Gambler's Tempting Kisses

by Charlotte Hubbard

  His response was a dimpled grin that told her he’d pulled such a magician’s trick many, many times. In awe she watched hands that were too quick to be human flick the cards into the deck, shuffle three more onto the table top, and stop, poised around the deck they held.

  “Where’s the baby?”

  Charity hesitated. “Is it that little man?”

  “The joker,” Dillon said with a nod, “which we high rollers call the cuter. Watch him closely—he’s about to disappear.”

  The man across the table repeated his quick manipulations on the table top, making the cards whisper seductively. When he coughed, Charity noted his utterly expressionless face, which seemed not to belong on the same body with the hands that defied watching.

  “Did I switch a card?”

  “I—I couldn’t tell,” Charity admitted.

  “He did it when he coughed,” Noah said darkly. His eyes were hard and resentful, and he stood up. “Rather than waste my time in such useless pursuits, I prefer to read the paper. You should consider doing the same, daughter.”

  As the preacher approached the front of the car with a cautious, rhythmic shuffle, Dillon saw Charity’s face tighten. She nibbled her lower lip—a lip he found extremely erotic, even with dozens of passengers sitting around them—and he reached for her hand. “It was never my intent to corrupt you, sweetheart. Shall I put my cards away?”

  She blinked. “No, of course not. You were only helping us pass the time.”

  Devereau kept a grin in check. He’d shown her three-card monte to irritate her father, and to win some time alone with her. He tightened his hold on Charity’s childlike hand. “Do you want to call off the search? We could turn around in Abilene—as your father pointed out, I can’t guarantee we’ll ever catch up with your mother. I have a feeling the two of you haven’t talked much about it.”

  Charity laughed ruefully. “There’s no talking to Papa when things aren’t going his way. He was all set to take the steamer home, so I’m surprised he even got on the train this morning.”

  He couldn’t tell her Noah was aboard only because he’d threatened the preacher’s ministry. Their search for Marcella Scott and Erroll Powers would probably take weeks, and he wanted to be certain Charity was as committed to the journey—no matter where it might lead or what they might find—as he was. “Is there something else you’d like to talk about?” he asked gently. “You seem preoccupied, perhaps about a subject you can’t discuss with your father.”

  The warmth from his hand was already working its spell, and when Charity looked into Dillon Devereau’s tawny eyes, she realized that he could read people as easily as he read a deck of cards. “Now that I’ve had a chance to think about Mama’s lies, something’s puzzling me,” she began hesitantly. “You see, there’s another photograph in Papa’s bedroom—a likeness of Mama and Maggie, taken when they were very young, and it couldn’t have been faked.”

  Dillon considered this carefully. “So she does have a twin? When your father admitted he’d never seen Maggie, I thought perhaps your mother had been . . . well, lying to him ever since he met her.”

  “Not about that,” Charity replied with a shake of her head. “She used to tell how Maggie was always the favorite, so ladylike and well behaved—at least when their parents were watching—so they sent her out East to a fashionable finishing school. Meanwhile, Mama had attended some of Papa’s revivals and married him. How she met Mr. Powers, I don’t know, but I remember she went to visit her sister a few times when I was very young, and I wanted more than anything in the world to travel along with her.” She sighed under the sheer weight of Mama’s lies and looked at Dillon again. “Now that we know what Mama’s really been doing, what do you suppose has happened to my aunt?”

  Devereau enfolded her fragile hand between both of his and gave Charity his most sympathetic smile. As a man who’d won fortunes on the strength of a bluff, he knew the best lies were spun from the truth. Marcella Scott had fashioned her secret life into such a finely woven tapestry he wondered if she herself could differentiate between fact and falsehood by now. “Maggie’s just one more thing we’ll have to find out about when we locate your mother,” he replied gently. And silently he added, I hope to God we find her in time.

  Charity nodded, soothed by the long, supple fingers that were kneading hers. They were never still, those gambler’s hands, and a glance at the table reminded her of the monte demonstration that had been interrupted when Papa left. She turned the three cards over, one by one. “You didn’t switch these at all, Mr. Devereau. The cuter’s right here, whether you coughed or not.”

