Emma's Blaze (Fires of Cricket Bend Book 2)

by Piper, Marie

  As she chopped the apples, she knew Andrew was lingering near. And it was needling her. Ever since the evening she’d beat him at cards, he’d kept an eye on her. The attention was not welcome. As she worked on the pies, she felt him watching.

  “You make a lot of pies?” he finally asked, standing over her while she knelt.

  “I’ve made a few in my time.”

  “My ma puts cinnamon in her apple pies.”

  “Well, your ma is also likely cooking in a real kitchen and not on a fire in the middle of nowhere,” Emma snapped. “Besides, there’s no cinnamon.”

  “Too bad,” he replied.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  He stayed where he stood, too close for her comfort.

  No one else was close by. Fed up, Emma slammed down her pan. “Say what you came to say.” She sighed impatiently and turned to look up at him. “I’ve got pies to make and work to do, not that you’d know anything about that. I don’t have time to wait for you to play your hand.”

  He smiled at her frustration. Emma could have kicked herself. She’d given him something to work with.

  “There’s somethin’ you’re not telling us.” Andrew peered at her. “I’m no angel, granted, but I won’t stand for any of my brothers being hurt—least of all, Bill. He’s the best of us. You pulling one over on him?”

  “Bill is a grown man. I’m sure he doesn’t need his little brother’s protection.” Though she knew it was rude, she made sure to put extra emphasis on the word little.

  “Don’t call me that. Maybe he’s blinded to what’s happening right in front of him.”

  “And what is that, exactly?”

  Andrew crouched down, speaking over her shoulder as she finished making the first pie.

  “You’re keeping something from him, from all of us. See, there’s two kinds of people in this world. Those who see people and go for the good in them, and then there’s those who look first for the bad. Bill wants to see the good in you. Far as he can see, you just about make the sun shine.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m waiting on the storm.” Andrew reached around her and took the knife from her hand. Emma scooted a little away from him, readying to run if need be. Rather than move to hurt her, Andrew simply took a piece of leather from the pocket of his coat and ran the knife’s blade back and forth over it a bunch of times. He didn’t say a word, and neither did Emma. She understood the threat, and its implication.

  Once the knife was sharpened, he held it out, blade first, for her to take. “Here you go.”

  Emma took back her knife. He didn’t let go. “I hope its sharp enough, Emma.”

  At the sound of her name, she stopped.

  “Bill told you my name?”

  “No.” Andrew released the knife and stood up. “I have something of yours.”

  If Bill hadn’t told him, then he’d gotten a hold of her journal. She’d wrapped it tight in her bedroll each morning, thinking no one would ever go looking there for anything. But Andrew apparently had.

  Emma kept a brave face. “Seems like you’re on to me, little brother.”

  He took one step forward, and she saw his eyes fix on her. The knife was still in her hand as he towered over where she sat on the ground. She gripped the handle tighter. If he made her, she’d use the knife and defend herself. “I told you, don’t call me that.”

  Riders were coming in from the horizon. Emma knew Bill would be with them. Andrew noticed them as well. “I wonder what Bill would say if he knew some of the things I know about you,” he whispered as she watched the riders approach.

  Andrew knew all the things she hadn’t confessed to Bill. Things that, if not told in the right way, would likely make her cowboy shut her out of his heart forever. Her past, her story, the reasons for her being there at that moment—Andrew had the information Emma didn’t want anyone else to know about.

  She turned her attention back to the pies she was making. “If you want to talk, meet me after everyone’s asleep. You’re on watch, I presume.”

  “The two o’clock watch.”

  “I’ll find you as soon as I’m able.”

  Andrew’s eyes twinkled. “I’m sure we can come up with an arrangement.”

  Making a deal with a devil wasn’t new to Emma, but this one made her stomach turn. She went back to work on the lattice of the pies. When she next looked up, Andrew had slipped away like a ghost into the thickening darkness.

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  Bill came into view. As he strode her way, his grin grew bigger. Emma wondered if, when he came to her that night, it would be the last time she’d ever touch him. If she didn’t deal with Andrew, he’d start trouble that would shatter the beautiful thing she and Bill shared.

  It had been just like a dream.

  Perhaps that’s all it could be. Perhaps, in years to come, she’d look back on this time and the drive as nothing more than a beautiful dream.

  The idea made her throat tighten as Bill walked up to where she sat.

  There was no way to keep him, but she couldn’t lose him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Bill

  Emma’s kisses that night felt tense. As soon as they’d snuck away from the others, she’d melted into his arms. Yet as they’d progressed toward lovemaking, he could tell something had changed. Something was different. It was obvious her thoughts were elsewhere.

  “What’s wrong?” He dragged his lips against the soft part of her ear.

  Emma bent her head, giving him all of her neck for teasing. “Nothing.”

  Bill pulled back just enough so their foreheads touched. “Tell me.”

  “Don’t you dare stop kissing me.”

