Lone Calder Star (Calder Saga 9)

“Cash or charge?” Dallas asked him.

“Put it on the Cee Bar account,” Quint told her.

Her head snapped up, her look one of disbelief. Before she could say a word, the big man snapped gruffly, “The Cee Bar doesn’t have an account here.”

“Since when?” Quint asked in cool challenge.

The big man hitched his pants higher around his fat belly and swaggered over to the counter, his bulk forcing Dallas to the side. “Since it got closed,” the man replied, matching Quint’s tone.

Quint didn’t hesitate. “In that case, I’ll pay cash.” He pulled a wallet from of his hip pocket. “You do take cash, don’t you?”

Clearly annoyed, the man shifted his glare to Dallas. “What’s he wanting?”

She seemed to deliberately avoid any eye contact with Quint as she read off his request.

When she finished the man grunted and turned his narrowed eyes on Quint. “There’s nobody here to load it for you. Come back in an hour or so, and we’ll see if we can’t get you fixed up.”

“No problem. I’ll load it myself.” Retaining an outward calm, Quint flipped open his wallet and said to Dallas, “How much do I owe you?”

For a long tick of seconds, his question was met with a heavy silence. Never once did Quint acknowledge the hard stare the man directed at him. Instead he kept his attention centered on the sheaf of bills in his wallet.

Finally the man swung a cold look at Dallas and snapped, “Take his money an’ show him

where it’s at.” Off he stalked to the desk area.

Her face was an expressionless mask as she punched the sale into the computerized register, took his money, and handed him back the correct change and a printed receipt. Not once during the entire transaction did she meet his steady gaze.

“This way.” Dallas seemed to push the two words through clenched teeth as she pivoted sharply toward the warehouse door.

She crossed the intervening space with quick, stiff strides. Quint followed at a seemingly leisurely pace, conscious of the anger that emanated from her in waves.

“Corn there. Oats here.” She pointed to two separate rows of fifty-pound bags stacked on wooden pallets.

“Thanks.” He continued past her, dragged the first sack partway off the stack, and hoisted it onto one shoulder. As he turned to carry it out to the car, he saw Dallas manhandling a fifty-pound sack of vitamin and mineral pack onto her shoulder. “I can get that,” he said.

“So can I,” she retorted.

Quint smiled crookedly. “You sound like my aunt,” he said, knowing it was exactly the sort of thing Jessy would say.

“I hope she’s brighter than you are,” Dallas stated, without so much as a glance in his direction as she headed for the wide door that led outside.

But only a deaf person would have missed the caustic sarcasm in her voice. And Quint was far from deaf. He stiffened with a sudden surge of anger and followed her out of the warehouse all the way to his car. He held his tongue long enough to pop the trunk open and dump the sack of corn into it.

“Would you care to repeat that?” he challenged cooly as he hauled the bag off her shoulder and tossed it on top of the other.

She squared around to face him, her glance raking him with a look of disgust mixed with contempt. “You are an utter fool,” she declared. “John Earl warned you about going to work at the Cee Bar, but you were too stupid to listen. Obviously you don’t have the brains God gave a goose.”

A fury, hotter than anything Quint had ever known, swept through him. Before he had a chance to unleash any of it, she spun away and struck out for the warehouse, shoulders straight and head high. Quint was slow to follow as he struggled to rein in his temper, unable to recall a time when he had come this close to losing it—simply because some woman with light brown eyes thought he was a fool.

Mouth firmly shut, he went back inside the warehouse and met her on her way out, toting another bag of the vitamin and mineral pack. “I’ll take that.” Giving Dallas no chance to object, he relieved her of the sack and shifted it onto his shoulder.

Strong fingers gripped his arm, checking his swing away from her. She threw a quick, wary look in the direction of the feed store, then said in a low voice that wouldn’t carry, “Get smart. Dump this grain off at the ranch, then climb back in your car and get the hell out of there.”

“Not a chance.”

She stepped back, something resembling sadness in the look she gave him. “Like I said, you’re a fool.”

“Everybody’s entitled to an opinion,” Quint stated and walked out of the warehouse.