Prim And Improper

Chapter Three

Cal was miserable. That’s all there was to it.

For two days, Ty had been trying to explain to his little brother that there were other women in the world besides his precious Sally. Prettier women. Women with better temperaments. And most important of all, women with nicer relatives.

And what did Caleb have to say to all these assurances?

“You’re right, Ty.”

Nevertheless, for two days Cal had moped around the ranch like a lovesick puppy, his head drooping sadly as he went about his work. Nothing Ty said could tug him back to his normal spirits. He had no more energy in him than a damp rag.

Until now. When they were supposed to be having a quiet, relaxing evening by the fire. Cal was now restive, uneasy. The tromping of his heavy boots echoed through the room as he paced, punctuated by sad, ragged sighs that bordered on moans.

Finally Ty had to put aside the paper he was reading. “Darn it, Cal, why don’t you just forget her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.” Cal combed a hand restlessly through his blond hair.

“Here, do you want to read the paper?” Ty always lost himself in newspapers from faraway places, when he could get his hands on them. He liked imagining what it would be like to move on to a new spot. “This one’s from Oregon.”

“Nah.” Cal flopped into a chair and looked at him with eyes that were bleary from moping and lack of sleep. “Ty, have you ever been in love?”

“I sure haven’t,” Ty replied with something like a mixture of relief and pride.

“I certainly envy you.” Cal sighed. “You don’t know what it’s like to stay up all night, dreaming of a woman.”

Ty frowned. That wasn’t true, entirely. Just the night before, he had tossed and turned, thinking of that infuriating sister of the gal Cal was so stuck on. Louise Livingston. He’d had his eye on her from the moment he first landed in Noisy Swallow. Not only was she damned pretty, but there was something about that brittle pride of hers that endeared her to him, made him want to take her in his arms. The way the woman acted, a body would swear she’d been carved out of an iceberg. Yet when he’d danced with her that night so long ago, then kissed her, she’d melted for a few glorious moments. Moments that made him suspect that underneath her layers of coolness and efficiency, there was buried a real woman with a real woman’s desires.

He’d felt it again, fleetingly, two days ago when he’d grabbed her around the waist. She’d been pliant and warm…for the few seconds until she got away from him.

He let out a ragged sigh.

“Ty? Ty?”

“What?” Ty replied, startled from his enticing thoughts.

His brother looked at him suspiciously. “Are you sure you’ve never been in love?”

“Listen,” Ty said, purposefully turning the focus away from himself. “If you’re so determined that Sally is the girl for you, why don’t you go tell her so?”

“But Louise said she didn’t want us seeing her family anymore.”

“Oh, hang Louise Livingston! That woman’s head is all mixed up. She didn’t even know which of us her sister was in love with.”

Cal shook his head. “Even so, I reckon I made a rather poor impression.”

Ty laughed, recalling the look of horror on Louise’s face after she’d been rolling around in the mud.

In despair, Cal buried his head in his hands. “It’s not funny! She probably told Sally that I’m an imbecile.”

Ty’s smile immediately disappeared. He could stand that annoying woman thinking the worst of him, but his brother was a different matter entirely. She had no right to turn her nose up at Caleb, the kid brother he had raised from the time their mother had died, when Cal was no more than a sprout. Ty had worked hard to provide for his brother, was trying to make this farm profitable for his sake, and he wasn’t going to let some crazy woman go around saying that Caleb wasn’t good enough to be seen with her sister.

Just the thought made his blood boil.

“I tell you what you should do. Just go into Noisy Swallow tomorrow and give that woman a piece of your mind. Tell her you’re in love with her sister and you don’t give two hoots whether she approves or not.”

“But I do care.”

Ty grumbled. “Then why don’t you sneak into town tonight, snatch Sally right out of her bed and have a good old-fashioned elopement?”

His brother looked askance at that idea, too. “I wouldn’t want to do anything that would cause a permanent rupture between her and her family.”

“Well, hell, then, what do you want?”

With a heavy sigh, Cal propped his chin on his knee and looked dreamily into the fire. “Sally,” he said simply.

