He turned on his heel and walked away. The girl, Sassy, was watching the byplay with open curiosity. John raised an eyebrow. She flushed and went back to work at once.
CHAPTER TWO
CASSANDRA PEALE told herself that the intense conversation the new foreman of the Bradbury place was having with her boss didn’t concern her. The foreman had made that clear with a lifted eyebrow and a haughty look. But there had been an obvious argument and both men had glanced at her while they were having it. She was worried. She couldn’t afford to lose her job. Not when her mother, dying of lung cancer, and her mother’s ward, Selene, who was only six, depended on what she brought home so desperately.
She gnawed on a fingernail. They were mostly all chewed off. Her mother was sixty-three, Cassandra, who everyone called Sassy, having been born very late in life. They’d had a ranch until her father had become infatuated with a young waitress at the local cafeteria. He’d left his family and run away with the woman, taking most of their savings with him. Without money to pay bills, Sassy’s mother had been forced to sell the cattle and most of the land and let the cowboys go. One of them, little Selene’s father, had gotten drunk out of desperation and ran his truck off into the river. They’d found him the next morning, dead, leaving Selene completely alone in the world.
My life, Sassy thought, is a soap opera. It even has a villain. She glanced covertly at Mr. Tarleton. All he needed was a black mustache and a gun. He’d made her working life hell. He knew she couldn’t afford to quit. He was always bumping into her “accidentally,” trying to handle her. She was sickened by his advances. She’d never even had a boyfriend. The school she’d gone to, in this tiny town, had been a one-room schoolhouse with all ages included and one teacher. There had only been two boys her own age and three girls including Sassy. The other girls were pretty. So Sassy had never been asked out at all. Once, when she was in her senior year of high school, a teacher’s visiting nephew had been kind to her, but her mother had been violently opposed to letting her go on a date with a man she didn’t know well. It hadn’t mattered. Sassy had never felt those things her romance novels spoke of in such enticing and heart-pattering terms. She’d never even been kissed in a grown-up way. Her only sexual experience—if you could call it that—was being physically harassed by that repulsive would-be Romeo standing behind the counter.
She finished dusting the shelves and wished fate would present her with a nice, handsome boss who was single and found her fascinating. She’d have gladly settled for the Bradbury place’s new ramrod. But he didn’t look as if he found anything about her that attracted him. In fact, he was ignoring her. Story of my life, she thought as she put aside the dust cloth. It was just as well. She had two dependents and no spare time. Where would she fit a man into her desperate life?
“Missed a spot.”
She whirled. She flushed as she looked way up into dancing blue eyes. “W…what?”
John chuckled. The women in his world were sophisticated and full of easy wisdom. This little violet was as unaffected by the modern world as the store she worked in. He was entranced by her.
“I said you missed a spot.” He leaned closer. “It was a joke.”
“Oh.” She laughed shyly, glancing at the shelf. “I might have missed several, I guess. I can’t reach high and there’s no ladder.”
He smiled. “There’s always a soapbox.”
“No, no,” she returned with a smile. “If I get on one of those, I have to give a political speech.”
He groaned. “Don’t say those words,” he said. “If I have to hear one more comment about the presidential race, I’m having my ears plugged.”
“It does get a little irritating, doesn’t it?” she asked. “We don’t watch the news as much since the television got hit by lightning. The color’s gone whacky. I have to think it’s a happy benefit of a sad accident.”
His eyebrows arched. “Why don’t you get a new one?”
She glowered at him. “Because the hardware store doesn’t have a fifty-cent one,” she said.
It took a minute for that to sink in. John, who thought nothing of laying down his gold card for the newest plasma wide screened TV, hadn’t realized that even a small set was beyond the means of many lower-income people.
He grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’ve gotten too used to just picking up anything I like in stores.”
“They don’t arrest you for that?” she asked with a straight face, but her twinkling eyes gave her away.
He laughed. “Not so far. I meant,” he added, thinking fast, “that my boss pays me a princely salary for my organizational skills.”
“He must, if you can afford a new TV,” she sighed. “I don’t suppose he needs a professional duster?”
“We could ask him.”
She shook her head. “I’d rather work here, in a job I do know.” She glanced with apprehension at her boss, who was glaring toward the two of them. “I’d better get back to work before he fires me.”
“He can’t.”
She blinked. “He can’t what?”
“Fire you,” he said quietly. “He’s being replaced in two weeks by a new manager.”
Her heart stopped. She felt sick. “Oh, dear.”
“You won’t convince me that you’ll miss him,” John said curtly.
She bit a fingernail that was already almost gone. “It’s not that. A new manager might not want me to work here anymore…”
“He will.”
She frowned. “How can you know that?”
He pursed his lips. “Because the new manager works for my boss, and my boss said not to change employees.”
Her face started to relax. “Really?”
“Really.”
She glanced again at Tarleton and felt uncomfortable at the furious glare he gave her. “Oh, dear, did somebody say something to your boss about him…about him being forward with me?” she asked worriedly.
“They might have,” he said noncommittally.
“He’ll get even,” she said under her breath. “He’s that sort. He told a lie on a customer who was rude to him, about the man’s wife. She almost lost her job over it.”
John felt his blood rise. “All you have to do is get through the next two weeks,” he told her. “If you have a problem with him, any problem, you can call me. I don’t care when or what time.” He started to pull out his wallet and give her his business card, until he realized that she thought he was pretending to be hired help, not the big boss. “Have you got a pen and paper?” he asked instead.
“In fact, I do,” she replied. She moved behind the counter, tore a piece of brown paper off a roll, and picked up a marking pencil. She handed them to him.
He wrote down the number and handed it back to her. “Don’t be afraid of him,” he added curtly. “He’s in enough trouble without making more for himself with you.”
“What sort of trouble is he in?” she wanted to know.
“I can’t tell you. It’s confidential. Let’s just say that he’d better keep his nose clean. Now. I need a few more things.” He brought out a list and handed it to her. She smiled and went off to fill the order for him.
He took the opportunity to have a last word with Tarleton.
“I hear you have a penchant for getting even with people who cross you,” John said. His eyes narrowed and began to glitter. “For the record, if you touch that girl, or if you even try to cause problems