Scandal with the Rancher

by Julia Justiss

  “If you’re prepared to throw away your reputation, then come to me! I’ll offer you better terms, and I can assure you, the working conditions will be better.”

  She recoiled as if he’d struck her. “You want me to be your...mistress?”

  “My lover,” he corrected softly, reaching out to stroke her cheek. “There’s passion between us—surely you won’t deny that. And friendship. It would please me to take care of you, and I would rejoice to have you in my bed, to pleasure you and keep you safe.”

  To his consternation, two crystal drops pooled in the corners of her eyes, then slid down her cheeks. “I’ve never given myself, except when I wanted to.”

  “And I’ve never taken a woman who didn’t want me!” he tossed back, affronted at the very suggestion he might be forcing her.

  “Then we are at a standstill. I’d better just go work for Evangeline.”

  “You would let men you don’t know and don’t care about touch you, but not me?” he asked, exasperated and unable to comprehend such illogical behavior.

  “That would be different. That would be...services performed for cash rendered. I could close my eyes and my heart. Servicing you, for money...” she closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “It would kill the soul,” she whispered.

  Trying to hold on to his temper, Booze swore under his breath. Why was she complicating something that should be so simple? No wonder he normally avoided “respectable” women, confining himself to ladies experienced in the game.

  “So you won’t be my mistress,” he asked, trying to confirm the ground rules.

  “I can’t,” she said simply.

  “Well, you can’t work for Evangeline, either.”

  She shrugged. “As I’ve already said, I must have an income.”

  “Then work for me!” he burst out. “No, no—” he put up a hand to forestall her protest. “Not as my mistress, since the prospect of me touching you suddenly seems so distasteful,” he said, the idea still stinging.

  She met his gaze—his probably showing hurt and anger. “It’s not having you touch me that offends,” she said quietly. “It’s having you pay to touch me. Do you not understand?”

  “Obviously not. So I guess I’ll have to hire you to do something else.”

  It was her turn to look scornful. “And what might that be? You don’t need someone to teach you reading and writing.”

  “You could...work at the mercantile. Jesse’s never been very good at it—and he can’t add worth spit.”

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “What would happen to poor Jesse if I take his job? Besides, the shop girls in San Antonio earned less than the teachers. I can’t imagine you could justify giving me a salary that would ever allow me to pay off my loan. And if I work at the mercantile, people will assume I’m your mistress anyway.”

  “But you would know that wasn’t true,” he pointed out. Even as I work to coax you into it. “Isn’t that what’s most important to you—that you know you’re an honest woman?”

  She gave a sad little smile. “Since the town has already sided with Lydia McCleary in assuming I’m not.”

  “I’d bet it’s not so much that they sided with her, as they didn’t dare go against her. If you work at the mercantile and continue living in your rooms at Mrs. Lowery’s, the townspeople will likely conclude that I held myself responsible for getting you fired from your position and felt I must offer you some other employment. And they’d be right.”

  A sudden inspiration occurred that should make the prospect of taking the job much more attractive to her. “I’m not talking about making you a shop girl. I’m talking about having you manage the mercantile. Maintain inventory, order stock, add or discontinue products, arrange goods in the store as you see fit. Jesse keeps the doors open, but that’s about it. I could use someone who’s perceptive, intelligent, and interested in finding ways to expand and improve the business.”

  Her eyes widened, and he knew he’d piqued her interest. “But I know nothing about running a mercantile.”

  “You grew up in a large household, didn’t you? I’m sure, expecting you to marry a man of means, your mama trained you how to manage and direct servants, maintain and order supplies, food, and whatever sundries are necessary to keep a big house operating smoothly.”

  Her face brightened, as if she’d permitted herself to entertain a glimmer of hope. “Yes, she did.”

  “Running the mercantile would be easier, since you wouldn’t have to deal with servants. Only with bolts of cloth and canned goods and sacks of flour that don’t get their feelings hurt and don’t talk back.”

  “I suppose I could do that,” she said, beginning to look more enthused. “But—what about Jesse? I wouldn’t want to see him tossed out of his job.”

  He waved an impatient hand. “I think we’ve just established that he isn’t doing the job I’m hiring you for. Lately, he’s been telling me he’s restless, that he envies me being able to travel around. He’s hinted that he’d like to travel and do some buying for the store. Heaven forbid! As bad as he is at arithmetic, we’d be cheated blind. But I wager he’d welcome a post somewhere else.” Or Booze would persuade him into liking it.

  He paused, watching the struggle of emotions reflected on her expressive face. “You don’t truly want to work for Evangeline, do you?” he asked softly.

  Her eyes sheening again, she shook her head. “N-not really,” she said gruffly.

  She looked so forlorn, so weary, that his heart turned over. He opened his arms, and to his delight she walked into them. He felt her tremble, and realized she was silently weeping against his shoulder.

  “Ah, sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re safe now, querida. No one will ever hurt you again, I promise. And if anyone dares to insult you with those innuendoes Lydia McCleary put about, they’ll answer to me. You’re not alone anymore.”

