but it was no good. She pointed the nose of the gun toward the floor. “It’s not actually loaded.”
A pair of relieved sighs whooshed through the office.
“Well, now, Miss Parker.” The land-office manager tipped back in his chair and folded his hands across his wide belly. “Unless you’ve turned twenty-one or become the head of a household since you came in this morning, I can’t give you that homestead.”
“Did the Englishman take it?”
“No, miss, he wanted another.”
“Praise be!” Emma spun about and fairly skipped out the door, her hope renewed. The expensive lace border on her dress caught Mr. Pendragon’s discarded cigarette ashes like the best of brooms. Her gown was getting grayer by the hour. Unless she found a man soon she’d be the dingiest bride to ever wed in Dodge.
She resumed her seat on the bench, fluffed her withered skirt and set her smile in place. In spite of the obstacles Dodge City had thrown in her way, she would catch a husband, and she would do it today.
* * *
Days didn’t come along much finer than this one. Matt Suede tugged his hat brim down to shade his eyes from the afternoon sun. His boot heels clicking on the boardwalk echoed up and down Front Street.
Town was quiet this time of day, with the morning’s business completed and the evening’s not yet begun, just the way it suited him, but something felt wrong.
He ought to pay attention to that niggling feeling. The smart thing would be to call off the bank robbery for today. Then again, it would be his last holdup and he’d like to get it over with.
A dust devil whirled down the middle of the street. A woman sitting on a bench outside the land office swung up her parasol, hiding from the gust until it passed by.
Matt slowed his pace. The lady was something to look at, as appealing as a prairie flower. She shook dust from her umbrella, then fluffed her skirt out on the bench.
Her hair had mostly come undone from the bun at her neck. Sunlight speckled gold threads in the curls that tumbled down her back.
When he had the time he’d have to remember her delicate womanhood and make up a song about her. He’d sing it to the beeves to soothe them at roundup some long dark night from now.
He might have approached her if his plans for the afternoon had been different, but he shouldn’t have slowed his pace as it was.
He’d passed by the marshal’s office and been relieved to see Dodge’s lawman asleep. His snorts and snores should have been reassuring, but the air was ripe with something being wrong.
Matt glanced up and down the street, ready to duck behind the building where his cousin and accomplice, Billy, waited with a getaway horse in a gully covered with brush. There was just enough space between overgrowth and sand to hide a man and a horse, but not for long.
He’d just made up his mind to sneak around back when Gray Derby Bart, the meanest drunk in Dodge, staggered up to the woman on the bench. She smiled at him politely, but she had no idea what she might be getting into just by that common act of friendliness.
Bart might be a small man but he was mean through and through, especially when it came to the gentler sex.
Matt quick-footed it past the bank. Billy could wait a few minutes. The woman could not.
The sky at sunrise wasn’t as pretty as her blue eyes. From the spark of interest glittering in Bart’s rheumy gaze, he must have thought the same, but not in any respectful way a man should look at a decent woman.
“Afternoon, ma’am…Bart?” Matt tipped his hat. The lady turned her smile away from Bart and let it shine on him. Chilly nights on the cow trail would be considerably warmer if he could remember her smile, just so.
“Good afternoon.” Her voice washed clean through him. It was the sweetest sound he’d heard in some time.
“I hope Bart here isn’t causing you any concern, miss.”
“My concern ain’t no concern of yours, Matthew Suede.” Bart’s lip curled up in one corner, like an old dog snapping for a fight. “Me and the lady were conducting some personal business.”
Sometimes when he was in his cups Bart imagined things. This sure would be one of those times, since this delicate woman would not be likely to have dealings with a scoundrel.