Gambler's Tempting Kisses

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Jackson grunted while he drank deeply from his tankard. “Depends on how long Maggie can detain him in any one hotel. The way she tells it, he can’t get enough of—”

  “Cut the crap, Jackson. Where are they?”

  The Indian studied him while he polished off his beer, laughing low in his throat until the fringe across his buckskins shimmied. “My, my but we’re testy today. Must be from keeping company with a Bible thumper and a vestal virgin. Has she let you kiss her yet?”

  Devereau lowered his glass to the bar with a heavy thunk. “That’s none of your concern. Now tell me what you know about Powers and Marcella—such as why they’re planning to be away from Leavenworth for so long.”

  “Railroad business, they say,” he answered breezily, “although Maggie hinted that this time Erroll was going to cash in big at each station and keep riding the rails into the sunset. Talk around Leavenworth says he’s on the fly because K.P. officials caught him misappropriating funds, and that he won’t be showing his face around town again without being arrested.”

  Dillon shook his head when the barkeep gestured toward his glass again, and thought for a moment. He knew better than to believe Powers would abandon his Leavenworth estate . . . and if he was running from the law, why would he tell Marcella they would marry and take a honeymoon, which would slow them down and give Kansas Pacific officials a chance to catch up with him? It didn’t add up.

  “You know, if it weren’t for that thousand dollars that’s come between us,” the scout continued slyly, “I might be persuaded to ride ahead and detain the illustrious Miss Wallace and her consort. You could bide your time here, cozying up to the Scotts, until I telegraph Maggie’s whereabouts to you. Think of the time and effort you’d save.”

  “You know where they are, don’t you? If you were any kind of a friend, you’d forget about that damn money and—”

  “It’s because I’m your friend I’m telling you to go home. Powers and Wallace are out of your league, Dillon, and you’re leading the Scotts straight to Hades if you insist on following those two shysters.” Jackson Blue’s eyes took on a mischievous glint as he leaned against the bar and sipped his second beer. “When you figure out that it’s cheaper to retire Scott’s gambling debt than to keep spending your money on that little piano pounder, let me know. Maggie Wallace has a penchant for pleasing two lovers at once, and with the contrast in our coloring and tastes, we could show that woman a time she’ll—”

  “Will you never cease to disgust me?” Dillon turned from the bar, and he was halfway to the bat-wing doors before he remembered the other reason he’d wanted to confront the foul-mouthed Indian. He cleared his throat loudly as he addressed Blue’s backside, waiting for the scout to acknowledge him. “If you so much as show your face to Noah Scott,” his coiled voice echoed in the nearly empty saloon, “consider yourself arrested.”

  * * *

  “This is just another example of how Devereau’s not to be trusted,” Papa said with a grunt. He looked around the small, tidy room with its twin beds and then glowered at Charity again. “What sort of man would direct us to a hotel that doesn’t even exist? It’s probably best we chose this boardinghouse anyway. Undoubtedly more economical than the lodgings our escort had in mind.”

  Lifting her hair off her sweaty neck, Charity sighed tiredly. “Please, Papa, can’t we freshen up for dinner without bickering about Mr. Devereau? I’m sure it was an honest mistake,” she said as she poured water into the bowl on the washstand.

  “Honest! Now there’s a word we’ll always associate with our fine-feathered friend,” her father continued. “Why, for all we know he abandoned us—got back on the train and took our paltry possessions with him! Or at the very least, he stayed behind to tip the conductor for allowing him to remain aboard. Gamblers pay for the privilege of fleecing railroad customers, and I would imagine such bribery costs him—”

  “If you despise Dillon so much, why did you agree to come on this trip?” Charity demanded. After watching him scowl and mutter all day, her fear of Papa’s punishment was suddenly overridden by a fierce anger that had been smoldering since they’d left Kansas City. She knew why Dillon had lingered at the station, and the strain of keeping yet another secret to appease her father was more than she could bear. “I don’t understand you, Papa. You’re always claiming poverty as your excuse, yet when someone pays your way to find your wife, you act as though—as though you don’t give a damn about what’s happened to her! I want to know why.”

