Texas Lily (21 page)

Both men came up swinging, but Cade already had the door open, and with the kick of his boot and a block from his shoulder, he shoved them out into the pouring rain and slammed the door after them.

Roy came to the door of his cubicle to investigate the commotion. Lily stared at Cade's calm features for a second, then in an explosion of rage, slammed out of the room in the direction of her chambers. Cade pointed his finger at Roy, sending him scurrying back to bed.

Tankard in hand, Ephraim looked up from the table at the young giant standing in the room's center, water streaming from his soaked clothing as he visibly forced his fists to unclench in the sudden emptiness of the room.

The older man shook his head and took a sip of his steaming drink. "You certainly do know how to empty a room," Ephraim commented to the house at large.

Surveying the havoc he had wreaked, the overturned chairs and spilled plates, the tracks of mud across clean planked floors, the condemning silence of closed doors, Cade reached for a plate and the hot stew kept warming by the fire for him. Without a word, he filled his plate, sat down across from the old man, and began to eat.

Ephraim raised his shaggy eyebrows, took a drink, and hid his grin in his cup. It didn't seem like the rest of his company was going to return any too soon. It looked like he'd better learn to get along with this one.

Generously, he poured a tankard for Cade and pushed it across to him.

Cade looked at it, then went back to eating.

Chapter 17

Lily pulled up her trousers and began to button them from the bottom while she gazed out the window. The rain had let up for a while and the sky was a clear blue. She could see the wind tugging at the barn shingles and tossing the trees, but it looked like a beautiful spring day instead of the end of January.

She watched Cade stepping out of his cabin and carrying a laughing Serena across the mud to the kitchen where Juanita would fill her with warm oatmeal and milk. Cade hadn't apologized for his behavior the other night, but she had noticed Travis had begun to treat her with more respect, particularly in Cade's presence. Ollie had apparently returned to the constitutional convention and more important matters. His courtship had cooled considerably since Travis's arrival.

She really didn't miss Ollie's company or Travis's liberties. Idly tugging at the top button of her trousers to fasten them over one of Jim's old work shirts, Lily tried to retrieve her resentment at Cade's high-handed methods, but it was too nice a day to hold a grudge. Travis might be Roy's father, but he wasn't her husband, and he had no right to assume the liberties of one. Cade had simply reminded him of his place. Travis did upon occasion need a forceful reminder.

But she wasn't at all certain that it was Cade's place to do the reminding. That was what stuck in her craw. If her father hadn't done it, she should have. And if she hadn't, Cade shouldn't have objected.

Impatiently, Lily glanced down at the recalcitrant button that refused to fasten. Pulling the edges of her pants together, she failed to make them overlap. She stared at the gap incredulously. She had always been as skinny as a rail, and she certainly hadn't taken much time to enjoy Juanita's cooking these last months. She hadn't worn these pants in a while because they had needed mending. They always had been a little snug, but this...

As the reason for the button's obstinate refusal to close sank in, Lily looked out the window again in dismay. Cade was already leaving the kitchen and crossing to the barn.

The inevitability of what she must do caused Lily to reach for a belt to cover the gap as she entered the the brisk wind of the dogtrot. She had known the night they had done it. She had known the night of the dance. She had known and had continued to postpone the inevitable. Now wasn't the time to bewail the fates. The time for action had arrived.

Cade looked up with surprise as Lily stalked determinedly in his direction. She hadn't sought his company since he had thrown Travis out of the house. She hadn't avoided him either. She had just pretended he was another piece of the furniture she had to work around. Her ability to ignore what didn't please her seemed limitless, and he had observed it with equal amounts of fascination and annoyance.

He couldn't decipher her expression now. There was something particularly expressive about the rounded hollows of Lily's cheeks and the flash of her sky-blue eyes, but Cade's only reaction was a desire to kiss those grimly set lips. He knew how they could melt into the softness of desire. If he let his mind roam, he could almost feel those long, slender legs around him, and his gaze traveled to admire the proud carriage and height of the woman approaching. It had been three months since he had taken this woman to his bed. He burned with the need for it now. Grueling work could quench the worst ache, but right now he was rested and randy as hell just at the sight of feminine curves in men's clothes.

Cade waited where he was, and Lily obliged by marching to stand in front of him. Her voice was as cool and calm as a glorious spring day when she made her announcement.

"I think it is time we went to see the
alcalde."

Cade stared at her, letting the words sink in. She wore her magnificent hair in a thick braid the color of corn silk, and the wind ruffled wisps of it about her high forehead. His gaze drifted downward with fascinated curiosity, straying from her eyes to the full swell of her breasts against the old shirt, to the hastily fastened belt that almost hid the open button. She was so slender he might never have noticed the slight thickening of her waist, but the evidence was there in the too-tight trousers, and the realization of the cause of that snugness gripped his insides.

Cade read the fear behind Lily's false bravado and nodded. "Tomorrow is Saturday. Will that be soon enough?"

Lily closed her eyes in relief, then opened them again. Seeing through her eyes, Cade was aware of the shabbiness of the chambray shirt he’d strained at the seams, the calluses of his big hands, and the foreignness of his high-cheekboned brown face, but she seemed to see beyond these things. He hoped she saw beyond them.

"I want one promise from you, Cade."

