Emma's Blaze (Fires of Cricket Bend Book 2) (11 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bill

Emma’s kisses that night felt tense. As soon as they’d snuck away from the others, she’d melted into his arms. Yet as they’d progressed toward lovemaking, he could tell something had changed. Something was different. It was obvious her thoughts were elsewhere.

“What’s wrong?” He dragged his lips against the soft part of her ear.

Emma bent her head, giving him all of her neck for teasing. “Nothing.”

Bill pulled back just enough so their foreheads touched. “Tell me.”

“Don’t you dare stop kissing me.”

The ferocity of her touches and embrace startled him. She pushed him on his back to the ground and unbuckled his pants with an intense focus, as if she were trying to fight off something—loneliness or heartache, perhaps sadness. Whatever it was, Bill aimed to help her, but she didn’t seem to need much help as she shifted herself onto his body and began to move. He lay back and watched her, the woman with the hair like fire. Soon, she had banished all worries from his mind. All that remained was the fine feeling of Emma loving him. She loved him long and hard and completely and took what she needed from him as well. He didn’t mind one bit.

Afterward, she was still distant when they lay together. Her elegant body may have been snuggled next to his, but her mind was millions of miles away.

“Do you want me to go?” he asked.

“No,” she answered.

He tried a different tactic. “You see those three stars in a line right there? Those make Orion’s belt. Those stars there, and there, when you put them all together, it makes Orion, the Hunter. Orion told everyone who would listen that he was going to kill all the animals. Then, Gaia, she got mad at him.”

“Rightfully so,” Emma answered.

“So she sent a scorpion after him, but it didn’t work.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t recall the rest, to tell you the truth. Mama taught us the stars, but it was a long time ago. Said we could always find our way home if we could find the North Star. She’s the one who named Orion, and most of the other horses. Said they had souls, so they should have names. Your Maggie is named for my grandmother.”

“Sounds like your mama is quite a woman.”

“You think my pa is stubborn, you wouldn’t believe her.”

“Heavens,” Emma replied. “It’s a wonder they don’t kill each other.”

“Sometimes I wonder. What about your folks?”

“I never knew my pa,” she said. “I hear tell he was a preacher, of the fire and brimstone kind.”

“Thought preachers weren’t supposed to marry,” Bill said.

“Oh, he didn’t marry my mama,” Emma replied. “I’m the middle of three girls, and my mama had her hands full with keeping us fed and the fire lit from sunup to sundown all by herself. She got old long before her time, and taught me the most important thing I could do was to catch myself a husband before I got old and haggard, when no man would want me.”

“You disagreed,” Bill said.

“After I met a few men, I did. The men I’ve known in my life haven’t exactly been what I would call Prince Charming.”

“What have they been?”

“Liars, mostly.”

“In the saloons where you sang?”

For a long minute, she didn’t answer. “That’s all I did, you know. Sing. I never sold myself. I sang so I wouldn’t have to.”

“I never thought otherwise.”

She turned her body to his and nuzzled into his chest. “Tell me more about the stars,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” If she wanted to listen, he could talk all night. “Now, just over from Orion there, that’s Taurus. The bull.”

“Was he a longhorn?”

“He was Zeus in disguise, sneaking to see his lover.”

“How very scandalous.” Emma raised herself up, and ran her fingers over his cheek for a long moment before she dropped her lips to his. Never had Bill been kissed so sweetly in all his years.

“What was that for?”

“For everything.”

“You’re talking like something’s coming to an end,” he said. “Far as I can see, we’re just beginning.”

Emma’s mouth, so luscious and sweet, met his again. This time, her kisses had purpose. Under the constellations he’d named, and the ones that he hadn’t, they made love again under the cover of the stars.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Emma

Once Bill lay snoring in the grass, Emma kissed his cheek and felt the prickle of his beard against her chin. Now that the dreaminess of being his lover had passed away and her real problem returned to the forefront of her mind, she had to act.

Not knowing if she’d ever be able to make her way back to him, she slipped from Bill’s arms and grabbed his shotgun before heading off into the darkness. Alone, the walk in the nighttime grass and deep silence unnerved her. She never liked walking by herself at night. Bad things waited in the night.