Ty harrumphed loudly and tried to turn his attention back to his paper. But again it proved impossible to concentrate on the rosy reports of verdant hills and farmland ripe for the picking. Since he had entered into a fight with Louise Livingston knowing that she was mistaken about which Saunders man her sister was in love with, he felt some responsibility for Cal’s hopeless situation. On his own, Cal would never have created such a bad impression. Normally Cal was well mannered, conscientious and unfailingly polite. But when Cal got nervous…

Louise was never going to allow Cal to court Sally as long as she thought he was the oaf she had met two days ago. Somehow, Ty decided, he was going to have to set things right again between his brother and Sally’s sister, a feat that was never going to be achieved with Cal out here and Louise ten miles away in Noisy Swallow.

Standing idly behind the counter, looking out the mercantile’s window through glazed eyes, Sally took in a huge breath and then slowly exhaled with a long, mournful hum. Louise frowned in irritation.

As soon as the one customer in the store paid and left, Louise turned to her sister. “Sally, why don’t you go to the boardinghouse and get the washing started?” Sally let out another of those hums. “Oh, all right.” Ever so slowly, she floated toward the door, as if there were no purpose to anything in the world. By contrast, she was almost flattened by her brother coming in the same door.

“Louise, can I go out with Louden and Jim today?” Louise waited until Sally was safely out the door and on her way toward the house before addressing Toby’s question. Between the two of them she hadn’t experienced a moment’s peace in two days.

“Certainly not,” she said.

“Aw, shoot! Why not?”

“Because you’ve got Latin and mathematics to study.”

“I’ve studied them,” he whined. “For three whole days I’ve done nothing but study.”

“‘Work is what makes the man,’” Louise answered patly.

“That’s what Ty Saunders says, too,” Toby said enthusiastically, circling her. “Only he also says that a body can’t study all the time. He says men have to get out and move around outdoors.”

Louise frowned. That man! Bad enough that she had to watch Sally mope about him, and that she herself couldn’t forget about him. Now she had to listen to her brother quoting Ty Saunders!

“Animals have to get out and move around outdoors,” she corrected. “It’s not entirely surprising that a man like Mr. Saunders would be confused about the differences between men and beasts.”

Toby stubbed the toe of his boot petulantly against the wide pine plank floors. “You’re too hard on Ty, Louise. He’s really a nice fellow. Cal, too.”

Louise harrumphed loudly.

“Their spread made a lot of money last year. Bet you didn’t know that!”

Despite her intention to betray not the slightest curiosity about the Saunders men, Louise felt her eyebrows rise in interest. “It did?”

“Sure,” Toby confirmed. “And Ty said they could make more if they had more people working for them.” He paused. “He even hinted that I could work out there regularly.”

“What!”

Toby shrugged. “But of course, I said I couldn’t, on account of you forcing me to go to an old stupid university someday.”

She shook her head. “If you need something to do, you can watch the store while I go help with the wash.”

“Aw, heck,” Toby moaned. “I guess you’ll never see my side, Lou. Just like you’ll never understand about Sally.”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“She’s just not like you, that’s all,” Toby said, shrugging. “You don’t seem to want the things normal women do anymore.”

“Toby!”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Before we came to California, you used to flirt and have beaux just like she wants to. I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.”

Louise sighed. She hardly ever thought about old times anymore, or the life she had left behind. There was always too much in the present that demanded her attention. “Life is different here, Toby. When I was a girl, the men we knew were gentleman, or at least tradesmen. I wasn’t flirting with miners.”

“What’s the matter with miners?” Toby asked. “I wish I could go out all day and hunt for gold!”

“Wishes don’t earn their keep,” she chirped sagely.

“They would if I struck it rich,” he challenged. “Besides, Ty and Cal aren’t miners anymore.”

“They used to be.”

“But they aren’t now. They aren’t like Will Bundy and all that gang, just hanging around the saloon all day waitin’ to hear where the next big strike is. And anyway, Sally’s acting so funny, I worry about her. Last night she stayed up all night, humming.”

Louise shook her head. Sally’s sad hum was becoming a familiar sound in Noisy Swallow. She hated seeing her sister going through such a trying time, but in the end, she knew it was for the best. “Give her time,” she said sadly, “she’ll get over it”

“I know you think that,” Toby said boldly, “but I’m not so sure. I think she’s in love with…Mr. Saunders.”

