Page 105 of Conveniently Wed
“Watch it,” Edgar growled. “She’s hurt.”
Daniel shot him a scathing glare over his shoulder.
Fran pushed away. “What are you doing here? How did you find us?”
Daniel smoothed the hair from her temple. “You didn’t make it easy, that’s for sure.”
Watching her greet her brother squeezed Edgar’s stomach tight as a fist. She was shining with joy, even after everything she’d just been through.
Daniel turned Fran and started leading her away.
Edgar reached out for her, but then stopped.
Now that Daniel was there, Fran didn’t need him any longer.
She didn’t have to stay married to him. They’d been married under duress and she’d been forced into it by the judge. He knew that could be grounds for annulment under Wyoming law. Would her brother push her to annul their marriage?
Ricky came up beside him. “You want us to go after the others riding with Underhill’s outfit?”
Edgar shook his head. “I don’t think they’re coming back, and the rest of us have had enough adventure for one day.”
Ricky nodded.
He stood there silent at Edgar’s shoulder as they watched Daniel make over Fran.
“You gonna just let her walk away?” Ricky asked finally.
He should. He didn’t deserve her. And if she abandoned him, it would be completely his fault. He hadn’t proven himself to her—all he’d proven was that he didn’t keep his promises.
She’d be in the right to walk away from him.
But….
“Not if I can help it,” he told his brother.
Fran’s relief knew no bounds. Emma was safe. Daniel was there, although he was thinner than she remembered and pale, as if he’d been sick.
And Underhill was dead, thanks to the federal marshal.
But what brought tears to her eyes was Edgar, safe and whole. He had survived the stampede.
She glanced at him over Daniel’s shoulder, only to find him and Ricky standing side by side, a powerful pair of cowboys. Edgar’s eyes were locked on her.
She was conscious of her ragged, dirt-covered appearance—she’d been rolling on the ground to escape, after all, and her hair had long before fallen out of its pins.
She shouldn’t care so much. She knew what he thought about her, that she couldn’t be trusted.
In the face of everything that had happened, her determination to tell him that she loved him wavered.
She could tell him—later.
“We need to get Emma and find a town with a train station,” Daniel was saying.
All of a sudden, Edgar was there at her brother’s elbow, near enough for her to smell horse and man. “Fran’s got to be exhausted. She needs to get to town to rest.”
“She can rest after we get home to Tennessee,” Daniel argued.
“She’s my wife, my responsibility?—”
