Emma flashed Matt Suede what she hoped was a seductive smile. She leaned into his hug and became distracted by the playful dusting of freckles frolicking over his nose and across his cheeks.

Matt bent his head, whispering in for a kiss.

Emma pressed two fingers to his lips, preventing what promised to be a fascinating experience.

“Matt, honey, you did promise me a proper wedding. I don’t think we should keep the preacher waiting.”

Matt’s arm stiffened. His fingers cramped about her middle. There was a very good chance that he had quit breathing.

The Marshal let out a deep-bellied laugh that startled poor Pearl and made her whinny. “Looks like you been caught after all, Suede.”

About the Author

While in the third grade, CAROL ARENS had a teacher who noted that she ought to spend less time daydreaming and looking out of the window and more time on her sums. Today, Carol spends as little time on sums as possible. Daydreaming about plots and characters is still far more interesting to her.

As a young girl, she read books by the dozen. She dreamed that one day she would write a book of her own. A few years later Carol set her sights on a new dream. She wanted to be the mother of four children. She was blessed with a son, then three daughters. While raising them she never forgot her goal of becoming a writer. When her last child went to high school she purchased a big old clunky word processor and began to type out a story.

She joined Romance Writers of America, where she met generous authors who taught her the craft of writing a romance novel. With the knowledge she gained she sold her first book and saw her life-long dream come true.

Carol lives with her real-life hero and husband Rick in Southern California, where she was born and raised. She feels blessed to be doing what she loves, with all her children and a growing number of perfect and delightful grandchildren living only a few miles from her front door.

When she is not writing, reading or playing with her grandchildren, Carol loves making trips to the local nursery. She delights in scanning the rows of flowers, envisaging which pretty plants will best brighten her garden.

She enjoys hearing from readers, and invites you to contact her at carolarens@yahoo.com

AUTHOR NOTE

I have always been fascinated by the stories and the people of the Old West. Homesteaders in particular were a resilient lot, who worked hard to build their homes and raise their families. My great-grandmother was one of them. She left behind the special gift of her memoirs.

She echoes through the pages of RENEGADE MOST WANTED. You will find her in both our heroine Emma and her friend Rachael. Like Emma, my great-grandmother was a homesteader, and sold patent medicine for the relief of ‘female complaints’. Like Rachael, she was a preacher.

I am thrilled to bring you Emma Parker and her outlaw cowboy Matt Suede. Come along with them while they wrench their love, their family and their home from the stubborn Kansas prairie.

I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

You may contact me at carolarens@yahoo.com

Warm wishes!

Renegade Most Wanted

Carol Arens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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With love to my husband, Rick.

Cheers to thirty-six years!

Chapter One

Dodge City, Kansas, 1881

Land sakes! What did a woman have to do to get a husband in this cowboy-thick town—dance naked on the back of a steer?

Emma Parker licked a film of dust from her lips to make them look moist and alluring, but it was no use. She had been perched upon the bench outside the land office for so long that the wind, a perverse thing that spared no regard for a woman’s appearance, had spun her into a mound of bedraggled frippery.

No wonder the men passing by paid her no mind. July sunshine burned down like a blister to complete the ruination of her gown. Damp pink taffeta clung to her throat while a hank of droopy lace sagged against her bosom. Truly, what had ever made her think to spend a years’ worth of egg money on the ineffective garment?

A drip of perspiration trickled between her breasts, not unlike the disturbing sensation of a spider skittering over her skin. Mercy, for a dime she’d take a plunge into the Arkansas River flowing south of town, new dress be hanged.

There might have been a cooler, less dirt-ridden part of town to seek a spouse, but the men here kept up a constant coming and going. Not a moment passed that one didn’t come out of the mercantile or go into the saloon. This ought to have been as easy as plucking peaches from a tree.

To bolster her spirits, Emma touched her breast where a letter from a former employer was folded between her skin and the lace of her shift. She no longer needed to see the letter in order to read it. Every word was memorized, burned into her heart, giving life to her dreams.

“‘Dear Emma,’“ she recited in a whisper. “‘We find that we must move on in haste. Our wonderful homestead, a pure piece of paradise, will be free for the taking. We know how you yearn for a home of your own. Time is not on your side, dear. Catch the first train to Dodge before some other lucky soul files on it. May your future return to you all the joy and kindness that you have shown to our children over the years. Please do come quickly. Edna Harkins.’“

So far she had been lucky. The former Harkins place had not been filed on. It was destined to be hers, even if she had to flirt with every last bachelor in Dodge to get it.

Emma watched a prospective groom rumble down the earthen street in his wagon. Her loveliest smile earned no more than a raised hat when he rolled past. Drat if the jingle of his harness didn’t sound as if it was laughing at her.

This rough splintered bench should have been the perfect spot to catch a man. She couldn’t imagine what she was doing wrong. Weren’t the men of the west desperate for helpful mates? She’d always heard that was true, but her efforts at appearing irresistible seemed to be falling flat.

She’d bet a pretty penny that the man in the wagon would have no trouble at all filing a claim. His gender alone would make it a simple thing.

Pinpricks of irritation plucked at her patience. She wouldn’t even need a husband if the politicians who had passed the Homestead Act had been more open-minded about the rules. Even the clerk in the land office acted as if he had written them himself, the way he stuck to the very letter of the law.

Earlier this morning she had explained until her voice had grown hoarse that she was an orphan and no one knew her true age.

“The law says you’ve got to be twenty-one or head of a household. Even if guessing were allowed, you don’t look to be more than twenty.” The clerk scratched the lower of his double chins and wagged his finger at her. “Besides, I don’t see what a pretty little thing like you is going to do with all that land. No sir, it doesn’t seem safe or proper.”

And when had her life ever been safe or proper? The homestead was the one thing that would give her that. On her own land she’d put down deep roots where life’s whims couldn’t blow her about.

“As you’ll recall,” Emma had said, gathering her patience, “I do have—”

“Don’t tell me again that your blind horse qualifies you to be head of a household. You’ve got to have a young’un for that.”

That male-thinking nonsense curdled her stomach.

Since adopting a young’un was the very last thing she intended to do, she was stuck with finding a head of the household to file her claim for her. Anyone still breathing would do. After all, they would be married only the few moments it would take the gent to file her claim. The lucky man would then walk away ten dollars richer.

Heavy boot thumps drummed the wooden sidewalk. Emma twirled her dainty satin parasol and glanced to her left with a wide blink and a smile that felt like yesterday’s flowers.

