“No call to go hurrying off like some flibbertigibbet,” Aunt Henry groused from her position at the front of the room. “The boy can take care of himself.”
“Against two armed outlaws?” Emma couldn’t believe her aunt could be so cavalier. This was Malachi’s life they were talking about. “He risked his life going after those men. To protect us.” She swept an arm out to encompass everyone assembled in the café. “Only a featherbrained coward,” she said, borrowing one of her aunt’s favorite expressions to describe females who didn’t agree with her position on suffrage, “would sit by and do nothing when the man protecting her could be hurt or worse.” Though Emma adamantly refused to think about what worse could mean. “I owe him better than that.”
“He’s fine, Emma,” Henry insisted.
Emma fought the urge to grab the nearest unoccupied chair and hurl it at her aunt’s head. “You don’t know that.”
“’Course I do.”
How could she possibly . . . ?
“He just rode up,” her aunt announced, a smug smile on her face that didn’t completely hide the compassion lingering in her eyes.
Emma spun around, her breath catching in her throat as she glimpsed the truth of her aunt’s words for herself. Malachi was striding down the road, the gray mare following obediently behind.
She rushed outside and leaned over the boardwalk railing. “Malachi. Are you all . . .”
His hat brim lifted, and her words died. She’d never seen such anger in his eyes. Such a hard, glittering determination. His jaw ticked as he flicked the mare’s lead line around the hitching post and stomped up the café’s stairs.
“Inside,” he growled as he tromped past, leaving her gaping slack-jawed after him.
He’d never snapped orders at her before. Yet, their lives had never been in imminent danger before, either.
And truth to tell, deep inside, there was a part of her that sagged in relief at his taking charge. Just for a little while. These were still her ladies, her colony, but being responsible for their protection when she was facing an enemy she didn’t understand and a fight she didn’t know how to win had eroded her confidence until she was little more than a pile of ruins. Her pillar might continue to stand stalwartly in the wind, yet without roof and walls, it offered little shelter against the storm.
Malachi offered shelter. Strength. Protection. For all of them. So she trailed after him without a word and moved to stand next to Tori near the window at the back of the room.
“I apologize for my tardiness, ladies,” he said, nodding at Maybelle and Claire, who ducked through the doorway just as he turned to face the gathering. Not waiting for them to find a seat, he plunged ahead. “But I have some information that you’ll want to hear.”
“Did ya find where them scallywags are holed up?” Betty’s question boomed through the room. “My rig’s hitched and ready. I’ll gladly go fetch Sheriff Tabor.”
Several of the ladies murmured assent, looking to one another with bright eyes filled with hope.
“I found evidence of two different camps,” Malachi said, his deep voice rumbling with an authority that hushed the ladies at once and drew all attention to him. “Neither of which has been used in at least a week.”
Emma didn’t like the grim set of his mouth or the way his gaze found hers and seemed to impale her against the back wall, as if she should understand the significance of a pair of abandoned campsites. Straightening away from the wall, she raised her chin. Emma hated to admit ignorance, but this was no time to protect her pride. Protecting her ladies came first.
She took a breath. “What, exactly, does that mean?”
“It means,” Mal said, “that the man is smart. He’s moving his camp from place to place so he can’t be pinned down. It also means he’s been here a while. Most likely quite a while, planning, preparing . . . watching.”
An icy shiver danced over Emma’s skin. How long had he been out there? Watching. Plotting. Growing impatient.
“Unfortunately, the outlaws had too big a lead for me to catch up to them.” He was focused on the seated females now, most likely searching their faces for a reaction to his news that the men had gotten away. Emma wanted to probe them, too, so she left Tori and meandered up along the edge of the room, keeping her back to the side wall. Profiles gave little away, though, and she didn’t dare make her intentions too obvious.
“Once I got to the river,” Mal continued, “there was no sign of them, either to the east or west. I combed the banks on both sides looking for fresh tracks. Found nothing but a single track on the west side. Which means they probably split up, and one is better at disguising his tracks than the other.”