His gaze snagged Mariahs, held it. Her breath caught. She blinked at him. Up close, he had a face that was full of laughter and warmth. The kind of face that drew a woman in, the kind of eyes that quietly lured confidences. The kind of eyes shed fallen for once before.
She jerked backward, stumbling in her haste to be away from him. "Dont ever touch me again. "
"Then keep your distance. When a woman throws herself at me, I tend to catch. "
Heat crawled up Mariahs throat. "I did not throw myself at you. "
"All right, hurl. "
Mariah felt her self-control start to slip. A tiny, niggling thread of fear uncoiled in her stomach. She was reacting to Mr. Stone in entirely the wrong way. She wanted to ignore him, not banter with him.
She bit down on her lower lip and turned away, focusing instead on the green orbs that dotted the brown grass at her feet. Then, when she felt stronger, she bent down and picked up one of the walnuts from the ground. Slowly, breathing steadily, she turned around. "These are walnuts. "
"Now, aint that fascinatin. "
She ignored him. "I want you to shake the branches and dislodge as many of the nuts as you can. Then you crack the soft husk, extract the nuts, and put them in that basket. "
He shrugged. "Sounds easy enough. "
"For a man as . . . handy as you, no doubt it will be. "
With a curt nod in his direction, she plucked up her skirts and headed for the house.
At every step, she resisted the urge to turn back around and see how he was doing.
There, she thought, crack walnuts for ten hours and tell me youll be here in the morning.
"Sleep well, Mr. Stone?"
The sharp-edged words pierced the comforting darkness of his sleep.
Mad Dog winced. Shit.
He cracked one eyelid open. Old button-up brown eyes peered down at him. And she did not look pleased. But then, he wasnt entirely convinced it was possible for her.
"Hey, Miz Throckmorton. " He straightened, came more fully awake.
She went to the basket in a swish of drab skirting and plucked up a handful of shelled walnuts. Then she turned to him, a look of incredulous disapproval stamped on her pale face. "You call these shelled?"
He shrugged. "I dont call em squat. "
She thrust her hand toward him. A lone walnut sat huddled on her flat palm, its brown meat flecked with remnants of green shell. "Theres green on this nut. "
He looked up, met her gaze. "What am I supposed to do—suck it off?"
She bristled and snapped her palm shut. "Dont use that kind of language around me. "
He laughed. "I said suck, not fu—"
"Mister Stone!"
He couldnt help laughing. "I did the best I could. I didnt fall asleep for hours. " He held up his bruised, stained hands. "And I got the injuries to prove it. "
Her gaze flicked uncaringly across his hand, then returned to his face. "I suppose that means youll be leaving-----"
His lips twitched. Suddenly he understood this afternoon. Old button-up had done this to him on purpose. Shed known cracking walnuts was hard work, and somehow shed surmised that he wasnt a man who liked hard work.
He should have been angry, but instead he felt a grudging respect for her. It was a damn good idea, and it had worked like a charm. After today, he couldnt wait to take a few bucks from the professor and get the hell out of here.