Liz Ireland - Prim And Improper

“Yeah, why would we?” Toby mimicked. At sixteen, he was two years younger than Sally but fully a head taller. He had the same curly brown hair as Sally, and sharp brown eyes that they all shared, traits they had inherited from their father.

“Because you were supposed to be at home studying and doing chores. And Sally, you were supposed to be minding the store. Imagine my surprise when I came in and found your note! Luckily Mr. Abernathy was here to set me straight.”

Sally, seeing the box of nails in Wilbur’s hands and guessing that he had already snitched on her, stepped forward defiantly. “All right, I admit it. I sneaked out to visit a friend.”

Toby took a smaller step forward. “And I—”

“I made Toby come with me,” Sally interrupted.

Louise’s heart started pounding with dread. “‘Friend’?” Her suspicious query was punctuated by Wilbur Abernathy’s shuffling toward the door with his ill-gotten gains.

“Thank you for your kind donation to the church, Louise,” the preacher said.

After he was gone, Sally straightened to her full height and stood nose to nose with Louise. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been going to see a man.”

Louise gasped in horror. “Who? Who is it?”

“I don’t see what it matters,” Sally said. “You hate all men just the same.”

“I do not. It’s just that men around here fall into two categories—dreamers and chiselers. And I don’t want a sister of mine getting mixed up with either type.”

“Well, this man is a perfect angel—I even met him at Wilbur’s church.”

Louise immediately dismissed this recommendation. Everybody in Noisy Swallow went to church—Wilbur held services at two in the afternoon so his flock would be able to sleep off their Saturday night hangovers. “Who?” she asked again. “Who is it?”

Sally hesitated and bit her red, full lower lip. “It’s—” She shot a stern look at Toby before bringing her gaze back to meet Louise’s. Suddenly her voice became a shade meeker as she admitted, “It’s Tyrone Saunders.”

The room fell completely silent, except for the sound of rain battering the roof. Toby’s mouth was hanging open in shock, and Louise was sure her own was, too. Surely she’d heard wrong.

Ty Saunders! The man who had kissed her? Who had dominated her dreams all winter?

Oh, no, it couldn’t be. Heat flooded through her as her mind called up those memories she just hadn’t been able to shake, no matter how hard she tried—of rough lips pressing against hers, a firm hand around her waist, and the unsteadiness of her legs as he held her so tightly against him.

Had Ty kissed Sally that way? Her gape turned to a scowl of indignation. Of course. He would probably kiss anything that moved!

Finally she collected her wits enough to ask in utter amazement, “You think Ty Saunders is an angel? ”

“I do,” Sally said. “In fact, I love him.”

Louise winced at the mention of the word love. “Oh, Sally, how could you! After all I’ve tried to teach you, after all the work I’ve done to insure you wouldn’t have to marry an uncouth, no-good—”

“Ty is a rancher now, not a prospector.” Sally smiled. “And I recall you seemed to have a nice time dancing with him last year at the church social.”

Louise was sure her face turned beet red; she immediately pivoted away. “What do a few cows add up to—”

“He has two bunches of them,” Sally corrected pertly.

“Herds,” Toby corrected in a tone of disgust.

“I doubt if you totted it up the man went to school five years altogether,” Louise interrupted, not caring whether Ty Saunders had bunches or herds, or kittens, for that matter. “And he has a little brother to support.”

“So do you!” Sally argued, “and you’ve done a fine job right here in Noisy Swallow.”

“That’s true, sis.” Toby smiled winningly, trying his best to soothe her ruffled feathers with flattery. “You’ve raised us just the way Ma and Pa would have.”

Louise bridled uncomfortably, feeling control of the argument slipping away from her. Maybe she had prospered in the wilderness. But would they understand if she explained that it was only her dream for their future that had driven her?

“I want better for you than some rough heathen like Ty Saunders,” she insisted. “Why, he’s a grown man, he should know better than to lure young unmarried women out to his ranch, his lair! And I’m going to tell him so right now!”

She turned, strode to the coatrack against the wall and pulled her cloak off it.

Toby’s eyes widened in dismay. “Lou, you can’t go out in this weather. The Saunders farm is ten miles away!”

“I can and I will. I’m going to tell that man exactly what I think of his seducing innocent young girls!”

Sally grabbed her arm. “You wouldn’t!” she pleaded. “I would be so humiliated, Louise.”

“Better humiliated for a little while than ruined for life.” Louise plucked Sally’s hand off her arm and instructed, “While I’m away, I want you two to stay put. Mind the store, Toby, and Sally, you go back to the boardinghouse and see to dinner for the boarders.”

The two nodded in unison. “Yes, Louise.”

Their quick compliance made her hesitate. It usually took a good five minutes of haggling to get Toby and Sally to do anything. Perhaps her discovery of their clandestine activities had humbled them.

“Love!” she grumbled in disgust as she swept out the door into the lingering drizzle. With Ty Saunders? How could that be?

Of course, she knew exactly how. One warm look from those gray eyes, a stolen kiss…Louise shuddered as she saddled up their mare, Blackie. She had been able to withstand those things, but Sally was only eighteen, and it was springtime—and that was a dangerous combination.

As the sound of hooves clopping down the muddy street retreated in the distance, Sally and Toby exchanged relieved glances, glad to have survived their oldest sister’s wrath relatively unscathed.

“Thanks for not telling Louise I’ve been working for Ty,” Toby said. “Though I don’t see what’s wrong with making a little money so I could pay for some prospecting gear.”

“Everything’s wrong with it, in Louise’s book. Anyway, I didn’t want to see her explode.”

“But why did you tell her all that stuff about being in love with Ty? It’s Caleb you’re sweet on.”

Sally rolled her eyes at his lack of insight and sashayed casually over to the counter to swipe a peppermint stick from a jar. “Of course it’s Cal I love!” she said, letting out a giggle. “Ty is too old for me—the man has to be thirty if he’s a day!”

“Then why did you say you were in love with his brother?”

She licked at her candy, savoring her brilliant strategy. “Because I knew Louise would storm out to the Saunders ranch the minute she found out we’d been going out there. Cal is so mild mannered and shy, Louise probably would have scared him to death. The poor boy might have even agreed not to see me anymore!”

“What will Ty do?” Toby queried anxiously.

A wicked smile touched Sally’s lips. “That great ox of a man? Why, the moment Louise starts to give him a piece of her mind, he’ll give her a piece of his own right back!”

Not far from his house, Ty Saunders sat atop his gray stallion, Zeus, and watched the approaching rider with interest. Aside from Sally and Toby, he and Cal didn’t get visitors often. But those two had already come and gone today.

Strange thing was, this horse looked like the Livingstons’ black mare. He frowned and waited until the rider in the billowing black cape started mounting the final hill to the house. When he could see who it was, his breath hitched in his throat.