Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] (43 page)

"Oh, honey," he breathed, "you look so beautiful."

Their eyes met in the mirror. The contact was electric. A current of desire sparked in his loins, turning into a flame, heating every inch of his flesh from the inside. As he watched, a rosy hue crept up her cheeks, and he wished fervently he'd had the good sense not to include his brothers and their children on this outing.

Suddenly he felt awkward. Not since the night of the storm had he been so unsure of himself with Bailey. His only consolation was that she, too, seemed uncharacteristically timid. She shifted back and forth on her white kid boots like a cornered filly eager to run.

"I managed to suck my stomach in tight enough to lace my own corset," she said petulantly. "I figured out how to roll the stockings on straight after the sixth or seventh time, and I finally got the hang of walking with the garters so they wouldn't snap my behind—"

Zack gulped a breath. The pictures she was painting were bringing him dangerously close to a sweat. "Bailey," he cut in hoarsely, "surely you didn't call me up here to tell me all that."

She shook her head. Sweeping her curls from her back, she pulled them all in one riotous mass across her shoulder. "I did everything else," she said, her bottom lip jutting. "But I can't button my stupid dress by myself."

She eyed him hopefully in the mirror.

"You mean you want me to do it?" He licked his dry lips as her ivory shoulder blades rippled beneath the gaping V of her gown. His palms grew moist. "For heaven's sake, Bailey, why didn't you call Fancy? Or Rorie?"

"I couldn't ask
them.
They've never seen me naked."

Oh, God.
He hoped his pecker wasn't bulging as much as his eyes. She'd picked a fine time to turn bashful.

Blowing out his breath, he forced himself to take a step closer. And closer still. It occurred to him that if he couldn't touch the buttons at her back without acting like a stud pony on the prod, he wouldn't be able to plant his hand on her waist for a harmless two-step.

Her fresh, cool scent of lemon and rainwater wafted over him, making his previously dry mouth water. The temptation of all those curls, all those shimmers, was nearly too much to bear. He had satisfyingly wicked visions of grabbing her buttocks instead of the placards of her gown. How was he supposed to make his hands seal her creamy nakedness from his sight, when his fingers were itching to peel off every blessed flounce and froufrou?

"Zack?" It was Cord, calling from the bottom of the stairs. "Is everything all right up there?"

His heart jolted. "Uh, yeah. Just dandy," he called back, mortified to hear how husky his voice had become. He needed to settle his pecker down fast if he didn't want his brothers to torment him all night long. Wes and Cord might be gentlemanly enough to spare Bailey their wisecracks, but they wouldn't pass up an opportunity to rib him.

He studied her intimidatingly dainty row of buttons with a doubtful eye. Come to think of it, Cord and Wes might never get their chance. He was likely to be up here fastening her dress all night long.

When Zack's fingers touched her flesh with a raspy gentleness, Bailey gulped a shallow breath. It was all the air her corset would let her take. Despite the delicious tingles his warmth gusted over her, she was dreadfully uncomfortable and more self-conscious than she'd ever believed she could be. She felt trussed up like a turkey with her whalebone and garters. Her petticoats were hot and heavy, and she worried she would humiliate herself by falling off the dainty little heels that didn't look fit to hold a normal body's weight.

Then there'd been the nightmare of rouge. She'd looked like a Comanche on the warpath before she'd washed her face three or four times to get the waxy residue off. The powder had blotched, and the merchandiser's claims that it would erase sun freckles had been a bunch of hooey. She'd grimly washed her face yet again, wondering how much her skin could stand before it peeled off. Now she understood why Caitlin had always been late to greet her callers, and why Amaryllis walked around with such mincing footsteps. How did women manage to live their entire lives in such discomfort?

Or maybe the more important question was, why?

She bit her lip, gazing furtively through her veil of bangs at Zack in the mirror. The look on his face when he'd walked through her door had triggered an exploding heat in her belly, one that had radiated along every nerve until her legs nearly melted. Maybe that was why women went to such pains to put on masks and teeter on stilts.

