Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] (3 page)

"You shoot my dog, and I'll shoot you, Rotten-damn," she fired back, incensed that the little weasel had dared to blab her most hideous secret: her name.

Boo, meanwhile, was galloping through Nick's discarded clothing, barking with gleeful anticipation at the red-flanneled fanny that was fleeing down the hall. In desperation, Nick leaned back to kick in the last door. It swung open easily, throwing him off balance. Boo leapt, his great jaws gaping. The sound of rending fabric was followed by Nick's shriek, and Bailey caught a glimpse of snowy-white buttocks before Nick slammed the door closed again, leaving Boo to snarl in frustration, a scarlet drop seat clenched in his teeth.

The floorboards shook with masculine laughter. Even Nat and Hank roared, slumping in their chairs and wiping tears from their cheeks. Disgusted, Bailey picked up her shotgun and the riding gauntlet.

"Here now, Miss Bailey." The barkeep hurried to intercept her. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Upstairs to help my dog," she said as Boo, rumbling with menace, flopped down on his belly and laid siege to the bedroom.

"Confound it, Bailey, you know upstairs ain't no place for a lady."

"You must be confusing me with my mother. Now, step aside." She pushed past the barkeep. "I'm going after Nick."

Suddenly the door flew open once more. A tall, lean cattleman, who looked twice as rangy as normal in his jet-black duster, stood on the threshold. Eyes as hot and dark as firelit coals burned into Bailey's, and she caught her breath, her heart tripping in a traitorous dance.

"Damnation," the rancher muttered, "it's you."

Her steps faltered. Bailey tried to ignore the warmth that pulsed through her veins because he'd noticed her.
Him.
Zachariah Rawlins. The youngest president ever to serve the Bandera County Cattlemen's Association. The most elusive, heavily pursued bachelor in three surrounding counties. The most breathtaking, aggravating specimen of manhood she'd ever laid eyes on in all her twenty-two years.

Zack was also, to his highly publicized annoyance, her eastern neighbor.

Reaching the top of the stairs, she glared at the twenty-six-year-old rancher whose bottomless brown eyes, wealth of chestnut hair, and well-muscled limbs had been making her pulse pound ever since she'd turned thirteen. He'd started sporting his mustache shortly after his nineteenth birthday, she recalled, perhaps because he'd always done business with more seasoned cattlemen. Personally, she preferred clean-shaven mugs, but somehow Zack's grizzled appearance only added to his sensuality.

Not that what
she
thought had ever mattered to
him
. No, he wasn't courting her. He was courting Amaryllis Larabee.

Pushing such disappointments from her mind, Bailey halted by Boo's tail, prepared to do battle. "That's right, neighbor. It's me. And I'd be much obliged if you'd get the hell out of my way."

Boo didn't waste time on such social niceties. With a ferocious woof, he hurtled past Zack's legs and charged his quarry's den. Bailey heard a crash and a shriek—most likely the whore's—a couple of thuds—probably Nick's sloppily aimed boots—and a barrage of oaths. Then she glimpsed Nick's flanneled length shooting like a flame through the open window. He landed with precarious grace on a convenient oak branch.

"Ha! Stupid mutt!" he jeered. "Can't catch me now, can ya? Go ahead, then, jump. Jump on out after me, mutt!"

Boo was barking wildly, his forepaws scraping at the window ledge, and Bailey narrowed her eyes as Nick broke off a twig to further torment her dog.

"That does it, Rotten-damn."

She tried to shove past Zack as easily as she had the barkeep, but the fortress of muscle barring her way didn't yield. She found herself gazing up his imposing length, past his broad shoulders and the stubbled square of his jaw. Not for the first time did she wish her McShane family ancestors had taken more care to breed their offspring for height.

"Begging your pardon, Miss McShane," Zack said with thinly veiled irritation. He pulled her shotgun from her hands. "Your scattergun is going to get someone hurt."

"Someone already got hurt—to the tune of five hundred dollars." She tried unsuccessfully to wrest the muzzle free. "A gang of wire cutters paid my range a call tonight. One of the bastards left this glove behind, and the scent led Boo to Nick."

