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

to camp. Maggie munched contentedly on the thicker grass nearby.
    As Bill got closer, Emma came into his sight. She stood near a small fire with her arms folded across her chest, head tilted up to watch the few clouds move across the sky. Her hair hung loose from its braid, with wet ends. From Bill’s best guess, she only wore her man’s shirt and nothing underneath. He took in a sharp breath when he realized her long legs were bare, as were her feet. Averting his eyes, he cleared his throat to let her know he was there.
    She jumped about a foot at the sound of his voice, and whirled to face him.
    “It’s just me.”
    “Goodness. You startled me.”
    “I brought you some coffee as a warm-up. Was going to be a gentleman and see if you needed me to start a fire, but I reckon Appie’s taught you so well you could start one in a snowstorm by now.”
    “Indeed.” Emma gestured to the small flames. “I crossed the river, and lived to tell the tale.”
    “That you did.”
    “You saw me?”
    “Of course I did. I doubled back. Figured if you had any trouble, I could help. I should have known you’d be just fine.”
    When she lifted her head, he watched her study him from head to toe. He’d come bare-chested, and now wondered if it had been too informal. Then again, she stood before him in only a shirt, and he knew she’d have figured he would find a way to come to see her. Knowing that, and seeing how she hadn’t bothered to cover herself, dried his mouth. Across the fire, he thought he saw a flicker of desire pass in her eyes before she diverted her gaze and kicked at the grass.
    Now that he knew her name, he wanted to know everything.
    “Tell me something about you,” he said.
    She answered calmly. “I was born in Virginia.”
    “You got people there?”
    “I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s been over ten years. I lost touch.”
    “You got brothers?”
    “Sisters. Two of them. At least I think I still do.”
    “And your folks?”
    “You ask lots of questions. I was under the impression you’d wandered out here to kiss me again, not to try and unravel a great mystery.” He recognized her deflection tactic; she put up a flirty front to distract him from further inquiry. She’d given him little pieces of the puzzle, and he wanted to know more. So he pushed on.
    “Are you married?”
    “I was.” She let her words linger.
    “Is he—?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t like to talk about him.”
    “All right.” The answer could mean lots of things. Her husband could have died tragically, and it was too painful to think about. Or he could have run out on her, though he couldn’t imagine what kind of fool would do such a thing. But men ran out. The west had plenty of men who’d simply walked away from their lives for one reason or another. Bill had always felt a man who left his family was no more than a coward, but he’d met more than one. Whatever had happened to the man she’d been married to, or whatever he had done, Emma seemed to have closed the door on him.
    “Folks start their lives over all the time. There’s no shame in it.”
    “Do you trust all your men?” Emma interrupted, catching him off guard.
    “My men? Mostly.”
    “I’m not accustomed to being able to trust people,” she said. “You have to forgive me from time to time if I’m prickly. I know that you have questions about me, that you doubt me.”
    “I don’t like to. But you hold things back. They can’t be as bad as what you think they are.”
    “Maybe they’re worse.”
    “Emma—”
    “Shh.”
    Music, soft across the distance, caught Bill’s ear.
    Saul was playing a waltz to the cows.
    “He may not talk much, that shy brother of yours, but he makes himself known,” she whispered.
    The music seemed to soothe her, and Bill let the rest of his long list of questions go. They had ten or twelve more days ahead of them before they reached Cricket Bend. He’d get to the bottom of the mystery of Emma the