gave her his best don’t-argue-with-me stare. “Be still, please. You’re stirring up more dust, and I’d rather not succumb to a fit of sneezing.”
She paused, an abashed look on her face.
Good. He’d gotten through to her for the moment. Time to drive his point home. “It’s important to make certain you’re not badly injured before you try to stand. Or would you prefer I ask Dr. Pratt to take a look at you?”
His words had the opposite effect of what he’d expected. She glared at him. “There’s no need to be so snippy. And no, I do not prefer to have you bother the doc at this late hour over a few bruises.”
Snippy? Didn’t the girl recognize authority when she heard it? Clenching his jaw to contain his irritation, he gently slid the worn, dirty bit of footwear, including her stocking, off her foot. He studied her ankle, unhappy with what he saw. “It’s already starting to swell and darken. It might be wise to have Dr. Pratt take a look at you, after all.”
“Glory be!” She brushed his hands away and smoothed down her skirts. “It’s nothing more than a bad bruise.” She flexed her ankle to prove her point, but he noticed the wince she couldn’t quite hide. “It’ll be fine by morning,” she insisted.
Everett leaned back on his heels. He wasn’t going to force the issue. After all, he wasn’t her keeper—nor did he want to be. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing in here?”
“I was trying to clear the way to the back door so I could open it up and air out the place.”
Was she being deliberately obtuse? “I mean, why are you in here in the first place?”
She tilted her chin up. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m cleaning the place up so Kip and I don’t have to sleep in the middle of this rubbish and dirt.”
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Daisy Johnson’s lack of ladylike sensibilities went beyond the unrefined rustic “charm” that he’d grown to expect from the women of this backwater that circumstances had forced him to call home for the present. She was outspoken, obviously uneducated and her manner was rough and belligerent.
“It is my business if you wake me up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night,” he countered.
At least she had the grace to blush at that. “Oh. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking about the racket reaching over to you.”
He stood and offered a hand to help her up. “Apology accepted. As long as you cease and desist until a more civilized hour.”
“Fair enough.”
He noticed another quickly suppressed wince as she put weight on the injured foot, but she didn’t utter a sound.
“If you won’t see the doctor,” he said, keeping a hand at her elbow, “at least tell me where your father is so I can fetch him to tend to you.” The sooner he could turn her over to someone else and return to the comfort of his bed, the better.
She tugged her arm out of his grasp and hobbled over to a nearby crate to sit down. He grimaced at the little cloud of dust that rose as she settled.
“I reckon he’s halfway to the Louisiana border by now,” she answered, reaching down to scratch her scruffy-looking dog.
Had her father abandoned her? Despite himself, Everett felt a stirring of sympathy. He spied the bedroll next to the lamp. “So you broke in here looking for a place to spend the night.”
She shifted as if to find a more comfortable position for her foot, and he saw a snatch of cobweb caught in her tawny hair. He had an unexpected urge to brush it away, but quickly shook off the impulse.
“I aim to spend more than the night here,” she said with a smile.
Did she intend to claim squatter’s rights? Well, it was her bad luck that the building already had an owner. “Despite the way this place looks,” he said, trying to let her down gently, “it’s not abandoned. And I’m afraid the owner might not look favorably on your plans to take up residence.”
“That’s where you’d be wrong.” There was a decidedly smug look to her smile. “I’m the owner, and I don’t have a problem with it at all.”
Chapter Two
Everett stared at her, feeling his momentary sympathy fade. Had he heard correctly? But there she sat, like a queen on her dusty throne. How could that be? “Last I heard, Gus Ferguson owned this place.” He managed to keep his tone neutral.
“He did.” She gave a self-satisfied smile. “Until he lost it to my father in a poker game.”
A poker game? That shouldn’t surprise him as much as it did. “And your father, in turn, gave it to you, I suppose.”
She brushed at her skirt, not quite meeting his gaze. “Let’s just say he owed it to me.”
A cryptic turn of phrase, but he brushed aside his curiosity for now. There were more important matters to get to the bottom of. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are your plans for the place?” If she was going to be his neighbor, he wanted some idea as to what he was going to be in for.
“I’m going to set up my business here.”
Not the answer he’d expected. “What kind of business?”
From the look she gave him, he surmised some of his displeasure had come through in his tone.
“Well,” she replied, eyeing him carefully, “I eventually want to open a restaurant.”
She was just full of surprises. “You know how to cook?”
Her brown eyes narrowed, and her smudged chin tilted up. “You don’t have to say it like that. I happen to be a great cook—everybody says so.”
Just who did everybody include—her father and dog, perhaps? Then he took a very pointed look around him. “A restaurant—in here?”
“Of course I won’t be able to open it right away.” Her voice was less confident now. “I’ll need to earn some money first so I can fix this place up and furnish it proper. And of course I’ll need to buy a good stove.”
She didn’t seem particularly daunted by the task ahead of her. “And how do you intend to do that? Earn the money, I mean.”
She shrugged. “I’m not my father’s daughter for nothing. I’ll figure something out.”
Her father’s daughter—did that mean she planned to try her luck in the poker game over at the livery?
She rotated her neck, and Everett saw signs of fatigue beneath her bravado. For the first time, he wondered about the particulars of her arrival. “If your father didn’t come back to Turnabout with you, how did you get here?”
“I walked, mostly.” Then she grinned proudly. “Made it in three days.”
Her father had allowed her to take a three-day journey alone and on foot? Everett felt
