Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03]

by Texas Wildcat

  When that revelation struck, he groaned, digging his fingers into his hair.

  "She was an innocent," he blurted out, starting to pace again.

  "What?" Fancy's eyes grew rounder than full moons. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  "Do you mean to tell me she let you bed her without one single protest about her reputation?" Fancy's brow furrowed. "I'm no expert, but I wouldn't say that sounds like virginal behavior."

  "Well, maybe she didn't know any better," Zack said, then grimaced. He didn't know why he felt the need to defend Bailey after she'd clawed off his shirt and jeans like a wildcat in heat. Of course she'd known better, dammit. Nick Rotterdam had already harmed her reputation, so she'd probably figured she had nothing to lose by throwing away her virginity. She'd gone after exactly what she'd wanted: sex, not him.

  For some reason, that was the hardest pill to swallow in the remedy she'd forced him to take.

  "So now what?" Fancy asked quietly.

  He shrugged in exasperation. "Who knows? I proposed, of course, but she turned me down flat. Absolutely refused to let me take her to a preacher." Despite his best efforts, he couldn't keep the hurt from his voice. "Why do you think she'd do that, Fancy? I mean, I offered to make her respectable. Isn't that what women want?"

  Her gaze was sympathetic. "Most women," she said. "But Bailey's not like most women, as far as I can tell."

  "That's for damned sure," he muttered. "She told me in no uncertain terms: 'If I'm pregnant, I'll take care of it.' "

  Fancy caught her breath, and he spun to face her.

  "What?" he demanded, unsettled to see her face grow so pale. He hadn't seen Fancy looking this anxious since last year, when she'd received Rorie's letter announcing Wes was in dire danger and begging Cord to ride to Elodea to save Wes's ornery hide. "What are you thinking?"

  She plucked nervously at her calico skirt. "What else did she say? Anything?"

  "Well..." He frowned, trying to remember more of the words that had fueled his rage and confusion. "She said she wouldn't know if there was a child for at least three weeks. If there was one, she assured me I wouldn't be troubled by it. Can you believe that? Can you believe she's so stubborn, she would rather raise a baby on her own than hitch herself to me?"

  Fancy bit her lip.

  "There is one other possibility," she ventured to add, her gaze avoiding his. "She, er, may not be planning on raising any baby by herself."

  Zack's jaw hardened. "You mean you think she'll put the baby in an orphanage?" The very idea made his bile rise. "Or marry someone else, like McTavish?" His eyes narrowed to slits.

  "Er... maybe." Fancy cleared her throat. "Actually, I was thinking along the lines of a more permanent solution. Like... mistletoe tea. Or a drink made from the cotton plant."

  A full second passed before the awful meaning of her words registered on Zack's brain. He choked, his heart slamming so hard into his ribs that for a moment he felt winded.

  "No! She wouldn't. I mean, she couldn't! Not to our baby..."

  But he remembered the dread on Bailey's face when Wes had offered to let her hold his child. He remembered how she'd backed away, as if the baby had cholera, and how she'd awkwardly blustered to divert Wes's and Rorie's surprise by claiming she knew nothing about bairns, just lambs and kids.

  Dear God, was it true? Did Bailey hate children that much? No wonder she wasn't yet married...

  A floorboard creaked, and Zack whirled to find his two brothers climbing the final attic stair.

  "Couldn't help but overhear," Cord said tersely, stepping through the doorway. "What's this about a baby?"

  Six inches taller than the Rawlins patriarch, Wes halted behind Cord as if to bar Zack's escape, his arms crossed and his features more somber than Zack could ever remember seeing them.

  "Cord," Fancy interceded quickly, "were you looking for me?"

  "No, darlin'." His pine-needle-green stare softened when it flickered to his wife. "Wes and I got to thinking something must be wrong, the way Zack blew in here like a black blizzard."

  Zack stiffened, feeling as if the world were crashing down around him. He was having a hard enough time holding up his head under the onslaught, and the last thing he needed was a browbeating from his brothers.

  Fancy rose to stand beside him, her dark head not quite reaching his shoulder. "There's no baby yet," she firmly told her husband. "Zack's worried because Bailey won't marry him, and he's leaping to the worst possible conclusion."

