Pat Tracy - Burke's Rules

He stepped toward her. “Watch me.”

“You don’t scare me.” She regretted keenly the trembling of her voice.

“Are you sure?”

She had the awful feeling she’d pulled the tiger’s tail and was about to be eaten alive. And there wasn’t a whip in sight. “I’ve never b-been more sure of anything in my life.”

“You interest me, Miss Stoneworthy.”

As would a pork loin? His look was definitely predatory. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Ah, now you’re being sensible.”

“S-sensible?” She’d never stuttered in her life, until now.

“I wanted to see that look of panic in your beautiful green eyes upstairs. It took you long enough to realize some men won’t dance to your tune, though a very sweet tune it is.”

“You’re not making any sense.” She stopped retreating when she felt the bar pushing against her back.

“I’m making ‘man’ sense.”

Aunt Euphemia, wherever you are, everything you ever said about men is true. They’re incomprehensible, barbaric creatures who should be living in caves, or trees, or under rocks.

She raised her palm. “If you touch me, I’ll knock you unconscious again.”

“With your bare hands?”

She raised her chin. “I’ll tell Emma on you.”

He rolled his eyes. “What kind of threat is that?”

“She’ll tell her husband, and he’ll...beat you up.”

It could happen.

“You’ve got me shaking in my boots.”

She wished she were big enough to take him on. His quivering lips betrayed his amusement at her puny arsenal of threats.

A ferocious pounding had Jayne almost jumping out of her skin.

“Damn, just when things were getting interesting,” Youngblood growled.

She pivoted and raced to the door, throwing it open in grateful anticipation of greeting her unknown rescuer. There stood her cheerful miner, bless his heart, all seven feet of him. She’d never dreamed a big galoot could look so beautiful.

“Hello, come in.” She reached for his arm. “It’s good to see you again. How have you been?”

He beamed down at her. “I’m doing mighty fine, Miss Stoneworthy. I told you I would be back, and here I am.”

“Yes, indeed, you did.” And you’re big enough to flatten a grizzly, let alone one insufferable banker.

Newt looked past her. “I see you got company. How do, Mr. Youngblood?”

“Hello, Newt.”

Drat, from the miner’s respectful tone, there probably wouldn’t be any bloodshed. She sighed. “You know Mr. Youngblood?”

“I sure do. I wouldn’t put my money in any other bank but his. The First National is as safe as if St. Peter himself were guarding it.”

“It’s been robbed three times,” she pointed out waspishly.

“Yep, but they didn’t get away with any money.”

“That’s right, your money’s safe with us.” The banker surprised Jayne by heading toward the door. Hooray, he was finally leaving.

He pointed to the plank of wood the miner carried. “What do you have there, Newt?”

The miner held up the board into which uneven letters had been burned. “I had this sign made up at the smithy’s for Miss Stoneworthy so everyone will know this ain’t a cathouse anymore, begging your pardon, miss.”

In disbelief, Jayne stared at the words branded into the wood.

“The Miz Stunworthee Skull of Tootering fer Yung Laddies,” Youngblood read aloud, pronouncing the catastrophically misspelled words correctly.

“Do you like it?” Newt asked, his voice brimming with pride.

“How thoughtful of you to make it,” Jayne answered weakly.

“Don’t mention it. I’ll grab a hammer and some nails and put it up.”

Jayne rubbed her forehead.

“It doesn’t matter.” Youngblood pitched his voice so it reached her ears alone. “The sign won’t drive off any prospective business. You’ll be out of here by nightfall.”

Her head jerked up. “No, I won’t.”

“There’s no way I’m going to let you spend another night in this place.”

“You have no say in anything I—”

“Shut up, Jayne,” he said softly.

Newt returned with the hammer. If she gave the command “attack,” would he use it on the banker?

“Won’t be but another minute, Miss Stoneworthy.”

“Thank you.”

“Pack up a few of your things,” Youngblood continued, “I’ll take you to a hotel. Tomorrow we’ll get serious about finding you a new building.”

“Listen, you—”

Energetic hammering muffled her protest. In the subsequent silence, Youngblood leaned closer.

“No, you listen. I’m bigger, more determined and meaner than you are. You might not like it, but I’ve taken an interest in you and, for better or worse, you’re stuck with my involvement.”

His statement sounded like a demented wedding vow.

“But you can’t make me—”

“Sure I can.”

“There are laws—”

“A respectable lady wanting to run a fancy girls’ school can’t afford to draw the wrong kind of attention. It would be the kiss of death for your name to be linked with any unsavory gossip. I guarantee going to the sheriff in a misguided attempt to make me behave myself would unleash a flurry of wild rumors.”

“That’s coercion!”

“Highly effective coercion. Pack and be ready when I return.”

She stared at his broad, retreating back. Good heavens, her life had just been taken from her control.

Aunt Euphemia, it’s far worse than you supposed. Some men are more primitive than any ancient beasts who ever stalked the earth.

Newt poked his shaggy head inside. “You want to make sure I got the sign straight?”

Chapter Four

Jayne went to her bedchamber’s open window and pushed aside white curtains to look at the street below. From her second-story vantage point, she saw that dusk was settling over the shops, taverns and passersby. Burke Youngblood had not returned and made good on his outrageous threat to collect her as if she were a shipment of cabbages.

Despite the coming night’s warmth, Jayne shivered. The banker’s decisive manner appeared intrinsic to his nature. It seemed foolish to hope his bold declaration had been vainly uttered. Yet hope she did, clinging to the possibility that good sense had prevailed over his rash statements, and he intended to leave her in peace.

She let the curtains slip through her fingers and turned. The sturdy dresser blocking her locked bedchamber door had required relentless pushing and prodding to budge.

Burke Youngblood had scarcely entered her life, and he’d already caused her a great deal of trouble. It was as Aunt Euphemia said. A man might appear in the guise of offering help, but he usually ended up becoming a burden.

Jayne surveyed her barricaded domain and, pronouncing it impregnable against any invasion, went to the bed and picked up an unwieldy drawer. Because she’d gone to all this work to keep him out, he probably wouldn’t come. That was one of life’s ironies. Expected calamities rarely occurred, while ones that couldn’t be foreseen arrived with bass drums.

Burke stood on the boardwalk across the street from Jayne Stoneworthy’s ill-fated school. He’d seen the curtains flutter moments ago and recognized her profile at the bedchamber window. The vagueness of her outline frustrated him. He wanted to prove that she wasn’t the elusive creature who’d been teasing the edges of his thoughts. She was real. And damned if he didn’t want to unravel the mystery of her effect upon him.

He took a slow drag on his cheroot and contemplated the second-story window. What on earth had possessed him to carry her upstairs and throw her on that bed? When he’d stepped inside the building, his purpose had been clear, to teach her that she couldn’t take up residence in a former brothel and open her door to any man who knocked.