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quickly ripped the boards off the wooden base, dismantling the crate. He set the crowbar aside and offered a smile.
    She did not smile back. Instead, she stared at him, lips compressed, pupils enlarged leaving narrow rims of olive green. Or was it light brown? They seemed changeable. "If you're trying to validate a point," she said, her voice irritated, "you have only proved that I am not very good with a crowbar. But since I'm not in the crating and shipping business, that's of no importance." She gathered the slats of wood scattered about the floor and started stacking them by the pot-bellied stove, which was positioned against one wall.
    Adam tipped the old Stanhope press first to one side, then the other, while retrieving the wood slats trapped beneath its four paw-like feet. Seeing the outdated thing, with its hand cranks and levers, he had to stifle a laugh. At best, she'd be able to pull two-hundred sheets an hour, one side at a time, and the sheets would have to be run through a second time in order to print the reverse side. If she and her pressman worked around the clock, seven days a week, they'd never be able to keep up with their competitors. But he admired her grit and determination, even though her newspaper was bound to fail. "The press looks like it's been well cared for," he volunteered, a gesture intended to underscore good will.
    "My father was meticulous about his printing equipment," she replied. "After he died, my pressman, my mother, and I carried on as he would have wanted us to."
      "You must not have had many subscribers then," he said. "You could not have pulled many copies a day."
    "We were in the process of building up our numbers when my mother passed away from pneumonia," she said. "But since our newspaper was a weekly publication, as will be The Town Tattler , there was no pressure to get it out every day."
    "So, it will be a weekly," Adam mused. How much trouble could that cause? Not much, he surmised. Satisfied that this homely snip of a woman with her outdated equipment posed no threat to the cattle industry, he said, magnanimously, "Tell me where you want the press and I'll move it in place."
    Her lips parted as if to protest, then she blinked several times, and said, "If you could move it a little to the left and square it with the wall, that would be appreciated."
    Adam promptly complied. "Is there anything else I can do while I'm here?" He turned and found her standing just behind him. As he waited for her response, he noted a confusion of cobwebs in her hair. Reaching into the tangle of tresses, he said, while taking in the scent of lilac wafting from her, "You have collected yet more cobwebs in your curly red hair. The last time I was here, I was certain you had already gathered the bulk of them."
    Her hand came up, trapping his hand beneath hers. Eyes wide, nostrils flaring with her quickened breaths, she removed her hand at once and pressed it to her chest, seeming to be struggling for air. Fearing she might swoon, Adam took her by the arms and said, "Are you all right? You look a bit winded. Perhaps you've been trying to do too much too soon." Her arms were well-muscled, he noted—a woman without a man to do her heavy work. Which explained why she looked so fit for a woman approaching middle age. That thought had the odd effect of making his trousers grow tighter. What in hell was coming over him with this woman, responding like a pubescent boy, aroused by the sight of a trim ankle or the pointy tips of budding breasts pressing against a dress.
    "Yes, I suppose you're right," she said. "With my pressman laid up, I've been entirely on my own to put things in order." She lowered her hand from her chest, drawing his attention to the rise and fall of her bosom and the way the front of her dress stretched with each breath. His trousers became tighter. He looked up to find her staring at that part of him, eyes wide. After a series of nervous, blinks, she said in a voice, edged with