Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] (21 page)

"Here." Straddling the back of her chair like a boy, she plunked the jug down between them. "You need this even more than I do."

He blinked at the three black X's painted across the jug's belly. "You don't mean—"

"Sure I do." She popped out the cork and poured him a shot, stopping precisely at two fingers' worth, as if she had the natural-born instincts of a barkeep. "Jerky makes the best white lightning in the county."

"I don't suppose he drinks it too," Zack said dryly.

"Of course he does."

"No wonder he's stranger than a sidesaddle on a sow."

She chuckled, shaking her head at him. "You big baby. A little moonshine won't kill you. Go on, drink it. It's high time you started loosening up."

His flush was on the rise again, so he cocked an eyebrow, taking refuse in sternness. "I don't drink with ladies."

"Well, that shouldn't stop you tonight, since I've never claimed to be one."

She poured herself a shot, gulped it down in one swallow, and slammed her cup back on the table. Reaching to pour herself another, she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Am I gonna have to spoon-feed you, cowpoke?"

He shook his head, uncertain whether to be annoyed, amused, or concerned. "Bailey, you're only half my size, and you couldn't possibly keep up with me if I decide to—"

"The hell I can't. Talk's cheap, pard, so put up or shut up. 'Course, if you're afraid Little Miss Bo Peep might show you up..."

He snorted. "Girl, you don't have a prayer."

"Yeah?" She jabbed his cup closer with her forefinger. "So quit stalling."

He couldn't quite swallow his smile. The little minx was so damned sure of herself, sitting over there with that mischievous glint in her eye and that curl coiling so jauntily on her forehead.

Besides, how powerful could Jerky's moonshine be if Bailey had tossed back a belt without batting an eye? Maybe she'd stop pestering him with challenges if he humored her for a spell before riding home. Maybe she'd even stop bragging like some adolescent schoolboy hell-bent on proving herself, and start acting like a proper female for a change.

She raised her cup. "To your health, neighbor," she said solemnly.

"To your health."

He tossed back the shot and nearly died. Fire burned a path from his gullet to his gut; his tongue burst into flames; and his ears, he was certain, blew plumes of smoke. It was all he could do not to cough and sputter as the busthead went down.

Bailey thumped him helpfully between his shoulder blades. "Good stuff, eh?"

He wheezed, and she chuckled.

"There, there. You feel better now, don't you?"

He had to squint in order to glare through his watering eyes. "You sure there's no rat poison in this?"

She wore a look of affronted innocence. "Now, would I be drinking from the same jug if I wanted to poison you, cowpoke?"

He muttered an oath and wrapped his forefinger around the silver-dollar-sized handle.

"Careful, Zack," she warned silkily. "A little busthead goes a long way, and I wouldn't want you riding out of here on a sow with a sidesaddle."

"Bailey, that tongue of yours is meaner than a mule on a sawdust diet." He swallowed another round and grimaced, much to her unabashed amusement. "You drink with all your guests?" he asked, managing not to wheeze this time.

"Nope. Just the bashful ones."

He knew he'd turned beet red. "The hell you say."

She gave him a few consoling pats on the forearm. "Aw, don't feel bad, neighbor. Even I was bashful once."

"Once?" He hiked a dubious eyebrow.

"Sure." She started pouring the next round. "It was my thirteenth birthday, and Caitlin sewed me my first party dress. It was a godawful thing, with ruffles and lace and sissy little flowers embroidered on the back ribbons."

She made a face, and Zack chuckled at the irony. His niece, Megan, would give her eyeteeth to wear a dress like that, and she was only seven.

"Anyway, Caitlin was so damned proud of ragging me out that she invited the preacher and half his congregation to come see. She knew all my hiding places too—up in the apple tree, down in the sheep-dipping vats, out under the back porch—so I couldn't elude her for more than a quarter of an hour at a time. She threatened to hogtie me to the front gate if I didn't stand still and look pretty."