One waited for her right then, in fact.

Andrew found a place a ways from everyone else, just as she knew he would. Men were fools when it came to the promise of a woman’s touch, and she’d banked on him presuming she’d offer pleasure in exchange for his secrecy. In addition, she’d banked on Bill’s shotgun. She carried it, hoping sincerely she wouldn’t be forced to use it.

He laughed when she walked into his view with the large gun in her hands. “Why, little Sparrow, you look ready to do battle.”

“Perhaps I am.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “That would make me the enemy, I reckon.”

The cockiness, the arrogance, the ease with a turn of phrase—she knew all of the pieces of his act because she’d seen them before. She’d also seen it done better, more convincingly, and with far more grace. If Andrew thought he could trick her, he’d find himself proven wrong. “I’m not foolish enough to think you’re my friend.”

“That’s a shame. We could be good friends, I think.” Andrew stood up and walked toward her, his smile never faltering. He was so sure of his own appeal and charms, he never seemed to doubt she’d be a willing partner for the salacious evening he likely had planned. “There’s no need to keep up the act. I know a woman of the world when I see one, and you’re no innocent dove just trying to fly home.”

She could play along, see what he already knew.

Give them what they want, sweetness.

Fluttering her eyes a little, she looked straight at him. “I never said I was innocent. I knew you’d know better. You saw through me the first time we met.”

He pulled her journal from his pocket. “True. It took me some time to find proof of anything, though.”

“How did you get hold of it?”

“You tucked it into your bedroll. That’s where men are forever keeping their secret things, their most precious possessions.”

“Give it back to me.”

Andrew flipped the book open to a marked page. “But there’s so much fascinating information inside it, Emma Sue Martin from Virginia.”

She flinched at the sound of her full name.

“You’ve traveled extensively, haven’t you? Denver, Wichita, even up to Montana Territory. I bet they get a lot of snow up in those parts. Always wanted to see mountains covered in snow.” Flipping through pages, he stopped and read a passage.

Dreadful storm. Snowed in three days now
.

“Stop.” Hearing him read her words was too much. She couldn’t bear to see him even hold the book of her life in his horrible hands, much less delve into the contents. “Tell me what you want.”

He took hold of her chin. They were equal height, and Andrew met her eyes directly. “I see a lot of things my pa and brothers don’t. They’re hard-working men, simple and salt of the earth, but they don’t know the way things really are. People lie, like you’ve been lying.” He let go of her face and slipped a hand around her waist. “I know all about you, Emma. And I think my pa and brothers, especially Bill, would love to know about the things you’ve done. That you’ve conned men out of their money, that you’re wanted for murder, and most especially that you’re a married woman.”

“Bill knows I was married.”

“Does he know that you still are?”

Poker face, Emma. Give them nothing they can use.

Emma heard the familiar words whispered into her ear, the voice of the trickster who’d saved her life before he left her broke and alone. He’d taught her all sorts of things, and the ability to hide her true emotions had been the lesson she’d used most. Sure, he was a trickster, but the man standing before her was a devil.

So, she did what she did best. She smiled her prettiest smile. The hours she had spent studying her face in mirrors to learn exactly how to curl her lip or how to flutter her eyelashes just enough to give a man the notion of taking her to his bed had all built to this. “You got me. You win.”

Andrew smiled, certain he’d made his point and would get what he wanted.

“Now,” he said, putting a finger to the top button of her shirt. “We’ve a secluded spot here. If you want my silence, you’ll have to earn it. I trust you’re woman of the world enough to take my meaning.”

Though she’d rather have retched onto his shoes than ever lay with him, Emma nodded and replied shyly, “Of course.”

He grinned like a fox who had cornered his prey.

And Emma brought a knee up hard right into his manhood. He grunted and bent over, and she stepped away from him. Lifting the shotgun to her shoulder, she took aim.

“You arrogant son of a bitch. You think I’ll lie down for you because you threaten me? Bill was right about you. So was Pete. So was everyone. You’re a good-for-nothing who can’t be trusted. I’ve known men like you. Hell, my husband is like you, and he stole all my money and ran off with a whore. So if you thought you were being slick by coming out here, you were dead wrong.” She gave him a good kick in the leg as she finished her words.

