Prim And Improper

Louise pursed her lips. “He did not. That was his brother’s doing.”

Sally paled visibly. “Caleb did that to you?”

“He did, indeed. After his brother thoroughly insulted me—and you, too, Sally. Then Tyrone Saunders had the unmitigated nerve to call our saloon a ramshackle booze shed!”

“Oh, no.” Sally’s voice was a fearful murmur. The two younger Livingstons exchanged dire glances.

Louise stepped forward, took Sally’s hands in hers and looked earnestly into her sister’s eyes. “Sally, I understand you fell prey to that…man. In deference to your tender feelings, however misguided, I won’t tell you the extent of my low estimation of his character. But I do want you to know how strongly I feel that you should never see him again. And that I blame myself entirely for not watching over you more closely.”

There, she thought proudly. She’d sounded very reasonable, very judicious.

But Sally fidgeted restlessly, her light brown eyebrows meeting in worry. “Did Caleb really wrestle you in the mud?”

Louise felt humiliated anew just from the memory. “He’s even worse than his brother! At least Tyrone can spit out a complete sentence, however vulgar and insulting.”

Sally pulled her hands back. “I’ll have you know that Cal went to college back East—Pennsylvania or somewhere. Only he didn’t like it so he quit after a year.”

“That figures,” Louise grumbled, then turned her mind back to the problem at hand. “Oh, Sally, don’t you see? Ty just isn’t good enough for you.”

“Louise, you’re a snob!”

“I am not,” Louise denied heatedly. “I just don’t want a sister of mine mixing with ruffians. Just look what those men did to me!”

Sally sighed, unable to deny that her sister looked as if she’d just returned from a trip to a hog wallow. “But it’s so unfair!” she cried petulantly. “If we don’t mix with uncouth people, who’s left in Noisy Swallow for us?”

This wasn’t the first time Louise had been forced to explain the importance of keeping the flame of civilization burning, even in Noisy Swallow. “We’re not like everyone else here. Don’t you remember our home in Chicago?”

“But we’re here now,” Sally argued. “What good are social respectability and appearances when there’s no one around to appear respectable to?”

Louise considered carefully. “Well, we always have each other. And if you’ll just consider our mother’s memory—”

“I meant, who are we going to marry?” Sally rolled her eyes in frustration. “Oh, Louise! Don’t you see, I don’t want to become a hopeless old maid like you!”

The room fell deadly silent. Louise, her own face flaming, looked from one beet-red face to the other.

Old maid?

Hopeless?

Louise had never given it much thought before, but perhaps her being twenty-three with no romantic prospects in sight did make her seem a bit of an old maid. Though it was difficult to think of herself as old. Mature, perhaps. Hardworking and financially successful, absolutely. She had developed those traits out of necessity since coming to California. Why, back in Chicago she had had plenty of beaux. But did everyone now look at her and simply think, there goes Louise Livingston, pathetic old spinster?

It seemed unbelievable to her, and, as Sally was so fond of saying, so unfair! For the first time in her life, Louise felt as if she had failed somehow, but not in the area of husband catching. Worse. She had failed to make her family see that she had their best interests at heart. That she was willing to make small sacrifices, such as not getting married, so she could devote her life to them.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sally mumbled in an apologetic attempt to break the icy silence hovering over the kitchen. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded.”

“I know you didn’t,” Louise said. “But the point is this—I’m trying to maintain some standards for you all, and what I saw of the Saunders family just didn’t rise to that standard.” Which was a laughable understatement. Those two barbarians hadn’t even come within spitting distance of her standard.

Sally frowned unhappily. “That’s so unfair!”

“Soon you’ll forget all about Ty Saunders,” she assured Sally optimistically. “You know what mother always said—‘Time tames the strongest grief.’”

Unfortunately, her words did not have the desired effect. Sally burst into tears and ran from the room, leaving Toby and Louise blinking in confusion.

Toby shrugged. “I guess she’s pretty upset.”

“I wish there was something I could say to make her happy,” Louise said.

Her brother hesitated before speaking again. “Speaking of happy…you know what, Lou?”

Louise, still thinking about Sally, answered absently, “What?”

“I was talkin’ to Louden and Jim outside the saloon the other day, and they said somebody’s discovered a whole lake of gold down south!”

Louise took a breath for patience. Even after spending his formative years in California, watching men go bust on a regular basis, Toby still had the gold bug in his system. “A lake of gold? Don’t tell me you believe that!”

“But what if it’s true?” he asked, his eyes glinting with speculation. When she glimpsed that expression in his eyes, she sometimes felt as if she were looking at her father. Jonah Livingston had been a dreamer and a gambler, despite their mother’s efforts to rein him in.

“You’re not going to look for a golden lake,” she said.

“Aw, Lou, please don’t start telling me about labor being the only way to spin gold.”

She laughed, pushing him toward the door. “I’ll spare you that if you promise to forget about lakes of gold and get back to the store and your studies.”

“Oh, all right,” he muttered under his breath.

She watched him go, wishing desperately for a way to work gold out of Toby’s system and Ty out of Sally’s. Then she turned around once more and sighed.

Ty Saunders. A vision of his bearded face and those alarming gray eyes danced tauntingly in front of her eyes. She hoped she would work him out of her system. Then again, ten months of trying hadn’t succeeded in making her forget him.

She feared the man was unforgettable.

Chapter Three (#ulink_7bce2e10-c128-5f78-918b-d2808aa9410e)

Cal was miserable. That’s all there was to it.

For two days, Ty had been trying to explain to his little brother that there were other women in the world besides his precious Sally. Prettier women. Women with better temperaments. And most important of all, women with nicer relatives.

And what did Caleb have to say to all these assurances?

“You’re right, Ty.”

Nevertheless, for two days Cal had moped around the ranch like a lovesick puppy, his head drooping sadly as he went about his work. Nothing Ty said could tug him back to his normal spirits. He had no more energy in him than a damp rag.

Until now. When they were supposed to be having a quiet, relaxing evening by the fire. Cal was now restive, uneasy. The tromping of his heavy boots echoed through the room as he paced, punctuated by sad, ragged sighs that bordered on moans.

Finally Ty had to put aside the paper he was reading. “Darn it, Cal, why don’t you just forget her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.” Cal combed a hand restlessly through his blond hair.