by Donna Cooner
He was well dressed. His shirt was as white as snow, his frock coat an elegant black, his trousers fawn. She noticed his hands, his fingers upon his cards. They were as bronzed as his face. His fingers were very long, the nails blunt cut but clean.
“The whiskey! At last!” the German man said.
Tara quickly put the bottle and the glasses down on the table. She could still feel those dark eyes on her, and she was desperate to get away.
“You’re out of your gold coins, Jack. It’s time to call it quits,” McKenzie was saying. His voice was as rich and deep as his hair. It had a subtle slur of the South to it, though she could not exactly pinpoint the place. He wasn’t from New Orleans, but he certainly wasn’t from the North.
“Out of coins, but never out of assets, mon ami!” the Frenchman said.
Tara was so startled when his fingers wound around her wrist that she nearly shrieked out loud. She fought from doing so, well aware that Eastwood would have her on the streets if she screamed just because a man had taken hold of her wrist.
“The girl!” the Frenchman said. “Yours for the night.”
“What?” Tara gasped furiously.
“She’s not yours to barter!” the black-eyed American, McKenzie, shot back quickly.
“Eastwood is in debt to me. The girl for a night. Against your three hundred in gold.”
“No whore, not even this one, is worth three hundred!” the German said, swallowing down his whiskey, pale eyes assessing her carefully. “Or is she?” he speculated.
Tara wrenched her hand free. “I work for Eastwood!” she snapped. “I am not his possession, no man’s to barter or hold!” she cried angrily.
She turned to flee. To her amazement her skirt was caught, and she was hauled back against the table. Dear God, these two were involved in some wretched challenge in this poker game, and she had become a part of it! The Frenchman had her by her skirts, and she’d lose half her clothing trying to rip away from him. She stared at him incredulously, gripping her skirt. “You let me go this instant! I’m not an object to be cast upon a table. Let me go! I told you! I wait tables—”
“Then you will wait on this man’s table for a night, chérie!” the Frenchman said.
The German sniggered. “Table, floor, what’s the difference, eh?”
Her eyes flashed to his, blue fire. “You, sir, may go to hell! I’ll get Eastwood—”
The Frenchman’s laughter interrupted and terrified her. “You go get him, chérie! He’ll set you in the center of the table himself. You see, I must bet with this blackhearted bastard, but your Eastwood owes me half his inn!”
She tried to control her temper. She really did. But she found herself lifting the Frenchman’s glass and dashing his whiskey into his face.
He let out a bellow like a whipped puppy and started to rise, reaching for her.
But McKenzie was up. His gaze was deadly as he stared down the Frenchman. “Let her go,” he said flatly.
“Sacré bleu—”
“Let her go!”
The Frenchman started to release her reluctantly. Tara would have fled then except that she was newly detained.
Now it was he, McKenzie, who had his hand upon her. His fingers circled her upper arm. She found herself staring up at him. He was very tall, his shoulders were broad. He appeared lean and trim but he was solid muscle, she realized. She could feel the force of his hold and knew that he was a man she would never escape if he chose not to let her go.
“Sit down,” he told her, dark eyes enigmatic.
She lifted her chin. “I told you, I don’t care who owes who what! I’m not available for a night! For any man, from any man!”
A black brow arched higher. “I didn’t say that I wanted you for a night.”
“Then—”
“But that all remains to be seen, doesn’t it? It’s all in a deck of cards.” His voice was very soft. Only she heard it. “Three hundred dollars is a lot of money—for any woman. Sit!” he warned her.
“I won’t—”
A dry smile curled just the corner of his mouth. “You should be praying it’s me, and not the Frenchman!” he warned her.
Why? The Frenchman was the fool making the wager! He’d have to let her go. But if McKenzie won …
She was startled to discover herself suddenly in his arms, pulled back against him as he addressed the others. “I want this goddamned game over with!” He lowered his voice again and his words were for her ears alone. “Sit in the chair, or you’ll be sitting in my lap!”
Tears stung her eyes. Panic seized her for a moment. No! This was not her life!
She grit her teeth down hard. And she sat. She had no choice.
The fourth man at the table, the handsome young man Marie had mentioned with the sandy hair and warm green eyes, set a hand on hers. McKenzie frowned at him in warning, but the man still offered her a wry grin. “It will be all right, miss. It will.”
“We’re still playing the damned game, Robert!” McKenzie snapped.
He sat, too, those ebony eyes of his on the Frenchman now across the table. “The girl is the wager. Fine. I’ve been called on my hand. Here it is.”
He laid out his cards. Tara felt her heart leap as she stared at them. A three, a four, a five, a six …
And a seven.
They didn’t look very good to her. Oh, God, this was ridiculous! She wasn’t even sure who she wanted to win the hand. What was going to happen if the Frenchman beat McKenzie? At least McKenzie had mentioned that she might not be wanted!
But she had been set down as the wager against a three-hundred-dollar bet.
What if none of these men wanted to believe her, that she served tables here and no more? Nothing that she had to say seemed to mean anything to them. Maybe Eastwood had hired her because he knew that there would eventually be an occasion like this.
