Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03]

by Texas Wildcat

  Then there were nights when she would light a candle and stand naked in its fuzzy pool of light, eagerly searching her reflection in her full-length mirror for the telltale bulge inside her belly.

  On other nights, the enormity of her life change crashed down around her, and she sobbed into her pillow, thinking that God might take away her baby, and then, by all rights, Zack.

  She had only two weeks left, and that wasn't much time to make a man fall in love with her. Especially a man who had everything to lose by making her his wife.

  "What with the election falling so close to the dance," she said, "I'm not sure it'd be very good for your image for us to go together."

  "Shoot, Bailey, sheepherders and cattlemen have to make peace in this county. We'll just have to bite the bullet and be the first ones who get along." He winked at her. "Besides, I have an idea, and I couldn't make it work without you, so stop worrying. You're actually going to help me win that election."

  She was? A tiny knot of dread curled inside her stomach. Please, oh, please, God, don't tell me he's actually planning to use me as a campaign device.

  She drew a long, shaky breath. "So this dance is important to you, eh?"

  "Yep." He cast her a sideways glance. "Real important."

  She groaned silently. Dances meant dresses. Not to mention looking like an idiot when she tripped over her own feet on the sawdust. But maybe this once—just this once—she could bear up under the humiliation if Zack would fall in love with her.

  Forcing a bright smile, she tried to imagine how a ladylike creature like Amaryllis might answer. "I'd, uh, be right honored to have you escort me to a hoedown, Zack."

  * * *

  Bailey didn't know what was worse, being fitted for her first dress in nearly fifteen years, waiting helplessly for some drought relief from the clouds, or watching the Rawlins brothers and their cattle overrun the north and south pastures on her eastern border.

  Since she couldn't do a damned thing about her drying creekbeds or the dance she'd let herself get talked into, she focused her worries on the fifty head of steer that Wes, Cord, and a handful of Rawlins cowpokes had driven onto her land.

  "It's an experiment," Zack had told her with unabashed enthusiasm. "I got the idea by watching Buttercup grazing with your ewes. All we have to do is figure out how to get sheep and cattle together on a larger scale. Like you said, they're both herding animals, so there's got to be a way to get them to share the same pasture and watering hole, despite the cattlemen's prejudice against it. Once we have proof the herds can graze the same range, we can show the rest of the county how to mend their fences, so to speak."

  Well, as the second week was drawing to a close, Bailey was pretty sure she didn't like the idea. She wasn't so much worried about her pasturage getting trampled or her remaining water getting used up. She wasn't even really worried that her silly sheep would run amok, terrified by the big, mooing creatures that were milling among them.

  No, her main concern lay closer to home. Zack was taking over.

  His presence had infiltrated slowly: first the meal he'd cooked for himself, then the seat he'd started taking at the head of her table. Next came his insistence that he do her chores while she twiddled her thumbs—to keep the baby safe, he'd said.

  The most recent example of his insidious overthrow was his decision to drive his cattle onto her spread. Oh, he'd discussed the idea with her; he'd even asked for her opinion on the matter.

  Unfortunately, her various sides were at war and had been unable to mount a protest. The business owner had seen the moneymaking potential of his plan; the rancher had welcomed the possibility of a sheepherder-cattleman truce.

  But the woman deep inside her had been uneasy. What if Zack continued to change things, ousting her sheep, deploying more cattle, selling her goats, wooing her men? What if she became obsolete as decision-maker on her own spread, and he relegated her to the kitchen?

  She couldn't let that happen, of course. She wasn't sure how to stop him without launching one hell of an argument, though, or, worse, destroying whatever chance she had of making him fall in love with her.

  So she forced her male side to mind its tongue and stuff its anger while her female side acted as if it enjoyed the way Zack "took care of her," as he called it. Inside, her stomach was constantly churning.

  As for Zack, he wasn't entirely sure he was comfortable with the change in Bailey. He wondered if her preoccupation with her possible pregnancy had anything to do with the difference, since she seemed so moody and unhappy. Talk of babies and their future only seemed to make her miserable, and as much as he would have liked to explore his own confused feelings on the subject, he'd quickly learned to keep his hopes and worries bottled up. He didn't want to upset her any more than she already was, so he steadfastly kept his concentration on the kinds of things he thought a father should do, like securing the McShane business assets, earning the respect of Bailey's hired hands, and building friendlier relations with her neighbors.

