“I’m not paying anything,” he said. “I’ll take this to court. I’ll take it to Emmett. You won’t be getting away with it.”
“Just try to stop me.” She smiled happily. “We’ll see who will be the laughing stock of the town now. Outsmarted by a foolish woman.”
Ty’s eyes gleamed, that blackness seeming more black than midnight, or the ace of spades or a lump of coal. They made Dusty shiver, but not so Ty would notice. The truth was, up until their fateful incident in the canyon, she found Ty Holbrook one hot guy, with some redeeming possibilities compared to most of the men in their small community. It was really too bad that this whole mess had to happen, but she certainly wouldn’t be backing down, regardless of what her arousal was telling her.
“All right, just tell me your price, Dusty.”
“There is no price for you, Ty.”
“Tell me your price,” he repeated. “You don’t need to tell me now, but I need to know. I need my cattle on that land and they will be there, if I have to hog-tie you and make you give me that lease.”
“If you think your strong-armed tactics are going to work, you’re sadly mistaken. This is not the old west and I’m not some delicate flower who will cave in to your chauvinist ultimatums.”
“You can sure say that again, you’re one hard-assed bitch!” he fumed, and he walked toward the door. “You haven’t heard the last from me.”
Hearing his nasty retort, Dusty felt the oddest sensation of sadness sweep through her. Though it was only a momentary feeling, she could sense that Ty’s opinion of her was something she valued more than she thought. She’d certainly never wanted to have earned the name “hard-assed bitch.”
Two weeks later, Dusty sat in John Zekeley’s office hearing the last new she wanted to hear.
“I thought for sure you’d be able to buy me out with your inheritance money.”
“I bought something else. I just never thought you’d want to sell your stake in the mercantile so soon.” She looked worried.
“Dusty, I’m sorry, but I can’t take the rough winters this far north, I’m packing things up, moving lock stock and barrel to Phoenix.”
She sighed.
“Do you have to find a buyer for the store? Couldn’t you just wait it out a little longer.”
“Truth is, Dusty, Martha’s not doing very well, her arthritis. I have to go and we need that money. Housing prices are higher there and I need to think about health insurance. It’s getting to be a complicated and expensive world. If I was staying here in Wyoming I’d say I have everything I need, but …”
“I know, I understand. I wish I could buy you out, but I’m stretched to the wire, and perhaps for a very stupid reason.”
“Want to tell me?” he asked kindly.
“I’d rather not.” John seemed to be the one person in town that didn’t know about her war with Ty. She was trying to soft peddle the whole issue now, stand firm, without backing down, and still not look like the utter bitch that Ty accused her of being. She didn’t know if she was succeeding or not, but she was hoping that her image wasn’t too terribly tarnished. John Zekeley was one man she really didn’t want to look foolish to.
“Suit yourself, Dusty.” He looked sheepish and so kind and a little whipped. Given his seventy-two years, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to leave. “I promise you this, I’ll sell to someone locally, someone that will value what you have there, that would be willing to be bought out once you have the cash again. We could even work out a first right of refusal arrangement.”
“I’d be very grateful, John.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe you and Martha will be going.”
“I can’t either. But I can’t say I’m not looking forward to milder winters.”
Dusty let the sale of the John’s fifty-two percent of the mercantile slip from her mind for two weeks. When she wasn’t running the store, she spent most of that time making sure that Ty’s cattle were off her land. Jud hadn’t signed the lease agreement and no other rancher was prepared to move his cattle to her land. But that didn’t matter. She had her revenge and it was the best she’d felt since Ty tanned her hide on that mountainside. For several days she was elated realizing the trauma she was causing him.
The forthright rancher strode into the mercantile two days after his cattle had been moved. When Dusty saw him she assumed that this was another ploy—and a very direct one—to get the grazing rights back. He probably knew she didn’t have a new lease.
