that looped alongside her cheek and drew it around his finger. She had the look of a petal blowing in the wind, but apparently she was as wily as any cowboy in Dodge. “You’re some kind of a woman.”
* * *
Emma stared after Matt while he strode toward E. C. Zimmerman’s to order the lumber and other supplies they would need to begin building her house. Had she been insulted or praised?
It was hard to tell by the question in his gaze while he stood in front of the mercantile touching her hair as if it was something special. A grin—or a smirk—had flashed across his mouth, but his eyes had sparked with admiration. If she wasn’t mistaken, silent laughter cramped his lungs.
Imagine calling pure Orange Lilly snake oil! Why, in a week or so ladies all over town would be free of the female humors plaguing them. At two dollars per humor, well, she’d just see what Matt Suede would call it then.
“Come along, Lucy. There’s nothing sweeter for ladies young and old than an afternoon respite.”
Hopefully the child would take a nap. That would give Emma an hour or so before dinner to review the list of supplies she’d need to provide for the extra people she would be caring for.
Lucy slipped her hand into Emma’s. Having just turned four years old, she still had plump baby fingers. That was one of the things Emma liked about four-year-olds. While they’d grown out of needing constant attention, the blush of babyhood still lingered about them.
The boardinghouse was still three blocks away when Lucy’s steps began to drag.
“I’m tired.” She rubbed one curled fist over her eye and yawned. A sticky smear of peppermint stick glittered on her lips and fingertips. “Would you carry me, Mama?”
Emma stooped and picked her up. She settled her on her hip. She’d done this so many times with other children that she was sure the curve of her hip had become a chair.
Lucy snuggled her head on Emma’s shoulder. The scent of sugar and peppermint made her anxious for the nice dinner at Del Monico’s that Matt had promised.
“Lucy, I think you’re one of the nicest little girls I’ve ever met, but I’m not really your mama. You and your papa will be moving back to town when summer’s over and I think you should remember that I’m only Emma.”
The rhythmic sucking on the peppermint stick slowed, then stopped altogether. A sticky hand dropped from Emma’s neck to her waist.
Emma took the candy from the relaxing fist. She held it in the same grip as the parasol and adjusted the angle so that the shade covered the sleeping child.
“I suppose that’s a talk we’ll have later.” Unless she could get Matt to do it.
When she turned off Front Street to make her way up the hill to Mrs. Conner’s place, a shadow fell across the boardwalk. Cigarette smoke snaked through the air an instant before a man stepped out in front of her.
Emma tried to walk around him, but he countered and blocked her way.
“Madame.” The greeting blew out of the man’s mouth along with a whirl of smoke. “Might I congratulate you on your marriage?”
He might, but she’d rather he didn’t. Any dot of respect she might have held for Lawrence Pendragon had died when she’d learned of his indifference to Lucy.
“Thank you.”
Once again she tried to step around him, but he flicked his smoldering cigarette in her path, then stuck out a shiny black shoe to grind it out.
“The word about town is that you’ve turned a pair of my best cowboys into homesteaders.”
Emma shifted Lucy’s weight on her hip and wished that she’d dropped the candy a block back. A woman’s full sway was diminished by peppermint dripping down her wrist. “I’d be obliged if you’d let me pass, Mr. Pendragon.”
“I’m delighted that you know my name.” That blamed shiny shoe continued to take up the sidewalk. Sunlight spit bullets of glare off it as if it was some kind of weapon. “We didn’t properly meet outside the land office yesterday.”
That’s because he’d paid her no more mind than a fly buzzing in the shade. Did he even know that the child asleep on her hip was the baby of the man who had saved his own daughter’s life?
“This little girl is getting mighty heavy. Would you mind stepping aside?”
“I beg your pardon.” The shoe ground once more at the cigarette but didn’t move a hen’s feather out of the way.