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

by Piper, Marie

  “He didn’t touch me.” She looked at the dirt.

  Something was incredibly, indisputably wrong. Where usually she seemed warm and playful, she now stood coiled like a wound clock spring. Something had changed. A different woman stood before him. He needed to know what had triggered it, and why his brother lay flat on the ground only yards away. The Emma he’d thought he knew couldn’t have done that. Unless the Emma he’d thought he knew wasn’t the real Emma.

  “Talk,” he ordered. “Tell me something true before I imagine the worst, would you?”

  It seemed she could hold back nothing more. The hands she held against his chest clenched into fists. “My name is Emma Porter.”

  Bill’s eyes grew wide as a memory formed from a year earlier, of a man wearing a brocade vest.

  Emma kept talking. “The man who stole my money, the bastard I’m chasing, is my husband.”

  The memory cleared. “Hank Porter.”

  She visibly startled at the name. “You know him?”

  Bill’s world spun. “My brothers nearly burned down his saloon in Cricket Bend last year. Hank, in turn, beat the tar out of Andrew in the middle of that brawl in the street Jess told you about. I paid Hank Porter a good deal of money in reparation for damages before it was over. He’s your husband.”

  Emma nodded.

  “Your husband.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re another man’s wife.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t see fit to tell me this any of the times we’ve been—what we’ve been.”

  Her response was curt. “Lovers, Bill. We’ve been lovers. And I told you I’d been married.”

  “I thought you meant he’d died, or run off from you.”

  “He did run off. Nearly a year ago. It’s a long story.”

  “And you’re going to tell it to me right now.” He stepped forward, jaw set hard. “I don’t like being lied to, or lead along, or fooled with.”

  “Fooling with you was not my intention.”

  “Bull. A married woman—”

  “My marriage is null and void, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Bill ignored her. “Andrew found out. And you dropped him to the ground like a rag doll.”

  “He was sloppy,” Emma cried. “He thought he had me cornered and threatened me. Wanted me to buy his silence in horrible ways. I’d rather kill myself.”

  Bill set his jaw. He could only imagine what Andrew had planned for her to earn his silence.

  “I’ll go.” Emma’s tone softened. “I’ll get my things and—”

  Bill took hold of her arms and made her sit on the ground. “You’re going nowhere. You’re going to sit right there and not get up until you’ve told me every damn part of this story of yours, the good and the bad. I’m done with secrets, Emma. I ought to leave you out here alone. Let the coyotes and Comanche have you. You know that.”

  “I know. Bill, please.”

  “I ain’t gonna do it. But I ought to. Makin’ me care for you and then having to find out you’re lyin’ to me.”

  “I care for you too,” she replied. “I lied to you, but I care for you very much.”

  “You better start telling the truth.” He wiped his brow. “I don’t like being lied to.”

  “I never wanted to lie to you,” she replied. She lifted a hand to touch him, but he took a step back from her. If he felt her touch on his skin, he’d never be able to think clearly. Clear thinking was needed.

  “Start talking,” he said.

  Emma gulped. But she did as he asked.

  “I was born in Virginia, just like I said. My ma didn’t have money, so she sent me out by Denver on a coach when I was eighteen to marry a rich rancher,” she explained. “Angus Keene was his name. She arranged it via post in response to an advertisement seeking a mail order bride. She’d written to him, and then he’d written letters to me. I was a silly girl, a fool. I thought he’d be the stuff of dreams. Once I got to his place, I saw that everything he’d written was all lies. He was nearly sixty, and reeked of whiskey and sweat. He’d lied in his letters, said he was rich and had all this land, but he didn’t. He only had a little field, and terrible soil, and his house was shoddy and sod. He didn’t plan to marry me so much as he wanted a young girl to keep in his bed.”

  Of the stories he’d figured she’d tell, none of them had begun quite that way. “Emma—”

  Rage seething from her eyes, she shook her head. “You wanted to hear this, so you’re gonna hear it. There was no one around for miles, and I’d paid for a horse to ride out to his place to meet him all alone. That first night I got there, he pulled me by the arm into the house and slapped me so hard I fell to the ground and saw stars. And he took down his pants.”