She still thought it was a stupid reason to be miserable.

Zack's hands trembled, grazing her skin again. He was starting to frown, and she suspected the mutter he'd bit back wasn't another compliment.

"Did you have to get a dress with thirty buttons?" he grumbled.

"Can I help it if that's the fashion?"

They glared at each other in the mirror. Then his gaze slipped away, down the column of her neck to her bodice, and past the waterfall of silk that spilled over her hips. His features softened, and a dimple creased in the corner of his mouth.

"It was worth it," he murmured.

She swallowed, staring at her boots. She supposed she should tell him about the baby now. Get it over with before it ate a hole in her insides. She'd never been one to keep a truth from herself, or from anyone else.

But when his hands settled on her shoulders and he shifted, drawing carefully nearer, her nerve faltered. He was gazing at their reflections in a pleased kind of wonder, his unmistakable approval slowly giving way to pride. And then to something else. Something profound and heady.

For the first time in her life, Bailey felt truly valued as a woman.

The realization hit her like a bolt of lightning, leaving her dazed and a little breathless. She had always struggled to repress the female side of herself because she'd come to think of it as flawed and undesirable. But through Zack's eyes, she could see the wonder of her own beauty. She could appreciate the sacredness of her femininity because in the glowing depths of his gaze, she'd seen something worthy of admiration.

The intense intimacy of their bonding shook her. It was frightening to think how strongly her female side could rule her, wanting nothing more than to surrender right there, right then, to Zack's masculinity.

And yet, with no baby in her womb, wasn't her inner yearning the only thing that could possibly hold him to her now?

Confused, and more than a little discomfited by feelings so alien to her usual nature, she rallied her logic and attributed Zack's admiration to the dancing gown and all the other fofarraw she was wearing.

"Uh, I'm ready now," she told him. "Let's go."

Her flight to the door was barred by an elbow encased in white linen.

"Whoa, darlin'," he drawled in a smoky suitor's voice. "You don't think I'm going to let you bolt out of here without a proper escort, do you? Ma'am?"

She bit her lip. Zack never talked to her like that when she wasn't wearing ten pounds of underwear. Surely that was proof positive of the Curse of the Dress.

Then again, if dressing like a candy confection made Zack fall in love with her, maybe wearing a gown couldn't be considered such a curse after all.

She mustered her courage, trying to effuse some into her fingers. Cursed or not, if she didn't win Zack's heart by midnight, well... She'd just have to resign herself to the idea that this evening was the last she would ever spend alone with him.

A few minutes later, Bailey realized she'd been rather naive to think she might actually spend this night alone with Zack.

Children swarmed around them as they stepped off the bottom stair. Seth demanded to see the dogs his Uncle Wes had said looked like polar bears; Topher wanted to ride one. Billy, Cord's five-year-old, screeched at Zack to referee his mortal combat with Megan, who was using her longer seven-year-old's reach to grab for the last cookie. Nita, Wes's oldest girl, was bawling because she'd tripped over her skirt and splashed lemonade on her bodice. Merrilee, the only quiet one, was busy wandering from lady to lady, pressing bouquets of goldenrod into their hands.

While the adults rallied to discipline their children, Bailey wondered, between sneezes, if God might not have spared her a baby because she wasn't ready for parenthood. Training Border

Collies and breaking colts didn't look half as difficult as cowing a truculent Rawlins child.

Wes winked at her as he tossed his bellowing five-year-old nephew over his shoulder and headed for the wagons. "Good thing we left the three little ones back at the ranch with Aunt Lally, eh?"

Cord, silencing his oldest boy's strident demands to see polar bears, ordered him outside with Megan in a voice that promised dire consequences for disobedient backsides. Merrilee hurried after her younger cousins like a worried mother hen.