Seeing Ty’s handsome and determined face, his imposing stance and the shock of black hair falling over his forehead, Dusty shuddered. For just a second she remembered how he took charge of her that day. She hadn’t been able to admit until weeks later, that while getting spanked was the most humiliating experience of her life, it was also one of the most electrifying she ever had. Not only that, as the days passed, she had the most bizarre erotic feelings arise when she thought of Ty Holbrook.
Looking at him now the charge of desire that surged through her was remarkable, though something to keep in check. The fact was, she was ready for another fight if that’s what it took. She refused to back down. However, this time, she planned to make the battle more civil. Now that she handily won her revenge.
As Ty approached the counter, he looked around the store like he was inspecting the place. He searched the shelves and lifted a few canisters that were sitting next to the cash register peering judgmentally at their contents. “Hummm …” his only comment.
“May I help you?” she asked him.
“If you don’t mind, Dusty, I’ll just have a look around.”
“Suit yourself, is there anything in particular you want? Perhaps I could help you find it.”
“No, not really. I just wanted to have a good look at my new acquisition.” With his comments dropping like petals into a spring breeze, he strolled away inspecting the store that had been Dusty’s life for the last seven years.
Meanwhile Dusty was frozen in her shoes. With reality slowly sinking in, there was suddenly a noxious churning in her belly. She was about to run to the bathroom and throw up. John couldn’t have sold it to him! It was a disaster worse than death itself!
Ty remained silent as he perused every corner of the store. He fingered a number of the items on the shelves, peered into the back room and then returned to her.
“I think if we take down that back wall we can stock more hunting supplies. This place has never had all we need here in town. I’ve had to drive sixty miles to get what I want. And I was thinking about putting in some fishing tackle … over there …” He gestured to a spot in the back corner.
“Ty Holbrook, would you just spit it out? What’s going on?”
“John didn’t tell you?”
“No, he didn’t tell me.”
“Gee, I thought he would, even when I asked him not to.”
“You asked him not to what?”
“I told him I wanted to surprise you myself.”
He was coy, almost cute, his face having the ability to grin in the most devious way that only made his dark Indian features even more curiously charming. She hated that right now, knowing he was mocking her, without an ounce of shame.
“So, tell me, do you plan to make me suffer forever?”
“I bought his share of the store, isn’t that obvious?”
She took a deep breath, her worst fears confirmed. Now she was sure she was going to be sick. It took all her strength to keep her sandwich in her stomach and her knees from going out from under her. She hated fainting women and wouldn’t be one herself—even if fainting was exactly what she wanted to do.
“You want the land,” she stated flatly.
He spun around, leaned in on the counter, and stared at her. “No. I want this store. I’ve always wanted a piece of this store and now I have fifty-two percent—me and my partners that is. There are three of us, but I put up most of the cash. You wouldn’t believe the things I have planned.”
“You�
��re not planning to run it too?” She tried not looking desperate.
“No, even I’m not that stupid. I have a ranch to run. But as long as it’s mine, it’s going to have all the things that I always wished were here and aren’t. Yeah, there’ll be a few changes. I’ll be back tomorrow to discuss them. I thought maybe you’d like them on paper if that would help?”
Dusty was almost in tears by the time Ty left. For all the revenge in her heart, there seemed none left now, just hurt, an incredible hurt that she knew she was partly responsible for. Her revenge had been damaging, not just to Ty, but herself. Her plan had been perfect until this, and like Jerilyn predicted, it backfired.
For three days, Dusty watched as Ty came into the store with more of his changes in mind. Each day, she was more flustered and scared. This had always been her kingdom. No one, not even John, tampered with her sacred territory. It might not have been the perfect general mercantile, but it was hers to do with as she pleased. And everything Ty suggested was an indictment of her abilities, and a criticism of her choices. She felt like a pie had just been thrown in her face in front of a hundred witnesses. The gossip in town was almost as bad as it had been after she was been publicly spanked. Though she tried turning a deaf ear to the tattlers that babbled about her fortunes, she still knew what they were saying.
