Nora

Nora muttered all the way home about the poor horse. It didn’t help that a gang of tired cowboys passed them on the way back. One was mad at his sidekick and using colorful language to express himself. Nora’s face went scarlet at what she overheard, and she was almost shaking with outrage when they reached the barn at last.

“Knights of the range, indeed!” she raged on the way to the front door, having left the horses in the charge of a young stable hand. “They stink and curse and they are cruel! It is nothing like my stories, Melly. It is a terrible country!”

“Now, now, give it a chance,” Melly said encouragingly. “You’ve only been here a short while. It gets easier to understand, truly it does.”

“I cannot imagine living here,” Nora said heavily. “Not in my wildest imaginings. How do you bear it?”

“I love it,” the younger woman said simply, and her brown eyes reflected her pleasure in it. “You’ve lived such a different life, Nora, so sheltered and cushioned. You don’t know what it is to have to scratch for a living.”

Nora’s thin shoulders rose and fell. “I have never had to. My life has been an easy one, until the past year. But I know one thing. I could never live here.”

“You don’t want to go home already?” Melly asked worriedly.

Nora saw her concern and forced herself to calm down. “No, of course not. I shall simply have to stay away from the men, that is all. I do miss Greely. He, at least, was a refreshing change from those barbarians out there!”

“Greely hasn’t been around lately,” Melly agreed. “I wonder why.”

NEITHER KNEW THE ANSWER to the question of Greely’s absence. Days passed, and the cowboys began to look a little less like dirty tramps and a little more like men as Nora’s first impression began to waver and then fade. Nora became able to recognize faces, even thick with dust and dirt. She recognized voices, as well, especially Mr. Barton’s. It was deep and slow, and when he was angry, it got deeper and slower. She marveled at the way he used inflection to control his men, and the way they responded to even the softest words. He projected authority in a way that made her wonder about his past. Perhaps he’d been in the military. He could have been, with that bearing.

He came riding up the next to the last Friday afternoon of August with a bunch of disheveled, hot and dirty men. He dismounted at the front steps and tossed his reins to the stable hand, so that his horse could be attended to.

Nora, who was on the porch, stepped back when he approached, because he was dirtier than she’d ever seen him, and he had a three days’ growth of beard. She thought that if she met him on the road, she’d expect him to have a pistol in either hand and a mask over his nose and mouth.

He noticed her withdrawal with cold fury. Since her remarks out at the corral, he’d been waiting for an opportunity to tell her how much her superior attitude irritated him. She had no right to look down her nose at hardworking men because they didn’t smell like roses or live up to her idea of civilized behavior.

“Where’s Chester?” he asked curtly.

“Why, he drove my aunt and Melly into town in the buggy,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”

He pursed his lips and studied the lines of the sleek, soft gray dress that clung to her slender figure. “Do you always dress like that?” he asked with cool mockery. “Like you were going to some fancy city restaurant in one of Mr. Ford’s fancy automobiles?”

She bristled. “The automobile is more civilized than a horse, I tell you,” she said haughtily. “And we have electric streetcars back East as well as automobiles.”

“What a snob you are, Miss Marlowe,” he said pleasantly. His smile didn’t reach his cold, silver eyes. Not at all. She felt chilled by them. “One wonders why you came out here at all when you find us and the work we do so distasteful.”

She wrapped her arms across her small breasts and felt herself shiver. The heat was uncomfortable. She hoped she wasn’t having a chill, because she knew what it presaged. No. She couldn’t have an attack here, she just couldn’t!

With her dignity intact, she smiled at him. “Why, I came because of the books.”

“Books?” he asked, frowning.

“Yes! I’ve read all about cowboys, you know,” she told him seriously. “Mr. Beadle’s dime novels portray the cowboy as a knight of the range, a hero in chaps and boots, a nobleman in spurs.”

He shifted his stance and glowered at her.

“Oh, and cowboys are the courtliest gentlemen in the world. That is, when they’re not robbing banks to feed little starving children,” she added, recalling two of her favorite books.

The glower got worse.

“But there was nothing about the odor,” she added with quiet honesty. “People hardly expect a knight of the range to smell bad, or be caked in blood and mud and…ahem…other substances,” she pointed out. “I don’t expect you get many social invitations, Mr. Barton.”

His pale eyes narrowed. “I don’t accept many,” he corrected, his face set. “I’m particular about the company I keep.”

“One supposes that the reverse is also true,” she replied, and wrinkled her nose.