A tall man, a dandy by the looks of him, blew a ring of cigarette smoke into the fleeting afternoon. He strode past her with his back stiff and his polished boots reflecting arrows of sunlight.

The stench of stale cologne and nicotine trailed behind him long after he disappeared through the land-office doors.

What if the stick-to-the-letter-of-the-law clerk issued the dandified gent the claim to the homestead that she had traveled hundreds of miles by clackety, bone-jarring train to stake as her own? Her mind saw the transaction occurring as clearly as if the building had no walls.

Emma groaned, then glanced across the street through a gap between a pair of buildings. The sun had already begun its long red slide toward a horizon that looked like the end of the earth itself.

Somewhere on that flat, golden prairie was her new home. She intended to sleep there tonight, to listen to the wind blow over her very own grass. In the morning she would wake to a chorus of birds singing about her shining new future.

Emma redoubled her efforts to attract the attention of a farmer crossing the street only a few yards from where she sat. He stepped into the mercantile without so much as a tipped hat.

“Good morning, Mr. Pendragon.” Emma heard an adolescent voice greet the stiff-postured gentleman who had just stepped inside the land office. “Good day for a bank robbery.”

“There will be no holdup today, boy,” a cultured voice snapped. “I’ve taken precautions this time.”

A redheaded youth stepped outside with a broom gripped in his fists. He shoved it back and forth across the boardwalk with a swish and sway.

The boy paused in his sweeping to nod at her. “You sit there long enough, ma’am, and you’ll see The Ghost.”

Emma didn’t want to see a ghost—she wanted to see a willing man. Too bad this boy attacking the dust on the walk was so young.

What had to be Mr. Pendragon’s voice—sounding peeved—carried out of the land-office door. “There is no ghost, young sir! It’s merely a thief determined to get his neck stretched.”

The boy stopped sweeping and leaned against the broom handle. He gazed down the sidewalk, past the mercantile toward the bank.

“He’s a thief, all right,” he muttered to Emma. “The money’s always good and gone. But he’s no mortal bank robber—anyone will say so.”

“They will?” Emma asked, trying to ignore the sun slipping another notch toward the horizon.

“There’s a ghost and it’s a fact.” The boy resumed his sweeping, stirring up a swell of dust that settled on her eyelashes and tickled her nose.

“I expect even The Ghost is married,” Emma mumbled.

“Beg pardon, ma’am?”

“Never mind. What makes you so certain the bank will be robbed today?”

The boy sat down beside her on the bench. He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper.

“That fellow inside, Mr. Pendragon, got paid on a load of cattle he shipped east. Made a big deposit to the bank this morning.” He nodded toward the doorway of the land office. “The Ghost only robs Mr. Pendragon.”

“How considerate.” She tapped her toe on the boardwalk. Time was quickly becoming her enemy. “Mr. Pendragon sounds like an English gentleman.”

“He’s someone lordly. Got a huge spread outside of town. Each week he sends in one of his hands to take up homesteads on the deserted places all around. Before long, nobody will have a steer that doesn’t graze on Pendragon land.”

Emma’s heart dropped and spun around. A less purposeful woman might have felt a ladylike swoon coming on.

Lands! She needed a husband. If she didn’t get one quickly, Pendragon would snatch up her homestead!

Apparently finished with ghost tales, the boy got up and went back inside the land office.

Emma snatched her shotgun from her lap and tucked it under her skirt, leaving only a few inches of the barrel in view. Maybe that’s what was scaring the gents away. They wouldn’t know it was unloaded and that she had never fired more than a pebble at a rat in the henhouse. It wouldn’t be wise to let it go completely unseen in a half-settled cow town like Dodge, but surely she looked more sociable now.

After twenty minutes of smiling like the dickens and quietly cursing under her breath, Emma stood up to regain the circulation in her backside. She shook the dust from her parasol and brushed up a cloud of it from her skirt. Lord only knew what the palms of her frilly white gloves would look like when she was finished.

After what seemed an eternity, the Englishman strutted out of the land office and blew out a lungful of smoke. He flicked the butt of his cigarette on the sidewalk, then ground it out with his boot heel.

“You’ll make sure my man gets that piece of property?” he called back inside.

Emma didn’t hear the answer, but it must have been yes, for a smug grin shot over his narrow jaw before he lurched into a buggy and drove his team out of town down Front Street.

It must be her land he had spoken of! Surely it was, since the place was said to be no less than paradise on earth. What other piece of ground could he have wanted?

With her heart flip-flopping in her chest, Emma rushed through the land-office doorway. She stomped toward the clerk lounging at his desk.

Drat, she hadn’t noticed that she had led the way with her shotgun until the boy dropped his broom. It clattered like scattered marbles on the floor.

The clerk choked on a swallow of something that he had raised to his lips in a ruby-colored glass. She was unlikely to win any favors from the man now.

“Was that my land he wanted?” She tried to sound like sweetness and light, but it was no good. She pointed the nose of the gun toward the floor. “It’s not actually loaded.”

A pair of relieved sighs whooshed through the office.

“Well, now, Miss Parker.” The land-office manager tipped back in his chair and folded his hands across his wide belly. “Unless you’ve turned twenty-one or become the head of a household since you came in this morning, I can’t give you that homestead.”

“Did the Englishman take it?”

“No, miss, he wanted another.”

“Praise be!” Emma spun about and fairly skipped out the door, her hope renewed. The expensive lace border on her dress caught Mr. Pendragon’s discarded cigarette ashes like the best of brooms. Her gown was getting grayer by the hour. Unless she found a man soon she’d be the dingiest bride to ever wed in Dodge.

She resumed her seat on the bench, fluffed her withered skirt and set her smile in place. In spite of the obstacles Dodge City had thrown in her way, she would catch a husband, and she would do it today.

Days didn’t come along much finer than this one. Matt Suede tugged his hat brim down to shade his eyes from the afternoon sun. His boot heels clicking on the boardwalk echoed up and down Front Street.

Town was quiet this time of day, with the morning’s business completed and the evening’s not yet begun, just the way it suited him, but something felt wrong.

He ought to pay attention to that niggling feeling. The smart thing would be to call off the bank robbery for today. Then again, it would be his last holdup and he’d like to get it over with.

A dust devil whirled down the middle of the street. A woman sitting on a bench outside the land office swung up her parasol, hiding from the gust until it passed by.

