If she took each stitch of Lucy’s dress nice and slowly she would have time to dream about what it would be like if he came to her in the night.
Precious time, but dangerous.
Each moment that Matt delayed his departure brought Hawker closer. And delay was far too easy.
It had been his idea, a week back with Lucy sitting on his lap, rocking beside the fireplace while Emma mended his shirt, that she should sew the child a new dress before the trip to San Francisco.
She’d been to town since then, twice, and each time she’d “forgotten” to purchase the fabric for the dress. Maybe it was because the sewing of that dress was the last promise to be kept. It was the only thing holding Matt here.
What foolishness. They both knew the dress was an excuse. She was the one holding Matt here. She and the home they were building…together.
She could see him now far in the distance, clearing the firebreak with Billy.
Emma closed her eyes and tried to picture a new house in San Francisco. She had never lived in a big city; neither had Matt. Maybe she ought to consider it. If she agreed to go, they might all be safe…and homesick.
More foolishness! Her roots were here, deep in her own soil.
Fanciful feelings aside, she wanted him to go…truly. It had been her plan all along—they’d agreed to it.
With half a breath of encouragement, and a kiss for luck, Matt would stay and take his chances with Hawker. He’d made that clear on the night of the party, but she would end up as dead as Matt with the guilt of his murder on her heart.
Emma brought the bucket back for Lucy to fill again.
“After the noon meal tomorrow, I’ll go find you some blue apple fabric.”
This would be the quickest dress she’d ever made. The times were precious and dangerous—she couldn’t do a thing to change that. But she wouldn’t make them selfish times.
To keep Matt from staying beyond what was safe she’d sew until her fingers grew raw.
Chapter Ten
Emma glanced up from a blue-checkered bolt of fabric to see the young shopkeeper at Rath and Wright’s staring at her.
His gaze slid away as though he had caught her doing something embarrassing.
She would have liked to think that his behavior was odd, but no less than six others had given her the same look. From Lulu Frolic hanging feather-clad over the balcony of Mollie’s Palace to the prim Harold Goodhew herding his group of students up the schoolhouse steps, those half-lidded glances had been the same.
Had some scorching rumor been started over Woody Vance’s attention toward her? In a town like Dodge where life was lived to its most colorful, a common flirtation hardly seemed remarkable.
Emma gave her full attention to the display of cotton fabric set before her. As she had suspected, there was not a combination of blue and apples. The blue check would be sweet, though, and she could embroider the apples around the collar.
Emma carried the blue-checkered bolt to the counter. She’d buy plenty so that Lucy could grow a bit in it.
“I’d like a package of that red embroidery thread behind the counter, too.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The clerk cut the fabric, folded it in a neat bundle, then placed the red thread on top.
During the transaction he’d gone from staring at his hands to watching out the window as though a new customer were about to come through the door with a wheelbarrow full of money to spend.
Strange that he seemed to look everywhere but in her eyes.
“You have a fine day, Efran,” she said, turning toward the door.
“Yes, ma’am…you, too, Mrs. Suede.”
The young clerk was certainly fidgety about something, but chances were it had nothing to do with her. She’d never been the kind of person to draw much attention and very likely those odd glances were just that…odd.
Outside on the boardwalk, the wind picked up her skirts and snapped them against her calves. A horse tethered at the hitching post sneezed at the dust stirred up from the street. It shook its mane and pawed the ground.
Apparently the animal didn’t like the low moan of the wind racing around the eaves of the porch. The poor beast seemed as tense as the store clerk.
It was certainly an odd day in Dodge. Thank goodness Pearl was boarded at Jesse’s livery for the afternoon where she wouldn’t pick up on the feeling that something was not quite