Andrew spoke though gritted teeth. “You gonna shoot me?”

Emma wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. But she couldn’t. “No. Only because it would kill Bill, and I have no intention of doing that.”

“Him finding out the truth about you will hurt him more. Might as well go ahead and shoot me and run for it before he finds you. Though he’s so far in love with you, he’ll never stop looking. Your act worked on him like a charm. Go ahead and kill me. It won’t save you.”

“I am not a killer, and it was not an act.”

Easily, Emma flipped the shotgun over in her hands and used the butt of the gun to whack him upside the head. Andrew crumpled to the ground.

Oh, God. Had she killed him?

Taking two steps forward, she saw he was still breathing. She’d been mad as hell at him, but still she hoped she hadn’t killed him. Looking down at his prostrate body, she exhaled. He still breathed.

Damn, but she’d have to run off now in order to avoid messy confrontations. She’d have to leave Bill and the men and the life she’d come to strangely enjoy. It was a hard way of life, and a struggle, but the days she’d spent on the drive had felt like home, and she hadn’t felt that way in a long time. The idea of leaving hurt her deep.

Still, she saw no other way.

“I am not a killer,” she repeated to the unconscious man before she bent down to grab the notebook and tuck it into her pocket.

“Then what the hell are you?”

Of course Bill was behind her. Of course he’d seen everything.

“And who the hell are you?”

Emma let the shotgun fall to the dirt. Her hands went to her mouth to cover her ragged breath. If she turned to see him, she’d see the trouble on his face, the concern and the goodness that radiated from him, and it would be too much. Knowing she’d hurt him, her heart would likely stop if she saw confirmation in his expression.

“Look at me, Emma.”

“You were sleeping.”

“As if I wouldn’t notice you slipping away. What’s this all about?”

Emma felt herself choking. She tasted the bile that rose in her mouth.

“Emma, look at me.”

She shook her head. “I won’t. I want to remember your face before you hated me.”

“I could never hate you.”

“I bet you could.” She took a deep breath and did the only thing she could think to do.

She ran.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bill

After being surprised at how fast she took off, he gave chase. Emma ran like a spooked filly. Her fear and panic gave her a good head start, but like the first time Bill had chased her, he was faster. Once her ankle gave out and she stumbled, he caught her.

“What happened?” His words came out too sharply, prompted by the idea that Andrew had hurt her and that’s what had made her lash out and take him down. The thought of someone laying hands on Emma fired him up, and he grabbed her harder than he meant to. She winced, and he eased his grasp. “Are you all right?”

“He didn’t touch me.” She looked at the dirt.

Something was incredibly, indisputably wrong. Where usually she seemed warm and playful, she now stood coiled like a wound clock spring. Something had changed. A different woman stood before him. He needed to know what had triggered it, and why his brother lay flat on the ground only yards away. The Emma he’d thought he knew couldn’t have done that. Unless the Emma he’d thought he knew wasn’t the real Emma.

“Talk,” he ordered. “Tell me something true before I imagine the worst, would you?”

It seemed she could hold back nothing more. The hands she held against his chest clenched into fists. “My name is Emma Porter.”

Bill’s eyes grew wide as a memory formed from a year earlier, of a man wearing a brocade vest.

Emma kept talking. “The man who stole my money, the bastard I’m chasing, is my husband.”

The memory cleared. “Hank Porter.”

She visibly startled at the name. “You know him?”

Bill’s world spun. “My brothers nearly burned down his saloon in Cricket Bend last year. Hank, in turn, beat the tar out of Andrew in the middle of that brawl in the street Jess told you about. I paid Hank Porter a good deal of money in reparation for damages before it was over. He’s your husband.”

Emma nodded.

“Your husband.”

“Yes.”

“You’re another man’s wife.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t see fit to tell me this any of the times we’ve been—what we’ve been.”

Her response was curt. “Lovers, Bill. We’ve been lovers. And I told you I’d been married.”

“I thought you meant he’d died, or run off from you.”

