Sharpshooter in Petticoats by Mary Connealy

Author:Mary Connealy [Connealy, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60742-269-3
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Emma, if you come stand right beside me and talk to Catherine and Angela, with Jarrod in your arms, I think they’ll calm down. See, Catherine is already watching her brother.” Mark tilted his head so he could look little Catherine in the eye. “Aren’t you, honey?”

Mark looked up and smiled at Emma, who’d come right on over. Mark had a passel of little brothers, and he’d learned a long time ago that a man carrying a baby was a lure to a woman. He’d used it many times in his earlier years. Before Emma he’d never been serious about women, but he’d always liked their attention. Now he used these little ones as tasty bait.

“I only had brothers growing up.” He looked at the girls in his arms. Sure he was baiting an Emma-trap, but he sincerely cared about Mandy’s little tykes. “My folks only had boys.”

Emma kept her eyes on Catherine, her voice gentle and sweet, her hands stroking Jarrod. “Hi, Catherine. I only had sisters until Tanner was born. There were four of us girls.”

“Four?” Mark looked around the room, blond Emma, redheaded Sarah, black-eyed Betsy. “Who’m I missing?”

“I’ve got an older sister who’s married.”

Mark smiled and Emma seemed caught in the smile. Jarrod in her arms, Catherine and Angela in his. He could see them as a family. Children of their own. Blue-eyed and blond-haired, Mark reckoned, though obviously Emma came from a family that could churn out children of all descriptions.

“So, you’ve got a lot of little brothers?” Emma was a tough Montana cowgirl. Mark knew that and it suited him. A woman needed to be strong to settle the West. Mark figured if he touched her hand he’d find calluses as tough as boot leather. And he almost reached out to check but thought better of it. Having two children in his arms slowed him down, too.

She was close to him now, and she’d stay here if he didn’t make any false moves. She was as pretty as a spring rose, and her voice washed over him like warm rain.

The thought of having children with her was almost more pleasure than Mark could take. “Yep, five when I left home. But my folks have one every onest in a while, so who knows? Ma’s getting older now. She has to be almost forty I reckon.”

“My ma’s almost forty, and she just had a new baby.” Emma tipped her head toward a crib where a little one slept. “Your ma must’ve been young when you were born.”

“She’s not my real ma. My ma died having me and my two brothers.”

Emma’s brow knit with a frown. “Three babies at once?”

“Yep, triplets. We’re the only ones I’ve ever heard tell of.”

“I didn’t even know babies could be born three at a time. And it killed your mother to have you?”

“Yes.” Mark had been having fun until now, luring Emma closer, flirting a bit, acting like a hero because the children took to him. But it hurt to think that his birth had done his ma in.

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