To Zack's credit, he didn't reject her story outright. A muscle along his jawline began to twitch, and he shifted his gaze to Nick's kinfolk, seated below them. When he returned the full intensity of his sun-crinkled eyes back to her, he didn't look quite so accusing.

"So you're planning on filling Nick's hide full of buckshot, is that it?"

She couldn't help but blush. Not for the first time did she wonder if Zack had heard the rumors about her and Nick. When she was eleven, ten-year-old "Ick" had dropped his britches behind the schoolhouse and demanded she admire his pecker. He must have never forgiven her for being more impressed with her daddy's stud ram, because on her twenty-first birthday, when she'd gone to him for "lessons," he'd brayed to the entire county that he'd rolled her in the hay. Nothing had been further from the truth—she'd lost her nerve and her dinner—but she let most folks think what they liked, since the rumors helped drive away her more undesirable suitors.

Not that Zack would have been an undesirable suitor, she mused wistfully. She just couldn't let
him
know how desirable he was. After all, he'd never lavished any of his dimpled smiles on her. He had Amaryllis, the county's favorite belle, while she, Bailey, had the perennial disfavor of the gossips. No one ever linked Saint Zack's name with sordid behavior; he stood too straight and narrow beneath his halo.

She blew out her breath. The one time she actually attracted the man's attention, she was up to her eyeballs in controversy. She just wouldn't have any luck if it wasn't rotten.

"I figure I have more reasons than most for wanting to plug Nick Rotterdam," she answered sullenly.

Tamping down his embarrassment at having a female catch him in a whore's room—even if he had been buying information about a suspected rustler, not sex—Zack gazed down at the pint-sized wildcat with the forthright blue eyes and the endearingly freckled nose and wished for at least the hundredth time she was anyone but Caitlin McShane's cousin. Although he couldn't blame Bailey for the blood running through her veins, he couldn't trust her with that legacy either. He'd vowed on his mother's own Bible never to make the mistake of caring for a McShane woman again.

Maybe that was why Bailey chapped his hide whenever he couldn't avoid her outright. God knew, the girl and that hound of hers had been a thorn in his side ever since he'd first set foot in Bandera County.

"Miss McShane—"

"Stop calling me that! You know my name."

He glanced uncomfortably at the grinning cowboys below, watching his predicament with such amusement. He couldn't very well invite her into the room for a more private discussion, and she didn't look inclined to accompany him downstairs peaceably.

"Where's McTavish?" he demanded with a good deal less aplomb. "Your man should be handling your ranching problems, not you."

"Mac isn't my 'man,' he's my foreman. And I'm perfectly capable of handling my ranch and my business."

Zack grimaced to hear her voice rise above the frenzied barking behind him. Obviously, he'd touched another nerve. How was he supposed to know McTavish had had the good sense not to offer for the little spitfire? Zack couldn't blame the Scot, but if Bailey kept chasing away suitors at this rate, he was never going to have a levelheaded, reasonable man as his neighbor.

He groaned inwardly at the thought.

"Look, Bailey." He lapsed into such familiarity only under duress. "You're doing your cause more harm than good by chasing Nick through the, uh, heifer corral with a shotgun."

"Do you have a better suggestion?"

"Let's go downstairs."

She planted a fist on either hip. "The last time I agreed to cooperate with you, Mr. Cattlemen's president, some idiot cowpoke built a campfire in my northwestern pasture and nearly started a wildfire. I'm all for neighborly relations, letting you cattlemen drive your steers through my mountain pass on your way to market, but not when you're cavalier about the privilege."

"And what does that incident have to do with getting you out of a whorehouse in one piece?"

That question tripped her up—a rare coup. He'd learned from painful experience that Bailey's tongue could flay a man alive, and he had enough trouble talking socially to women without exposing himself to one of her verbal floggings.

"I've got my hound. And my shotgun." Her gaze was defiant despite the fact that she had neither safety precaution at the moment. "I'm not in any danger here."

He resisted a glance at her shapely, denim-sheathed legs. "If you think you're safe dressed in those duds in a saloon full of randy cowboys, you're too naive for your own good. Now, do you want to get to the bottom of this glove matter, or don't you?"