  Her vehemence shocked Papa as much as it surprised her. He raked his fingers through the silvery sunburst in his hair, his face contorting with rage.

  “How dare you address me in such a presumptuous fashion? I won’t tolerate your—”

  “I’m tired of hearing that my questions are out of line, Papa. I’m eighteen. It’s no secret to me why Mama would leave you, but I can’t understand why you’re so willing to let her get away.”

  Even as the words escaped her, Charity knew she’d overstepped her bounds. Papa’s nostrils flared and he clutched his lapels as he stared at her, yet he made no move to slap her. Instead he backed toward the door, pointing an accusing finger.

  “By the God that made me, I swear I’ll tear Devereau limb from limb for filling your head with such insolence,” he said in a terse whisper. “And then we’re getting back on that train and going home. You’d better be here when I return, daughter, or you’ll be eternally sorry.”

  The door shuddered on its hinges for several moments after the slamming noise died away. Charity stared at it, her legs going rubbery as the consequences of her outburst sank in. Because she couldn’t keep her suspicions to herself, her father was returning her to the limited world of home and church—an existence that would be even more stifling because Papa wouldn’t let her out of his sight . . . and because she’d never see Dillon or her mother again. She was shaking so violently she had to sit down on the narrow fainting couch beside the door.

  After several minutes she regained control over her trembling arms and legs, yet she didn’t answer the soft rapping on the wooden jamb. Charity heard her visitor slip into the room. She assumed it was Mrs. Yancy, the beaky, inquisitive woman who managed Hathaway House, come to inquire about raised voices and slamming doors, so she kept staring mournfully at her calico lap. Only when two arms in white shirt sleeves wrapped around her did

  she realize that Dillon had somehow escaped her father’s wrath. She opened her mouth, but he laid a gentle finger across it.

  “A thousand apologies, Charity,” he said as he studied her anxious expression. “I knew the Drover’s Cottage closed up and moved west with the cattle trade, but it slipped my mind. Abilene’s nothing like I remember it from my days at the faro tables.”

  She was so happy to see him that her words tumbled out before she could think about them. “I suppose you were booted out of town for the same reason you were put off the train?”

  “Well, yes I was, honey,” he replied with a laugh. Her puckish tone proved her resilience once again, and he gave her a quick hug. “Only instead of enraging a customer, I made the mistake of falling for a lady of ... questionable repute, shall we say? Another of her admirers showed me what a foolish move that was, and since his name was Hickok and his motto was ‘Shoot straight and shoot first,’ I never returned.”

  “Hickok? You knew Wild Bill Hickok?” she gasped.

  Dillon grinned. “Well enough to clean him out nearly every time he sat down at a faro table. He could’ve been my twin, except he had blue eyes and wore his hair to his shoulders. We both dressed to the nines and had a taste for wild women,” he continued with a wistful chuckle. “Spent our days at the Alamo Saloon, the finest hall in town—used to be right down the street from here. But most of those establishments closed up or moved to Ellsworth when the cattle started going there. That’s history, though, and I’m boring you with it.”

  Completely awestruck, Charity gazed at the blond man whose virile smile wa
s only inches from her own. She smelled beer and the day’s heat on him, and saw the beginnings of stubble along his lean jawline, yet these details made him all the more appealing. That he’d cavorted with whores and found disfavor with a legendary lawman made her wonder again why he was here, with her. Fighting the urge to kiss him, she forced her thoughts along a safer line. “Did you speak with Mr. Blue?”

  Devereau grunted. “And got nothing but one vague come-on strung to another. I think he knows where your mother is, and because of his dealings with her, I don’t trust a word he says.”

  “He’s your gambling partner, yet he plays you false? Why do you still consider him your friend, Dillon?”

  Charity’s upturned face, so innocent yet so wise, made his insides tighten. Now that she’d forgotten whatever she and Noah had been arguing about, the last thing Dillon wanted to discuss was the other man who was making their lives difficult. She’d asked a valid question, though, and she deserved an answer.

