Renegade Most Wanted. Carol Arens

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

       Chapter Four

      From a block away Matt heard the crack of a hammer slamming against wood. The echo seemed to wrap around his neck and knot the breath in his throat.

      He’d purposely taken the long way to the dry goods store so that Emma and Lucy wouldn’t see the gallows that had been erected overnight. He’d seen this kind of thing happen often enough to know that the distant hammering was a coffin being built. Some poor soul was gazing through the jail bars, looking at his last afternoon.

      If it hadn’t been for Emma’s quick thinking yesterday, there might have been a double hanging. Matt’s employer would have purchased his own justice as quick as a lick.

      Pendragon figured that in Dodge, money powered the gavel, and he knew how to spend his cash.

      Just when he was about to usher Emma and Lucy into the general store, the marshal stepped out of the Long Branch one door up. He gave Matt a sizing up that made him wonder if he’d shouted those thoughts about getting hanged.

      “‘Rath and Wright, Dealers in Everything.’“ Emma read the sign over the door, then snapped her parasol closed. “Do you suppose they have something cheerful to cover the dugout walls?”

      “They have candy.” Lucy tugged on Emma’s skirt and looked up at her with hopeful eyes. “Can I have some? Please, Mama?”

      The marshal seemed too interested in what went on between the three of them. If Emma declared that she wasn’t Lucy’s mother, he might get more suspicious than he already was.

      Emma glanced at Lucy and opened her mouth to say something, but she must have caught sight of the lawman, because she pinched her mouth closed.

      She patted Lucy’s head and smiled lovingly at her.

      “You go on along inside and pick out what you want. Papa and I will be along shortly.”

      “Sugar lump,” Emma said with a sigh as soon as Lucy was out of sight. She swaggered up to Matt, so close that her calico-clad bosom brushed his buckskin vest. She stood up on her toes. Her fingertips traced curly hearts on his shirtsleeve. She whispered in his ear, but the secret was loud enough for the marshal to overhear.

      “You know how long I’ve dreamed of being mama to that little girl, but I’ll purely die if we can’t sneak away by ourselves for the rest of the afternoon.”

      Emma’s teeth nipped his earlobe. Heat flashed up and down his body. He turned his face. The long kiss that he sipped from her lips felt too hot to have been for the marshal’s benefit alone.

      She knocked back his hat and feathered his hair through her fingers from scalp to collar, all the while keeping up with his kiss. She didn’t take a breath until he heard the marshal’s boots stomp down the boardwalk.

      At last she let loose of him, sliding down until her boot heels clicked on the sidewalk. Her lashes lay like sable against her pink cheeks. Her chest heaved as if she had just danced the length of Front Street.

      All at once she shook herself and opened her eyes. She spun about and followed the path that Lucy had taken.

      “Surely there’s something inside to cover up that dirt on the dugout floor.”

      The hell with the dugout floor! How could she be thinking of coverings after the moment they’d just shared?

      It might have begun for the benefit of the marshal, but that’s not how it had ended. He could hardly walk a straight line into Rath and Wright’s with all the goings-on beneath his jeans.

      By the time Matt’s eyes adjusted to the dim interior of the store, his insides had settled enough to focus on the reason they had come to town. Shopping was no more than a chore to him, but Emma and Lucy looked happy as butterflies in a meadow.

      For a woman who spurned mothering, Emma appeared to take right to it. She kept hold of Lucy’s plump hand while she pointed out this and that object of purchase.

      Lucy wanted ribbon for her hair. Emma pulled three colors from the shelf. She knelt on the floor, eye to eye with the child.

      “I think pink is your color.” Emma dangled a length of pink beside Lucy’s face. “Which one do you like on me Lucy, yellow or blue?”

      His little girl sparkled. She had been asking for a mother since she’d learned to talk. There were some things that a pa couldn’t do as well as a ma. He was of no use at all picking out frilly notions.

      His heart took a warm turn but came up short when he thought about California. Lucy would become attached to Emma over the summer. The inevitable separation might break her heart.

      “It’s only been a day, but already the three of you look like a family. More the glory to God.”

      Matt hadn’t noticed Mrs. Sizeloff come into the store. He’d been so involved in watching the ribbon picking that the world had gone on without his notice.

      “Thank you, ma’am.” Matt took off his hat and twisted it in his hand. Mrs. Sizeloff cradled a newborn in the crook of her arm while her son, Charlie, tugged on her skirt urging her toward the counter displaying hard candies.

      “I was telling my Josie just last night that you and Mrs. Suede looked near as happy as we did on our wedding day. Oh, my, weren’t those happy times?” The preacher looked dreamy for a moment, then seemed to notice the tugging on her skirt. “You’ll СКАЧАТЬ