"Oh, for God's sake, stop it," Bailey muttered. "I will not become another campaign bone for you two to fight over."
"I'm just watching out for your best interests, honey," Hank said. "It's true your daddy and I weren't on good terms when he died, but I don't hold our differences against you. We Rotterdams think of you like family, and we don't like to see you struggling all alone to fend for yourself.
"Tell you what, sugar. Why don't you let me send my boys on over to your spread to help you take care of business, patch up your fences, and see your wells stay safe?"
"Safe for whom, Hank?" Zack demanded irritably. He didn't know why it should bother him so much to hear Hank speak of Bailey and family in the same breath. After all, Bailey and Nick's affair was common knowledge.
Bailey smiled mirthlessly at Hank. "Much obliged for all your neighborly concern. I know how much my eight thousand acres mean to you, Hank. Rest assured that drought or no drought, I'll manage them—and all their water—efficiently. Because, you see, that's what a good boss does. And I am a good boss. No one's going to bully me off my land."
She nodded curtly, then turned on her heel, whistled for her dog, and mounted up.
Hank grinned, admiration in his gaze as he watched the gentle rolling of her hips when she rode away. "It'd be hard to measure the spunk in that little bitty filly," he said almost wistfully. "She's gonna make me a heap of fine grandbabies someday, eh, Zack?"
Their eyes locked, and Zack stiffened. There was an unmistakable warning in that cagey blue gaze.
Hank smiled, tipping his hat. "Be sure to give my regards to Miss Amaryllis for me, would you, son?"
Chapter 3
Thanks to her search for a lost lamb, Bailey arrived later than she had intended at the rodeo meeting the next night. She was still smarting over the way the Woolgrowers had tried to exclude her from the proceedings, and she wasn't particularly pleased that she'd had to compromise with her foreman about her plan. When she'd confided her battle strategy to get on the team, Mac had insisted he accompany her to help keep her temper in check.
"Lass," he'd said in his quiet way, "I dinna like what they've done to ye any more than ye do. But there might be a reasonable explanation. And like it or not, ye're going to need a friendly face in that meeting if this plan of yers backfires."
Well, her plan wasn't going to backfire. She'd tear the hotel down timber by timber before she left the building without her rightful berth on the sheepherders' team.
She supposed she shouldn't resent Mac for coming along. It wasn't his fault she was a woman and that men took her seriously only if she had a man at her side. She should probably be grateful for his offer of support, since she knew she could trust him never to contradict her in public or try to take matters out of her hands. Mac, bless his heart, understood how much his interference would cost her in the eyes of other men.
She just wished he would hurry up and stable the horses.
Loath to spoil her grand entrance, Bailey ducked out of sight of the arriving Woolgrowers and camouflaged herself behind a potted prickly pear cactus near the registration counter. Unfortunately, the position left her no recourse but to glare at the vision of peach-chiffon loveliness that was greeting the male committee members at the meeting room door.
Amaryllis Larabee had absolutely no business being here tonight—no ranching business anyway. Since any meeting these days between the sheep and cattle factions was a potential powder keg, Bailey could understand why Amaryllis's father, County Judge Larabee, had decided to make an appearance. Larabee wasn't just representing the law, he was protecting the hotel, which he owned along with every other business on the south end of town. But why on God's green earth had he brought Amaryllis?
That question pretty much answered itself a few minutes later, when the street door swung open to reveal a trio of rugged, sun-darkened cattlemen. Zack was escorted by Cord, Wes, and a Winchester rifle, its brass receiver flashing in the lamplight above his black-gloved fist. Rough-shaven and wind-groomed, he stole Bailey's breath away as he strode across the hotel lobby, his spurs chinking and his buckle winking low over his narrow hips.
Bailey wasn't the only one to take notice of the Cattlemen's president. Amaryllis's china-blue eyes practically ate Zack alive. The hands and mouth of Bandera's reigning belle would have gladly done the same, Bailey felt certain, if convention and Judge Larabee had allowed.
