slid a button home. Her voice sounded husky instead of incensed.
“They say they saw The Ghost fly into the barn,” Matt said. Emma took a shaking breath and wished he would hurry with those buttons. She couldn’t take her gaze off those brown, weathered fingers lingering on her flesh. Lands, the blush flooded her skin in heat waves. “They figure that since I’m the only man in here, I must be The Ghost.”
“What foolishness,” Emma declared, and straightened the collar of her now demurely buttoned gown. “I believe that if Matt were a spirit, I would have noticed some moments back.” She inclined her head toward the rumpled pile of hay behind the wagon and plucked a blade of straw from her hair. “I’m quite sure this man is flesh and blood.”
Evidently her declaration of his humanity pleased him, for a grin shot over his lightly bristled jaw. He swatted a hank of golden-brown hair back from his face and slipped his arm around her waist.
He seemed awfully relaxed. His arm made itself at home, snuggling against her back while his fingers stroked her ribs, petting as though they had done it a thousand times before.
Emma flashed Matt Suede what she hoped was a seductive smile. She leaned into his hug and became distracted by the playful dusting of freckles frolicking over his nose and across his cheeks.
Matt bent his head, whispering in for a kiss.
Emma pressed two fingers to his lips, preventing what promised to be a fascinating experience.
“Matt, honey, you did promise me a proper wedding. I don’t think we should keep the preacher waiting.”
Matt’s arm stiffened, his fingers cramped about her middle. There was a very good chance that he had quit breathing.
The marshal let out a deep-bellied laugh that startled poor Pearl and made her whinny. “Looks like you been caught after all, Suede.”
“If you ain’t The Ghost, you can’t deny being the groom,” someone snickered.
“Since you don’t see a spook standing here, I believe you’re looking at the groom.” Matt Suede’s voice croaked on the word groom.
“The problem is, I don’t recall you having a steady girl, Suede,” the marshal said. “Just to be sure you and the lady here aren’t in cahoots, I think the boys and I will just go along to witness those holy vows.”
A man slapped his thigh and let out a roaring hoot. “Singing Trigger Suede goes through with this marriage and we’ll know he’s telling the truth.”
“You’ve got the wrong bank robber, boys. The next hour will see me hitched and tied.”
Matt bent his mouth close to her ear. His breath warmed her cheek.
“You sure you want to do this, ma’am?” he whispered. The men standing nearby wouldn’t hear him, since they stood close to the barn door and the traffic traveling down Front Street drowned his words to anyone but her. “I’m better than that old drunk, but only a little.”
Chapter Two
It’s not that Matt had anything against married men. In fact, he judged that, largely, they were the lucky ones. He’d just never figured to be one of them. Not every man could live up to the responsibility.
He glanced down at the small gloved hand nestling in the crook of his elbow. The woman had saved him from the hangman’s noose. He guessed he owed her for that and would have to go along with what she was up to, for now.
Even if he didn’t owe her, when the choice was hang or wed, what was a neck-loving man to do?
It hadn’t taken more than a couple of minutes for the marshal and his cohorts to hunt up Mrs. Sizeloff, a lay preacher who had just come down the bank steps. The marshal and five hooting witnesses demanded her immediate services as reverend. Since lay ministers were allowed to perform churchly duties, she had been whisked away to make sure he was wed.
It felt like a lynching more than a wedding, but the lady beside him didn’t flinch. In fact, her smile looked brighter than the sun riding big and low in the western sky.
Now here they were, if not dearly beloved, at least gathered together in the land office. He’d gallantly pointed out that there was a church at the edge of town, but his bride had muttered something odd that sounded like the land office was getting ready to close.
In under a quarter of an hour his whole life had upended. Already the preacher was winding up to the big “I do.”