Wyoming Tough - Diana Palmer [86]
She held up a hand. “Please, I’m a gentlewoman now.”
“And I’m a detective now. Shall we agree to let the past lie without further mention?”
“If you like.”
“Where are your bags?”
“The porter has them on the cart, there.” She pointed toward a steamer trunk and several smaller bags. She glanced up at him. “I suppose I can’t live with you. Or can I?”
He was shocked. Did she know more about the past than she had ever let on? He held his breath.
“I don’t mean with you,” she said, embarrassed at her own phrasing of the question. “I mean, you live in a boardinghouse, and I wonder if there’s a vacancy.”
He let out his breath and smiled with relief. “I imagine that Mrs. Mulhaney could find a room for you, yes. But the idea of a young single woman living in a boardinghouse is going to make you look like a loose woman in the eyes of the community. If anyone asks, you’re my cousin.”
“I am?”
“You are,” he said firmly. “It’s the only way I can protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting, thank you. I’m quite capable of looking after myself.”
Considering that she’d handled her father’s funeral alone and gotten here, halfway across the country, without mishap, that was apparent.
“I believe you,” he said. “But you’re a stranger here and totally unfamiliar with life in a big city. I’m not.”
“Aren’t we both strangers here, really?” she asked, and there was a deep sadness in her tone. “Neither of us has anybody now.”
“I have cousins, in South Dakota and in Montana,” he replied.
“Whom you never visit,” she shot back. “Are you ashamed of them, Matt?”
His eyes glittered like black diamonds. “Don’t presume to invade my privacy,” he said through his teeth. “I’ll gladly do what I can to see you settled here. But my feelings are my own business.”
She grinned at him. “You still strike like a rattler when you’re poked.”
“Be careful that you don’t get bitten.”
She dropped him a curtsey. “I’ll do my best not to provoke you too much.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1523-8
WYOMING TOUGH
Copyright © 2011 by Diana Palmer
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THE SAVAGE HEART
Copyright © 1997 by Susan Kyle
First Published by Ballantine Books
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