  He cradled her against him, relishing the feel of her in his arms. Much as he ached to make love to her, there was a piercing sweetness, unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, in knowing that she’d come to him for solace, that she trusted him to look out for and protect her.

  And he would—no matter when, or if, she ever invited him back into her bed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ten days later, Marguerite finished straightening the display of canned goods and took up her feather duster. With the whole-store inventory now complete, a little last-minute touch up, and the mercantile would be ready to open.

  Jesse had left yesterday, as excited as Ronan had predicted about heading to Austin to work for one of Kelly’s associates. Today, she’d be handling all of it—customers, cash register, ledgers and orders—by herself. The prospect both excited and unnerved her.

  The business of running a retail store was more complicated than she’d imagined. She’d worked behind the scenes this last week, while Jesse handled the customers and demonstrated how to use the cash register and enter items into the ledgers. Ronan had taken her further into the mechanics of the business, showing her how his ordering process worked, what determined when a reorder was necessary, where supplies came from, giving her the long list of providers and merchants from whom he bought and sold goods of every sort.

  She hadn’t begun to master the process of keeping the store stocked and ready, but she was learning more every day. What was more, she found she enjoyed it.

  She’d moved from the ranch back to the boarding house the day Ronan offered her the manager’s position, employment about which Mrs. Lowery had been enthusiastic. “Only right that he found a proper job for you, beings as how it was his teasing and flirting that got you into that mess,” the landlady had announced tartly. “That, and Lydia McCleary’s high-and-mighty airs. Thinks she should run everything and everyone in this town. Well, I’d have liked to seen her face when she heard you wasn’t going to be leaving Whiskey River after all!”

  As for the gentleman responsible for the “teasing and flirting,” she wasn’t sure
what to think about him. He’d been gentle, tender and protective at the ranch, not taking advantage of her weary and worried condition to seduce her, which he might easily have done, she admitted. He had clearly not understood her reasons for refusing to become his mistress, when they had already been intimate and were still intensely attracted to each other. By offering her a job she could accept, he’d allowed her to retain the tatters of her dignity and self-respect.

  It wasn’t just the loss of respectability that had made her reject the idea of becoming his kept woman. She’d tried for some time to tell herself it was only a powerful passion that drew her to him, but the violence of her reaction to his shocking offer had forced her to recognize the attachment was more than just physical.

  Somewhere over the last weeks, she’d come to care for Ronan Kelly far more than she should, given that marriage was out of the question and that, in a town as small as Whiskey River, she couldn’t take him as a lover without risking her reputation all over again.

  He seemed to understand a more intimate connection was impossible, and yet... Her refusal to become his mistress had in no way muted the strength of her attraction to him, and he was obviously still attracted to her. He spent most of his time working in his room at the hotel, but since she’d begun at the mercantile, he dedicated a time each day to helping her become acquainted with the business, usually after Jesse had locked up for the day and headed off to the saloon.

  From time to time, as they worked alone in the mercantile’s office, he’d brush his hand against hers, letting his fingers linger caressingly. She’d been careful to keep a distance between them—there was only so much temptation a woman could resist, after all—and he hadn’t tried to move closer.

  But the air between them crackled with a sensual tension that ratcheted up several notches every time she looked up from adding a column of figures to find his gaze on her mouth, her breasts—those smoky glances heating her skin wherever they rested. Or the times she’d turn to ask him a question, find him looking down at her, and be certain he was going to kiss her...

  He hadn’t, she thought with a sigh. She only hoped those “almost encounters” left him as disturbed and frustrated as she was.

  Was he deliberately leading her down a clever path of gradual, subtle seduction? Or was he merely reacting to a passion he couldn’t deny any more than she could?

  She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to leave town on another buying trip and give her some relief from temptation, or end her semi-permanent state of arousal by actually kissing or embracing her.

  Still, she thought as she climbed up to dust the top of a cabinet, compared to what she could be doing now had Kelly not chosen to intervene, she mustn’t complain too much.

  To someone for whom working with numbers had always come easily, she wasn’t worried about eventually mastering the ledgers and accounts. But remaining within the scope of Lydia McCleary’s influence did trouble her. Having had her triumphant effort to get rid of Marguerite undercut by Kelly’s ingenuity in finding her another job, Marguerite suspected the banker’s wife was furious—and would be looking for other ways to make trouble.

  She just hoped none of the townspeople who had helped her—Mr. Blackman, Mrs. Lowery, or Ronan Kelly—would be drawn into whatever retribution the banker’s beautiful wife dreamed up next.

  A knock at the door startled her from her thoughts. She looked over to see Miss Evangeline framed in the frosted glass of the front windows.

  Smiling, she walked over to admit her. “We’re not supposed to open until this afternoon, but do come in. What can I help you with?”

  “I don’t need any supplies at the moment, darlin’, but I had to come, soon as I got your note. You musn’t even think of calling on me, and you don’t owe me any thanks, neither! If I helped you straighten out your thinking when you was in a hard spot, then I’m happy to have done it. You mustn’t spoil my hard work in keeping you respectable by having folks discover you’re better acquainted with me than you should be!”

