Bandera County, Texas
June 1884

"Lookie there, boys. The little lady ain't got no underwears!"

Pausing just inside the swinging doors, Bailey McShane felt her face turn branding-iron hot. The patrons of the Bullwhip Saloon hooted, sloshing whiskey, to toast their fellow cattleman's jest. Cowboys were notoriously creative when ridiculing sheep, but likening the animals' fleece to a female's unmentionables was a new insult, even to Bailey.

She gripped her shotgun tighter and glared at her snickering audience. Her heart was speeding faster than it had any right to be, which she considered akin to betrayal. She liked to think she'd never been afraid a day in her life. To feel the dampness of her palms and the roiling in her gut made her as mad at her body as she was at the cowpokes who'd vandalized her fences. She hated feeling weak because she was a woman.

Her foreman would have wanted to come to protect her -- a constant struggle between them which irritated her no end -- so rather than telling McTavish about her property damage, she'd ridden off without him. She'd figured the wire cutters she was hunting would take a Scottish immigrant no more seriously than they took a sheep-raising female.

Tonight would be different though. Tonight she'd be someone to reckon with. She'd come to the enemy camp to demand the compensation she was due, and she'd be damned before she'd hide behind some man's britches. In business, as in war, there was no room for ladies. Hiking her rolled-up blue jeans, she narrowed her eyes beneath her Stetson and stalked with her hound into the smoky squalor of the Bullwhip Saloon.

The main room was unusually crowded for droving season. Bailey darted her gaze past the counter, with its clutter of dirty glasses, whooping gamblers, and spinning dice cage, then scanned the flushed and craggy faces laughing around the tables. The drought had forced most of Bandera's cattlemen to drive their steers to market early, selling their best beef at prices that amounted to robbery. With time on their hands and boulder-sized chips on their shoulders, cowpokes came to the saloon each night to grouse about the usual: heat, sodbusters, barbed wire, and woollies.

But one of these men, Bailey was certain, had done more than grouse. Someone in this nest of rat snakes had committed an act of vandalism that had provoked war in several of Texas's other drought-stricken counties. She steeled herself against her secret hurt, that one of her neighbors had lashed out at her when she'd done everything in her power to accommodate them through their hardships. She didn't want bloodshed, but she did want what she deserved: the right to ranch her land in peace.

"Hey, Bo Peep!" another cowpoke bellowed, winking lewdly as he grabbed his crotch. "If it's a ram you've come lookin' fer, I got one over here!"

Boo halted at her side. With a rumbling growl he turned wolfish yellow eyes on her heckler and bared fangs as long as her thumb. Bailey knew a fleeting sense of satisfaction when her detractor blanched, edging unsteadily toward the safety of the counter.

Tugging a man's glove from her belt, she dangled it beneath her hound's twitching nose. "Find the wire cutter, Boo. Find the bastard who's been raiding my wells."

Boo's spindly tail wagged in understanding. Snout to the sawdust, he weaved among the lip-locked couples on the dance floor. One of the hurdy-gurdy girls interrupted her kiss long enough to pat Boo's massive head. Her partner scowled.

"Here now, Miss Bailey," the barkeep called above the abysmally tuned piano. Balancing a fistful of empty mugs in one hand, he planted the other on his hip. "I told you you can't visit the Bullwhip no more if you've come to raise a ruckus."

Boo paused, sniffing suspiciously at the barkeep's wooden leg. The old man went rigid, his whiskered, sun-weathered face paling.

"Don't get your shorts in a knot, Stumpy," Bailey called as Boo, apparently dissatisfied, snuffled onward to the counter. "I'm paying a neighborly call on a wire cutter. Won't take but a minute."

"Neighborly, my ass." Stumpy muttered something more virulent as Boo inspected each of the boots propped along the counter's runner. Their owners allowed this examination with a mixture of amusement and wry tolerance. One cowpoke even tossed the hound a piece of beef jerky. But Boo, faithful to his mission, ignored this flagrant bribe.

"If that slobberin' varmint of yours gnaws another hole through one of my table legs, I'm chargin' you double."

"Boo gave up table legs for railroad spikes," Bailey retorted. "He's not a puppy anymore."

