Jeffery didn’t stop. “You’ll work with me at the bank Monday through Thursday, then I’ll drive you out and you can do your father’s books Friday and Saturday. Your father said you could ride out alone. You’ve been making the trip between there and town for years, but I see no need to have to board a horse in town. I’ll take you and pick you up.”
He paused as if allowing questions in his lecture.
A hundred screams log-piled in her mind, but all she managed to say was, “I’ll have Sundays off?”
He huffed again. “Of course. A banker and his family are expected to be in church every week. It adds stability to his name. After church, we’ll want to invite your father and sisters to dinner. It’s only proper if they make the drive into town. He assures me you’re a passable cook. Once they’re gone, you’ll need time to do the laundry.”
Her head felt like mice were eating away inside it. All rational thought left her. “Family. What family?” she started before he interrupted her.
“Don’t be an idiot. You’re far too old for it to be cute to play dumb.” He frowned at her as if he found her only mildly tolerable. “I’m not a young man, Laurel. We’ll have a baby before we’re married a year. I prefer a son, but if it doesn’t happen, we’ll try again until I have an heir who can eventually take over the bank.”
He stared at her. “You are a virgin? I told your father I’d have nothing less.”
As she reddened, he laughed. “Of course you are. You know little of these things, but I know my seed is strong. My first wife was pregnant within a month of our marriage, but she wasn’t healthy enough to stay alive to deliver full term.” He stared at her. “Don’t worry, your father says you ride every day. Such exercise makes you strong and hardy.” He grinned to himself. “My seed will grow in you. You’re like rich dirt, from strong stock and ready to be made use of. Lots of children will round that thin frame out nicely in time.”
Laurel was too horrified to answer. She lowered her head and focused on the piece of paper Jeffery had given her. Rowdy Darnell’s name stood out.
He had to win, her mind whispered. He had to.
The banker heard her sisters and hurried to pay his respects without another word to her. He was all smiles and pats with them. Like her father, Jeffery seemed to think every senseless thing they said was funny. She could imagine what his Sunday dinners would be like.
She almost laughed aloud. They’d be pretty much like they were now. Sunday was the housekeeper’s day off. So Laurel cooked and cleaned up while everyone else complained that none of the food was good enough, hot enough or served fast enough.
Laurel closed her eyes and blocked out all the noise coming from the others. She focused on the way Rowdy had touched her waist so gently when he’d helped her down from the surrey and again in the shadows when he’d bumped into her.
She smiled. He’d touched her as if she mattered.
Chapter 3
The sun bore down on Rowdy as he rode toward his father’s farm. He’d always hated the place and July was the worst month, hot and dry. But he looked forward to being alone. When he’d first gone to prison at fifteen, he thought he’d go mad with the loneliness, but finally he grew to prefer it. There were so many people in town for the rodeo that he felt like the air had thinned just so it would last. He rode hard until town was well out of sight and land, more prairie than farm, stretched before him.
His father had sold their farm in East Texas and moved here after Rowdy’s mom died. He could get almost ten times the acreage for the same money. The old man had planned to get away from the memories of her death, but West Texas hadn’t been far enough. He’d continued the journey into a bottle.
Rowdy remembered his father being drunk when they’d pulled up to the place and as far as he knew the old man had never sobered up enough to care where he was. They’d brought fifty head of cattle with them. His dad sold them off one by one. After three years he didn’t have enough cows left to sell to pay for a lawyer for his