Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb - Lexi George Page 0,92

Some outsider’s going to new-fangle everything. Damn computers.” He spat into the dirt. “Put a lot of decent, hardworking folks out of jobs.”

He swung around to leave, but Taryn’s cool voice stopped him.

“You have the wrong of it, sir,” she said. “Sassy has done nothing to earn your rancor. To the contrary, she—”

“I’m not selling the mill, Mr. Houston.” Shooting Taryn a repressive glance, Sassy forced her charm to the surface, though her head pounded and there was a sour taste in her mouth. “I’m staying in Hannah to run things myself.”

Houston’s jaw sagged. If Sassy had suddenly sprouted nine heads like a hydra, the man couldn’t have looked more shocked.

“What the—But you don’t—”

“Know anything about running a timber mill?” Sassy opened her charm valve and dimpled at him. “That’s why I need your help. I can tell you know everything about the business.”

Houston was a tough sell, and it took a moment for Sassy’s allure to take effect. But at last his scowl faded. Sassy sent a prayer of thanks heavenward. For a moment, she’d feared her winsome widget was malfunctioning.

“I reckon I oughta,” Houston said. “Been at it since I was a tadpole. But I don’t need no woman underfoot.”

“What about her?” Taryn indicated the husky woman in the coveralls. “Is she not a female?”

Houston snorted. “That’s Tommie Lou Johnston. She don’t count. She’s a log scaler and a damn good one. Tommie Lou ain’t got a prissy bone in her body.”

“You mean like me,” Sassy said. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, Mr. Houston.”

“Your cover’s the problem.” Houston shoved his hard hat back. “You can’t traipse around a mill in a hanky and high heels. It ain’t safe and it’ll distract my men. Somebody’ll lose a finger.”

Sassy tapped her foot. “My dress is not a hanky, Mr. Houston. It’s perfectly respectable. Conservative, even.”

“You look like a Barbie doll.”

“Well, then, I guess you’ll have to find this Barbie doll something else to wear, because I am going to tour this mill today, Mr. Houston. With or without you.”

Houston growled in frustration. Rounding on his heel, he disappeared into the brick building.

Sassy and Taryn hurried after him. They entered the office and closed the door behind them, muffling the din from the yard. Away from the noise, Sassy’s headache eased and her stomach stopped roiling. Houston was down the hall talking to someone in an office. Probably on a quest to find her millish clothes, Sassy decided, or complaining about the la-di-da rich girl who was the new boss.

Maybe both.

She looked around with interest. This was it, the business heart of the place where the Peterson family fortune had started. The lobby was paneled and floored in heart pine the color of butterscotch. A deer head looked down at them from a wall with accusatory eyes.

Old black-and-white photos were grouped over a large leather couch in the waiting area. Sassy strolled over to examine the pictures. A small brass plate mounted on the largest photo identified it as the old Peterson Mill, a ramshackle wood and metal shed marooned in a sea of cut logs and mud. The faded photo to the left was of a mule-drawn wagon loaded with heavy logs.

Poor mules, Sassy thought.

In the photo on the other side of the center frame, two men stood in front of a half-hewn tree. A long, two-handed saw rested against the thick trunk. The gaping wound in the once mighty oak was obscene and disturbing.

With a shudder, Sassy moved on to the last frame, a recent photograph of Trey and her grandfather taken in the mill yard. Her brother was as she remembered him. Tall, handsome, and athletic. He stood slightly apart from their grandfather, unease in his stance and wary tension. Sassy studied Blake. Like Trey, he was handsome and exuded physical vitality, but there was something cold and reptilian about him. Uncle Gaudy, with his bayou wisdom, would say there was no soul behind those alligator eyes.

What had Mama been thinking, to leave Trey with such a man? A trickle of unease slid down Sassy’s spine. So verboten was their family divide that Sassy had never questioned Mama closely on the subject.

For shame. Sassy chided herself for being disloyal. Trey had kicked up a dust to stay with their grandparents. Mama had not, could not have known what Blake was. Her world was too small and insulated, her elegantly shod feet too firmly planted in norm reality for her to conceive of things like fairies and