Page 100 of Conveniently Wed
The suspicion returned to Daniel’s face. “What do you mean?”
Edgar’s horse shifted beneath him, reminding him of the urgency of the situation. “Ride along, and I’ll explain,” he told Daniel.
By the time they reached the other cowboys, Daniel had been filled in and seemed angry at both Underhill and Edgar.
Edgar didn’t blame the man.
“What’s going on?” Edgar asked as they joined the other cowboys.
John, the best tracker among them, stood over a spot on the ground. “Looks like several of them convened here and stood for a while. Maybe right after those shots scared the herd into a stampede.”
“Can you tell which direction they went?” Edgar asked. His horse was fairly dancing beneath him, reading Edgar’s anticipation of the chase.
“Yes, that way,” John pointed.
“What’s the plan?” Ricky asked.
The other cowboys looked to Edgar for direction, and even Daniel seemed ready to defer to him. Seemed like the city boy didn’t really know how things were out here in the West.
“I don’t have a plan,” Edgar admitted. “I just have to get her back.”
Underhill had not been happy to see her.
Fran sat silently among the tall grasses, hands bound before her, head down. She pretended the prairie could hide her, would keep her safe until Edgar came. She knew he would, if he was alive.
She listened to everything.
Underhill’s men had left the overlook shortly after their exclamation that Edgar had gone down amongst the stampede.
Surely he’d survived. Surely God wouldn’t have let him die like that.
Not without giving her time to tell him she loved him.
She needed to keep her head, and figure a way to escape Underhill and his men.
Her only comfort was that they hadn’t found Emma.
“She can’t have gone far,” Underhill argued now. “She was with them up until nightfall, right?”
The federal marshal nodded, shifted the cigar he was chewing to the opposite side of his lips.
He was in on it. That had been a surprise to Fran as the sun had come up. Underhill must’ve paid him off. Or maybe he wasn’t even a real lawman, she didn’t know.
But knowing that he’d been collaborating with Underhill and apparently had assaulted Seb just made Fran angry.
And made her escape more urgent.
“Somebody got away on a horse, just before we grabbedher,” one of the other men reminded them all.
Underhill glared at her, but Fran simply turned her head on her bent knees and stared out at the horizon.
“You think the cowboys are still hiding her?” asked another of the men. “We’ve got more guns than them. Let’s go back and get her.”
Underhill shook his head. “We can get away with taking one girl back to Tennessee for trial. If we murder several men…someone will notice.”
“What if they come after her?” another of the men asked, motioning to Fran.
If Edgar was alive, and did come after her, he wouldn’t bring Emma, would he? He’d promised to protect Emma, and that would be bringing her right into the hornets’ nest of danger.
