Counterfeit Cowgirl (Love and Laughter) Page 7

  Pansy Puttipiece. She must have really loved her husband to marry into that name. And she’d thought. “Hannah Nelson” was bad.

  They shook hands. Pansy’s grip was as delicate as a road mender’s.

  “Come on,” she said, still carrying the slandered orange.

  Hannah followed her slightly bent figure along the dairy section before turning right.

  “Here’s the canned department.”

  Hannah gazed in flummoxed wonder. “They have an entire department devoted to abused fruit?”

  Pansy chuckled. “You got your Libby’s, your Del Monte, your Dole.”

  “Which is best?”

  A shrug. “Canned fruit’s all right for Jell-Os and the like. Makes pretty fair muffins. And cowboys can manage to eat ’em straight outta the can. But when I make my tarts and such, I gotta have fresh.”

  “You bake fresh tarts?” She was beginning to salivate like Pavlov’s dog. “By yourself?”

  “My Peter—Melvin!” she barked suddenly.

  Beside Hannah, a tall, stooped-shouldered man stopped as if shot. She turned to watch his face turn red, and his paunch disappear as he straightened to face the widow.

  “What is it, Mrs. Puttipiece?” he asked as if pained.

  “What is it? It’s this thing you call an orange. This ain’t no orange. It’s a sad excuse. I need my fruits and—”

  “Listen here, Mrs. Puttipiece, you can’t come in here every day complaining about my produce,” said Melvin, leaning toward her. “My oranges is just fine.”

  Pansy reared back as if struck. “At thirty cents apiece. I can’t afford no thirty cents on my security check. For thirty cents I could feed caviar to the king of England.”

  “It’s thirty cents and it’ll stay thirty cents!”

  “Then I’ll be back tomorrow and we can discuss it again,” she said, stretching up on her toes so that their noses nearly met. “Since my Peter passed on I got all the time in the world.”

  Melvin opened his mouth, gritted his teeth, and said, “Twenty cents then?”

  Settling back on her heels, Pansy nodded. “That’ll do me fine.”

  Melvin huffed, then stormed off.

  Hannah stood in dumbfounded amazement, then catching Pansy’s eye, she said, “Mrs. Puttipiece, I have a proposition for you.”

  TY PACED AROUND the diameter of the living room one more time. “Where the hell is she?”

  “Don’t know,” said Nate, and strummed a chord on the guitar he was holding cradled on his lap. “You in a hurry to lose that bet we made?”

  “It’s past noon. I shouldn’t have let her go alone. I should have showed her how to use the four-wheel drive. Dammit! She could be stuck somewhere and freezing to death right now.”

  “Freezing to death?” Nate struck a G chord and hummed a few notes. “It’s twenty-five degrees out there. Near tropical.”

  “Wearing that little scrap of leather she calls a coat with her head bare and—”

  “Shit, Ty, relax,” Nathan said. “Keep hyperventilating like that and you’re gonna pass out. Hey. That’s it. I watch her walk across the room…” he sang. “No, wait. I watch her from across the room. The feelings nearly make me swoon.”

  “Shut up, Nate.”

  “Hair as bright as harvest gold,” he crooned. “I’d give my very soul to hold—her in my arms for one sweet night. To see her face fill up with light. To feel her sun-kissed satin skin. But I’ll not risk my heart again.”

  “Nathan, shut the hell up!” Tyrel yelled, then, hearing the door open, he swung toward it. “It’s about damn time, Hannah…” he began, then stumbled back a pace as an old woman entered with a bag of groceries.

  She was about two feet tall and had a face like a dried apple.

  “Hannah,” he said, “you shrunk.”

  “Listen, young man.” She glared up at him. “So long as I’m employed here, you’ll not be taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

  Tyrel felt his jaw drop, and in that instant Hannah stepped through the doorway.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, nodding to them. “And I use that term lightly. This is Mrs. Pansy Puttipiece. She’s your new housekeeper.”

  “Housekeeper?” the brothers echoed in harmony.

  “And cook,” the midget added. “Where’s the kitchen?”