  “How else can I show my appreciation to a woman who offered me compassion and kindness when everyone else looked the other way? And, I’ll bet, was responsible for shaming Mr. Kelly into offering me this job, which I’ve found I very much like, and puts me even further in your debt.”

  “I knew Booze would figure out the right thing to do. He just needed a little nudge. And I’m right tickled to hear that you’re enjoying the work here. If you really do want to show your gratitude, you might give me a good price on a new gown or bonnet from time to time.”

  “Consider it done. And if there are any supplies you need that we don’t stock, or something special you want ordered, just let me know. Mr. Kelly’s network of suppliers is larger than I ever imagined. I don’t think there’s anything he couldn’t find for you.”

  The madame patted her hand. “Long as he’s found a safe place for you, that’s all I’m wishing for. Well, I’d best be going before you open and some snooty-nosed matron comes in and pretends I don’t exist—or fusses at you for speaking to me! And if you get tired of this place and decide you might like to try the excitement of being an Angel,” she added with a wink, “you just send me a note. The girls and I would give you a warm welcome!”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Marguerite said. “And thank you again.”

  With a nod, Miss Evangeline walked out onto the porch, and then halted, smiling at someone off to her left. A little shock of excitement and anticipation went through Marguerite. There was only one person who would dare speak openly to the madame in broad daylight in the middle of town.

  A moment later, Ronan Kelly strode through the door.

  She nodded to him. “Mr. Kelly, what a surprise! Come to make sure I haven’t gotten the inventory into a muddle?”

  He halted at her side—close enough that she could feel the heat emanating from his body and catch the faint scent of his shaving soap. His intangible aura of power, confidence and intense masculinity wafted to her, too, inciting that familiar pull of attraction that made her long to throw herself into his arms and kiss him breathless.

  There’d be no acting on that impulse, no matter how hard it was to suppress.

  At least, not in the mercantile in the middle of the day.

  “—not checking up on you,” he was saying with a smile. “I have complete confidence in your ability to run this place—a lot more than I ever had in Jesse. But I thought it might be helpful for me to work in the office here for the next few days, in case anything unexpected comes up.”

  A wave of relief—along with an unstoppable undercurrent of naughty anticipation—had her exhaling a breath. “I would feel better knowing I can get an immediate answer to any question that might arise.”

  He reached out, as if to take her hand, then pulled his arm back. Though she felt a tinge of disappointment at his retreat, it encouraged her, too. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who had to keep suppressing the strong and instinctive desire to touch.

  She looked up at him, and the words she had meant to say slipped away. For a long moment, they simply stood, gazing into each other’s eyes, bound by the power of the attraction between them.

  She broke away first, shaking her head. “I-I suppose I’d b-better turn the sign to ‘Open’.”

  He nodded. “Have a good first day.”

  As he turned to walk toward the office, her desire-fogged mind cleared and she remembered what she’d been about to say, before longing emptied her head of everything but the need for his kiss. “Mr. Kelly!” she said, stepping after him. “I did want to ask you about something.”

  He turned back toward her. “What is it?”

  “You said I could run the mercantile as I wish? Change displays, order different things?”

  “You can do anything you wish with the store.” He looked her up and down, his gaze sending heat rushing through her again. “And with anything else I can provide. That’s part of why I hired you—your fresh thoughts and innovative ide
as excite me.”

  She struggled to restrain a mind that wanted to gallop off after the carnal possibilities those words evoked. Concentrate on business, she told herself.

  “While I was doing the inventory, I was struck by how...illogical the arrangement of the products is. China next to boots, ladies’ dresses in the back, pots and pans in the front next to sugar and flour.”

  Kelly chuckled. “The first items we handled were at the front—essentials like sugar, flour, cooking pots and, until I moved the liquor over to Tom Hamlin’s saloon, whiskey. As we added on to the store, Jesse just shelved new products as they came in. Although, I reckon the disorder was partly because it made him feel important to be the only one who knew where everything was.”

  “Would you mind if I gradually rearranged the items? I’m thinking of making a boutique for the ladies’ items in the back—gowns, bonnets, shoes all together, with a little fitting room. Another area for men’s garments, boots and hats. China, cutlery, cooking pots together in the middle; staples like sugar and flour in front, along with a little display that has the latest bonnet or newest style of shoe, to tempt the ladies coming in for essentials to explore a little further.”

  He nodded. “Sounds like an excellent plan. If you need any help moving items, let me know. I’ll get Cooper Shane’s boy to come over.”

  “I also thought we might put a little table over there—” she pointed toward the front door. “We could keep a pot of coffee and a jug of water, maybe some of Della Shane’s pies, for customers who don’t have time to go to the hotel for a meal, but who would like a little refreshment before they get back on the road to their ranches.”

  “While they’re resting, they could be looking about the store, seeing other things they might need,” Kelly said with a grin. “Capital idea! You’re a sharp businesswoman, Mrs. McMasters.”

  He stepped toward her, raising his arms as if to sweep her up in a hug. She leaned forward, every inch of her straining for his touch. But at the last minute, when she could almost taste his mouth and feel the hardness of his body pressed against her, he halted abruptly.