"Wake up!"
He moved. She jumped back, but he simply turned over.
"I told you he slept like the dead." It was Lucy again, her head back through the door.
"Get back outside," Lily hissed. "If he finds us both here, he's liable to be quite angry."
"I'll say," Lucy said smiling wickedly. "He'd probably toss us out the window."
Lily felt stupid, standing in a man's bedroom carrying on a conversation while he was sound asleep. She dared not think what her papa would say.
"Shake him," Lucy said. "You'll never wake him whispering in his ear."
"I never did any such thing!" Lily exclaimed.
Lucy giggled.
Taking a deep breath, Lily put both hands on Zac's shoulder and shook him gently. He didn't even move. She shook harder. He groaned but didn't wake up.
Giggles from the doorway told Lily she still had an audience. She couldn't stand here all day shaking him like an apple tree. She walked around the bed and pulled open one set of curtains. Morning sunlight poured into the room. She didn't stop until she'd opened them all. Then, grabbing hold of Zac's shoulder, she pushed with all her might until he rolled over and sunlight streamed into his face.
"Wake up!" she practically shouted into his ear. "You should be ashamed of yourself, sleeping away half the day. The Bible says--"
Zac sat up in the bed like a man waking from a nightmare. "What the hell!" he demanded looking wildly about the room.
Lily was only faintly aware of the giggles from the doorway. The sheet had fallen away, exposing all of his torso and part of a thigh. She was horrified to discover he was naked. She knew she should look away, but she couldn't. He was the most beautiful creature she'd ever seen. He hardly even looked mussed, just sweet, adorable, and terribly confused.
"I came to wake you up."
Zac seemed to have trouble focusing. He stared at Lily without recognition. "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my bedroom?"
"I'm Lily, remember? I arrived last night. You said you'd help me find a job today. Well, I'm here."
Zac whirled about and stared at the sunlight pouring in the three windows as though it were a phenomenon he'd never witnessed before. "What time is it?"
"About a quarter to ten. I know it's rather late, but if we hurry we--"
"Late! Goddammit, girl! I didn't get to bed until six!"
The giggles were louder now.
Lily was about to reprove Zac for cussing in her presence, but she was so startled that anyone would actually stay up until six o'clock she completely forgot her rebuke.
"That would never do on a farm," she said. "You'd have to milk the cows."
"That's why I don't live on a farm. I'd kill any damned cow that wanted to be milked at that hour." He threw back the covers and started to get out of bed.
Lily shrieked and clamped her hands over her eyes.
"Hell and damnation!" Zac cursed.
The giggles from the doorway turned into shrieks of laughter.
A rustling of the covers and more curses told Lily Zac was covering himself.
"You deserve to be scandalized," Zac said, "bursting into a man's bedroom when he's sound asleep. Oh, for God's sake, open your eyes. I've covered up everything that's interesting."
Lily peeped through her fingers, then lowered her hand. "I've never seen a man naked."
"Sorry, but you're not going to start with me."
"I didn't mean that I wanted to, just that I hadn't."
Zac slid off the bed. Holding the sheet in place with one hand, he used the other to grab Lily by the shoulder. "You shouldn't be in a room alone with a naked man." He spun her around. "Especially me. Your reputation will be ruined if this ever gets out." He pushed her toward the door. "Go back to Bella's. Ask her to make you a nice hearty breakfast."
"I've already had breakfast."
"Before nine o'clock!" Zac grimaced.
Zac reached the door to find a dozen females clustered in the hallway. "What is this, a conspiracy?"
The girls backed up a few steps but showed no inclination to leave.
"We just wanted to see what would happen," Lucy said.
"Take her and tie her in a bed until a decent hour." Zac disappeared into the room and slammed the door behind him.
Mortified at being hustled out like a child, Lily reached for the door knob just as she heard a key turn.
"He's locked the door," Lucy said.
Lily knocked on the door. "You can't go back to bed. You promised to help me find a job."
"Ask Dodie," Zac shouted through the door. "She knows what goes on around here in daylight hours."
Lily knocked again.
"You can stop knocking," Zac said, his voice sounding farther away. "I'm putting the pillows over my head."
"That's that," Lucy said. "Once he gets them pillows over his head, even an earthquake wouldn't wake him."
"But what am I going to do about a job?" Lily asked. "I can't sit around waiting until dark."
"You girls go on back to your rooms," Dodie said. "If you don't get some rest, it'll take an extra layer of paint to make you look decent."
She waited until they had left the hall. "Do you want to get back in that room?" Dodie asked, lowering her voice.
"He locked the door."
"I know another way in. But if I show you, you've got to promise you won't let him push you out the door again."
"He's bigger than I am."
"If you're going to back down from people just because they're a few inches taller or a few pounds heavier, you'll never get anywhere in this town."
Lily liked that philosophy. It made her a little nervous to think she was the one designated to put it into practice, but she was heartened by the fact that the Bible was full of instances where people had faced great challenges and succeeded. Maybe Zac Randolph was her Goliath.
"I promise to kick and scream loud enough to bring the entire police force before I let him throw me out," Lily said. "Show me that door."
