Renegade Most Wanted

chapter Seven



One, two, three…one, two, three…slow, quick, quick. Emma waltzed about her new bedroom with her arms spread out wide and her head flung back. She closed her eyes to better savor the scent of new wood.

Right now the room was empty, the floor bare and the windows not yet sealed in glass. With her eyes closed, though, she saw it come to life. The rug she had ordered would be a cloud under her feet. The curtains would ride in on the breeze. The bed would be big and soft with a fine feather mattress.

Behind her eyes Matt lay on the mattress. One, two…trip, one, two, three. A lamp with the wick turned low sat on a bedside table. The imagined glow flickered over his bare chest and glimmered gold flames in his hair where it fanned out over a pillow.

He lifted his arm, his muscles flexed, beckoning her to join him.

One, two…stop. Emma lowered her arms, but her heart beat as if she’d danced all night without a break. She didn’t dare open her eyes for fear of losing the vision of Matt nearly nude on her soon-to-be-delivered bed.

A horse’s whinny and a pounding hammer threatened to bring her back to her empty room, but she clamped her eyelids tight and reached for Matt’s outstretched hand.

“Darlin’, you look as pretty as a daydream,” Matt said.

Just when she felt her thighs bunch up for a leap to the bed, the very real voice snapped her back to the here and now.

“Mercy! You ought to give a body warning if you mean to go peering through windows.”

“I’ll remember that.”

The brash grin slashing across his face along with the laughter glinting in his eyes promised that all he would remember is to sneak up more quietly.

With a tip of his hat and a salute with his hammer, Matt strode the length of the front porch.

Lord help her, summer would end long before she got the picture of him inviting her to bed out of her mind. It might plague her the rest of her days unless she did something about it.

Emma shook herself, flinging off the image as a dog would shake water off its fur. There were plenty of dreams in the kitchen that would keep her insides on a steady keel. She’d go in there now and enjoy a few draws on the new pump. She’d ponder the joys of baking biscuits and pies in her new, thoroughly modern oven.

Just like the bedroom, the kitchen smelled of new wood. The space was large and wonderful. The long table she had ordered from Bean’s Carpentry should be nearly finished. In a few more days it would be in the middle of this room ready to seat a dozen hungry people.

Not that she wanted a dozen hungry people at her table. That was far from her dream, and yet once again Matt invited himself right into her imagination. He sat at her table sipping coffee and grinning. And where had his shirt gotten to?

“That would have been a thing to see, Lucy.” Red’s voice rose through the window frame. “Billy says Pa grabbed old Bart by the pants seat and tossed him right in the horse trough.”

“Is Bart bad?”

“Bad and smelly.”

“Fluffy would bite him.”

“If it was me, I’d have shot him through for the thing he said to Emma.”

Mercy, but Matt was right to be worried about the boy. He seemed to think he could set the world to rights by a quick shot from the hip. It was a good thing Matt allowed the boy to carry a weapon only when he was on the homestead doing chores far from the house.

Emma leaned out the window. Red and Lucy sat on the deck just below the sill, each holding a puppy. She grabbed a handful of crimson hair and gave it a tug.

“You come inside this minute, young man. I can think of better things to fill your mind than making little wrongs into big ones.”

“Aw, Emma…” Red grunted, but he set his pup in Lucy’s lap and got up, stretching his young lanky body as he rose. “Matt never should have let him get away with it.”

“Matt’s had a lot more years of learning what to let folks get away with than you have.” Red didn’t walk around to the kitchen door—he curled his gangly body up and squeezed through the window. “Since you’ve got so much idle time, we’ll just put that mind of yours to work on something useful. Follow me around while I get supper ready. Recite your times tables.”

“I finished with school last year!”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have plenty to learn.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He followed her about like a paddling duckling while she did her chores. “Four times four is twenty-five. Six times six is thirty…four, or six.”

Emma sent up a silent prayer that the boy would learn self-control better than sums.

* * *

She’d had a week and a half to get Matt’s shirt back on him, but her mind had turned tail on her. Tonight and every night since, when she closed her eyes there he was, gleaming, bare chested and calling to her.

It didn’t help that she had now moved into her new house and was spending the first night in her new bed. This piece of furniture seemed to be haunted by the ghost of one not even departed. Indeed, the living man slept in sight of her bedroom window in the dugout with Billy and Red.

