Renegade Most Wanted. Carol Arens

just to be forced to take another position and never see them again.

      From now on it was just Emma, free to come and go, free to sit or stand, with nobody wanting a thing from her.

      Emma watched the rectangle of light grow dark when Jesse closed the barn door. She turned about and walked with open arms toward her horse.

      “Well, Pearl, old girl.” Pearl wasn’t really old, but she was blind and tended to move with caution, which gave her an aged look. Emma stroked the velvety nose that nudged her ribs in welcome. “I missed you, too. There’s just a little chance that you’ll have to spend the night at the livery one more time. Seems like the men here are a bit skittish when it comes to matrimony. It’s not at all like everyone back in Indiana says.”

      No indeed, it was so much more complicated getting a husband. She had expected to simply file on the land that Edna Harkins had written her about and gone to live on a piece of earth that would be her own.

      She hadn’t figured on the trials of having to get a man. Well, that was just one more complication of having been an orphan. Being left on the steps of a church as a newborn had made her who she was, for good and for ill.

      Emma rubbed Pearl behind one ear, then patted the white diamond on the chestnut head before she went to the corner of the livery where her rented wagon stood ready and waiting to make the trip to her homestead.

      “Don’t you worry, Pearl, we’ll go home soon,” Emma called out to the horse while she lifted the flap covering the goods necessary to set up housekeeping. She had passed the morning at various shops in Dodge using an uncomfortable portion of her savings, but she had spent wisely and had the funds to get started and then some.

      Emma touched the bag of money tied about her waist. It couldn’t be seen beneath her skirt, but when she walked, it hit her thigh with a reassuring slap.

      Very soon, life would be grander than she could have ever imagined. Those days of caring for everyone but herself were at an end. Poor orphan Emma, whom everyone pitied enough to take into their home in exchange for working her youth away, was about to become queen of her world.

      “This time tomorrow, Pearl, you’ll be grazing on land so nice and flat and big that you can wander about all day and never leave home.”

      Poor blind Pearl—Emma hoped that the horse would enjoy the freedom of the open country. Years ago an employer had given her the horse as a parting gift when he had decided to move his family to the East Coast. Families came and went, but Pearl was her own.

      With a sigh, she put away misty memories of children that were not her own and trees that grew tall without her.

      The troublesome search for a husband had done her in. Surely she would have better luck after she was fresh and rested. Just behind her rented wagon was a clean heap of straw that would do for a short nap. She lay down on it, spread her arms wide and watched dust specks play tag in a beam of light.

      Wasn’t this fine? To simply lie back without an employer needing this or that seemed the life of luxury.

      Just as soon as she borrowed a man, life would be cherries and cream.

      Emma came awake to the urgent whispers of two men behind the livery. As the pleasant fuzziness of her nap cleared from her mind, she recognized one voice as that of Jesse Adams.

      She sat up, then heard running bootsteps pounding outside, following the sidewall of the livery. They made a skidding turn, then dashed inside.

      The wagon, loaded with her supplies, prevented her from seeing who the running boots belonged to, but she heard the quick rush of a man’s winded breathing.

      His feet shuffled in the dirt and then three white stockings came flying over the wagon. They whooshed past her face and drifted down onto her straw bed.

      She snatched them up. The livery filled with shouting male voices, one deep voice barking out over the rest for order.

      “Look what we’ve got here, boys,” the deep voice said. Emma scrunched low on her bed of straw, lying flat on her belly to peer through the spokes of the wagon wheels.

      One pair of motionless boots faced half a dozen pair that shuffled up dust on the livery floor.

      With seven men in the livery, odds were fair that at least one of them was a single man.

      “Afternoon, Marshal Deeds,” said the owner of the pair of boots facing the others.

      “Afternoon, Suede. You happen to see a ghost run in here?” Deep guffaws followed the marshal’s question.

      A ghost? Emma opened the stockings wadded up in her fists. Yes, indeed, a ghost. Her fingers popped right through the cut-out eyeholes of one of the scraps.

      “You been drinking on the job, Marshal?”

      “Mighty funny, Matt, that The Ghost comes flying into the livery and here you happen to be, all alone.” This voice came from the back of the gathering of boots.

      Lands! That handsome Mr. Suede who had sent her drunk prospect packing was a bank robber? He’d seemed such a decent sort. Perhaps there was some personal grudge between Mr. Pendragon and … The Ghost, since the dandy was the only one who got robbed.

      “It’s no crime to be in the livery.”

      “Give it up, Suede. Everyone here saw you run inside.”

      The boots belonging to the marshal took a step forward. Matt Suede’s boots didn’t move a piece of grit out of place.

      “I’m going to have to arrest you, Suede.”

      “Pendragon’s going to see that you hang,” the owner of a pair of boots with a rip in one toe said. “You might have ate your last meal and not even known it.”

      Mercy! Just when things seemed darkest, life always seemed to take a bright turn.

      Emma opened the first button of her bodice, glanced down to judge the effect, then opened three more. For good measure she stuffed in a hank of straw. Hopefully her eyes still had a sleepy, languid look from her nap. A few more pieces of straw would be just the thing. She snatched them up, poked them into her hair, then mussed the whole thing with her fingertips.

      She wadded up the stocking scraps and slowly, silently shoved them deep into the straw.

      “Matt? Honey …” Emma stood up from the straw bed stretching and yawning like a cat full of cream. “Come on back here—you can check on poor blind Pearl later.”

      Matt Suede turned in a slow pivot. His manly jaw fell open. Earth-colored brows shot up over golden-brown eyes gone wide with surprise. Gradually his mouth closed, his grin stretched wide. Wrinkles creased the corners of eyes that seemed to be laughing in relief and mischief. Mostly mischief.

      Emma stepped out from behind the wagon looking down and pretending to struggle with the buttons of her gown as though she hadn’t noticed the men gawking at her.

      “Button these back up for me, will you?” Did her hips sashay the right way? Appearing scandalous had never been among her best skills. “You’re so much better at it than I—”

      Emma looked up, gasped and covered her half-naked breasts with the splayed fingers of one hand.

      “Lands! Matt, honey, who are these men?”

      “The marshal.” Matt Suede gripped her shoulders with firm, calloused hands. He inclined his head toward the body of men. “And his friends.”

      Matt stared down at her gaping bodice, then looked into her eyes. His brows rose in an expression that she could see, but not the men standing behind him. Clearly, he was seeking permission to complete the intimate task. With an infinite dip of her head she answered him. Yes.

      “Don’t you gentlemen know not to intrude on a private moment?” She tried to use a scolding voice, but Matt’s rough-skinned knuckles brushed her chest when he slid a button home. Her voice sounded husky instead of incensed.