Matt slowed his pace. The lady was something to look at, as appealing as a prairie flower. She shook dust from her umbrella, then fluffed her skirt out on the bench.

Her hair had mostly come undone from the bun at her neck. Sunlight speckled gold threads in the curls that tumbled down her back.

When he had the time he’d have to remember her delicate womanhood and make up a song about her. He’d sing it to the beeves to soothe them at roundup some long dark night from now.

He might have approached her if his plans for the afternoon had been different, but he shouldn’t have slowed his pace as it was.

He’d passed by the marshal’s office and been relieved to see Dodge’s lawman asleep. His snorts and snores should have been reassuring, but the air was ripe with something being wrong.

Matt glanced up and down the street, ready to duck behind the building where his cousin and accomplice, Billy, waited with a getaway horse in a gully covered with brush. There was just enough space between overgrowth and sand to hide a man and a horse, but not for long.

He’d just made up his mind to sneak around back when Gray Derby Bart, the meanest drunk in Dodge, staggered up to the woman on the bench. She smiled at him politely, but she had no idea what she might be getting into just by that common act of friendliness.

Bart might be a small man but he was mean through and through, especially when it came to the gentler sex.

Matt quick-footed it past the bank. Billy could wait a few minutes. The woman could not.

The sky at sunrise wasn’t as pretty as her blue eyes. From the spark of interest glittering in Bart’s rheumy gaze, he must have thought the same, but not in any respectful way a man should look at a decent woman.

“Afternoon, ma’am … Bart?” Matt tipped his hat. The lady turned her smile away from Bart and let it shine on him. Chilly nights on the cow trail would be considerably warmer if he could remember her smile, just so.

“Good afternoon.” Her voice washed clean through him. It was the sweetest sound he’d heard in some time.

“I hope Bart here isn’t causing you any concern, miss.”

“My concern ain’t no concern of yours, Matthew Suede.” Bart’s lip curled up in one corner, like an old dog snapping for a fight. “Me and the lady were conducting some personal business.”

Sometimes when he was in his cups Bart imagined things. This sure would be one of those times, since this delicate woman would not be likely to have dealings with a scoundrel.

Matt dug into his pocket and withdrew a dollar bill. He pushed it into Bart’s fist. “Go on over to the Long Branch and give that business some further thought.”

Bart glanced at the money, then at the lady. Oddly enough, she didn’t seem pleased. Surely she couldn’t be sorry to be rid of Bart.

“I’ll be back shortly, sweet thing. You wait right here for me and we’ll finish what we were up to.” Bart closed one eye in a lewd wink. A dribble of spit leaked out the corner of his mouth when he leaned forward as though he thought to kiss the lady.

She snapped her umbrella up. Such a frilly weapon wouldn’t discourage that snake. The lady wouldn’t know not to make an enemy of Bart. Best to keep him pointed toward the saloon and let him drink his meanness into a stupor.

“Go on, now.” Matt stepped between the parasol and the drunk. He directed Bart down the steps much as he would herd a straying cow. “Bad luck to let good whiskey go waiting.”

“Don’t you move, sweet thing,” Bart called from halfway across the street.

From behind, a rustling of silk and lace told Matt that the woman had risen from the bench. He’d like to stay a while and bask in her gratitude for getting rid of Bart, but Billy was probably getting nervous by now.

If the day had been different he would have invited the lady for a steak at Del Monico’s. They could get acquainted in a proper way.

“Blast and tarnation!”

Startled, Matt spun about and found himself gazing down at the woman’s shifting bustle. Too soon she straightened, then whirled on him with a shotgun gripped in her small, lacy-gloved fists.

This rose had thorns all up and down her pretty stem.

“Why, you interfering do-gooder!” She must have seen him go wide-eyed, for she plunked her weapon, nose-first, onto the boardwalk. “I was just about to get a—”

All of a sudden her gaze turned speculative. She slid the shotgun onto the bench behind her along with her umbrella. She planted her hands on her hips, swaying ever so slightly while she looked him up and down. Now he knew how a steer would feel, being priced for market.

All of a sudden the woman appeared soft, like a cuddly kitten that had retracted its claws.

“You stay clear of that old man, miss. He may not look like much, but he’s mean as a mad dog.”

Matt spun about. It was definitely time to meet his cousin.

“Mr. Suede,” he heard the lady call out from behind. “Are you a married man?”

He glanced back, smiled and tipped his hat, but his boots couldn’t carry him down the walk fast enough.

Emma pushed open the door to the livery and stepped inside. A beam of light from a window near the rafters stabbed through the interior of the huge barn, making it feel almost like church on a quiet afternoon. If it hadn’t been for the dust particles swirling lazily about, she’d have been of a mind to get on her knees and ask the almighty for a man. But she’d had about enough of dust for one day. The livery floor, while clean enough for a barn, wasn’t the place to kneel in a prolonged prayer, and prolonged prayer was what she would need to get a husband before the land office closed for the day.

“Mr. Adams?” Emma called out.

Jesse Adams kept his livery as neat as a woman kept a house. It smelled good in here, with the scent of polished leather, fresh hay and clean horses all mixed together.

A door in the back of the barn creaked open. A man poked his head through the opening but didn’t come inside. From a dim corner a horse nickered a greeting.

“Oh … good afternoon, Miss Parker.” Jesse Adams took a glance back at whatever he had been doing, then flashed a fresh, friendly grin at her. Too bad the man claimed to be nearly engaged. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’ve just come by to check on my horse and my supplies. Do you mind if I stay here for a while?”

A frown creased his forehead while he considered her request but he said, “You make yourself at home, ma’am. I’ll be right out back. Holler if you need something.”

If only hollering would get her what she needed. She’d come so close, too. That old gent in front of the mercantile had all but agreed to marry her, and for only ten dollars. True, he had been drunk and smelly, but she could have overlooked those flaws for the few moments she would need to borrow his name.

Drat that fine-looking Mr. Suede. If he hadn’t filled her prospect’s fist with money and sent him along to the saloon, she’d be hitching up her rented team, ready to cross the wide-open prairie by now. She’d finally be going home.

Not to someone else’s home, to her own. What a wonder it would be to plant trees in her own soil and watch them grow. Wouldn’t it be fine to not have to continually move on, and leave her plantings to grow up without her?

In her new life there wouldn’t be other people’s children hanging on her skirts wanting this and that. Emma had still been a child herself when she had started raising other folks’ babies. Praise be that the days of other people’s children were behind her. No more wiping runny noses, sitting up all night through fevers and cheering their first steps and words, just to be forced to take another position and never see them again.

