by Lisa Plumley
As soon as she finished with that, Daisy decided as she headed for the kitchen with Élodie in tow, she was going to have a word or two with Owen Cooper, and remind him of that aphorism about little pitchers with big ears—and keeping his big, fat, undeniably attractive mouth shut in the future…before Daisy found herself in even more trouble than she was in already.
Chapter Fifteen
Rounding the corner of the nearest empty stall, Owen caught sight of his helper, Gus, who appeared to be hoofing it toward the stable’s door with his hat on his head. That was peculiar.
Admittedly, the stable had cleared out considerably over the course of the morning—the degenerates who’d flooded town for the raffle drawing were already pulling foot for new unsavory opportunities—but that didn’t mean the workday was over with.
Frowning, Owen whistled for his stableman’s attention. “Gus! Where are you off to? The workday’s not done yet.”
“I got myself an errand to run, boss.”
“On whose orders?” Owen asked. “Because I sure as hell didn’t send you out for anything. And if a customer needs—”
“Weren’t a customer.” Huffily, Gus swiveled. He crossed the stable floor, past the stalls still occupied by their tail-swishing, hay-chomping inhabitants. “And I plumb forgot once today already, so if I’m gonna git this done, I’d better go.”
“What you’d better do is tell me what you’re up to.”
“Why, I’d have thought you’d have known that one already.” Gus shrugged, giving him an elaborately guileless look. “Seein’ as how you’re the boss around here, and all.”
Owen frowned. Obviously, he didn’t know a damn thing, or he wouldn’t have asked about it. Gus knew that. But he appeared to be taking special delight in baiting Owen about it all the same.
What the hell was going on around here? All of a sudden, Owen’s carefully constructed life seemed to be careening unstoppably out of his control. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
He waited, knowing that Gus would fold before he did.
Predictably, Gus did. He heaved a sigh. “I’m runnin’ an errand for your lady friend upstairs. The one who’s teaching Élodie about sewing and whatnot?” His helper pulled a scrap of paper from his overalls. He showed it to Owen. “She asked me to send this wire at the telegraph office for her, on account of her not knowing where it is. She gave me some money for it too.”
“You met Daisy?”
A broad smile wreathed Gus’s face. It fairly cracked the coating of dusty grime he customarily wore above his bandannaed neck. Shyly, Gus kicked the hay-sprinkled floor. “Shucks, I met her, all right. Last night, while you was over visitin’ with the neighbors next door. She’s a mighty nice one, too.”
“You met Daisy.” It wasn’t a question this time.
Gus appeared to realize he’d erred somehow. He held up both lanky arms, waving the paper like a white flag. “Hey! Don’t git all riled up, boss! She tole me that you tole her to see me if’n you weren’t around and she needed anything done for her.” Gus waggled his eyebrows. “You know, like help with…things.”
Well, Owen had told Daisy that. He’d wanted to make sure she was cared for, no matter what. All the same, he glowered at Gus. He didn’t like the way this sounded—or the overexcited manner with which his reliable helper referred to Daisy.
“I meant help with hauling heavy things,” Owen specified tersely. “Carrying water. Lugging wood for the stove. That’s all.” He eyed the folded paper. He snatched it. “I’ll take care of this. And while I’ve got you here, there’s one more thing.”
Hesitantly, Gus swallowed. “Yeah, boss? What’s that?”
“I’ll be away from the stable awhile,” Owen said. “Upstairs, mostly, supervising Élodie with her lessons.”
He’d just decided it, that moment. Apparently, his helper was almost as surprised as Owen was to learn of his new plan.
Gus snorted with laughter. “Gonna learn to bake, boss?”
Darkly, Owen gazed down at Gus, not the least amused by his wisecracks. “Maybe I am,” he said. “Got a problem with that?”
“No!” Gus backed up. “No, sirree, I don’t. Not a’tall.”
Satisfied, Owen nodded. His helper’s joking didn’t bother him that much. His new, impulsive decision to spend more time upstairs with his daughter and her pretty tutor did. But he liked the idea of supervising Élodie’s lessons. It was the right thing to do. Besides, there was something about knowing that Gus was all keyed up about Daisy that just…niggled at Owen. It niggled powerfully hard.
