Emma's Blaze (Fires of Cricket Bend Book 2) (10 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Emma

He’d ridden into camp quickly, and offered his hand to pull her up on the back of his horse. With an approving grin from Appie, Emma had dropped her crutch and accepted Bill’s hand. After he’d pulled her up behind him, he’d ridden away from the camp. With no idea where they were going, and not caring, she’d held on to him all the way.

Being with him was enough. Holding him was more than enough. If it turned out he had a voracious appetite for her, she could happily deal with that as well.

“Sweeping me off my feet like that,” she teased as he helped her off Orion, “a girl could lose her head. I assume you have your reasons.”

His lips on hers answered her question before her feet touched the ground. She let her hat fall to the dirt. There was no time to waste. Emma started to unbutton her shirt, but Bill stopped her by holding up a hand.

“Hold on, now. I’ve got something I need to say, and you need to hear it.”

“Oh my,” she whispered. “This sounds terribly serious.”

“It is.”

“Are you firing me?” Emma teased a wee bit, trying to deflect from the nervousness she felt twisting in her belly. “I know I can’t make coffee strong enough to save my life.”

“You make fine coffee,” he replied.

“No, I don’t,” she answered, knowing it was the truth.

“Fine,” he replied. “You make weak coffee. Still, I can hardly fire you for that.”

Whatever he was about to tell her was going to be big. Emma could tell he was nervous. Bill didn’t ordinarily fuss, but he was shifting his weight from foot to foot and didn’t seem to know what to with his hands. Growing nervous herself, Emma took a few steps away from him and went around the other side of Orion to give the horse a few strokes on the neck.

Was he going to send her away? She’d noticed the men having a conversation earlier. Had something happened? If Bill had come to tell her to go, she would leave easily and without argument. The where and when of her possible destination? She’d work that out later.

He started talking. “I’ve been in love before, but I was a fool and didn’t do anything about it. And she loved me too, I know it. But I thought I wanted some freedom and lollygagged. She got tired of waiting for me to grow my sorry ass up, so she married another man.”

“I can’t imagine you lollygagging.”

“I was real stupid for a real long time.”

“And now? Where is she?”

“Dead, going on four years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not half as sorry as I am.” With one step, he came around the side of the horse. “So, I don’t intend to let you head out to Cricket Bend, or wherever the hell you wind up going, without telling you that when you’re near me my heart thumps harder than normal. Know that, when we were together the other night, I was making love to you every second, not just fooling around. You’re so damned beautiful…”

“Bill—”

Reaching out, he took hold of her shoulders. When he next met her eyes, he asked a question she hadn’t expected. “Emma, do you hear what I’m trying to tell you? I’m falling in love with you.”

“Bill, shut up,” Emma pleaded against his words. If she could have unheard them, she would have. It was too much, too soon.

Bill didn’t let up. “Tell me true. This man you’re after—was he your lover?”

“He was many things.”

“Are you hoping to be with him again, when you find him?”

Quickly, she shook her head in adamant denial. “I’m hoping to reclaim what’s mine and never see his face again. Of course, I may have to slap him a few times, but that’ll be just for the pure satisfaction.”

“Once you find him, where will you go?”

“I told you I hadn’t planned that far ahead.”

Bill’s thumb, warm and rough, stroked her cheek as he made her look up at him. “Come back to Laredo. Marry me.”

Emma sucked in a breath. The man was out of his mind.

“You barely know me, Bill.”

“I know enough.”

“It’s not even been a week. You’re a fool.”

“Probably. But I feel things for you I ain’t felt in a long time, even if you’re not ready to hear it. I let love go once. I don’t mean to do it again. The boys like you. Appie likes you. My ma would love you, same as I do.”

“Your pa doesn’t like me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone.” Bill grinned. “I wouldn’t judge anything based off that.”

“You’ve gone crazy.”

“Probably, but I mean what I say. It ain’t a fancy life, but it’d be a good one.”

Emma felt like her breath had been stolen away. She loved him—a cowboy, a plain-spoken man in mended pants and worn boots. If he’d told her to do anything, she would have listened and done what he asked.

Except marry him. That was out of the question.

Him asking her to be his wife was reckless. Most likely it was driven by lust and desire. He didn’t mean it, though she didn’t doubt he truly thought he did.