From now on it was just Emma, free to come and go, free to sit or stand, with nobody wanting a thing from her.

Emma watched the rectangle of light grow dark when Jesse closed the barn door. She turned about and walked with open arms toward her horse.

“Well, Pearl, old girl.” Pearl wasn’t really old, but she was blind and tended to move with caution, which gave her an aged look. Emma stroked the velvety nose that nudged her ribs in welcome. “I missed you, too. There’s just a little chance that you’ll have to spend the night at the livery one more time. Seems like the men here are a bit skittish when it comes to matrimony. It’s not at all like everyone back in Indiana says.”

No indeed, it was so much more complicated getting a husband. She had expected to simply file on the land that Edna Harkins had written her about and gone to live on a piece of earth that would be her own.

She hadn’t figured on the trials of having to get a man. Well, that was just one more complication of having been an orphan. Being left on the steps of a church as a newborn had made her who she was, for good and for ill.

Emma rubbed Pearl behind one ear, then patted the white diamond on the chestnut head before she went to the corner of the livery where her rented wagon stood ready and waiting to make the trip to her homestead.

“Don’t you worry, Pearl, we’ll go home soon,” Emma called out to the horse while she lifted the flap covering the goods necessary to set up housekeeping. She had passed the morning at various shops in Dodge using an uncomfortable portion of her savings, but she had spent wisely and had the funds to get started and then some.

Emma touched the bag of money tied about her waist. It couldn’t be seen beneath her skirt, but when she walked, it hit her thigh with a reassuring slap.

Very soon, life would be grander than she could have ever imagined. Those days of caring for everyone but herself were at an end. Poor orphan Emma, whom everyone pitied enough to take into their home in exchange for working her youth away, was about to become queen of her world.

“This time tomorrow, Pearl, you’ll be grazing on land so nice and flat and big that you can wander about all day and never leave home.”

Poor blind Pearl—Emma hoped that the horse would enjoy the freedom of the open country. Years ago an employer had given her the horse as a parting gift when he had decided to move his family to the East Coast. Families came and went, but Pearl was her own.

With a sigh, she put away misty memories of children that were not her own and trees that grew tall without her.

The troublesome search for a husband had done her in. Surely she would have better luck after she was fresh and rested. Just behind her rented wagon was a clean heap of straw that would do for a short nap. She lay down on it, spread her arms wide and watched dust specks play tag in a beam of light.

Wasn’t this fine? To simply lie back without an employer needing this or that seemed the life of luxury.

Just as soon as she borrowed a man, life would be cherries and cream.

Emma came awake to the urgent whispers of two men behind the livery. As the pleasant fuzziness of her nap cleared from her mind, she recognized one voice as that of Jesse Adams.

She sat up, then heard running bootsteps pounding outside, following the sidewall of the livery. They made a skidding turn, then dashed inside.

The wagon, loaded with her supplies, prevented her from seeing who the running boots belonged to, but she heard the quick rush of a man’s winded breathing.

His feet shuffled in the dirt and then three white stockings came flying over the wagon. They whooshed past her face and drifted down onto her straw bed.

She snatched them up. The livery filled with shouting male voices, one deep voice barking out over the rest for order.

“Look what we’ve got here, boys,” the deep voice said. Emma scrunched low on her bed of straw, lying flat on her belly to peer through the spokes of the wagon wheels.

One pair of motionless boots faced half a dozen pair that shuffled up dust on the livery floor.

With seven men in the livery, odds were fair that at least one of them was a single man.

“Afternoon, Marshal Deeds,” said the owner of the pair of boots facing the others.

“Afternoon, Suede. You happen to see a ghost run in here?” Deep guffaws followed the marshal’s question.

A ghost? Emma opened the stockings wadded up in her fists. Yes, indeed, a ghost. Her fingers popped right through the cut-out eyeholes of one of the scraps.

“You been drinking on the job, Marshal?”

“Mighty funny, Matt, that The Ghost comes flying into the livery and here you happen to be, all alone.” This voice came from the back of the gathering of boots.

Lands! That handsome Mr. Suede who had sent her drunk prospect packing was a bank robber? He’d seemed such a decent sort. Perhaps there was some personal grudge between Mr. Pendragon and … The Ghost, since the dandy was the only one who got robbed.

“It’s no crime to be in the livery.”

“Give it up, Suede. Everyone here saw you run inside.”

The boots belonging to the marshal took a step forward. Matt Suede’s boots didn’t move a piece of grit out of place.

“I’m going to have to arrest you, Suede.”

“Pendragon’s going to see that you hang,” the owner of a pair of boots with a rip in one toe said. “You might have ate your last meal and not even known it.”

Mercy! Just when things seemed darkest, life always seemed to take a bright turn.

Emma opened the first button of her bodice, glanced down to judge the effect, then opened three more. For good measure she stuffed in a hank of straw. Hopefully her eyes still had a sleepy, languid look from her nap. A few more pieces of straw would be just the thing. She snatched them up, poked them into her hair, then mussed the whole thing with her fingertips.

She wadded up the stocking scraps and slowly, silently shoved them deep into the straw.

“Matt? Honey …” Emma stood up from the straw bed stretching and yawning like a cat full of cream. “Come on back here—you can check on poor blind Pearl later.”

Matt Suede turned in a slow pivot. His manly jaw fell open. Earth-colored brows shot up over golden-brown eyes gone wide with surprise. Gradually his mouth closed, his grin stretched wide. Wrinkles creased the corners of eyes that seemed to be laughing in relief and mischief. Mostly mischief.

Emma stepped out from behind the wagon looking down and pretending to struggle with the buttons of her gown as though she hadn’t noticed the men gawking at her.

“Button these back up for me, will you?” Did her hips sashay the right way? Appearing scandalous had never been among her best skills. “You’re so much better at it than I—”

Emma looked up, gasped and covered her half-naked breasts with the splayed fingers of one hand.

“Lands! Matt, honey, who are these men?”

“The marshal.” Matt Suede gripped her shoulders with firm, calloused hands. He inclined his head toward the body of men. “And his friends.”

Matt stared down at her gaping bodice, then looked into her eyes. His brows rose in an expression that she could see, but not the men standing behind him. Clearly, he was seeking permission to complete the intimate task. With an infinite dip of her head she answered him. Yes.

