Free Deborah Camp by Blazing Embers Page B

helpless chicken, he thought as his gaze took in the fidgety girl who was clinging to her tattered shreds of bravado. “Like that banker who visited today. I think he’s sweet on you, ‘Miss Cassandra, ma’am.’”
    She sat ramrod straight, her eyes frosty blue. Her lips moved for a few moments before she finally spoke. “You’re a pig!”
    “A pig?” He chuckled at the description. “That’s a mild insult coming from you. I’m disappointed. You can do better than that, Cassie Potter.”
    “You’re making fun of me,” she muttered darkly.
    “Why would I poke fun at an illiterate shrew?”
    “Come again?” she asked, standing up so that she could look down on him. “Can’t you talk regular?”
    “Pardon me. Let me rephrase that so that you can understand.” He picked up his empty bowl as he rose from the chair. Dropping it into the water, he leaned close to her, mindful of her coiling like a rattlesnake ready to strike. “You’re a good doctor, Cassie, but most of the time you’re a horse’s ass.” He moved back, but she was as quick as her whip. The flat of her hand struck his cheek, leaving an imprint of water and lye soap. “You little witch!” He grabbed her wrists before she could attack him again.
    “I’ll kill you,” she said in a low voice, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a snarl.
    “Why? Why would you want to kill me?” He peered through the dim light at the blue-tinted skin across her cheekbone. “How did you get that bruise? Did you sass the wrong person?”
    “You did it, you stinking son of a bitch!” She struggled against him, trying to break free of his crushing hands.
    “I might agree with the last of that statement, but saying that I stink is like the pot calling the kettle black.” He let go of her, pushing her away from him and curling his lip. “When was the last time
you
took a bath? When you were baptized?”
    She ran her hands down her skirt and hunched her shoulders. The fight went out of her as quickly as summer lightning, and a dolorous expression pinched her face. “Haven’t had time … I’ve only got a little soap left and … well, I had to clean your wound a bunch.”
    Goddamn her pathetic eyes, Rook thought as he turned away from her. Shame coated him, but he didn’t dare apologize.Give this girl an inch and she took a mile. “I’d better lie down. I’m still woozy and—”
    “Yes, go on.”
    He gritted his teeth, suddenly sick at heart. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I didn’t mean—”
    “You’re sorry, all right. Go lay down,” she snapped.
    He wanted to kick himself for apologizing to the little wench. Her blue eyes challenged him, but he wasn’t up to the struggle.
    “Ah, damn!” he spat at her, wishing he could wring her neck.
    Cassie winced at the bang of the bedroom door and shot a withering glance at it.
    Damn his hide! Oooo, she’d be glad to see his back! She didn’t like having to share her home and her vittles with the likes of him. Him and his fancy talking and wandering eyes. She’d known he was watching her all through the meal, and it had made her skin crawl. She’d wanted to pick up her bowl of stew and throw it in his face.
    Drying the last bowl, she went outside to breathe air that didn’t smell of him. Her hands came up to touch her hair, her face, her throat. She sniffed, winced from the smell of sweat and grime, and hated Rook for making her aware of herself. Moving to the back of the cabin, she stared at the old tub behind the outhouse where she and Shorty had taken their baths—she, often; Shorty, seldom. The bottom of the tub was strewn with crumbling autumn leaves that had fallen from the oak that shaded the area. Acorns pooled in one end of it, caught by a spider’s dusty web.
    She ran her hands along her arms as memories surrounded her, and she smiled faintly as one of them slipped from its moorings and bobbed to the surface. She could hear her father’s lusty voice as he sang while he splashed in the