Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03]

by Texas Wildcat

  Although he believed he'd been in the right during that argument, Zack reined in his outrage, realizing another mouth fight with Bailey wouldn't solve anything. It never did. She only caterwauled louder when she was backed into a corner by the facts.

  Besides, they had private matters to discuss, and like it or not, he was going to have to bide his time until he could get her alone. In the meantime, he could at least keep an eye on her. He didn't want her climbing live oak trees to harvest any damned mistletoe.

  "We're burning daylight," he told her briskly. "Let's ride."

  She didn't pay much attention to him after that. In fact, as he spurred Boss alongside the sheepherders' ponies, he suspected she was going out of her way to ignore him, taking special pains to canter Sassy between Rob's and Jesse's mounts.

  He didn't care. At least, that's what he told himself. He wasn't helping to avenge Esteban's death to make Bailey love him. Hell, he wasn't interested in making any mutton puncher love him.

  So the fact that they all set their jaws, squared their shoulders, and refused to waste a breath of conversation on him didn't bother him in the least. He was used to silence. In fact, he preferred it.

  Riding for hours, they circled through the foothills, looking for cougar tracks. Any hope of finding even a cold trail was slim after the previous night's storm, and in the heat of late afternoon, Zack suspected it would take a miracle to stumble across any puma prints, much less the one-toed kind. Cougars were nocturnal creatures, and most of them were shyer than foals. It was a rare cat that approached a man, and a rarer one still that stalked one.

  The problem was, once cougars got a taste of human blood, they usually came back for more. A four-legged man killer was even more fearless than the two-legged kind.

  About a half hour before twilight, they finally reined in and had a powwow. The closest they'd come to any cougar all day was a leaf-covered deer carcass and a couple of scratches in the dirt near some limestone cliffs. As for other hunters, they'd run across no one from either the cattlemen's or sheepherders' team. Apparently excitement over the storm and the resulting responsibilities at most ranches had temporarily diverted interest away from Bailey's five-hundred-dollar prize.

  "One Toe's gotta be holed up here somewhere," Jesse said irritably, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. "I know for a fact there're caves in those cliffs."

  "There's water nearby too, on account of the rain," Rob said, squinting up at the jagged limestone walls that were turning golden in the lengthening rays of the sun. "I can hear it."

  They all grew quiet for a moment, listening for the telltale trickle of water on rock. Zack took the opportunity to steal a glance at Bailey. She looked hot, tired, and frustrated. Her pale blue shirt was damp between her breasts. Aried not to look there, but his gaze had a nasty habit of wandering back, despite his best intentions.

  Fortunately, he couldn't see anything more than the vague silhouette of a lacy chemise. He swore he'd swing a fist at the first man he caught staring at the same place, hoping for a more pronounced view.

  When she straightened her knees, furtively adjusting her seat, he recalled that she'd been fidgeting more in the saddle than an accomplished horsewoman should. He suspected the reason and groaned inwardly, hating himself.

  God, what he wouldn't give to turn the clock back twenty-four hours...

  "I reckon there's not enough daylight left to keep riding," Rob continued, glancing at Bailey. "Like as not, we'll have to pitch camp. But I can escort you back to your—"

  "Hell, Rob," she interrupted, "I can sleep on rocks."

  Zack frowned, knowing Rob was less concerned about what Bailey slept on than where she slept. The other men exchanged uneasy looks. Even Jesse seemed disturbed by the thought of sleeping in cougar country with a woman to distract his senses.

  "Er, maybe you haven't thought this all the way through, Bailey," Rob said. "Now, I'm not saying you aren't a crack shot or anything—"

  "Then what are you saying, Rob?"

  The sheepman's neck grew crimson.

  "You and Bailey will be safer with us," Zack interjected. "I recommend two men per watch. I'll take the first round with Bailey. That is, if she's game."

  Her lips tightened into a grim line. "First watch suits me just fine."

  Zack smiled to himself. He'd figured she'd snap up the bait. The one thing he'd learned about Bailey McShane over the years was that she wouldn't back down from a challenge. In that respect, she always tried too hard to be a man.

