He was trying to intimidate her, standing close and using his height to his advantage. She used a square look and stubborn silence to hers.
“Okay, I’ll bite. I’ll play your guessing game.” He began to pace in the sand. “You can’t be a nurse.” He turned and paced back. “Your touch is about as soft as cement.” He stopped and turned again, then gave her a narrowed look. “What was that you just muttered about my head?”
“Nothing.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I can figure this out. You said you’re paid to talk,” he repeated.
She nodded.
“A schoolteacher?”
She shook her head.
His cocky expression should have warned her. He glanced at the rope looped around the trees and bushes, before he shot a look at Annabelle sleeping in the trunk. “After this morning, I’m certain of one thing. You’re not a nanny.”
If she hadn’t already known she was going to come out the winner in this contest, she might have done something rash and emotional. Instead she gave him a blank and unaffected stare.
“A librarian.”
“Not even warm.”
“A seamstress.”
She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t sew on a button.
“Hatmaker? Nah.” He shook his head and rubbed his hairy chin thoughtfully. “I remember that ugly brown hat you had on in the marketplace. Couldn’t possibly be a hatmaker.”
“You aresowitty.”
He smirked at her. “I try.”
“You need a shovel, Hank.”
“Why is that?”
“So you can dig that hole you’re standing in a little deeper.”
“Which hole?”
She strolled past him. “I’m neither a teacher, a nurse, nor ananny.”She gave him a pointed look. “Nor a librarian, a seamstress, or a hatmaker.”
He snorted.
She paused and turned. “I am... let me see if I can remember the more polite words. Ah, yes. I am”—she stopped right in front of him and looked him square in the eye—“an idealistic, word-twisting, egotistical, argumentative”—she took a deep breath, then smiled—“attorney.”
He stared at her. His usually tight jaw went completely slack.
“With the law firm of Ryderson, Kelly, Huntington, and Smith.”
He frowned as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Sutter Street, San Francisco.”
One could have heard a bird’s heartbeat it was so absolutely and utterly silent.
Then he said that truly foul word again.
10
By late that afternoon they had reached an agreement not to kill each other. Hank was building his hut on the best spot while Smitty was building hers on the worst spot.
