You don’t suppose...?
She most certainly did suppose. That snake Cole Sanders was trying to use her delivery boy! She marched out the door and across the muddy street so fast Eli sat up on his stool, his mouth hanging open.
“Mr. Sanders,” she announced the instant she was inside his office.
Her nemesis stood up behind his desk. “Miss Jessamine. Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Don’t change the subject,” she replied sharply. “You’re using Billy Rowell as a delivery boy, and I strongly object. Very strongly, in fact.”
“Well, don’t. Doesn’t take much to get you riled up, does it?”
She ignored the remark. “Stealing my delivery boy is unconscionable.”
“Unconscionable,” he echoed. “Shockingly unfair. Unjust. Unscrupulous. But unconscionable? Kinda strong word for a simple matter of hiring a free agent to do a job.”
Behind her she heard a spurt of laughter from Noralee Ness.
“Billy isn’t a free agent,” Jessamine countered. “He belongs to me.”
Cole liked it when she got angry. Her cheeks turned rosy and she bit her lips until they were swollen and the color of ripe raspberries. He was finding it hard to look away from her mouth.
“On the contrary, Jessamine, Billy Rowell doesn’t belong to you or anybody else in this town except maybe his momma, who, by the way, seems mighty grateful for the extra money her son’s bringing home each week.”
Jessamine’s raspberry-bitten lips opened and then closed. And opened again. “Of course,” she said in an even tone. “You are correct. I do beg your pardon for the use of ‘unconscionable.’ What about just ‘unfair’?”
“Seems to me, Miss Jessamine, you go off half-cocked a lot.”
“That, Mr. Sanders, is entirely your fault.”
“For God’s sake, we’ve been squabbling for weeks now. About time for first names, isn’t it?”
Another snort of laughter from Noralee.
“Now,” he continued, noticing how Jessamine’s breasts were swelling against the buttons of her white shirtwaist, “what is it exactly that is my fault? Other than running my newspaper office across the street from yours?”
She actually stamped her foot on the plank floor. “For one thing, you are—”
Jess stopped midsentence. He was what? A competitor, yes. A man, with all the maddeningly masculine habits of men, a lazy, confident swagger when he walked; a slow, suggestive smile that made her insides turn mushy; a mouth that... Oh, she didn’t know what, but his lips too often drew her gaze and she just knew that he noticed.
“I am...?” he prompted.
“You disregard, um, propriety. You...drink. You...are backing that snake Conway Arbuckle for judge.”
“It’s true, I do drink. I consider the Golden Partridge part of my news beat. But propriety? I don’t disregard propriety, Jessamine. I have never—”
He broke off and swallowed hard. Yes, he had disregarded propriety. He’d swept Maryann off her feet right under the nose of her stepfather and run away with her before the old man could unearth his shotgun.
“Also,” he continued, “Mr. Arbuckle asked for my support. Besides that, since I took him on, my subscriptions have increased almost twofold.”
She sniffed. “That’s because people sense a fight between the Sentinel and the Lark over the election.” She sniffed again.
“Naturally. We both want to sell newspapers, right? Competition brings in more customers, Jessamine.”
She said nothing, just chewed some more on her lips. If she didn’t stop, he’d have trouble hiding his body’s reaction.
Too late. He stepped sideways, out of both Jessamine’s and Noralee’s field of view, and surreptitiously adjusted his jeans.
“Customers,” she murmured at last. “I see. Well, I suppose you are correct. I wonder why I didn’t consider that before.”
“Seems to me you often speak first and consider later.”
That elicited a choked laugh from Noralee.
Jessamine said nothing for so long Cole thought maybe he’d gone too far. She stood motionless, studying her shoe tops and worrying her bottom lip.
Jessamine realized she was standing tongue-tied in Cole’s office and couldn’t for the life of her remember what she’d come for. Think of something. Anything.
“I...um...”
“Yes? Something else on your mind?”
“Yes, there is,” she admitted. “But now I can’t remember what it was.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Do I make you nervous, Jessamine?”
“What? Of course not. What would I have to be nervous about?”
He took a step closer and she backed up. “Me, maybe?” he said. He sent her a grin that seemed positively wicked.
“N-no,” she blurted. “Not you.”
“My newspaper?”
“Of course not. I’m not afraid of a little competition.”
It’s you I am afraid of. She cringed inwardly at the admission. There hadn’t been a male since she was twelve years old who made her heart thrum in irregular beats and her words dry up on her tongue. She squared her shoulders and forced her eyes to meet his.
“I d-don’t scare easily, Mr. Sanders.” She thought he looked just a tad disappointed.
“You don’t,” he stated. His tone said he didn’t believe her for one minute.
“The newspaper business out here in the West is fraught with danger. If I were going to go all jelly-legged over something I would have done so when my father died and my brother was shot and left me running the Sentinel. As it is, you don’t scare me one whit.”
“Yeah? Then how come you’re edging toward the door, Miss Lassiter?”
“I’m not!”
But she was. She couldn’t get away from those laughing blue eyes fast enough. She whirled toward the door and ran smack into Ellie Johnson, the federal marshal’s wife.
Ellie reached out to steady her. “Jessamine?”
“Ellie! I was just leaving. Please excuse me.”
She fled through the open door and didn’t stop until she was all the way across the street.
Cole watched her disappear through the Sentinel office doorway. “Don’t know what got into her,” he murmured.
“Maybe she’s hungry,” Ellie offered with a laugh.
“Nah, she just finished breakfast.”
Ellie nodded. She was as tall as he was, with a slim figure and a graceful way of moving. He thought he recognized her from her photo in the Sentinel.
“Mrs. Johnson, isn’t it?”
“Ellie.”
Cole nodded. “What can I do for you today, Ellie?”
She smiled. “It’s about what I can do for you, Mr. Sanders.”
Cole waited while her smile widened. “Uh, what might that be? You aren’t a typesetter, are you?”
Behind him, Noralee gave a squeak of outrage.