  Cord swore softly.

  Wes frowned, his emerald gaze more sympathetic than Cord's. "What the hell do you mean, she won't marry you? I never figured that woman to be dim-witted."

  Zack wished he could acknowledge his kid brother's loyalty, but he felt too sick inside.

  "She said I don't love her," he answered thickly.

  "Is that true, son?"

  Cord's tone was more gentle now that his worst fears had been alleviated, but Zack still couldn't meet the eyes of the brother who had been like a father to him.

  Reflecting on Cord's question, he fidgeted, remembering how he'd nearly broken his back to bury Boo because he thought it would save Bailey some suffering. He remembered how his world had gone cold and black when he thought she'd broken her neck in the stream. He remembered holding her, loving her, drowning in the indigo depths of her eyes.

  But he remembered, too, how she twisted everything he did and said; how they couldn't seem to spend ten minutes together without fighting like cats and dogs. Worst of all, he remembered how she'd used him and sent him away, offering him breakfast like a whore's payment.

  He swallowed hard.

  "It's true," he answered harshly. "I don't love her."

  Wes and Cord exchanged uneasy looks.

  "Well, maybe it's for the best, then," Wes said uncertainly. "Her not marrying you, I mean."

  Cord nodded slowly, as if he weren't quite sure of his own feelings on the subject. "You did the right thing by her. If she won't marry you, there's nothing you can do about it. I'd hate to see you get hitched to a woman you resented, since marriage is a lifelong deal. As for the baby, I reckon we'll just have to wait and see, and pray for the best if there is one."

  If there is one. Zack flinched. Losing his election suddenly didn't seem important when compared with losing his flesh-and-blood child.

  Turning away from Fancy, he picked up his boots and hastened to finish dressing.

  "I reckon we'll see you at lunch, eh, Zack?" Cord said, making a concerted effort to lighten his tone. He extended his arm to his wife. "I left the baby in Merrilee's care, 'cause I figured Megan would try to dress her little sister up like a doll."

  Fancy chuckled, joining her husband. "Well, I suppose that's better than the boys trying to tie her up to play cowboys and Indians."

  Wes stepped aside, letting the couple move past him and descend the stairs.

  "Zack?"

  "Yeah."

  Zack was busy with his belt and his thoughts as Wes lingered on the doorstep.

  "I just want you to know, whatever you decide, I'll stand behind you."

  Zack glanced up sharply, meeting his kid brother's worried gaze. Wes had always been partial to ladies and their defense. It was kind of nice, knowing Wes was on his side for a change.

  Zack smiled mirthlessly. "Thanks."

  Wes nodded a terse goodbye and followed his eldest brother down the stairs.

  Zack hardened his jaw. Throwing back the lid of his trunk, he dug out a tattered old Bible. It was the only memento he had left of his mama, who had been murdered, along with his pa, during a stagecoach robbery when Zack had been four years old.

  He tucked the good book under his arm and strode purposefully down the stairs.

  Come hell or high water, Bailey McShane was not going to harm his baby.

  Chapter 11

  Thank God a rancher always had a new set of problems to worry about.

  That's what Bailey told herself early that afternoon, wh
en the Coles' cougar-hunting party discovered one of her line shacks had been torched and more of her fences had been vandalized sometime before or during the storm.

  Snorting, Sassy stomped beneath her, and Bailey winced, forcing a brittle smile as she remembered the wild ride she and Zack had had the night before. The palomino was impatient for a run, but Bailey kept a tight rein, her thighs too tender for a gallop.

  Of course, she would rather have cut out her tongue and fed it to One Toe himself than admit such a thing to the five sheepherders who had accompanied her to the site of the sabotage. Now the men were hotly debating whether to delay their hunt long enough to track down the cowpoking bastards who'd all but declared war.

  Personally, Bailey wanted to hunt cougar. Seething over Zack, infuriated by the trespassers, she would have much preferred to bag cowpokes, but she figured shooting cattlemen was a hanging offense, even if they did deserve to have their hides scraped and tanned.

  Besides, she'd just spent the better part of an hour pleading, ranting, and finally insulting Mac to keep him and his shotgun off the Rawlins property. She couldn't very well seek vengeance when she had an example to set for her hired hands, now, could she?

