Grading Garnet: The Red Petticoat Saloon Read online

  Gloria opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again, only to open it again seconds later, then close it again.

  “Do I take it that you would prefer to find your own accommodations?” he asked solicitously. “That’s fine with me, although I do have to let you know that, as room and board are included as a part of your agreement, and as such have been offered in good faith, declining my hospitality will not result in the board paying for you to stay elsewhere.” Seth almost gave in to the childish desire to cross his fingers with that statement—in silent acknowledgement that it was probably stretching the truth a bit although, to his credit, he wasn’t all that sure that it was. If she truly objected to staying with him, he figured he and the other board members could probably be convinced to increase her stipend enough to cover a room at the Bentley Inn boarding house if a room opened up.

  But he couldn’t see allowing her to risk it. She might feel a little uncomfortable around him now and who could blame her? And he was of a mind that it was going to get much worse before it got better. But that was no reason why she shouldn’t live with him. They would be properly chaperoned at all times, she’d have plenty of good food and, although the room was definitely small, he would have no objections to her decorating it in any way she saw fit.

  Besides those more practical facts, there was the very real thought that he didn’t intend to deny himself the ability to get to know her much, much better, and the close quarters would suit his purposes just fine. She was a quirky little thing, her back ramrod straight, immaculately turned out, all prim and proper, and yet they both knew that there was much, much more to her than that.

  Seth wasn’t at all sure what it was about her that intrigued him so, but he fully intended to discover all of her secrets, starting by giving her the spanking she deserved for not turning away—as a proper lady—and certainly a schoolteacher—certainly would from what she’d seen him doing. And then they would proceed from there.

  That was, if she decided to accept her fate and do what was ultimately the best thing for her to do.

  “All right then,” he said, when she made no move to contradict what he’d said. Wheeling the horse around, he threw back at her, “I’ll be heading home, then. Good luck…”

  “Wait!” Gloria yelled, then, at the eyebrow he obviously raised at her demanding tone, “Wait, please, Mr. McIntyre.” It took all of her strength of will, but she knew what she had to make herself say. “I would be glad to accept what I am sure is your fine hospitality for this year.”

  “Good girl,” he praised, and she could feel her entire body flush hot at the compliment, which sounded much too intimate coming from his lips.

  Seth leaned down, extending his hand to her again.

  Gloria looked up at it, then up at him, and the horse seemed just that much more impossibly taller with him on it, so she hesitated a bit. “Is there another way I could…”

  “Give me your hand, Miss Owens. I won’t allow you to get hurt.”

  Biting her lip, which he found somehow very sweetly endearing when she seemed so completely confident and sure of herself otherwise, she closed her eyes and put her hand in his, feeling herself become immediately airborne, but not for long. Before she knew it, she was sitting in front of him, as if she was sitting on his lap, and she almost was.

  It was a good thing he hadn’t expected her to straddle the horse; Gloria couldn’t imagine she’d be physically capable of doing so! She loved horses and was a pretty good horsewoman, if she said so herself, but this was just too much horse for her, to say nothing of the fact that she rode English.

  Soon enough she realized that she was trapped between him and his damned saddle horn, which were equally unforgiving and unyielding.

  As they made their way out of town, she suddenly remembered that she hadn’t planned on doing this and thus nearly everything she owned was in her hotel room.

  “We have to stop,” she declared, trying to sit up more, but the small space she was given didn’t really allow for it. Instead, her side was forced up against his warm, hard chest as he wrapped both arms around her, even while one held the reins.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice rife with doubt.

  “Because my things are at the hotel.”

  “I’ll send a man to collect them. I need to get home. Your job doesn’t really start for a week yet, but the rest of us have things to do,” he teased.

  “I have things to do!” she crowed indignantly. “Just not actually teaching and grading papers.”

  “Uh huh,” he replied, and she knew by his tone that he was merely placating her.

  “I do! I want to give the schoolhouse a thorough cleaning and airing out, put up some pictures I brought with me, maps, and such, make sure that there’s an adequate supply of coal, make lesson plans…”

  His arms tightened just the slightest bit around her. “You sound excited.”

  “Oh, I am!”

  Realizing that this was a subject on which he could draw her out, where she would forget about her embarrassment about how she had first—well, not met, exactly—seen him because she was so wrapped up in a subject she obviously adored. He fed her just enough questions to keep her talking about it until they turned down the long lane to his ranch, which was one of the largest in the area, as was the house, once he’d gotten through with it.

  Suddenly, as if she’d realized she’d been talking his ear off, Gloria fell silent in embarrassment for a moment before apologizing almost under her breath, “I beg your pardon, Mr. McIntyre. I didn’t mean to ramble on. I fear I’ve bored you to tears.”

  “Of course not. It’s nice to hear someone talk about something they’re passionate about, and I’ve never heard some of your very innovative ideas about how to teach children. None of them beyond memorization, and the cane if you didn’t, were really used on me until I went away to college.”