  Dinner, or rather the cooking of it, brought another tense exchange between Bailey and the vaunted vice president of the Woolgrowers. Rob, apparently less versed in "Bailey etiquette" than Zack, made the mistake of asking her to "make herself useful" by skinning and cooking the two rabbits Jesse had shot for the group.

  Propped against a boulder in a patch of shade, Zack watched the blood rush up Bailey's neck. He was sure a volcanic explosion would follow.

  "Me?" She took her usual battle stance against the backdrop of the campfire's wind-furled smoke. "I can't cook."

  "We're hungry, not particular, so there's no need to be shy," Rob said in his fatherly, salt-of-the-earth voice. "I'm sure you'll do just fine. All women can cook."

  "The hell they can. Why do you think I hired Jerky?"

  Trying not to chuckle, Zack nearly choked on his sip of water. Bailey shot him a look which, he was sure, was meant to shrink him smaller than flea size.

  "What are you laughing at?"

  "Nothing."

  "Now, see here, Bailey," Rob said, trying to thrust the limp rabbits into her hand, "we're all doing our share. Jesse shot the meal, Vasquez gathered the firewood, Woody is watering the horses, Carlos is feeding the dogs—"

  "What's he doing?" She jerked her head in Zack's direction.

  Zack raised his canteen again. Hiding his amusement was getting harder as Rob grew increasingly irritated.

  "Rawlins is taking first watch."

  "So am I!"

  Rob reddened at her reminder, then frowned, his silver eyebrows lowering like broom bristles over his deep-set eyes. "Enough now, Bailey. Someone has to cook, and you're the most likely one."

  "Why?" She hiked her chin at the rancher. "'Cause I'm the one most likely to wear a skirt?"

  Zack cleared his throat. "May I make a suggestion?" he drawled, screwing the lid back onto his canteen.

  Her head snapped around, and a narrowed pair of sapphire eyes stabbed through him. "That depends."

  "Yeah," Jesse chimed in from where he sat in the shade of a pecan tree, cleaning his gun. "This isn't one of your damned cattlemen's meetings. You don't have a vote here, Rawlins."

  Zack ignored the boy. Jesse was too eager to prove his manhood, and Zack figured being challenged to a brawl, or worse, a gunfight, wasn't going to win him any friends in this camp.

  Besides, beating the tar out of a seventeen-year-old wouldn't make Zack feel anything but disgusted, mostly with himself.

  "There's a pile of kindling over there," he said, gesturing to a rust-colored loblolly pine that had clearly known better summers. "Why don't we all draw straws?"

  Bailey opened her mouth, as if she would have liked to protest her unequal treatment further, but even she must have seen the sense in settling this argument diplomatically.

  "All right," she said in a disgruntled tone. "But I'm going to hold the straws."

  Marching off stiff-backed and square-shouldered, she tugged one of the ailing tree limbs down to waist height and plucked off six browning needles. She glared a don't-even-think-about-peeking look at the men before she turned, arranging her "straws" in her fist.

  "Who wants to go first?" she challenged, her free hand, as usual, spanning her hip.

  Vasquez was closest. Shrugging, he obliged his boss.

  "I'll go next," Jesse called, beckoning her closer. When it became clear his needle was the same length as Vasquez's, he grinned smugly at the rest of them. "Just remember, men," he taunted as Bailey t
urned to Rob, "the trick to making good coffee is it doesn't take as much water as you think it does."

  "You'd have us all drinking sludge," grumbled Woody, the Coles' foreman. His face showed relief a moment later when his needle proved as long as Rob's.

  "Hell, you'd have us all drinking granny tea," Jesse retorted, leaning forward and squinting across the clearing at Carlos's needle. "Criminy. You've done it again, Carlos! I don't think I've ever seen you lose a draw. Must be 'cause you always sign the cross first."

  The pastore smiled shyly at his young boss. "Sí, senor."

  Now Bailey stood before Zack, her chin hiked, her fist tense. She looked something between desperate and defiant as she thrust the last two needles at him. He managed to swallow his smile. Personally, he didn't understand why she found cooking so objectionable. He and Wes used to take turns rustling up grub all the time on the trail. Everyone had to pull his or her weight with the frying pan sometime.