  Dillon laughed and picked up his deck, eager to entertain her again. “Monte dealers have endless ways to divert their customers’ attention, but I prefer something less conspicuous than a cough or a sneezing fit. I can usually palm a card fast enough that only a skilled observer will spot the switch.”

  Once again Charity watched him juggle the three cards on the table top while still gripping the deck. When his hands came to rest, she turned the cards to discover he’d switched two of them. “How’d you—”

  “I won’t corrupt you with my tricks, sweetheart,” he said while he quickly flipped all the cards into his hand. “Your father won’t let me have a another moment alone with you if I do.”

  Charity peered around the back of her seat and saw that Papa was sitting near the front of the car, scowling at a newspaper. When she faced Dillon again, she was overwhelmed by the golden shine of his eyes, and as he took her hand again, streaks of excitement coursed through her because other passengers could see them clearly. “Uh . . . what else do you do with cards?” she stammered. “If I pick some out, can you guess what they are, like a magician outside a circus tent does?”

  He was trying not to laugh: Charity had picked up the deck, and was dealing four cards onto the table with the awkward determination of a child. Devereau stared at the cards with the exaggerated concentration of a carnival huckster, as though he could see through them. Starting with the card on his right, he pointed. “A black queen . . . something less than a nine ... a red jack . . . the ace of hearts,” he intoned.

  Gaping, Charity turned the cards over. “These are marked!”

  “Yes, they are,” he admitted with a pleased grin. “Study the backs of them and try to figure out my system.”

  Her outburst attracted the attention of several nearby passengers, so Charity did as Devereau suggested to avoid their curious gazes. The deck design was a tight interweaving of black scrolls and curlicues and small marks that resembled the numeral seven. She was so engrossed she didn’t realize someone had come to stand beside her.

  “Is everything all right here, miss?” a businesslike voice asked.

  Charity looked up to see the conductor, and flushed. “Yes—I mean—he’s only showing me—”

  “Don’t I remember you from a few years back?” the uniformed man demanded of Dillon. “It was on the run between Omaha and Salt Lake City. Had to put you off the train, as I recall.”

  Devereau’s mustache lifted in an unflustered smile. “I believe it was,” he said with a suave nod. “But my circumstances have improved a great deal since then, and so has the company I keep. Miss Scott here is a minister’s daughter, and I’m accompanying her to Abilene. Wouldn’t dream of leading such a lovely young woman astray—especially since her father’s with us.”

  Glancing toward Noah, the conductor grunted. “An alibi for every occasion. Let me know if he makes a nuisance of himself, ma’am.”

  He continued down the aisle, and Charity stared after him. Then she studied the elegant man across from her, noting the appearance of his dimple. “Did he really put you off the train once, Dillon?”

  Devereau chuckled. “Arthur Chapman takes his job very seriously. Back when I was young and impertinent, I accused a man of securing some choice cards in a holdout he wore inside his vest. I tore the vest off him to prove it, and he didn’t take it too well. Started quite a scu
ffle.”

  Her eyes widened. “Was he wearing the holdout?”

  “Absolutely. We were locked into separate compartments until the next stop, and since the other fellow jumped out his window as the train was slowing down, I got stuck paying for the damages.” She was more awestruck than appalled by his story, so Devereau pointed to the cards in front of her. “Have you figured out my system?”

  Charity studied the cards very closely. Here was a man who’d started such memorable fights that he’d achieved notoriety on the Union Pacific, yet he was sharing his trade secrets with her as though she were perfectly capable of comprehending them! “Does it have something to do with this seven-looking mark? The other squiggles don’t seem to change positions.”

  A bolt of pure pleasure made him grab her hands. Beneath her unruly waves and dowdy calico dress, Charity Scott was proving to be one of the most astute women he’d ever met. “Those sevens tell me which cards are tens or higher, while the directions they point tell me which cards they are,” he explained. “The red royalty and the four aces have their corners shaved slightly. You don’t see it so much as you feel it, when you’re dealing them out.”