“Then she just needs to learn not to love him,” Louise said.

“Not everybody can rein in all the things they feel like you can, Lou. Like me. Sometimes I feel like I could just burst out running and not stop till I reach the Pacific Ocean!”

Louise had to laugh at that. “That’s the way it feels to be sixteen. But if you do burst out running, I wish you’d head in the direction of Harvard.”

He shrugged sheepishly, and she gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Toby. I’ll go talk to Sally and see if I can’t cheer her up.” An idea struck her, and her voice brightened. “Maybe I’ll make her a new dress, or a hat.”

He smiled limply. “Maybe.”

Just then, a movement on the street outside the window caught her eye. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed.

Toby looked out the window, and two spots of color appeared in his cheeks. “Uh-oh.”

Dark as a thundercloud, Ty Saunders strode across the dirt road that was Noisy Swallow’s only thoroughfare. He had a grim determination about him—set off by his beard, his mouth appeared to be a straight slash—that made both Toby and Louise draw back a little.

In a second, he was knocking the dirt off his boots outside the door of the mercantile.

“Gosh, I’d better get back to my chores,” Toby said quickly, dashing for the door.

“Wait, Toby, don’t lea—”

Then Ty was there, inside the store, which seemed a whole lot smaller just for his being in it. Louise hadn’t quite appreciated how large a man he was when they were outside together. Now she noticed that he’d had to duck as he’d come through the door, and that his broad shoulders filled up the entrance to the store. The shelves next to him seemed dwarfed by his presence.

So did Toby. “Hi there, Ty,” he said quickly, not quite looking the man in the eye. “I was sure hoping to talk to you, but gosh, I’ve got lots to do now.” As fast as a mouse dashing for a knothole, Toby darted through the door.

Louise looked into Ty Saunders’s watchful gray eyes and found herself backing toward the counter. He followed her, until they stood on opposite sides of the long length of wood.

“I thought I told you not to come here,” Louise said.

His lips twisted into a curt smile at her no-nonsense greeting. “No, you told me I couldn’t see Sally.”

“Well, then…” Her mouth felt bone dry, so speaking took an effort. “Have you come to shop?”

“No, I’ve come to get something I’ve already paid for.”

Louise frowned. “I don’t recall your buying anything.”

“I didn’t. I paid for a service I haven’t received.”

All sorts of questions popped into Louise’s head as she looked into Ty’s devilish eyes. What had Sally been doing out there at the Saunders ranch?

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“That doesn’t surprise me. You don’t seem to know much of what goes on in your family.”

“If this has something to do with Sally—”

“It has to do with Toby,” he interrupted shortly. “He hasn’t shown up for work in three days.”

“Work!” Louise cried.

“You know,” he reminded her playfully, “that activity people engage in when they need niceties such as…money?”

“I should know what work is. I do enough of it.”

“Too much,” Ty replied, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “You ought to try relaxing sometime.”

Louise planted her hands on her hips and looked into the man’s disarming eyes. “And what would that get me?”

“Unwound.”

A sputter of indignation built up in her throat. “I’m as unwound as I care to be,” she said, practically choking on the words.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But maybe if you weren’t running around like a jackrabbit all the time, you’d know that little brother of yours has more ambition than can be held in all those books you’re always pushing on him.”

Louise’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Toby’s studies don’t concern you.”

Ty chuckled, a deep sound that seemed to rumble right from his chest to hers. “That’s right. If you turn a blind eye to a problem, it’s bound to go away…about one time in a hundred.”

She bristled, both at his words and her reaction to the man’s physical presence. Every move, every sound he made sent waves of awareness through her.

“Last week I paid five dollars in advance for work Toby has yet to show up to perform,” Ty said.

Louise felt her jaw go slack with shock. “You’ve been paying my brother to do work at your ranch?” To his nod, she asked, astounded, “When?”

“For about a month,” Ty said.

“A month!” Louise cried, flabbergasted.

“Maybe if you weren’t so busy running the town, you’d have more success running your family, Miss Livingston.”

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.