“He did run off. Nearly a year ago. It’s a long story.”

“And you’re going to tell it to me right now.” He stepped forward, jaw set hard. “I don’t like being lied to, or lead along, or fooled with.”

“Fooling with you was not my intention.”

“Bull. A married woman—”

“My marriage is null and void, as far as I’m concerned.”

Bill ignored her. “Andrew found out. And you dropped him to the ground like a rag doll.”

“He was sloppy,” Emma cried. “He thought he had me cornered and threatened me. Wanted me to buy his silence in horrible ways. I’d rather kill myself.”

Bill set his jaw. He could only imagine what Andrew had planned for her to earn his silence.

“I’ll go.” Emma’s tone softened. “I’ll get my things and—”

Bill took hold of her arms and made her sit on the ground. “You’re going nowhere. You’re going to sit right there and not get up until you’ve told me every damn part of this story of yours, the good and the bad. I’m done with secrets, Emma. I ought to leave you out here alone. Let the coyotes and Comanche have you. You know that.”

“I know. Bill, please.”

“I ain’t gonna do it. But I ought to. Makin’ me care for you and then having to find out you’re lyin’ to me.”

“I care for you too,” she replied. “I lied to you, but I care for you very much.”

“You better start telling the truth.” He wiped his brow. “I don’t like being lied to.”

“I never wanted to lie to you,” she replied. She lifted a hand to touch him, but he took a step back from her. If he felt her touch on his skin, he’d never be able to think clearly. Clear thinking was needed.

“Start talking,” he said.

Emma gulped. But she did as he asked.

“I was born in Virginia, just like I said. My ma didn’t have money, so she sent me out by Denver on a coach when I was eighteen to marry a rich rancher,” she explained. “Angus Keene was his name. She arranged it via post in response to an advertisement seeking a mail order bride. She’d written to him, and then he’d written letters to me. I was a silly girl, a fool. I thought he’d be the stuff of dreams. Once I got to his place, I saw that everything he’d written was all lies. He was nearly sixty, and reeked of whiskey and sweat. He’d lied in his letters, said he was rich and had all this land, but he didn’t. He only had a little field, and terrible soil, and his house was shoddy and sod. He didn’t plan to marry me so much as he wanted a young girl to keep in his bed.”

Of the stories he’d figured she’d tell, none of them had begun quite that way. “Emma—”

Rage seething from her eyes, she shook her head. “You wanted to hear this, so you’re gonna hear it. There was no one around for miles, and I’d paid for a horse to ride out to his place to meet him all alone. That first night I got there, he pulled me by the arm into the house and slapped me so hard I fell to the ground and saw stars. And he took down his pants.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Bill regretted demanding to hear her story.

Emma’s pretty face lost all expression. “I said no man has ever hurt me. Angus Keene knocked me down, and I picked up a lantern and broke it on his face. A fire started, and it ate him up first. I ran out the door and got on that horse. I rode for days until I was tired and hungry and couldn’t go any farther. I went to the only place I could figure would be safe. It was a run-down saloon. The owner was a kind man. I had a bruise by then, and he took one look at me and gave me lodging for the night and a few dollars to buy a coach ticket to get a few towns away, so I did.”

“Why didn’t you just go back home?”

“It was too far. And I knew my mama would be furious that I didn’t do as I was told by the man who was supposed to be my husband. I got to a new town, and because I didn’t know what else to do, I went to the saloon there. That owner wasn’t as kind as the first man, but he put me to work washing and cleaning the place, and gave me a place to sleep, and it was enough. That’s what I did every day for three whole years. I kept my head down, scared a Sheriff would come looking for me, but I worked every day.”

“That’s why you ain’t afraid of work.”

“I have never been a fine lady,” she confessed. “I might wear the clothes of one sometimes, and I might sing like one, but that’s all. One morning, I was washing windows and doing my cleaning. I was singing to myself to pass the time, and I finished my song and someone clapped.”