"So what did you do?" he asked, propping his elbow on the table.

She donned a smile far sweeter than any fallen angel's. "I sent Boo to roll in the mud, and I let him jump all over me."

"Bailey," he chided, shaking his head.

"Well, it was better than dressing Boo up in the ghastly thing—which I would have done, too, except I figured my best friend deserved more respect than that, even if he was a hound."

At the sound of Zack's rich, warm laughter, Bailey felt her defensiveness melt away. She laughed, flushed and exhilarated by her small triumph. The moonshine was actually working! It was breaking down Zack's tendency to be terse. Better yet, it was keeping their conversation from deteriorating into the usual argument. They seemed to be chatting good-naturedly for once, like real
compadres.

The idea appealed so much to Bailey, she wanted to dance on the table. Friends were hard to come by when you were female and raised sheep. Maybe she could get Zack to like her enough to call again. She didn't dare hope for anything more than companionship, but at least as friends they could have some fun together, like steal honey out from under some queen bee's nose or go coon hunting by moonlight.

"I'm sure sorry I missed seeing you in that party dress," he said, his elbow sliding the tiniest bit closer to her place setting.

A strand of chestnut hair spilled across his forehead, and she watched, fascinated, as the dancing lamplight struck sparks of auburn from it. He'd combed his work-roughened fingers through the wavy mass, much as her fingers were itching to do. The tan on his hands was only a shade lighter than the color of his eyes, which at the moment were crinkled and shimmering with mirth. Her heart beat faster, and her stomach did a dizzying flip as she realized she wouldn't have to reach very far if she wanted to touch his cheek, stroke his hair, trace his lips....

She decided she needed another drink to drown these female urgings. She'd worked hard to make Zack respect her, and she didn't want to change his mind by betraying her inexperience at sparking.

Of course, if he gave her some kind of sign that he might actually
like
her to pet him, well... that would be different.

"All right, Bailey McShane, 'fess up. I've never, in the nine years I've known you, caught you wearing a dress. How come?"

"Hate 'em," she answered promptly after her gulp.

"Why's that?"

She shrugged with a passable show of nonchalance. "I don't cotton to she-stuff."

"Yeah?" he said softly, his gaze mesmerizing in its quest for truth. "Your cousin did. And your mama did too, as I understand it."

"Well, I'm not like them." She winced. She hadn't meant to snap at him, even if he had compared her with Lucinda. "Besides," she said more congenially, "bad things always happen when I wear a dress."

"Like what?"

One corner of her mouth twitched in a mirthless smile. Well, there'd been the time when she was eight years old, and Billy Dean Logan had grabbed her skirts, trying to drop a fishing worm down her bloomers. Nick and Nat had beat the tar out of him for it too.

But her mother, outraged to find a boy-sized handprint on her fanny, had refused to listen to an explanation and had sent her to bed with a whipping and no supper.

That night, Bailey had trembled in bed, listening to one of her parents' knock-down-drag-out fights. Her mother had accused Daddy of turning her into a trollop with his gifts of blue jeans and spurs. Daddy fired back in his heavy Scottish burr, "Like mother, like daughter, Lucy, lass."

Bailey hadn't even known what a trollop was then, but ironically, fourteen years later, she figured she must have grown up to be the oldest virgin in Bandera County.

There had been one other dress-wearing debacle during the spring of her ninth year, when her mother had miscarried a daughter for the second time. Devastated, Daddy had ridden off with Mac to drink. Left with only Caitlin to advise her, Bailey had listened to her older, wiser cousin's counsel to try to cheer her mother up by putting on a dress.

But when Bailey, with daisies in hand, had entered her mother's sickroom, Lucinda had taken one look at her only living child and screamed, "This is all your fault.
Your fault,
Arabella. You were spawned from the devil's own lust, and now my womb is poisoned forever!"

That night, Daddy had put his fist through the wall after learning from Caitlin why Bailey was locked in her bedroom, crying.