Vaguely, he wondered if—on some level—he felt he was competing with Gus for Daisy’s attention. But Owen dismissed that ludicrous thought almost as quickly as it arose. He was a better man than that. He was also, if Renée’s exhortations were to be believed, a scoundrel at heart, now and forevermore.
That meant that if the time ever came for Owen to compete for a woman… Well, he’d win. It was as plain as that.
With all the authority he could muster—and it was a considerable quantity—Owen drew himself up. “Good. I’m glad we understand each other.” He gave his man a companionable cuff to the shoulder, happy the matter was settled. “I’ll be relying on you to keep an eye on things down here while I’m busy upstairs.”
Smartly, his helper saluted. “Will do, boss.”
“See that everything runs smoothly, you hear? I won’t tolerate any nonsense just because I’m busy.” Owen tucked the slip of paper in his vest pocket. He turned to make a properly authoritative exit…and all but collided with Daisy.
She folded her arms. “I need a word with you, Owen.”
At the sight of her, Gus gave an uneasy whistle. It wasn’t difficult to guess why. From her high-held chin to her crossed arms and tapping foot, Daisy was the very picture of annoyed femininity.
Owen quailed. He couldn’t help it. A riled-up woman was something no man wanted to be confronted with, leastwise not while another man stood near. Especially a man who might well be sweet on the same woman whom Owen longed to have for his own.
“Good luck, boss!” Gus yelped. “I’ve got stalls to muck out.” He tipped his hat hastily to Daisy, then hotfooted away.
Relieved for a chance to lighten the mood, Owen hooked his thumb at his helper. “Gus isn’t usually so keen to shovel horse pucky. You must be some kind of miracle worker.”
Daisy only cocked her head, still at a wrathful simmer.
“Well!” On to innocence next, then. With deliberate naiveté, Owen raised his brows. “Is it lunchtime already? I’m so hungry, I swear I could eat a mouthful of this hay.”
He waved his arm at the closest stack. Daisy only narrowed her eyes, plainly not anteing up to the game Owen had in mind.
“You sure do look pretty,” he tried next. “Very pretty.”
Daisy humphed. “There’s no use trotting out those dazzling smiles of yours, Owen. I’m not going to be dissuaded.”
He was smiling again? Damnation!
That made three…six…seven… Hell, he’d lost count of how many smiles he’d accidentally unleashed over the past few hours. What’s worse, just like the last time he’d been caught smiling, he hadn’t even realized he was doing it. Deliberately, Owen schooled his expression into one of sober attentiveness.
“I’m not going to be swayed by your looking at me as though I’m some sort of…one-in-a-million miracle, either! So you can quit that, too. Honestly, Owen. I’m standing in a stable wearing yesterday’s dress. I can’t possibly be all that fascinating.”
He was looking at her as though she was fascinating?
Well, that was probably true, Owen allowed. But this situation was rapidly getting worse and worse. Self-consciously, he darted a glance at Gus. His helper was watching his exchange with Daisy with rapt interest. He saw Owen looking, jumped about a foot, then went back to work shoveling at double speed.
“I’m sorry,” Owen told Daisy. “I’ll try to quit that.”
Daisy sighed, shaking her head.
Firmly, she recrossed her arms in the other direction. “I can’t believe you’ve never remarried. Between your smiling and your spoony looks, women around here must think you’re constantly flirting with them.”
Owen scratched his head. “Honestly, this has never happened before. The women in town don’t think anything of the kind.”
“They must! If they feel half the things I do when I see you looking at me that way, then—” Abruptly, Daisy broke off. She tried again. “The point I’m making is, you are a handsome and appealing man, Owen, and right now I’m in no position to fight off whatever attraction you might accidentally kindle between us. So if you’d be so kind as to rein in all…that—” she gestured crossly at him, indicating his overall personhood “—I would greatly appreciate it. Especially when I’m trying to have a serious discussion with you. It’s very distracting.”
