by Piper, Marie
Bill had nearly lost his mind with love for her.
But he’d also been a different man back then. Like his brothers, he’d been rowdy, prone to drinking too much and brawling when it wasn’t necessary. The very idea of casting such a life aside to become a husband and father had seemed like crazy talk. So he’d kept on the way he was. He kept flirting, and she’d flirted right back.
She’d kissed him once out behind her barn. A tiny thing, she’d barely come up to his shoulders. He’d had to bend down to return her gesture, and she’d been stretched up on tiptoe.
That night, he’d gone with the boys and gotten drunk again.
And the next morning, he’d caught word that she was engaged to another man. A man he knew she felt no real warm affection for. She’d burned for him the same way he’d burned for her, and he’d been stupid. He stayed stupid, and Greta had married the man, all the while never taking her eyes off Bill, as if daring him to make a stand for her.
Then she’d gotten the fever, and died, leaving her husband a widow and Bill a mess. He’d drank more, and woke up one morning lying in the dirt by her still-fresh grave.
Greta would have wanted better for him.
She’d expected better.
Ever since that day, he’d vowed to do better.
And now, with Emma so close to him, it felt like he had a chance to right a wrong from long ago. A woman he burned for burned for him right back, and he wouldn’t step aside, nor turn a blind eye. He would kiss her any time she wanted to be kissed, go wherever she needed or wanted him to—be it Cricket Bend, the ends of the earth, or heaven or hell.
“Heads up,” Saul called as he passed Bill riding back to the wagon. “Pa and Appie are having it out.”
It was never a good sign when Appie and his Pa were face to face, talking animatedly about something. As Bill rode up for the mid-day break, he smiled at the sight of Emma happy to see him, but his smile faded as his Pa stormed off, mounting his horse and riding away, and Appie scowled after him.
“Your pa won’t listen to reason,” Appie complained.
“He rarely does.” Andrew smirked.
Bill gave him a silencing look. “What’s he doing now?”
Appie sighed like a man fighting a battle he’d fought before. “I told him the trail around the pass was easier, but no. He wants to go through it, so through it we’re going.”
“The pass?” Bill asked. “Why would we do that?”
Appie looked up to the heavens. “Thank you. Glad one man around here has some sense.”
“What’s the pass?” Emma asked.
“There’s a range of hills ahead,” Bill explained. “We usually cut to the east and avoid them by taking a flatter trail. It adds a day or two, but it’s safe passage. The pass through the hills is rocky, and it’s hard at night because the moon is blocked a good deal of the time.”
“So, it’s a bad idea.” Emma nodded.
“A very bad idea.”
“Then why does your pa want to do it?”
“Hell if I know. Andrew, get the others.”
The McKenzie boys gathered a little while later, off away from the group. The other hands knew something was up, but most were experienced enough trail riders to know that sometimes things were none of their business. Pete and Jess arrived first, and Saul followed a few minutes later once he’d settled the horses. Straggling to the group last, of course, was Andrew.
“Pa wants to go through the pass,” Bill sighed. “Appie says there ain’t no talking him out of it.”
“That’s the most dangerous way, by far,” Pete argued.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Bill answered. “But he’s set on it, says it’ll save a few days.”
“But how many head will we lose?” Jess asked.
“I’ll try and talk to Pa,” Bill promised. “But you know as well as I do that he won’t listen.”
“Once we get through—provided we get through—you taking off?” Pete asked. “You heading to Cricket Bend?”
Bill nodded. “It’s where she needs to go. And it’s not like any of you can go in my place. Jess’ll be in charge while I’m gone.”
“Ma’d like her.” Pete laughed a little. “Shame she’ll be long gone by the time we get home. I know Pa’s smarting over having her here, but it’s nice to see a pretty face. Other than Andrew’s, of course.”
“Shut up.” Andrew pushed his hat back and took a drink from a flask.
“Ollie’s sweet as cake on her.” Jess smiled. “Blushes scarlet whenever she walks by. He’s hardly the only one.”
Jealousy surged through Bill, which was something he hadn’t expected. “Not a man so much as touches her,” he ordered. “Understood?”
The boys all looked at each other. Even Andrew made the effort to move his hat aside so he could take in the serious expression on Bill’s face. Bill knew he’d gone past the point of keeping his feelings a secret. The boys wouldn’t let up, now that they had an inkling of what was going on.
“Understood, boss.” Jess held up his hands. “If you like her, just say the word and she’s off limits.”
“It ain’t like that.”
“Like hell it ain’t.” Jess laughed and shook his head. “We ain’t mad at you, Bill. Hell, if any of us deserves to catch a woman like her, it’s you. You know, you actually smile when she’s around.”
“’Cause she makes you roughnecks remember your manners.”
Jess whistled. The note rang for a long time, until his breath ran out.
“Big brother,” he said with a smirk. “You’re worse off than I thought. I dare say that, for the first time in your life, you’re in love.”
Knowing there’d be no sense in arguing, Bill dropped his eyes. “Not the first time.” He saw Jess’s confusion, but didn’t say any more than that.
“You’re talking about Greta,” Andrew stated. All the men looked at Andrew, who was never one to care about anyone’s life but his own. That he was the first to figure it out struck Bill as odd. But Andrew just shrugged. “Shoot, you made doe eyes at her for nearly a year. I’m not blind.”
Jess looked back at Bill. “You should have said something.”
“Wasn’t much to say.” Bill remembered her, every second spent doing so threatening to knock him to the ground. “She turned down all those suitors for so long because she was waitin’ on me. I was hell-bent on drinking myself into an early grave. Then she got tired of waiting on me, and married Howard. Then she died. And that was that.” He looked at his brothers, a steely determination growing in his gut. “I waited, and I shouldn’t have. I don’t mean to make a mistake like that again.”
Five pairs of eyes looked toward the camp, where Emma was standing in the back of the wagon handing items down to Appie. As they watched, she laughed, and her head fell back. Her laugh was genuine and from the heart, and Bill could have burst at the sight of her sincere joy.
Sure, they were from different worlds. But they could still find a way to be together, forever. Couldn’t they?
“Ma’d like her,” Saul said.
Bill looked at his youngest living brother, and knew he was right. Maureen McKenzie would surely adore Emma, a woman so like her they could have been blood relatives. The spitfire nature, the occasionally foul mouth, and the never-say-die spirit ran deep in both women. Josiah and Maureen fought hard when they’d fought, but beneath it was a love so deep it’d take a mountain range and a forest fire to keep them apart. Looking at Emma in the light of the sunset, Bill knew he’d found a woman he’d risk life and property to keep.
“What are you sitting with us for?” Pete asked. “We’re going through the damn pass, and there ain’t a thing we can do to change Pa’s mind. So, what are you waiting for, an invitation? You both might die in that damn canyon. If you love her, go get her right now and tell her.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Emma
He’d ridden into camp quickly, and offered his hand to pull her up on the back of his h
orse. 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 he
r 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.