Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] by Texas Wildcat Read Free Book Online Page B

stable the horses.
    Loath to spoil her grand entrance, Bailey ducked out of sight of the arriving Woolgrowers and camouflaged herself behind a potted prickly pear cactus near the registration counter. Unfortunately, the position left her no recourse but to glare at the vision of peach-chiffon loveliness that was greeting the male committee members at the meeting room door.
    Amaryllis Larabee had absolutely no business being here tonight—no ranching business anyway. Since any meeting these days between the sheep and cattle factions was a potential powder keg, Bailey could understand why Amaryllis's father, County Judge Larabee, had decided to make an appearance. Larabee wasn't just representing the law, he was protecting the hotel, which he owned along with every other business on the south end of town. But why on God's green earth had he brought Amaryllis?
    That question pretty much answered itself a few minutes later, when the street door swung open to reveal a trio of rugged, sun-darkened cattlemen. Zack was escorted by Cord, Wes, and a Winchester rifle, its brass receiver flashing in the lamplight above his black-gloved fist. Rough-shaven and wind-groomed, he stole Bailey's breath away as he strode across the hotel lobby, his spurs chinking and his buckle winking low over his narrow hips.
    Bailey wasn't the only one to take notice of the Cattlemen's president. Amaryllis's china-blue eyes practically ate Zack alive. The hands and mouth of Bandera's reigning belle would have gladly done the same, Bailey felt certain, if convention and Judge Larabee had allowed.
    Frowning, Bailey studied the way her nineteen-year-old rival fluttered her lashes and pouted her perfectly painted lips. Such behavior had always mystified Bailey. It seemed... well, unnatural somehow, yet all the unmarried girls seemed to do it, especially when they were talking to bachelors. Bailey wasn't completely immune to the loneliness her way of life had forced upon her, and she wondered if things had been different, if she had learned more about she-stuff than sheep, would Zack have noticed her the way he noticed Amaryllis?
    Just then Amaryllis loosed one of her girlish giggles. Bailey cringed. The struggling female side of her, the side that wasn't quite sure how to express itself, balked at the idea of fawning over a man like Amaryllis did. Even so, Bailey was secretly wounded to know that Zack preferred a sweetheart who was all fluff and no substance. If she were a man looking for a wife, she told herself staunchly, sawdust-for-brains was the last thing she'd settle for.
    She gazed wistfully after the Rawlins brothers as they passed her hiding place. Halting first before Judge Larabee to surrender his firearm, Cord Rawlins doffed his hat with his usual economical politeness and nodded to the preening Miss Larabee. A smirk peeked out from under Wes's auburn mustache, and he followed Cord's example. Then he furtively nudged Zack. Bailey wasn't sure who scowled more at this brotherly ribbing, her or Zack, before the two married Rawlinses strolled into the meeting room.
    Zack never got the chance to stroll anywhere. Her ambush unfolding to plan, Amaryllis latched on to his arm like a cockleburr that couldn't be shaken off.
    Not that Zack was shaking too hard, Bailey observed irritably. If he let that girl get any closer, she'd have to be pried from his hip with a crowbar. No wonder the biddies at Arbuckle's General Store were tittering that the county's most eligible bachelor would be hitched by year's end. Cord or Wes needed to sit Zack down and talk some sense into him.
    Either that, or dump a wagonload of ice down his britches.
    "Oh, Zack," Amaryllis cooed, "I was so worried when Daddy told me you'd be in the thick of things tonight if that wretched McShane spinster comes around, spouting off about her nasty, smelly sheep. She just loves to cause trouble, you know. I guess she can't help herself since she doesn't have a marriage-minded beau to pay