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He watched her fingers as the question sank in. Her grip grew white-knuckled.
“I want the truth,” he advised.
Her grip relaxed and she gave it to him. A little defiantly, but still the truth. “No.”
“Because you don’t know me?”
Her chin came up. He guessed he was in for another pride-busting revelation. “Yes.”
He tried a stab in the dark. “And you don’t have a whole lot of use for men?”
“To date, I haven’t met many who deserve the respect they demand.”
He hazarded a guess. “Or the obedience?”
“Yes.” She pushed back from the table. “I’ve got to get supper on.”
He was willing to be diverted for the moment. “What are we having?”
“Venison stew with biscuits.”
“You’re going to make me fat.”
Her gaze traveled him head to toe from where she stoked the stove with more wood. “You could use some weight.”
“You won’t be saying that a month from now if you keep feeding me like the last two days.”
She straightened, grabbed an apron off the peg on the wall. As she tied it around her back, she said, “I’ll cut back if your horse turns up swayback.”
He chuckled. “I appreciate you keeping an eye on things.”
Elizabeth moved the big pot of stew on the counter to the front of the stove. The man had her so off balance she didn’t know what to do or say. First, she’d think he was serious and then he’d turn joking or bark an order that had her shivering in her shoes. She was tired, embarrassed, and confused. “No problem.”
She gave the contents a stir, then moved to the counter to get to work on the biscuits. The silence behind her stretched. She could feel his eyes on her. Willing her to do something. She mixed the flour, baking powder and added a touch of sugar. When she was cutting in the lard, he spoke. “I guess I make you nervous.”
She jerked and slopped flour over the side of the bowl. “Yes.” She scooped the flour and lard back in.
A scraping sound caught her attention. She looked over her shoulder and saw he was spinning his cup on the table, studying the movement as if it contained deep secrets. She turned back to her biscuits before he could catch her staring.
“You mentioned in the barn that you’ve never sparked in a barn before.”
Lord! Did he have to bring that up?
“Did you just mean in the barn or ever?”
Oh God! How had he known?
“I am not loose if that’s what you’re asking.” Despite how she’d behaved the last twenty-four hours.
“I thought I was pretty clear on what I was asking.”
Heat swamped her cheeks. Did the man have no sense of privacy? “I fail to see what my past experience has to do with anything.”
“Don’t go getting mad.”
“I am not mad.” She slammed the biscuit dough on the board.
“Tell that to those biscuits.”
“The biscuits are fine.” She caught herself before she could knead them past the count of ten. If they came out like rocks, he’d never let her live it down.
“Fine. You’re not mad.”
She grabbed the rolling pin and flattened the dough. “Mr. MacIntyre, I get the impression you’re trying to make a point.”
“I liked it between us in the barn.”
She almost strangled on her embarrassment. “Asa!”
“Well, leastways, I know how to get you to use my first name.”
“You promised you wouldn’t mention that.”
“I didn’t. You’re the one who hopped down that path. I was talking about how we worked to get Shameless settled.” He looked as innocent as a saint sitting there, but she knew he’d done it on purpose.
“Though the other was nice, too,” he added outrageously.
“Oooh!” Her cheeks burned like fire.
He held up his hand. “I’m sorry, but that was too good to pass up.”
“Why do you insist on humiliating me?”
“I’m deviling, not humiliating. Deviling you is fun. It’s supposed to make you laugh.”
“Well, it doesn’t.”
“Yeah. I’ve about figured that one out. And a darned shame it is, too, but I think I’ve found a solution.”
“You have?”
He tilted his chair back on two legs. “Occurs to me that you’re always jumping on things I say because you don’t know me well enough to spot when I’m deviling you.”
“It couldn’t be because you bring up the most inappropriate subjects?”
“We’re married, darlin’. We can’t go dancing around the things we want to say just because some prune-faced lady told you they weren’t proper.” He shook his head at her. “No doubt about it, you’ve got to loosen up.”
“You could always—”
She almost spit when he cut her off with another head shake “Nope. I’m too old a dog to be learning new tricks. Sure as shooting, we’ve got to get you used to my ways.”
“I see.” Just like every other man, he wanted everything his way. She accidentally chopped a biscuit in half while cutting them out. She tossed it back in the bowl to include it in the second batch. “And how am I supposed to do that?”