“We’ve only just met,” she said. “While I appreciate your proposal, it’s very sudden.”

Bill’s face fell a little. She hated seeing him disappointed.

“That said, just because I won’t say yes to marrying you doesn’t mean I want you to go back to camp tonight…” As her words trailed off, she put her lips to his.

***

Bill

Under the setting sun, there in the grass, they delighted in each other. Clothes fell away, and hands roamed. They had all the time in the world. Emma showed him that she knew all sorts of ways to make a man lose his mind with pleasure. Those delicate hands of hers, grown a little rough from the hard work they’d done, explored him. Bill imagined he could have died right there and he’d be just fine with it. Before the moon was high in the sky, they lay panting and smiling. This time around, Emma went to sleep first, her back pressed against his chest. He kissed her shoulder and smelled the earthy scent of her flesh. In case it ever went away, he’d memorize it for safekeeping.

Entwined with her in the darkness, Bill felt the warmth of Emma’s breathing on his bare shoulder. When she lay against him, what they’d done seemed so simple—two people had found each other in the middle of nowhere.

But he didn’t even know her full name. Even “Emma” could have been a lie. Yet she’d told it to him with such gravity in her voice he’d bet it was true. Asking her to marry him had been impulsive—a sudden question he’d barely considered before it was coming out of his mouth. Of course she hadn’t jumped into his arms and said yes. Despite being lovers, they were still practically strangers.

Beautiful women in fancy dresses didn’t fall from the sky. He wasn’t foolish enough to think she was any sort of angel sent to him as a reward for good behavior, but she hardly seemed dangerous.

The leather-bound journal lay on the ground near her discarded pants.

Bill could sneak a peek. She slept soundly, and he could reach the book with barely any effort. The pages might hold information about people and places, the things he wanted to know.

Or, he could trust her. Though something about the way she had reacted to his proposal gave him pause. There was much more to Emma the Sparrow than he knew, and it was likely something he wouldn’t enjoy learning about. She mumbled something in her sleep.

He chose to trust her, and hoped, once again, that he wasn’t making a big mistake.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Emma

The sun hung low in the sky, coloring the horizon the hue of sweet marmalade. Emma knelt by her wooden cutting board, rolling out dough to make pies from the apples which were fixing to go bad. Jess and Hiram had made a run to a nearby town and brought back three bushels’ worth, and though the men had consumed the fruit with a near-savage delight, there were apples left over and they were going to turn. She’d been sitting and chopping for nearly an hour. Now they sat in sugar while she worked on the dough. She rolled it out flat and floured the board so it wouldn’t stick. With a knife, she cut pieces to fit her pans and lay them down. The knife was dull, and the pieces weren’t perfect, but it wasn’t as if the hungry men would mind if her pies didn’t look like something from a fancy bake shop in a big city.

In her trail clothes, she didn’t look like a woman who’d ever seen a big city.

In the two days that had passed since Bill had told her he loved her, she’d worked harder than ever. On top of the daily tasks of the drive, Appie had set her to work fixing some tears on the wagon cover, and entrusted her to handle baking pies for the men.

Baking was an enjoyable task. She worked the dough until it did just what she wanted. Working with her hands was freeing, she’d come to realize. With her hands moving, her mind was free to wander where it wanted, leaving Emma a new kind of calm.

“Looking forward to those pies, Miss Sparrow.”

Ollie winked at her when she glanced up, and she returned his smile. Every man on the drive was polite to her. Endlessly, needlessly polite. Emma felt like hollering at the top of her lungs that she’d worked in rougher places and with rougher men than them, and if they wanted to swear or spit she’d not be bothered, but she figured that was a statement best kept to herself. The brothers and the hands always kept their manners and mouths in check. Sure, Bill talked to her constantly, and she was rarely away from Appie’s side, but the rest of the men on the drive treated her like a porcelain doll that would break if they stepped too close and shook the floorboards.

They treated her with respect and affection, same as they would a little sister tagging along. They treated her like she was family.

Everyone except Andrew.

Emma had been wary of him from their first meeting. She felt bad for Hiram, left alone most of the day at the back of the herd, picking up Andrew’s slack when he vacated his position. Josiah McKenzie was a smart man to station a second man with Andrew, aware of his scoundrel son’s ways.

