“Exactly!” The woman beamed at him from beneath her yellow sunbonnet’s wide brim. She was everything he’d come to hate—it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t seem to understand how her friendliness provoked him.
He took one wary step back and kept going. Distance. It’s all he wanted. Distance from her. From town, where she came from. In fact, he’d rather be completely alone forever, until the day he died. He hated doing laundry almost as much, and in fact, he rather preferred the somber laundress who used to come. She was sharp, bitter and never had a kind word. He understood that.
But this new woman—he couldn’t get used to her. He didn’t understand her at all. She was naive. Sheltered. She probably came from one of those happy-looking families on one of those pleasant, tree-lined streets—nothing bad ever happened to those people. They didn’t end up doing hard time in prison for another’s crime. They didn’t fail their families. Those people had never lost everything.
The image of his mother’s grave, marked by only a small stone that did not even bear her name, flashed into his vision. Bitterness filled his mouth and choked him. His heart had stopped existing years ago. The fact that it was beating in his chest made no difference. Like a dead man, he had no future, no hopes, nothing at all.
Nothing but resentment for the slender female and those like her. She wore that frilly yellow calico dress—the one that irritated him the most—for it swirled around the toes of her polished black shoes. She left the rucksack of clean clothes neatly on the front step, as she always did, walking with light, bouncing steps as if her feet didn’t quite reach the ground.
Something so delicate and sunny did not belong anywhere near him.
He turned his back, hefted up the ax again and sank it into the pine log with all his strength. The wood rent, two halves flew into the air and tumbled to the ground. He took his time positioning the wedge before he struck again.
He could feel her watching him. Her wide, curious gaze was like an unwanted touch on his bare back. It was indecent, he knew, to work in the presence of a lady without wearing his shirt, but this was his land. He lived far away from civilization for a reason, so he could do what he wanted. There was nothing this woman, or any woman like her, had that he needed.
He didn’t care if he offended her, and if he did, then all the better. Maybe she’d leave faster.
But no, she was taking her time. Carefully positioning the laundry in the back of the buggy—apparently there was a complicated system. She seemed intent, half bent over the small boot of the vehicle, and he could only see the bottom half of her skirt. Good. That was an improvement. Maybe all of her would be gone and he would be alone and safe.
He learned long ago what a woman could do to a man. They were the fairer sex, or so he’d been told, but he knew better. A pretty face could hide a deceitful and ruthless heart more easily than an ugly one. He had to admit that Betsy Hunter was one of the prettiest women he’d ever seen.
Not beautiful, she wasn’t exactly that. He’d seen enough women in his time to know that beauty had its own aloofness. Betsy Hunter was not a cool vision. No, she was something far more appealing. She was like the sun. She shone from the inside out. Her lovely brown hair always seemed to be tumbling down from its pins to blow in the wind and tangle around her face. She was as slender as a young willow and she moved like a wild mustang, all power and grace and fire.
She straightened from her task and he could see more than just the swirling hem of her skirt. That was not an improvement. He was a man, and a man with needs long unfulfilled, and his eyes were hungry, he could not deny that. He watched her soft round bosom shiver as she hurried to her horse’s side. Her lush bow-shaped mouth had to taste like sugar, he decided, when she leaned close to speak to her gelding.
No wonder the animal preened and leaned into her touch. Duncan envied the gelding for the way it enjoyed the light strokes of her gentle fingers.
Desire pulsed in his blood, growing stronger with each beat. He watched her spin on her dainty black shoes. Her ruffled hem swirled, offering a brief look at her slim, leather-encased ankles. Which made him think of her legs. Walking as she was, with the wind against her, her petticoats were no protection. The cotton fabric molded to her form and his gaze traced the curve of her hips and the length of her fine thighs—
“I’ll see you next week, Mr. Hennessey!” she called cheerfully, waggling her fingertips to wave goodbye.
It was such an endearing movement, and it shocked him that he noticed. That longing roared up within him for what he could never have, for what he could never let himself want. What was wrong with him? He forced the heat from his veins. He turned into cold steel.
One pretty woman had cost him everything. He would never be fooled again, not by Miss Hunter or by anyone like her. It was fitting that she climbed into her fancy little buggy and hurried her horse down the road. Good riddance. He didn’t like how her gentle smile twinkled in her sky-blue eyes. He really disliked the lark-song music of her voice.
In fact, he hoped to never see her again. Next Friday at one in the afternoon he would make sure he was long gone. Out hunting or just out for a twenty-mile walk. Gunmen could attack, a wolf could stalk her, or she could break an axle on that expensive buggy of hers, and he wouldn’t care. He’d keep away from her.
No woman was his lookout. No, not ever again.
He gave thanks when the fir and pines guarding his land closed her from his sight. All he heard was the faint squeak-squee-eak of a buggy wheel and then nothing but silence.
Just the way he liked it.
Well, that hadn’t gone too badly, considering. Betsy waited until she was certain Mr. Hennessey was well out of sight before she retrieved her lunch pail from beneath the seat.
As she unwrapped her tomato, lettuce and salt pork sandwich, she felt sorry for her least-favorite customer—although, on objective terms, he was her best client. He paid extra delivery fees, for he was far out of her usual delivery area. It was nearly an entire afternoon’s round trip. Twenty miles one way. Mr. Curmudgeon—oops! Mr. Hennessey—paid more to have his laundry brought to him than for the actual washing and ironing itself. With the county having come upon hard times from storms and drought, she couldn’t afford to alienate a single customer.
Which is what troubled her as she bit into her sandwich. The crisp salty pork and sweet fresh tomato and her ma’s rye bread made her stomach growl all the harder, it was so good. She chewed, planting the water jug between her thighs to hold it steady while she worked the stopper with her free hand. It gave with a pop and she took a long cool swing.
Much better. Dealing with Mr. Difficult was always a trial, but she’d managed to do fairly well this time. He’d been surprised to see her—she’d known he would be. He’d growled and given a very intimidating scowl, but he hadn’t fired her. He wasn’t going to. He couldn’t fool her. She had taken his measure long ago. Her Mr. Curmudgeon was a wounded beast whose snarl was much worse than his bite.
He was simply an unhappy and distrustful loner. She wondered what had made him like that. Had he always been so bitter? What heartbreak could have possibly made him that way? What would compel a man to retreat from civilization and live alone in the wilderness, over twenty miles from the nearest town?
Whatever happened to him, it had to have been terribly tragic. Betsy tried to imagine the possibilities as she transferred the half-eaten sandwich into her driving hand and dug in her little lunch pail with the other. The image of Duncan Hennessey, shirtless, his glorious male form kissed by the brazen sun, troubled her. He was one fine-looking man. Too fine for the life of a recluse. It was a woman that had broken his spirit. Maybe she’d jilted him. Or maybe she’d died.
Yes, she knew that pain. Although she’d been a widow for over five years now, the sadness of losing Charlie remained. If she hadn’t had a loving family and