For the first time in her story, Emma smiled. “I’ll never forget him, wearing a fine suit and looking like a million dollars, smiling at me. Me. In my work dress, filthy as I was. Hank Porter is a lying son of a bitch and a thief, but he saved my life. Hank talked to the saloon owner, and somehow got him to agree that I could make him more money if I sang. Hank bought me some dresses and got me cleaned up and taught me some songs. I started singing in that saloon, and he was right, I made money. The saloon made money. People came from all over to hear me sing. The only thing I had from my mama was a pin shaped like a little bird, and I always wore it. Folks started called me The Sparrow. Hank said folks liked names like that, so I went with it. We decided to go to a bigger town, and it was the same. People paid even more to hear me. We went on to Denver, and Tucson, and Fort Worth. I had fancy dresses and champagne and admirers. An English Duke asked for my hand once, if you can believe it.”

“I can believe it.”

She swallowed hard before talking again. “Hank always had an angle, though. He used me as pretty bait to lure rich men into playing cards with him and taking their money. I had to flirt with those men, act like I gave a damn for them, when all the while I was setting them up.”

“Sounds familiar.”

Emma closed her eyes and winced. “Still, it was a good time. We were loaded, Hank and I. We were on top of the world. Rumors started about our relationship, and Hank thought it would be best to ease those, so we married one night, real late. Then we said we’d been secretly married for years.”

“And the rumors?”

Emma blushed. “I won’t lie to you. Our marriage was real, and we were drunk on passion for a while. He taught me how to play cards and how to play men. I enjoyed learning from him, and he was good to me, but if you’re asking if we loved each other the answer is no. At least, he didn’t. He had affection for me, but I doubt he ever loved me.”

“Did you love him?”

“I thought that what I felt for him was love. We went on that way for years, and it was a grand party. And then, in Fort Worth, we met a new woman, a whore. Hank might have liked me plenty, but he liked her more. Much more. I felt shut out. And then one day, I woke up in my fancy room at the finest hotel in town, and they were gone. Hank and I had saved a large sum of money, and we said we’d split it one day and go our separate ways. I waited for them to come back, and I didn’t know where he went. All the money was gone, so I had no choice but to stay at the saloon and sing and play cards like I’d been taught. A very rich man, a close personal friend of the Mayor of Fort Worth, took an interest in me. It started to seem as if the saloon owner was going to try and arrange things for me to become a kept woman.”

“Did you agree?”

“I wasn’t interested. I made that quite clear. But I was a woman alone, and somehow he knew about Angus Keene. Said it wouldn’t be a problem if I just did as I was told. It was a nightmare. It quickly became clear my options were limited. Then I caught word of Hank being in some dusty little town called Cricket Bend, so I took off to find him.”

“How did you come to be in the woods?”

She blushed. “I took off with some men I shouldn’t have taken off with. Rough men, wanted for robberies and all sorts of trouble. They seemed all right at first. I told them I’d pay them for escorting me, but they turned out to want other payment. I’m sure you can imagine what I mean. It seems to be a popular currency around these parts.”

Bill thought of Andrew lying in the dirt, and gave a small nod.

“I’m no fool. I carried a gun and a knife to ward them off, and after a while I got tired of the innuendo and put a powder in their drink. They all passed out, and I ran off into the woods like a fool. I lost the moon, and found the creek, but I kept going, thinking I’d surely find something or someone. I was out there a few weeks before you found me.”

“And brought you back here. And believed in you.”

“I haven’t lied to you. I care for you, Bill. Being with you is the safest I’ve ever felt in my whole life.”

The last part was spoken with little more than a whisper, but she might as well have jammed a knife into his heart. The story sounded sincere, but he didn’t know up from down anymore and certainly didn’t want to trust without making sure. Seeing his hesitation, Emma held out the leather book. “Take it. Read it. It’s all in there. My whole cursed story. Accompanied by all the proof you could ever need. Including a few pages where I’ve written out what happened with Angus Keene. Keep it, and you can turn me into the Sheriff of Cricket Bend if you want, once you get me there. I trust he’s a fair man.”

“Yes.” Bill accepted the book and held it in both hands, not knowing where to begin. At last, she’d given him the story he’d been yearning for. Faced with it, he didn’t know what to do next.

“You should probably check on Andrew,” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t kill him.”