  Charity ran her fingers around the jack of diamonds and the ace of hearts. “I don’t know how you can tell—”

  “When you’ve marked as many decks as I have, you can pick out the high cards in the dark,” he said with a shrug. “I was blessed with nimble fingers and I’ve spent half my life avoiding manual labor to keep them soft. Not an entirely admirable trait, but the men who accuse me of being less than masculine lose the most money to me.”

  For the first time, Charity really looked at Dillon’s hands. She turned his palms up, studying the lean, elegant cut of his fingers . . . the rounded, pink tips appeared as pampered and free of calluses as a wealthy woman’s. Yet when he suddenly gripped her again, gazing intently at her, his utter maleness made her ache with the same wild desire he’d evoked in the Leavenworth stable. Recalling the way he’d kissed forbidden places, luring her to the brink of madness, she knew she’d lose herself to Dillon Devereau in every possible way during this journey. Besides wanting to confront Mama, the wanton excitement she felt when he was near was the very reason she’d come along. Startled by this revelation, Charity withdrew her hand from the gambler’s and looked out the window.

  “Are you ashamed to be seen with me, Charity?”

  His voice was quieter than the train’s constant rumble; it held no apology and demanded an honest answer. The idea that she’d be ashamed of such a striking, wealthy man—she, who wore calico and whose entire world had been Jefferson City until a few days ago—struck her as absurdly funny. But she couldn’t laugh when Dillon again captured her in his golden-eyed gaze. “I’m anything but embarrassed, Mr. Devereau,” she replied firmly. “I’m just not used to men asking me such direct questions, or paying me so much attention.”

  Satisfied that she spoke from the heart, Dillon placed the table back between its brackets and slid onto the seat beside her. “Well, you’d better get used to it,” he quipped, “because I don’t intend to let you out of my sight, for your own protection and because, well—I like the looks of you, Charity. And I like the feel of you, and the smell of you . . . and the taste of you.”

  The heat that rose into her cheeks wasn’t caused by the noonday sun. The hours to Abilene passed swiftly, and even when Papa returned, sitting sternly across from them and making no effort at conversation, Charity felt supremely happy. Dillon told her stories of his misadventures as a young gambler, candidly stating that he’d had moments he wasn’t proud of, but that all told, his life and business affairs compared favorably to those of the most upstanding men he knew.

  “We make our own successes and failures,” he concluded with a serious smile, “and while I had my share of misfortune as a young man, I usually came up lucky when I needed to. And I’ve learned not to question Lady Luck when she pays me a call.”

  Charity smiled, well aware that she must seem terribly backward to this eloquent, worldly man. Yet his smile and gaze never wavered. Something in his voice told her he’d suffered a great loss—perhaps a tragedy that forced him to leave home before he was ready—but she didn’t feel it was proper to ask him about it in such a public place. She noticed that Papa’s head was nodding against his shoulder, and then she felt Dillon’s hand wrapping around hers. Giddily contented, she turned her attention to the window, where lush, amber wheat fields rippled in the breeze, a constant delight to her eye. Then she stiffened.

  Dillon followed her gaze to where a man on horseback was rapidly gaining on the train. They were slowing down for the Abilene station; men were scrambling along the roof to tighten the brakes of each car, so he knew the dark rider would arrive about the same time the train did.

  “Why would Jackson Blue follow us all the way from Leavenworth?” Charity asked in a tense whisper. “Why didn’t he ride the train? How could his horse have made the trip as fast as—”

  “Whoa, sweetheart. You’re jumping to some conclusions,” Dillon said gently. “He had to start earlier than we did and ride cross-country to be arriving now. His horse probably knows the way blindfolded, because he often brings his wagon trains along this route.”

  “But why? You can’t tell me this is a coincidence, Dillon,” she replied in a voice sharpened by suspicion. “Did you tell him about our trip, knowing how he and Papa despise each other?”

