Free One Heart to Win by Johanna Lindsey Page B

the Warrens.”
    That despicable feud. But it was just as well that she and the Callahans had the same agenda, sort of, or this opportunity wouldn’t have presented itself to her. But she was sure she wouldn’t have liked being held hostage here. That would have forced her hand to say who she really was, and they would have taken her straight to her father, which was not going to happen if she could help it.
    So she merely gave Cole a baleful look and asked cuttingly, “Are you ranchers, or outlaws? I really would like to know before I step into your—lair.”
    “We abide by the law, ma’am,” he said in a defensive tone.
    “It sounds more like you skirt it.”
    “Wouldn’t be paying you twice what you’re worth if we were trying to skirt anything, now would we?”
    She got a little pink-cheeked over that answer herself, so she left him with a curt nod and crossed the threshold into her temporary home. And stopped short. And sneezed. And sneezed again. The Callahans didn’t need a housekeeper, they needed a new house. This one had gone to hell.
    Dried mud was tracked halfway down the short foyer that opened into a large main room where several couches and chairs were scattered about. Obviously they’d been shipped in from the East and had once been handsome pieces of furniture, but they were so old that the upholstery had faded to a dingy gray. Smoke from a soot-blackened fireplace had probably backed up into the room too many times. The paintings on the walls were crooked, some very crooked. The hardwood floor was covered with a layer of dust so thick that footsteps were actually outlined in it. Were there no servants at all in this house?
    Tiffany turned to ask Cole that question, but shrieked instead when she caught sight of herself in an oval mirror hanging on the foyer wall. Her complexion was a pasty gray riddled with streaks! She hardly recognized herself. She immediately took out her handkerchief and scrubbed at her face, but without water all she was doing was moving the dust and the dirt around.
    “See a mouse?” Cole asked, coming in the front door carrying her large trunk with John’s help. “Sounded like it.” When she just stared at him blankly, he added, “You screamed.”
    “I did nothing of the sort,” she corrected him indignantly.“I merely squeaked delicately.” But then she warned, “I won’t tolerate mice. If you tell me you are infested with them, I’ll tell you to put my trunk back in the wagon.”
    He chuckled. “No mice, not that I’ve ever noticed. Now run along upstairs and figure out which room you want us to put this heavy thing in.”
    “You may put it down where you are. There is only one priority right now: that you show me where I can bathe. I can’t abide for another moment this veil of dirt you and your brother—”
    “Take it on upstairs, Cole. I can show the lady where she wants to go.”
    Cole looked beyond her to say, “I thought you—”
    “Curiosity got the better of me,” the newcomer interrupted, and headed back the way he’d just come, so by the time Tiffany turned toward him, she merely saw a broad back. “Come along, Red. The bath is this way.”
    She wouldn’t have budged an inch under normal circumstances. Did he really just give her a nickname based on the color of her hair? But she was starting to feel itchy from all the dust that must have gotten into her clothes.
    She hurried after the tall man. He had unfashionably long, black hair. She would have thought him a household servant if he weren’t wearing a gun belt, or did even servants wear them in Montana?
    The hall had narrowed and dimmed once they passed the stairs to the upper floor, but at the end of it light came from a door that had been left open. Which was where the man led her, into the kitchen. Tiffany took one look and closed her eyes tight. And started counting to ten in her mind. And prayed shewouldn’t start screaming. Whoever had last cooked here had left the kitchen