Prim And Improper
He looked toward the pasture rolling unseen down below in the darkness, feeling an uncomfortable tightness in his gut. “I’d think you’d be tired,” he said tersely.
“Not at all.”
He frowned. “We’ll have to find more for you to do tomorrow,” he said.
“Absolutely,” she agreed with gusto. “Otherwise, I’ll feel useless.”
Ty rolled his eyes. He should have known that Little Miss Busy-Busy would want more of a challenge than simple house chores. By the end of her week she would probably be ready for a cattle drive! “If I could convince Caleb to stop coddling you, that might make your days a little less useless.”
He looked over and noted with satisfaction that her chin jutted out in that stubborn way of hers. Nevertheless, she kept her tone even as she replied, “Don’t blame Cal.”
“Oh, so it’s ‘Cal’ already?”
Her fists balled at her sides, and he felt a surge of excitement upon seeing the spark in her eye. “I believe your brother was attempting to create a good impression for me, since you seemed determined not even to try.”
“Don’t see why he bothered.”
She let out a huff of frustration. “For you, you stupid lug!”
“Obviously he did wonders reversing your low opinion of me,” Ty said wryly, enjoying the passion in her eyes when she became wrapped up in an argument.
“You can’t even understand your brother’s noble intentions.”
“Oh, I can’t?” Ty asked, puffing on his cigar.
She waved a cloud of smoke away from her face. “Do you know he nearly had me convinced that deep down you’re actually a sentimental man?”
Ty barked out a laugh.
“Cal said that beneath that gruff exterior you were just a sad soul, pining for love.”
Ty leaned close, his lips turning up into a suggestive grin. “Oh, I’ll admit to pining for love as much as the next man.”
“You don’t have an honorable intention inside you,” she asserted with disgust.
He waggled his brows together. “No, but I’m full to the brim with dishonorable ones.”
“That I can believe! Never once today have you mentioned poor Sally.”
“She’s a pretty little thing,” he told her with a negligent shrug. “She’ll find someone else, maybe even someone you can approve of. I hear there are a few unmarried princes left over in Europe.”
“My sister is not a thing,” she lectured angrily. “She’s a young woman with a vulnerable heart.”
“Unfortunately, my heart is invulnerable.”
“I’ve never met anyone so callous in my life!”
“I’m callous?” Ty asked. “What about you? You’re the one who told your lovesick sister she couldn’t be seen with the likes of me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “And apparently I was right to do so!”
Ty looked into her lively eyes and couldn’t help smiling. In spite of himself, he liked her pluck. He was even beginning to admire the way her pointy chin stuck out so stubbornly.
Caleb had done a good job of softening her today, and now Ty had performed equally well in riling her. But he was too tempted by the opportunity the moonlight and melodic night sounds presented to let Miss Livingston storm inside just yet.
Maybe he was just too tempted by Louise, period.
Either way, he knew just what to do to make her livid, and confirm her good opinion of Caleb’s character.
“You know,” he said, calculating his words to have the most infuriating effect, “I think you might be jealous of your sister.”
Her face turned the color of a Mexican pepper. “Jealous!”
“Come now,” he said, taking another step toward her. “Don’t think I’ve missed those little looks you’ve given me when I come into the store.”
Louise’s full red lips parted in horror. She took a step backward, then swallowed in a gulp of air. “Looks?”
“It’s understandable, you know,” he assured her in a low, purring voice. “An older woman like yourself…alone…around all those men.”
She let out a muffled shriek. “How dare you even suggest—and I’m not old. I’m twenty-three!”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders and hauled her against his chest. Her body was as rigid as an old creaky board, and her breathing came in shallow gulps.
“Then maybe all you lack is a little experience,” he said, tossing aside his cigar and then dipping down to taste her lips.
She gasped in surprise and pressed her palms flat against his chest to push him away. Only the push never came. Ty pulled her more tightly against him and moved his mouth against her lips teasingly, testing her response. Her body remained still, both unyielding and unprotesting, as if in anticipation of what his next move would be.
Unable to resist, he deepened the kiss, tasting her sweet mouth with his tongue. At the same time, he drank in her delicate, clean, soapy scent, and ran a hand up to feel the luxurious thickness of her hair. She moaned, and he suddenly realized what a sweet, tantalizing trap he’d fallen into. It had been too long since he’d held a woman in his arms. In fact, the last time had been when he’d held this woman in his arms. His body was as tightly wound as a steel coil. He wanted her.
