“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, but turned and with slow steps walked toward the creek.
“Speaking of keeping things,” Billy said, wiping a crumb from his mustache, “what are you going to do with a wife?”
Last night in the dark he’d had an idea of what to do with her, but now, in the practical light of day, he wasn’t so sure.
He’d made a vow to protect her, but a nagging voice deep in his gut warned him that his bride didn’t want protecting.