  “You don’t have to do this.” Bill regretted demanding to hear her story.

  Emma’s pretty face lost all expression. “I said no man has ever hurt me. Angus Keene knocked me down, and I picked up a lantern and broke it on his face. A fire started, and it ate him up first. I ran out the door and got on that horse. I rode for days until I was tired and hungry and couldn’t go any farther. I went to the only place I could figure would be safe. It was a run-down saloon. The owner was a kind man. I had a bruise by then, and he took one look at me and gave me lodging for the night and a few dollars to buy a coach ticket to get a few towns away, so I did.”

  “Why didn’t you just go back home?”

  “It was too far. And I knew my mama would be furious that I didn’t do as I was told by the man who was supposed to be my husband. I got to a new town, and because I didn’t know what else to do, I went to the saloon there. That owner wasn’t as kind as the first man, but he put me to work washing and cleaning the place, and gave me a place to sleep, and it was enough. That’s what I did every day for three whole years. I kept my head down, scared a Sheriff would come looking for me, but I worked every day.”

  “That’s why you ain’t afraid of work.”

  “I have never been a fine lady,” she confessed. “I might wear the clothes of one sometimes, and I might sing like one, but that’s all. One morning, I was washing windows and doing my cleaning. I was singing to myself to pass the time, and I finished my song and someone clapped.”

  For the first time in her story, Emma smiled. “I’ll never forget him, wearing a fine suit and looking like a million dollars, smiling at me. Me. In my work dress, filthy as I was. Hank Porter is a lying son of a bitch and a thief, but he saved my life. Hank talked to the saloon owner, and somehow got him to agree that I could make him more money if I sang. Hank bought me some dresses and got me cleaned up and taught me some songs. I started singing in that saloon, and he was right, I made money. The saloon made money. People came from all over to hear me sing. The only thing I had from my mama was a pin shaped like a little bird, and I always wore it. Folks started called me The Sparrow. Hank said folks liked names like that, so I went with it. We decided to go to a bigger town, and it was the same. People paid even more to hear me. We went on to Denver, and Tucson, and Fort Worth. I had fancy dresses and champagne and admirers. An English Duke asked for my hand once, if you can believe it.”

  “I can believe it.”

  She swallowed hard before talking again. “Hank always had an angle, though. He used me as pretty bait to lure rich men into playing cards with him and taking their money. I had to flirt with those men, act like I gave a damn for them, when all the while I was setting them up.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  Emma closed her eyes and winced. “Still, it was a good time. We were loaded, Hank and I. We were on top of the world. Rumors started about our relationship, and Hank thought it would be best to ease those, so we married one night, real late. Then we said we’d been secretly married for years.”

  “And the rumors?”

  Emma blushed. “I won’t lie to you. Our marriage was real, and we were drunk on passion for a while. He taught me how to play cards and how to play men. I enjoyed
learning from him, and he was good to me, but if you’re asking if we loved each other the answer is no. At least, he didn’t. He had affection for me, but I doubt he ever loved me.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I thought that what I felt for him was love. We went on that way for years, and it was a grand party. And then, in Fort Worth, we met a new woman, a whore. Hank might have liked me plenty, but he liked her more. Much more. I felt shut out. And then one day, I woke up in my fancy room at the finest hotel in town, and they were gone. Hank and I had saved a large sum of money, and we said we’d split it one day and go our separate ways. I waited for them to come back, and I didn’t know where he went. All the money was gone, so I had no choice but to stay at the saloon and sing and play cards like I’d been taught. A very rich man, a close personal friend of the Mayor of Fort Worth, took an interest in me. It started to seem as if the saloon owner was going to try and arrange things for me to become a kept woman.”

  “Did you agree?”

