Em walked up behind him, not sure what to say. She didn’t want him to get hurt, but someone had to go in, and he did seem the only logical one.
He handed her the bags. “I’ll leave my other clothes here along with everything else. Watch out to pack my other boots if you move camp. I kind of got used to those riding boots.” He brushed her arm. “If something happens and I don’t come back, there’s enough money hidden in these bags to bribe a guard or maybe even win the auction if it comes to that. Use it however it’s needed.”
“Lewt, you don’t have to do this. You hardly know Duncan, and I’m not sure you can pull off being a gambler.” She’d worried about him every day this week, and now he thought he could handle an outlaw camp all by himself.
“Oh, believe me.” Wyatt laughed. “He can pull it off.”
Lewt stared into Em’s eyes. “I’ve stepped into worse places than this one to gamble the night away.”
Sumner talked with Wyatt as they moved away from Em and Lewt. She had no idea if they did it to offer them privacy or just so they could continue talking about alternate plans.
Lewt stood for a moment, watching Em as though he were trying to remember every detail of her face. “Duncan and I have been best friends for years,” he said, low enough that the men couldn’t hear. “I owe him my life many times over, but it was my idea to go meet his cousins, not his. I had this wild idea that I needed a rich wife, but lately, I’ve reconsidered. Marriage isn’t for men like me. I’ve never had anyone to worry about me, and I don’t want you worrying tonight. If something does happen to me, forget you ever knew me and go on with your life, Em.”
She straightened, trying to harden, but for some reason it wasn’t working tonight. “I won’t. If you seem determined to go in alone and get yourself killed, I won’t try to stop you, but I will not forget you.”
“Good,” he said. “Any chance you’d kiss me good-bye?”
She shook her head. There were too many things about him that didn’t add up. The man she thought she knew was changing before her eyes.
“How about when I get back?” he teased, as if he were only taking a ride and not probably going to his death.
“If you get back,” she whispered.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll think about that kiss, then. It’ll help keep me awake tonight. I might surprise you and live just to come back to you, but if I do, I expect one long kiss.”
He swung onto his horse and was gone before she could answer.
She watched him ride, realizing he’d made her smile when only a moment before she’d been about to lose her hard shell and cry.
Sumner walked toward her. “You really should have kissed the fool, Miss Em.”
“Maybe I will when he gets back.”
Wyatt laughed. “After we save Duncan, he’s going to kill that gambler, so it will be too late for kissing then.”
Both turned to the ranger and said “Why?” at the same time.
“Because,” Wyatt answered. “Lewt Paterson done stole one of Duncan’s lady cousins’ hearts. I was standing not five feet from Duncan the night we rode out with Captain McNelly. He told Lewt his dad and uncles would shoot him double dead if he sent a gambler to court the girls.”
Em was tired, but her mind began to put the pieces that had never made sense together. Lewt hadn’t come from a rich mole family who stayed at home and counted their money. He stayed so pale because he’d been playing cards all night and sleeping all day. Of course he’d have skills with a knife; he probably fought in fights all the time in saloons. And last, what would he say to the women he met? He’d say, How much do you charge by the hour? No rich family. No fine education. For all she knew he’d been born in a saloon and cut his teeth on shot glasses.
Em grinned as the three of them huddled around the small fire. When all this was over, she planned to kill him herself. All through the meal of beans and crackers, she thought of ways Lewt Paterson would die, and then, when she curled up in her bedroll, she remembered one fact she’d