Cade waited for the ground rules most women seemed to insist upon. Rules seldom inhibited him, but they were interesting to hear, and he respected her enough to listen.

"I've watched my father drink away our home and our family. I'll not see Roy's inheritance lost in the same way. I know whiskey's cheap and everybody uses it, but I don't want a drunk for a husband."

Cade eyed her implacably. "You want me to promise not to drink. And if I don't promise?"

"Then I'll raise the child alone."

Over his dead body she would, but there was no sense in riling her with that pronouncement. She was being as reasonable as a terrified woman could be. He could return the favor. Nodding in acquiescence, Cade asked, "Shall I tell the others?"

Lily considered it, then shook her head. "We'll just go to town as usual. I'd not make a big deal of it. It's not as if there will be a priest or anything."

So it was to be business as usual. As she walked away, Cade watched the braid swaying against her slender back with a mixture of emotions he didn't mean to identify. It had been so long since he had felt anything that he didn't have the knowledge to recognize them in any event. He concentrated on Lily, who had just dismissed him as if she had told him to round up the cattle on the south forty. He wondered what she would do when he made it clear that it wasn't his name only that came with marriage.

There wasn't much opportunity to inquire. Cade came in early that evening, but Travis hadn't taken the break in the weather to travel out as he had hoped. The other man sat propped before the warm fire teaching Roy the rules of chess while Lily helped Juanita set the table, answered Serena's questions, and buttered a pan of cornbread. Cade noticed she had changed into an old dress he hadn't seen before, and his gaze fell to her waistline. The loose dress concealed any evidence of expansion. Still, he couldn't help swelling with pride at the knowledge that his child grew there.

Cade took his seat at the table, and Serena instantly clambered into his lap. Before Ephraim could pour him a whiskey, Lily plopped down a mug of coffee beside him. Cade took the hint and drank the coffee, shaking his head at her father's offer. At Lily's call, Roy and Travis joined them at the table. The splints were off Roy's leg now, but he still walked with a limp. He hopped into his chair, chattering about knights and castles and queens while Travis indulged him.

Lily looked tired, Cade observed as she took her place at the end of the table and bent her head to say grace. By tomorrow, he would be in a position to see that she got more rest—not that Lily would see things that way. That proprietary thought shocked him a little.

Cade cut Serena's food into small portions and saw that she picked up as much of the squash as the bread. Juanita ran out to the kitchen to bring in more bread, and Travis tilted his chair back and asked for more coffee. Lily started to rise to get the pot from the fire.

Not looking up from his plate, Cade interrupted. "Get it yourself, Bolton. You've got two good legs and two hands."

Lily halted where she was, astonished by Cade's speaking out as much as by what he said.

Travis motioned her back into her chair and rose to get the pot himself. "I thought Indians believed in making their squaws do the work. Seems odd for you to be ordering a man to wait on himself."

"Squaws wait on men who have been hard at work protecting and feeding the tribe."

Travis slapped his mug on the table and sent Cade a black look as he returned to his seat. "You're the hired help, and I don't owe you any explanations, but I'm paying room and board, if that's what you're insinuating. I'm selling my medical supplies. People around here are glad to have my experience. Just ask Lily if I'm not earning my way."

That was a provoking comment, but before Cade could respond, Juanita entered, balancing a pitcher of milk in one hand and hauling an iron skillet of pan bread in the other. Lily rose to help her, but Cade was on his feet and shoving her back into the chair before she could do so. He took both the pitcher and the skillet from Juanita and set them on the table, sending the terrified maid back to her corner with just a look.

"Dammit, man, you're scaring her. What in hell is wrong with you tonight?" Since Cade had already returned to his seat, Travis remained in his, but his clenched fists indicated that situation could change at any moment.

Watching the two men glare at each other, comprehension dawned. While Lily might be grateful that Cade meant to take care of her, his high-handed methods didn't work any better in here than outside.

Telling him that wouldn't ease the tension around the table, however. Even the children could sense it. With a look to Juanita, Lily said quietly, "Take Serena and Roy out to the kitchen to eat, will you? They're likely to have stomachaches, elsewise."

"Dammit, Juanita, you stay right here where you belong. If anyone's going outside, it will be me and that thickheaded mountain over there." Travis was already halfway out of his seat as he spoke.

Switching her skirt, Juanita gave him a look of contempt as she reached to take Serena from Cade and muttered a string of Spanish beneath her breath. Cade replied in a word or two of the same language, causing her to give him a swift look before she hurried the children out of the charged atmosphere.

Balking, Roy demanded, "Why can't I stay? I'm no baby. If there's going to be a fight, I want to see it."

"If there's going to be a fight, it will be outside and you can see all you want. Now get out like you're told." Containing her fury at the two men, Lily rose and shepherded her protesting son out the door. When she returned to the table, both men were still sitting and her father was drinking his whiskey and watching them with amusement.

"What was Juanita saying?" Travis demanded, irked by his inability to know what Cade had said.

"If I understood her correctly, she was comparing all men in general to asses." Lily sat down and picked up her fork, hoping common sense would prevail.

"You are being either polite or very naive," Cade commented as he returned his attention to his own plate.

Lily threw him an irate look. "I know what Juanita thinks of men and why. Which do you think I am?"