Theodosia shook her head and sighed in exasperation. “You are giving yourself two dollars and thirty-four cents more than you have, Mr. Montana. The total of your savings come to one hundred ninety-eight dollars and seventy-two cents.”
He scratched down a few more circles and lines. “Of course, I have to settle a tab of three dollars at the Kidder Pass saloon, and a man in Caudle Corner owes me thirty dollars for a job I did for him, and I need fifteen dollars’ worth of supplies. Let’s see …zero from six is six, zero from zero is zero…borrow from the ten to make eleven; three from eleven—”
“Your figuring is grossly incorrect, Mr. Montana.”
He raised his head slowly. “Miss Worth, please. Can’t you see I’m trying to concentrate?” He dug into his pocket, withdrew a fistful of bills and some change, and counted it. “I’ve got thirty-seven dollars and fifty-four cents on me, so that means…” He scratched down more nothings on his paper.
“You will have two hundred forty-eight dollars and twenty-six cents after you have paid and collected all owed to you, all you owe, and all you will owe after purchasing your supplies. And that includes your pocket money.”
As fast as he could, he wrote down the sum she’d given him. “That’s the exact number I came up with,” he said, smiling. “See? I told you I didn’t need your help.”
She could tell by his crooked grin that he was lying through those perfect white teeth of his.
Her eyes widened when she realized he’d duped her. The arrogant rogue had beaten her again! “You —you—you—”
“Having trouble coming up with a good word choice?” He folded the paper and laid it aside. “Let me help you. I outwitted you? Fooled you? Deceived you?”
“You are—”
“A trickster? Hoodwinker? Scoundrel?”
“I would like nothing better than to—”
“Slap me? Pinch me? Kick me? Bite—”•
“Wouldyou please stop?”
He was thoroughly enjoying making her mind spin. She’d certainly spun his enough times. “Of course I’ll stop. I don’t have any reason to go on. I’ve gotten what I wanted. Why don’t you get what you want?”
“What? What do I want?”
“I thought you wanted some sleep? You don’t want it anymore?”
“I—”
“Or would you like a kiss first? Consider it my way of paying you back for giving me the answer to all this confounded arithmetic.”
“No, I do not want a—”
“Liar.”
“Liar,” John the Baptist echoed. “No doubt you would like me to sleep naked, Mr. Montana.”
Laughing, Roman leaned back to look at the night sky.
Theodosia watched moonbeams flicker through his dark hair, which flowed down the white trunk of the birch tree behind him. He’d unbuttoned his shirt; the wide V provided her with a tantalizing view of his rippled chest. Moonbeams danced on his smooth brown skin too.
“If you’re finished staring at my chest, Miss Worth, look at that star.” He pointed to the sky.
Theodosia quickly found the star he indicated.
“Wonder why it’s so much brighter than the other ones?” Roman mused aloud. “Kind of reminds you of that song, doesn’t it?”
“To what song do you refer, Mr. Montana?”
“Yeah, you know. That star song. It goes like…uh—I can’t remember the tune, but the words are, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are, up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.’”
She pondered the fact that his memory of the song was so vague. “Where did you learn the song?”