Frowning, Bailey studied the way her nineteen-year-old rival fluttered her lashes and pouted her perfectly painted lips. Such behavior had always mystified Bailey. It seemed... well, unnatural somehow, yet all the unmarried girls seemed to do it, especially when they were talking to bachelors. Bailey wasn't completely immune to the loneliness her way of life had forced upon her, and she wondered if things had been different, if she had learned more about she-stuff than sheep, would Zack have noticed her the way he noticed Amaryllis?
Just then Amaryllis loosed one of her girlish giggles. Bailey cringed. The struggling female side of her, the side that wasn't quite sure how to express itself, balked at the idea of fawning over a man like Amaryllis did. Even so, Bailey was secretly wounded to know that Zack preferred a sweetheart who was all fluff and no substance. If she were a man looking for a wife, she told herself staunchly, sawdust-for-brains was the last thing she'd settle for.
She gazed wistfully after the Rawlins brothers as they passed her hiding place. Halting first before Judge Larabee to surrender his firearm, Cord Rawlins doffed his hat with his usual economical politeness and nodded to the preening Miss Larabee. A smirk peeked out from under Wes's auburn mustache, and he followed Cord's example. Then he furtively nudged Zack. Bailey wasn't sure who scowled more at this brotherly ribbing, her or Zack, before the two married Rawlinses strolled into the meeting room.
Zack never got the chance to stroll anywhere. Her ambush unfolding to plan, Amaryllis latched on to his arm like a cockleburr that couldn't be shaken off.
Not that Zack was shaking too hard, Bailey observed irritably. If he let that girl get any closer, she'd have to be pried from his hip with a crowbar. No wonder the biddies at Arbuckle's General Store were tittering that the county's most eligible bachelor would be hitched by year's end. Cord or Wes needed to sit Zack down and talk some sense into him.
Either that, or dump a wagonload of ice down his britches.
"Oh, Zack," Amaryllis cooed, "I was so worried when Daddy told me you'd be in the thick of things tonight if that wretched McShane spinster comes around, spouting off about her nasty, smelly sheep. She just loves to cause trouble, you know. I guess she can't help herself since she doesn't have a marriage-minded beau to pay attention to her, and probably never will."
Well, that was the final straw.
Bailey marched forward to surrender her own firearm to the judge. When she drew her .45, she had the satisfaction of watching Amaryllis's eyes grow rounder than terrapin shells.
"Evening, folks." Snapping open the cylinder of her Colt, Bailey dumped out the bullets, pocketed her cartridges, and smiled deliberately as she spun the wheel. It made a well-oiled clicking noise that she knew from experience would put prissy Amaryllis on edge. "Nice night for a bushwhacking, eh, Miss Larabee?"
The belle's knuckles whitened on Zack's sleeve. "I'm sure I haven't the vaguest idea what you're talking about, Miss McShane." She tossed her copper-colored ringlets over one shoulder.
"Then you just think on it a spell, miss. I'm sure that pretty head of yours is good for something more than looks."
While Amaryllis sputtered, trying to decide whether or not she'd been insulted, Bailey handed her gun butt-first to the judge. He was frowning at her, much as Zack was. Larabee's fatherly disapproval she could understand, but not Zack's. Damn him anyway. If a conceited little twit was the kind of female he favored, he was welcome to her.
"Miss McShane." Larabee glared down his long, aquiline nose at her. "I'll have no trouble from you or anyone else at this meeting tonight. Do I make myself clear?"
> "Like a bell, sir. Nice of you to show up to see we sheepherders get a fair shake. Must be nearly election time again." With a thin-lipped smile, she tipped her hat and stalked into the meeting room.
Zack gazed after his neighbor with a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
Bailey the Pistol had arrived.
If truth be told, Zack had been looking forward to seeing her. He supposed a lot of the reason had to do with Hank. Zack's ornery side just couldn't stand to be told whose skirts he could chase.
"Oh!" Amaryllis stomped her foot, which set her dainty curls to bobbing. "I declare, that McShane woman is beyond bearing! However do you manage to put up with her as a neighbor, Zack? It must be dreadful for you."
For some reason, Amaryllis's acrimony rankled more than usual this night. Her eyes were as blue and transparent as Bailey's; Zack had little trouble seeing the spite that always seemed to lurk there. The more he saw it, the less he liked it, and the less he liked Amaryllis.
