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

kitchen.
    “Yes…yes, ma’am,” said Ty, then lowered his voice and tried again. “What the…” He glanced toward the kitchen. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    “You told me to get whatever I need,” she explained, her tone perfectly unruffled. “I got what was needed.”
    “If I’d just wanted someone to do a little work around the house I got a hundred women who would beg to do the job.”
    “Really?” Her left brow rose to a surprising height. “The pork queen, maybe?”
    “She’s a pork princess, and she’s not the only one I date.”
    “Really? Any of them human?”
    “You—”
    “Ty…Ty,” Nate interrupted. “You’d do best to stick to the subject.”
    Tyrel scowled down at his brother then raised his glare to Hannah. “I can’t afford a housekeeper. And even if I could I wouldn’t hire her, ” he whispered. “She’s a hundred years old.”
    Hannah smiled like the proverbial cat. “Believe me, Mr. Fox, she’ll do the job I hired her for, and she’ll save you money doing it.”
    “Really!”
    “Really.”
    “And what do you plan to do? Sit around and polish your toenails?”
    “I don’t polish my toenails, Mr. Fox. I buff them. And I believe you hired me to care for your stock.”
    Exasperated, Ty glanced at his brother. Nate shrugged and strummed a chord. “I never do know what to say,” he crooned, “when she looks at me that way. The urge to kiss her—”
    “Shut the hell up!”
    “Hey!” yelled Pansy.
    “Sorry, ma’am,” said Ty, then continued, “All right, Ms. Nelson, you want to be just another hand, you’ll be just another hand. No more pussyfooting.”
    “No more pussy,” Nate crooned.
    “You’ll feed stock. You’ll clean yards. You’ll take your night shifts.”
    “Whatever you say, Mr. Fox,” she said.
    “Yeah.” His anger deflated slightly.
    “But I can never stay mad,” sang Nate.
    “You’ll have to have some decent clothes,” Ty said. “Here.” He led her to the hall closet and dragged out a pair of camel-colored insulated overalls. “They’re mine, but they should do the job all right.” He almost grinned when he said it, because he was five inches taller and outweighed her by seventy pounds, even when he was doing his own cooking. But, hey, the uglier she looked, the better he’d sleep.
    Pushing the overalls into her hands, he stepped back a pace. “You ready to work now, Ms. Nelson?”
    “Ready when you are,” she said.
    And the day began.
    B Y DARK THEY HAD cleaned the horse barn, fed everything that was breathing and once again bedded the cattle shed.
    By seven o’clock Hannah had fed Daniel twice and taken on chores that hadn’t been thought of since fall. Still the woman didn’t slow down.
    She was dressed like a tan snowman. Wearing a man’sbilled cap that stuck out from under a faded red hood, she slogged from one job to the next like a bullheaded linebacker.
    Ty drooped against the barn doorjamb for a moment, watching as she shoveled out a gate.
    “Yeah,” Nate said, gazing through the doorway as he passed by with a calf in his arms, “I think you’re wearing her down all right The ice princess on her knees. Pretty soon she’ll be kissing your—”
    “Shut the hell up, Nate,” Ty said. “If I want to know what she’ll be kissing, I’ll sure enough ask you.”
    “Well, she sure as hell won’t be kissing you.”
    “You’ll see,” said Ty.
    Nate chuckled, and whistling a tune he called “Old Dogs and Idiots,” sauntered off toward the south end of the barn.
    By 7:30 Ty thought he would die and half hoped he would.
    “Let’s call it a night,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the wind.
    Hannah looked up from where she was dumping a bucket of grain into the bunk for the bulls. “Already?” she asked, and Ty considered strangling her as he dragged himself off to the house.
    Stepping inside, he saw that the entryway was clean.
    “You’re not planning on wearing them boots in here,