  The ferocity of her touches and embrace startled him. She pushed him on his back to the ground and unbuckled his pants with an intense focus, as if she were trying to fight off something—loneliness or heartache, perhaps sadness. Whatever it was, Bill aimed to help her, but she didn’t seem to need much help as she shifted herself onto his body and began to move. He lay back and watched her, the woman with the hair like fire. Soon, she had banished all worries from his mind. All that remained was the fine feeling of Emma loving him. She loved him long and hard and completely and took what she needed from him as well. He didn’t mind one bit.

  Afterward, she was still distant when they lay together. Her elegant body may have been snuggled next to his, but her mind was millions of miles away.

  “Do you want me to go?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered.

  He tried a different tactic. “You see those three stars in a line right there? Those make Orion’s belt. Those stars there, and there, when you put them all together, it makes Orion, the Hunter. Orion told everyone who would listen that he was going to kill all the animals. Then, Gaia, she got mad at him.”

  “Rightfully so,” Emma answered.

  “So she sent a scorpion after him, but it didn’t work.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t recall the rest, to tell you the truth. Mama taught us the stars, but it was a long time ago. Said we could always find our way home if we could find the North Star. She’s the one who named Orion, and most of the other horses. Said they had souls, so they should have names. Your Maggie is named for my grandmother.”

  “Sounds like your mama is quite a woman.”

  “You think my pa is stubborn, you wouldn’t believe her.”

  “Heavens,” Emma replied. “It’s a wonder they don’t kill each other.”

  “Sometimes I wonder. What about your folks?”

  “I never knew my pa,” she said. “I hear tell he was a preacher, of the fire and brimstone kind.”

  “Thought preachers weren’t supposed to marry,” Bill said.

  “Oh, he didn’t marry my mama,” Emma replied. “I’m the middle of three girls, and my mama had her hands full with keeping us fed and the fire lit from sunup to sundown all by herself. She got old long before her time, and taught
me the most important thing I could do was to catch myself a husband before I got old and haggard, when no man would want me.”

  “You disagreed,” Bill said.

  “After I met a few men, I did. The men I’ve known in my life haven’t exactly been what I would call Prince Charming.”

  “What have they been?”

  “Liars, mostly.”

  “In the saloons where you sang?”

  For a long minute, she didn’t answer. “That’s all I did, you know. Sing. I never sold myself. I sang so I wouldn’t have to.”

  “I never thought otherwise.”

  She turned her body to his and nuzzled into his chest. “Tell me more about the stars,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” If she wanted to listen, he could talk all night. “Now, just over from Orion there, that’s Taurus. The bull.”

  “Was he a longhorn?”

  “He was Zeus in disguise, sneaking to see his lover.”

  “How very scandalous.” Emma raised herself up, and ran her fingers over his cheek for a long moment before she dropped her lips to his. Never had Bill been kissed so sweetly in all his years.

  “What was that for?”

  “For everything.”

  “You’re talking like something’s coming to an end,” he said. “Far as I can see, we’re just beginning.”

  Emma’s mouth, so luscious and sweet, met his again. This time, her kisses had purpose. Under the constellations he’d named, and the ones that he hadn’t, they made love again under the cover of the stars.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Emma

  Once Bill lay snoring in the grass, Emma kissed his cheek and felt the prickle of his beard against her chin. Now that the dreaminess of being his lover had passed away and her real problem returned to the forefront of her mind, she had to act.

  Not knowing if she’d ever be able to make her way back to him, she slipped from Bill’s arms and grabbed his shotgun before heading off into the darkness. Alone, the walk in the nighttime grass and deep silence unnerved her. She never liked walking by herself at night. Bad things waited in the night.

  One waited for her right then, in fact.

  Andrew found a place a ways from everyone else, just as she knew he would. Men were fools when it came to the promise of a woman’s touch, and she’d banked on him presuming she’d offer pleasure in exchange for his secrecy. In addition, she’d banked on Bill’s shotgun. She carried it, hoping sincerely she wouldn’t be forced to use it.

  He laughed when she walked into his view with the large gun in her hands. “Why, little Sparrow, you look ready to do battle.”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “That would make me the enemy, I reckon.”

  The cockiness, the arrogance, the ease with a turn of phrase—she knew all of the pieces of his act because she’d seen them before. She’d also seen it done better, more convincingly, and with far more grace. If Andrew thought he could trick her, he’d find himself proven wrong. “I’m not foolish enough to think you’re my friend.”

  “That’s a shame. We could be good friends, I think.” Andrew stood up and walked toward her, his smile never faltering. He was so sure of his own appeal and charms, he never seemed to doubt she’d be a willing partner for the salacious evening he likely had planned. “There’s no need to keep up the act. I know a woman of the world when I see one, and you’re no innocent dove just trying to fly home.”

  She could play along, see what he already knew.

  Give them what they want, sweetness.

  Fluttering her eyes a little, she looked straight at him. “I never said I was innocent. I knew you’d know better. You saw through me the first time we met.”

  He pulled her journal from his pocket. “True. It took me some time to find proof of anything, though.”

  “How did you get hold of it?”

  “You tucked it into your bedroll. That’s where men are forever keeping their secret things, their most precious possessions.”

  “Give it back to me.”

  Andrew flipped the book open to a marked page. “But there’s so much fascinating information inside it, Emma Sue Martin from Virginia.”

