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His frown deepened. “Is everyone repeating what we’re saying?”
“What?” She narrowed her eyes. “Has the heat gone to your head?”
She’d actually heard a few echoes as well, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him just then.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but she pushed ahead. “I would have figured out how to get him in the wagon on my own eventually.” She ignored his derisive look and kept going. “But since you decided to butt your big head into my business, I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t take advantage.”
“My head isn’t big,” he said, his full indignant attention back on her.
“It’s huge. But that’s beside the point. Where was I? Oh yes. Secondly, and more importantly, I am usually a delightful person—”
He scoffed loudly at that, and she glared again. “I am! You can ask anyone in town. But I apparently have zero patience for men such as yourself, who for some reason seem to feel the need to goad good people into losing their temper. No, I didn’t thank you for your assistance, yet, because you didn’t give me the chance—”
“It’s really not something that is all that time-consuming. I help, you say thank you. Nothey can you help some moreand then get angry when I say no.”
“Well, fine then, Mister…whatever your name is—”
“Brady. Adam Brady, not that you bothered asking in the first place.”
“I shouldn’t have to ask. You should have introduced yourself when you approached me. It’s the polite thing to do.”
His eyes widened slightly. “I’m surprised you know that. You don’t seem to have any sort of manners whatsoever.”
She gasped. “I have plenty of manners, just none I feel deserve to be wasted on you,” she said, poking at his chest. Well, at the air just in front of his chest. She wasn’t going to touch that filthy thing he was wearing.
“Of all the ungrateful little—”
“You know what, you’re right,” she said, pasting on the most saccharinely sweet smile she could muster. “I offer my sincere apologies—”
“Thank yo—”
“—that you’re such an insufferable jackass.”
His jaw dropped, and he clapped his hand to his chest the way her grandmother used to do when something she considered truly horrendous shocked her. Nora had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing, the heat of her anger tempered by his truly comical expression.
“I take time out of my busy day—”
“Your busy day doing what? Holding up that sad excuse for a horse?”
The horse in question turned and blew a nostril full of air at her, and she mentally apologized to the poor beast.
“Don’t drag Barnaby into this. He didn’t do anything to you.”
“You’re right,” she said. “My apologies, Barnaby.”
“Sure,himyou’ll apologize to.”
“Well, he’s not being an unreasonable, insufferable—”
“Sign this please.”
Nora and Adam briefly glanced at the young man who’d thrust a sheet of paper and pen at them, and then they went back to snarling at each other.
“I am the epitome of reason,” Adam said, drawing himself up so he stood another fraction of an inch taller than her. “And I am very sufferable, just not when faced with a—”
“Please just sign this,” the young man said again, waving his sheet of paper at them.
Nora snatched the paper from him, balled it up, and tossed it over her shoulder, ignoring the twinge of guilt that pierced her when the poor guy went scrambling for it.