  “I wasn’t interested. I made that quite clear. But I was a woman alone, and somehow he knew about Angus Keene. Said it wouldn’t be a problem if I just did as I was told. It was a nightmare. It quickly became clear my options were limited. Then I caught word of Hank being in some dusty little town called Cricket Bend, so I took off to find him.”

  “How did you come to be in the woods?”

  She blushed. “I took off with some men I shouldn’t have taken off with. Rough men, wanted for robberies and all sorts of trouble. They seemed all right at first. I told them I’d pay them for escorting me, but they turned out to want other payment. I’m sure you can imagine what I mean. It seems to be a popular currency around these parts.”

  Bill thought of Andrew lying in the dirt, and gave a small nod.

  “I’m no fool. I carried a gun and a knife to ward them off, and after a while I got tired of the innuendo and put a powder in their drink. They all passed out, and I ran off into the woods like a fool. I lost the moon, and found the creek, but I kept going, thinking I’d surely find something or someone. I was out there a few weeks before you found me.”

  “And brought you back here. And believed in you.”

  “I haven’t lied to you. I care for you, Bill. Being with you is the safest I’ve ever felt in my whole life.”

  The last part was spoken with little more than a whisper, but she might as well have jammed a knife into his heart. The story sounded sincere, but he didn’t know up from down anymore and certainly didn’t want to trust without making sure. Seeing his hesitation, Emma held out the leather book. “Take it. Read it. It’s all in there. My whole cursed story. Accompanied by all the proof you could ever need. Including a few pages where I’ve written out what happened with Angus Keene. Keep it, and you can turn me into the Sheriff of Cricket Bend if you want, once you get me there. I trust he’s a fair man.”

  “Yes.” Bill accepted the book and held it in both hands, not knowing where to begin. At last, she’d given him the story he’d been yearning for. Faced with it, he didn’t know what to do next.

  “You should probably check on Andrew,” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t kill him.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Never had Bill seen such a sour expression on Andrew’s face. As his brother slowly got up from where he’d lain on the ground, he frowned deeply and held his head where Emma had knocked him.

  Andrew couldn’t even look at Bill. “Didn’t I tell you she was no good?”

  “Yes, you did.” In the end, his little brother hadn’t been wrong. Yes, he’d been vicious. And yes, he’d been stupid. But he hadn’t been entirely wrong. Emma had covered up the truth, and Andrew had seen it first. Bill felt disgust at the thought that both of them were liars.

  Then, strangely, Andrew smiled. He pointed to Emma as she walked up slowly behind Bill. “She came out here to meet me, you know. A woman alone.”

  At the insinuation, Bill pulled back and slugged Andrew. He hit hard, suddenly feeling the need to hit something and his brother was the best possible target. As Andrew fell backward and grunted profanities, Bill growled, “If you want to beat the devil to hell, I won’t stop you. But you’re fired.”

  “Does Pa know that?”

  “No, but he’ll back me. Chasing you is tiresome. As is putting up with you. We’re all bone tired of it. Throw yourself to the scavengers, make your own mistakes, but get out of here and don’t bother us ever again.”

  Andrew got up and made a run for Bill, successfully landing a good punch in the gut. Bill groaned, but didn’t stagger.

  “Stop,” Emma yelled. “Stop it right now!”

  “Choose,” Andrew snarled. “One of us leaves tonight.”

  “Go,” Bill said to his little brother. “Get out of here and don’t you dare come back to this drive.”

  Andrew’s eyes flared, and Emma worried he might have a pistol on him. He stared at Bill for a long time, hatred growing in his face. Then his features changed to a smile. “If that’s how you want it, that’s how it’ll be, big brother.”

  Andrew walked off into the darkness, until Bill couldn’t see him anymore.

  Emma started to say something, but stopped herself. Perhaps she didn’t know what to say.

  “Just cause I sent him away doesn’t mean I chose you instead,” Bill said quietly.

  “I didn’t think so,” Emma replied. “I won’t lie. I’m glad he’s gone.”

  “Me too. It’s better for everyone this way.”