Aligning himself with the Larabee clan had once seemed politically advantageous. Since Amaryllis did all the jawing, she was about the easiest filly Zack had ever courted, but God help him. When he spent more than an hour with the girl, his brain began to buzz as if a hornet had flown inside his head, and he started longing for the relative peace of a saloon.
"I hardly ever cross paths with Miss McShane," he said brusquely.
"That must certainly come as a relief." Amaryllis flashed a sugary smile at Nick, who grinned as he strolled past her, then returned her attention to Zack. "I heard all about the disturbance Miss McShane caused last weekend at the Bullwhip Saloon. And I heard how she chased Nick Rotterdam up the stairs into a soiled dove's cote! Not that I'm surprised. You know what they say. Birds of a feather..."
Her smile turned catty, and Zack had trouble masking his distaste.
"Your father's the only one in this county fit to judge somebody, Amaryllis." He detached her hand from his sleeve. "The rest of us don't have any such license."
He nodded to her, then entered the meeting room and took a seat at the center of the Cattlemen's board table. The Woolgrowers' board sat at a table immediately adjacent.
After Zack called the meeting to order, a spirited discussion ensued. Zack said little, and Bailey, observing him furtively throughout the debate, searched for some sign of accord beneath his perpetual frown. She wondered how much his irritation had to do with the discussion, and how much it had to do with Nick, who stood at the back of the room whispering to a giggling Amaryllis. After ten minutes of this distraction, Judge Larabee ordered his pouting daughter outside, and Nick flounced down in the vacant chair in front of Mac, who was seated at her side.
The officers of the Woolgrowers' Association were in favor of individualized events such as target shooting, since sheepmen were accustomed to working alone. Hank and his cronies, of course, wanted team events, such as branding. Soon it became clear that more than professional pride was at stake: Most sheepmen were older and physically softer, but were much better read than the average cowhand, who was likely to be a twentyish stud with a high enthusiasm for action and a mighty contempt for books.
Bailey suggested a team event in well drilling, a personal interest of hers. Her idea was greeted by groans from the cattlemen.
"Aw, hell, this rodeo's supposed to be fun, not work," Nick said, standing and ignoring Zack's gavel. "I cast my vote for team whoring. 'Course..." He turned to taunt Bailey, much to the delight of the snickering cattlemen. "I reckon that would keep you out of the contest, sugar, unless you got something you want to stake."
Mac roughly kicked the young upstart's chair into the back of his knees. Nick floundered onto his seat, and Zack shot him a look that would have iced Satan's furnace.
"Another outburst like that, Rotterdam," he said, "and you'll be riding my boot home. Now, shut up and stay seated. And if anyone else has something to say to Miss McShane, it had better be courteous, or you forfeit your ranch's right to compete. Do I make myself clear?"
The cowboys fidgeted, murmuring agreements, and Nick hung his head. "Sorry, Bailey."
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak. Glancing at Zack, she hoped to convey her gratitude, but his attention had already been claimed by the next speaker. She got nothing more than a fleeting peek at his handsome, square-jawed profile.
After three hours of haggling, an agreement was finally reached. The committees agreed to stage one two-man competition, fence stringing. The rest of the events would be individual competitions: bronc busting, target shooting, and pig herding. Sheep and cattle herding, of course, were out of the question.
No one seemed able to suggest a tie-breaking event to satisfy both sides. Sheepmen claimed log splitting favored the able-bodied cowboy. Cattlemen refused to participate in a horse race, since the Woolgrowers' president, Will Eldridge, had just about recouped his drought losses by taking odds on Sure Bet, his mustang stallion.
Looking short on patience, Zack finally stood up and waved the bickering men into silence.
"I say we make the final event a team event, something we all have a vested interest in."
"Yeah?" Seated in the front row with Nat, Hank snorted to convey his opinion of such a pipe dream. "And what might that be?"
"A hunt." Zack's dark gaze nailed every one of the ranchers to his chair. "To bag One Toe."
Bailey caught her breath at such an inspired idea, and her heart quickened when she saw reluctant approval dawn on the craggy faces around the board tables.
