Renegade Most Wanted. Carol Arens

seem to have some experience with buttons, Matt.”

      Just when the last little button slipped into place the visitors reined in before the dugout. Matt took his wife by the elbow and led her out into the open.

      With Jesse’s help, Lucy slid off the horse.

      “Papa!” She ran to him as fast as her four-year-old legs could go. “Papa!”

      Matt squatted low and opened his arms to the little girl. He scooped her up and swung her in a circle. Emma’s mind reeled.

      The girl had called Matt Papa … twice. Her small hands hugged his neck while she smacked kisses all over his beard-shadowed face.

      What had she gotten herself into?

      The three men who had ridden in with the little girl dismounted their horses, grinning as wide as faces would allow.

      “Good to see you again, ma’am.” This was the redheaded boy from the land office. He took off his hat and covered his heart with it. “I’m Red, Texas Red.”

      “Mrs. Suede.” A man about Matt’s age with a heavy black mustache and curly hair to match extended his gloved hand in greeting. Warm leather folded over Emma’s fingers. “Name’s Cousin Billy.”

      “Pleased to meet you,” Emma murmured to be polite, but “astounded” would be a more honest thing to say.

      Who were these men and why did they feel a need to show up at her doorstep, or what would be her doorstep, an hour after sunup? Surely it didn’t take three men to deliver one little girl.

      “Congratulations, ma’am.” Emma recognized the third man, grinning and slapping his thigh with his hat, as Jesse, the owner of the livery in Dodge.

      “Papa.” The little girl’s voice grew suddenly shy. She tucked her blond curly head under Matt’s chin and peered at Emma with shining blue eyes. “Is that my new ma?”

      Matt’s mouth tugged down at the corners. He looked tense.

      “Lucy, baby, we talked about your ma, remember?” He rocked her while he spoke in a voice so soothing it made Emma wonder what it would be like to be held up in those big strong arms, safe from all the troubles going on down below.

      Lucy nodded her head.

      “Your mama loved you so much. I recall how she held you close and kissed your little bald head on the day you were born. The last thing she said before the angels came to take her was that we should call you Lucy.” Lucy stuck her thumb in her mouth and began to suck. While Matt spoke, she gazed at Emma with wide eyes, her expression a mixture of hope and doubt. “Your mama sees you every day from heaven.”

      Lucy glanced up at her father. She plucked her thumb from her mouth.

      “But I don’t see her. I want a mama that I can see. I want that lady to be my mama.”

      “Darlin’, you can’t just pick out a ma like you pick out candy in the mercantile.”

      “Silly Papa, I know that. Red said since you married that lady, she’s my ma.”

      “For now, let’s just call her Emma.”

      Lucy frowned, then wiggled down out of her father’s arms. She looked up at Emma.

      “Mama, can I go to the creek and look for frogs?”

      “Don’t go into the water and stay away from the horses,” she said without thinking. How many times had she given such an answer to a child? “And stay out in the open where we can see you.”

      “You’d make a fine mother if you had a mind to do it.” Matt had stepped close, whispering while she watched Lucy skip toward the creek.

      “Well, I don’t have a mind to.” She grabbed her drying hair and twisted it in a bun at her neck. “I’ve done all the raising of children that I intend to do.”

      “Excuse me, Mrs. Suede.” Cousin Billy’s boots crunched across the dirt. He stood before her twisting his hat in his leather gloves. Red and Jesse peeked out from behind his tall, broad back. “The boys and I wonder if we’ve come too late and missed breakfast.”

      “Breakfast!” Why, her life hadn’t changed a bit! Now it was worse. Strangers wanted to be fed instead of employers.

      “Whoa there, boys.” Only a blind man would miss the red-hot temper flaring in her cheeks. Matt grimaced. “Take a look around and tell me where you’d expect my wife to fix you a meal. There’s nothing here but a flea-bitten dugout.”

      Matt stepped between her and the three offended-looking men, and just in time. If they’d stood there a second longer, gaping at her as though she’d betrayed her womanly calling, she’d have done something regrettable.

      With an arm slung about Red’s shoulders Matt pointed the half-famished trio toward the creek.

      “Just because Emma married me doesn’t oblige her to keep your bellies filled. There’s coffee down by the creek. After you’ve had your fill, get the horses hitched up for the trip back to town.”

      Relief kicked the breath back into her lungs. Her heart slid out of her throat and back into her bosom. For one heart-fluttering moment she had feared that these men intended to stay. As soon as they unloaded the goods remaining in her wagon, it would be just Emma and Pearl.

      Down by the creek Emma heard Lucy’s laughter. Red hopped about in the water, apparently hot on the trail of the little girl’s frog.

      “He’s a fat one!” Emma heard Red call out.

      She watched Lucy hop up and down, clapping her hands in delight. If the men hadn’t eaten before they rode out this morning, odds were that they hadn’t thought to feed Lucy, either.

      She could certainly spare a can of peaches and some crackers for the child. A bite or two for Texas Red wouldn’t be out of line, since he wasn’t yet fully a man.

      The others didn’t deserve anything, since grown men should have thought to tend to their own needs. All except Matt, who hadn’t had time for even a bite since they’d left Dodge last night.

      “Oh, drat!” If she was going to feed some, she had to feed all. This hungry gang would use up a fair portion of her supplies. She’d have to go back to town to make up for it, but she needed a new front door before nightfall, anyway.

      “Matt!” Emma picked up the hem of her skirt and hurried after him as he strode toward the creek. “Tell your friends I’ll cook them breakfast, but just this once.”

      The breakfast that Emma had rustled up was as good as Matt had ever tasted, but it hit his stomach uneasily.

      From a quarter mile across the blowing grass, he watched Emma astride her blind horse. She rode about gazing at land that looked pretty much the same one direction as another.

      She would be saying goodbye to it and the dream that had brought her so many miles from home. Matt knew about giving up land that lay so deep in the soul that the tramp of the beeves’ hooves upon the soil felt like a heartbeat.

      “Papa, can I keep Mr. Hoppety?”

      Matt snapped his gaze back to his circle of family seated on the ground, absorbed in Emma’s fine vittles. He swallowed his melancholy and smiled at his daughter.

      “Mr. Hoppety wouldn’t take to town living. Frogs need to be near the creek.”

      Lucy climbed onto his lap and opened her palms, revealing the frog. “But I’d take some creek water along.”

      “Some things can’t take to a new home, darlin’. Hoppety would be one of them.” He thought of his mother—she had been another. “You take him on back to the creek, now. We’ve got to load things up and get back to town.”

      “I’ll come and visit you some day,” Lucy crooned into the frog’s ear. She sighed, deep and resigned,