  He kept his advice to himself, though. He could tell by the battle gleam in Bailey's eyes that her fist was itching to give him more than a straw, and he wanted vittles in his stomach, not her knuckles.

  Dragging his gaze from the blue embers that smoldered in her eyes, he studied the needles. He figured he could save every man a heap of trouble if he could just figure out which was the shorter of the two. It was impossible to tell, though, so he finally gave up and made his selection.

  He could tell instantly by her scowl that he'd made the wrong choice.

  "Happy now, cowpoke?" she growled, tossing aside the remaining needle. It was a full two inches shorter than his.

  Before he could answer, she spun on her heel, snatched the rabbits up by their ears, and stomped off to the stream with her hunting knife.

  Zack sighed, watching her flop down on the bank in the olive-gray shade of a juniper. Even when he tried to help, he couldn't win. Why did his best intentions always go awry with Bailey McShane?

  Later that evening, all the sheepmen agreed to listen the next time a woman declared she couldn't cook. Zack's teeth actually ached after chewing so hard to force Bailey's burnt rabbit down his gullet. And her coffee...

  He grimaced just thinking about it. Licking the bottom of a well would have been more humane to his tongue.

  None of the men dared say a word to her face, though, considering no tastier fare was in sight. Besides, she was wearing her hat at a fighting angle.

  When she finally stalked off with her Winchester to take the first watch, Vasquez, bless his woolly-loving heart, quietly spared her and the rest of them by volunteering to fix flapjacks for breakfast.

  Relieved to give up the pretense of drinking coffee now that Bailey's back was receding into the night, Zack spilled the black goop she'd brewed into the rocks. He noticed every sheepman's eyes were fixed speculatively upon him, and he didn't doubt for a moment what their topic of conversation would be the minute he finished packing his mess kit and left their circle of firelight.

  Rob spoke in a gravelly voice. "If I wasn't so sure Bailey could put a bullet through you faster than a whirlwind could snuff out a match, I wouldn't have agreed to let you share her watch."

  "Much obliged for the warning," Zack said. He rose with his rifle.

  "You'd best remember, Rawlins," Rob called as he turned to follow Bailey, "if anything happens to that girl, you'll answer to more than Iain McTavish."

  Zack frowned as the shadows thickened around him. Hell, one might have thought he'd been spawned by a rattlesnake and raised by coyotes to hear Rob Cole talk.

  Zack wasn't sure what fueled his ire more, being treated like the camp pariah or being reminded of McTavish. He'd wondered often during the day why the Scot hadn't ridden at his customary place by Bailey's side—not that Zack minded being spared the man's scowls and growls. He just hoped McTavish's absence was coincidental and had nothing to do with Bailey's lost innocence. Zack had a healthy respect for the Scot's shotgun.

  Climbing the winding ribbon of trail, he finally reached the cliff ledge, where Bailey had settled with her Winchester and canteen. In the full moon's silvery radiance, the limestone around her fairly glowed, and her braid took on a frosty sheen. The breeze riffled some strands that had slipped from the weave, and they shimmered, sliding down her cheek to fall across her throat like a necklace of pearls.

  Zack held his breath, his irritation melting as he became mesmerized by the play of wind and hair. He wished she'd let the full wealth of her mane spill free. He wished, too, that he might catch a glimpse of ankle instead of the glint of spurs. But Bailey was never likely to wear petticoats and skirts; she'd said as much herself. She wanted the men in her world to forget she was female.

  It occurred to him suddenly that for all Cole's blustering about her protection, Bailey was no more accepted by her fellow sheepherders than he was.

  In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he suspected Iain McTavish's absence was partly to blame. Without the Scot's presence to validate every convention Bailey had flouted throughout the day, Cole and his party had been hard-pressed to humor her. Sure, they had listened with thinly veiled condescension to her tracking suggestions, but only because she'd refused to leave them in peace and ride home.

