“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.
When she finally did look, he sent her a broad wink. “I thought you might see things my way eventually, Miss Livingston.”
He smashed his wide-brimmed black hat on his head and strode out the store, leaving Louise awash in a sea of anger, desire and dread.
An entire week!
While Caleb attacked the kitchen with a broom, Ty reclined in a woven-back chair, stretching his legs out across the already sparkling clean kitchen floors. He’d scrubbed them himself the night before, but Caleb insisted on sweeping them this morning, just to make sure the house looked especially pristine for Louise’s impending arrival. All Caleb had done for the past day and a half was clean, clean, clean.
Ty took a leisurely sip of coffee, watching his brother skitter nervously across the room in a pinafore-style apron, his knobby elbows sticking out from the broomstick. Cal was tall, but a bit on the gangly side, with a boyish charm and genuine kindness that attracted women. Certainly Sally had fallen for those qualities, but Ty worried that Louise wouldn’t appreciate Cal. Beneath that armor of modesty and refinement, Louise seemed like a woman who might be more attracted to someone more controlled, more masterful, someone…
Well, someone like himself.
Cautiously he cleared his throat. He didn’t want to get his brother more nervous than he already was. “It’s not exactly housekeeping skills that impress a woman, you know, Cal.”
His brother looked up, an expression of sheer panic on his face. “But I thought you agreed that we should have the house as nice as we could, so Louise would think we were civilized.”
Ty nodded. “But if you really want to impress a woman, you have to be manly, as well as conscientious.”
“Manly?” Cal asked, leaning on his broom. “How?”
Ty stood. “First, get rid of the apron.”
“But I just washed this shirt!”
“Men get dirty,” Ty instructed, freeing his brother. “Now, when you walk, try not to bob up and down so much. Keep your head high, your shoulders back, your chest out—like the old rooster out in the yard.”
“He bobs up and down,” Cal countered as he tried to assume the same position and took a few stiff steps forward.
Ty sighed. The results of his efforts were far from impressive. Holding his head high seemed to make his brother’s neck look even longer than it was, emphasizing the huge Adam’s apple in residence there. Keeping his shoulders back did look better, but Cal’s bony chest was best left on its own.
“Forget the rooster,” Ty said. “Think of it as more of an attitude. You have to assume an air of detached superiority for women, let them know that you’re in charge.”
Cal deflated from his rigid stance. “That wouldn’t work with Louise Livingston. She likes to be in charge of things herself.”
How true, Ty thought. He sank back down in his chair. “Oh, just be yourself. You certainly seem to have impressed Sally. When I spoke to her the other day in town, she couldn’t stop asking about you.”
A dreamy smile broke out across his brother’s face. “I can’t believe she lied to her own sister, just to protect me.” Just as suddenly, his smile vanished. “We can’t go on lying to Louise, Ty. I’ve got to tell her the truth about Sally and me.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Ty said. “I’ve got Louise here for a week, and for that week we’re going to show her a study in contrasts. By the time she leaves, you’ll look like a saint compared to me. She’ll probably go home and beg Sally to marry you.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“It certainly would,” Ty agreed. At this point anything sounded better than having a moonstruck brother. “So don’t muck up our plans by worrying about the truth.”
Caleb frowned. “I hope Louise doesn’t leave disliking you too much, Ty.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Well, if Sally and I married, we’d all be in-laws.”
Ty grunted.
“And besides, I kind of get the impression that you like her.”
“Like her!” Ty shot up out of his chair. “That persnickety old maid? Where did you get that crazy idea?”
“You haven’t stopped talking about her for days, Ty. Every meal, you’ve rehashed each word she said to you.”
“That’s because I can’t believe a woman like her can be so prejudiced, so snippy—”
Cal interrupted his tirade. “By ‘a woman like her,’ do you mean you think she’s pretty?”
Ty scowled, then admitted, “Well, of course she’s pretty. But I prefer women to behave more like females than shrews.”
“Then why didn’t you marry Vera Calloway all those years back when we lived in Kansas? She was pretty and sweet, just exactly what you say you want.”
“Maybe I should have,” he replied defensively.
“You said then that if you married her you would be bored to death.”
“I was young and foolish.”