"There," Dodie said pointing to a door at the end of the hall. "It goes into his closet. That leads into his bathroom, then into the bedroom."
Lily had no trouble making her way through the dark rooms. Her father didn't believe in lighting a lamp unless it was to study the Bible. She'd spent half her life in shadows.
Zac was back in bed when Lily entered his room, the curtains drawn, the lamp out. She paused to consider how best to approach him. It wouldn't do to snatch his covers away. The moment she did, she'd clamp her hands over her eyes, and he'd push her right back out the door.
She could dash water in his face, but she feared he'd probably throw her into the bay in return. Maybe if she just dribbled a little on him. She approached the bed on tiptoe, which she told herself was stupid since she was trying to wake him up. He was asleep. She found it hard to believe anyone could drop off to sleep so quickly.
She opened the curtains again. Zac didn't stir. She went to the bathroom, poured some water into a shaving mug, and carried it back to the bedroom. Holding the mug over the bed, she had just dipped her fingers into the water and was about to dribble some onto Zac's forehead when he opened his eyes.
"Don't you dare!"
Zac's speaking so unexpectedly caused Lily to jump. One hand flung drops of water all over his face. The other let go of the mug, which spilled water all over the sheet, the pillow, and Zac.
He rose out of the bed like an erupting volcano. He didn't seem to be aware he didn't have a stitch of clothes on his body. Neither did he seem to care he was assaulting Lily's ears with a torrent of words she'd never heard in her life. She didn't have time to puzzle out their meaning, but she felt safe in concluding that her life was in the gravest danger of ending right there and then.
"You're still naked!" she cried as she ran behind a sofa to avoid being strangled, her gaze only partially averted.
"Of course I am," Zac shouted. "How do you expect me to sleep?"
"In a nightsh
irt, like any normal Christian man," Lily answered, her eyes still averted. "Cover yourself. With all the noise you're making, people could start bursting in here any moment."
"Hell and damnation!" Zac flung himself at the bed, rolled up in a sheet, and sat up again, all in one fluid movement. He glared at Lily. Then sliding off the bed, he started toward her with slow, menacing steps.
Lily's concentration was divided between the immediate danger to her well being and the wet spot in the sheet. It extended from Zac's shoulder down his side to cling provocatively to one well-rounded, cleanly-muscled buttock.
Lily had long been aware of the attractiveness of the male bottom, but she'd never seen one so clearly, so close up, or under such circumstances. The effect was hypnotic. The realization that the damp reached almost to his groin was paralyzing. Fortunately, since Lily was feeling decidedly faint, the rest of the sheet was dry and opaque.
"Why aren't your hands over your eyes," Zac growled, his black eyes boring into her like those of a stalking cat, "your knees shaking, your stomach doing somersaults?"
Lily's grip on the sofa back tightened. "My stomach is a bit jumpy and my legs don't feel at all dependable, but I don't dare cover my eyes for fear you'll grab me and do something terrible."
"I ought to throw you out the window." Clutching his sheet with one hand, he continued to advance in a melodramatic fashion. She didn't think he was serious -- he looked perfectly ludicrous trying to intimidate a fully dressed woman while preserving his modesty with a sheet -- but she didn't trust him. He seemed melodramatic a great deal of the time. He might really mean what he said. She was in the room alone with him, with the door locked, and no way for anyone to get in to help her.
"Did you like dressing up for Halloween when you were a young boy?" Lily asked, desperate for something to distract him.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Zac looked like he thought she was crazy, but Lily didn't mind. He was no longer advancing toward her. "You look like a ghost. I always wanted to be a ghost, but Papa wouldn't let me. He said it was a heathen custom."
"I think you and your papa are nuts," Zac said, abandoning his attempt to scare Lily. "Now get out of here and let me sleep."
"You can't go back to bed," Lily said, taking care to keep out of his reach. "You promised to help me find a job. I'm not certain what people do here in San Francisco, but I doubt I know much about it. It may take several days to find something I can do. I only have enough money for a week. Less, actually. So you see, we've got to get started right away."
"Do you always chatter on like a magpie, making no sense at all?"
"Only when I'm nervous. Or caught in a room with a naked man," she added.
"Does it happen often?"
"All the time. Everybody is nervous when they're around Papa."
"I mean get caught in rooms with naked men."
"I'm never caught in rooms with naked men . . . I mean, a room with a naked man. It's making me jittery. I can't see why anyone would like it."
That wasn't entirely true. She had a distinct feeling being caught anywhere with Zac would be exciting, but she wasn't about to tell him that. She knew well enough what happened between the male and the female of the species, but she had also been taught that doing anything like that outside the bounds of holy matrimony would cause her to be swallowed up by fire and brimstone. She didn't think she believed that, but she wasn't anxious to test her theory.
"Men like it. Quite a few women do as well." Zac approached a little closer. "Would you like for me to explain why?"
A mental image of Zac bursting out of his bed -- nude as the day he was born but looking quite a bit better for the passage of twenty-six years -- sprang into her head. "I can guess," she said, her voice barely audible.
"I could erase all doubt if you would like."
"What I would like is for you to put on your clothes and help me look for a job."
They circled the sofa like dancing duelists.