Now she knew how he’d felt yesterday, when she’d kept on biting her lip so seductively. Reminded of that, Owen couldn’t help grinning. “So you say. But I think you like it.”
He certainly had. In an unwise, unstoppable fashion…
“See? There you go again! With that smile of yours!”
Hellfire. She was right. “I’ll try harder to stop.”
“I’m not sure you can.”
Owen wasn’t either. Not now, he wasn’t. “I can,” he swore, hand on his heart. “You don’t know how determined I can be.”
“That may be true.” Speculatively, Daisy looked him up and down. She seemed to become…distracted partway through her survey. Blushing, she jerked her gaze upward. To his mouth.
She stared, dreamily, at him. Owen began to feel warmer. Much warmer. He tugged at his shirt collar, shifting his feet.
No. He couldn’t simply endure this. It was too much to ask of any man, much less a reformed ne’er-do-well. “Daisy?”
Her still-dreamy gaze drifted upward to his eyes. “Yes?”
“Now you’re doing it, too.”
She started. Blinked. “No, I’m not!”
“You’re looking at me as though I’m fascinating, too.” Owen cleared his throat. He nodded. “To be clear, you’re looking at me the way a woman looks at a man when she wants to be kissed.”
She opened her mouth in shock. “I came down here to give you a piece of my mind about talking so freely when Élodie is within earshot! Not to be kissed! By you or…or anyone.”
Owen felt unconvinced by her protest. He had two good eyes. He knew what he saw and had the experience to interpret it correctly, too. “Furthermore,” he added, “I have a problem with the ‘anyone’ part of that declaration you just made.” He shifted his gaze, irritably, toward Gus. “Certain people around here would like nothing more than to be helpful to you. Especially if it gave them a leg up toward earning your affections.”
“My ‘affections’ aren’t available!”
Did she mean because she was enamored of her baby’s father, Conrad Parish? Or because she wasn’t interested in Owen? Or—heaven help him—was sweet on Gus? “Are you sure?” Owen asked.
“Of course I’m sure.” Daisy caught the drift of his gaze, glanced at his busily shoveling stable helper, then inexplicably grinned. “You think I’m sweet on Mr. Winston?”
This time, it was Owen’s turn to toe the hay-strewn floor. “Could be,” he muttered grudgingly. “No accounting for taste.”
She chortled. “Well, I guess that’s true. But for that to hap pen, I’d have to move my sights away from you, Mr. Cooper.”
Daisy batted her eyelashes at him. Owen would swear she did. He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling joyful. Also, unaccountably rattled. A truly good man would not even entertain the thoughts he’d been having. “You’ve set your sights on me?”
“Got you!” Daisy laughed again. Playfully, she poked him in the chest. “You’re not the only one who can flirt. See that?”
Owen saw. He saw that he was in over his head with Daisy, and he’d spent only a couple of days in her company. How much more besotted would he become if given even more time alone with her? He reckoned he’d find out over the next week or so.
“Actually, I’m as surprised about that flirting of mine as you seem to be,” Daisy mused aloud, breaking into his troublesome thoughts. “Lately, I’ve been just about as retiring as a woman can be. But for some reason, when I’m around you…” She eyed him—this time not in an overtly enticing way—then shrugged. “I feel quite free to be just as bold and as brazen as I please.”
“That’s because you know there’s nothing you can do that’s worse than the things I’ve done,” Owen told her glumly. Already he’d shared more with Daisy than with anyone in Morrow Creek. “Next to my sins, a little feminine flirtation is harmless.”
And effective. Damnation, it had been effective. Owen had never before been a sap for a woman—not even Renée. He’d always been too savvy to fall for feminine wiles. Yet…he just had.
“Yes, about that.” Daisy perked up, her expression winsome and interested. “You were going to tell me exactly what you’d done that was so bad.”
Her pert tone made it sound as though they were discussing the vagaries of the weather. Owen needed to disabuse her of the notion that he was a harmless rascal—the sooner the better.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, though, he didn’t. Not yet. Soon, he would. But for now… “No, I wasn’t.”
“You keep mentioning it,” Daisy persisted. “You keep saying how ‘bad’ you were. You must want to talk about it.”
