“I don’t doubt you have much to offer,” he said. “You seem a very talented woman to me.”
She paused amidst unpacking supplies from her basket. Something in her expression changed. Molly slanted him a sideways glance. “You needn’t flatter me, Mr. Copeland.”
“Marcus.”
“Marcus. I’ll receive my end of our bargain later, when you help me with my shop’s bookkeeping. This is purely business between us, remember?”
“I remember.” He levered from the door frame and stepped nearer. Why not achieve two goals with these meetings of theirs? Uncovering the matchmaker and renewing his dealings with the fairer sex could both happen at once. “But that could change.”
Molly eyed him. “Not hardly.”
She turned away. He felt unaccountably wounded by her dismissal. He felt even more put out by the way she chose that moment to examine his dusty cast-iron cookstove. Was a hunk of unused black iron more interesting to her than he was?
Impossible.
“You can’t be sure,” Marcus coaxed. “You never know—”
“Oh, I know.” Molly kicked the edge of the stove. She lifted the blackened teakettle. Frowned. “I’m very certain of my feelings.”
“Feminine feelings change. Like the wind.”
“Not mine.”
“I’ve heard otherwise. Some say you’re especially changeable.”
At that, she pursed her lips. Still all but ignoring him, Molly seized the stove handle and opened the oven door to peer inside. “I’d suggest you clean yourself up as befits a proper business meeting. It will take me a while to get this stove ready.”
Marcus frowned. She was issuing orders to him? This couldn’t be happening. He was the man. He was in charge of these proceedings. He would retain the upper hand.
Molly reached into the cold oven. She fished out an old leather boot, then passed it to him with an air of utter disdain. “I believe this is yours?”
“So that’s where it got off to!” Marcus marveled, momentarily diverted. “I stepped in a puddle after that rainstorm last month. I put it in there to dry out.”
“Any longer and it would have become boot jerky.”
She waggled it, giving him a pointed look.
Marcus snatched it. At the motion, Molly’s gaze fluttered over his improper attire and disheveled hair—again. She frowned.
Had he imagined she enjoyed the way he looked? He must have, because now Molly seemed entirely disapproving of him. Doubtless, this matchmaker search was addling his thoughts.
He had to stay the course, Marcus reminded himself. The sooner he uncovered the matchmaker’s identity, the sooner he could have this done. The sooner he could be finished with Molly Crabtree.
He must have been mad to think this bossy, independent-minded woman might be the one to lure him away from his lumber mill and back toward the nonsense of courting, socializing and other ways to waste time. He would do better, Marcus told himself, to find a more amenable, less difficult, woman for that. Molly Crabtree couldn’t have been more wrong for him.
No matter how appealing she seemed, brightening his kitchen with soft pastels and the sweet swoosh of skirts.
Disgruntled, he turned to do as she’d asked.
“Remember to shave,” Molly called after him cheerfully. “And a suit like the ones you usually wear wouldn’t be untoward for our lesson today. It would set the correct tone for the proceedings between us.”
Now she presumed to dress him? Marcus paused. This, he decided, was the final straw. Molly was far too opinionated for her own good. Far too talkative, and far too mannishly industrious. She deserved a lesson in proper feminine behavior. Marcus vowed, right then and there, that he would be the one to offer it to her.
Before he’d finished with her, bullheaded Molly Crabtree—secret matchmaker or not—would learn that a woman did not belong in business, but in a man’s arms. In a man’s life. That was the natural course for females. Setting Molly straight was the least he could do. For the good of men everywhere, Marcus had to take a stand.
Otherwise, who knew what unfortunate knucklehead would someday be blinded by Molly’s beauty, and find himself trapped with a wife who’d rather tally accounts than raise children? With a wife who brought in her own funds? With a wife who commanded her husband to shave?
A female’s natural place was as the light of the home, as the appreciative recipient of her husband’s labors. Marcus could imagine nothing worse than a wife who didn’t need him. He wasn’t ready to fit himself with a marriage noose now, but someday, when he was, he wanted a woman he could pamper. A woman who would wait for him at home, and who would delight in her husband’s attention. Didn’t every man?
Honestly, clarifying this point for Molly would be for her own good.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, pausing near the hallway that led from the kitchen to the second-floor stairwell beyond. A mischievous grin burbled up from someplace inside him. Marcus managed to stifle it. “I know exactly how to handle these proceedings between us. Just wait and see.”
Molly stood by, stiff as a freshly laundered shirtwaist, while Marcus delivered his parting comment. She held her head high as he strode down the hallway out of sight. She felt her hands tremble at the sound of his footsteps on the stairs, followed by the heavy clunk of a second-floor door closing.
She sagged with relief.
What had she gotten involved with? Seeing Marcus this morning, so casually and so intimately, had nearly been her undoing. Molly hadn’t expected to find one of the most proper men in all of Morrow Creek still abed so long after sunrise—much less to find him answering his front door clad in…well, practically nothing!
She was certain his trousers hadn’t been completely fastened. In the gap at the top of Marcus’s waistband, she’d caught a scandalous glimpse of knit underdrawers. And of course, that glimpse had led all the way to a full-on view of his undershirt, plainly visible beneath his open flannel shirt. He hadn’t even had the decency to choose a modest undershirt, one that wouldn’t hug the muscles of his chest quite so closely.
Plainly Marcus Copeland possessed no modesty at all, at least not outside his lumber mill office. It seemed downright unbelievable, but it was true. She would have to be on her guard, lest she find his bachelor influence having an unseemly effect on her. As it was, she knew she might still be blushing.
It wasn’t strictly proper for Molly to be here, after all. An unmarried woman, alone with an unmarried man? Why, if theirs hadn’t been a business arrangement, it would have been quite outrageous. Fortunately, Adam and Fiona Crabtree possessed liberal views, and an abundance of faith in their daughters’ good natures. Had they known about Molly’s mission, they’d doubtless have sent her off to it with their blessings.
She’d left early, though, gathering up her basket of supplies and tiptoeing out before her venture with Marcus could become an issue. Just to be on the safe side.
For all she knew, her family would react to this the same way they had to Molly’s intentions of becoming a cardsharper at the age of twelve—with laughter, jokes and a tip to Deputy Winston about the “gambler” in their midst. After that, Molly had been unable to practice so much as a riverboat-style two-handed double-deal without calling undue attention to herself. Shortly afterward, she’d decided to become a poetess instead, and that had been that.
Pushing aside those memories, Molly prepared to get down to work. She finished unpacking the flour, butter and leavenings she’d brought and arrayed them on the worktable near the sink and water pump. She