"What an uninteresting way to spend a morning. If I must be up, and it appears that I must, at least there ought to be some reward for my labors."
"You'll have the satisfaction of knowing you helped me get a situation."
"I was hoping for something a little more concrete." He moved closer.
Lily slipped well beyond his reach behind a table and a pair of chairs. "I realize you're teasing me, trying to pay me back for waking you up. I know you wouldn't do anything unkind, but I really wish you'd stop saying those things, even in fun. It's making me very anxious."
Zac stopped. "How can you wake me up at this unholy hour and accuse me of having fun? How did you get in here? I thought I locked the door."
He walked to the door and tested the knob.
"It is locked," he said, advancing on her again. "How did you get in?"
Lily's gaze went involuntarily to the bathroom door.
"How did you know about the other door?"
"It was there, at the end of the hall." Lily backed around a table. "It had to go somewhere."
"Who told you?"
He was stalking her again. She backed away.
"Why should anybody have to tell me?" She backed around the sofa and found herself practically on top of the rumpled bed. She scurried to the other end of the sofa.
"Tell me, or I promise to throw a whole pitcher of water over you."
Lily smiled in spite of herself. "Dodie told me. I think she wanted to see if I could wake you up without getting killed."
"I ought to strangle you both," Zac said, looking like he was seriously considering the possibility.
"While you're making up your mind, maybe you ought to get dressed. I doubt people who strangle other people normally do it wrapped up in a sheet. How would it stay up with both your hands around my neck?"
Zac let out a crack of laughter that made Lily jump.
"You're insane, and I must be crazy even to talk to you. However, I'm wide awake. Why don't you go downstairs like a good little girl while I get dressed?"
"I'd rather wait here, if you don't mind."
"Supposing I do mind?"
"I don't see why you should," Lily said, avoiding his eyes. "You'll be in your bathroom, and your clothes are in the room beyond that. You won't even see me again until you're completely dressed."
"That's not the real reason, is it?"
He was advancing on her again. Lily backed away. She didn't know what she expected him to do if he got his hands on her, but she didn't want to find out.
Even more so, she didn't want to find out what she would do. The idea of his hands on her was becoming more intriguing as the minutes passed. She had never been so aware of a man's body before. Nor had she any idea how stimulating that awareness could be. Her father had warned her to avoid all situations such as this, but she had a strange, unaccountable desire to stay and see just what would happen.
She thought of his naked body again.
Well, she didn't want to see everything that could happen. She knew about part of it. But there must be a great deal more. She knew people who'd been engaged for several years before they got married. Surely there was something they could do to fill up that time . . . except . . . except . . . well, if there wasn't, there ought to be.
Zac reached out his hand to her. "If you're going to stay, you can help me take a bath. I could use someone to scrub my back."
That "except" looked far too close for Lily's comfort. "I'll wait downstairs," she said as she dashed for the door.
Chapter Five
Zac laughed. He was so tired and sleepy he didn't know what he was feeling or why, but he couldn't go back to bed. The little minx had ruined his sleep.
He closed the door behind Lily and headed for the bathroom. He dropped his sheet, took out towels, and stepped into the bath. He hoped they had heated plenty of water this morning. He couldn't remember if anyone except Dodie ever took a bath before noon.
The water came out hot. He adjusted it to his sa
tisfaction and began to soap his body while the tub filled. He'd have to make sure Lily didn't find her way into his bedroom tomorrow. Maybe if he got her a job, she'd be too busy to bother him. That thought made the prospect of prowling the streets less onerous.
He leaned back and let the water rinse the lather off his body. He didn't often feel grateful to his brothers, but he was glad Tyler had insisted he install hot water for his bathroom. Zac remembered Rose heating water on the stove when he lived on the ranch and his taking a bath in a tub in front of the kitchen stove. A tub full of hot water in his own private bath was a luxury he didn't intend to do without.
He wondered if Lily had ever had a bath in such a tub. He'd have to ask her. Maybe he'd offer to let her use his bathroom. He laughed. She'd most likely recoil in horror. She probably thought there was something about a male that could rub off in a bathtub. He wouldn't put it past her crazy old father to have told her some such nonsense to keep her away from men.
Which was probably a good idea. Any woman who looked like Lily was bound to attract men. Lots of them. "Christ!" he said aloud. There was no place on earth she could attract more of them than San Francisco.
He hurried to rinse the last of the soap from his body. He stepped out of the tub and began to towel himself dry.
It wasn't just that she would attract men. She'd attract the wrong kind. There wasn't much else in San Francisco. That's why he moved here and spent a fortune building the largest and fanciest saloon in the state. He was counting on there being an endless supply of exactly the kind of men he didn't want having anything to do with Lily.
After putting on his underclothes, Zac picked up his shaving bowl and began whipping up a lather. Soon his face was covered in snowy foam. He shaved with his usual care. It was never wise to hurry with a straight razor.
As soon as he finished shaving and burning himself with aftershave lotion -- he hated that part -- he reached into his closet for his clothes. Something sober and businesslike. It wouldn't help Lily get a job for people to know at a glance she was in the company of one of San Francisco's best known gamblers
Lily Page 5