“Don’t you gentlemen know not to intrude on a private moment?” She tried to use a scolding voice, but Matt’s rough-skinned knuckles brushed her chest when he slid a button home. Her voice sounded husky instead of incensed.

“They say they saw The Ghost fly into the barn,” Matt said. Emma took a shaking breath and wished he would hurry with those buttons. She couldn’t take her gaze off those brown, weathered fingers lingering on her flesh. Lands, the blush flooded her skin in heat waves. “They figure that since I’m the only man in here, I must be The Ghost.”

“What foolishness,” Emma declared, and straightened the collar of her now demurely buttoned gown. “I believe that if Matt were a spirit, I would have noticed some moments back.” She inclined her head toward the rumpled pile of hay behind the wagon and plucked a blade of straw from her hair. “I’m quite sure this man is flesh and blood.”

Evidently her declaration of his humanity pleased him, for a grin shot over his lightly bristled jaw. He swatted a hank of golden-brown hair back from his face and slipped his arm around her waist.

He seemed awfully relaxed. His arm made itself at home, snuggling against her back while his fingers stroked her ribs, petting as though they had done it a thousand times before.

Emma flashed Matt Suede what she hoped was a seductive smile. She leaned into his hug and became distracted by the playful dusting of freckles frolicking over his nose and across his cheeks.

Matt bent his head, whispering in for a kiss.

Emma pressed two fingers to his lips, preventing what promised to be a fascinating experience.

“Matt, honey, you did promise me a proper wedding. I don’t think we should keep the preacher waiting.”

Matt’s arm stiffened, his fingers cramped about her middle. There was a very good chance that he had quit breathing.

The marshal let out a deep-bellied laugh that startled poor Pearl and made her whinny. “Looks like you been caught after all, Suede.”

“If you ain’t The Ghost, you can’t deny being the groom,” someone snickered.

“Since you don’t see a spook standing here, I believe you’re looking at the groom.” Matt Suede’s voice croaked on the word groom.

“The problem is, I don’t recall you having a steady girl, Suede,” the marshal said. “Just to be sure you and the lady here aren’t in cahoots, I think the boys and I will just go along to witness those holy vows.”

A man slapped his thigh and let out a roaring hoot. “Singing Trigger Suede goes through with this marriage and we’ll know he’s telling the truth.”

“You’ve got the wrong bank robber, boys. The next hour will see me hitched and tied.”

Matt bent his mouth close to her ear. His breath warmed her cheek.

“You sure you want to do this, ma’am?” he whispered. The men standing nearby wouldn’t hear him, since they stood close to the barn door and the traffic traveling down Front Street drowned his words to anyone but her. “I’m better than that old drunk, but only a little.”

Chapter Two

It’s not that Matt had anything against married men. In fact, he judged that, largely, they were the lucky ones. He’d just never figured to be one of them. Not every man could live up to the responsibility.

He glanced down at the small gloved hand nestling in the crook of his elbow. The woman had saved him from the hangman’s noose. He guessed he owed her for that and would have to go along with what she was up to, for now.

Even if he didn’t owe her, when the choice was hang or wed, what was a neck-loving man to do?

It hadn’t taken more than a couple of minutes for the marshal and his cohorts to hunt up Mrs. Sizeloff, a lay preacher who had just come down the bank steps. The marshal and five hooting witnesses demanded her immediate services as reverend. Since lay ministers were allowed to perform churchly duties, she had been whisked away to make sure he was wed.

It felt like a lynching more than a wedding, but the lady beside him didn’t flinch. In fact, her smile looked brighter than the sun riding big and low in the western sky.

Now here they were, if not dearly beloved, at least gathered together in the land office. He’d gallantly pointed out that there was a church at the edge of town, but his bride had muttered something odd that sounded like the land office was getting ready to close.

In under a quarter of an hour his whole life had upended. Already the preacher was winding up to the big “I do.”

Preacher Sizeloff spoke of living together in love and peace. Every soul in the land office had known Matt for years. Which one of them believed that Singing Trigger Suede had suddenly given his heart to the pretty newcomer to Dodge? He’d better act like a man smitten if he wanted to escape that noose.

When the reverend spoke about forsaking all others, Matt gulped. This was so permanent, so final, but what choice did he have but to turn his head and grin down at his bride as though that’s just what he had been dreaming of, cleaving only to his wife?

Mrs. Sizeloff asked him to swear it before God and all these witnesses.

“I, Matthew Jonathan Suede, take you—” Who? Ma’am?

He was vowing to honor and cherish a woman whose name he didn’t even know! Panic tripped his heart. The marshal would never believe he hadn’t just met her a few moments ago in the livery.

His bride smiled brilliantly—it almost made him forget to breathe. She dabbed at her eye with a grimy white glove.

“Matt, honey,” she said. “Aren’t we a pair? My mama always said, Emma Parker, you’re too emotional by half. The only time you can’t get out a word is when you’re about to weep. Oh, Matt … I … I …”

All of a sudden Emma Parker hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

Matt lifted her chin and tried to peer past her fingers. He brushed her hands aside. Real tears rolled down her face, leaving dirty streaks from the dust on her gloves.

“It’s all right, Emma darlin’.” He stroked her cheeks to dry and clean them. “I do take you to be my wedded wife.”

“I take you, too, Matt, to love and obey.” Didn’t her eyes look blue and sincere? He nearly believed her.

“Well, then …” Mrs. Sizeloff sighed and looked fondly upon them, hugged up tight together. She must believe it, as well. “I now pronounce you man and wife. Matt, you and your wife will need to come by the church and sign the marriage license, but for now, you may kiss the bride.”

This was something he could do convincingly. Those pink lips had been setting off poetry in his mind ever since he’d first seen them, not an hour ago.

For an instant hesitation flashed in Emma’s eyes, but he had to make this look good or those fools standing around with horse laughs breaking out on their faces would string him up.

He touched the curls at Emma Parker’s temple while he dipped his head low. His bride had hair that felt like dove’s feathers. Would she let him touch it again after this show was over?

Emma closed her eyes and puckered her mouth. He pressed his lips on the rosy, tense circle. He should probably pull away, let it end chaste and sweet, but a man didn’t get married every day.

His blood began a slow swell, throbbing in his heart and lower. He pressed the kiss deeper and traced the crease of her mouth with his tongue.

Emma’s lips parted in what must have been surprise. She tipped her head backward, opened her eyes and gazed at him. Did ever eyes shine so blue with bewilderment and delight?

