Page 75 of Conveniently Wed
“What should we do?”
“Nothing. He ain’t making any moves. I’d better check with the boys. Where’d your parents get to?” He switched mid-stream to talking to the little boy again, though his eyes strayed over the tot’s head across the street.
“Do you want me to walk down this way a bit?—”
He caught her arm before she’d moved an inch. “I want you to stay right where you are.”
She was caught in the intensity of his eyes until a feminine voice rang out. “There you are. Beau Jr., were you a good boy?”
Edgar turned to release the toddler to his much more relaxed parents, manufacturing a smile.
He was protecting her. Not only Emma, but her as well.
Therewassomething between them. She knew there was.
Should she tell him about Underhill’s accusations? She didn’t know if they would hold water this far from Memphis, but she didn’t want anything to come between them, not if there was a chance of making this relationship real.
Melody and her husband had barely turned away when Seb came running up the dirt-packed street, dust flying being him. He was red-faced, like he’d been running flat out.
Edgar stiffened beside her, his arm coming almost naturally in front of her. Protecting her again. “Trouble?”
“Ricky,” Seb gasped.
Edgar ushered Fran to the room she was sharing with Emma with barely a peck on the cheek and a squeeze of his hand. Not the goodnight he’d been hoping for.
He left the girls under John’s watchful eye and followed Seb down to the marshal’s office‚ where his brother was in a holding cell with two other men.
Ricky bore the marks of a fistfight, a purpling bruise on his jaw and a scraped cheek.
“What do you think you were doing?” Edgar demanded, stomping right up to the bars.
Ricky got to his wobbly feet. He reeked of alcohol and was decidedly tipsy. Just what they needed.
Seb and Matty came behind Edgar but stayed in the jail doorway.
“Havin’ a little fun,” Ricky slurred.
“By starting a fight?”
“Didn’t start it. Finished it though.” Ricky belched, sending a waft of nasty-smelling hot breath in Edgar’s direction. Ricky laughed.
Two others in the cell with him snarled, though neither made a move. One of them clasped a slab of meat over one eye and the other looked completely soaked.
His brothers shuffled their feet, and Edgar looked back to see the marshal thumping his way into the jail, making the small outer room pretty packed.
“We don’t take too kindly to rowdy cowboys damaging property,” the older, mustached man said.
“I understand.” Edgar straightened his shoulders, trying to think how his pa would handle this mess. “My brother’s sorry?—”
“You don’t speak for me! I’m right here!” Ricky rattled the bars, his sudden irrational anger bursting forth.
Heat flared in Edgar’s cheeks. His temper sparked but he tamped it down, knowing that whatever happened tonight could get back to Bear Creek. Or maybe they’d need to do business in the future here in Tuck’s Station. Couldn’t his brother think of things like that before he did something stupid like this?
“Shut up,” he told Ricky.
“Pa might’ve left you to run the cattle, but you ain’t my pa, and you ain’t in charge of me.”
Edgar wondered if his brother meant to sound so childish. It sounded like something a two-year-old would say.
