by Carol Arens
Emma scooped Lucy up and spun out among the dancers.
Lantern light shone gold in Emma’s hair where it hung loose and curling. Lucy’s cheeks blushed pink. Their laughter was like a campfire on a cold night.
This was a moment he’d hold in his heart for the rest of his life. No song could do justice to the sight of the two ladies he…loved… Yes, loved! He couldn’t deny that was the feeling that called him to Emma any more than he could make his heart quit beating.
If only he could make his wife understand that a home wasn’t wood and nails—it was the souls who gathered in it.
“Hawker’s cooling his guns in Wichita.” Marshal Deeds’s voice intruded on Matt’s reverie.
“That’s one of the places I’ve heard.” Matt stood up. He didn’t like the feel of the lawman looking down on him.
The marshal’s gaze shifted to Emma and Lucy galloping about the barn to the wail of the fiddle.
“Pretty little family you’ve got there, Suede.”
Matt nodded, watching the fair heads bobbing to the thump of the whiskey jug. They were a greater blessing than he could ever have imagined.
“You might want to think about keeping their future secure, once Hawker gets here.”
Thoughts of keeping their future secure were the very things keeping him in an unholy state of misery.
“You seem pretty sure I’m going to lose that fight.”
“Never heard of Hawker letting a man get his gun clear of the holster.”
“Busy lawman like you might not hear everything.”
“I hear that Pendragon would give you a fair price for you to quit your homestead. That sum of money might come in handy for a widow.”
“I reckon it would, if the lady was going to be a widow. You can tell your boss that I don’t plan to be planted on Boot Hill anytime soon.”
The marshal frowned. It had to be Matt’s imagination that Deeds looked uncomfortable.
“Interesting that since you got married, Pendragon’s bank account hasn’t been robbed.”
“Purely fascinating.” This conversation couldn’t head anywhere that Matt wanted to go, so he nodded goodbye. “I believe I’ll dance with my wife a time or two before the singing starts.”
The marshal snagged Matt’s arm when he stepped toward the whirl and flourish at the center of the barn.
“Watch your back, Suede. Hawker’s fast and nasty as sin. Doesn’t care if a fight’s fair, as long as he wins it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The marshal’s fist dropped away from his elbow. Matt took another step toward Emma, who two-stepped her way toward him with Lucy giggling in her arms.
* * *
Whatever the marshal had been discussing with Matt had made his normally congenial face grow stern. Even in the shadow, where the lantern’s glow barely penetrated the corner behind Hickory Willie and his music men, Emma watched his brows press low over his eyes.
Clearly the lawman was going to need a show of wedded bliss. Certainly she could act this part without feeling seduced.
“Lucy, baby, run along over to Mrs. Sizeloff. See her there sitting near Thunder’s stall? Maybe you can get little Maudie to laugh at you.”
“Can I stick out my tongue? She’ll laugh at that.”
“Just this once.”
Emma loosened her grip to let Lucy slide down the front of her dress. She sent the child off with a gentle pat on her backside. She turned her smile toward Matt and the marshal. Surely she could play this role without losing herself in it.
Before she had a chance to pucker her lips in devotion, Matt scooped his arm about her waist and drew her into the midst of sweating, swirling bodies.
Red pranced by, dancing with Lenore Pendragon. She ought to be having a fine time without her father here to muddle things, but she looked flustered. Red whispered something in her ear that made her frown. He arched his eyebrow, then nodded.
Something seemed odd. Lenore was a typically sweet and composed young lady, as unlike her father as water to stone. Right now she seemed unsettled.
Even though every door and window of the barn was thrown open to the night, the air inside had grown heavy with the scent of new hay, rosewater and perspiration. Every now and then the evening breeze pushed inside, drawing along a whiff of cigarette odor.
Outdoors, cowboys and farmers would be gathered in an area scraped free of brush, rolling tobacco and smoking it. Even little children knew that an errant ash settling in the grass might set off a fire that would spread far and wide faster than a pony could run.
Matt’s fingers thrumming on her back made her want to lean in and dance to the stars and back, but such intimacy had been forbidden by her own bargain.
“What was the marshal pestering you about?”
“Seems like he noticed that Pendragon hasn’t been robbed since we were married.”
“We should kiss.” She closed her eyes and tried to close her heart, but the little traitor pounded hard against her ribs.
She waited. The only thing to brush her mouth was hay dust being stirred up by the other dancers. She opened her eyes to see Matt frowning at her. A streak of brown-sugar hair cut across his forehead.
“Darlin’, there’s something else the marshal had to say.”
“About us?” Their newlywed act had worked so far. Even she almost believed they were in love.
“You won’t like it, even though he has a point.” Matt cleared his throat. “He thinks you ought to sell to Pendragon when I’m dead.”
“But you won’t be—” He shushed her with two fingers to her lips.
“I won’t be dead,” he whispered. “But I will be gone. Emma, darlin’, you will need a husband.”
Emma stopped dancing. Her skirt spun about Matt’s legs like a ribbon on a maypole. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Billy thinks that Woodrow Vance would be a fine pick.” He closed his eyes. No wonder he couldn’t look at her after spouting such nonsense. “But please, Emma, don’t start courting him until I’m gone.”
