was a wife to do for him. He figured he’d get for free what others had paid me for. Just in time, I got Mrs. Harkins’s letter and knew I had another choice.”
Hoofbeats pounded the earth. Matt stood and peered through the brush. Hell, if it didn’t look like the boys coming on fast, and there was Lucy, her blond curls bouncing like springs, riding in the saddle in front of Jesse.
He sure wouldn’t be able to explain their existence to Emma gently now.
“Company’s coming,” he announced.
“Blast!” Emma jumped up beside him to peer through the brush. “My first guests and I’m half naked!”
Emma plucked her calico dress from its resting place on a bush and wriggled it over her head. In her haste she had some trouble with the buttons, so he helped, starting with the ones just over her breasts.
“You 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