This time, when he lowered his mouth, her lips opened without any coaxing. Damned if he could make himself lift his wind-worn mouth from her dewy one.

He might have gone on and on, and her going right along with him, if the marshal and the rest hadn’t started to hoot and holler.

Ending that kiss forced a groan clear to parts unseen. His wife’s mouth had done unholy things to his body, or maybe not unholy, after all, since they were now wed.

He looked at her face and, judging by the flush that crept from under her lace collar, she felt a call to the marriage bed as strongly as he did.

Before they set foot down that trail, he’d have to tell her that they couldn’t cleave to one another as Mrs. Sizeloff had bound them to do.

There were things about him that she didn’t know. Things wives had a right to know before the “I do’s.” Not the least of which was that a killer with revenge on his mind was getting out of prison.

Come summer’s end, Angus Hawker would be a threat to everyone that Matt held dear.

Emma frowned at Matthew Jonathan Suede, sitting beside her on the wagon bench as if he were king of the prairie. He drove her rented team, holding the reins loose in his fingers while they rattled off toward the sunset and her new home. Apparently the man misunderstood the nature of their marriage.

Right after he’d filed her claim, she’d thanked him and bid him goodbye. She’d fairly skipped toward the livery and her new life, only to hear his boots thumping down the boardwalk after her. She’d offered him the ten dollars she had been willing to give the drunk, but he’d looked at her as though she had become suddenly feebleminded.

To her dismay, he’d followed her into the livery. The name she’d called him was probably uncalled for, but really, he’d tied poor blind Pearl and his own horse behind the wagon, then tossed her onto the plank seat as though she were no more than a stick of straw! He’d then climbed aboard, taken control of the driving and remained silent for the best part of an hour.

Silence was best. She took pleasure in watching the prairie grass roll past. She found joy in simply listening to the birds sing to the parting day. Way off in the west the sun slipped toward the long horizon like a ball of orange fire.

What a wide, wonderful land! Mercy, she didn’t think she could breathe and smell and hear enough of it. If she lived on her little spot of paradise for a hundred years it wouldn’t be long enough.

Evidently Mr. Suede couldn’t resist the evening’s beauty any more than she could. His shoulders went soft and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. His eyes, gazing out at the big empty land, became a mirror for the golden grass stretching out forever.

Then, with the birds chirruping out their last and the crickets just tuning up, Matt Suede began to sing.

He had a clear, low voice that shot straight to a person’s heart. With the harness creaking and the horses’ hooves keeping time, he sang a story about a man who got caught up in a stampede and died saving the life of his boss’s daughter.

The soul-deep melody echoing over the twilight prairie was enough to make Emma want to weep … and forgive him. A cow, so far off that she couldn’t see it, bawled out long and low, as though it, too, had been touched by the teary tale.

Emma shook herself. Mr. Suede was a bank robber. The roof of it, Mr. Suede’s ghostly apparel, lay hidden beneath the extra corset stored in her trunk.

But mercy be! How could such a heavenly sound come out of a criminal? And there was that kiss! Surely she wouldn’t have felt like a hot noodle under the lips of a villain. To be fair, he had acted gallantly when he’d shooed away the drunk she’d been about to marry. Thinking back on it, she realized the man might have been a problem.

At the very instant he quit singing, the sun passed below the horizon. Behind them a fat full moon swelled into the sky to light the dusk.

“I’m sorry I called you that name back at the livery.” Her voice sounded like pebbles grinding together compared to the notes that had come from Matt Suede’s throat. “It’s just that I expected you to go on your way. I never meant that you really had to be my husband.”

“Well, now, ma’am, I accept your apology.” Matt clicked to the rented team when one of the horses decided to stop and munch on a tuft of grass. “And I thank you for saving my neck, but that was a real preacher and that marriage certificate does make us legally bound.”

Emma’s heart took a dive. What if her husband leaned more to thievery than gallantry? If a body wanted to look at things strictly legally, whose name was on that claim?

Emma Laurel Parker … Suede, to be sure, but before hers was Matthew Jonathan Suede. She might be no better off than she had been sitting on the bench in front of the land office.

“I never meant for us to be bound, Mr. Suede. I only needed a husband so that I could file on my land and … well, to be honest, I knew you couldn’t turn me down. But now I don’t hold you to it. You’re free to take your horse and ride off.”

Emma gazed sidelong at him. He had slipped the hat back from his head. It hung down his back from a pair of strings that pulled across a red bandanna tied around his neck. His shoulder-length hair was a shade more golden than the rich soil they rolled over. Moon glow cast shifting light over him, gilding those golden-brown waves in shadow and sparkle.

If a woman did want to take on the care of a husband, Matt Suede would be a fine one to look at over the years. But the last thing Emma wanted was someone to take care of. In her new life, the only one wanting something from her would be her, and naturally, Pearl.

“You are a free man, Mr. Suede. I’ll do just fine on my own.”

“I see a pair of problems with your logic, ma’am. First problem is, I’m only a free man so long as the marshal believes that I didn’t just meet you in the livery.”

That’s something she should have considered when she’d hitched her star to an outlaw cowboy.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a loving husband for the time being.”

“What’s the other problem with my logic?”

“I can’t quite figure out what a pretty little thing like you is going to do with a hundred and sixty acres of stubborn prairie sod. You don’t look like any farmer I ever saw.”

“I’ll admit I look small, but I’m tough. If I had a mind to bust up sod, I would.” Emma sat up taller, even though the lurching wagon made her rock back and forth as stiffly as a metronome. “As it happens, I intend to simply live on the land, just let it be mine.”

“Back at the land office, you seemed to be set on that particular piece of ground. What is it about the old Harkins place that makes you want it so bad? Have you even seen the homestead?”

“Not with my own eyes—I was in such a hurry to file that I didn’t make it out here. But I know just what it looks like. You see, I used to be employed by the Harkins family, doing chores and acting as nanny for their daughter, Louise Rose, until they moved west.” Emma relaxed her posture. Talking about her heart’s home made her just plain wistful inside.

“I used to get letters from Mrs. Harkins. Lands, how she loved her beautiful wood-framed house. It was like a palace compared to her neighbors’ dugouts and soddies. She says the yard is full of flowers and a creek runs close by. She planted a hundred trees, which have got to have three or four seasons’ growth on them by now.

“There’s a well in the yard, and a barn for Pearl. It broke Mrs. Harkins’s heart to quit the claim, but Louise Rose was a wild one. To think of the nights I stayed up watching to see that she didn’t sneak out her window to take up with some low ‘count!

