Prim And Improper

Oh, no, it couldn’t be. Heat flooded through her as her mind called up those memories she just hadn’t been able to shake, no matter how hard she tried—of rough lips pressing against hers, a firm hand around her waist, and the unsteadiness of her legs as he held her so tightly against him.

Had Ty kissed Sally that way? Her gape turned to a scowl of indignation. Of course. He would probably kiss anything that moved!

Finally she collected her wits enough to ask in utter amazement, “You think Ty Saunders is an angel?”

“I do,” Sally said. “In fact, I love him.”

Louise winced at the mention of the word love. “Oh, Sally, how could you! After all I’ve tried to teach you, after all the work I’ve done to insure you wouldn’t have to marry an uncouth, no-good—”

“Ty is a rancher now, not a prospector.” Sally smiled. “And I recall you seemed to have a nice time dancing with him last year at the church social.”

Louise was sure her face turned beet red; she immediately pivoted away. “What do a few cows add up to—”

“He has two bunches of them,” Sally corrected pertly.

“Herds,” Toby corrected in a tone of disgust.

“I doubt if you totted it up the man went to school five years altogether,” Louise interrupted, not caring whether Ty Saunders had bunches or herds, or kittens, for that matter. “And he has a little brother to support.”

“So do you!” Sally argued, “and you’ve done a fine job right here in Noisy Swallow.”

“That’s true, sis.” Toby smiled winningly, trying his best to soothe her ruffled feathers with flattery. “You’ve raised us just the way Ma and Pa would have.”

Louise bridled uncomfortably, feeling control of the argument slipping away from her. Maybe she had prospered in the wilderness. But would they understand if she explained that it was only her dream for their future that had driven her?

“I want better for you than some rough heathen like Ty Saunders,” she insisted. “Why, he’s a grown man, he should know better than to lure young unmarried women out to his ranch, his lair! And I’m going to tell him so right now!”

She turned, strode to the coatrack against the wall and pulled her cloak off it.

Toby’s eyes widened in dismay. “Lou, you can’t go out in this weather. The Saunders farm is ten miles away!”

“I can and I will. I’m going to tell that man exactly what I think of his seducing innocent young girls!”

Sally grabbed her arm. “You wouldn’t!” she pleaded. “I would be so humiliated, Louise.”

“Better humiliated for a little while than ruined for life.” Louise plucked Sally’s hand off her arm and instructed, “While I’m away, I want you two to stay put. Mind the store, Toby, and Sally, you go back to the boardinghouse and see to dinner for the boarders.”

The two nodded in unison. “Yes, Louise.”

Their quick compliance made her hesitate. It usually took a good five minutes of haggling to get Toby and Sally to do anything. Perhaps her discovery of their clandestine activities had humbled them.

“Love!” she grumbled in disgust as she swept out the door into the lingering drizzle. With Ty Saunders? How could that be?

Of course, she knew exactly how. One warm look from those gray eyes, a stolen kiss…Louise shuddered as she saddled up their mare, Blackie. She had been able to withstand those things, but Sally was only eighteen, and it was springtime—and that was a dangerous combination.

As the sound of hooves clopping down the muddy street retreated in the distance, Sally and Toby exchanged relieved glances, glad to have survived their oldest sister’s wrath relatively unscathed.

“Thanks for not telling Louise I’ve been working for Ty,” Toby said. “Though I don’t see what’s wrong with making a little money so I could pay for some prospecting gear.”

“Everything’s wrong with it, in Louise’s book. Anyway, I didn’t want to see her explode.”

“But why did you tell her all that stuff about being in love with Ty? It’s Caleb you’re sweet on.”

Sally rolled her eyes at his lack of insight and sashayed casually over to the counter to swipe a peppermint stick from a jar. “Of course it’s Cal I love!” she said, letting out a giggle. “Ty is too old for me—the man has to be thirty if he’s a day!”

“Then why did you say you were in love with his brother?”

She licked at her candy, savoring her brilliant strategy. “Because I knew Louise would storm out to the Saunders ranch the minute she found out we’d been going out there. Cal is so mild mannered and shy, Louise probably would have scared him to death. The poor boy might have even agreed not to see me anymore!”