Rorie, pink with embarrassment, tried to distract her daughter and apologize to her hostess all at the same time. "You look lovely, Bailey. Don't you think she looks lovely, Nita?"

The fourteen-year-old sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Bailey refrained from pointing out that Zack was offering her his handkerchief.

"I guess so," the child answered sullenly. "Anyone would look lovely if they didn't have
lemonade
spilled all over them."

"We're not going home now, Nita, and that's final," her mother said crisply.

As Rorie marched her daughter out the door, Topher shouldered around them to get a closer view of his hostess. Cranking his neck back, he planted his hands on his hips and looked up and down Bailey's dancing dress.

"Where'd you hide your six-shooter?"

She blinked in bemusement at the ten-year-old. "I beg your pardon?"

"Your gun," he answered impatiently. "Did you hide it under your bloomers like Aunt Fancy does?"

"Topher."
His face turning crimson, Zack grabbed his nephew's arm and hustled him toward the door. "Gentlemen do not ask ladies questions like that."

"Shoot. I ain't no gentleman. What's got you so lathered?"

Cord cleared his throat, looking only a shade less red than Zack, but Fancy laughed good-naturedly as she breezed after them.

"Actually it was a derringer," she whispered in Bailey's ear. "Hiding a .22 is the only thing garters are good for."

Bailey smiled a little, grateful to know she had at least one ally among the Rawlins women.

Now she was alone with the family patriarch, Cord Rawlins. She met his appraising green eyes uncertainly. She'd never had much cause to socialize with Cord since he was so much older than she. When she was thirteen and had seen him ride into Bandera wearing his deputy U.S. marshal's badge, she had thought him dangerous, dashing, and the most handsome man in the county. A week or so had passed before she first laid eyes on Zack, and her opinion had turned unquestionably in his favor.

Now, at thirty-nine, Cord was still one of the most breathtaking specimens of manhood in the county. Seth looked just like his pa, she decided. Billy did too. They were a handsome breed, these Rawlins males, with their chiseled jaws and dimples.

Bailey swallowed hard, trying not to imagine what her and Zack's child might have looked like.

"Did Zack have the good sense to tell you how pretty you look tonight?" Cord asked in a rumbly voice.

She blushed and nodded, accepting his arm.

"Good." He cast her a sideways glance as they walked to the door. "He thinks the world of you, you know. He's just not good with words."

She caught her breath.

Cord smiled and patted her hand. "Don't tell him I told you so. He's so mule-headed, he'll deny it."

She blinked. Was it true? Did Zack really think the world of her?

Or was Cord confusing Zack's dedication to the child they would never have as affection for her?

As it turned out, Cord was the only adult male Topher and Billy weren't mad at, so the boys voted, two to one, to ride in his wagon. Seth, still smarting from his father's scolding, grudgingly climbed up to join them.

That arrangement left all the girls to ride with Wes and Rorie.

"There's no sense in you hitching a third wagon," Cord called to Zack. "Why don't you and Bailey ride with one of us?"

Bailey dubiously eyed the buckboards full of children. A lot of pushing and name-calling was going on in Cord's. An occasional sniffle and lots of pouting came from Wes's. She was just about to suggest to Zack he join her in the barn to saddle Sassy and Boss, when he reached for her hand.

"Let's ride with the girls," he said with one of his breathtaking smiles. "That way, I can have you all to myself."

His reasoning, so desperately wanted by her silly heart, prodded her to agree.

Big mistake.

Bailey quickly learned why Zack liked little girls. They adored him. Megan practically pounced on his lap, and Merrilee snuggled under his left arm. Nita roused herself from her sulk long enough to rail about lemonade and how it bleached dresses, so Zack gallantly told her any man with half a brain would be too dazzled by her smile to notice.

Even though he held Bailey's hand, the children were getting the lion's share of his attention. Bailey knew it was foolish, even mean-spirited, to be jealous of three little girls. But after midnight, they'd each have all the Zack they wanted, while she'd have nothing but memories.