Tall, Dark, and Determined (20 page)

No, not what I require
, Lacey seethed.
What. I
. Demand.

    SIXTEEN    

S
he looked like she'd almost gotten her wind back. Chase judged it time to ease up on the ropes before she set sail on her rant.

“Water?” He gave his canteen an inviting shake. Chase emptied it himself on the way down in a bid to cool off then tracked off a ways specifically to replenish the supply. Freshly filled, the water within sloshed in an irresistible offering.

She gave the canteen a look of such pure longing Chase found his own throat working as though taking a swallow. Miss Lyman's thoughts played out across the canvas of her face. Desperation replaced desire as she remembered who offered her the canteen and what ground she might lose by accepting it. Square-jawed determination trumped both to emerge victorious.

“You …” She paused to lick her lips in a motion even Chase knew owed nothing to seduction and everything to do with thirst. Looking as parched as before, she tried again. “You think …”

Chase thought his gambit failed. He started to withdraw the canteen, only to watch a finely boned hand snatch the thing from his grasp with the deadly precision of a rattler strike. No words spoken. At that point he realized she'd stopped talking without finishing her thought.
First time for everything
.

If he'd thought of anything to say, scraped up any reason for leaving her talking to nothing but the air and herself, here lay the opportunity to start spinning the explanation so it sounded enough like an apology to mollify the woman. Now, while she tilted the canteen and glugged back half its contents in one go.

He didn't. The water would have to wash the awkwardness away without any help. From the looks of it, it might work.

“Good?” Relief rode in his chest when she nodded, took a deeply satisfied breath, and screwed the top in place before passing it back to him. “All right then. Back to Hope Falls.”

“Hold it right there!” Water worked wonders. Her voice regained volume and took on a shrill quality Chase recognized easily; most mammals used warning cries to presage danger.

Since his boots remained right where he'd stood for the past five minutes, he didn't take that as an order. He did, however, see it as foolishness and saw no reason to keep the opinion to himself. “Regained your dulcet tones, have you?”

“What … ooh!” Something akin to an outraged squawk sounded. “How do you have the nerve to criticize my tone when
you
can't manage to use words at all, but resort to whistling as though expecting anything and everyone to come running like a dog?”

Chase bit back a smile. The woman made it too easy. With a little luck and some quick thinking, he could make it so she would avoid him like the plague for the rest of his stay in Hope Falls. He shrugged. “Always works with Decoy. Until you, can't say I knew it'd work on women. It's something to bear in mind.”

Astonishment and, judging by the fire in her gaze, pure rage held her silent before she gathered herself to attack. “Now you listen, Mr. Dunstan. I don't know what passes for manners or even basic communication for a mountain man, but I'm beginning to believe you're unable carry on a civil conversation.” The lone feather atop her bonnet quivered in indignation as she finished.

Close to pushing her over the edge now
. All he needed to do was squint awhile and say, “Yep.”

His answer deflated her some. She visibly grappled with trying to find some way to answer that before throwing him a look filled with disbelief and a tinge of defeat. “Yep?”

“Yep.” He crossed his arms and bobbed his head. “You got it right.”
Or at least closer than most, even if you don't know it
. “I'm a mountain man because I'm no good at civil conversation.”

No need to split hairs about the difference between not being good at civil conversation and not being good at pretending to be civil to people who routinely acted like idiots.

She stared at him a long moment before her eyes widened. “You're bamming me!” Disbelief vanished beneath fury. “And it almost worked! You think I don't see what you're up to, Mr. Dunstan? You think I can't deduce you're treating me with such obvious disdain and mockery simply because I'm a woman?”

“
Bamming
you?” He raised a brow at her. “Can't say I have.” Chase never heard the expression before. While he figured it meant joking, the phrase itself sounded questionable at best, and he wasn't above teasing her to regain the upper hand.

It didn't work.

“Yes, Mr. Dunstan, you most certainly have.” She rounded on him. “Call it what you will—putting me on, pulling one's leg, playing me for a fool—it all amounts to the same thing. Callous disregard and flagrant insubordination will not be tolerated.”

He expected her to go on like a spitting cat for a good while, getting out all her anger and denigrating his character until she got it out of her system and went more docile. Instead the woman confounded him midstream. With one pause, she transitioned from affronted female on the attack to a more hopeless, quiet sort of anger. Her voice lowered, and Chase got the sense the following words weren't just for his benefit. Chase might have believed the words weren't for his ears at all.

“I feared this when the prospect of hiring you first arose, and you wasted no time making a difficult position even worse.” With that dismal statement, she brushed past him, apparently heading back to Hope Falls without any further argument.

