She shook her head and backed away. The tears fell freely now, and the sob pressed against her throat, nearly choking her.
“I never should have asked you to come. It was wrong. Selfish. I’m so sorry.”
He reached for her.
She bolted.
27
Malachi sprinted after Emma for three steps, then remembered Andrew. He skidded to a halt and turned back. “Sorry, kid. I gotta . . .”
Andrew lifted his chin. “I know. Go after your woman, Shaw. I’ll get Ulysses settled.”
Malachi’s feet danced sideways, continuing in the direction he had started, even though his eyes kept contact with the boy. “I’m staying in the barn at the old station house you just passed. Tell the aunts you’re a friend of mine, and they’ll let you in. Probably feed you, too.”
Andrew’s face lit up like any twelve-year-old boy’s would at the promise of food. He nodded and waved Mal on his way.
Malachi didn’t hesitate. He spun around and churned up the ground. She was racing for the store. Probably thought to seek shelter with Miss Adams. Not happening. He wasn’t about to let her hide from him. Not after that ridiculous little speech she’d just thrown in his face. They were gonna have words. A lot of them. However many it took for her to understand one thing clearly. He wasn’t leaving. Not as long as she and her ladies were in danger. No matter what kind of nonsensical excuse she came up with.
Porter spotted Emma coming and lurched to his feet, rifle at the ready, eyes scanning the area for a threat. When his gaze locked on Malachi, he raised his chin in question. Mal pointed to Emma, then slammed his hand back against his own chest.
She’s my concern. Don’t interfere.
Porter relaxed his stance. Even propped one booted foot on the bench he’d been sitting on moments ago. He braced the rifle stock against his thigh and leaned back to watch the shenanigans.
Mal didn’t care if he was making a scene. Some things were too important to let polite manners get in the way.
What he didn’t count on was another emotional female bursting into the mix. He was a step or two away from Emma when Victoria Adams threw open the door to the store and rushed onto the boardwalk.
“Emma!” she cried. “What’s happened?”
Thankfully, Porter was a quick-witted man. Quick footed, too. At the same instant Mal latched on to Emma’s arm, Porter grabbed the storekeeper around the waist and dragged her away from the steps leading to the street.
Tori screeched and kicked her legs, her feet waving about in midair thanks to Porter’s excessive height. “What are you doing? Let me go, you big lout!”
Mal heard the freighter rumble something in reply, but he was too distracted by his own handful of squirming woman to give it any heed.
He spun Emma around to face him and nearly got whacked in the head with the rifle she still carried. But it was the tears streaming down her cheeks that rammed into his chest like an unseen blow.
Had he done this somehow? Hurt her to the point that she would weep and run from him? The thought nearly weakened him enough to let her slip through his grasp. But then the same determination that had driven him to rise above his guttersnipe beginnings to excel at a profession that most men ran from exerted itself.
If he’d broken her, he’d just have to find a way to fix her.
Using instincts honed from a childhood spent dodging swiping broom handles and grabby lawmen arms, Mal ducked past the flying rifle, sidestepped the stomping shoe heels, and swept Emma up into his arms.
She protested at first, or at least, he assumed that’s what those sobbing exclamations meant. He couldn’t actually understand a thing coming out of her mouth. But as he carted her toward the vacant café, the oddest thing happened. The fight went out of her. She curled up against his chest. The rifle dropped, clanking onto the hard-packed dirt street behind them.
Mal didn’t stop to retrieve it. Someone else could get it. Porter, maybe. Or one of the ladies. There were bound to be a gaggle of them watching from the store or boardinghouse windows farther down the street. He only had one concern at the moment, and nothing short of a full-scale attack by the bandits would alter his course.
Reaching the café, Mal managed to get enough of a hand on the knob to unlatch the door. He then used his foot to push the portal open. Not wanting to risk Emma running off again, Mal kept her in his arms and closed the door behind him with a second kick of his foot. He strode to the first chair he found and plopped down onto the seat with Emma in his lap.
She didn’t boss him. Didn’t lecture him on proper behavior. Didn’t even lift her face to pierce him with a glare. All she did was burrow more deeply into him and let out a shuddery sigh that contained a hiccup left over from her weeping.
Mal looked to the ceiling, a silent prayer for help winging upward from his mind. Then he set his jaw and got down to business.
“Tell me what I did, Em. Tell me what I did to hurt you, and I swear I’ll put it to rights.” Somehow.