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A smile tugged at his generous mouth. Looking up, she saw the lines by his storm gray eyes tilted up also. The realization that he was a man given to smiling rather than snarling was unsettling. It didn’t mesh with what she knew of his reputation or of what she knew of men in general.
“I’d marry you if you had one foot in the mad house and the other on a grease spill.”
She shifted in his hold to better see his eyes. “Because you want the ranch?”
“Because I want the ranch.”
“And what’s yours,” she remembered, “stays yours.”
His eyes traveled a path from her head to her toes. “Always.”
She shrugged off her unease. Men were a rutting lot from what she’d seen of her father and the ranch hands. According to her friend, Millie, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She swore there were ways a smart wife could turn a man’s needs to her advantage. Elizabeth intended to be a very smart wife, but whether she managed it or not, in return for the use of her body and three square meals a day, this man was going to keep the land safe for her children. Any way she added it up, she had the better of the exchange.
“I think,” she said, looking into his eyes and ignoring the frown on his face, “that you and I are going to deal very well together.”
“Seeing as how we’re planning on double teaming for life, I’d hope so.”
“Double teaming?”
“Getting married.”
“Oh.”
He smiled. She was relieved to note his teeth were clean and strong.
“Of course,” he went on, exposing those teeth in a charming smile that chased the severity from his features. “I expect we’ll have a spot of trouble or two until we learn each other’s lingo, but I don’t expect much, seeing as how we’re set on the same path.”
“Keeping the ranch,” she confirmed, blowing a tendril of hair off her forehead. It immediately settled on her eyelid.
“That, too.”
She didn’t want to know what he meant by that. No doubt it had something to do with his ridiculous desire to have a lady for a wife. The man seemed content that she was the lady of his dreams, handing him all his wishes on a silver platter. Who was she to disabuse him? As long as he didn’t look too deeply or she didn’t slip too obviously, they probably would get along all right.
“Mr. MacIntyre?”
His finger twirled irritatingly around a stray curl. He twisted it completely into obedience before he answered, “Yeah?”
“It’s not seemly for you to be holding me this way.”
“Why? We’re going to be married.”
She shoved against his chest. “It’s not seemly for married couples to comport themselves this way in public.”
He allowed her two inches of distance, but she could tell from the way his hand rested on her upper arm he wasn’t allowing much more. She set to work removing his hand.
“What about in private?”
She stopped tugging at his fingers. “What?”
“What about in private? Are married couples permitted to snuggle in private?”
She succeeded in prying free his pinkie. She immediately set to work on the next digit. “I wouldn’t know.”
Two fingers down, three more to get to freedom.
“What about your parents? Did they snuggle now and then?”
With a yank, hard enough to pop a button on her short jacket, she gained her release. It was galling to know that, even standing when he sat, she wasn’t much more than eye level with her future husband. “My parents were decent proper people and none of your business,” she stated flatly.
Asa got to his feet, casually brushing the seat of his pants.
He settled his hat straight on his head. “I was just making conversation. I thought it might be a good idea to know one another before the wedding, but if you want to go to your marriage bed with a stranger, who am I to kick up a fuss?”
He turned and headed out of the alley.
“I bet,” she muttered as she hurried to keep up, “it won’t be the first time for you.”
She didn’t think he’d heard, but as her hand slipped into the crook of the arm he held out, he chiseled her gaze away from a knot hole in the rail three store fronts down by sliding his finger under her chin. “But I bet it will be for you, and that was the whole point.”
No, it wasn’t. They both knew it. And the urge to point that out was nearly overwhelming, but she held it in check. She’d love to let him know her brain functioned as well as her corset, but she recited multiplication tables in her head instead, until she could make her expression blank and the words leaping on her tongue still. Men didn’t like to be corrected and ladies didn’t cause scenes, in public or in private. Keeping quiet was hard to do with his gaze memorizing every nuance of her expression, but four years of grueling comportment lessons came to her aid.
