Holt's Gamble

by Barbara Ankrum

  Talbot closed his eyes with exaggerated impatience. "And just what card would that be, Mr. Holt?"

  Holt laid his cards on the table: an ace, king, jack and ten of hearts. He held in his hand one last card—the one he'd drawn. "The queen of hearts, of course." A confident grin curved his lips and he threw the card down on top of the others. His gaze returned to Kierin's face.

  A murmur arose around them. A crowd had gathered near the table and the men jostled for position to see the royal flush that had won the girl for the stranger. The spectators cackled like old hens.

  "Cain't hardly remember the last time I see'd a inside royal flush draw'd before," stated Henry Potter, the town's resident blabbermouth. There were nods of agreement as well as slaps on the back for Holt, who leaned forward to begin collecting the pot.

  Instincts, honed to a fine edge in the wilderness, warned Holt not to let his guard down yet. He had seen the color drain from John Talbot's face as he had played his cards. Now, Talbot's expression, once coolly confident, said he thought Holt had cheated.

  Talbot rose slowly from his chair and Holt's arm moved instinctively to the gun strapped to his hip.

  Watching the play of emotions on the other man's face, he glanced around, mentally tabulating the odds in Talbot's favor. He had watched the saloon owner's men gravitate toward the table as the game progressed and knew he was greatly outnumbered. But the size of the crowd could work in his favor. Talbot was an impulsive man, but not a fool. He would never try to call him out in front of all these witnesses. Talbot was too much of a coward for that.

  Holt looked at the girl. She stood rooted to the floor next to an angry John Talbot, a dazed look of confusion on her face. Already the crowd, sensing what was in the air, had started to retreat from the table, looking to put plenty of room between themselves and a possible gunfight. Slowly, deliberately, Holt picked up the contract and handed it to Talbot.

  "I believe you owe me a signature on these papers, Talbot."

  Talbot stared icily at Holt, then managed a smile that crossed his lips but did not reach his eyes.

  "So I do," he replied hoarsely. The saloon owner motioned to Kyle Jessup to bring him a pen. The man obliged quickly and Holt saw a nod of understanding pass between them as Jessup leaned in close to his boss.

  Talbot bent over the paper, scribbled his name, and released Kierin to Clay Holt with an angry scrawl. Then he straightened and handed the paper to the tall buckskin-clad man. Turning on his heel, almost nose to nose with Kierin, Talbot snarled something that was only for her ears and stalked away from the table.

  Kierin lowered her head, closed her eyes, and let out a long shuddering sigh. Her whole body was gripped with a tremor so violent that she feared she would fall if she did not sit. But even as she felt her legs giving way underneath her, a strong arm pulled her back up again. Her eyes focused level with the long fringe on his buckskin shirt.

  "Don't faint on me now, lady," Holt murmured, leaning down close to her ear. "Show me which room is yours. We don't have much time."

  The room whirled by as he dragged her through the throngs that had crowded around them. Stop it! she wanted to scream, but it was all happening too fast. Anger blossomed from the fear that had paralyzed her only moments ago. The indignity of it all suddenly became too much. Who did he think he was, dragging her up to her room to do God knew what with her?

  She knew what. She knew just what he thought she was.

  Kierin dug her heels into the floor and yanked back on his arm with all her might.

  "I'm not going anywhere with you." she hissed. "Let go of me." Kierin worked desperately to pry the stranger's fingers from her arm, managing only to rake him with her nails.

  Holt winced and tightened his grip. Her pitiful struggle wasn't much more than an annoyance to him.

  "You'll go wherever I tell you to go," he warned through clenched teeth. "I own you now. Remember?"

  "You have no right—!"

  "Look, don't fight me on this, lady. If I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you there, I will. But one way or the other, we are going to your room." The icy tone in his voice held a clear challenge.

  Panic welled in her throat, threatening to cut off her air supply as he pulled her across the crowded room. Kierin nearly cried out from the bruising pressure of his fingers on her upper arm. She bumped along behind him like a shadow, all but invisible to the grinning patrons of the Independence.