  With only half an ear, she listened as Rob Cole convinced the others to spend a half hour mending the wire with the tools that he and every other sheepman had learned through years of harsh experience to pack in satchels or saddlebags. Campaigning must have come naturally to Rob, she mused. Even though his vice presidency in the Woolgrowers' Association was assured for another year, he was stumping with zeal, insisting that sheepmen stick together, since no lawman in the county gave a damn about their troubles.

  Well, Bailey couldn't argue that. The only problem was, she wasn't particularly fond of a certain sheepman right now, and the last thing she wanted was his company.

  Dear old Mac. No doubt he'd intended to preach at her some more, because he'd brusquely declined the Coles' invitation to track down One Toe after their hunting party had called at the house. She really hated it when he got on his high horse.

  Unfortunately, he'd weathered last night's storm at the Vasquez cottage, which meant he'd returned to the big house in time to watch Zack gallop off in his black rage. Mac had rushed upstairs, seen her tear-streaked face, and exploded into an imitation of her father. She'd had to volunteer for the hunt, sore thighs and all, just to escape another hour or so of lecture.

  "There's no excusing yer behavior this time," he'd snapped in a rare fit of Scottish temper. "Throwing yerself at Nick was bad enough, but ye know I always blamed myself for that, since ye were so hurt when I turned ye from my bed. But lying with Rawlins? That was an act of sheer selfishness."

  "Selfishness?"

  "That's right. All ye care about is making some public-spectacle to prove ye're equal in every way to a man."

  "Damned straight I'm equal! I have just as much right as you, Zack, or anyone else to mate as I please. If I were a man, you'd be congratulating me!"

  "If ye were a man, I'd knock ye on yer ass! Ye're playing with hearts, and ye dinna give a damn whose bleeds. I'm ashamed to say I raised ye."

  She'd stiffened, wounded to her core. She'd already told Mac that Zack had proposed to keep Mac from gunning Zack down, and then she'd had to lie, saying she'd gotten Zack drunk because he wouldn't have bedded her any other way, to explain why she'd refused a legitimate marriage offer.

  Mac was from the old country, and he'd tolerated her wish to marry for love only while she'd remained an innocent. Now that she was as wanton as her mother—he hadn't said so, but she was sure he must have thought it—he was hell-bent on riding her to the altar.

  "Raised me? You're not my kin, Iain McTavish!"

  "I've been both father and mother to ye, Bailey, but ye changed all that when ye wanted me for yer lover."

  "Thank God! Because I'm sick and tired of reminding you who's the boss, and who's the foreman. Maybe now we can keep things straight around here!"

  He'd sucked in his breath so fast, one might have thought she'd plowed her fist into his gut.

  Reflecting back on their argument—and the Coles' timely interruption—Bailey couldn't say she was proud of herself. It had always been hard on Mac, practically being kinfolk and yet, in very subtle ways, not being a member of her family. He'd devoted his whole life to Patrick McShane and the McShane ranch. Other than the thousand dollars in gold Patrick had willed to his foreman upon his death, Mac had little to show for his years of loyal service. Bailey remembered how it had frightened her two years earlier to think of running the ranch by herself, if Mac had taken the pittance and moved on.

  But Mac had stayed. At the time, she'd been too relieved to question why. Now the idea that he could pull up stakes at any time was unnerving. Maybe she shouldn't have thrown in his face that he was just her hired hand....

  The warning barks of the Coles' hunting dogs broke her reverie. In the distance, a long, lean roughrider was cantering from the east on his coal-colored horse. The pony's gait slowed for a moment, and Bailey suspected the rider had spied the hunting party gathered near her fence. The horse's direction abruptly changed, heading northwest to intercept them, and Bailey's heart quickened to an almost painful pace. She'd recognize Zack and Boss anywhere.

  Damn the man. What did he want now?

  "He's got one helluva nerve," Jesse Cole said, jerking his head in Zack's direction.

  The elder Cole frowned, taking a stance beside Bailey's horse. With his folded arms and straddled legs, one might have thought he was guarding the ranch payroll. Bailey should have been amused at the thought, but Rob's protective instincts reminded her too much of Mac's. Why did every man in the county think her incapable of fighting her own battles?

