must, if you can afford a new TV,” she sighed. “I don’t suppose he needs a professional duster?”
“We could ask him.”
She shook her head. “I’d rather work here, in a job I do know.” She glanced with apprehension at her boss, who was glaring toward the two of them. “I’d better get back to work before he fires me.”
“He can’t.”
She blinked. “He can’t what?”
“Fire you,” he said quietly. “He’s being replaced in two weeks by a new manager.”
Her heart stopped. She felt sick. “Oh, dear.”
“You won’t convince me that you’ll miss him,” John said curtly.
She bit a fingernail that was already almost gone. “It’s not that. A new manager might not want me to work here anymore…”
“He will.”
She frowned. “How can you know that?”
He pursed his lips. “Because the new manager works for my boss, and my boss said not to change employees.”
Her face started to relax. “Really?”
“Really.”
She glanced again at Tarleton and felt uncomfortable at the furious glare he gave her. “Oh, dear, did somebody say something to your boss about him…about him being forward with me?” she asked worriedly.
“They might have,” he said noncommittally.
“He’ll get even,” she said under her breath. “He’s that sort. He told a lie on a customer who was rude to him, about the man’s wife. She almost lost her job over it.”
John felt his blood rise. “All you have to do is get through the next two weeks,” he told her. “If you have a problem with him, any problem, you can call me. I don’t care when or what time.” He started to pull out his wallet and give her his business card, until he realized that she thought he was pretending to be hired help, not the big boss. “Have you got a pen and paper?” he asked instead.
“In fact, I do,” she replied. She moved behind the counter, tore a piece of brown paper off a roll, and picked up a marking pencil. She handed them to him.
He wrote down the number and handed it back to her. “Don’t be afraid of him,” he added curtly. “He’s in enough trouble without making more for himself with you.”
“What sort of trouble is he in?” she wanted to know.
“I can’t tell you. It’s confidential. Let’s just say that he’d better keep his nose clean. Now. I need a few more things.” He brought out a list and handed it to her. She smiled and went off to fill the order for him.
He took the opportunity to have a last word with Tarleton.
“I hear you have a penchant for getting even with people who cross you,” John said. His eyes narrowed and began to glitter. “For the record, if you touch that girl, or if you even try to cause problems for her of any sort, you’ll have to deal with me. I don’t threaten people with lawsuits. I get even.” The way he said it, added to his even, unblinking glare, had backed down braver men than this middle-aged molester.
Tarleton tried to put on a brave front, but the man’s demeanor was unsettling. Taggert was younger than Tarleton and powerfully muscled for all his slimness. He didn’t look like a man who ever walked away from a fight.
“I wouldn’t touch her in a blind fit,” the older man said haughtily. “I just want to work out my notice and get the hell back to Billings, where people are more civilized.”
“Good idea,” John replied. “Follow it.”
He turned on his heel and went back to Sassy.
She looked even more nervous now. “What did you say to him?” she asked uneasily, because Tarleton looked at her as if he’d like her served up on a spit.
“Nothing of any consequence,” he said easily, and he gave her a tender smile. “Got my order ready?”
“Most of it,” she said, obviously trying to get her mind back to business. “But we don’t carry any of this grass seed you want. It would be special order.” She leaned forward. “The hardware store can get it for you at a lower price, but I think we will be faster.”
He grinned. “The price won’t matter to my boss,” he assured her. “But speed will. He’s experimenting with all sorts of forage grasses. He’s looking for better ways to increase weight without resorting to artificial means. He thinks the older grasses have more nutritional benefit than the hybrids being sowed today.”
“He’s likely right,” she replied. “Organic methods are gaining in popularity. You wouldn’t believe how many organic gardeners we have locally.”
“That reminds me. I need some insecticidal soap for the beans we’re planting.”
She hesitated.
He cocked his head. His eyes twinkled. “You want to tell me something, but you’re not sure that you should.”
She laughed. “I guess so. One of our organic gardeners gave up on it for beans. She says it works nicely for tomatoes and cucumbers, but you need something with a little more kick for beans and corn. She learned that the hard way.” She grimaced. “So did I. I lost my first corn planting to corn borers and my beans to bean beetles. I was determined not to go the harsh pesticide route.”
“Okay. Sell me something harsh, then,” he chuckled.
She blushed faintly before she pulled a sack of powerful but environmentally safe insecticide off the shelf and put it on the counter.
Tarleton was watching the byplay with cold, angry eyes. So she liked that interfering cowboy, did she? It made him furious. He was certain that the new foreman of the Bradbury ranch had talked to someone about him and passed the information on to McGuire, who owned this feed store. The cowboy was arrogant for a man who worked for wages, even for a big outfit like the Callisters’s. He was losing his job for the second time in six months and it would look bad on his record. His wife was already sick of the moving. She might leave him. It was a bad day for him when John Taggert walked into his store. He hoped the man fell in a well and drowned, he really did.
His small eyes lingered on Sassy’s trim figure. She really made him hot. She wasn’t the sort to put up much of a fight, and that man Taggert couldn’t watch her day and night. Tarleton smiled coldly to himself. If he was losing his job anyway, he didn’t have much to lose. Might as well get something out of the experience. Something sweet.
Sassy went home worn-out at the end of the week. Tarleton had found more work than ever before for her to do, mostly involving physical labor. He was rearranging all the shelves with the heaviest items like chicken mash and hog feed and horse feed and dog food in twenty-five and fifty-pound bags. Sassy could press fifty pounds, but she was slight and not overly muscular. It was uncomfortable. She wished she could complain to someone, but if she did, it would only make things worse. Tarleton