As she chopped the apples, she knew Andrew was lingering near. And it was needling her. Ever since the evening she’d beat him at cards, he’d kept an eye on her. The attention was not welcome. As she worked on the pies, she felt him watching.

“You make a lot of pies?” he finally asked, standing over her while she knelt.

“I’ve made a few in my time.”

“My ma puts cinnamon in her apple pies.”

“Well, your ma is also likely cooking in a real kitchen and not on a fire in the middle of nowhere,” Emma snapped. “Besides, there’s no cinnamon.”

“Too bad,” he replied.

“Yes, indeed.”

He stayed where he stood, too close for her comfort.

No one else was close by. Fed up, Emma slammed down her pan. “Say what you came to say.” She sighed impatiently and turned to look up at him. “I’ve got pies to make and work to do, not that you’d know anything about that. I don’t have time to wait for you to play your hand.”

He smiled at her frustration. Emma could have kicked herself. She’d given him something to work with.

“There’s somethin’ you’re not telling us.” Andrew peered at her. “I’m no angel, granted, but I won’t stand for any of my brothers being hurt—least of all, Bill. He’s the best of us. You pulling one over on him?”

“Bill is a grown man. I’m sure he doesn’t need his
little
brother’s protection.” Though she knew it was rude, she made sure to put extra emphasis on the word little.

“Don’t call me that. Maybe he’s blinded to what’s happening right in front of him.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

Andrew crouched down, speaking over her shoulder as she finished making the first pie.

“You’re keeping something from him, from all of us. See, there’s two kinds of people in this world. Those who see people and go for the good in them, and then there’s those who look first for the bad. Bill wants to see the good in you. Far as he can see, you just about make the sun shine.”

“And you?”

“I’m waiting on the storm.” Andrew reached around her and took the knife from her hand. Emma scooted a little away from him, readying to run if need be. Rather than move to hurt her, Andrew simply took a piece of leather from the pocket of his coat and ran the knife’s blade back and forth over it a bunch of times. He didn’t say a word, and neither did Emma. She understood the threat, and its implication.

Once the knife was sharpened, he held it out, blade first, for her to take. “Here you go.”

Emma took back her knife. He didn’t let go. “I hope its sharp enough, Emma.”

At the sound of her name, she stopped.

“Bill told you my name?”

“No.” Andrew released the knife and stood up. “I have something of yours.”

If Bill hadn’t told him, then he’d gotten a hold of her journal. She’d wrapped it tight in her bedroll each morning, thinking no one would ever go looking there for anything. But Andrew apparently had.

Emma kept a brave face. “Seems like you’re on to me,
little
brother.”

He took one step forward, and she saw his eyes fix on her. The knife was still in her hand as he towered over where she sat on the ground. She gripped the handle tighter. If he made her, she’d use the knife and defend herself. “I told you, don’t call me that.”

Riders were coming in from the horizon. Emma knew Bill would be with them. Andrew noticed them as well. “I wonder what Bill would say if he knew some of the things I know about you,” he whispered as she watched the riders approach.

Andrew knew all the things she hadn’t confessed to Bill. Things that, if not told in the right way, would likely make her cowboy shut her out of his heart forever. Her past, her story, the reasons for her being there at that moment—Andrew had the information Emma didn’t want anyone else to know about.

She turned her attention back to the pies she was making. “If you want to talk, meet me after everyone’s asleep. You’re on watch, I presume.”

“The two o’clock watch.”

“I’ll find you as soon as I’m able.”

Andrew’s eyes twinkled. “I’m sure we can come up with an arrangement.”

Making a deal with a devil wasn’t new to Emma, but this one made her stomach turn. She went back to work on the lattice of the pies. When she next looked up, Andrew had slipped away like a ghost into the thickening darkness.

“Damn,” she whispered.

Bill came into view. As he strode her way, his grin grew bigger. Emma wondered if, when he came to her that night, it would be the last time she’d ever touch him. If she didn’t deal with Andrew, he’d start trouble that would shatter the beautiful thing she and Bill shared.

It had been just like a dream.

Perhaps that’s all it could be. Perhaps, in years to come, she’d look back on this time and the drive as nothing more than a beautiful dream.

The idea made her throat tighten as Bill walked up to where she sat.

There was no way to keep him, but she couldn’t lose him.