Lucinda had begun taking long vacations to her native Massachusetts after that, much to Bailey's relief. Only Daddy ever admitted to missing her. To this day, Bailey couldn't understand why. Each time Lucinda had returned home, Bailey had contemplated running away, but then Mac would take her under his wing and teach her how to whistle with two fingers, or bait a line for fishing, or throw a ringer in a game of horseshoes. Daddy could have taught her the same things, of course, but he was usually too busy running the ranch—or mouth fighting with her mother—to pay her much mind.

"It's like this, Zack," Bailey answered carefully, keeping her gaze trained on the sparkling moonshine that flowed into her cup. "Dresses get in the way. Just like being female gets in the way. I can't do anything about being female, but I sure can do something about dresses." Swallowing, she banged her cup back on the table with a satisfied sigh. The world was starting to grow warm and fuzzy around the edges, and Lucinda Bailey was fading into a distant, if painful, memory.

"Hey!" She looked suspiciously at Zack's cup and scowled, jabbing an unsteady finger at him. "You're a round behind, cowpoke. Drink up."

His grin turned lopsided, and he obliged.

"So what's so bad about being female?" he drawled, resting his head on his hand and sliding his elbow back across the table toward her.

She snorted, cupping her chin in her own hand and doing the same. Now their arms touched. A whisper of breeze slipped between their faces, gusting from the inky blackness of the pregnant air outside. The taste of rain wafted in through the open window, teasing her lips, and she ran her tongue over them. She'd acted in innocence, but she noticed that Zack's eyelids drooped, as if he were watching her mouth.

A strange tremor raced through her limbs at the notion. When she spied the primal spark kindling in his dark eyes, it made her toes curl in the most delicious way.

"Obviously, you've never been female," she retorted a little huskily.

"Can't say that I have."

"Then consider yourself blessed." She cleared her throat. She liked gazing into the smoky molasses of his eyes, but those kinds of indulgences reminded her all too forcibly that she
was
female—a virginal female, no less.

"'Cause if you were a woman," she told him as briskly as her thickened tongue would allow, "you wouldn't be able to run for the Cattlemen's Association, or sit on a jury, or vote for your pal Judge Larabee. Worst of all, you'd have to put up with men, none of whom would ever listen to a damned thing you said, even if you were right—which you probably would be."

Laughter danced in his eyes. "Is that a fact?"

"Yep." She nodded solemnly, which was hard to do, short of sticking her nose in her palm. "Ye'd just be told something like 'That's mighty fine, little lady. Now, why don't ye jest mosey on over to the quiltin' bee, and let us menfolk spit tobaccy, and scratch our privates, and cuss a blue streak long enough to run out of this here rotgut. Then we'll all adopt yer idea and call it our own.' "

"Aw, c'mon. It's not as bad as all that, is it?"

"Aye, i'tis."
Oops.
She giggled, realizing her burr was slipping out.

His dimples creased, but whether at her accent or her giggle, she couldn't say. She supposed in light of their newfound friendship, it didn't matter. Not as long as she kept her pesky feminine longings on a leash.

"I'm the boss, so it's my turn to ask questions," she said with an imperious wave of her arm that swept her fork onto the floor. She giggled again.

"You're the boss, eh?"

"That's right. Around here I am." Squeezing one eye closed, the surefire way for improving her aim, she poured them each another round. At this rate, they were bound to be best friends by midnight. "What I want to know is, how come a man like ye isn't hitched yet?" she asked, eager to get to the confidence-sharing stage. "Shoot, ye've got to be about the best catch in the county."

"That's mighty nice of you to say." His lashes fanned lower, hooding the merriment in his eyes. "Just who are you asking these questions for anyway?"

She tossed her head. "Don't go climbing on yer high horse, cowpoke. A straight question deserves a straight answer."

"All right." He swallowed his moonshine, propped his head back up, then fixed her with a grave if somewhat glassy stare. "I reckon I'm not married 'cause I haven't asked anyone yet."