The curtains weren’t up yet, so she had a clear view of her old dirt home. The place hadn’t been as bad as one might have imagined, as long as one wasn’t fainthearted about bugs.

Nights in the soddie had been cozy with Lucy curled up against her heart, knowing that Matt was just on the other side of the door.

The new house was cleaner and larger, with a kitchen, parlor and two bedrooms. There was another room between the kitchen and her bedroom. She’d asked Matt what it was for, but he told her it was a surprise. She would find out when the time was right.

The time would have to be right soon. The house was finished. After the big celebration they had planned, he would have no reason to stay and every reason to leave. Each time they went to town someone had some speculation as to where Hawker might be. Some folks figured he was still as far away as Tombstone; others suspected he was here already, hiding out and biding his time.

If Matt was nervous about that possibility he didn’t show it. His smile rarely faltered and his song as he went about his daily chores was seldom blue.

Lying on her side, Emma gazed at the vast prairie beyond her window. She saw well beyond Pearl and Thunder’s corral and red barn all the way to her new trees. Matt had been right about the first ones—they hadn’t survived.

But these would. With the moonlight bright upon the land she might be able to see if Pendragon’s men cut her fences in the night. They’d done it once or twice already, but Billy and Matt had tied them up again before the cattle had had a chance to do any damage.

A figure stepped out of the dugout. Moonshine struck him with bright planes and deep shadows.

Matt went into the outhouse and came out a moment later. Instead of heading back toward the dugout, he sauntered toward the corral. He glanced back at the house once or twice before he climbed up on the fence rail to sit.

Because of the moon, the land was as light as if it had been lit by a lamp, but speckled with cold shadows that might be hiding secrets.

Did he imagine Hawker concealed in them, as she did?

Emma pushed herself up on her elbow. She ought to go to him, to hold him so that he knew…

Knew what? That she would stand by him through it? That he didn’t need to face his fears alone? She could imagine herself out there now, telling him to come to bed. What wife wouldn’t comfort her man with her body?

She sat up. Her feet touched the cool wood on her floor. She reached for her robe spread over the foot of the bed.

Her bedroom door eased open inch by inch. Lucy’s curly blond head peered around it level with the doorknob.

“Mama Emma, I can’t sleep in my new bed. It’s scary.”

Emma opened her arms and Lucy dashed across the floor. They tumbled together in the center of the big feather mattress.

With a long sigh, Lucy snuggled into her arms and fell asleep.

From his perch on the fence, Matt had turned to look at the house. She held his gaze, although he wouldn’t know it.

But would he feel her? Would he guess what might have happened had Lucy not come in? Would his heart feel how hers melted away in her chest just watching him sitting in the summer moonlight?

Would he know that she’d made up her mind to be a real wife for the days they had left?

* * *

“When’s Papa coming home?”

Emma hoped it would be before the biscuits finished baking, but the timeliness of a trip to town couldn’t always be predicted.

“Go to the parlor window and look out.”

Lucy padded across the floor, with her slippers kissing whispers against the wood.

Emma opened the oven door to check on the stew baking alongside the biscuits. It wasn’t the finest of baking skills, to open and close the door so often, but she couldn’t get enough of feeling the weight of her own oven door in her hand.

“I still don’t see him and it’s getting dark!” Lucy called from the parlor.

Not only was it getting dark, but rain was coming.

Murky clouds built one on top of another until the sky to the north resembled great heaps of dirty laundry.

By the looks of the storm, it meant to be a vicious one. If Matt didn’t get home before it broke, it would delay him for hours. Wagon wheels and mud had a way of sucking at each other.

Emma took the stew from the oven and set it on the stovetop to keep warm. She removed the pan of biscuits and set it on top of the pot. Matt would need a warm meal when he came in.

Billy, Red and Jesse sat around her new table staring at her every move. Were they anything less than a nest of hungry hatchlings?

“We’ll wait a few more minutes for Matt,” she announced.

To their credit, the men didn’t groan or complain. Red pulled a deck of cards from his vest pocket and began to deal them out for some sort of game to pass the time.

Out in the parlor, Lucy stood with her nose pressed against the glass. Emma walked over and knelt beside her with her arms folded on the sill. Lightning scattered within the clouds, made darker by the setting sun.

“Papa might get wet.”

“He’ll be along before the rain.”

