Page 65 of Conveniently Wed
She’d ruined it all.
Thankfully, Emma claimed not to have heard the altercation with Edgar. She remained quiet and withdrawn as they got closer and closer to their destination.
What could they expect when they arrived?
Edgar hadn’t said what he planned to do with them until they reached Calvin, but he wouldn’t just leave them unprotected if men were following them, would he?
She hadn’t known him long, but she couldn’t imagine he would.
She trusted him to keep Emma safe. Had since the beginning.
He’d proved his mettle when he’d rescued Emma during the rainstorm on the range.
He was a man who took seriously the care of his own. His loyalty to his father proved as much.
What did she have to do for him to see her as a real wife?
Where was God in all of this?
She’d watched Edgar circle the herd for a good part of the past hour, taking minutes to speak to each horseman. Making plans?
She saw him exchange words with Ricky, both men wearing fierce expressions. Things were obviously tense between them.
He never looked back at the wagon.
Her stomach hurt. Worse than when she realized Tim didn’t love her.
Nearly as bad as when she’d realized Daniel wasn’t coming for her and Emma.
When Edgar got them settled, she would be very much on her own. Unless she could change things.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. She hated that Edgar was hurt. Hated that he kept it so well hidden. Had his brothers even known that his pain ran so deeply, that he still felt it?
She would apologize if she could, but if Edgar remained at a distance from her, what chance did she have? She didn’t know how to ride a horse—not really—and chase him down.
The sun had long passed its zenith, and her belly was warning her it was suppertime when Matty turned back from the herd and approached the wagon on his horse.
“Ladies,” he greeted them.
“Hello, Matty,” Fran replied.
Emma stirred in the back of the wagon.
He sidled his horse up to the wagon, matched its pace with that of the horses Fran drove.
“Is Edgar all right?” Fran asked, because she couldn’t contain the question.
Matty winked beneath his Stetson. “I have faith he’ll come around, don’t you worry. He hasn’t always been such a crotchety grandpapa, you know.”
His words comforted her, a little. Edgar had his family. And his family was obviously important to him.
“Ed’s worked up a plan to get y’all in town to the train station. Interested in hearing it?”
She was interested in knowing why her husband didn’t come and tell her the plan himself. Was he still that furious with her? Or avoiding her because her questions had cut too close to the true source of his pain?
“Of course,” she said.
Matty tossed a bundle and she caught it by rote. Juggling the reins, she revealed a pair of…men’s trousers and a cowboy’s woolen shirt?
