AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She knew then, in her gut, that she would have had a fight on her hands if she'd chosen the other option.
Chapter Five
Emma was standing alone with only her thoughts to keep her company when Maria came back into the house.
The housekeeper seemed to take one look at her and moved swiftly to the stove to put the kettle on to boil.
Emma turned and made her way back to the chair, sat, and folded her hands together in her lap.
Maria moved to stand in front of her. "Was it bad?"
Emma didn't know how to answer that question and bit her lip.
"Did they argue?" the housekeeper asked.
"Yes."
"Over you?"
"Yes. The sheriff wanted me to go back to town and Luke refused."
The two woman studied each other in silence for a moment until after a pause, Maria responded, "I figured as much. Luke won't let you leave. I've seen the way he looks at you."
"How--how does he look at me?"
"Like you're the last piece of chocolate cake and he's not about to share."
Emma absorbed that response as a thrill of excitement raced through her. "Do you think so?"
"I've known him a long time, and I've seen that look in his eyes before. Never about a woman, no, but when Luke gets something in his mind, there's nothing and no one gonna keep him from it."
"It's so hard to believe. I mean, look at him. He's so--"her voice trailed off and then picked up again. "And I'm so--"
"You're so what?" Maria questioned in a sharp voice.
Emma shook her head as she realized there was no way to explain what she was feeling. Luke was handsome, ruthless, and from the looks of the house and the ranch around it, rich to boot. She had nothing. She was an orphan with a limp, she had no family or money to speak of, and her looks were as drab as clotted cream. "I'm so average."
"Average?" Maria exclaimed. "Who are you trying to fool, girl? There's nothing average about you."
Emma was surprised by that heartfelt response. "What do you mean?"
"You're sweet and kind and gentle. A man could do much worse."
"But I'm plain and I have annoying habits--"
"You're not plain, Emma. Far from it, girl. Are you fishing for compliments? You have a pleasing face, you're form is nicely rounded, and if you take the time to look closer, you'll see that Luke can't keep his eyes off you. I tell you, I had to slip from the house I was so afraid of what would transpire with the sheriff."
"You knew he wanted me to stay?"
"Now, there's no need for secrets between us. We're the only two women on this ranch. Of course I knew! Are you honestly telling me you didn't?"
Emma tried to form an answer as carefully as she could. She was glad she'd found a friend in Maria, but she didn't know if she was ready to tell the other woman everything in her heart quite so soon. "I suppose I can't read him as well as you do. I know he's gruff and has a coarse exterior, and he hasn't been ungenerous. I can see now, after the sheriff's visit, that he wants me here."
"Yes, well, I could tell it the second I saw him in the same room with you. You need to make up your mind as to what you want, because he's not a man to beat around the bush, and I can't protect you from him. Luke is his own man, and nothing I or anyone else can say will stop him from taking what he wants. The only one who could possibly stop him would be you. So you need to make up your mind."
****
A few hours later, Emma sat in the comfortable chair in the living room with her sewing in her lap. It had been brought to her from the stage with her luggage and she was glad. It gave her something to occupy her fingers if not her mind.
She took quick strokes with the needle, back and forth, as she embroidered a rosette onto the lace collar of one of her blouses. She often added embellishments to her otherwise plain clothes. She liked pretty things, and usually the only way she could afford them was to sew them herself.
She sat for a few hours and pondered her predicament until night began to fall and she realized Luke would be in for supper soon.
****
Emma sat alone in the kitchen with Luke, their meal finished, Maria having long since cleaned the kitchen and gone to the cabin.
Silence passed between them and she knew he was staring at her without trying to mask the fact even a bit. She ran her gaze over the kitchen, trying to memorize it, looking for something to occupy her gaze, as she desperately tried to keep her eyes from looking at him.
A shiver ran down her spine at the undivided attention she was receiving.
Tantalizing as it was to be alone with him in the big shadowed house as night fell, she wasn't quite yet ready to be a sitting duck, easily within his scope and ready to be brought down.
She rolled her eyes at her own analogy.
She needed something to occupy his attention, something that would take his heated gaze away from her lips.
Suddenly, her mind latched onto an idea.
"Shall we play a game?"
"A game?" His voice was heated and then his looked changed to incredulous at the idea.
"Yes, a game. You know, checkers or something. Perhaps you have a deck of playing cards?"
"Yeah, we have a checker board and cards both, somewhere around here." The look on his face was skeptical, as if he hadn't played in years.
"I'd love to play checkers," she said wistfully, and threw in a look of longing for good measure.
"I don't suppose one game would hurt." His chair scraped back from the table and he stood and walked to a cabinet below the sideboard. "It's been years, but last time I saw them, they were in here."
He opened the cabinet door and retrieved the game and was back at the table in seconds. He placed it down between them. He sat at the end of the table, and she sat in the chair to his right.
"Do you want to play here, in the kitchen?" Emma asked, suddenly eager to actually play the game when she saw the old scarred board and the wooden pieces, half in a dark mahogany wood and the other in a much lighter pine wood. She lovingly ran her fingers over the markers as she thought about all the people who must have played on this very board before her.
"It's as good a place as any, I guess," he said in a slow, modulated voice as he watched her fingers slide over the wooden place markers.
"This is an old game, has it always been in your family?"
Luke saw the shining look of enquiry in her eye and wished for a moment he had a story to tell her about the game being passed from one generation to the next. But it wasn't so. "It came with the house," his words were abrupt.
"Came with the house?" She repeated the phrase as if she didn't understand.
"It was here along with some of the older pieces of furniture when I acquired the house and ranch."
Her hands were busy lining up the markers to start the game. She looked up at him when she was ready to begin. "How long have you been here?"
"Ten years. Won the house and barns and surrounding two-hundred thousand acres in a poker game."
"A poker game!" she exclaimed in a rush of disbelief.
"Yeah," he agreed gruffly.
"How old were you?" She immediately blushed at the personal question and qualified, "If you don't mind me asking."
His eyes caressed her face. "I don't mind, Emma. You can ask me whatever you want." His eyes ran over her face, down to her throat where the top pearl button of her waistcoat was unbuttoned. "I might not answer, but you can always ask," he rumbled. "I was twenty."
"But you were so young! And poker!" Her eyes were filled with dismay and there was a touch of condemnation in her voice.
"I had to be good at something. It was either poker or gunfighting, and I chose poker." He gave her a pointed look across the table. "Not that I'm not good with a gun."
Emma cleared her throat, licked her lips and took the first move when he indicated with a sweep of his hand that she should go first. She asked him carefully, "Why would a boy so young need to be good at poker or gunfighting?"
He slid his wooden piece. "You think I was a boy at twenty?"
They continued to play as they talked. "No, I suppose not." She re-worded her previous question. "Why would a young man need to be good at either?"