  “It’s in, uh…there,” Ty said, motioning lamely.

  Puttipiece strode across the cracked linoleum, then stopped in the doorway and raised her brows into her gray, tightcurled hair. “That ain’t no kitchen. It’s a national disaster. Looks like you got me here just in time.”

  “It’s, uh…it’s usually not this bad,” Ty said, lying badly.

  Pansy snorted, then disappeared into the bowels of the kitchen.

  “Um…Miss Nelson, can I talk to you a minute?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Fox,” Hannah said, meeting his gaze dead-on.

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “Certainly.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.

  “Hey! Watch your language!” roared a voice from the kitchen.

  “Yes…yes, ma’am,” said Ty, then lowered his voice and tried again. “What the…” He glanced toward the kitchen. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “You told me to get whatever I need,” she explained, her tone perfectly unruffled. “I got what was needed.”

  “If I’d just wanted someone to do a little work around the house I got a hundred women who would beg to do the job.”

  “Really?” Her left brow rose to a surprising height. “The pork queen, maybe?”

  “She’s a pork princess, and she’s not the only one I date.”

  “Really? Any of them human?”

  “You—”

  “Ty…Ty,” Nate interrupted. “You’d do best to stick to the subject.”

  Tyrel scowled down at his brother then raised his glare to Hannah. “I can’t afford a housekeeper. And even if I could I wouldn’t hire her,” he whispered. “She’s a hundred years old.”

  Hannah smiled like the proverbial cat. “Believe me, Mr. Fox, she’ll do the job I hired her for, and she’ll save you money doing it.”

  “Really!”

  “Really.”

  “And what do you plan to do? Sit around and polish your toenails?”

  “I don’t polish my toenails, Mr. Fox. I buff them. And I believe you hired me to care for your stock.”

  Exasperated, Ty glanced at his brother. Nate shrugged and strummed a chord. “I never do know what to say,” he crooned, “when she looks at me that way. The urge to kiss her—”

  “Shut the hell up!”

  “Hey!” yelled Pansy.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” said Ty, then continued, “All right, Ms. Nelson, you want to be just another hand, you’ll be just another hand. No more pussyfooting.”

  “No more pussy,” Nate crooned.

  “You’ll feed stock. You’ll clean yards. You’ll take your night shifts.”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Fox,” she said.

  “Yeah.” His anger deflated slightly.

  “But I can never stay mad,” sang Nate.

  “You’ll have to have some decent clothes,” Ty said. “Here.” He led her to the hall closet and dragged out a pair of camel-colored insulated overalls. “They’re mine, but they should do the job all right.” He almost grinned when he said it, because he was five inches taller and outweighed her by seventy pounds, even when he was doing his own cooking. But, hey, the uglier she looked, the better he’d sleep.

  Pushing the overalls into her hands, he stepped back a pace. “You ready to work now, Ms. Nelson?”

  “Ready when you are,” she said.

  And the day began.

  BY DARK THEY HAD cleaned the horse barn, fed everything that was breathing and once again bedded the cattle shed.

  By seven o’clock Hannah had fed Daniel twice and taken on chores that hadn’t been thought of since fall. Still the wom
an didn’t slow down.

  She was dressed like a tan snowman. Wearing a man’s billed cap that stuck out from under a faded red hood, she slogged from one job to the next like a bullheaded linebacker.

  Ty drooped against the barn doorjamb for a moment, watching as she shoveled out a gate.

  “Yeah,” Nate said, gazing through the doorway as he passed by with a calf in his arms, “I think you’re wearing her down all right The ice princess on her knees. Pretty soon she’ll be kissing your—”

  “Shut the hell up, Nate,” Ty said. “If I want to know what she’ll be kissing, I’ll sure enough ask you.”

  “Well, she sure as hell won’t be kissing you.”

  “You’ll see,” said Ty.

  Nate chuckled, and whistling a tune he called “Old Dogs and Idiots,” sauntered off toward the south end of the barn.

  By 7:30 Ty thought he would die and half hoped he would.

  “Let’s call it a night,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the wind.