  Pompous pop-in-jay, she thought, as she watched the tall man receive winking grins, slaps on the back, and bawdy words of encouragement from the drunken men who lined their path to the back of the saloon. Only Jeb, whose eyes she met briefly, seemed bothered by the outcome of the game. He shook his head sadly as she passed him, but soon disappeared from her line of vision.

  Stopping in front of the long polished bar, Holt pulled a shining twenty-dollar gold piece from his pocket and flipped it onto the bar.

  "A bottle for me and the lady here," he requested loudly, "and drinks all around."

  Malone, the bartender, made a grand show of testing the gold piece first with his teeth before smiling and swinging a bottle of whiskey down on the bar with two glasses.

  A whoop went up from the men nearby as he crowed, "You heard him, me boys. The next round is on this lad here."

  The crowd pressed close to the bar, awaiting their share of the spoils. Holt grabbed his bottle and the glasses one-handed and pushed his way back toward the stairway, dragging Kierin behind him.

  His eyes scanned the exits. He was not surprised to find that Talbot's men had placed themselves strategically at each one. To his left he noticed Kyle Jessup leaning against the wall, grinning at him through tobacco-stained teeth. Jessup touched the brim of the hat that was slung low over his brow in a silent challenge.

  There's your first mistake, Jessup. Never let them know what you're thinking. Holt smiled back at the man pleasantly.

  Together, Holt and the girl climbed the stairs. He pulled. She resisted. He could see her eyes frantically searching for someone in the crowded room below, but didn't have the time to dwell on who it might be.

  "Which one?" he demanded when they reached the landing. He glanced back over his shoulder at the room below them.

  "Please, Mr.-"

  "Look, don't play games with me here." He glared at her menacingly. Jessup was no longer in sight. "Show me your room. Now!"

  Kierin jumped at his words and moved quickly to her door. Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle. She was shoved from behind as he pushed his way into the room, closing the door firmly behind them.

  He slid the bolt home with a loud click and the girl's head turned sharply at the sound. Through the moonlit darkness in her room, Holt could see the fear in her eyes. Damn. That's all he needed. He rubbed a hand slowly across his face—a gesture that spoke as much of his frustration as his anger.

  Setting the bottle and glasses down on the small washstand beside the door, Holt moved to the window at the far side of the small room. He pulled the filmy lace curtains aside and surveyed the street below. He could spot no one watching her room and was relieved to see the narrow balcony that ran the length of the false-fronted building just below her window. Holt knew he would have no trouble making the drop of some eight feet to the street below, but he wondered if he could expect the same of her.

  "Are you up to climbing out a window?" Holt asked suddenly.

  Whatever Kierin had imagined him to say next, it had not been that. She pressed herself closer to the wall behind her.

  "A-am I... what?"

  "Are you any good at jumping?"

  "Jumping?" She was completely at a loss.

  "Look," he explained more patiently in a low, controlled voice, "judging from Talbot's mood when he left the table and the fact that at this very moment he has men positioned at every door waiting for us to leave, I'd say the only sure way of getting out of this mess in one piece is to hightail it out your bedroom window here, before Talbot'
s men know we've gone."

  "I—I don't understand," Kierin whispered, trying to grasp what he was saying. She stared at the man before her as if seeing him for the first time. What he said didn't make any sense. "I thought... I thought you won my contract in that game."

  "I did. Unfortunately, your friend Talbot is a man who doesn't take his losses well. Especially when it involves a piece of property that he had no intention of losing."

  The fire he had seen in her eyes earlier rekindled and she shot him a scorching look. "Just what makes you so sure that John Talbot has any intention of going back on his word, Mr. Holt? He signed the paper in front of dozens of witnesses deeding his... property, as you so aptly put it, to you."

  He looked at her with a directness that made her distinctly uncomfortable—as if he was weighing her ability to see the reasonableness of his argument. Apparently, he decided she was both dim-witted and troublesome.