  The pastores halted their wire mending and scrambled to their feet. Their expressions dark, almost forbidding, they watched the cowboy ride toward the scene of the crime. Whether the Rawlins brothers had anything to do with the vandalism didn't matter to the sheepmen. Bailey could feel their hostility as keenly as she could feel the churning in her gut. A part of her worried that Zack, alone and outnumbered, would make some dangerous argument for the cattlemen's rights to an open range. Another part of her was still too hurt by his behavior six short hours earlier to defend his innocence.

  Boss was only a quarter of a mile away now, his fluid strides rapidly closing the distance. Despite the dust he kicked up, and the heat waves radiating above the hardy gramma grasses, Bailey could gauge Zack's mood by the tense lines of his body. He looked grim. Maybe even angry. She snorted. As if he had any right to be!

  His hat cast charcoal shadows across his sun-darkened face. When he finally reined in, his yoked shirt and red neckerchief fluttering in the dying breeze, his features were nearly indistinguishable beneath the brim. She could feel his gaze upon her, though. It was hot enough to make the blistering sun feel lukewarm.

  "Come back to finish the job, did you, Rawlins?"

  The jibe was Jesse's, young wiseacre that he was, and Zack's burning gaze shifted, freeing her. She released a ragged breath. A full measure of heartbeats passed while he stared at the rubble that once had been her line shack. His jaw muscle twitched.

  Ignoring Jesse completely, he faced her once more. "Is that what you think?"

  She scowled back, wishing her silly pulse would stop fluttering like hummingbird wings. "I haven't formed an opinion."

  "Opinions are all we've got," Rob said brusquely. "The storm wiped out the tracks. But then, your kind must've known that, eh, Rawlins?"

  Zack simply continued to lock eyes with her, and she had the unsettling feeling that he didn't give a damn what the Coles thought, or even what they might say about him later, which was odd, considering his election hopes. Why didn't he just defend himself with his true alibi: He'd been with her from late afternoon until dawn?

  Damn him and his precious nobility! He should have behaved as gallantly that morning, when he'd offered her her dream.

  "Why did you come her
e?" she demanded abruptly.

  Boss stomped in agitation beneath him. She knew the mount echoed its rider's mood.

  "To join the cougar hunt."

  The air left her lungs in a rush. Bailey, you idiot. She blinked back tears of mortification. You knew he wouldn't come back for you—unless you were bearing his precious son.

  "Is this some kind of ploy to get us sheepherders disqualified from the contest?" she flung back weakly. "Or are you hankering after my five-hundred-dollar prize?"

  "I don't give a damn about the contest or your money. I'm here because of Esteban Vasquez."

  "None of us sheepmen has a vote in your election in October," Jesse taunted. "Helping us is just a wasted gesture."

  Zack's gaze finally traveled to the young wool baron and branded the boy like an iron. "Last I heard, we were a community of neighbors, not two armies waging war."

  "Burning buildings isn't any way to strike a truce," Rob growled.

  "I agree." Zack was just as terse. "That's why I've a mind to ride with you, hear you out. Form an opinion myself."

  "Don't tell me you might take the sheepherders' side," Bailey said, unable to resist the barb.

  "You want my help or don't you?"

  She smiled bitterly. Actually, she wanted a good, solid reason to punch him in the gut.

  While she preferred to believe she wasn't pregnant—in truth, she was doing her best to push the disturbing notion from her mind—she still couldn't forgive him for acting as if his seed, his baby, mattered more to him than she, the mere carrier of his child.

  Fortunately for him, she never let her personal feelings take precedence over her business concerns.

  "Sure, Mr. President," she said. "I want your help. Haven't I been asking for it for three damned years now?"

  Zack stiffened at her jibe. She was being unfair again, but then, he should have expected that. As he recalled, she'd come to the Cattlemen's Association only twice in three years, and the first time Rotterdam was still president. The second time, Zack had followed appropriate procedure, placing her complaint on the agenda of the next board meeting scheduled for two months later. She'd flown into a fury, refusing to wait that long for her grievance to be heard, and had stormed off his property claiming he was uncooperative, unscrupulous, and a couple of other things he'd chosen to forget.