Free Counterfeit Cowgirl (Love and Laughter) by Lois Greiman Page A

Peter—Melvin!” she barked suddenly.
    Beside Hannah, a tall, stooped-shouldered man stopped as if shot. She turned to watch his face turn red, and his paunch disappear as he straightened to face the widow.
    “What is it, Mrs. Puttipiece?” he asked as if pained.
    “What is it? It’s this thing you call an orange. This ain’t no orange. It’s a sad excuse. I need my fruits and—”
    “Listen here, Mrs. Puttipiece, you can’t come in here every day complaining about my produce,” said Melvin, leaning toward her. “My oranges is just fine.”
    Pansy reared back as if struck. “At thirty cents apiece. I can’t afford no thirty cents on my security check. For thirty cents I could feed caviar to the king of England.”
    “It’s thirty cents and it’ll stay thirty cents!”
    “Then I’ll be back tomorrow and we can discuss it again,” she said, stretching up on her toes so that their noses nearly met. “Since my Peter passed on I got all the time in the world.”
    Melvin opened his mouth, gritted his teeth, and said, “Twenty cents then?”
    Settling back on her heels, Pansy nodded. “That’ll do me fine.”
    Melvin huffed, then stormed off.
    Hannah stood in dumbfounded amazement, then catching Pansy’s eye, she said, “Mrs. Puttipiece, I have a proposition for you.”
    T Y PACED AROUND the diameter of the living room one more time. “Where the hell is she?”
    “Don’t know,” said Nate, and strummed a chord on the guitar he was holding cradled on his lap. “You in a hurry to lose that bet we made?”
    “It’s past noon. I shouldn’t have let her go alone. I shouldhave showed her how to use the four-wheel drive. Dammit! She could be stuck somewhere and freezing to death right now.”
    “Freezing to death?” Nate struck a G chord and hummed a few notes. “It’s twenty-five degrees out there. Near tropical.”
    “Wearing that little scrap of leather she calls a coat with her head bare and—”
    “Shit, Ty, relax,” Nathan said. “Keep hyperventilating like that and you’re gonna pass out. Hey. That’s it. I watch her walk across the room…” he sang. “No, wait. I watch her from across the room. The feelings nearly make me swoon.”
    “Shut up, Nate.”
    “Hair as bright as harvest gold,” he crooned. “I’d give my very soul to hold—her in my arms for one sweet night. To see her face fill up with light. To feel her sun-kissed satin skin. But I’ll not risk my heart again.”
    “Nathan, shut the hell up!” Tyrel yelled, then, hearing the door open, he swung toward it. “It’s about damn time, Hannah…” he began, then stumbled back a pace as an old woman entered with a bag of groceries.
    She was about two feet tall and had a face like a dried apple.
    “Hannah,” he said, “you shrunk.”
    “Listen, young man.” She glared up at him. “So long as I’m employed here, you’ll not be taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
    Tyrel felt his jaw drop, and in that instant Hannah stepped through the doorway.
    “Gentlemen,” she said, nodding to them. “And I use that term lightly. This is Mrs. Pansy Puttipiece. She’s your new housekeeper.”
    “Housekeeper?” the brothers echoed in harmony.
    “And cook,” the midget added. “Where’s the kitchen?”
    “It’s in, uh…there,” Ty said, motioning lamely.
    Puttipiece strode across the cracked linoleum, then stopped in the doorway and raised her brows into her gray, tightcurledhair. “That ain’t no kitchen. It’s a national disaster. Looks like you got me here just in time.”
    “It’s, uh…it’s usually not this bad,” Ty said, lying badly.
    Pansy snorted, then disappeared into the bowels of the kitchen.
    “Um…Miss Nelson, can I talk to you a minute?”
    “Certainly, Mr. Fox,” Hannah said, meeting his gaze dead-on.
    “May I ask you a question?”
    “Certainly.”
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.
    “Hey! Watch your language!” roared a voice from the