The Frenchman swore violently, throwing his cards down. Tara’s heart leapt again. He had three aces, a king, and a ten.
Who the hell had won this thing? Seconds ticked by in silence. She wanted to scream.
“Mine again,” McKenzie said at last, very softly. “I think this time, Jack, the game is over!”
“Mais, oui! The game is over!” the Frenchman cried furiously.
Tara screamed, shrieking out in warning as she jumped away from the table. The Frenchman was pulling out a weapon, a pistol. And he was aiming it straight at McKenzie’s heart, at a distance of no more than three feet.
But the Frenchman’s weapon never fired. McKenzie moved like a cobra, more swiftly than the eye. Even as she blinked, he was on his feet, reaching to a sheath at his ankle and hurtling a blade like a streak of silver across the distance between himself and the Frenchman.
The knife hit the top of the Frenchman’s hand. He screamed with pain.
The Frenchman’s hand was pinned to the table with the knife. His pistol, freed from his injured hand, went flying across the wood to land with a thud against the wall.
The Frenchman looked furiously from his hand to McKenzie. “You should be arrested!”
“And you should be dead,” he said flatly. “You meant to shoot me down in cold blood, and every man here witnessed the attempt.”
“You cheated. You should have been shot! And if it weren’t for this little whore—”
“How dare you—” Tara began furiously, but neither man was paying her any heed at the moment.
“I’d have still been faster than you,” McKenzie interrupted him sharply.
“Swamp-loving bastard!” the Frenchman said.
McKenzie stood quickly, wresting his knife from the table and the Frenchman’s hand. Smiling Jack screamed out with a cry of pain, then fell silent, nursing his injured hand as McKenzie leaned low against him and spoke softly. “I’ve never cheated in my life, mon ami. And you know that. You should be dead. Be grateful I left you alive.”
“You’re still the fool, the loser, McKenzie! What woman is worth three hundred dollars?”
“This one!” McKenzie snapped. Tara was stunned to discover his long, powerful fingers winding around her wrist, drawing her to his side. Jesu! She shouldn’t have been standing there, gaping! She should have been making a swift disappearance, slipping away while she’d had the chance!
“You make sure your friend Eastwood knows that she’s made three hundred dollars for him this evening. And you make damned sure he knows why she’s gone,” McKenzie continued.
He started walking out with long strides, dragging Tara with him. She tried to hang back, desperate to convince him that she couldn’t go anywhere with him. He didn’t allow her to stop. He was far too powerful a man for her to break his hold. She couldn’t just scream within the tawdry little tavern—Eastwood would come running over to strip her himself for three hundred dollars. No help there.…
No help from anywhere.
Everyone in the tavern had gone silent at the outbreak of the fight.
And now everyone was staring at the two of them. Eastwood was watching them, apparently delighted that she’d be paying off part of one of his debts.
“I’d say she’s well worth three hundred!” a drunk suddenly bellowed.
She flushed silently, furiously tugging to free her hand. Jarrett didn’t release her. He knew her cloak. He lifted it from the peg where she had hung it when she’d come in, barely breaking his stride. At the entryway he finally paused, sweeping it over her shoulders.
“Wait! I can’t—”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here!”
And for a moment his near ebony gaze touched hers and the curve of a smile just lifted the corners of his mouth. His whisper came close to her lips, sending little shivers of fire to dance down her spine. “You little fool! Run with it. You’re mine for the night! Freedom from this hellhole.”
But at what price?
Scream! she thought, panic finding a renewed life within her. Scream and scream.…
But there would be no one to heed her. If a cry of desperation escaped her, no one would give a damn, no one at all.
He was pulling her along once again. McKenzie. The black Irishman with the searing eyes and the touch of steel.
Dragging her with him into the night.
His night.
Chapter 2
In seconds they were outside in the cool New Orleans streets, surrounded by wrought iron and the scent of flowers, with only a faint odor beneath of the river and the wharf rats.
Tara tugged hard upon her hand once again, fighting to remain calm, to reason with the man. “Mr. McKenzie, you’ve got to understand. I can’t really be a payment in a game. I had nothing to do with any of that, I’ve never seen that horrible man before in my life.”
He wasn’t responding. He was just walking down the street—still dragging her along.
She jerked back furiously.
“Damn you, I’m not—”
He stopped beneath a streetlamp, swinging around to study her. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing in a place like that, then?”
She was astounded by the question. He sounded just like her older brother at that moment.
“Trying to make some money,” she said irritably.
“Oh, Jesu!” he muttered.
“Not like that!” she defended herself, seeing the way his mind was turning. He didn’t believe her! If he had perhaps begun to believe her before, he certainly didn’t now.
“I need money! I was trying to make legitimate money!”
He lifted her hand suddenly, running his thumb over her flesh, cocking a brow at the smoothness of it. “I see. You don’t come from any, right?”
“Any what?”
“Money!” he snapped.
She tore free, staring at him.
“I was trying to make a few honest dollars and nothing more!”
“At Eastwood’s?”