“Anyway, Mrs. Harkins wrote to say they had to move on. No doubt it had to do with Louise Rose, but the prime spot they were leaving behind was free for the taking if I could get here in time to be the first to claim it. So here I am, Mr. Suede, bound for paradise.”

“Hell in a basket, ma’am. Hell in a basket.” Matt Suede sighed deeply, then didn’t say another word for the rest of the trip.

From a quarter mile off, Matt saw the very thing he knew to be true. The Harkins place was no better than any other struggling homestead. Maybe it was worse, having been abandoned. There was no trace of a fine wood house gleaming in the moonlight, no barn, no half-grown trees, no trace of Emma Parker’s dream.

Any second now he would have to tell her that they had passed over the boundaries of her land. He’d rather have a steer stomp on his foot than see the high spirits making her strain forward in the seat turn to slump-shouldered sorrow.

How did a man find the words to break a person’s dream? Especially the person who had so recently saved his neck from a noose.

“Whoa!” he called to the team. Emma Parker looked up at him with moonlight caught in the glow of her eyes. “We’re here, ma’am. This is the old Harkins place.”

Emma climbed over the side of the wagon before he had a chance to help her down. She walked about thirty yards, then turned and glanced all about. She hadn’t taken the time to change out of her fancy gown before they’d headed out of town, so now, standing out in the moonlight, she looked like an angel who’d lost her wings and was searching high and low for them.

“I think you’ve brought me to the wrong place, Mr. Suede.”

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.”

“I believe we do, Mr. Suede.”

Emma urged her horse to take the lead, but Pearl, being a proper female, seemed happy to trail along after Thunder.

They had ridden well away from the dugout and still Matt hadn’t spoken a single word. Hopefully, he wouldn’t. It would be ever so easy if he kept quiet while she convinced him that he and his child should return to town while she remained here.

“I’m sure, since you have nothing to say, you’ve come to see that the only fitting thing is for you and Lucy to go home to Dodge. You can tell the marshal that I turned out to be as foul tempered as the number two-rooster in the barnyard.” Since she was not well acquainted with the man, he couldn’t say otherwise.

“I could tell him that.”

Was that a grin playing at the corners of his mouth? “You could tell him that Lucy didn’t take to me.”

“Now, that would be a lie.”

“If you’re going to tell one, you might as well tell two.”

Matt barked out a laugh.

“I’m not much for lying.” He reined Thunder to a stop, then leaned forward in the saddle with his elbow resting on the horn. “And I do keep my vows.”

“You can rob all the banks you’ve a mind to, if it will keep your friend happy, but go away and leave me in peace.”

All of a sudden it felt as if bees buzzed inside her. She didn’t want to say anything cruel to him—after all, he’d made her dream come true, or what there was of it. She swung off the saddle. A good stroll over her land should calm her down.

Imagine him believing that she had the temper of a second rooster! She’d taken only two steps when she heard the click of a gun’s hammer.

“Get back in the saddle … now.” His voice had become as hard as the metal he gripped in his fist. “Don’t argue, just do it.”

She took another step away from Pearl. “Why you low-down w—”

The mouth of the gun flashed orange. A puff of earth exploded near her foot. The blast sent Pearl on a run back over the creek.

Emma felt a scream gathering in her throat, but she turned it into a foul word.

“Rattlers sometimes travel in pairs.” He scooted back in the saddle as far as he could. “If I were you I’d climb up here on Thunder.”

She glanced down. Lordy! Only the fact that Matt had shot the viper’s head off had kept her from stepping on it. It took only a second for her to reach Thunder’s side and lift a trembling hand to Matt. He pulled her up into the saddle ahead of him, then turned the horse to follow the river, south, away from the homestead.

“Darlin’, you just might be the death of me. Let me have a look at your shoes.”

Since he seemed so determined that they were truly married, she yanked her skirt nearly to her knee. She turned the shoe, one half of her prettiest pair, this way and that.

“Any woman who goes homesteading in dancing slippers needs to be watched out for.”

The nerve of him, pointing out the error of her footwear! She’d put them on only because she had been thinking of the way she and Matt had fit together so easily under that canvas last night.

“What kind of a man brings a little girl to a place where snakes look the same as the dirt?”

“Lucy just turned four years old, but she’s known how to keep clear of snakes since she hit the ground walking.”

Holding on to a temper against someone who had just saved her life proved purely difficult.

“I don’t know why it is, Matt, but every now and then you bring out the pickle in me.” Why was that? Most of her life she’d been the soul of kindness to nearly everyone she’d met. “Well, once again I’m sorry I called you that name.”

“Wasn’t such a bad name, considering I’d just fired a gun at your feet for no good reason that you knew of.” His words rustled the top of her hair when he spoke. The hard, shifting muscles of his chest grazed her back with each clip-clop of Thunder’s hooves.

If she let herself believe that they were truly wed, there would be some things about marriage that she would like to explore. Things to do with the fact that Matt’s abdomen was no longer flat where her backside rocked against him to the sway of the horse’s stride.

In the past, she’d tried not to wonder about such things. When they popped into her mind she dismissed them by focusing her thoughts on some task that needed doing. It didn’t take long to learn that curiosity had a will of its own.

Now that she was a married woman, it might not hurt to let her imagination dwell on Matt’s anatomy. Especially that part that had suddenly sprung to life behind her.

The problem with letting her mind roam free was that it did some troubling things to her body. She had to wiggle in the saddle to ease the strange twisting in her belly.

All at once Matt slipped off Thunder’s back to walk alongside the horse. He’d turned quiet again, but it was easy to see that thoughts ran wild in his mind. Maybe the stirrings going on between them reminded him of Lucy’s mother.

It shouldn’t trouble Emma to be the second wife. Indeed, yesterday afternoon she’d have been happy to be anyone’s tenth.

“Matt … what was your first wife like?”

“You’d be the one to know that, darlin’.” He glanced up at her with his hat shading his face. She’d been a fool to leave her bonnet behind with the sun beating down, even as early as it was. “Until you came upon me in the livery, I’d never given matrimony more than a passing thought.”

Matt led Thunder to the creek and let his reins fall free. He gave Emma a hand down from the horse.

“Let’s sit here for a spell. There are some things you need to know about the boys and me.”