"He's a damned beaver, that's what he is," Stumpy grumbled, plunking his mugs down on the bar.

Meanwhile, Boo had lost interest in the silver rowels and dusty heels lounging at the counter. Winding his way through the clutter of furniture and humans, he trotted toward the stairwell that led to the second story's "heifer corral," where Stumpy's advertisements bragged "a bull could get his fill." Bailey didn't much like the idea of her childhood playmates throwing away their bodies and their dreams, but at least Stumpy fed and clothed them and kept a roof over their heads. It was better treatment than some of the girls had gotten from their fathers -- or from the husbands who'd abandoned them.

"'Evenin', Miss Bailey," Hank Rotterdam greeted her, flashing her a full-toothed smile as she followed her hound to the table near the stairwell. Hank's gaze traveled from her breasts to her shotgun, then leisurely roamed back up her cotton workshirt to her breasts. "Trouble back home?"

Bailey glared at her northeastern neighbor. His handsome blond features were aging in a beefy way, giving him a jowl like a Brahma steer's.

"I thought you might know more than most, Hank," she replied, knowing full well the Scandinavian rancher was the biggest antiwoolly campaigner in the county. Eleven years earlier, before the rivalry had started between Hank and her father, she'd practically called the Rotterdam spread her home. Hank's twin boys had been like pesky younger brothers to her. But the cattleman-sheepherder feud had taken its toll on friendly relations between the Rotterdams and McShanes. Now, with the drought heating tempers to the boiling point, Bailey spent less time extending the olive branch to the twins than she did threatening to use it as a switch on their backsides.

"Now, why would you think I'd know anything, honey?" Hank drawled.

Boo whined. Growing agitated, the hound pawed at the empty chair on Hank's left side. Bailey's heart sank to think one of the twins had been involved in the attack on her property. Had relations between her and the Rotterdams soured that badly?

"Jeez, Bailey." The towheaded youth at Hank's right squinted one bleary eye at Boo. "If that dog of yours gets any uglier, we're gonna have to shoot it to put us out of our misery."

Bailey ignored the younger Rotterdam twin, Nat -- or, rather, Gnat, as she'd privately come to call him. "Don't you honey me, Hank Rotterdam. Where's Nick?"

"Nick?"

"Yeah, that's right. Your lying, no good cow chip of a son."

Hank looked amused rather than offended at her barb. "You sure are a jealous woman, Bailey. Seems a bit unsporting like, you busting in here with your daddy's scattergun. After all, you can't blame the boy for sowing his oats elsewhere. You had your chance with Nick."

"Nick can rut himself to perdition for all I care."

"That's the spirit, honey." Hank winked, much to her irritation. "Why don't you pull up a chair and sit with me and Nat for a spell?"

"Which room is Nick in?" Bailey persisted grimly, thinking to send Boo upstairs to sniff out her suspicions once and for all.

"Can't say," Hank answered jovially. "Tell you what. Me and Nat'll even buy you a drink. It's the least we can do after you've ridden out all hot to find your man... er, indisposed."

Bailey felt her color rising. Planting her hands on the table, she leaned forward and stared straight into Hank's cagey blue eyes.

"And I'll tell you what, Hank. You and your boys had better come up with five hundred dollars for the fences you cut and burned on my spread earlier tonight. Otherwise I'm pressing felony charges."

"Felony charges?" Nat roused himself from his beer. "Gee, Bailey, I'm real sorry 'bout your fences, but I didn't have nothing to do with it."

She didn't bother to dignify his lie. More than one set of horse tracks had led away from the pile of ashes that had once been her cedar fence posts. Nat might have been smart enough to keep hold of his riding gauntlets, but she knew from experience that Nat went where Nick did. The Rotterdam twins had always enjoyed making her life miserable. It was their way of showing they cared.

"Fence cutting is a mean-spirited, cowardly crime," Hank said. "I didn't think Bandera County cattlemen could stoop so low."

"Yeah." Nat nodded, blinking hopefully at her. "You want me to ride on over to your spread and keep you safe tonight?"

"What I want," she ground out, "is Nick's hide nailed to an outhouse wall."