And yet he had succeeded in making himself the last man on earth she would want.
With a silent groan of regret, he lifted his head, putting an abrupt end to their kiss. His hands dropped to his sides, and he took a short step back.
Her round, unblinking eyes looked dazed at first, then sparked with indignation. “How dare you!” she cried, heat visibly flooding her cheeks even in the moonlight. “Let go of me!”
“I did.”
She looked down in dismay at her freed limbs. Her embarrassment at this discovery only added fuel to her ire. “That was the most despicable thing you’ve done yet!”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Letting go of you?”
“Kissing me!” she cried.
“You seemed to enjoy it,” he told her, assuming an air of arrogance while at the same time attempting to discern whether there was any truth to his words. “Leastwise, you didn’t kick up much of a fuss.”
“I was in shock!”
“A lot of women say that,” he said, posturing proudly. “It just takes a certain prowess.”
Her eyes narrowed and her fists rested on her hips. “Tyrone Saunders, you’re lower than low. I’m leaving here tomorrow and I never want to lay eyes on your hide again.”
“We had a bargain,” he warned her. “A week, remember?”
“You can’t expect me to stay here now!”
“I would expect that you would be a little less forward during the rest of your stay, as befits a woman of your superlative breeding.”
“Less forward? Me?”
He shot her an innocent glance. “I was out here minding my own business, enjoying my solitary stroll with only my cigar for company.”
“A smelly old cigar is about all the company you’re fit for!” she said angrily. “You can rest assured that I won’t throw myself at you again!”
She twirled and stormed to the house, coming just short of slamming the door behind her.
He should have been smiling, but he couldn’t. Though the encounter had been a triumph in terms of making Louise think he was a boorish lout, he’d hit upon a disturbing discovery while kissing her. His heart wasn’t so invulnerable after all.
At least, not to one particular woman.
Chapter Five
“What is all this for?” Louise asked.
In the short amount of time it had taken her to feed the chickens and gather the few eggs available, Caleb had transformed the kitchen from its post-breakfast mess to a sparkling clean place to take a bath. The table had been pushed back, and in its place was a large washtub, half-filled.
“I thought you might like a bath,” Caleb announced as she stood staring in wonder at the light fog created by the steam from the water he had been heating on the stove.
“A bath? At nine in the morning? The idea’s too decadent even to consider.”
There was no masking the disappointment on Cal’s face. “I thought after all the work you’d done for us…”
“Work!” she cried, nearly dropping her egg basket. “You’ve hardly allowed me to get myself dirty enough to need a bath!”
“Why, that’s crazy,” Caleb said as he tested the heating water on the stove with his finger. Deciding it was ready, he hauled it over to the tub and poured it in. “Didn’t you practically cook dinner single-handed last night?”
She had single-handedly warmed up the remains of the feast Caleb had prepared the night before. But he had prepared the fresh corn bread, and done most of the scrubbing up afterward, refusing to let her lift a finger. In fact, this bath seemed just another way for Caleb to show that he intended to wait on her hand and foot. Which made her wonder what the purpose in dragging her all the way out here was.
“Caleb, I couldn’t,” she insisted. “There’s so much else I could be doing.”
He shook his head. “Not in the house, ma’am,” he said flatly. “I’ve seen to most everything there is to tend to. Ty’s mending a rail on the pen out by the barn, so I thought I’d go help him for a while, if that’s all right with you.”
All right with her? Compared with his brother’s rude behavior, the young man’s kindness nearly brought tears to her eyes. He was so obviously trying to make up for his brother’s brutish manner.
“All right, Caleb,” she answered finally, giving in. “Since you’ve gone to all this trouble.”
He smiled joyfully. “It was no trouble, Miss Livingston.”
She couldn’t help grinning back. “Caleb, I certainly think you can call me Louise now. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had such a nice surprise as this.”
He beamed with satisfaction with her words, then dashed out to get some more water to add to the scalding hot water already in the tub. In a few minutes, he had her outfitted with soap, a towel for drying, even an extra bucket of warm water to rinse her hair with. All that was left for Louise to do was strip and jump in the water while it was still warm.