  Hannah looked up from where she was dumping a bucket of grain into the bunk for the bulls. “Already?” she asked, and Ty considered strangling her as he dragged himself off to the house.

  Stepping inside, he saw that the entryway was clean.

  “You’re not planning on wearing them boots in here, are ya?” blasted a voice from the kitchen.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, and stepping back onto the porch, left his offensive footgear behind.

  Hannah and Nate joined him by the time he reached the kitchen. He stopped, let his jaw drop and his taste buds ached.

  The place shone like a fresh-scrubbed milking parlor and smelled like culinary heaven.

  “What’s cooking?” he asked, feeling weak.

  “Fried chicken, green beans and baked potatoes.”

  “How much am I paying you?” Ty asked.

  “Six bucks an hour plus free board till I get this place fumigated,” she said, looking belligerent.

  “If I marry you, will you stay forever?” Nathan asked, looking dreamy.

  “There’ll be none of that kind of talk!” the widow ordered, but when she turned away, her mouth seemed to have almost turned up. “Sit down.”

  They did so eagerly. Even Hannah was silent for once, and when the food was delivered all that could be heard was reverent chewing.

  Somehow Hannah had become positioned to Ty’s left, just inches away. Once the hardest edge of his appetite had been sated, he noticed her proximity like forbidden fruit.

  “So…” he said, reaching for a topic to keep his thoughts in line. He had been better off when she was in the overalls, but now that they were removed and her knee was almost touching his, every fiber in him seemed aware of her presence—how her pink sweater hugged her breasts, how her hands moved slowly and precisely when she ate, as if she measured every bite. “Nate,” he said, realizing suddenly that he had momentarily forgotten his brother’s name. “How’re the twins?”

  “I’m eating,” Nate said, still shoveling potatoes into his mouth.

  Ty let him do so for several minutes while he concentrated on his own meal. But suddenly he thought he felt Hannah’s knee touch his own. In an instant, she jerked it away.

  He refused to look at her. Refused to be drawn into her spider’s web.

  “Nate!” he said, almost desperate now. “How’re the twins?”

  “All right,” Nate said, devouring a chicken leg. “But the mama can’t handle both of ‘em. Looks like Hannah’ll have herself a new baby to baby—”

  Nate’s words stopped as he stared at Hannah. Ty scowled, then, unable to avoid her any longer, glanced sideways and realized her face had slumped to the table.

  She was sound asleep, her blue eyes closed, her lashes feather soft against her skin.

  Tyrel’s heart did a twist like a sunfisher bronc coming out of the chute.

  “Kinda pretty, ain’t she?” Nate said around a mouthful of beans.

  Ty glanced at him and his brother smiled, as though even now thinking up a dozen more inane country lyrics to torment him with.

  “She’s all right in a citified kind of way.”

  Nate laughed. “Yeah. You gonna carry her to bed or what?”

  The sunfisher bronc in Ty’s chest stopped cold. “To bed?”

  “It’d be the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  Ty cleared his throat, wiped his damp palms on his jeans and tried not to cry. God, if he touched her he was going to explode.

  “Not scared of her, are ya?” Nate asked.

  Ty rose with a start. Nate chuckled. Hannah groaned, but didn’t awaken.

  Easing her chair back, Ty bent and lifted her into his arms. She moaned again, and for a moment all he could think of was that her hair felt like the kittens that were sometimes born in the loft. He could imagine her there, her eyes half-closed as she…

  Nate began humming. The sound ripped Ty back into reality. With purposeful strides, he ascended the stairs. Pushing her door open, he strode in and deposited her on the bed.

  Her eyes opened, her face only inches from his.

  “Mr. Fox?” she said. Her tone was surprised but blurred with sleep.

  He cleared his throat and straightened. Diffused light slanted across her bed from the hallway, shadowing and illuminating her lovely face.

  “Yeah,” he said, wiping his palms on his jeans again. “It’s me.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes fluttered shut. “Did I d…”

  “What?” he asked, leaning closer.

  “Did I do o…”

  He sat on the very edge of the bed. “What’d you say?”

  “Did I do okay?” she murmured, eyes closed, body lax.