  Even though her spread was easily as prosperous as Cole's, it hadn't earned her his men's respect. Cole's foreman had grumbled at one point that McTavish would have been the better candidate to represent her ranch. Then, as if to rub salt into her wounds, Cole had assigned her the most menial camp chore, cooking.

  No wonder she looked so forlorn and frustrated, sitting cross-legged on that rock with her chin in her hand.

  For the first time in his life, Zack got an inkling of how it must feel being female and therefore, unequal in the eyes of men. Odd how he'd never before noticed how unfairly his kind treated women.

  His heart twisted at the thought. Putting aside for the moment his determination to make her listen to reason about their baby, even if that meant he would have to raise a child without a wife, he searched for some lighthearted way to greet her. She hadn't said more than ten words to him all day, and he doubted whether she'd be eager to break that trend now.

  "Good news," he called, grabbing hold of a juniper bough and hauling himself up onto the ledge beside her. "Looks like you won't be cooking tomorrow."

  His appearance must have surprised her, because she scrambled to her feet, something like panic crossing her features before she snapped erect and turned to face him.

  "Is that some kind of wisecrack, Rawlins?"

  "Nope. Just a fact. Vasquez got breakfast duty."

  She blew out her breath. "Serves y'all right if you do go to bed hungry. I told you I couldn't cook."

  "Not from lack of trying, that's for sure."

  Her glare was like a heat wave rolling over his chest. "Are you trying to be funny?"

  He shook his head. Lord, her temper was on a hair trigger, all right.

  She straightened her hat and reached for her rifle. "This ledge isn't big enough for the both of us."

  "It's plenty big, Bailey. Stay awhile. Please," he added quietly.

  She hesitated just long enough to make him think she might actually have a reasonable bone in her body. Then she hardened her jaw, her features cast into a honeycomb of flickering shadows as the juniper swayed beside her in the breeze.

  "I don't want you here," she said flatly.

  "I didn't mean to upset you."

  "Then why did you come?"

  A dozen answers sprang instantly to his brain: To talk out our differences. Stop the hurting. Protect our baby. But he figured any one of those responses would put the spurs to her temper.

  He shrugged. "Your company," he said as casually as he was able.

  "Why?"

  "Because I enjoy it."

  Bailey's mouth went dry, and her knees turned as flimsy as a house of cards. She tore her gaze from his so he wouldn't see just how much hope his answer gave her.

  After all, he'd made it painful
ly clear that morning, when his chivalric guard was down, that he considered her a liability. A diplomatic word here and there was meant only to mask, not change, that harsh fact.

  Leaning against the juniper for support, she kept her eyes carefully focused on the moon. "You're a poor liar."

  He chuckled, surprising her.

  "All right, at this exact moment I'm not enjoying your company. But I did last night at dinner, and during the storm."

  "You were drunk."

  "I don't consider that any kind of excuse," he said softly.

  She winced, fiddling with her rifle strap. He was straying into hurtful territory again, and she didn't want to humiliate herself with a repeat of the morning's tears.

  "What's your point?" she asked briskly.

  "Well, we've both been cast to the wolves. Or maybe I should say 'to the cougars.' And since neither of us is fitting in too well with the others right now, I thought we might at least call a truce."

  "I'm used to being an outsider."

  "Yeah? Well, I'm not."

  She ventured another glance at him, wondering if he truly missed companionship. Certainly he must get few opportunities to try loneliness on for size, what with all those cowhands, nieces, nephews, brothers, and in-laws running around his property. Growing up in a big family was one of the things she'd always missed as a child. That, and the love of a mother.

  "If you keep hunting with us sheep ranchers," she said grudgingly, watching him sit, "you'll get used to being an outsider double quick. Do you have any idea what riding with me and Cole will do to your election chances?"

  "Yeah, a fairly good one."

  "Well, you'd best go swear Cole and his men to secrecy, then. 'Cause I'm not going to spill the beans."

  "Much obliged," he said, sounding pleased, "but some things are more important than elections."

  "Hmm." She tried to make out his expression now that the moon had slid behind a cloud bank, but his hat had cast his face into pewter shadows. "You mean Esteban?"