Maddie appeared to hear none of it as she pulled a raspberry and pink print shirt from the armoire then turned, looking around wildly for a second before her eyes found what she sought near the bed. She shot Zach a pleading look. He scooted over to the edge and stretched until he could hook his fingers around a strap of the bra she’d so hastily discarded earlier.
She mouthed a “Thanks” when he tossed it to her.
Zach continued to watch as she put it on then leaned over to adjust her breasts into the cups. It wasn’t anywhere near what he’d been hoping the afternoon would bring, but it wasn’t a bad consolation prize. Aside from how quickly she dressed—something he would have bet no woman he’d ever known could do—he liked that she was too distracted to realize the show she was giving him.
“You can turn around now,” Maddie tossed at Peggy as she closed the wardrobe. She skirted the bed, scooping up Zach’s jeans as she passed and throwing them at him. Maddie picked up the brush on top of the dresser, flung her hair forward as she bent, and began attacking her mane. Zach sighed with contentment.
Jesse started fussing in his crib as the commotion finally woke him.
“I’ve got him,” Peggy said. She hauled Jesse out of the crib and held him against her chest. “Is he the roses guy?” Peggy whispered loudly, as though Zach couldn’t hear her. From the grin on her face, he suspected he met with her approval.
Maddie tossed her hair back as she straightened, revealing a pinker-than-usual complexion. “Uh—yeah. Peggy, this is Zach.” She pointed the hairbrush from him to the grinning girl. “Zach, Peggy. She’s a neighbor. And Jesse’s sitter.”
“I’m guessing there’s going to be more roses in your future,” Peggy predicted with a grin, the memory of her own embarrassment obviously already fading into the distant past.
Zach silently blessed her for the inspiration. Flowers never came to mind unless he needed to apologize, but if anyone deserved them just because, it was Maddie. Especially after the day they’d just had.
“I’ve got to put on makeup,” Maddie mumbled, heading for the bathroom with Peggy on her heels.
Zach took the opportunity to pull on his jeans. Down on his hands and knees, he searched under the bed for his socks.
“What a hunk!” he heard from the bathroom, followed by Maddie shushing the girl. Zach grinned to himself as he put on his shirt.
Socks in hand, he sat down on the bed. His boots came next.
“You ready, Zach?”
He chalked up another point for Maddie. A new land speed record for applying makeup.
“Yeah. Here’s your bag.”
“Are you going to button your shirt? You look like you’ve been mugged.”
He let Maddie see a lustful twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, I have been. There ain’t no buttons left to button.”
“Ooh, Maddie!” Peggy said. “You go, girl.”
For the first time since Peggy walked into the room, Maddie stopped short. “You can’t walk into the hotel like that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got another shirt in my room.”
“But you can’t walk into the hotel like that,” she persisted.
Zach wasn’t sure where her distress was coming from unless it had to do with Rachel figuring out what they’d spent the day doing. He opened his mouth to reassure her again but stopped when she walked slowly across to the wardrobe and pulled out the last hanger. It held a faded blue work shirt like the ones he wore on the ranch.
She held the shirt against herself, and he would have sworn she breathed in the scent of it for a moment before she turned and offered it to him.
“Here. You can wear this.”
“You sure?” Zach asked, his hand closing around the hanger. He didn’t know why he asked, except it seemed as though she didn’t really want to part with the shirt. He was even more sure when she held onto the hanger as she considered the question. Not understanding the undercurrents of her emotions, he waited until she pulled her hand back.
“Yes. Leave your shirt. I’ll find the buttons.”
While she dug in her purse for her car keys, Zach sniffed the shirt. It smelled of sweat but only faintly, as though time rather than washing had faded the scent, but it fit well enough when he shrugged into it.
Twenty minutes and one hair-raising car ride later, they entered the hotel lobby. Zach intended to find his sister as soon as he walked Maddie to the bar, but Rachel was already there, having a drink with Claudia. He had thought the heat of his anger was past, but it flared at the sight of her. That was the only excuse he could think of for catching Maddie’s hand as she started to walk away from him.
She looked expectantly at him, obviously thinking he’d say something. Instead, he pulled her around to face him and caught her face between his hands. With his legs braced wide, he gave her a hard, possessive kiss. Maddie’s eyes were wide and a little glazed when he broke away. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Go to work.”
Zach wanted to add that he’d be there when she was done, but in spite of the day they’d had, he wasn’t certain she’d changed her mind about seeing him.
She caught his sleeve. “Zach, let it go.”
He looked down at her, but he couldn’t read her thoughts in her face. “I can’t.”
“It’s not that big a deal.”
“It is to me.”
Her hand fell from his sleeve. She stepped behind the bar to relieve Pete, but he could feel her eyes on him as he turned toward Rachel and Claudia’s table.
Rachel’s head was turned toward Claudia, but the space between Zach and his sister had the charged feeling that usually preceded a thunder storm.