"How would a hunt work?" Nat asked. "What if somebody bags One Toe before we do?"
"The chances of that are slim, since Texas's best bounty hunters have given up," Zack said. "One Toe's luck will probably hold out long after Independence Day if we ranchers don't work together and take up the chase.
"Since the rodeo's still two weeks away," he continued briskly, "I recommend we start the hunt immediately. Whether it takes hours or weeks to bag that cougar, neither team will be declared the winner until One Toe's pelt is finally produced."
"Not so fast, Rawlins," Hank interjected. "Red Calloway's still on his cattle drive. We're going to want him on our team, seeing as how target shooting's part of these games. Outside of your brothers, Red's the best marksman we've got."
"Yeah," the cowboys chimed in from the right side of the room.
"No one bags One Toe till Red gets back," Hank said. He leveled a baleful look at the sheepherders' side of the room.
"Now, hold on a damned minute." Will Eldridge rose, his short, wiry frame tensing as he confronted Hank. "I'm not sitting on my rear end for two weeks, letting that cougar raid my stock. If he comes to my range, I'm bagging his hide."
Bailey raised her hand, trying to get Zack's attention.
"Then you forfeit the rodeo, Mr. Eldridge," Hank said.
"You aren't in any position to make the rules here, Mr. Rotterdam," Eldridge fired back.
Bailey gave up and simply stood. "For crying out loud, everyone wants that cougar dead. What difference does it make if he's bagged now or two weeks from now? I'll throw in five hundred dollars cash to the man—or woman—who brings me One Toe's pelt. I rather fancy tacking him up beside the female puma hanging over my mantel."
That proposition knocked the wind out of every rancher's sails. She could feel the stunned stares from thirty men drilling into her.
"Five hundred dollars?" Rob Cole repeated in disbelief. He glanced at Mac, as if looking for confirmation. When the Scot made no visible response, the Woolgrowers' vice president raised his troubled gaze to Bailey's. "Why would you want to do that? Your daddy bought his first flock for less than five hundred dollars."
Bailey put on her best business face, but inside, her heart was racing faster than Eldridge's mustang. This is it. The chance I've been waiting for.
"One Toe's been preying on my sheep. He took down a stud ram a couple of weeks ago. I have a stake in that cat's hide just like the rest of you, and I mean to see he's wiped out for good
. There's just one condition," she added with masterful aplomb.
Eldridge muttered something about "trouble" and "women."
"Yeah?" Rob demanded suspiciously. "And what condition might that be?"
"I compete on the sheepherder's team."
The Cattlemen's side of the room instantly dissolved into laughter, but Bailey stood her ground. She was counting on pure old-fashioned greed to get the sheepherders to see her way. If they didn't, then she figured the cattlemen would pressure them into it. Even Mac had thought her plan would work, although he hadn't been encouraging. He thought pride was a poor reason to spend five hundred dollars.
"You're out of order, woman," Eldridge barked at her. "Sit down."
"Hey, old man!" Nick started to rise. "You can't talk to her like that!"
Good old Ick, Bailey thought. No one was allowed to mistreat her except him.
Zack, meanwhile, was hammering the table with his gavel. "All right, all right, simmer down, Rotterdam. Miss McShane, you do not have the floor."
"I'd say she just bought the floor, son," Hank drawled, turning to give her a wink. "But seeing as how President Eldridge doesn't want to give the little gal a voice in this discussion, I'd like to know where she plans on getting that five hundred dollars. It seems to me she can't have it handy, since she was complaining to me and my boys only the other night that some lowdown wire cutters cost her that much."
She raised her chin, finding herself in the awkward—not to mention vexing—position of needing Hank's support. She knew Hank would throw his considerable weight behind her only if he saw some personal advantage in it.
"I'm sure my mohair crop will yield at least twice that amount, Hank. But in the less than likely event mohair prices bottom out between now and the fall shearing, I'm sure I can think of a dozen or more ways to raise five hundred dollars." She paused before casually throwing out the bone. "Like leasing my eastern pasture to some drought-stricken cattleman."
Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] Page 5