when she glanced up, so Matt made his song a funny one about Mr. Hoppety being crowned king of the creek.
“Mr. Hoppety thinks you sing silly, Papa,” she said, but her lips stopped quivering and turned into a laugh.
Matt glanced up when he heard hoofbeats splashing across the creek. For a blind horse, Pearl trotted forward with amazing confidence. She didn’t see him or Lucy as she cantered up the bank of the stream, but Emma did.
The lovely smile that had reached him over the waving grass had turned into a frown that made poor Mr. Hoppety squeeze under a rock.
“Lucy, there’s a tin of cookies in the wagon. Ask Red to get one for you,” Emma said, her lips looking as tight as a string on a fiddle.
“Red!” Lucy called, half running, half skipping toward the wagon. “Mama said to find me a cookie!”
Whatever had gotten under Emma’s bustle must be something he wanted to keep clear of if she didn’t want to discuss it in front of Lucy.
“Guess I’ll get a cookie, too.” Matt hurried after his daughter, hoping to be halfway to the wagon before Emma had a chance to speak so that he could pretend he didn’t hear her.
“Unload my wagon while you’re doing it.” For a small woman, her voice carried like a trail boss’s.
It was hard to pretend not to hear insanity. Matt stopped and pivoted on his boot heel. He studied her face, praying that the determination settling in didn’t really mean that she intended to stay here.
“We’re going back to town, darlin’. Unloading that wagon would be purely foolish.”
“The five of you are free as can be to take the wagon and go back to town, but my goods are staying here with me.”
What had ever made him think this woman favored a delicate flower? She might be tiny, her skin might resemble petals and her scent nectar, but her roots were stubborn as weeds.
Apparently, once she had her mind set on a course, it was roped and tied. He’d have to do some mighty fine convincing to show her how wrong she was.
Matt pressed two fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. Thunder, faithful as the best of dogs, trotted up from the creek shaking his full glossy mane. If only women could be more like horses.
He leaped up on Thunder’s back, bringing him close to Emma and Pearl.
“I believe we need to ride a bit, Mrs. Suede. We have a few matters to work through.”