  She flinched at the sound of her full name.

  “You’ve traveled extensively, haven’t you? Denver, Wichita, even up to Montana Territory. I bet they get a lot of snow up in those parts. Always wanted to see mountains covered in snow.” Flipping through pages, he stopped and read a passage.

  Dreadful storm. Snowed in three days now.

  “Stop.” Hearing him read her words was too much. She couldn’t bear to see him even hold the book of her life in his horrible hands, much less delve into the contents. “Tell me what you want.”

  He took hold of her chin. They were equal height, and Andrew met her eyes directly. “I see a lot of things my pa and brothers don’t. They’re hard-working men, simple and salt of the earth, but they don’t know the way things really are. People lie, like you’ve been lying.” He let go of her face and slipped a hand around her waist. “I know all about you, Emma. And I think my pa and brothers, especially Bill, would love to know about the things you’ve done. That you’ve conned men out of their money, that you’re wanted for murder, and most especially that you’re a married woman.”

  “Bill knows I was married.”

  “Does he know that you still are?”

  Poker face, Emma. Give them nothing they can use.

  Emma heard the familiar words whispered into her ear, the voice of the trickster who’d saved her life before he left her broke and alone. He’d taught her all sorts of things, and the ability to hide her true emotions had been the lesson she’d used most. Sure, he was a trickster, but the man standing before her was a devil.

  So, she did what she did best. She smiled her prettiest smile. The hours she had spent studying her face in mirrors to learn exactly how to curl her lip or how to flutter her eyelashes just enough to give a man the notion of taking her to his bed had all built to this. “You got me. You win.”

  Andrew smiled, certain he’d made his point and would get what he wanted.

  “Now,” he said, putting a finger to the top button of her shirt. “We’ve a secluded spot here. If you want my silence, you’ll have to earn it. I trust you’re woman of the world enough to take my meaning.”

  Though she’d rather have retched onto his shoes than ever lay with him, Emma nodded and replied shyly, “Of course.”

  He grinned like a fox who had cornered his prey.

  And Emma brought a knee up hard right into his manhood. He grunted and bent over, and she stepped away from him. Lifting the shotgun to her shoulder, she took aim.

  “You arrogant son of a bitch. You think I’ll lie down for you because you threaten me? Bill was right about you. So was Pete. So was everyone. You’re a good-for-nothing who can’t be trusted. I’ve known men like you. Hell, my husband is like you, and he stole all my money and ran off with a whore. So if you thought you were being slick by coming out here, you were dead wrong.” She gave him a good kick in the leg as she finished her words.

  Andrew spoke though gritted teeth. “You gonna shoot me?”

  Emma wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. But she couldn’t. “No. Only because it would kill Bill, and I have no intention of doing that.”

  “Him finding out the truth about you will hurt him more. Might as well go ahead and shoot me and run for it before he finds you. Though he’s so far in love with you, he’ll never stop looking. Your act worked on him like a charm. Go ahead and kill me. It won’t save you.”

  “I am not a killer, and it was not an act.”

  Easily, Emma flipped the shotgun over in her hands and used the butt of the gun to whack him upside the head. Andrew crumpled to the ground.

  Oh, God. Had she killed him?

  Taking two steps forward, she saw he was still breathing. She’d been mad as hell at him, but still she hoped she hadn’t killed him. Looking down
at his prostrate body, she exhaled. He still breathed.

  Damn, but she’d have to run off now in order to avoid messy confrontations. She’d have to leave Bill and the men and the life she’d come to strangely enjoy. It was a hard way of life, and a struggle, but the days she’d spent on the drive had felt like home, and she hadn’t felt that way in a long time. The idea of leaving hurt her deep.

  Still, she saw no other way.

  “I am not a killer,” she repeated to the unconscious man before she bent down to grab the notebook and tuck it into her pocket.

  “Then what the hell are you?”

  Of course Bill was behind her. Of course he’d seen everything.

  “And who the hell are you?”

  Emma let the shotgun fall to the dirt. Her hands went to her mouth to cover her ragged breath. If she turned to see him, she’d see the trouble on his face, the concern and the goodness that radiated from him, and it would be too much. Knowing she’d hurt him, her heart would likely stop if she saw confirmation in his expression.

  “Look at me, Emma.”

  “You were sleeping.”

  “As if I wouldn’t notice you slipping away. What’s this all about?”

  Emma felt herself choking. She tasted the bile that rose in her mouth.

  “Emma, look at me.”

  She shook her head. “I won’t. I want to remember your face before you hated me.”

  “I could never hate you.”

  “I bet you could.” She took a deep breath and did the only thing she could think to do.

  She ran.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bill

  After being surprised at how fast she took off, he gave chase. Emma ran like a spooked filly. Her fear and panic gave her a good head start, but like the first time Bill had chased her, he was faster. Once her ankle gave out and she stumbled, he caught her.

  “What happened?” His words came out too sharply, prompted by the idea that Andrew had hurt her and that’s what had made her lash out and take him down. The thought of someone laying hands on Emma fired him up, and he grabbed her harder than he meant to. She winced, and he eased his grasp. “Are you all right?”