  When Bill and Emma returned to camp, Appie clearly noticed the distance between them and their somber and troubled expressions. As if he hated to mention it, he gestured to the distance. “Your pa is all sorts of jumpy. I was hoping he’d reconsider going through the pass, but his mind won’t be changed.”

  Bill’s day couldn’t get much worse. “You should know I fired Andrew. Tell the men.”

  “I surely will. Your pa is that way.” Appie pointed off to the west. “Better you tell him than me. I’ve been chewed out today already.”

  Bill didn’t look at Emma. “Stay with the wagon.”

  “Of course,” she accepted the order.

  Bill grabbed Orion and rode off toward his father, mind rolling from everything that had happened in the past hour. When he’d slipped off to sleep next to Emma, his world had been near perfect. Now, the woman he loved turned out to be built of lies, he’d fired his brother, and his pa wanted to take the drive a stupid and dangerous way.

  Just then, as if the good Lord saw fit to remind him of how bad things were, he heard the sound of thunder.

  Josiah rode up and met Bill as the drips of water began to fall.

  “Why the pass?” Bill asked.

  “Call it a bad feeling I have,” Josiah replied. “And don’t argue with me, pup. Appie’s done enough arguing for the whole lot of you for the whole year. The pass will save us a few days, get us home faster.”

  “Pa—”

  “When we get back home, I’m going to step down. The ranch’ll be yours.” Josiah’s voice wasn’t loud, but Bill caught every word. “I’ll be glad to know it’s in good hands. You’re smart, Bill. A damn sight smarter than I was at your age.”

  “Pa…”

  “Don’t you argue with me, boy. I’m too old for this. I’m tired, Bill. Tell me what you come to tell me.”

  “I fired Andrew.”

  “Not surprised. What’d he do?”

  “A bunch of things. Most importantly, he threatened Emma.”

  “Emma.”

  “Sparrow.”

  “I know who you mean. She all right?”

  “She laid him out flat.”

  “Good. Going through the pass will get her to Cricket Bend, and out of our hair, two or three days faster than going around.”

  “Emma is no bother to anyone,” Bill replied. “If only you could let go of your superstition and see that she’s been nothing but helpful so far. A woman on the trail don’t mean bad luck. Andrew’s been mea
n as a snake for years. She just did what we’ve all wanted to do for a while. And now he’s gone.”

  “So why don’t you look happier?”

  Bill shook his head. Telling Josiah anything would only make Emma’s time on the drive harder. He’d keep what he knew close to his chest. “We’ll take the pass. I’ll ready the men.”

  Josiah appeared surprised by Bill’s change of mind.

  “You’re right,” Bill said quietly. “Wasting any more time is foolish.”

  Bill was done being foolish.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Emma

  The men hadn’t been exaggerating when they’d spoken of the pass being different terrain from what they’d crossed so far. As the rain continued to fall, Bill and Jess led the herd down a steep slope. As the miles passed, Emma saw the rocky cliffs on the sides of the drive get bigger and bigger, as if they were being closed in by walls of stone. The canyon seemed to go on for miles, days, years. Birds stopped flying overhead, and most of their day was spent in shadow.

  The whole place made her skin crawl. The rain didn’t help.

  “Ugly as sin, ain’t it?” Appie called to her from the wagon she rode beside.

  “How far does it go?”

  “Three, four days,” he answered. “Going around it, it’d be about six.”

  “Is it prettier up there?” Emma indicated the tops of the cliffs, where the ominous edges of stone partially obscured her view.

  “Yes, indeed. Green, grassy country all the way.”

  “And we’re down here why again?”

  Appie chuckled. “You want to ride up to Josiah and ask, you go right ahead.”

  Emma sighed. She’d put aside her ill feelings about the pass, and buckle down with her broken heart and feelings of regret and shame.

  Appie hadn’t lied. The pass took days to travel through, but the rain ceased after only a half a day. They kept to their routine—rise early, cook breakfast, get traveling, stop for a mid-day break, travel more, make camp and sleep—and Bill was nowhere to be seen most of the time. He joined the rest of the drive for meals, but that was all.