“Evening, Claudia.”
“Zach,” she acknowledged him cautiously.
Shifting his gaze to his sister, he let a measure of his anger show in his eyes. “We need to talk.”
“I’ll go.” Claudia sounded relieved to be excluded.
“No,” Zach said as she started to rise. “You stay. Rachel and I are going to her office.”
He was gratified to see Claudia flash a sympathetic look at his sister before he turned to lead the way.
Chapter Fourteen
Maddie refused to meet Pete’s eyes as she stepped behind the bar. What was Zach thinking, kissing her like that in front of everyone? Then she saw him at his sister’s table, his normal casual stance replaced by one that could only be called looming. For a moment, she was angry. Of course. It hadn’t been about her at all. He’d kissed her like that to send his sister a message. Then she realized the kiss was only the method of delivering the message that she was under his protection. Maybe she should be angry, Maddie thought, but somehow she no longer was. There was enough peril in her life that no one else could protect her from. If Zach wanted to fight his dragonlady sister on her behalf, Maddie decided to let him. Any doubt she had about the ability of the gentle man she knew was quenched when she saw the uncompromising look on his face as he led his Rachel from the bar.
“Looks like you’ve found yourself a knight,” Pete said. He’d delayed his departure to watch the opening volley between Zach and Rachel.
“I hope I don’t cause a rift between them,” Maddie said.
“Don’t you worry too much about that. You might be the match that’s set off the gunpowder, but Zach’s been chaffing under Rachel’s domineering ways since I’ve known him.”
Maddie felt a little reassured at Pete’s words. She expected Zach to reappear after his confrontation with his sister, but as the time stretched, she began to wonder if Rachel had beaten him down. The woman had a lot of ammunition, most of which Maddie had personally given her. Like shooting Zach the night she met him.
Maybe it was just as well, Maddie thought, trying to console herself. What was it about the man that, as soon as they were alone, had her taking off her clothes?
Maddie froze in the middle of loading glasses into the dishwasher as she suddenly realized where the heat of their passions had taken them. What had come over her to take the risk of unprotected sex? She couldn’t even blame Zach since she was the one who had suggested it.
It had all started with that East Texas drawl, but she no longer heard echoes of Vince when Zach spoke. Zach had slipped past Vince’s shadow and become his own person in her eyes.
Reluctantly, Maddie admitted that the risk had heightened her excitement. She also admitted to herself that when she’d made the suggestion, she had not been of sound enough mind to calculate just how “minimal” the risk really was.
Clearly, the stress of the past months had driven her insane.
She stopped and counted back to figure out where she was in her cycle, breathing a cautious sigh of relief when her calculation came up on the side of safety. With the stress of the past months, it wasn’t a sure thing, but it was as sure as anything in her life lately.
*
Zach watched Rachel take her seat behind the desk. If she thought she was going to fortify her position, she was in for a disappointment, but being Rachel, she didn’t wait for his assault.
“Where have you been all afternoon? I was starting to worry she’d shot you again and left your body in some alleyway.”
Zach refused the bait. He planted his fists in the middle of her tidy desk and leaned toward her. “You upset Maddie today. Do you even know when you’ve crossed the line?”
“What? It’s not okay for me to worry about my baby brother?”
He had to give her credit; she didn’t act the least bit cowed, having him hanging over her. Not that it was going to do her any good.
“I’m a grown man, Rachel. It’s not your job to worry about me. It’s especially not your job to upset the woman I’m seeing.”
“For pity’s sake, Zachariah. She carries a gun—”
“This is Texas. Half the population packs.”
“Half the population doesn’t go to a strange man’s room and shoot him!”
“We been through that. I ain’t going there again, and it’s got nothing to do with this morning anyhow. How come it’s so damned hard for you to admit you screwed up?”
Rachel’s lips tightened. In spite of the glare she returned, Zach realized he’d hit a nerve. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was ashamed of her earlier behavior. Maybe she was, but that didn’t do any of them any good if she wouldn’t acknowledge it. That he had to fight her for it suddenly made him furious. He lifted one hand and stabbed his finger at the desk to punctuate his demand.
“You owe Maddie an apology, and I expect you to deliver it before she gets off tonight, no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes.”
Rachel’s mouth gaped, her eyes wide with surprise. Zach turned to walk out.
“I can’t—”
He spun back. “Can’t what? Can’t behave like a human being to someone you work with? Are you that afraid they’ll all see you as weak? You best decide where your priorities are coz this ain’t about your job. This is about you keeping peace in the family.”
“In the— You can’t possibly be thinking about marrying this girl! You haven’t even known her—”
“I didn’t say nothing about getting married. The peace you’ll be keeping ain’t with Maddie; it’s with me. And this is just the first step. From now on, you’re gonna stop acting like my nursemaid. I gotta take my own share of the blame on that; I let you do things for me when I come offa the rig that I oughtn’t. Like buying me clothes—”
“You always pay me back—”
“That’s not the point. I don’t need my sister buying my clothes. Until I do get married, that’s my job. This is about boundaries, Rachel. Stop stepping on mine.”
