Chapter Two

      For one unsettling moment, Jane thought she was going to faint. “I beg your pardon? I think I must have misheard—”

      Rydell held her gaze. “You heard it right. If you go broke sewing dresses, then you’ll marry me.”

      She fought a wild desire to pinch herself. “Marry you?” Her voice was definitely not her own. She tried again. “Marry you? Why on earth would I do that?”

      He regarded her with a steadiness that made her heart skip erratically. “Maybe because you’re up a creek.”

      Fury brought her to her feet. “Now just one minute, Mr. Wilder. I am not ‘up a creek’ as you so crudely put it. I admit my father’s passing has caused a small problem, but problems are not new to me. I will persevere, and I will triumph.”

      Rydell nodded. “Oh, you’ll persevere, all right. But you’re not equipped for life the way it shakes out in the West—your folks made sure of that. They treated you like a hothouse violet. For a woman like you—a lady—you’ve pretty much got three choices, as I see it. One, work yourself into an early grave keeping up that house for your ma. Two, take a job in a saloon—or maybe worse. Or…” he lowered his voice “…three, get married. I’m offering you a respectable way to survive.”

      Jane bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood and sank onto her chair. “My parents did not overprotect me,” she snapped. “They cared for me, taught me about the finer things of life, about history and art and music. Mama encouraged my piano studies until she…” Her voice trailed off.

      “You’re twenty-six, Miss Davis. Your father discouraged every unattached male within a hundred miles from comin’ anywhere near you. I’d say you’re well on your way to being an old maid.”

      Jane expelled a pent-up breath. “And just what gives you that idea? Yankee gossip, most likely.”

      Rydell leaned closer. “Is that what you dreamed about while you were growing up? Caring for your mother for the rest of your days?”

      “You do not know one thing about my mother!”

      Rydell chuckled. “Once nice thing about living in a town as small as Dixon Falls—when you don’t know what you’re doing, somebody else is sure to.”

      A corset stay dug into her midriff and Jane jerked upright. “Well, I never!”

      “Look, Miss Davis. We already have a schoolteacher here in town, and you don’t look strong enough to shoe horses. So what the hell else are you gonna do?”

      “I…” Her mind whirled. “How would you know about my piano?”

      “I listened some, over the years,” he said quietly.

      The look on his face made her pause. “Just how do you know that my father discouraged potential suitors?”

      “I know because I was one of them. Your father said I wasn’t fit to shine your boots. He thought a rootless kid with no family background wasn’t worth spit.”

      Papa said that? Well, she supposed he knew more than she did about such things. “Besides,” Jane murmured. “You’re a Yankee.”

      “Still am,” Rydell said mildly. “But the war’s over, Miss Davis.”

      “For you, maybe. Not for us. My daddy and mama lost their entire plantation when the Union army came marchin’ through. Papa never forgave the North for that. The only reason we came west was because Father was ruined, and Uncle Junius needed help on that awful newspaper of his.”

      “The way I see it, your father never really settled in Dixon Falls. Oh, he ate and slept out here all right, but he stayed in the past. He kept your mother imprisoned there, too.”

      “He did no such thing! Why, Mama went out lots of places!”

      He went on as if she had not spoken. “And—forgive me for saying this, Jane—he kept you there, as well. Locked up in that house up on the hill, arranging bouquets and practicing the piano—preparing yourself for a life you’d never have.”

      Jane flinched. The words stung because they were true. The only times she was allowed to attend a town social, even visit the mercantile for soap or a spool of thread, Papa always accompanied her. She had been allowed no friends. Sometimes she’d felt so lonely she thought she’d die.

      Looking back on it, she wondered why she’d put up with things the way they were. Rebellion, of course, would have been unthinkable. A state could secede from the Union, and fight a long and bloody war over it. But a daughter didn’t secede from her family. That was beyond the pale.

      Then, before she knew it, it was too late.

      Deliberately, she changed the subject. “I would prefer that you hold my home as collateral for the loan, Mr. Wilder. Not my…person.”

      His face changed. “It isn’t the house I want, Jane.”

      “And you are most certainly not what I want!” She managed to keep her voice steady, but her hands shook like dry leaves in a wind. For an instant she thought of jamming them under her skirt, but discarded the idea immediately. A lady never sat on her hands, not even when frightened half to death. Or mad enough to commit murder.

      “Yeah, well, I figured as much. Nevertheless, those are my terms.”

      Honey, she reminded herself. Not vinegar. She unclenched her hands and drew in a slow, careful breath. A whalebone stay jabbed anew. The best way to forget all her troubles was to wear a tight corset; it was hard to concentrate.

      As soon as she could trust her legs to support her, she rose. “Very well, Mr. Wilder. You have the advantage of me at this moment, since I do need the money. But, sir, while I may be forced to accept the terms of your wager, do not for one moment harbor any hope of winning. I am an excellent seamstress, and I intend to succeed at dressmaking if it’s the last thing I do in this life.”

      His lips twitched. “I understand.”

      “And,” Jane continued, unable to stop the words roiling in her brain, “I promise you that if I ever do marry, it will be of my own free will and never, never because I have lost a wager. I am not in the habit of gambling.”

      “Certainly not.”

      “Neither am I in the habit of failing. I shall not fail!”

      “Of course.” His voice was annoyingly calm. He slid open the top desk drawer and counted out three crisp one-hundred-dollar bills from his private cash supply. Folding them in half, he handed the money to her.

      “There’s an empty storage room next to the mercantile. I own it. You can rent it for three dollars a month, as is.” He extended his hand toward her. “Agreed?”

      Jane slipped the currency into her reticule. “It is indeed agreed, Mr. Wilder. Thank you.” She laid her hand in his and gave it a businesslike shake. Even through her glove, heat from his palm surged from her fingertips to her elbow, and she snatched her hand free.

      “As we have nothing further to discuss, I will bid you good afternoon.”

      Which was most certainly not what she wanted to say. Sometimes she wished she wasn’t a Davis at all, with ladylike manners to remember