"You always did like Nick better 'n you like me," Nat grumbled.

"C'mon, Bailey." Hank settled back in his chair like a man relishing the entertainment to come. "What d'ya say you forget about Nick and marry Nat? Hell, they look just the same. And they've got the same equipment, if you know what I mean."

"I'll keep that in mind when I'm ready to raise hogs. And speaking of boars" -- Bailey matched the old man stare for stare -- "the devil will be roasting pork tonight if you don't tell me where Nick is."

As if on cue, Nat's errant twin reeled butt-first onto the balcony. Nick barely saved himself from toppling backward over the banister before a hail of clothing was flung after him into the hall. Every man in the saloon guffawed to see Nick stripped down to his scarlet long johns. Boo flared his nostrils and growled.

"Aw, c'mon, honey," Nick protested drunkenly as the Bullwhip's prettiest, hottest-tempered whore slammed the door in his face. "Don't go gettin' mad. You know I'm good for the extra fifteen dollars--"

He never finished wheedling. Boo loosed an earsplitting howl and lunged for the stairs.

"What the--?" Nick glanced unsteadily over his shoulder, saw his twin grab for Boo's collar, and lost a shade or two of his tan. Dropping his hand to his hip, he found no holster and paled even more. He started beating on the door. "Open up! You forgot my gun!"

"Like hell I did, muchacho," came the muffled reply. "I earned a sight more than your piece tonight."

More laughter greeted this double entendre as Boo twisted, finally breaking his drunken captor's hold to charge the stairs. Nick cursed again. Grabbing his boots, he ran for the next bedroom, but his frenzied tugging did little more than rattle the locked door.

"Bailey!" Dashing for another escape route, Nick found that the next room was also occupied and locked. "Goddammit, Arabella, call off your dog, or I'll have it shot!"

"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, she 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, however. 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 lethim 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 at all 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 gunnysackers 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 nightlong."

"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 in 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 -- thisblackmail?"

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 Ideserved 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."

The cowboys guffawed.

Bailey grew stiffer than a new rawhide rope. "Like I've always said, Nick, anytime you want to try and prove you're a better rancher than me, I'd be happy to prove you wrong."

"Aw, Bailey. You'd just embarrass yourself, hon." He gave her a lopsided grin. "Why don't you let me take you home, where we can, uh, spend the night patching things up, okay?"

The others whistled, but Zack was glad when Boo flashed his fangs. The second Nick put a foot on the stairs, the hound erupted into a snarling, barking menace. Nick retreated hastily, but Bailey raised her chin, her eyes kindling for battle. Zack suspected all hell would break loose if he didn't get her out of the saloon.

"C'mon, Bailey," he murmured in her ear. "You can't win. It's time you went home. I'll see you there."

She wrenched her elbow out of his grasp. "I don't need some man telling me when it's time to go home!"

"Hear that, boys?" Hank called to his audience. "Miss Bailey just showed young Rawlins who wears the pants."

"Don't think I'm finished with you yet, Hank."

Her sally drew whoops from the men. Zack took one look at Hank's reddened face, and he knew, Boo or no Boo, Bailey was courting disaster. He caught hold of her arm again, more firmly this time, and began dragging her past the counter.

"I think you do need a man to tell you when to go home," he said grimly.

"Hey!" Twisting in his grasp, she tried to dig her heels into the floor.

Zack held on and kept walking.

"What do you think you're doing?" she panted, stumbling after him to a round of applause.

"Saving your ungrateful little hide."

Boo bounded after them, growling uncertainly.

"I don't recall asking for your help, Zachariah Rawlins, so you can take your misguided chivalry someplace else! I can fight my own battles."

"I'm sure you'd like to think so," he muttered. "No wonder they say sheepherders are crazy. Didn't your daddy ever teach you not to goad a man in public?"

"My daddy taught me how to protect myself." She was still struggling as he flung open the swinging doors. "I'm not afraid of a little showdown."

"'Course not. No man in his right mind would challenge a woman to a showdown."

"Ha! What you're really saying is men are scared to challenge women. Just like Nick was."

He shook his head, finally freeing her in the street. "Trust me, Bailey. Nick and the rest of the Rotterdams aren't scared of you."