His pale eyes flashed. “I don’t like your condescending manner, Miss Marlowe,” he added with magnificent honesty. His eyes held no warmth whatsoever. “And while we’re on the subject, I especially don’t like having you flirt with my men to embarrass them.”

She colored. “I did not mean…”

“I don’t care what you meant,” he said levelly. “Greely is just a kid, but when you started teasing him, he worshipped you. Then he overheard you discussing him, confessing that you only played up to him to watch him stammer and stumble about. He was shattered.” He looked down into her embarrassed face with cool disregard. “No decent woman does that to a man. It is beneath contempt.”

She felt the words like a cut on soft skin. Her chin lifted proudly. “You are right,” she confessed. She didn’t add that she was so accustomed to sophisticated men who liked to flirt and see a woman flustered that it had secretly delighted her to find a man so vulnerable to a woman’s attention. But she didn’t say that. “Honestly, I did not mean to hurt him.”

“Well, you did, just the same,” he said curtly. “He quit. He’s gone over to Victoria to get work, and he won’t be back. He was one of the best men I had. Now I have to replace him, because of you.”

“But surely he did not take it so to heart!” she exclaimed, horrified.

“Out here, men take a lot to heart,” he said. “Keep away from my cowboys, Miss Marlowe, or I’ll have your uncle send you home on the next train.”

She gasped. “You cannot dictate to my family!”

He met her eyes levelly, and chills ran through her at the intensity and power of the look. “You’d be surprised what I can do,” he said quietly. “Don’t tempt me to show you.”

“You are only a hired man, after all!” she added haughtily. “Little more than a servant!”

His expression was suddenly dangerous. His hand clenched at his side, and the glitter in his eyes had the same effect on her as a rattlesnake coiling. “While you, madam, are an utter snob, with greenbacks for blood and parlor manners for a heart.”

Her face went rosy. Impulsively she reached out to strike him, but his steely fingers caught her wrist before she got anywhere near that strong, lean cheek. He held her without effort until he felt the muscles relax. Under his fingers, he felt the sudden increase of her pulse. When he looked into her eyes, he saw the faint flicker of awareness that she couldn’t hide, and her eyes betrayed her surprise and helpless attraction. A slow, cunning smile touched his hard mouth. Why, she was vulnerable! It made his mind spin with dark possibilities.

With a short laugh of triumph, he drew her hand to his broad, damp chest and pressed it into the muscle. He felt her gasp, and knew that she didn’t find him distasteful, because he was watching her face.

“Do eastern men stand for being slapped?” he drawled. “You’ll find that we’re a bit different out here.”

“No doubt a man of your sort would find it acceptable to strike me back,” she said with bravado. Under her long skirts, her knees were shaking.

He searched her wide, uneasy blue eyes with quiet confidence. Either she knew less of men than he knew of women, or she was a good actress. Chester had said that she was something of an adventuress, a globe-trotting modern woman. He wondered just how modern she was, and he had a mind to find out for himself.

“I don’t strike women,” he said easily. His pale eyes narrowed and he slowly stepped in closer. He wasn’t blatant or vulgar, but with that simple action he made her aware of his size and strength and of her own vulnerability. “I have…other ways of dealing with hostility from a female.”

She was left in no doubt as to his meaning, because he was looking at her mouth as he spoke. Incredibly, she went weak all over and her lips parted helplessly. Since Edward Summerville’s hateful advances, she had never liked men close to her. But her traitorous body liked this one, wanted to incite him even closer, wanted to know the touch of his warm strength in an embrace.

Because her thoughts shocked her, she jerked back against his restraining hand. “Sir, you smell like a barn!” she stammered angrily.

He laughed, because he saw through the anger to the hidden excitement. “Why, isn’t that natural? A cowboy spends a good portion of his time with animals. Or didn’t your dime novels tell you so?”

She straightened her cuff, still feeling his touch there. She couldn’t remember ever being so flustered. “I am learning that my novels are not altogether accurate.”

His firm mouth tugged up at the corner. It pleased him that as a ragged cowboy, he could have such a devastating effect on an adventuress who had been on safari and lived a modern life. None of the women of his acquaintance had dared to flout convention. He found this woman exciting beyond measure, and the thought of leading her down the garden path in his disguise was appealing. If nothing else, it would teach her not to jump to conclusions about people. Taking a man at face value, judging him on his appearance alone and by eastern standards of conduct, was hardly worthy of such a traveled aristocrat. But, strangely, she lacked that glossy veneer that he would expect a hardened adventuress to possess. Now, as he stared down at her flushed face, he thought that she seemed not much more than a flustered girl.