After cautiously making sure that there was absolutely no one in sight when Caleb had gone to join his brother, she sank into the tub and let out a long, languorous sigh. She couldn’t remember the last time she had had a bath in the middle of the day. Or had so little to occupy her. The day before, she’d practically done battle with Caleb to find some use for herself. The man was a whirlwind of activity, yet he worried that she was wearing herself out, though she had insisted many times that nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing wearing her out these days was worry.
After years of nonstop labor, being at loose ends for ever a day was rather like having a rug pulled out from under her feet. She felt fretful about what was going on at home Was Sally doing all right, or was she still moping? Toby she felt surer about, except that he was liable to spend his days dreaming of gold instead of history and mathematics Usually she could count on Sally to keep Toby somewha in check, but these days, with her youthful thoughts all centered around Ty Saunders…
Louise found Ty consuming all her thoughts, as well Since mauling her two nights ago, he had left her alone but unfortunately, the memory of his kiss still plagued he even if he didn’t. Merely thinking of the way his lips had felt against hers made her heart flutter and her insides turn to liquid, and remembering how she had reacted—how her arms had held him fast, the little contented sigh she had heard coming from her own throat—those recollections made her go scarlet with shame!
Picking up the soap, she began scrubbing her limbs with a fierce vigor. When it came to Ty Saunders, she was as bad as Sally! Worse, perhaps. Sally had youth as an excuse and inexperience. Though she herself had never been engaged, or even lost her heart to a man, Toby was right. She had had a few flirtations in her day. Not only that, she had definitely had the experience of Ty Saunders’s charms…and had resisted them. Thank heavens!
Though ten months ago she hadn’t been interested in having a romance, much less a romance with a man like Ty Saunders, it hadn’t escaped her notice that he had neve gone too far out of his way to pursue her after her one paltry little rebuff. A different man, a more serious minded man, might have persisted, might have at least tried to woo her a little bit. Why, even Niles Swaggart had more persistence than Ty Saunders, and she hadn’t given that man the least bit of encouragement, and had certainly never kissed him. The very idea made her shiver, as if the water around her had turned to ice.
Remembering Ty’s kiss made her shiver, too, but for a very different reason. It took all her might not to give in to the urge to simply ease down into the soothing water and daydream the morning away, reliving every brief second that he had held her in his arms. Or every word they had spoken, or each look they had ever exchanged.
Louise was startled by the sound of footsteps outside, which were rapidly becoming louder as the person approached. It had to be Caleb, which meant that she had probably been soaking longer than was necessary. Sure enough, she looked down and saw prunelike wrinkles on her fingers, and suddenly became aware of the water that had grown tepid around her. How embarrassing! Caleb was going to think that she was the worst sort of laze-about!
Fast as she could, she sluiced the bucket of rinse water over her head, then stood, reaching for the towel that Cal had given her. She was just done covering herself when she suddenly heard boots clumping up the back stairs. The kitchen door flew open.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise.
But it wasn’t Caleb who stood in front of her, stock-still, his eyes round with shock at being confronted with a dripping wet, nearly naked woman. It was Ty.
Louise froze in mortification. Though the generous towel covered most parts of her that Wilbur Abernathy and every other civilized person in the Western world would have deemed indecent, Louise felt distinctly as if she were standing nude in the middle of the kitchen. At first the cool morning air that had come in when Ty opened the door sent a chill through her, but her limbs continued to tremble long after he had closed the door and stood staring at her in silence. In fact, the longer they continued their speechless standoff, the more she quaked.
If only he wouldn’t look at her so thoroughly! His steely gray eyes kept raking up and down her body, from her calves immersed in water up past her knees and thighs to her towel-clad torso, to her face, which was framed by her wet hair. What a sight she must be, though a gentleman would certainly have turned his back at the very least, and preferably left the room altogether!
That was just the problem. Ty Saunders had the manners of a pack mule. Slowly she noted a subtle change in his gaze, from shock to something even more disturbing. She looked down to where his eyes seemed to be glued, down to the towel that was, she discovered to her utter dismay clinging to her breasts and hips in a most revealing way In fact, a quick glance down was enough to show that her breasts, beaded erectly against the wet and chill, were almost fully visible through the damp covering.
Horrified, Louise darted her eyes around the room, frantically searching for a hiding place to dash off to. Caleb’s kitchen was so stark, so tidy, she felt as exposed as a dance-hall girl on a brightly lit San Francisco stage. Yet she couldn’t just stand there with Ty gawking at her forever!
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