A sharp tug in his midsection, long unfamiliar but recently reintroduced to him in association with his brother-in-law's death, caught Chase off guard.
What do I have to feel guilty for?
But no man battled his gut and won, and Chase knew he'd acted the part of a jerk too well for a lady to understand or forgive. No matter what his suspicions, until he turned up something concrete, he needed to tread softly. That meant treating her like he would any other beautiful lady who happened to be his new boss.

If he'd ever worked for a woman before, that is. And if he didn't usually avoid beautiful ladies as a matter of good sense. Chase rubbed the bridge of his nose and prayed for wisdom.

Lord, I have need of wisdom. Proverbs warns, “It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.” And well You know my preference in the matter. But here am I, with a purpose and a need for patience. Guide me through this new wilderness of women, Father. It is strange. Amen
.

Somewhat restored, but not without a sense of foreboding, he jogged after Miss Lyman, determined to keep her from Hope Falls until the two of them could reach some sort of understanding.

“You misunderstood me.” His deep voice sounded right at her heels, the only warning of his presence before Mr. Dunstan fell into step at her side. The man moved with the sleek, silent grace of a hunter even when not tracking anything down.

Foolish, Lacey. He's tracking
you
at the moment
. The realization shivered through her. Even with her gun, Lacey knew on the deepest level, with no argument, that nothing she did could match this man nor evade him. She sped up anyway.

After all, she'd spent most of her life recognizing her own limits then fighting against them anyway.
Hopeless doesn't mean helpless, and helpless doesn't mean hopeless
, she recited. Which quality she possessed changed by situation, but Lacey took comfort in knowing she always had one. She'd allow nothing less.

This morning the betrayal of her friends and the unchangeable fact she'd be stuck with Mr. Dunstan left her somewhat hopeless. Her refusal to be helpless spurred her to seek him out in an attempt to hash through their positions.

Now, given his behavior, it could not be clearer to Lacey she remained helpless to change him or his treatment of her. Worse, she'd be helpless to alter his impact on the other men if he remained. But now, armed with solid examples in his treatment of her, as well as his own admission of incivility, she had high hopes of convincing the other women to dismiss him.

No matter those fleeting moments in the woods, when she'd almost liked his humor. Priorities must be maintained. Examples must be set. Standards should never be lowered. And besides, “I understand you quite well, Mr. Dunstan.”

Lacey refused to look at him, instead keeping her chin high and gaze fixed firmly forward as she plunged ahead. “You disdain to afford me the essential respect and courtesy due an employer then make light of it by claiming to be incapable of civil interaction.”

“You're right that I didn't give you proper respect.” The words came haltingly, grudgingly. Still, he said them. “But I wasn't making light about my lack of social graces, Miss Lyman.”

Lacey fell over at that confession. More accurately, she'd hooked her boot in a protruding tree root and gone sprawling to the ground.
Which might be what one deserves, going about with one's nose in the air when a man makes an attempt to apologize
.

Nevertheless, it hardly made for a dignified position in which to accept that apology. If Lacey were inclined to accept the apology at all, when it sounded suspiciously more like an explanation than an apology.
Not an apology at all
, she decided as she rolled over. She sat for a moment and took stock as Dunstan hunkered down. Besides embarrassment at her clumsiness and the pain in her shoulder, mainly she felt … damp.

So she held out her hand in a silent request for his assistance to her feet, only to find it ignored. Rather than help her up, Dunstan wrapped his hand around her boot. She fancied she could feel the warmth of it clear through leather and stocking, a sensation so foreign she lost her breath.

Though, again, that might have been the fall. Whatever the cause for her lack of breath, she didn't immediately order him to remove that hand from her person. He gave a gentle squeeze. Lacey gasped and tried to yank her foot away, under the safety of her skirts, but he tightened his grip and made it impossible.

Unbelievably, he shot her a disgruntled glance from beneath lowered brows and issued the terse order that she, “Hold still.”

“I will not!” She tugged her leg back, attempting to dislodge his clamp-like hold on her boot. For a long, ridiculous moment, she pedaled the air. Lacey pulled her foot back; he tugged it forward with surprising gentleness. “Unhand me!”

And then everything changed at once. The contrary man gave a deep, booming chuckle and did the last thing she expected. He complied with her request, letting go at the same moment she gave a final tug and effectively hurled herself flat on her back. Sharp pains shot up from her shoulder, stunning her.

She lay still for a moment to let the pain to both shoulder and pride subside, ignoring the damp seeping steadily into the green cambric of her dress. After all, a few more moments of indignity could do no more harm to the fabric. She'd tend it later with a solution of tepid water, glycerin, and vinegar to stave off general discoloration. Any persistent stains she'd treat with still more vinegar or, at worst, pure alcohol.