He took care to block her access to the saloon as she glared up at him, her breath ragged and her hat askew on her fist-thick braid of tawny hair. He tried not to notice how the swath of lantern light from the saloon made her look pale and so vulnerably alone that his arms ached to shield her from the brutal realities of the life she had chosen. The last thing he needed was to have someone link his name romantically with a lady sheepherder's. He was supposed to be courting the county judge's daughter.

"Now, you listen to me," he said gruffly. "I know you're smart. Smarter than a fox. But you're not acting that way. You need to think things through. Do you have any other proof the Rotterdams were on your property tonight?"

That question knocked some of the wind out of her. She adjusted her Stetson and squared her shoulders, but her hand trembled when it fell, seeking Boo's head as if seeking moral support. "No, but cattlemen have lynched sheepherders on less proof than a glove."

"What are you after, a range war?"

"No! Of course not! I just want to be left in peace. I have as much right to raise sheep as you and Hank Rotterdam have to raise steers."

"No one's contesting your right to run your daddy's business, Bailey."

"The business is mine, dammit! I run the McShane ranch. Why is that so hard for you to accept?"

He suspected she was launching a new attack in an old battle. Doing his best to ignore her bait, he returned the conversation to the subject at hand.

"I'm no law wrangler, but it seems to me if that glove's the only proof you've got, you don't have much of a case. Most of the waddies who ride from cattle outfit to cattle outfit looking for work wear gloves like that. So what it boils down to is your word against Hank's. And right now Hank and the twins have alibis."

She looked stricken. "You think I'm lying?"

He silently cursed those ocean-sized blue eyes and the way they could pull at his heartstrings. Of course he didn't think she was lying. But she might have leapt to an unfounded conclusion. Allegations and accusations were constantly flying between the sheepherders and the cattlemen. As president of the board, it was his job to represent the cattlemen. He wasn't completely insensitive to the sheepherders' plight though. And he was far from immune to damsels in distress.

He chose his next words carefully. Standing within earshot of the cattlemen's favorite watering hole, he was all too keenly aware he might have an audience in the overhead windows, inside the doors, or even among the transient waddies who were strolling toward the saloon. He wasn't ready to throw away his political career by publicly siding with a sheepherder -- unless she had irrefutable evidence against one of the cattlemen.

"What I think," he said firmly, "is that this heat's making folks do regrettable things. But even the drought doesn't make vigilante justice right or lawful. All of us ranchers need patience."

Bailey's hopes crumbled. She was used to Nick's brand of bigotry, but Zack's hurt more than she'd ever dreamed possible.

"It's all very well for you to talk about patience," she said bitterly. "No one's preying on your ranch. The governor made fence cutting and sheep killing a felony crime this past January. The crimes still go on, and yet not a single damned cowboy has been arrested in this county. We Woolgrowers are sick and tired of you officers in the Cattlemen's Association giving a wink and a nod to gunnysackers."

He hardened his jaw. "I don't take accusations like that lightly."

"Yeah? So prove it."

His eyes narrowed. Bailey forced herself to brave that blistering stare, even though the heartbeats between them knelled impossibly loud in the lengthening silence. She was beginning to think maybe, just maybe, she had been a bit rash to provoke the Cattlemen's president when someone shouted her name. She muttered an oath, recognizing the voice of her foreman, Iain McTavish, as two shadowy figures hurried along the street toward her.

"Praise God, lass, ye scared the life out of me," Mac said breathlessly as he and his companion reached her side. "When the barkeep told me ye hadn't set foot in the Curly Horn, I began to think some harm had befallen ye."

Bailey sighed. She'd wondered how long it would take her foreman to track her down if she bypassed the Woolgrowers' favorite saloon. Sometimes his instincts were better than a bloodhound's.

Joining Mac was Rob Cole, vice president of the Woolgrowers' Association. They flanked her protectively, their shotguns clenched in their fists, but Zack didn't look the least bit intimidated by the older sheepmen. If anything, he was the foreboding one, standing silhouetted in the Bullwhip's lantern light with his face chiseled by shafts of shadow. When he folded his arms, pinning Bailey's scattergun securely beneath his sleeve, she tried not to notice the tantalizing scent of leather that wafted from his duster. His pose conveyed his intention not to fight.

