Tall, Dark, and Determined (11 page)

“What?” Chase wanted to give her a thorough shaking and a oneway ticket back to civilization, where men had patience to deal with beautiful wantwits like the woman standing in front of him.

Of course, the men in civilization hadn't stopped her from leaving their midst to wreak havoc amidst the mountains. For all Chase knew, they packed her trunks and toasted a job well done.

“Give me my cougar,” she repeated, bobbing her arms as though to emphasize the empty space in which he should deposit the sixty-pound cat currently slung across his own shoulders. Imperious as she sounded, the movement made her wince. “Now.”

“Enough foolishness.” Chase stepped around her and headed toward town, determined not to stop this time. Whether or not she followed, he would be in Hope Falls for supper. And a talk with Granger. If necessary, he'd send someone after the minx.

So long as it was someone else, it'd work out just fine.

“It's not foolishness!” Her cry gained volume as she took to her heels and whipped around him, trying to stop him. Instead she wound up skittering beside him, unable to match the length of his stride. “It's my cougar, and I want it!”

Spoiled society darling
. He curled his lip at the assessment. “Is that how you grew up?” Chase couldn't help but ask. “Getting anything you wanted just because you whined?”

Her outraged gasp let him get in a few more steps before she launched a renewed verbal assault. “You arrogant cretin!” Her spluttered insult made him grin—making her angrier.

Cretin? She's spitting mad and that's the best she has?

“I didn't get everything I wanted when I was growing up!” Her swiftest denial revealed what hit closest to home. If he hadn't already known it, little Miss Lyman just gave away how much her family indulged her. Still, she kept right on chattering. “Although I admit I was somewhat privileged and enjoyed many fine things others did not, those were gifts freely given.”

“Why?” Let her reveal more about herself as her words measured the steps back to town. Maybe she'd let something slip.

“Because my parents loved me!” Her exclamation slammed into him with the force of a fallen tree. “They wanted to protect me and encourage my many fine qualities, so I could make my way in the world. Didn't yours do the same for you, Mr. Dunstan?”

No. Dad drowned his worry over the farm in the nearest tankard of ale, and Ma was too busy keeping away from his fists. Neither one concerned themselves much with me or Laura. We looked after ourselves. Anything we got was earned twice over
.

“So you give insults but no answers?” Her observation stung. He rarely insulted anyone, but she'd brought out the worst in him. “Well, I can assure you, Mr. Dunstan. I
never
whined.”

No need to respond to that. He snorted and kept walking.

“For one thing,
I
never stole from anyone to make myself look better.” She gave a pointed glance toward the cougar. “Nor do I try to take credit for another person's accomplishment.”

“Woman, I'm not going to claim the kill.” Goaded beyond forbearance, he growled at her. “Tell your people whatever you like, but I'm not going to let a slip of a woman with an injured shoulder carry a carcass down a mountainside. Understood?”

The blindingly beatific smile she bestowed upon him told Chase he'd said the wrong thing—exactly what she wanted.

“Understood.”

You want to run that by me again?” Jake Granger crossed his arms and rested one shoulder against the far back corner of the house. The telltale swish of skirts on the move and random cries of disbelief formed a background to feminine activity. What activity that may be, Jake couldn't say, but muffled thumps told of items pulled from shelves and deposited elsewhere.

Yep. They're upset all right
. He eyed his longtime associate. Eyed the fallen cougar Dunstan started skinning. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had the women in a tizzy. What he needed to know was how much of it was his friend's fault—and if it meant the women wouldn't let him install Dunstan as acting authority in Hope Falls while he was gone.

The women got touchy about letting anyone take charge. If they took exception to the tracker squatting behind their house, methodically skinning a cougar, they'd kick up a mighty fuss. Jake needed to be prepared to soothe their ruffled feathers. But how to go about it depended on what Dunstan could tell him.

And Dunstan wasn't in a talking mood.

“Ask Miss Lyman,” came the taciturn response to Jake's question of how the man came to be skinning a cougar.

Dunstan skinning a large predator wasn't something Jake would normally need to question—the man tracked and hunted better than anyone he'd ever met. But behind the women's house? Dressing any large animal counted as a messy, smelly process.

“I'm asking you.” He didn't bother stating the obvious; only a madman would saunter into a house full of upset women.

“Granger,”—his friend's frustration seeped through the two syllables—”your two eyes can tell you I'm dressing a cougar. The rest is Miss Lyman's business. Take it up with her.”