  Her change of mood took him by surprise, yet he understood her apprehension and shared it. “Sweetheart, believe me, I said nothing about it. Jackson undoubtedly figured that if we went after Marcella, we’d start looking in Abilene, because it’s the logical place. It wouldn’t surprise me if he could tell us exactly where your mother is. Not that he would.”

  Charity felt her distrust growing as the huge ebony stallion carried Blue close enough that she could distinguish the fringe on his buckskins. “If he’s not going to help us find Mama, then why’d he come?”

  Devereau could think of several answers, none of them encouraging. “It could be that he has legitimate business here,” he replied in a tone that didn’t sound terribly convincing. He noticed that Noah was waking up, and fervently hoped he could prevent the Indian scout and the preacher from catching sight of each other at the train station. “And it could be that he’s tired of Leavenworth—he has as many friends here as he does there. But I suspect,” he added as he watched clouds of resentment darken Charity’s face, “that he’s come to Abilene to collect a debt.”

  Chapter 10

  As he helped Charity down onto the platform at the train station, Dillon glanced at the people around them. Jackson Blue had made himself scarce—probably until he could cause the most trouble—but Devereau was taking no chances. “I recommend the Drover’s Cottage on Texas Street,” he said when Noah stepped off the train. “If you’ll go on ahead and arrange for our rooms, I’ll see to the luggage.” He caught the suspicious glint in the preacher’s eye and ignored it, for Charity’s sake. Smiling at her, Dillon excused himself and started toward the rear of the train, where the porters would be unloading the trunks and suitcases of the Abilene passengers. The late-afternoon sun was relentless, and he sensed the day would grow even hotter when he quizzed Blue about his purpose here. He saw that the Scotts were on their way toward Texas Street, so he strode across the platform and found the dark scout tying Satan to the hitching post behind the station.

  “Even Charity’s figured out that you’re following us,” Dillon said sharply. “Surely you could find suckers enough in Leavenworth, without scalping Scott for money he doesn’t have.”

  The Indian regarded him with cool obsidian eyes. Then, with a low chuckle, he lifted something from the shoulder of Devereau’s coat—a long auburn hair. “Methinks the lady hath addled your brains, my friend. It’s you I’m following.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve got something I want—a thousand of them, in fact.” Jackson slapped his stallion’s rump affect
ionately, still wearing his arrogance like a chieftain’s headdress. “Man of integrity that you are, I’m surprised you left town without honoring your obligations, Devereau.”

  “I don’t owe you a cent, dammit! What do you know about Marcella Scott and Powers?” he demanded. “You’ve only come to badger Noah and to watch Charity squirm as she discovers the truth about her mother.”

  Blue shrugged, “I didn’t set them on her trail, and I’m not sure why you did. But I can guarantee you that if squirming is all Miss Scott does, she’s a tougher young woman than I imagined. Maggie’s a bitch of the highest order, and she’ll be rabid when she learns you’re on to her.”

  “And just how do you know so much about her?” Dillon watched the scout’s sneer relax into a knowing smile as he motioned him toward a tavern down the block. He had to walk briskly to keep up with Blue’s saunter, a circumstance the dark giant was playing to the hilt as they crossed the dusty street.

  “Maggie and I are two of a kind,” Jackson replied in a sly voice. “Powers can get a bit high-toned at times, and when she needs a sympathetic ear, she confides in me.”

  The image of Jackson Blue as a wily, beautiful woman’s confidant nearly made Dillon choke on a laugh. He entered the shadowy saloon and leaned against the carved bar while the bartender drew their beers. “Rumor has it she plans to marry Erroll on this trip. Is that true?”

  Blue raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know how you came by that bit of hearsay, but there’ll be a blizzard in hell before Erroll Powers gives any woman access to his millions. Maggie’s more enterprising than most, though. That’s why he keeps stringing her along—besides the fact that she’s the most delectable piece of tail west of the Mississippi.”

  Sipping his frothy beer, Dillon paused to let the Indian’s information sink in. Blue’s personal involvement with Marcella was coloring his testimony, and he was known to manufacture his own version of the truth, but the haughty scout was the only source Devereau had. “So where would they be by now?”