It was time for Matt to sing. He leaped onto the stage without a backward glance.
Courting! He thought she was courting! Why, Woody had been all but forced upon her all night long.
Even now the eager farmer leaned against the barn door, grinning and looking more than pleased to see her, once more, on her own.
Chapter Nine
If Billy and Matt wanted courting, let them have a taste of it. No Suede men, no matter how dear they were to her, would decide her future.
She stepped toward the barn door, trying not to cringe at the sight of Woody coming toward her in a near gallop across the barn.
Emma steadied the grin on her lips when Woody swooped her up in a bone-jarring two-step that spun her close enough to Matt that her skirt brushed the crate he stood upon.
She laughed out loud as though Woody had said something clever; she tossed her hair, she lifted her chin. She looked Woody in the eye, holding his gaze when she wanted to duck her head to avoid watching the sweat bead up on his forehead.
With the next spin past Matt’s crate, Emma dared a glance up at him. A red flush crept up his neck, but his song didn’t waver.
Woody stepped on her toe. Emma closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep from crying out.
When the pain receded, her chest swelled in a relieved sigh. She opened her eyes to see a moist grin spread over Woody’s face. She hadn’t intended her heaving bosom to be a seduction, but her partner’s palms grew damp.
Woody bounced her this way and that. The soles of her shoes grew warm with hopping and twirling to one end of the barn, then skipping and bounding to the other.
Coming once more toward Matt, she glanced up. The red blush had darkened and spread over his face. The beginnings of a scowl tightened his lips, but he kept up his lively tune.
Lord help her, she didn’t know if showing Matt how wrong he had been was worth the pain. Another turn about the barn might do her in.
In a moment she would have to set Woody straight. His hand had begun to creep up her ribs in ill-considered boldness.
On the next pass by Matt, Woody slowed a bit.
“Why, Mr. Vance, you dance like a dream,” Emma had time to say. Did Matt hear the sigh that was truly a gasp for breath? “I could go on all night long.”
“In time, Mrs. Suede,” Woody said with a hiccup. “I’d be pleased to make all your dreams come true.”
Emma heard Matt skip a word, pick it up and then lose it again.
The instant they twirled into a shadowy corner, Woody’s fingers twitched upward, too close to where they had no right to be.
She swatted his hand. The slap and his grunt of surprise were muffled by a hoot on Willie’s jug.
His boot landed hard on her wounded toe.
Pain buckled her knees, but Woody caught her around her waist. At last he had the good sense to look mortified. Words of apology bumbled about in his mouth, but he could seem to get only one or two of them out.
Matt leaped off the stage and dived into the shadow. He swept her out of Woody’s hold and into his own. Then he swung her away from her would-be swain and pressed her close to his chest.
“Go find yourself a single lady, Vance. My wife is going to be busy for the rest of your life.”
* * *
Woodrow Vance might never know how close he had come to being maimed. If it hadn’t been for the truly stricken look on his face and the swiftness with which he had relinquished Emma, he would have been eating barn floor for dinner and no teeth to chew it with.
It was a lucky break for Cousin Billy, too, that he had picked that moment for some private courting and was not in the barn.
Matt settled Emma in his arms and stomped out of the barn. He snugged her in good and tight and carried her toward the creek.
Closer to the creek crickets and tumbling water became the night music. Party sounds seemed a long way off.
At the creek Matt turned north, walking near the edge of the water. He walked for a long time with his boots squishing in the mud. When he found a secluded spot, he set Emma down, then sat beside her.
“How’s your toe?”
“It’s screaming at me good and proper.” He touched the toe of her shoe. “Ouch!”
“I’m so sorry, Emma.” He took her shoe in his lap and eased it off her foot. “I never should have said what I did. Even if Billy thinks it’s best…even if I think it, it’s not my place to choose a man for you.”
She winced when the slipper passed over her toe. “I will be busy for the rest of Woody’s life,” Emma said, a little smile teasing the corner of her lips. “Heaven only knows, it will take a stouter woman than I am to dodge his feet.”
A big fat full moon shone down on them. It glinted off the water and played games in Emma’s hair where it fell full and free down her back. The ribbon had disappeared some time ago. No doubt it was being tromped on by dozens of party-going boots in the barn.
Life was perfect here in the deep quiet of the night. Let the party go on until dawn—he was where he wanted to be.
“Here, darlin’, roll up your skirt and give me your foot.”
He touched her ankle, then slid his palm up her calf. She must not have felt that this was a seduction, because she let him continue halfway up her thigh. When he found the top of her stocking, he rolled it down her leg, easily over the ankle and just whispering over the injured toe.
“Move toward the water just a little…that’s it.” He lowered her foot into the creek and watched the water swirl about her calf. “That ought to help the swelling some.”
“Feels like heaven,” she murmured, then took off her other shoe.
She began to roll down her stocking, but he placed his hand over hers. She allowed his knuckles to glide slowly against her thigh, so that must not have been seduction, either.
“Take off your shoes, Matt. It’s awfully nice and cool.”
