“None at all.”
Now she smiled. “I like dickering with you.”
Call tipped his head back and stared at the sky.
“Are you looking for guidance?” she asked.
“For a lightning strike.”
Laurel laughed. “You’re good to be so patient with me.”
Call regarded her narrowly. “As long as you realize my patience is not infinite.”
“You could have just said thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Good,” she said. “It’d be better if you kissed me when you said it.”
“Uh-huh. What you just did there, that’d be a feminine wile.”
“Not a successful one.”
“Don’t tempt me, Laurel. A little bit ago you removed my hand from your knee because someone might see and now you’re talking about kissing. You can’t keep me twisting in the wind.”
Laurel pressed her lips together and nodded shortly. He was right.
“You should know that Rooster heard me come in last night and he had some words for me this morning.”
“What kind of words?”
“Just what you’d anticipate from a man who cares about you. If he was your father, he’d have likely got out his shotgun, but since he’s less than that and more than a friend, he wanted reassurances that I was either going to leave quickly or stay in place.”
Laurel felt her heart hammer once and then resume beating a little faster than before. “What did you say?”
“I asked him if he expected me to ease his mind before I eased yours.”
“My mind’s easy.”
“Is it?” He shrugged. “Then I’ll tell him that when it comes up again.”
Laurel would have kicked herself if she could have managed her balance at the same time. Why had she said her mind was easy? It wasn’t true. It was so far from being true, it would take a week on horseback to reach it. “What if my mind wasn’t easy?” she asked. “What would you say then?”
“Hypotheticals unsettle me. Kind of like an itch I can’t reach to scratch. You said your mind is easy. I take you at your word.”
Now Laurel wanted to kickhim. Why was he choosing to believe her when she was lying? Did he really not know? Of course he did, she realized, and at any other time he’d have called her on it, except now he was punishing her for lying to him, but mostly for lying to herself. She could either dig in her heels or tell the truth. It shouldn’t have been a difficult choice.
“Mrs. Lancaster says you talk like you want to stick,” she said, walking the tightrope between digging in and fessing up.
“Odd, isn’t it, her saying something like that to you?”
“Not so odd. Not so different than Rooster speaking toyou, except she doesn’t know where you spent most of last night.”
“Doesn’t she?”
“No. She came into my room this morning when I was late getting up. She let me sleep, figured it was yesterday’s excitement that left me tuckered out. I let her think it. She picked up my scattered clothes and opened—”
Listening to her, Call had been rubbing thoughtfully behind one ear. He stopped to make a casual observation. “I bet she found the sock I couldn’t.”