  He just hoped that getting away from the ranch for a spell would improve Bailey's and his relationship—for the sake of their child, at least. He was glad she'd agreed to go to the hoedown with him. He was even more glad she'd taken steps to hire a seamstress, although he sure as heck would never have suggested such a thing. When she'd said she hated dresses, he had respected her feelings. His own female relatives often wore jeans. In fact, Aunt Lally had once confided she disliked petticoats because they were "no damned good for riding horses." Since Bailey practically lived on Sassy, who was Zack to tell her what to wear?

  Still, with his second week at her ranch nearly over, he couldn't say why the tension between them kept mounting, even though, for the most part, they'd stopped arguing. When he asked her what was wrong, she'd growl, "Nothing," or snap that she was "dandy."

  If he approached her with an idea to improve her ranching operations, she would smile through her teeth and tell him to do what he thought was best, even when he asked point-blank for her opinion. She hardly ever sassed him anymore, which made their conversations damned dull, and she'd stopped wearing her hair gathered loosely in a thong so he could watch it swish against her behind. Now she rolled up her hair in a proper knot at the nape of her neck.

  She was driving him crazy.

  Friday morning, before McTavish left for his weekly visit to the post office and general store, Zack cornered the Scot in the barn for advice. He figured Bailey wouldn't overhear them because she'd stayed in the kitchen, God help them, to learn from Jerky how to cook range chili.

  Still, Zack felt more awkward than a schoolboy, seeking the counsel of a man who could just as easily have been Bailey's lover if he hadn't spent the last few years as her surrogate father.

  Zack cleared his throat to announce himself, and McTavish, who was standing at his worktable scribbling something on a piece of paper, jerked his head around. An expression akin to guilt flickered across his features, and he hastily set aside his pen and folded the page.

  "Aye, lad, what is it?"

  Zack doffed his hat, stepping hesitantly into the slice of morning light that fell from the open loft across a clutter of hammers, wire cutters, and screws. Even though he'd slept for two weeks in the stall adjacent to Mac's work space, he suddenly felt intrusive.

  "You're going into town today?" he began lamely.

  "Aye." McTavish slipped his letter into an envelope, sealed the flap, and buttoned it inside the bib pocket of his overalls.

  A moment of silence lapsed between them.

  "Need a hand hitching the wagon?"

  McTavish cocked his head, squinting at him through the smoke of his ever-present pipe before he finally pulled the stem from his teeth and nodded.

  "That'd be right kind of ye, lad."

  Zack released his breath. Work. He and McTavish had that in common. That, and Bailey.

  Clicking his tongue, Zack led the mule into the sunshine and backed it up against the wagon's shafts, while McTavish readi
ed the harness. The beast was remarkably cooperative for a change, so the two men stood side by side, buckling straps, adjusting reins.

  Zack cast McTavish a furtive look. "I've been meaning to ask you..."

  The Scot met his gaze for a second, arching his eyebrows in question.

  "Uh, it's about Bailey."

  McTavish's lips twitched in a half-smile. "Is it now?"

  Zack fidgeted, wondering how to continue now that he'd torn the lid off the powder keg. "Have you noticed anything... different about her?"

  "Like what?"

  "Well..." Zack hated dancing around an issue, even if it was explosive. "She's been acting sullen and moody ever since I moved those cattle onto the spread."

  "And ye think there's a connection, do ye?"

  "She never said so in as many words. I know she's got other things on her mind too, but when I ask her what's bothering her, she won't tell me. That in itself is queer. Usually she squalls like a shoat when something chaps her hide."

  McTavish's solemn nod was belied by the humor in his gaze. "Aye, she's not much for mincing her words."

  "Has she said anything to you?"

  "About the steers?"

  Zack nodded.

  "I canna say she has."

  "What do you think?"

  McTavish shrugged. "It's like I've been saying for years, lad. Sheep and cattle dinna know they're supposed to be enemies. It's the ranching folk who've confused the natural order of things."