  “You went to college?” she asked, in obvious admiration. “I wanted to, and my mother would have wanted me to get every bit of education I could, if she had lived, but my Father is more of a traditionalist. He put his foot down, so I either taught myself what I wanted to learn or he hired a tutor, although he stopped doing even that eventually since I showed no signs of knuckling under to his demands.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, but your mother sounds like she was a wonderful woman. And, if it doesn’t make me sound too impertinent, what was your father demanding that you do?”

  “Get married.”

  She spat the phrase out as if it was a mouthful of snake venom, and he chuckled a bit at her vehemence, feeling her stiffen a little in his arms. “Well, that’s another new one on me. It’s rare to meet a woman who has absolutely no interest in getting married.”

  Gloria shrugged. “My father wanted to do to me what was done to my mother, what is done to most women, especially those who come from well to do homes, to sell me, essentially, but only, of course, to someone who would add prestige to the family name. And whether or not I liked the man I was supposed to marry was not a point of consideration, as far as he was concerned. So I made myself as unpopular as I could with all of the eligible bachelors in my area—save one—and, in retaliation, he stopped supporting my efforts to educate myself.”

  “Save one?” He didn’t like the surge of jealousy he felt at her mention of another man who had courted her, not that he didn’t try to tamp it down, with little to no success.

  She smiled, really smiled, for the first time since he’d met her, and he loved the way it brightened her face, while, at the same time, he hated that some other man was the cause of it. “Yes, one of my potential suitors kind of rescued me. Well, we rescued each other, I should say. His family wanted him to marry wealthy, my father wanted me to marry well, so we developed a pact between us that kept all of them from nagging us because we were seeing each other and we actually became very good friends.”

  That was not what he wanted to hear.

  “Well, we’re here,” he announced, r
eining in Diablo at the front door, and slipping down out of the saddle to reach up and lift her down before she had a chance to think about an alternative.

  He set her more gently on her feet than she’d thought he might, given his size, his hands lingering a bit, but she didn’t seem to notice. He couldn’t seem to forget the feeling of her womanly curves beneath his hands, but her eyes were on the house.

  “Oh, Mr. McIntyre, this is truly beautiful!”

  Seth could feel a blush creeping into his cheeks at her words, but he did adore this house, where he had such happy memories of growing up. It was a Spanish style villa, with immaculate white stucco walls and bright red tiles on the roof.

  “My father bought it with the money he got from a small strike he found in the mountains around Culpepper Cove. He passed his love of it on to me.”

  Still looking around at it in what seemed to be genuine wonderment, he heard her murmur, “Well, you have done him proud, indeed. It’s stunning. I wish I had seen it before you renovated. I would love to be able to recognize the changes you’ve made.”

  Flushed with pleasure at her compliments, he took her hand. Surprised that she didn’t try to pull away, he led her to the front door, which he opened for her. “Well, it wasn’t that much, but I wanted to modernize it. Originally, the kitchen was outdoors. I prefer to live a bit more convenient life than that. Why, I even have my very own bathing room.”

  Now she was blushing, too. “Oh, um, that sounds convenient, Mr. McIntyre.”

  “Would you like a tour?” he offered, hoping more than he wanted to admit that she’d say yes.

  “Don’t you have work to do?” she asked, cheekily reminding him of why he’d rushed her back here.

  He inclined his head in acknowledgement of her gentle barb, saying with what looked like a small, genuine smile, “There is always work to be done on a ranch. But I would be glad to postpone it for long enough to get you acquainted with your new home.”

  And so he took her through nearly every nook and cranny of the place: the big kitchen, the dining room that opened into the living room, his study, even showing her his big bedroom, which might be considered improprietous, but he was quite proud of how well some of his own innovations had turned out, and he wanted to show her the one he considered to be the most impressive—the large bathtub that took up almost half the floor space in a room that opened directly off his. A pump sat in one corner, a pot-bellied iron stove stood in another with a pail sitting on top. She could see how easy it would be to pump water, heat it and pour it into the tub, all without having to travel through the house time and time again to fill the bathtub.

  “Mijo.”

  Startled, Seth turned around, but as soon as he saw who it was, he walked over to hug the very old woman who had appeared in his room, then turned to introduce them. “Miss Owens, who is the new schoolteacher in Culpepper Cove, I am pleased to introduce my housekeeper and cook, who is so much more than either of those things, Señora Garcia.”

  Gloria crossed to the other woman and offered her hand, which, at first, she thought she might decline entirely, but eventually, she kind of pinched the tips of Gloria’s fingers and shook them up and down once, as if she found the idea of touching her to be distasteful.

  “Mr. McIntyre was just showing me the wonderful improvements he made to the house recently.”

  “Ah, yes, the improvements,” the señora repeated, with the same enthusiasm Gloria had evinced about getting married, turning to head towards the door, leaving no doubt as to what she thought of said improvements.

  Far from being angry at his housekeeper’s impertinence, Seth actually chuckled. “I’m afraid Lola doesn’t have my appreciation for new ways of doing things.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “But she’s got a heart of gold, and she’s an incredible cook. She runs this place singlehandedly. You do not want to get on her bad side.”