“I heard that it was a respectable place—”
“More respectable than some of the more perverted whorehouses!” he retorted harshly. He continued in a blunt vein. “Eastwood, at least, never expects his girls to entertain two or three at a time.”
She paled. “But—”
“Jesu, can you really be so naive?”
“Yes! I suppose so!” she cried out. “I was trying to work honestly for the money.”
“Well,” he said softly, black eyes sweeping her, “you’ll be making an honest dollar tonight.”
She gasped, paling. “I told you—”
“That you serve tables. Fine. You can serve a table elsewhere. Just not here!”
What in God’s name did he mean? She remembered the German card player’s comment about serving on a table or a floor. Oh, God!
He turned from her and started walking. He had let her go, she realized with amazement. She thought about turning around to run. It might be very foolish. He would surely report her to Eastwood. Or else he would just catch her. She had no doubts about his ability to do so.
She didn’t believe that he’d let her go so easily, and to her own surprise she found herself running after him, catching his arm and causing him to spin around again. She released him immediately and asked nervously, “What do you mean?”
He stared at her. He smiled suddenly, a slow, curious smile. “You’re supposed to be worth three hundred dollars. That’s quite a sum.”
“Where are we going?”
“My rooms.”
No, they weren’t. She didn’t dare wonder about his exact intentions anymore, or spend any more time ruing the fact that he probably had the power to catch her. Foolish or not, she had to take her chances trying to run.
And actually, she was getting good at running. Very good. Maybe she could even escape a man like this one.
She had let him go. He turned and started walking again. She stood dead still and shivered, watching him.
“Come on!” he called to her.
Not on his life! This was it, now or never.
She turned in a flurry of speed and motion and started down an alleyway that led toward the river. She ran like a rabbit, her heart pounding, her feet flying.
To her dismay she burst out on the same street from which she had just come. Eastwood’s street. She came to a swift halt, flattening herself against the raw wood of one of the alleyway’s shanty buildings. At first she was just irritated with herself, certain that she could slip back into the shadows of the night.
Then she gasped, her heart slamming against her chest.
And then it seemed to stop dead with pure horror. She recognized the two men entering the front door of Eastwood’s place.
They’d been sent for her. They must have followed her trail to Eastwood’s. And they’d probably offer Eastwood anything to get her.
Oh, God!
An absolute, horrible panic seized her. She turned and ran blindly, trying to double her speed as she became aware that she was being followed. The men had been told at Eastwood’s that she was somewhere out in the night! Had she been seen? Heard? She didn’t know. But they were in pursuit now. Footsteps fell after her own, echoing, pounding in the darkness and cool of the night. She ran harder.
The night air stung her eyes. She was gasping for breath. Her heart beat cruelly. The darkness seemed to be closing in on her. How long could she run? Oh, God, it was over, over.…
She rounded a corner and burst out onto a dock. Tall buildings rose to one side. The dark, muddy Mississippi stretched into oblivion at the end of it.
She could hear the men shouting out to one another in their pursuit of her.
She would never let them catch her. Never. She would die first.
She didn’t care where the dock led, if it were into oblivion or not.
She started to run again, blindly, into the darkness.
Suddenly a hand shot out. She started to scream as an arm came around her, sweeping her off her feet. The hand settled over her mouth and she heard a harsh whisper. “Shut up! It’s me.”
McKenzie. Dear God, it was Mc
Kenzie!
Her heart continued to beat like wildfire. He pulled her into the shadowed darkness of the narrow alley she hadn’t seen until he swept her there. His hand lifted from her mouth. She could feel his body heat, the rise and fall of his chest, the vital tension of the man. He turned her around. She saw a glistening reflection in his eyes and the flash of his teeth reflected by what dim moonlight combated the darkness. She could scarcely breathe. A trembling raced through her as he held her, staring demandingly into her eyes.
“Who are they?” he barked sharply.
Her eyes widened. McKenzie had been right behind her all along. He’d seen the men—and he’d seen her panic because of them. “I don’t know—” she lied.
“The men following you. Who are they?”
“I don’t know!”
“The hell you don’t, and why the hell did you run from me?” he demanded curtly.
“I thought that you would force me.”
“I wouldn’t think of forcing a whore.”
“But I’m not—”
He sighed with aggravation. “I didn’t intend to force you into anything—no matter what you are or aren’t! I was going to try to give you a decent dinner and some breathing space before letting you go back to that rat hole, if that was your choice.”
“You could have just said so—” she began furiously.
“But now you can’t go back there, can you?” he interrupted.
She clenched down hard on her teeth. “No,” she said flatly. “I can’t go back.” He was so close. She could feel his warmth and the fine texture of his coat brushing her hands. He smelled good, clean like soap with just a touch of cologne, whiskey and leather mingling in. He was not just the most intriguing man she’d ever seen, he also seemed to be the most powerful. And perhaps the hardest, she thought. He expected answers, he set his hands upon what he wanted, and took it. His black eyes demanded everything. And yet …
He could be merciful, she thought.
When mercy was warranted. He was probably also capable of being entirely ruthless when mercy was not warranted. Just how would he see her situation?
It didn’t matter. The past was over, and it was hers alone. She would never tell him.…