The view from the parlor window stretched out for a good half hour ride by wagon. With any luck the drenching would hold off a little longer.

“Fluffy and Princess might be scared in the barn.” Lucy turned round blue eyes on her. They blinked wide in question. “Can’t I bring them in?”

The thought of dogs, even little ones, scampering over her floors with hard nails, shaking dirt, fleas and who knew what else on her polished wood, made Emma cringe.

“They won’t be scared.” Emma hugged Lucy tight while they both scanned the horizon toward town. “They have a nice warm bed of straw and Pearl and Thunder to keep them company.”

“I wouldn’t be scared of my new room if they slept with me.”

“Dogs belong outside, sweetie.” Emma stood and dusted a spot of flour from her apron. “We might as well go ahead and have our dinner before it gets cold.”

Worry for Fluffy and Princess appeared to vanish. Lucy clapped her hands and turned her attention to dinner.

“I love dinner in the new kitchen!” she called from halfway down the hall.

If only her own worry for Matt were so easy to dismiss.

Emma set out dinner for the boys and Lucy. She set aside a good-size portion for Matt. She might even feel like having a bite herself once he walked safely through the door.

As soon as he flashed her one of his heart-stuttering, cheek-creasing smiles, she’d find the nerve to tell him what she’d decided.

Over dinner the subject might come up as easily as a knife slicing through the spice cake she’d baked. Spicy cake would naturally lead to talk of the marriage bed.

Spice to spice—it couldn’t miss. She would turn the lamp down low and romantic, just to be sure.

* * *

The entire purpose of having a home of her own was that she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone but herself, Pearl and now Fluffy and Princess.

Why, then, was she standing at the parlor window staring out into the darkness?

The boys hadn’t shown any concern about Matt before they’d patted their full bellies and retired to the dugout.

Lucy, in spite of claiming to be too scared to sleep alone, had drifted right off.

Dinner had grown cold an hour past. What could be keeping him? The stores had closed at dusk.

The saloons, however, were just warming up. The women in their fancy dresses would be sure to make him welcome. How often had Jesse and Billy, thinking they were out of earshot, teased Matt about the now lonely ladies of the Long Branch? According to the two of them, the women were stricken with heartache since Matt had married.

“If that’s where you are, Mr. Suede, you’ll hear about it when you get home.”

Fog clouded the window where her voice misted it over. She wiped it away and felt herself blush at what she had said. It sounded like what a real wife would say.

In truth, she hoped he was at the Long Branch. If he wasn’t there, where was he? The prairie stretched before her window, dark and empty.

What if the rumors of Angus Hawker being in town and hiding in wait were true? What could keep Matt from coming home unless he were dead?

Emma’s stomach turned queasy at a vision of him lying in the street, bleeding from a gunshot wound.

Would someone notice? It could happen in a dark alley and with the gunshots that usually went off all night long would anyone think to check on this one?

All of a sudden Emma’s hair seemed too tight in its bun and her corset cramped up so that the breath was sucked out of her.

Worrying over a grown man who was doubtless drinking and laughing with a professional woman was useless and hurtful. Sleep would pass the time, and when she woke in the morning things would be sunny and new. Matt would be about his chores and Emma would fix him the best breakfast she knew how.

Half an hour later, with her hair free and her nightgown flowing about her, worry continued to creep under her skin and niggle through her mind.

Since lying in bed only made the worry become more vivid, Emma shuffled back to the parlor. She lit the lamp, then turned the flame low, gazing out the window for a moment. At least the rain was holding off.

She settled down on the sofa to watch the clouds press closer to the earth. At some point Matt would come riding across that prairie, or someone else would with news of him.

* * *

Matt was still a half mile away from home when the first raindrop slapped the brim of his hat.

“Pick up your pace, ladies, if you want to make it dry to the barn.” The pair of wagon horses he had purchased from Jesse a few weeks back weren’t quick, but they were strong and even tempered. Unlike Pearl, who was a pet, and Thunder, who was pure spirit, these two were meant for work.

Brownie and Blackie, named by Lucy, twitched their ears but remained devoted to their unhurried pace. Unless the storm took its time breaking loose, the bathtub in the back of the wagon would be full of water by the time he made it home.

Given the late hour, he’d probably be able to sneak the gift to his bride inside and surprise her with it in the morning. The shiny brass tub hadn’t been cheap, but it would give him pleasure to think of her months from now, soaking away the day’s work while snow fell quietly outdoors.