Emma sat down beside the water. This July morning was a blister. She took off her shoes, rolled off her stockings, then hiked up her skirt to her knees. If this talk was leading to her sharing her homestead, she’d need cool water on her feet to put out her temper. It would be a humiliation to have to apologize a third time for calling her husband an ugly name.

“The water’s as cool as can be.” Emma scooped up a handful and let it run over her face and down her neck. “Take off those boots and see.”

He followed her example, even to the scoop of water, then he took off his hat and put it on her head. He might have scolded her about forgetting something so important, but he only tugged the brim down so that her eyes were shaded against the glare of the sun on the water.

“When I was a kid, Emma, I was as wild as they come. Wasn’t a soul in town would bet a quarter that I’d grow to be a man. Just in time, I found out life was a fine thing and I wanted to live as much of it as I could.

“During those years I had a friend. No … he was more like a brother. Utah’s the one who made me give a lick for myself. He convinced me to put away my quick guns and take up with him on the roundups. Jesse, Utah, Cousin Billy and I all signed up to cowboy Pendragon’s herds, and some others around Dodge.

“It was a fine life, the four of us so young and full of adventure. One day, Utah went sweet on a gal from town. I think all of us went sweet on her. But Utah’s the one who married her. She died the next year giving birth to Lucy. After a time, Mrs. Conner over at the boardinghouse minded Lucy while Utah went back to herding cows with Billy, Jesse and me.

“It wasn’t like old times, though. We’d all grown up over the pain. Then it wasn’t six months later that we lost Utah, too.”

Tears itched at the back of Emma’s eyes. Matt’s face looked full of sorrow, as if he had gone back to those days and the old pain had turned fresh again.

“We were rounding up one afternoon. Utah was on the far side of the herd from the rest of us. He was talking to little Lenore, Pendragon’s twelve-year-old daughter. He thought she’d be more comfortable with a blanket under her saddle. That’s how Utah was, always looking out for others. Well, he tied that red blanket, but it came loose sometime later and was dragging on the ground behind her. For some reason, that spooked the cattle and they started running. Little Lenore saw what was happening and reached around to tie the blanket behind her. She lost her balance and fell off with the cows coming right at her. We couldn’t get across to her, but Utah was already on that side of the herd.

“He called out for her to stay still. He got to her in time, but the cinch on his saddle gave under the weight of lifting her. Lenore’s horse, not being properly trained for cattle work, had run off. By then Utah’s horse was too skittish to recall his training and took off after the other horse. That left the pair of them standing in the way of the panicked herd with no way to escape.

“Billy and I were halfway through the herd when Utah picked up the blanket and headed off across the prairie. Somehow he managed to turn the stampede away from Lenore. He saved her life, but there was nothing left for Utah but to turn and face the cattle. His six-gun rang out. We all heard five shots. The leading steer went down and the one after, but we couldn’t get to Utah until it was too late.”

Emma wanted to say how sorry she was, but mere words seemed so pitiful. She reached out and covered his hand where he fingered little circles in the water sliding by. He glanced sideways and seemed surprised, but he slipped his calloused fingers through hers and squeezed them.

“The three of us made it over to him before he passed. He asked me to take Lucy as my own and bring her up right. I made a vow as though I was doing something for Utah, but the truth is that raising his little girl became a blessing.

“It’s for Lucy that The Ghost robs the bank. Pendragon never felt responsible for providing for her, even though Utah died to rescue his own Lenore. If there’s one thing that man values, it’s a dollar.”

Emma remembered the careless dropping of ashes on the sidewalk and how they had dirtied the hem of her dress. The smug set of his face when he had stepped out of the land office had confirmed that he had high regard for his own position. Apparently no one else mattered. Her original dislike of him was now confirmed.

“As I see it, Matt, The Ghost is only taking what is Lucy’s due without a bit of crime involved.” What a relief to know that she hadn’t hitched up with a villain. “I’m proud to know The Ghost.”

“If that’s the case, there are four of us to be proud to know. My cousin, Billy, sets things up with the costume and such, and Jesse provides a horse then hides it while I get out of my disguise. Young Red does his part well away from the actual crime. He keeps the rumors flying about The Ghost.”

And a very good job he did. Emma couldn’t help a quiet laugh when she remembered Red’s sincerity while he told her to watch for The Ghost.

“I’ll keep your secret.” Emma laughed again and splashed up some water with her toes.

All of a sudden Matt grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed her back against the bank. He rolled on top of her and kissed her. The world seemed to drift away while his mouth moved over hers, just the way it had done during their wedding vows.

Nothing existed but the nuzzle of Matt’s lips, firm and prickly on top, since he needed a shave. The world narrowed to the scent of his skin. The weight of his body, sprawled on top of her, twisted and tickled her belly way down low. She wished he would touch her in places she had never been touched. Was it a sin to become one flesh in a marriage that would last only a day?

“Darlin’.” Matt lifted his head enough to gaze down at her. “I told you before, I keep my vows. Those we took before Mrs. Sizeloff were as binding as any I’ve ever made.”

Emma figured he was probably lying on top of her so she wouldn’t have the air to speak, but somehow she didn’t mind that, just now.

“You are my wife in every way I ever heard of but one. Now, I’d like to make you come back to town with me … hold on, before you call me a mean name, just hear me out. Coming back to town would be the sensible thing, but I know you’re set on putting down roots out here.”

His brown eyes warmed to amber. Lordy, if she wasn’t about to melt away into the creek!

“Would you be willing to stay married to me until summer’s end? We’d live here with Lucy, Red and Billy instead of in town. That way, I’d be safe from the marshal and you won’t be out here alone. Before autumn we’ll ride on out of your life like we were never there.”

“Why would I want to take on the care of grown men?”

“Because you wouldn’t last the week out here by yourself. Like as not, you’ll be snakebit by nightfall. As for the grown men, cattle aren’t all we know. We’ll build you a house, Emma, and a barn for Pearl.”

Emma bit her bottom lip trying to ground herself. A woman could forget to breathe if she gazed into those golden-amber eyes long enough.

“A proper house out of wood?”

“I took a vow to keep and protect you. That house will see to it once I’ve gone.”

A woman never did know when a venomous snake might slither into sight, and Matt did offer a fair trade.

“I believe you’ve got yourself a bargain. Now let me up before summer’s over and nothing gets done.”

And before she could dwell on the sudden hitch in her heart. The man was a temptation she would struggle with. The last thing she wanted was to finally have a home of her own, only to pine away for the man who had built it.

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