In her eyes, Zach saw Rachel’s temper ignite. “You’re pushing me away for a woman who shot you!”
“Don’t try pulling that on me. You ain’t mad coz she shot me. You’re mad coz she was in my room in the first place.”
“In
my
hotel!”
“So that makes you the guardian of my morals? Make me up a bill for all the times I done stayed here on you. And if that don’t buy back my privacy, then I’ll stay somewheres else when I’m in town.”
“Mamma didn’t raise you to be sniffing around easy women.” It was a last salvo, and for the first time, Rachel twitched, as though she knew she’d just made a fatal mistake.
“You wanna tell Mamma?” Zach asked, his voice so low and cold he almost didn’t recognize himself. Given how straight-laced Rachel was he couldn’t blame her for thinking a woman who’d gone to the room of a man she’d just met was easy. But threatening to bring their mother into it—that was hitting below the belt. “Go ahead. She didn’t kill Ezra when she found out he had a taste for girls, so I suppose I’ll survive, too.” Zach turned back toward the door but stopped with it open to look back at Rachel.
“Whatever else you decide, I suggest you heed what I just said about apologizing to Maddie. If you don’t, you got one less brother.”
He should have closed the door quietly, but slamming it felt good, too. Lord, he needed a drink. He smiled grimly at the irony. He needed a drink to calm down before he saw Maddie, but he couldn’t get a drink without seeing Maddie.
Instead he headed outside to walk it off. Twenty minutes later, he was back with a supply of condoms in a brown paper bag and envying women the anonymity a purse gave them. He tucked a couple in his jeans pocket and left the rest in his truck’s glove compartment before heading for the bar.
*
Zach’s talk with Rachel was taking far too long. Maddie was already antsy when Jake walked into the bar.
“Hey, Maddie.” He swung one leg over the barstool as though he were mounting a horse. “Seen that no good brother of mine tonight?”
“He’s talking to Rachel. You want a Lone Star?”
Jake nodded, digging his wallet from his hip pocket. “He’s talking to Rachel? Hunh.”
The way he said it made Maddie ask, “What’s that mean?”
“It’s just that Zach’s pretty even-tempered. It takes a bit to piss him off. Mind you, Rachel could test the patience of an archangel, but I seen Zach take a lotta crap offa her without blowing. Even then, I never seen him mad at her like he was at breakfast.”
“What do you mean?” Maddie asked as she set the bottle in front of him.
“Usually, when Zach gets mad, it’s hot-mad. He swears, makes threats he don’t mean, and he gets over it.” Jake took a sip of beer. “Usually even laughs about it later, but this morning, he was cold-mad.”
“You don’t think he’ll laugh about this?”
“Depends on how it turns out.”
The Sunday night shift got busy then, and Maddie didn’t have a chance to talk to Jake again. Even when Zach finally walked in, she only had time to get him a beer. Every time she turned around, her eyes went back to him as he sat, talking with his brother.
When she finally got back to them, they were talking about the ranch again. “You know he’s gonna want you at that rodeo,” Jake was telling Zach. “He wants to convince you that we just got to buy that bull—or at least a straw of his sperm. Gotta have a calf outta that line.”
“Why don’t we just get some of Bodacious’s sperm?” Zach asked, his tone edging onto facetious.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t get any arguments on that purchase.”
“You didn’t tell me you breed bucking bulls,” Maddie said.
“You know bulls?” Jake asked.
“I know Bodacious,” Maddie said. During his brief career, the bull had achieved a notoriety that had yet to be topped. “Only ridden ten times out of attempts.”
“Baddest of the bad asses,” Jake said, referring to the bull’s often quoted unofficial title.
“I’d rather have a straw from Little Yellow Jacket,” Zach said, referring to the three time Bull of the Year.
Maddie left the brothers arguing good naturedly about which bull would sire the best buckers while she checked on the other customers.
They were still at it when Maggie came back. “So have you bred any bulls I might have heard of?” Maddie asked, interrupting the building of their fantasy herd.
“Not much chance of that. We mostly supply high school rodeos in East Texas,” Zach said.
“So far,” Jake added. “We only got serious about breeding five years ago when Daddy realized Zach had a talent for picking ‘em.”
“They think I got a talent. It’s really more by-guess and by-golly.”
“I’d rather have your guess that just about anyone else’s guarantee.”
“Don’t listen to him. I’ve just gotten lucky picking which bulls oughta cover which cows.” A glint came into Zach’s eyes as he looked at Maddie. “Then again, maybe I’m better at this than I think I am.”
Maddie threw a lemon twist at him, but her laughter evaporated when she saw Rachel standing in the doorway to the bar.