Liz Ireland - Prim And Improper

Fuming, she planted her hands on her hips. “I’ve been quite successful running both, until you started wooing my brother and sister away to your ranch. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me Sally’s been herding cattle!”

“You’ll be happy to know she hasn’t. And, as I was saying, for the past three days even Toby hasn’t.”

“After my visit to your neck of the woods I decided it would be best all around if Livingstons and Saunderses didn’t mix.”

His jaw set stubbornly. “Fine. But that still leaves me with work paid for but undone.”

“I can remedy that right now,” Louise said briskly, taking two steps over to the cash drawer, turning the key and pulling it open with a firm tug. This would get rid of the man once and for all. “How much did you say you forwarded my brother?”

“Five dollars,” Ty said.

Louise counted out five silver dollars, slammed them on the counter and said challengingly, “There’s your five dollars.”

He sent her a blank stare. “I don’t want your money.”

“But you said—”

“I don’t care about the money,” he said patiently. “It’s the loss of a good hand that concerns me.”

Louise lifted her head proudly. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do about that. You’ll just have to find someone else to chase cows around with you. My brother is studying Livy.” She pushed the five dollars across the counter.

He reached out with his big paw and shoved the coins right back at her. “Good hands are hard to come by in these parts. Miners would rather spend their free hours panning for gold or drinking at your establishment than doing honest work.”

Louise smirked. As if she should have any sympathy for his predicament! “I don’t believe my brother was indentured to you.”

“No, but I feel I have every right to demand payment in labor, not dollars. That was the deal your brother and I made, after all. Any honest family would see that its commitments were kept.”

“Are you calling the Livingstons dishonest?”

One of his dark eyebrows slashed up to meet her challenge. “Are you saying you won’t honor your commitments?”

Louise blinked, feeling increasingly penned in. She wasn’t sure whether it was the man’s size or his arguing prowess that had such a powerful effect on her—or the memory of what those lips could do when they weren’t busy arguing.

“I’ve offered you money,” she insisted.

“And I’ve told you, silver won’t chop wood.”

The man was impossible! “Toby has more important things to tend to than doing your bidding.”

His eyes glinted in challenge. “I’d accept a substitute.”

So this was his game, Louise thought, understanding dawning. “If you think for one minute that I’m going to send Sally out to your ranch, think again. I’d as soon throw a bunny rabbit into a viper pit!”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to come yourself.”

Louise flinched. Surely he was joking!

But for once, the jesting gleam was absent from his gray eyes.

“That’s preposterous!” she bellowed heatedly. She scooped another silver dollar out of the drawer and pushed it toward him. “Here, I’ll give you anything you want. Just go away!”

“Not until you promise to come with me.”

Go with him? To his house? Alone?

She shook her head furiously. “I will do no such thing! I am a busy woman with three separate business establishments requiring my attention. I couldn’t possibly spare the time for such a foolish errand!”

“Miss Livingston, how would you like it if I convinced the good men of Noisy Swallow to start patronizing York’s Trading Post instead of your esteemed place of business?”

Louise tilted her head back haughtily. “I’d like to see you try. Not only is mine the better store, the Post is miles away!”

“Not so far that most men wouldn’t gladly walk if they discovered the prissy proprietress of Livingston Mercantile didn’t think men of Noisy Swallow were good enough to mix with her family.”

Her jaw had dropped open in unconcealable shock at his threat. “Oh! You are a terrible creature! I don’t see how Sally could say she loves a man like you.”

He smiled ruefully. “That question has puzzled me, too.”

Louise tapped her long fingers against the shiny wood counter, her mouth twisting into a desperate frown. She didn’t like feeling cornered, but she feared this time she was truly trapped. Ty Saunders had stature in the community. One look at him was enough to know why. His commanding presence demanded respect, which others might give him even if she wouldn’t.

The only thing she would grudgingly admit was that Ty Saunders was a wily son of a gun. But even though she might be outfoxed, that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to garner some advantage from the situation. “All right,” she replied. “I’ll do it.”

A broad smile broke out across his face, an expression she would gladly have slapped off. “Fine,” he said. “Two weeks.”

Louise blinked. “You’ll be expecting me in two weeks?”

“Hell, no. You can start the day after tomorrow, but I expect you to stay on for two weeks.”

“That’s absurd!”

“I gave your brother pay for two weeks of labor.”

“But that was only for a few mornings!”

“Yes, but your brother would have been doing outdoor labor. You can’t expect me to pay a woman as much.”

For a moment, Louise thought she might pass out. Never in her life had she met anyone who could enrage her like this man could. “One week,” she replied. “And I will not stay at your house. I have business to see to in town.”

“Then you’ll be wasting good time going back and forth.”

“That’s my affair.”

“Except that you’ll be so tuckered out, what kind of work will you be able to do?” he asked, shaking his head. “No, I’m afraid I have to insist that you stay at the house. For two weeks.”

She took a deep breath that failed to soothe her frayed nerves. “One week,” she insisted through gritted teeth. “One week, staying at your house, in exchange for Toby’s debt. And—” she paused for effect “—in exchange for your word that you will never court my sister.”

He said nothing for a long time, his white teeth nibbling at his lower lip as he considered. He rubbed a large hand across his bushy beard and slowly looked her up and down, weighing her offer. Louise felt herself begin to blush as he slowly assessed her appearance—as if that had anything to do with this silly bargain!—and was about to yell at him to simply say yes or no when he suddenly thrust his hand across the counter.

“Deal,” he said curtly.

Now she was supposed to shake on it, but she found herself wanting to avoid contact with the man. For three days, visions of his face had haunted her waking and sleeping hours, as had the memory of his touch. Instinctively she sensed it would be best to simply keep some distance from Tyrone Saunders.

Especially if she was going to spend a week living under the same roof with him!

“You have my word,” she assured him, keeping her hands tucked stiffly at her sides.

His lips turned up in a grin and he leaned over the counter toward her. “Shall we seal our bargain with a kiss?”

Her heart thumped in panic against her ribs, and she suddenly jabbed a hand out toward him, both to seal their bargain without any commingling of lips and to get his big barrel chest back on the safe side of the counter.

Ty clasped her thin hand between his two larger, laborroughened ones and laughed heartily. Louise cursed the flood of warmth that seeped through her at his energetic grasp and avoided looking him in the eye for as long as she could stand.