  "So you think my idea to rotate pastures will work?" Zack asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He could use a little enthusiasm for his plan, since Bailey wasn't offering much moral support.

  "Letting the cattle graze their fill first," Mac said evenly, "as finicky as they are, and moving the sheep in afterward, so they can munch the grass down to its roots if they've a mind, seems workable to me."

  "Then you'll stand up with me when I make my report to the Woolgrowers?"

  McTavish's smile was fleeting as he shook his head. "No, lad. But ye shouldna take it personally. I dinna plan to stay on here as long as I have. Rob Cole will stand beside ye."

  Zack's gaze rose hastily to search the older man's face. "Mac, if you're thinking you have to move on because of me—"

  "Ye're not the reason, lad."

  Zack caught his breath. He didn't believe McTavish for a moment. Besides, Zack knew Bailey would blame him as surely as if he'd issued an order to send the Scot packing. "There's no need to rush into anything, Mac."

  "I appreciate the thought, lad, but the time has come. I'll be telling her when the arrangements are made."

  Zack shook his head. He couldn't let it rest at that for Bailey's sake—for his sake too, dammit. Iain McTavish was one hell of a foreman. Under different circumstances, they would have been friends.

  "What do you need to change your mind?" he asked briskly. "If it's better wages, or a flock of your own—"

  "None of those things," McTavish said quietly. "I know her, ye see. The choice has been made. She won't have me. But she won't have ye either if I stay."

  A lump lodged in Zack's throat. For all the time he'd doubted McTavish's honor, suspecting him of coveting Bailey's land, he was truly sorry.

  "I didn't want it to turn out this way," he said uncomfortably.

  "I know." The Scot gave him a wry smile. "Me either. But ye can be sure of one thing, lad." He climbed into the wagon.

  "What's that?"

  "Ye're the right man for her. She's not used to being courted, that's all. Give her some time to warm up to the idea. She'll come around."

  Zack nodded, at a loss to speak. He supposed he should be relieved McTavish considered him the better prospect for Bailey's hand, but Zack refused to fool himself. McTavish and Bailey shared a close bond, one that might very well prove unique. Zack knew love was the underlying cause. McTavish wanted her to be happy. Zack wanted her to be happy too. Maybe loving her would come afterward.

  He stuck out his hand. "Thanks, Mac," he said finally. "For everything."

  The sheepherder's keen gray eyes regarded him steadily for a moment. At last, he grasped Zack's hand.

  "Be a friend to her, lad. Ye willna find a better one, man or woman, than our Bailey."

  As the buckboard rattled over the bridge toward the winding farm road, Zack sighed. How could he be friends with a woman he knew even less than he had two weeks before?

  At least when they'd been arguing every hour on the hour, he'd known what to expect. Now he walked on eggshells, waiting for the lid to blow off her temper. Maybe that was exactly what they needed, he mused, one big explosion to clear the air.

  He gazed longingly toward the house.

  Or maybe what they really needed was to kiss the living daylights out of each other and romp like rabbits in the field.

  A vision of Bailey danced before his eyes, her hair spilling like sun-warmed honey across the puckered rosettes of her breasts in a pasture full of daisies.

  Yeah, he liked the romping idea a whole lot better.

  He found a scowling Bailey seated on a stool at the kitchen worktable. She was up to her elbows in chili peppers, pinto beans, cleavers, and knives.

  Pokey's tail gave a hopeful thump when he walked into the room. Even Pris raised her head, looking vaguely relieved.

  Zack eyed Bailey's weapons of destruction in secret amusement. He reckoned some chili peppers just didn't want to die.

  "Looks like you could use a break."

  "Damned right I could," Jerky muttered. "She's been mucking up the works in here all morning."

  Bailey tossed her cook a withering glare.

  "I have to ride to the north pasture to check on the cattle," Zack said casually. "How 'bout coming with me, Bailey? We could have a picnic."

  She tried futilely to blow a strand of hair out of her eyes. "For heaven's sake, Zack, a picnic takes hours of preparation. You need to fry chicken, and bake pies, and fix lemonade, and..."

