Page 61 of Conveniently Wed
It was over and done.
But the fact that he couldn’t quit thinking about Fran and her pushiness and the chasm between them made him wonder if maybe it wasn’t over and done with.
He took his hat off and fanned his face with it, the early morning sun getting to him. Running a hand through his shorn hair made him think of Fran again, too.
He didn’t really think she’d offered to cut his hair to pump him for information. And he appreciated that she wanted to help him look nice for when he met with his pa’s buyer.
He was almost relieved when a steer in his vicinity decided to take a meandering side trip. It gave him something to focus on as he galloped his cow pony out and ushered it back to the herd.
Their trip was almost up. And then he and Fran would go their separate ways. She would be in Calvin, and he would be in Bear Creek.
She didn’t need to know about his childhood, his insides argued.
John, the cowpoke who’d noticed the riders on their tail before, rode up to him just before noon.
“See any sign of them?” Edgar asked the other man.
John shook his head. “It’s strange. Their tracks say they followed us all the way up until last night. I found a small fire where they must’ve camped. Then nothing.”
“No tracks today?”
The man shook his head again. “It’s like they decided to give up. You think?”
Edgar pushed back his Stetson, idly scanning the horizon. “Don’t know. If you spent two and a half days tracking someone, wouldyoujust give up?”
John shrugged. “Probably depend on why I was tracking them in the first place. Or if I got myself a better plan.”
“Exactly.”
Edgar didn’t like it.
If the men were after the cattle, their chances were getting smaller and smaller to make a move, as the cowboys pushed them closer and closer to Tuck’s Station.
If they were after Emma, they could beat the crew to the town. The cattle moved slowly. Two men alone on horseback could easily circle around to town and make it there first.
With Fran’s tendency to overprotect the girl, he sort of felt like Emma was his own little sister, too. She was Breanna’s age. Emotional, like Breanna could be at times.
And she didn’t deserve to have someone after her.
He remembered how jumpy Penny had been for months after the man who’d become obsessed with her had tried to abduct her. Edgar had startled her once by rushing into the kitchen and she’d burst into tears, then quickly apologized.
Emma didn’t need to be haunted by that kind of fear. She was—sort of—his sister, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
“What do you want to do?” John asked, his horse shifting to one side.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll check in with my brothers and we’ll get a plan together for moving into town.”
John nodded and rode off.
Edgar stood in his stirrups and surveyed the herd and cowboys.
They’d purposely gone light on manpower when they’d left Bear Creek. Most of the ranches didn’t hire cowboys the way they used to, not since fences and the railroad had changed the landscape.
With the extra cattle they’d taken on, they’d make a nice profit.
Rustlers were less of a concern—or had been less of a concern in the past.
Did he have enough cowboys to put up a good fight? He didn’t know.
