Cactus Flower by Alice Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

they were both utterly wrong. “If you’d care to leave the room for
a moment, I can fetch my other corset, fasten it myself, and we can
avoid this discussion. I need to get some food in me, or I’m going
to get a headache or faint, or both.”
           Nick
huffed once. He still looked both angry and frustrated, but Eulalie
sensed any danger was over for the time being. She had a more desperate
feeling, however, that danger to herself and to her self-control would
never be any farther away than Nick Taggart.
           “Turn
around,” he said again. “I’ll lace you up.”
           She
eyed him for another moment or two, trying to judge if he meant it.
She decided he did, turned around, and he laced up her corset. Her reaction
to his touch still shocked her, but she didn’t show it.
           “There.
Go get dressed. I’ll wait here. Then I’ll walk you to the chophouse
down the street. Vern stays open late.”
           She
could tell he was still unhappy, even angry, and didn’t know whether
to be glad of it or not. “Thank you, Mr. Taggart.”
    * * * * *
           Nick
wasn’t accustomed to being outmaneuvered by a woman. Not as an adult,
he wasn’t. When he was a kid, he’d had no choice but to put up with
their constant demands, fainting fits, and feigned helplessness. They’d
nearly driven him crazy.
           But
he wasn’t a kid any longer, and he didn’t like this feeling of having
been manipulated one little bit. The women in his adult life had been
simple, often foolish, creatures, whom he could twist around his little
finger with ease. He’d always been able to make females do what he
wanted with them, which was why he only consorted with a certain type.
No sense ruining virgins. Not only was it a dastardly thing to be doing,
but it invariably got a fellow in trouble.
           Not
that he was ever mean to a woman. Hell, he had half the ladies in Rio
Peñasco, married and unmarried, in love with him because he was always
fixing things for them and so forth. But Nick never, ever, let himself
get tangled up with one of them. He’d learned about women the hard
way.
           Since
he’d grown up he’d never, not once, been manipulated by a female—until
tonight, when he’d had the misfortune to become involved with Miss
Eulalie Gibb, damn her soul to perdition. But that body. And that sassy
way she had. He couldn’t have resisted if all the angels in heaven
had held him back when she turned around and he saw all that bare skin.
She was as smooth as silk. And her breasts … Well, Nick wished he
could stop thinking about them, was all.
           His
mood was as black as the night sky as he walked next to her down the
dusty boardwalk to Vernon’s Place. His thin gaze held everyone they
met at a distance. Not that they met many people. Thanks to Dooley’s
worries about riots breaking out in the Opera House, there was a back
door to the establishment. That’s the one Nick had led Eulalie through
when they’d exited. Nick didn’t want to even try to imagine what
might have happened if they’d walked out through the saloon itself.
All the men Miss Gibb had stirred up with her performance wouldn’t
think twice about attacking her—or of shooting him to get at her.
           Hell,
and here he’d thought he was merely doing Dooley a favor by offering
to protect her tonight. Dammit all, now Nick was the one needing protection—and
from Miss Eulalie Gibb.
           It
wasn’t fair, and Nick hated it. Not only was he as titillated as a
bull pastured next to a meadow full of nubile young cows, but he had
no way to escape. Eulalie Gibb wouldn’t allow him into her bed, and
he was committed to guarding her tonight. That meant he couldn’t even
relieve his lust with Violet.
           “You’re
frowning, Mr. Taggart. Is something the matter?”
           Nick
looked down at