LITMIR.BIZ

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they set foot down that trail, he’d have to tell her that they couldn’t cleave to one another as Mrs. Sizeloff had bound them to do.

      There were things about him that she didn’t know. Things wives had a right to know before the “I do’s.” Not the least of which was that a killer with revenge on his mind was getting out of prison.

      Come summer’s end, Angus Hawker would be a threat to everyone that Matt held dear.

      Emma frowned at Matthew Jonathan Suede, sitting beside her on the wagon bench as if he were king of the prairie. He drove her rented team, holding the reins loose in his fingers while they rattled off toward the sunset and her new home. Apparently the man misunderstood the nature of their marriage.

      Right after he’d filed her claim, she’d thanked him and bid him goodbye. She’d fairly skipped toward the livery and her new life, only to hear his boots thumping down the boardwalk after her. She’d offered him the ten dollars she had been willing to give the drunk, but he’d looked at her as though she had become suddenly feebleminded.

      To her dismay, he’d followed her into the livery. The name she’d called him was probably uncalled for, but really, he’d tied poor blind Pearl and his own horse behind the wagon, then tossed her onto the plank seat as though she were no more than a stick of straw! He’d then climbed aboard, taken control of the driving and remained silent for the best part of an hour.

      Silence was best. She took pleasure in watching the prairie grass roll past. She found joy in simply listening to the birds sing to the parting day. Way off in the west the sun slipped toward the long horizon like a ball of orange fire.

      What a wide, wonderful land! Mercy, she didn’t think she could breathe and smell and hear enough of it. If she lived on her little spot of paradise for a hundred years it wouldn’t be long enough.

      Evidently Mr. Suede couldn’t resist the evening’s beauty any more than she could. His shoulders went soft and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. His eyes, gazing out at the big empty land, became a mirror for the golden grass stretching out forever.

      Then, with the birds chirruping out their last and the crickets just tuning up, Matt Suede began to sing.

      He had a clear, low voice that shot straight to a person’s heart. With the harness creaking and the horses’ hooves keeping time, he sang a story about a man who got caught up in a stampede and died saving the life of his boss’s daughter.

      The soul-deep melody echoing over the twilight prairie was enough to make Emma want to weep … and forgive him. A cow, so far off that she couldn’t see it, bawled out long and low, as though it, too, had been touched by the teary tale.

      Emma shook herself. Mr. Suede was a bank robber. The roof of it, Mr. Suede’s ghostly apparel, lay hidden beneath the extra corset stored in her trunk.

      But mercy be! How could such a heavenly sound come out of a criminal? And there was that kiss! Surely she wouldn’t have felt like a hot noodle under the lips of a villain. To be fair, he had acted gallantly when he’d shooed away the drunk she’d been about to marry. Thinking back on it, she realized the man might have been a problem.

      At the very instant he quit singing, the sun passed below the horizon. Behind them a fat full moon swelled into the sky to light the dusk.

      “I’m sorry I called you that name back at the livery.” Her voice sounded like pebbles grinding together compared to the notes that had come from Matt Suede’s throat. “It’s just that I expected you to go on your way. I never meant that you really had to be my husband.”

      “Well, now, ma’am, I accept your apology.” Matt clicked to the rented team when one of the horses decided to stop and munch on a tuft of grass. “And I thank you for saving my neck, but that was a real preacher and that marriage certificate does make us legally bound.”

      Emma’s heart took a dive. What if her husband leaned more to thievery than gallantry? If a body wanted to look at things strictly legally, whose name was on that claim?

      Emma Laurel Parker … Suede, to be sure, but before hers was Matthew Jonathan Suede. She might be no better off than she had been sitting on the bench in front of the land office.

      “I never meant for us to be bound, Mr. Suede. I only needed a husband so that I could file on my land and … well, to be honest, I knew you couldn’t turn me down. But now I don’t hold you to it. You’re free to take your horse and ride off.”

      Emma gazed sidelong at him. He had slipped the hat back from his head. It hung down his back from a pair of strings that pulled across a red bandanna tied around his neck. His shoulder-length hair was a shade more golden than the rich soil they rolled over. Moon glow cast shifting light over him, gilding those golden-brown waves in shadow and sparkle.

      If a woman did want to take on the care of a husband, Matt Suede would be a fine one to look at over the years. But the last thing Emma wanted was someone to take care of. In her new life, the only one wanting something from her would be her, and naturally, Pearl.

      “You are a free man, Mr. Suede. I’ll do just fine on my own.”

      “I see a pair of problems with your logic, ma’am. First problem is, I’m only a free man so long as the marshal believes that I didn’t just meet you in the livery.”

      That’s something she should have considered when she’d hitched her star to an outlaw cowboy.

      “Looks like you’ve got yourself a loving husband for the time being.”

      “What’s the other problem with my logic?”

      “I can’t quite figure out what a pretty little thing like you is going to do with a hundred and sixty acres of stubborn prairie sod. You don’t look like any farmer I ever saw.”

      “I’ll admit I look small, but I’m tough. If I had a mind to bust up sod, I would.” Emma sat up taller, even though the lurching wagon made her rock back and forth as stiffly as a metronome. “As it happens, I intend to simply live on the land, just let it be mine.”

      “Back at the land office, you seemed to be set on that particular piece of ground. What is it about the old Harkins place that makes you want it so bad? Have you even seen the homestead?”

      “Not with my own eyes—I was in such a hurry to file that I didn’t make it out here. But I know just what it looks like. You see, I used to be employed by the Harkins family, doing chores and acting as nanny for their daughter, Louise Rose, until they moved west.” Emma relaxed her posture. Talking about her heart’s home made her just plain wistful inside.

      “I used to get letters from Mrs. Harkins. Lands, how she loved her beautiful wood-framed house. It was like a palace compared to her neighbors’ dugouts and soddies. She says the yard is full of flowers and a creek runs close by. She planted a hundred trees, which have got to have three or four seasons’ growth on them by now.

      “There’s a well in the yard, and a barn for Pearl. It broke Mrs. Harkins’s heart to quit the claim, but Louise Rose was a wild one. To think of the nights I stayed up watching to see that she didn’t sneak out her window to take up with some low ‘count!

      “Anyway, Mrs. Harkins wrote to say they had to move on. No doubt it had to do with Louise Rose, but the prime spot they were leaving behind was free for the taking if I could get here in time to be the first to claim it. So here I am, Mr. Suede, bound for paradise.”

      “Hell in a basket, ma’am. Hell in a basket.” Matt Suede sighed deeply, then didn’t say another word for the rest of the trip.

      From a quarter mile off, Matt saw the very thing he knew to be true. The Harkins place was no better than any other struggling homestead. Maybe it was worse, having been abandoned. There was no trace of a fine wood house gleaming in the moonlight, no barn, no half-grown trees, no trace of Emma Parker’s dream.

      Any second now he would have to tell her that they had passed over the boundaries of her land. He’d rather have a steer stomp

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