  Gloria just nodded, growing distinctly more nervous just standing there in his bedroom, where she definitely shouldn’t be.

  “Well, how about if I show you your room?”

  Although they left a little after she did, they beat Lola, Señora Garcia, back to the kitchen, where Seth strode across the tiled floors to a small, almost hidden door, at the back, throwing it open and motioning for her to enter ahead of him.

  Like her hotel room, it was a far cry from her room at her father’s house, but for a small room, it seemed rather open, because up along the ceiling of the outer wall were three two-foot-long horizontal windows with actual glass in them that let a surprising amount of light in. The walls were bare, but there was a sturdy bed in the near corner, covered with a pretty quilt, and much the same type of sturdy, if not particularly fashionable furniture as was at the hotel.

  “I have a small vanity, if you would like it, left over from my mother,” Seth offered.

  “No, thank you,” Gloria answered. “If you have a small desk, though, that would be nice, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “I’ll take a look in the barn this afternoon.”

  She would have sunk down onto the bed, but not while he was standing there, so she gave him a look that clearly said she expected him to leave.

  But she wasn’t going to get rid of him quite that easily.

  “Before I go back to work, Miss Owens, I intend to settle the matter between us.”

  “What matter?” she asked, avoiding his eyes as she was being deliberately obtuse.

  He’d been leaning against the door jamb, his huge presence filling the entire doorway. He chose that moment to shoulder away from it, taking a step into the room, which instantly made it feel much, much too small for the two of them to occupy at the same time, even though he’d left the door open.

  She was hoping that fact might save her from what was undoubtedly going to be a thoroughly embarrassing exchange.

  But she would be damned if it was going to end in her getting spanked.

  As much as everything in her was telling her to run from him, she didn’t want to turn her back on him to do it—to say nothing of the fact that there was really nowhere for her to go—so she stood where she was, near the bed, perpendicular to him, arms crossed over her chest.

  And he didn’t storm her. He also didn’t rough her up, or even touch her in any way, but one depressingly innocuous one.

  As he stood there, being all intimidating and masculine without really trying, not to mention… big, he reached down and lifted her chin with the pad of his index finger, so that he had her eyes.

  His words were calm and measured, not a trace of anything in them but firm resolve. “I’m not going to play games with you, Miss Owens. Nor am I just going to ignore what you did. I think you already know that what you did was wrong, and, since you’re living under my roof, I believe the responsibility of correcting you when you need it—and you obviously do in this case—falls to me. All I’m going to do is reinforce what you already know, so that the next time you see something like that, you’ll turn away instead of trying to enjoy the show covertly, as you did.”

  Gloria couldn’t help but protest. “I shut my window and pulled my curtains, which is more than you did, Mr. McIntyre, even after you knew that I was there!” she hissed, wishing he’d make more of an effort to keep his voice down. She could already tell that his housekeeper didn’t like her, and she didn’t want anyone else knowing what had transpired between them, however long distance it had been. “If anyone is at fault here, it’s you,” she huffed indignantly.

  Seth took a step closer, and her stubbornness about moving meant that he was almost touching her. He was definitely towering over her, so close that she could smell that potent mixture of horse and leather and cigar smoke and man, the power of which she’d never experienced before in her life. He looked and smelled like she imagined pure sex smelled like. It oozed out of every one of his pores, and its effects on her were devastating, nearly ruining her powers of concentration, sending her pulse racing
and making her entire body flush embarrassingly hot all at once, every time she was within eyesight of him.

  And the indelicate topic of their conversation wasn’t helping her any, either. If she hadn’t locked her knees, she had no doubt she’d be in a heap on the floor by now, and he’d barely touched her.

  When he spoke, he might as well have been whispering the words directly against that nub between her legs that was already throbbing naughtily. “The onus to look away was on you, little miss. And what’s more, I would be willing to bet, Gloria, that—even having finally closed the window and drawn the curtains so properly—you still listened, perhaps from the floor, or from the safety of your bed. But, you listened to the entire spanking I gave that girl, and then to the way I took her afterwards. You heard her cry out in both agony and ecstasy, heard her scream my name and beg me for release, and you probably even heard my growl at the end.”

  Her face was burning up as if with a fever. She couldn’t even bring herself to call him out for using her first name without her permission. How could she, considering what she’d witnessed him doing? Technically, they had already been more intimate than she’d ever been with any man in the world. It would be the height of ridiculousness to cling to such formalities now.

  And the fact that he was right in what he’d surmised about her only made things just that much worse.

  So she simply stood there, worrying her bottom lip.

  “You don’t have to say anything, honey. Your face says it all, and I knew the truth of it before I asked you anyway.”

  With that, he drew a deep breath and leaned away from her, and Gloria wondered if he was preparing to grab her and throw her over his lap for her spanking.

  Instead, he headed towards the door, pausing there to say, “I expect you in my study in ten minutes.” He made as if to leave, then turned back, warning softly but sternly, “Do not make me come get you.”

  And then he closed the door behind him and was gone, and she could breathe again, if raggedly, as she sank down onto the mattress before her legs collapsed out from under her.