He did and put his feet in the water.
She kicked her legs. Droplets tumbling in midair caught freckles of moonlight.
“Oh! Look at that!” She pointed her finger at the sky. “A shooting star!”
He couldn’t look at the sky, though—he couldn’t look away from her face. How would he live the rest of his life not seeing that smile?
He did the one thing he could do in that moment, what the moonlight and stars demanded of him.
He kissed her.
Her mouth felt like home and heaven all in one. When he pulled away he didn’t see anger or broken promises. He saw starlight.
Emma pulled her feet out of the water. She straddled his thighs, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him back.
“I think you better stop now, darlin’, if you want me to abide by that agreement.”
“I think I better not.”
She pushed him backward on the springy grass, sitting on top of him, kissing him again, but only with her eyes.
In his lifetime he’d never imagined a kiss like that. Yes, he felt it on his lips, his face, his neck and lower, but more than that he felt it in his soul. She’d seen into every dark corner, turned over every secret and wanted him, anyway.
And she did want him, even if she didn’t want to. But enough to leave her dreams behind?
Before he thought any further on that, she started to unbutton his shirt. She slid it off his shoulders, so he eased it off his arms.
Even still, she kissed with her eyes, watching his chest while he tried to breathe. At last she looked away and stared at the sky.
She hadn’t touched him, but he’d been laid claim to. From this night on there would be no other woman for him. It didn’t matter where he was or where she was—there would be only Emma.
The night was peaceful in the way that only crickets and frogs could make it. A splash of water or the wind in the grass only made the land more tranquil.
After a long moment Emma sighed and looked down. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a face as beautiful. And her hands, worn with work and caring for others, snatched his soul when they began to pop open the tiny buttons on the front of her shirt.
With the buttons open she slipped the garment off. She untied a ribbon on her shift. There was a whisper of cloth on flesh when she took that off, too. She wriggled out of the dress and tossed it aside.
There she sat on top of him naked to the night breeze. Moonlight did what he didn’t dare. It caressed her breasts with soft light and sparkled over her nipples, touching them, pebbling them.
His fingers hurt, his jaw ached. Then she reached between her thighs and opened the buttons of his pants. She tugged, so he lifted his hips.
“Seduce me, Matt,” she whispered, and trailed one finger down his chest.
“You know I can’t do that.” But he did touch her. With both his hands. Her heart beat triple time under his fingers.
“I was angry when I made you promise that. We don’t have much time left.” She rubbed her fingertips in a circle around his nipples, so he did the same to her.
She moaned something, maybe his name. “Please, be my husband for a little while.”
“I can’t, not for a little while. It’s got to be for good.”
“I can’t give you for good, Matt. You can’t give it to me, either.”
Matt put his arms about her and rolled, setting her beside him then drawing them both down, side by side in the grass.
He leaned up on his elbow. Moonlight kissed Emma. It twinkled her cheeks, laughed along her neck, then stroked shimmers across her chest and ribs. It pooled in the hollow between her hips, then fingered down to tease her mound of woman’s hair. It adored her like the luckiest of lovers. He wished life would allow him to do the same.
“What if I stayed?”
“Don’t tease me.”
“If I told you I would, we’d have a big whoop-de-do over it and ruin this.” He gestured toward the water, the sky and their naked bodies.
She scrunched up on her shou
lder, looking at him, eye to eye. “We would. If you said those words, our fight would wake the children who are likely tucked in bed at the party by now.”
“If I asked you to come to California?”
“That would wake the folks in Dodge.” She stroked his hair, his cheek with the back of her hand. “If I asked you to make love to me, just forget about what’s coming, what then?”
“Could you be so cruel, darlin’? To take my heart, then toss it back to me when I’m leaving?” Lord, he hadn’t wanted her to well up. A fight might have been better. He dashed the moisture off her cheek. “Looks like we’re at an impasse. You can’t go my way and I can’t go yours.”
“We have tonight. Let’s call a truce. Just this once, we put it all aside. What if we lie here until morning with nothing between us but moonlight.”
“I suppose we can have that fight tomorrow.”
She lay back on the grass. He did the same. Emma reached for his hand at the same instant he reached for hers.
* * *
Back home an hour before dawn and still in her party dress, Emma stood in her kitchen. Set out on the table, slowly plumping in the lamplight, were six loaves of rising dough. She gave each one a punch in the center and watched while the warm dough folded in on itself.
Was she cruel? Maybe even selfish? If she looked at things through Matt’s eyes, maybe.
It had been a relief last night to be able to set things aside for a while, but now a new day was about to come up with the sun and problems had to be faced.
From the kitchen window she saw the dugout door open. Matt stepped out carrying a lantern in his fist with a shirt draped over his elbow.
The lantern swung with his stride, setting a circle of light swaying over the ground from the dugout to the pump in the yard.
Cruel was having to watch the man she could nearly taste on her tongue splashing water over his bare chest.
Cruel was watching him dip his hand into the bucket he had hauled up, with chest muscles pulling and stretching in the glow of the lamp. It was watching while he dumped water over his head, then shook his shoulder-kissing hair into the still inky dawn.