  "You'll just have to trust me on this," he said. "I've met men like Talbot before." Holt lowered his eyes and frowned. "Let's leave it at that."

  Kierin had no reason to trust this man or any other man for that matter. Men had done nothing in her life but betray her. Why should this one be any different? Her best instincts told her to put as much distance as she could between herself and this man named Holt. For now, however, she knew that there was no choice but to go along with him. Grudgingly, she admitted he was right.

  John Talbot was one of the most powerful men in this town. Who would ask questions if she suddenly became his property again or if this man mysteriously disappeared? Talbot was undoubtedly capable of that and worse. She shuddered as she remembered the threat he'd snarled in her ear as he left the table. No. At least the stranger was right about this. She would go along with him for now and take her chance when it came.

  "What do you think he'll do if he... catches us?"

  Holt looked back to the street. It was a prospect he didn't intend to waste time considering. "Get a few things together. Just what you'll need. Keep it light. Well have to move fast," he ordered. "If we don't get out of here soon, we won't have to wonder, will we?"

  * * *

  The amber moonlight spilled lantern like onto the street below, mingling eerily with the fingers of misty air rolling in from the river. Holt and Kierin scanned the scene from their vantage point on the balcony below her window, and she pulled her thin wrap more tightly against the chill that clung to the damp night air. She wished now that she'd taken the time to put on something warmer, but Holt had only allowed her to stuff a few dresses and some other bare necessities into the bag before hauling her out the window. She pulled her small tapestry bag into the crook of her arm, and pressed it against her for the small amount of warmth it would provide.

  Holt was crouched beside her with his back against the wall. He leaned deeper into the dappled shadow cast by the giant poplar that grew in front of the Independence. The tightly coiled muscles of his right arm pressed unavoidably against hers. Kierin felt her heart race unexpectedly at his closeness and she chanced a covert glance in his direction.

  The soft shadowed moonlight played across the planes of his chiseled features as his eyes searched the darkness. He was a handsome man, she realized, taking in the near perfection of his profile. His angular cheekbones emphasized the strong masculine line of his jaw and the shadowed hollow of his cheeks. Lips, full and sensuous, curled slightly upward at the corners, giving him a look of boyish mischievousness that belied the grim concentration etched there. She could just make out a thin white scar that ran nearly the length of his jawline—the only flaw on an otherwise flawless face.

  Kierin looked away, scolding herself for admiring him as she had. He was a man like any other man. She had learned from Talbot that external beauty could be cruelly deceiving. She dared not allow her guard down with this man, she told herself, no matter how he affected her.

  "Let's go," Holt whispered, breaking into her reverie. He uncoiled lithely from his place at her side and vaulted over the banistered railing onto the exposed part of the balcony. He perched there on the edge of the roof, looking back at her expectantly.

  "Well, come on," he encouraged. "I'll go down first and help you down. It's not a long drop."

  "You needn't worry about me, Mr. Holt," she whispered back defensively, meeting him at the railing. "If you can do it, I can do it. I don't need anything from you."

  He shrugged. "Suit yourself. I was only trying to be a gentleman." At that, he dropped with a graceful thud to the soft dirt below.

  "Ha!" she scoffed from above. "That's a good one. If you were a gentleman, you would have walked away from that game like Calvin Bennett did." She threw her leg over the balcony and wavered there, gripping the rail in one hand and her bag in the other.

  Holt's brows furrowed together and he placed his hands on his hips in aggravation, craning his neck up to see her.

  "This is hardly the time to be discussing the finer points of etiquette, lady. Let's go."

  She let the tapestry bag fly and missed hitting his shoulder by mere inches. He caught it one-handed and set it down soundlessly on the street. He glared back up at her.

  "You missed."

  "That's a shame. I didn't mean to." She glared back at him.