For an instant Woody Vance’s grinning face flashed in his mind. He cursed Billy out loud for putting the thought in his brain. Let Billy get a bride and see him hand her over to someone else. He cursed again, louder, since there were no women or children around to hear it.

Blackie and Brownie snorted and continued their reliable plod. A pelting of raindrops smattered his hat at the same time that the yellow glow from a lamp in the parlor came into view.

Emma must have left it burning to help him find his way in the dark. How many times had he ridden the plains at night without so much as a match blaze to guide him?

For the rest of the way home, the lamp lit him from the inside out. Emma did nice things for folks without a thought to it. What made her think she’d be happy alone?

Twenty minutes later Matt dropped the wagon off at the kitchen door. He unhitched the team and took them to the barn.

He was still a hundred feet from the house when the rain let loose. He dashed across the yard and came in through the kitchen door. He took off his muddy boots and left them on the porch.

A plate of cold stew and room-warmed biscuits sat on top of the stove.

He chomped down a biscuit in two bites. He was so hungry that even cold, the stew tasted like heaven. He could have eaten dinner at the Long Branch, but the food at the saloon had the flavor of dirt compared to Emma’s vittles, even stone-cold.

Matt gobbled down another biscuit, then crossed the hall to the parlor to turn down the lamp that Emma had left burning.

His heart tripped over in his chest. She hadn’t just left the lamp burning for him—she’d fallen asleep on the sofa…waiting.

Wasn’t she the image of an angel? She sat with her knees tucked up, her arm stretched along the back of the sofa and her hair scattered loose. The lamplight shone on the curling strands and made them glow. Her nightgown covered her as sheer as morning mist, except where her toes poked out from under the hem.

He knelt to ease the sudden weakness in his knees. To his remembrance, no one had ever waited up for him.

He’d wanted to touch her hair ever since their wedding day, but she rarely let it loose. A man couldn’t accidentally happen to caress golden curls wrapped tight in a bun.

He touched a strand at her temple, then drew his fingers through the long mass. He watched it glow in the lamplight. Corn-silk kisses slid over his skin.

“Emma,” he whispered.

She smiled in her sleep and stretched so that the fabric of her gown strained across her breasts. “Darlin’, time for bed.”

A sigh trembled across her lips. Lord have mercy if that sweet mouth wasn’t blushing pink. It would take a better man than him not to kiss it.

Matt leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. Leather brushed silk, and sparks seemed to fly out the ends of his hair. He could have sworn that every song he’d ever sung rushed through him.

Emma purred deep in her throat. She touched his hair. She drew the side of her hand along his jaw. The warm gold of her wedding band slid across the stubble of his beard with a whisper touch.

All at once she gasped and opened her eyes. She flung her arms about his neck and squeezed so tight that her lush chest pressed against his dizzy heart.

“Mercy! I was so worried. I thought sure Hawker had killed you.”

Something warm and moist smeared against his neck. It could have been the rain he’d brought in on his clothes, but he didn’t think so.

Matt gripped her shoulders and held her back at arm’s length, searching her eyes for signs of tears. He felt his insides go shaky for an instant when a single glistening drop rolled down her cheek. His own mother had never spared him more than a moment’s worry over the years.

“It’s all right, darlin’.” He stroked away the precious moisture with his thumb. “I was safe enough at the Long Branch.”

How he could end up sprawled out on the floor with his wife’s features gone from warm syrup to sour milk was a puzzle he would never understand.

“I worried my heart out while you—” She stood over him with her fingers clinched up tight. After a moment of heavy breathing, they relaxed and the sour-milk scowl on her face softened to bread dough. Matt couldn’t recall ever seeing a less readable expression in his life.

“I can’t imagine what got into me.” She held out her hand as though to help him up. “Lands, you have every right to go where you want and see…well, that’s up to you who you see.”

Since Matt didn’t want to miss an opportunity to touch his wife, he took her hand and eased himself up off the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Matt wasn’t sorry. He felt like a king of the cowboys knowing she could get in a temper over his whereabouts.

“Since you’re home safe, I’ll say…” Emma slipped her hand out of his. She laced her fingers together in front of her and stared at them as though they held the answer to some confounding puzzle. “I’ll just say good-night.”