She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again, as if thinking better of her response. "I reckon I'd be safe from
you
anyway," she grumbled, and whistled at her hound. "Boo! Come."

With her canine champion panting worshipfully at her heels, Bailey preceded him down the hall. They passed Nat Rotterdam on the stairs. The wiseacre smirked, no doubt on his way to rescue his twin's clothes, but Zack ignored the younger man. Hank was the Rotterdam to reckon with.

In fact, as Hank watched their approach, his expression was so openly speculative that Zack wondered if the wily old politician was concocting some sordid rumor about them to foil Zack's reelection hopes.

"What do you know about the glove Bailey found on her range?" Zack demanded the minute his boots reached the taproom floor.

Hank leaned his girth back in his chair and propped his boots up on the table. "Shoot, is that why the little lady's been waving that riding gauntlet under our noses?" Shaking his head, he turned his attention to Bailey. "You gotta know, sugar, if me or my boys had seen any gunny-sackers scaring your sheep or cutting your fences, why, we'd have been the first to tan those polecats' hides. Sorry to hear we weren't able to lend you a neighborly hand. But me and the boys have been, uh, branding heifers here all night long."

"That's right," a half dozen cowboys chimed in loyally.

Zack frowned, wondering if Hank had paid for his alibi. He liked to think his northern neighbor had more scruples than that, since Hank had taken him under his wing nine years ago. At seventeen, Zack had been reeling under the responsibility of establishing his family's cattle business in Bandera, and Hank had generously lent a hand. At the time, Zack's older brother, Cord, had been busy with his duties as deputy U.S. marshal, and his kid brother, Wes, had been more interested in ladies than steers.

Bailey, however, appeared less inclined to give Hank the benefit of the doubt. She folded her arms across her chest. "Oh, so I suppose Nick's gauntlet just magically appeared by the pile of ashes that was once my fence post?"

Hank raised a work-roughened hand. "Now, calm down, Bailey. Nick's saddlebags got stolen 'bout a week ago, and he lost a sight more than an old riding glove. Just 'cause that hound of yours treed my boy doesn't make Nick your wire cutter. That cur dog's had it in for Nick ever since he went and tied a couple of tin cans to Boo's tail."

Boo growled at his nemesis's name. Bailey blew an errant, wheat-colored curl off her forehead. "I don't believe you, Hank."

"Well, now, honey, that's just 'cause you're upset. Why don't you let one of my boys take you home and see you get there safe. Shoot. You know as well as I do you wouldn't be having all these troubles if you had a husband to take care of you and run your spread."

"You son of a—" Bailey's chest heaved. When she rounded on Zack, he could see desperation warring with the outrage in her eyes. "Are you going to let him get away with this—this
blackmail?"

Zack fidgeted. Personally, he thought Hank's observation held a ring of truth. It wasn't that Bailey didn't have a good head for business to go with her lion's heart. She did. The problem was, these were hard times. And hard times could be perilous for a lone woman.

"I'm sorry, Bailey, but I have to agree with Hank. Your sheep and your fences wouldn't be such easy targets if you had more men to protect them."

She gaped. "So you're saying I
deserved
to have my ranch raided? Because I'm a woman?"

"No, dammit. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying you can't fight wire cutters and gunnysackers by yourself."

"Now, hold on there, Zack," Hank interrupted, lacing his fingers across his belly. "We cattlemen have certain rights too. Like the right to water our stock. And the right to drive our steers across an open range. You can't go siding with the little lamb lady that way, unless, of course"—he flashed an oily smile—"you're siding against us cattlemen."

Zack felt his hackles rise. Was it his imagination, or had Hank been waiting for this opportunity all night long?

"I'm on the side of justice, Rotterdam," he said tersely.

A rumble of dissatisfaction circled the saloon.

"Hell, Rawlins," Nick called down, shoving his shirttail into his jeans as he leaned over the balcony railing. "When Pa was president of the Cattlemen's Association, the sheepherders and the cowboys got along real fine. There wasn't any gunnysacking or wire cutting going on. 'Course, in them days womenfolk knew their places. You might find one in the hayloft, but you sure wouldn't find one in the shearing barn."