He crossed his arms. “The hell I do!”
“Don’t you think I have a right to know?”
That one was easy. “Nope.”
“I’ll tell you about me,” she coaxed, laying her hand on his arm. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Lured by that intriguing offer, Owen couldn’t resist gazing at her. Damnation, but Daisy looked pretty—and vulnerable, too. The sight of her, so sweet and yet seemingly so alone, put only one query in his head.
“Do you love Conrad Parish?” Owen gestured at her midsection. Roughly, he added, “I’m assuming he’s the man you—”
“Yes.” Daisy cut him off. Her cheeks reddened. She moved away her hand. “He’s the… Well, he’s the only one who—”
Who I love, Owen imagined her saying, and didn’t want to hear any more. Of course Daisy loved Conrad Parish. What else had he expected? That she’d forgotten her baby’s father the minute she met Owen? That she’d want him more than the man she’d been with—the man she’d already, apparently, given her heart to?
“You don’t have to explain.” Unassailably crushed by her response, Owen raised his palm. Discomfort prickled between them. “It’s only natural that you’d feel that way about—”
About your baby’s father. Remembering that Gus had been listening—and that the only thing Daisy had ever chastised him about was talking unwisely when Élodie could overhear him—Owen stopped. Cautiously, he glanced sideways.
Gus was gone—busy grooming a horse at a distant stall.
A hasty survey of the stable told him Élodie was safely upstairs, providentially out of earshot this time.
“About your baby’s father,” Owen finished in a low tone. “He should be here with you, helping you. Standing by you.”
Daisy gave him an unaccountably wry look. “Conrad stands by himself. That’s pretty much it.”
At that, Owen frowned. Catching sight of his undoubtedly ferocious and protective expression, Daisy widened her eyes.
“I don’t mean to say that Conrad is a bad person!” she insisted. “Or that I would keep him from his…from me.” She inhaled deeply. “From us.” Probably unknowingly, she stroked her slightly rounded belly. “After all,” she mused, “it’s possible that the bond of parenting would allow Conrad and me to overcome our differences and be happy together. Eventually.” Then she did hope they would reconcile, Owen realized. Whatever their differences were, Daisy hoped to overcome them.
“I understand,” O
wen said. “That’s all I needed to know.”
Daisy peered at him. “I’m not sure you do understand. Not given the way you’re looking at me.” Pensively, she sighed. “I’m not a bad person, Owen. Truly, I’m not! I realize that I’m in an unusual predicament right now, but ordinarily—”
“You’re good. I know that.”
She laughed. “How can you?”
“The same way you knew to believe me,” Owen told her unflinchingly, “when I said I’d done bad things in my life.”
Daisy shook her head. “You were exaggerating.”
“Was I?” Owen asked. “If you really believed I was telling tales, you wouldn’t persist in asking me for details.”
Daisy bit her lip. Evidently stymied, she shook her head.
“I don’t care what you’ve done,” she insisted stalwartly—and naively. “It’s who you are now that matters.”
Briefly Owen closed his eyes. “I wish that were true.”
“It is true!”
He opened his eyes to the sight of Daisy’s determined face, gazing at him with utter certainty. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you care about Élodie,” Daisy disagreed. “I know you are kind to your stabled horses, because I saw you with them earlier. I know you’re from the East, because I recognize your accent—as much as you seem to have lost parts of it. I know that you sound meaner than you are.” With a gentle touch to his arm, Daisy gave him a squeeze. “I know you should smile more.”
With that, she went too far. “I know that you shouldn’t deny your baby a father, just because you see faults in Conrad,” Owen said. “Sometimes a man deserves a second chance, Daisy.”
Looking wounded, Daisy stared at him. Then, she rallied.
“That’s interesting, Owen. Are you talking about Conrad?” Her astute expression unnerved him mightily. “Or yourself? Maybe you’re the one who’s looking for a second chance.”
Hellfire. Swearing beneath his breath, Owen looked away. Without knowing it, he’d said far too much. What was it about Daisy that revealed all his most painful parts as though they were nothing more frightening than laundered britches on a line?
