Emma Whitaker had already dropped the chestnut mare’s reins when the thunder of approaching hooves rolled down Mercy Bend’s main street.
She did not turn around.
She had reached the point where curiosity required more courage than she had left.
Dust clung to the hem of her slate-blue traveling dress. The low, lace-trimmed neckline that had looked elegant in the Wichita dressmaker’s mirror now felt painfully exposed beneath the eyes of half the town. Heat pressed against the back of her neck, and the canvas traveling bag hanging from her right hand seemed heavier with every breath.
Behind her, the laughter from the saloon porch began to weaken.
One man stopped midway through another cruel remark.
Another muttered something Emma could not hear.
Then the horse stopped so abruptly behind her that dust swept around her skirt.
Emma closed her eyes.
If this was Elias Hart, she told herself, she would not cry.
She would not ask him to explain.
She would not stand in the street while another man decided aloud whether a woman of nearly six hundred and forty pounds deserved to be wanted.
She had survived one husband who treated humiliation as entertainment.
She would survive a stranger too.
A saddle creaked.
Boots struck the ground.
Then came a man’s voice.
Not loud.
Somehow that made everyone listen harder.
“Who said it?”
Emma opened her eyes.
The red-bearded man on the saloon porch stopped smiling.
Emma turned.
The man who had ridden into town stood beside a powerful chestnut gelding, one hand still holding the reins.
He was tall, broad through the shoulders, and perhaps thirty-nine or forty. His dark hair curled slightly beneath a battered black hat, and several days of stubble sharpened a weathered, handsome face. A dark brown trail coat hung open over a tan vest and gray shirt. Dust covered his boots. His eyes were a hard, pale gray.
He was looking past Emma.
At the porch.
“Who,” he repeated, “said it?”
Nobody answered.
Emma knew immediately.
Elias Hart.
Not because anyone introduced him.
Because every laughing man suddenly looked like he wished he were somewhere else.
The sheriff stepped down from the boardwalk.
“Elias.”
Elias did not look at him.
The red-bearded man attempted another grin.
“Oh, don’t sour the joke now, Hart.”
Emma felt Elias go still beside her.
The red-bearded man lifted both hands.
“We only wanted to see your face when you saw what the bureau sent you.”
A few nervous chuckles followed.
Elias released his horse.
The gelding stood without moving.
Then Elias walked toward the porch.
A wooden crate lay in his path.
He kicked it aside so hard it skidded beneath the hitching rail.
The laughter stopped completely.
The red-bearded man stepped down.
“Easy.”
“You were laughing at her before I got here?”
The man shrugged.
“Everyone was.”
Elias looked around the street.
Men looked toward their boots.
Two women near the church entrance suddenly became fascinated by a shop window.
Elias turned back.
The red-bearded man gave a careless laugh.
“You wrote for a wife. Somebody sends you enough wife for three men. Tell me you don’t see the humor.”
Elias moved faster than Emma expected.
The man had just enough time to raise one hand before Elias caught his wrist and shoved it away from Emma’s traveling bag.
The red-bearded man stumbled backward into the saloon rail.
“You touch her belongings again,” Elias said, “and you’ll spend the next month learning to drink with the other hand.”
Sheriff Pike stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
Elias finally looked at him.
“You stood here for this?”
The sheriff’s jaw tightened.
“I was trying to keep it from becoming worse.”
Emma spoke for the first time.
“You failed.”
Several heads turned.
Sheriff Pike looked at her.
Emma’s face still burned, but anger had replaced some of the shame.
The sheriff removed his hat.
“Yes, ma’am.”
It was not enough.
At least he did not pretend it was.
Elias turned toward Emma.
And everything about him changed.
Not softened into pity.
That would have been worse.
His anger simply moved somewhere else.
“Mrs. Whitaker?”
Emma straightened.
“Miss.”
He nodded.
“Miss Whitaker.”
His gaze stayed on her face.
Not her chest.
Not her waist.
Not the massive breadth of her hips beneath the blue skirt.
Her face.
“I’m Elias Hart.”
“I gathered.”
Something almost became a smile at one corner of his mouth.
It disappeared quickly.
Emma looked at the horse.
Then at the men on the porch.
Then back at him.
“I was leaving.”