  She had climbed trees a thousand times with her younger brother Matthew and she was good at it, too. Balconies, however, were another matter altogether. She climbed down as far as she could, gripping the banistered railing, but as soon as she let go with one hand, she lost her grip with the other, bandaged one and, with a small cry, plummeted, humiliatingly, into Holt's waiting arms.

  Had it been any other time, any other man, she would have gracefully admitted that he had been right and thanked him for catching her. But it was this man with his arms around her and a silly grin on his face. She twisted free from his grip, still feeling the heat of his touch where his hands had circled her waist. With fists clenched, she glared at him.

  "I told you I didn't need your help. I could have done it by myself."

  He stared at her for a moment, utterly dumbfounded.

  "Pardon me, Princess," he returned finally in a disgusted whisper, "but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have to carry you out of town with a sprained ankle or worse because you were too bull-headed to ask for my help." He slapped irritably at his buckskin leggings, sending up a small cloud of dust. "So, let's get moving, shall we?"

  Without waiting for an answer, Holt turned and stormed off into the darkness, muttering something about ungrateful wenches.

  Kierin narrowed her eyes and set her jaw against the anger that welled in her. He had been right about her bullheadedness and she even grudgingly admitted to herself that she would have certainly hurt herself if not for him. But she would be damned if she would thank him for it.

  Ungrateful? Ha!

  As if she should be grateful that he had won the next few years of her life in a game of cards. The man had nerve. If she hadn't been sure that she had no chance of escaping Talbot on her own, she would have turned and run in the opposite direction. But they were still close enough to the saloon to hear the music and laughter spilling from the open doors.

  Shivering at the thought of being found, she hurried to follow Holt's long-legged strides. The tapestry bag, which he had pointedly left behind for her to carry, bumped along uncomfortably against her leg and she cursed him silently.

  Princess, indeed. Damn you, Clay Holt.

  She didn't know how, or when, but she'd find a way to get away from him. She silently vowed she would never be his, or any other man's slave again.

  Chapter 2

  John Talbot leaned back in his tufted leather chair and slugged a double shot of fine Irish whiskey down his throat. He grimaced as it burned him, closing his eyes with relief. Whiskey seemed to be the only thing that brought him relief these days.

  He got up from his desk and paced, silently cursing the turn of the evening's events. Women. The truth was he had no use for any of
them, but for what they could give him in bed. He snorted derisively, pouring himself another drink. Lately, even the bottle gave him considerably more pleasure than that. That damn little McKendry bitch would have gotten what was coming to her tonight if only he'd won that hand. With Lily out of the way—

  Talbot slumped into his chair again. He thought of the woman he'd taken on as a partner two years ago when he had first moved into this town. He'd had a small stake—enough to start a modest saloon which would have, in time, grown in reputation to what the Independence was now. But Lily—a madam with a reputation already built on first rate clientele and enough money to give him the edge over the competition—had offered to throw in with him.

  It was a decision he had never regretted, because the success of the saloon had given him the power he had always craved. He was, without a doubt, one of the richest citizens of Independence now and owned a good portion of its real estate and commerce.

  No, taking Lily on as a partner had been smart business. But when it came to the girl, Kierin, he and Lily butted heads. For as fine a businesswoman as Lily was, something about the McKendry girl brought out the mother hen in her. She had taken Kierin under her protective wing as soon as Talbot had brought the girl to work here for him. And despite Talbot's objections, Lily had made sure that Kierin's bed was off-limits not only to the customers, but to him as well.

  Well, Lily was gone for a few days to St. Louis. It had been the perfect opportunity for him to teach Asa McKendry's brat a lesson. Somehow, he thought angrily, it had all gone awry.

  And Clay Holt. Right under his goddamned nose and he hadn't even known it. Talbot's thoughts skipped erratically as he paced the room again, becoming more and more agitated.

  A knock interrupted his pacing and he shot to the door, swinging it open wide.

  "Well?" he demanded of Kyle Jessup, who stood with his hand still poised over the frame.

  "They're still up there, Mr. Talbot. I've got two men watching the door."