The tension eased from the sheepherders' shoulders. Rob nodded curtly to Zack. Mac's narrowed gaze flickered to the young cattleman, towering over him by a foot.

"Are ye safe, then?" he demanded of Bailey.

"Yes, yes." She couldn't quite keep the impatience from her tone. She knew her foreman meant well, and she loved the devil out of him, but if she'd wanted a father figure to hold her hand, she would have invited Mac to come to the Bullwhip with her. "Zack and I were just having a difference of opinion. Over business. But then, what else is new?" She held out her hand for her gun.

Zack hesitated a moment before surrendering it to her. "Miss McShane, you need to discuss your concerns with the sheriff."

She snorted. "I hardly think our new sheriff will be sympathetic to my cause, Zack, seeing as how the Cattlemen's Association gave nearly a thousand dollars to his campaign."

"Then I'm in no position to help you," he retorted crisply. "Gentlemen" -- he tipped his hat -- "I trust you'll see Miss McShane safely to her ranch. Good night."

"Coward," she muttered as he turned away. She had the satisfaction of watching his stride falter before he continued briskly toward the hitching post and his horse.

The satisfaction didn't last long, however. She felt deflated, as if someone had just kicked her in the gut. If anyone had asked her what man on the Cattlemen's board had the courage to stand by his convictions whenever Hank flexed his political muscles, she would have said that man was Zack.

Apparently, Saint Zack's halo was tarnished after all.

"Bailey." Mac's voice rumbled near her ear. "What have ye done?"

She straightened her spine and shrugged. Mac knew her too well. He'd probably already guessed she'd stormed inside the Bullwhip and made a scene, he just didn't know her reason. So she told him.

Rob muttered an oath. "I'd bet a year's income your wire cutter was Rotterdam. Or someone Rotterdam hired. Hell, maybe even Rawlins was in on it."

Bailey shook her head. She wasn't willing to think that poorly of Zack.

"What's more likely," she speculated, sorting her thoughts aloud, "is that Hank tried to set Zack up for a fall. You should have heard the way Hank and Nick were goading him, saying there'd always been peace in the county until Zack got elected president. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd rehearsed that bullcrap. I think Hank's trying to make Zack look bad for political reasons, and he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process."

Mac's knowing gaze locked with hers, and she fidgeted, blushing before she finally looked away. Mac knew her too well all right.

"So what now, Bailey?" Rob asked, tugging thoughtfully on his whiskers. "You're right about the sheriff. Seems like we Woolgrowers will have to take matters into our own hands. Either that, or call in the Rangers."

"Maybe." She frowned. Please God, no bloodshed. "I think what we really need is something to help keep everyone's minds off their troubles until the rain starts falling again."

"The cattleman-sheepherder rodeo we've been planning was supposed to do that," Rob reminded her irritably. "Considering what happened on your spread tonight, it doesn't look like it's working."

Bailey winced. Rob had never supported that idea -- her idea - - mainly because she wanted to be a part of the sheepherder team. He and the other Woolgrowers were trying to railroad her out of the competition, "for the good of the crew," of course. Their opposition, based solely on her femaleness, was another sore spot with her, but she'd have to deal with them later.

"The rodeo can't hurt," she said. "In the meantime, I think I'll pay a visit to the Rawlins ranch. Talk with Wes. Maybe even Cord."

"And why would ye want to do that, lass?" Mac asked.

She scowled at her best friend. Her attempt to put him in his place didn't make him bat an eye. She knew exactly what Mac was thinking, and she had half a mind to shake him. Just because she thought Zack was the finest two-legged male she'd ever seen didn't mean she would create opportunities to drool over him like Amaryllis did. This was business. "The Rawlins brothers used to be lawmen," she said coolly. "They should have some interest in keeping the peace."

Rob shook his head. "They're cattlemen, Bailey."

She raised her chin. "They're my neighbors, Rob."

A mirthless smile touched Mac's lips. He didn't say a word.

Copyright © 1997 by Adrienne M. Sobolak