Rain pelted with a sudden burst. It slammed the roof with the force of roving cattle. Hopefully, the new shingles would be a match for nature’s abuse.

* * *

Emma turned on her pretty pink toes and walked toward her bedroom.

“Whoa there, darlin’!” He took a long stride with his own bare feet and caught her elbow in a gentle tug that spun her around up close to his chest. “I think you’ve got the wrong idea about my trip to town.”

“You’re free to take up with anyone you want to,” her lips said, but her eyes had gone a deep wounded blue.

“First of all, I didn’t take up with anyone. As long as I’m a married man, I won’t.”

That brightened her eyes a shade.

“I confess to having more than one drink at the saloon, but mostly I was there to listen. Men tend to be loose with the things they say around a gaming table. I needed to find out if anyone has had word of Hawker.”

“Lands, yes!” Emma stepped out of his arms. “Tell me everything you heard while I warm up your dinner.”

Matt followed her foglike gown into the kitchen. Didn’t her hips roll like prairie grass in a breeze?

“I ate it already.” His fingers itched, so he shoved them into the pockets of his jeans. “He isn’t here—that’s about all I know.”

“Maybe he’ll have an accident on the way and he’ll never show up at all.”

“Stranger things have happened.” Like a man who’d never had roots wanting them to grow deep into a woman’s heart. “Come over to the window. I want to show you the other reason I went to town.”

He spread the curtains apart so that she could see the wagon. Emma stood beside him stretching up on her toes to peer out into the rain.

“Have mercy!” she cried out. “Is that a copper bathtub? And half-filled with rain!”

“I never gave you a proper wedding present, so here it is.”

“Oh, Matt!”

Still on her toes, she cupped his face in her hands and gave his mouth a quick, joyful kiss before she dashed out the back door into the rainy darkness. Light from the lamp in the kitchen spilled over the porch and wagon. He followed her out and hoped the water sloshing through his toes would douse the fire raging in his gut.

One glimpse and he knew that would never happen. The rain had all but made the foggy nightgown vanish. She ran down the steps and climbed onto the wagon. Her pink nether cheeks flashed at him when he plodded through the mud behind her.

“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

She ran her fingertips along the curved copper edge and shot him a grin, then lifted the hem of her sodden gown to step into the tub.

As she settled into it, the rainwater crept up her ribs and floated her breasts. They made him think of lily pads in a pond with pink flowers ripe and blooming at the tips.

“There’s room for two.”

If she hadn’t reached for him he might have had better sense. But those pretty bare arms dripping water and welcome had him slipping in beneath her.

He lifted her, spreading his fingers around her ribs and straddling her across his hips. Storm water as a bath wasn’t as cold as a body would have thought.

“I’ve been doing some thinking, Matt.”

Matt wasn’t thinking. How could a blessed coherent thought enter a man’s mind when his wife’s exposed breasts came level with his eyes? The world and all its worries spun away so that the only reality was that plump bosom with a pair of pink nipples twisting up with the cold.

He trailed his fingers over wet gauze and hot flesh.

The ends of her hair floated on top of the water, curling between them.

Emma sighed. Her breath touched his lips. He had only to lean forward an inch or two to capture the tip of a blushing pink breast in his mouth, so he did. Surely heaven was more than a reward at the end of life’s road. Emma tasted like paradise.

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about.” Her voice grew husky brushing across his hair and over his ear.

“You’ve got a fine mind, Emma.”

“I think we ought to…” Her sigh rumbled under his hands. “I’d like to…” He pressed a lingering kiss on the wet skin over her heart. It made her clamp her thighs where they straddled his lap. “Even if it’s only for a little while.”

“It doesn’t have to be for a little while… . Come with me, Emma…come to California.”

Emma stiffened against him. “You can’t mean that. I just got a home of my own… . It’s everything I ever wanted.”

He’d asked too much of her. Already her skin had begun to cool under his hands. A shiver stole over her flesh.

“I’ve come to care for you a great deal.” She blinked away the rain slicing down her face. “We could have this for a little while.”

“I’ve come to care for you, too, darlin’. That’s why I’m getting up out of this tub.” He did it, too. He slid out from under her and stood near the wagon wheel gazing down, stuffing his heart back into his chest.

Emma needed a man who would stay here and make her dreams come true.

According to Billy, she needed Woody Vance.