“What will Ty do?” Toby queried anxiously.

A wicked smile touched Sally’s lips. “That great ox of a man? Why, the moment Louise starts to give him a piece of her mind, he’ll give her a piece of his own right back!”

Chapter Two (#ulink_4a7fc6ea-7c3e-5412-9775-8d0ebf16eff0)

Not far from his house, Ty Saunders sat atop his gray stallion, Zeus, and watched the approaching rider with interest. Aside from Sally and Toby, he and Cal didn’t get visitors often. But those two had already come and gone today.

Strange thing was, this horse looked like the Livingstons’ black mare. He frowned and waited until the rider in the billowing black cape started mounting the final hill to the house. When he could see who it was, his breath hitched in his throat.

Framed by the lush, gently sloping valley behind her, Louise Livingston looked beautiful. Dazzling, Ty would almost say. Which was either a confirmation of his belief that the eldest Miss Livingston was the most lovely and sensuous of the two sisters beneath that prickly exterior of hers, or a clear indication that he was just coming out of a long, lonely winter and desperate for female companionship.

He was more inclined to believe the latter was the case. He still remembered the distinct pleasure of dancing with her last summer at the church dance, and of holding her close in his arms afterward. For a few moments, she’d kissed him as though he were the answer to her prayers and then, for no apparent reason, she’d frozen up and backed away from him as if he’d had yellow fever. Since that time, she’d never failed to snub him. Could hardly look him in the eye, even. And every time he received the cold shoulder from her, his pride never ceased to sting.

Especially when he remembered the curt words she’d said to him after coldly extracting herself from his embrace. “You shouldn’t have taken such liberties, Mr. Saunders. I’m too involved in my work to have time for developing a liaison with a, a…miner.” She had pronounced the last word with distinct disdain, as if a miner were the lowliest creature on the earth.

As if he’d wanted to develop a liaison with her in the first place! All he’d done was kiss her, and she’d treated him like a criminal for it.

It wasn’t as if she were any prize herself. Louise didn’t smile flirtatiously unless someone made a big purchase at the mercantile. She didn’t dress in stylishly low-cut dresses that might give a man something to dream about, and rarely engaged in even the simple forms of feminine flattery that her sister threw about so easily, the type of banter that could put a little swagger in a fellow’s walk. Louise Livingston was brisk, businesslike and downright prim.

But she sure was pretty. And for those few moments he’d held her, it seemed that she was the answer to his prayers, too.

Louise eased the mare into a jogging trot as they finished the climb and her face came into view. Her cheekbones were flushed to a cherry red from the brisk ride, and her wide-set sharp brown eyes looked steadily into Ty’s as she neared. The closer she came, the more pursed her lips became.

He got down from his horse and walked forward to meet her. “Nothing happened to Toby and Sally, I hope,” he said. “Is Sally all right?”

At the repeated mention of her sister’s name, Louise’s jaw worked forward. “You’d know the answer to that better than I would, Mr. Saunders!” she said, swinging down from the saddle.

Close up, he saw that her cape was soaked through. And the tip of her pert nose was red. He smiled, understanding. Louise had risked rain and pneumonia because she’d gotten wind that his brother was sweet on Sally. He couldn’t blame her for being concerned. He’d had doubts about the two of them as a couple himself. Sally was young and reckless, and apt to stampede right over his soft-spoken brother. But Cal was twenty-four years old, and knew his own mind. Ty tried to keep his nose out of his brother’s romance.

“I take it you didn’t come out all this way to dance with me again,” he said.

Two red blotches scorched her cheeks. “You know very well what I’ve come here about, Mr. Saunders. It’s about Sally.”

“I wouldn’t worry my head about that, Miss Livingston,” he said, smiling as he took her elbow to escort her around a maze of mud puddles. “Nothing’s happened around here that’s against anybody’s raising.”

She jerked her arm from him and skated uneasily a short distance away across a sheet of wet clay. “Maybe not against your upbringing, you furry reprobate!” she said sternly. “We Livingstons hold ourselves to higher standards.”

Furry? Ty rubbed his thick black beard self-consciously, trying to keep his temper. “Higher than whose?”