  Tyrel’s throat tightened. She was asleep, like a little girl who had slaved to please a father who would never be pleased.

  “Yeah, honey,” he said, sweeping a few strands of hair from her forehead. “Yeah. You did perfect.”

  HANNAH AWOKE just after 6:00. Her body throbbed like a digital sound system. But she’d managed to feed Daniel twice during the night before falling into oblivion again. Now, despite the aches, the scrapes and her grumbling stomach—probably due to the fact that she’d fallen asleep in her dinner—she felt strangely elated.

  Stumbling her way to the bathroom, she took a quick shower. The curtain had been replaced and the toilet cleaned, she noticed. Beneath the warm stream of heavenly water, she lathered her body and sang a few bars of something she’d heard yesterday, then felt embarrassed about the silly lyrics and tried to remember a little Pavarotti.

  Twenty minutes later she was dressed in jeans and a blue mohair sweater, and went down the stairs.

  Delectable aromas wafted to her. The Fox boys sat at the kitchen table.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  The brothers looked up.

  “Morning,” Nate responded.

  Ty made a strangled noise above his coffee cup.

  Nate grinned. “Ty’d say good morning too, but he swallowed his tongue. Say good morning, Ty.”

  “Shut up, Nate,” he mumbled, and shifted his gaze to his coffee.

  “You look especially nice this morning, Hannah,” Nate said, still grinning. “That sweater brings out the color of your eyes. Don’t it bring out the color of her eyes, brother?” he asked, nudging Ty.

  Tyrel looked up, and suddenly it didn’t matter that she was a Clifton Vandegard or that her father was one of the most influential men in LA, because Tyrel’s eyes were dark and entrancing, drawing at something deep in her soul.

  There were light crinkles at the corner of his eyes and his mouth was full and sensual, as if it could soothe a spooked horse and croon Shakespeare at the same time.

  “Amy’d look good in a sweater like that,” Nate said. “Where’d you get it?”

  Reality flashed back in.

  Hannah blushed and hurried to take her seat. “Um…Paris,” she said.

  Silence filled the room, broken only by the sound of bacon frying. All eyes tu
rned to her.

  “I, uh…I had a chance to visit there once.”

  “Ahhh,” Nate said, swallowing a half a glass of milk.

  Pansy, busy at the stove, began dishing up breakfast and setting plates in front of them.

  Hannah stared at hers. Three eggs, a couple strips of bacon, two pieces of buttered toast and a sliced orange. More food than she had consumed in all of 1997. “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeah,” sighed Nate.

  “Eat up,” ordered Pansy, her spatula held like a whip.

  Hannah ate her orange first. True, she was hungry, but no one loved a fat woman. Her mother’s words were still very clear on that.

  Despite the slathering of butter, she ate the toast. It tasted comparable, maybe even superior, to Spago’s cream-cheese croissants. The milk was almost yellow with fat and icy cold.

  She pushed her plate away.

  Pansy turned from the stove like a sergeant at the sound of shelling. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “It was delectable,” Hannah said. “But I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  They were all looking at her again as if she were extraterrestrial.

  “Really,” she said. Glancing at them all in turn, she laughed nervously. “I have to watch my weight or I won’t fit into my…uniform…thingies.”

  “Yeah,” Nate said. “That’s a worry.”

  “You gotta eat,” Ty said, watching her solemnly.

  She laughed again. The sound of his whiskey-rough voice did strange things to her insides, and the somber concern in his eyes was about to melt the fifty-dollar-an-ounce moisturizer right off her face.

  “I’m a big girl now,” she said, laughing again. From the corner of her eye, she noticed that Daniel had wandered into the doorway. “I’ve been deciding what to eat for quite some time.”

  “I don’t want you fainting out there. We’ve got a full day ahead of us, you know,” Ty said, “and—”

  “And you want to get your money’s worth?” she asked. Daddy had once said her temper could rise faster than a superstar’s ego.

  “I sure—”

  “Hey!” interrupted Pansy, bristly brows pressed tight over the plastic frames of her bifocals. “I don’t take no arguing over my meals. And anyhow, I got something to say.”