By the fourth day of her “partnership” with Ty Holbrook, she had enough. There were carpenters measuring the aisles, two wholesalers asking her when she’d be placing her order for hunting supplies and plenty of whispers behind her back. Enough so it was time act. After closing the mercantile, Dusty took off her in her Jeep and headed for Ty’s Sundown Ranch ten miles north of town. Her grief would end tonight, if she had anything to say about it.
“Okay, Holbrook,” Dusty declared, as the rancher himself answered his front door. “I think it’s time we traded.”
Ty was hardly able to disguise his amusement, as he looked down at the saucy redhead’s determined face. “Why don’t you come in and get comfortable,” he said, opening wide the ranch house door. “Wanna beer?”
Dusty nodded, and watched Ty disappear in the direction of the kitchen. At least she had a few moments to collect herself while she was storming Ty’s turf. It took some time to get used to his impressive surroundings. There were no words for the ranch house but substantial and frightening. The same sort of shiver that accompanied all her other associations with the man was charging right through her. She had to settle down.
When Ty returned he handed her a cold beer and motioned to one of the leather sofas before the fireplace.
“You say you want to exchange your bottom land for my share in the store?”
“The price is nearly equal and since you have what I want and I own what you need, it seems like a fair trade.”
He nodded in agreement. “So, you’re tired of my trespassing on your hallowed ground?” His smirk was brutal to face.
“I’m tired of people rearranging my life.”
“No different than you forcing me to rearrange mine,” he returned.
“Touché. You’ve made your point.”
“Have I?”
“I wanted revenge, I got it, but I’m paying the price now. I hope that satisfies you.”
“No, not really,” Ty answered shaking his head.
She looked concerned and he noted her expression with a haughty one of his own.
He’d crossed his leg, one ankle resting on a knee as he leaned back in his hefty leather chair. He looked like a king, or perhaps a land baron of old. The sensation of smallness made Dusty shudder. She wasn’t used to being intimidated in any surroundings, but these were awesome ones, it was hard to overcome. Ty used it all to his benefit. If she’d been smart she would never have come here in the first place. Now there was no way to maintain control, she’d lost the battle the moment she walked in his door.
“Don’t worry, Dusty,” he said. “I’ll make your trade, but I have one more small price that you need to pay.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
He grinned first but then his expression turned somber. “I plan to take a razor strap and a cane to your behind. Teach you a lesson in humility you’ll not forget.”
“Good lord, you don’t mean that?” She was stunned.
“Oh, but I do. For just one half hour, Dusty Marin, I intend to make your life as miserable as you made mine the last few weeks.”
“You’re crazy!” she declared. Rising to her feet she was about to leave.
“It’s the only way you’re going to get control of the store,” he warned her, when she was almost at his front door.
Turning back, she gazed at Ty still sitting in his master’s chair, triumph emblazoned on his face. He wasn’t kidding. She knew it for a fact. Ty was as stubborn, unyielding and willful as she was. In that, the two were unbelievably alike. This is exactly what she would have done if she had the chance.
Dusty stood silently for a time, her balance shifting from one hip to the other, her eyes gazing anywhere but at Ty’s face. Her thoughts raced, as if her life depended on finding another solution to this debacle. Yet, Ty had all the cards in his hand, a royal ace- high flush. He knew she had her full house, that piece of prime bottom land, but she had nothing else. Her hand was down and she had nothing else to show. And what really mattered most to Dusty Marin was not the land, or even revenge, but her precious store. The bastard knew exactly what owned her heart.
“If I let you use your strap and cane on me, will you promise me one thing?” she said.
“What’s that?”
“You won’t tell a soul.”
“I didn’t tell a soul the last time, you just managed to pick a very public time to humiliate yourself.”
“Don’t remind me.” She started back into the living room from the hall, approaching him slowly. “If I let this happen it’s just you and me. No one else, and not one word about it to anyone, ever.”