Dunstan met Lacey Lyman?
Figured. Take the woman who'd have the most volatile reaction with his friend, and have them meet with no one to intervene.
It's a wonder only the cougar got shot
. Jake blinked and switched tactics. “How did you meet Lacey Lyman? I thought you went for a thought-walk in the woods.”

Dunstan snorted and wiped his bloody blade on a piece of hide he'd retrieved from his rucksack. “Thought-walk?”

“Enough.” Jake levered himself away from the wall, circled the other man, and lowered to look him in the eye. “I meant to introduce you to the girls tonight, easy and proper, so they'd accept you as my temporary replacement. Instead I turn around to find the women all aflutter, you skinning a cougar, and somehow Miss Lyman had a part in it. Looks like a royal mess I'll have to clean up before I leave. So what happened?”

    NINE    

Nothing happened I couldn't handle. Don't fret so.” Lacey ignored the churning in her stomach and forced a smile.

Not one of the other three women offered one in return. Naomi sucked shallow breaths through drawn lips, apparently fighting horror over the idea her charge might be injured, and reached for the witch hazel. Evie's wide-eyed gaze flitted from Lacey's mussed hair to her rumpled skirts and blood-stained shawl in obvious disbelief before the kettle called her away.

“Don't you say a word until I get back, Lacey!” she shrieked as she bustled into the kitchen and began a series of thuds to indicate something delicious would soon emerge.

Cora tilted her head in silent question. Her mismatched eyes—one hazel, one blue—held the same concern and curiosity evinced by her companions. The suspicion glittering in those depths belonged only to Cora. When Lacey couldn't meet her gaze, Cora slid toward the window. She shifted curtains, peering out as though trying to see around to the back of the house.

The back of the house—where Lacey asked Mr. Dunstan to take the cougar, thinking it would be out of sight of the workmen. Out of sight, away from prying questions she wasn't yet prepared to answer. Cora, her best friend and brother's fiancée—never mind what Braden said—knew her a little too well.

Luckily, she didn't have time to dwell on that before her cousin ushered her over to the nearest wingback chair. Naomi had Lacey's feet plumped upon a slightly rickety ottoman before she could protest. But when her cousin reached for her shawl, Lacey clamped a hand upon it and shook her head.
They can't see my shoulder. I don't even know how bad it is, but things always look worst before they're cleaned up. I don't want them alarmed
.

“If you don't let me see to it, the stains will set and you'll lose that shawl.” Naomi's reminder would have done the trick any other time, but today Lacey shook her head again.

“It's of no importance.” Lacey's response did little to assure them, most likely because they knew how very important the proper accessories were. Particularly soft, charming shawls woven of expensive kerseymere and dyed in one's favorite color.

Her cousin's eyes narrowed in suspicion—obviously caught from Cora, who'd come back over from the window to oversee things. “The last time you wore one of these shawls, a chipped teacup allowed the merest dribble of liquid to fall upon its corner. Then it was important enough for you to leap from the settee and disappear to your room for a quarter of an hour.”

“You make it sound as though I ran off sulking,” Lacey denied. “It needed to be tended immediately and done properly!”

She remembered the incident and had indeed taken the blue and primrose paisley printed shawl to her room for immediate treatment. A bit of blotting and a judicious sprinkling of talc—swiftly brushed away once it served its purpose—and the shawl looked good as new. A quarter of an hour was a small price to pay to save something of great beauty and artistry, after all.

“Precisely.” Naomi reached for the shawl Lacey kept clutched about her shoulders. “And today is no different.”

“Oh, but it is!” she cried, twisting slightly to avoid her cousin's grasp. The movement sent hot streaks licking from her shoulder down her arm. “Today we have urgent things to discuss!”

“You waited, didn't you?” Evie rushed in, bearing an overloaded tray. All Evie's trays came in loaded beyond good judgment. Nevertheless, they always left without so much as a crumb remaining. Just the sight of that tray set Lacey's stomach to rumbling, and she didn't even know what sat beneath the covers. But her friend kept talking as she set it down. “I want to hear absolutely everything about Mr. Dunstan and the cougar!”

“The cougar?” Naomi's echo came in a faint whisper.

“The
what
!” Cora's wasn't so much a question as a shriek loud enough to conceal the sounds of two men entering the house.

“Cougar.” Mr. Dunstan's grunt confirmed Evie's statement and robbed Lacey of the chance to soften her story before getting to the parts that would make Naomi worry too much. The man obviously held a gift for intruding at the worst times.