  Her voice faded as Jerky, stalking around the pantry, slammed a loaf of bread, a wedge of goat's cheese, a handful of apples, and a jug of cider into a basket. Stuffing the lid down over two checkered napkins, he emerged to shove the basket into Zack's hands.

  "Don't bring her back 'til dinner," he growled.

  Zack did a masterful job of keeping a straight face.

  "You game, Bailey?"

  That did it. Tossing the hair off her forehead, she gave him a defiant look. The girl just couldn't help herself when it came to challenges.

  "Game for what?"

  "A race. You've got five minutes to saddle Sassy if you don't want to be eating Boss's dust."

  Her face lit up like a child's on Christmas Day. "Ha! Boss's dust, my rear end!" She jumped off her stool. "C'mon, Pris! C'mon, Po—"

  "You'd best leave the dogs here," Zack cut in. "They won't be able to keep up anyway."

  "Oh." Her enthusiasm deflated the tiniest bit. Then, tossing her head again, she shrugged. "You're right, cowpoke. There isn't a four-legged creature alive who can keep up with my Sassy. Ha!"

  She shot him a cheeky grin before she dashed out the back door, letting it slam behind her and leaving two disgruntled canines to flop back on their bellies beside it.

  Jerky's measuring gaze met Zack's across the chaos of kettles, dried vegetables, and seasoning jars that Bailey had left in her wake. A twinkle grew in the old sheepherder's eyes, and he flashed Zack a sparsely toothed grin.

  "Humph. I reckon there might be hope fer you yet, cowboy."

  Chapter 16

  Trouble started the minute the race was over.

  Zack had let Bailey outdistance him, enjoying her delight as she galloped through the daisy field rimming the northern wall of her canyon. Her face was bright with laughter and the elation of her win, until she turned in her saddle to taunt him.

  That was when they both spied the dust billowing over the knoll to the east.

  "What the devil is that?" she demanded.

  Zack reined in,
and a muscle twitched along his jaw. "Cattle."

  Their gazes locked for a heartbeat before they spurred their mounts toward the rise. Shouts of "hi-yi!" floated up with the dust as he and Bailey galloped down the hill. Soon it became plain that a herd of about forty steers was being driven in a southwesterly direction across Bailey's land. Zack muttered an oath. The Rotterdam brand was prominent on their hides.

  "Whoa!" Zack waved his hat first at the point riders, who proved to be the twins, then at the swing riders—or should he be calling them wire cutters now?—who rode alongside the herd. A total of five armed cowboys accompanied the steers on this water scrape.

  A heavyset outrider cantered to intercept them.

  "It's Hank," Bailey said tensely.

  Zack nodded, watching Nick spur his piebald pony after his pa's. At the moment, there wasn't a damned thing he or Bailey could do, short of getting themselves trampled, to stop Hank's thirsty herd, and he knew it.

  "'Mornin', folks," Hank said when he reached them. He had the audacity to smile and tip his hat at Bailey. "Don't you mind my boys, ma'am. We're just rounding up a couple of renegades that strayed onto your land."

  "Renegades, my ass, Rotterdam," Zack growled. "If you don't order your point riders to start bending those steers back the way they came, all hell is going to break loose!"

  Hank didn't look in the least bit intimidated. As Nick reined in beside him, he arched a mocking eyebrow at his son. "Seems like we have a bit of a situation here. I think Zack's threatening to shoot one of us."

  Nick's gaze darted from Bailey to the picnic basket strapped behind Zack's saddle. He fidgeted, looking sheepish. "Leave it alone, Pa."

  Hank's mouth tightened, betraying his irritation with his son before he pasted on a jovial smile and directed his attention to Bailey.

  "Imagine our surprise, while we were hunting our renegades, to find a whole slew of Rawlins brands grazing in your northeast pasture. 'Course, it's probably just coincidence how all those Rawlins steers are out there draining your wells dry while Zack here keeps you occupied with picnics and such." Hank's narrowed gaze slid to his political rival. "So why don't you remind your other neighbor that the Rotterdams have as much right as the Rawlinses—maybe even more, considering your friendship with Nick—to be moving steers across your land?"