He nodded, his eyes like two intense beams of heat boring into her. “That’s a promise,” he said. “No one else has earned the satisfaction, Dusty. This one’s mine to enjoy.” He said the words in a low gravelly voice, enunciating them clearly. Beyond his amusement and triumph, all playfulness aside, he was solemn and thoughtful. Like this was something she really owed him.
“When?” Dusty asked. Her voice was breathless, muted to the point that Ty might have had to struggle to hear her speak, but he was listening very carefully with his whole attention focused on her.
“Right now’s fine with me,” he said. “Might as well get it over with, don’t you think?”
She nodded, feeling a pleasurable tingle on her bottom that reminded her of the erotic element of this nasty game. “Okay, right now,” she agreed. “But just one more thing.”
“What’s that?” Ty asked as he rose from his chair.
“I have a cabin going up on the ridge overlooking the bottom land. I’d like to keep building, it’s nearly half done. Of course it’s yours, I suppose, but I’d like the option to use it.”
“On the high ridge? That’s a dangerous spot,” Ty commented.
“Still, it’s been a dream of mine for some time, long before I owned the property.”
“Sure, you can use it. I’ll even finish paying the bill. But in exchange for the right to it, I’ll keep five percent of the store.”
“Three, that’s all it’s worth, Ty. It’s just a small cabin.”
He eyed her mindfully, almost amused, but he kept his smile to himself. “Okay, three,” he agreed.
“And you give up your say in how the store’s run, not a word, and keep your carpenter and salesmen out of there.”
“Agreed.”
They stared at each other for a minute, as though neither one was going to move.
“So I guess I’d better get this over,” she finally said. She couldn’t help the odd shudder that engulfed her as she spoke.
“Yes, I guess so. I’ll get the strap and cane. And perhaps, if you reall
y want this private, you’ll step into the study just in case someone might mosey in.” He motioned to a door on the other side of the open hallway, and Dusty wandered in that direction while Ty took off in the other.
There was a second fireplace in the study with embers still glowing. She supposed the morning was brisk and he lit the fire there to take the chill off the room. Now, there was little warmth coming from the remaining coals. Unlike the neat-as-a-pin greatroom, this study was a typical ranch office with papers stacked on his massive antique desk, and enough grit and grime clinging to the surfaces around the room to suggest that the cleaning lady was forbidden inside. It almost felt like home, like her daddy’s study. And reminiscent of that forbidding territory, it was where she took her whippings as a child—unless of course she did something really outrageous. Then her daddy took her to the barn where he thrashed her good with whatever length of long leather would make the best impression on her sorry ass end. She took those punishments bare-assed, as she was sure Ty would demand of her today.
Maybe it was a small price to pay to have her peace of mind back and a sense of order returned to her life. She didn’t function well with salesmen she didn’t want, and carpenters, and apparently revenge. This was not a move she’d try again.
Without the fire, Dusty could feel a draft coming in through the window, or maybe it was just her own cold chills at the prospect of having to submit to this handsome brute. She hugged her arms in front of her as she waited, staring from desk, to fireplace, to picture, to window around the room, becoming immersed in the essence of the man that demanded this submission. She wasn’t a submissive woman, and here she was yielding without a fight. What had she become? What did this say about who she was? Since the day on the mountain, the worst thing of all, worse that the gossip and sneers and the snide remarks and Ty’s scheming plot to out dazzle her with vengeful brilliance, was the way he turned her vision of herself upside down. Just as he upended her over his lap in the midst of a mountain storm, he was doing the same thing again. And in a more insidious way. This wasn’t a conflagration born out of rage, it wasn’t a furious battle in the middle of harsh circumstances. It was a quiet war of nerves, of substance and verve that required far more wits and focus than what happened in the canyon. Ty won this battle handily—that disturbed her most.
Birches, Cowgirls & Angels Page 26