Pamela Morsi Read Free Page A

to do with Miss Gussie’s marriage plan, but he went along with it.
    “We wouldn’t want to do it?” she asked. “You are sure of that?”
    “Yes, of course I’m sure,” he said. “It would cost us more for no further profit. We wouldn’t do it.”
    “We wouldn’t want to. But something could motivate us to do it anyway.”
    “Like what?”
    “Purdy Ice Company,” she answered.
    Cottonwood’s other ice company had never been a very strong competitor. Matt Purdy’s operation was quite small, more like a sideline for his farming business. They delivered ice to about half the houses on the far north side of town and a couple of small businesses. Beyond that, they offered no real threat to T.P. Mudd Manufactured Ice.
    “I’m not sure I understand you,” Rome said.
    “If Purdy Ice began delivering smaller blocks twice a week, we would be forced to do the same.”
    Rome nodded. “Yes, I suppose you are right about that.”
    “We would be forced to change, pushed out of our profits and complacency, compelled to provide more service for the same money,” she said.
    “Yes, I suppose that’s right.”
    “That’s exactly what we’re going to do to Amos Dewey,” she declared.
    Rome was listening, but still skeptical.
    “You are going to pretend to be in love with me,” she said, as if that were going to be the simplest thing in the world. “You will escort me about town. Sit evenings on this porch with me. Accompany me to civic events.”
    That seemed not too difficult, Rome thought. He did not normally attend a lot of public functions, but, of course, he could.
    “I don’t see how that will change Dewey’s mind,” he told her honestly.
    “You will also let it be known that you are madly in love with me,” she said. “And that you are determined to get me to the altar as soon as possible.”
    Rome got a real queasy feeling in his stomach.
    “Amos Dewey will no longer have a monopoly.
You
will be the competition that will force him to providethe service he is not so willing to provide, marrying me.”
    Gussie raised her hands in a gesture that said that the outcome was virtually assured. Rome had his doubts.
    “I’m not sure this will work, Miss Gussie,” he told her. “Men … men don’t always behave like businesses. They are not all that susceptible to the law of supply and demand.”
    “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course they are.”
    He shook his head.
    “I’m not sure I’m the right man to be doing this. Perhaps you should think of someone who would seem more … well, more suited to the task.”
    Her response was crisp and cool.
    “And should I think of some other man to offer the partnership in my company?”
    His mind full and his jaw tight, Rome’s thoughts were in an uproar. Miss Gussie always seemed to know what she wanted. And she always went after it with a focused determination. He admired that. But it sometimes made her a very difficult employer. It would make her even more worrisome as a feigned romantic interest.
    What on earth made that woman think such a scheme would ever work? And why did he have to be the one involved in it with her?
    Because she’s the boss, he reminded himself. He worked for her and that was the way life was. A man was always subservient to his boss. Whether it be male or female, young or old, kind or disagreeable, one had to follow his lead. Unless a man was his own boss.
    That was his dream. To own his own business, to do things as he thought best, and have his fortune rise or fall based upon his own work, rather than upon thewhims of someone else. That’s what he wanted. It was his ambition and his hope for the future.
    And now Gussie Mudd was handing him that on a silver platter. He could be a partner. Truly a partner. He ran the ice plant now. But as a partner, he would be as much an owner as she.
    The offer was tempting, so tempting, too tempting.
    “What all would I have to do?” he asked. “How long would it have to