  “Jackson and I have known each other since we were first on our own, back when he was a buffalo hunter and I was a greenhorn gambler,” he replied in a thoughtful tone. “The adventures we shared, and the fact that I once saved his life, bind us together, honey. Blue sometimes repulses me and he makes me angry faster than any man I know, yet I understand him. He’s stringing me along now because he’s enthralled by a beautiful woman—and my behavior baffles him for the very same reason.”

  Several questions popped into her mind as Dillon spoke, but when his final words sank in, she was too tongue-tied to ask them. He was holding her closely enough that their shared warmth brought out the spicy fragrance of his cologne as well as the earthier smells of liquor and light sweat. Tentatively, she raised her lips to his.

  Devereau closed his eyes to savor the taste of her, despite the naggings that told him her father could walk in at any moment. Her mouth opened sweetly at his slightest coaxing, and he was lost in the silken wetness of her tongue and inner lips as he pressed her body against his. “Charity,” he whispered, “each time I hold you this way, it gets harder to stop with just a kiss.”

  She knew what he wanted as surely as she knew she couldn’t give it to him, but rather than pull away she considered her options. “Mama used to write me that if a girl kept all her clothes on and put both feet on the floor, she couldn’t get into any trouble,” she murmured as she stroked his mustache with her finger. “Is that true, Dillon?”

  Her naive challenge sent desire flooding through his loins. “Depends on your definition of trouble,” he whispered against her ear.

  Charity giggled, aware of how sultry she sounded and of the effect it was having upon the man who held her. It was too late not to trust him—his kiss swept away all of her father’s dire warnings. She wrapped her arms around him and scooted lower on the couch until her feet were planted firmly on the rug, and then returned every nuance his gentle, insistent mouth was teaching hers.

  Devereau wasn’t about to tell her how her change of position had only made her more accessible—just as he wouldn’t spoil the moment by breaking her rules. As he shifted to fit against her, Charity sighed and sounded blissfully content. Her eager lips yielded to him, and with her slender body partway beneath his, he could no more stop fondling her than he could stop time itself.

  Charity felt his fingers on her breast and held her breath. When the heat of his hand penetrated her dress and camisole, she nestled against him; his hypnotic touch told her he was now in complete control of her, and yet she anticipated something more—something beyond her present understanding.

  Her response made him strain against trousers that threatened to emasculate him. Since it was too much to hope that she would give him the satisfaction he craved, Dillon concentrated on showing her the realm of sensations her body could experience, given the restrictions of her clothing. He imagined her pert pink breasts, and skin that would be fresh and fragrant with lilac soap even after the day’s journey . . . except for places rendered intoxicatingly female by her awakening passions. With renewed purpose, Devereau kissed her firmly while lifting the hem of her dress above her knees.

  Charity froze for only a moment. He was still honoring her request—her clothing was secure and her feet touched the floor—but the first silken caress of his fingertips on her inner thigh made her realize how artificial such limitations were to a man of Dillon’s experience. His touch called up a vaguely exquisite memory, and she felt her temperature rising with his hand. When his palm came to rest below her abdomen, her eyes flew open.

  Her expression was a mixture of fascination and fear, along with a yearning that brightened her irises to a brilliant shade of green. The flush on her cheeks made her sprinkling of freckles disappear, and Charity Scott was as lovely a woman as Dillon had ever beheld. He lightly kissed the bridge of her nose, then rose up again to watch the play of emotions on her face.

  His fingertips were sure and thorough, using the barrier of her underwear to their own advantage. Charity parted her legs without realizing it, already engulfed by the subtle flames he was kindling inside her—flames that seemed to spiral and intensify at his slightest bidding. He was pushing her beyond sanity, beyond the point where she should either resist or lose her very soul, and just when she was ready to push him away, Dillon’s hand suddenly stopped moving.

  “Charity?”

  His whisper was a final submission to her will, his consideration a heady aphrodisiac that urged her across the threshold of a passion from which she could never turn back. “Dillon . . . please don’t stop.”

  He resumed his urgently tender massage, unable to resist slipping a finger through a gap in the seam of her pantaloons. When his skin met hers and found a frenzied knot of femininity she never dreamed existed, Charity writhed, gasping until her dizzying pain became a pleasure so wild she had to muffle a cry against his shoulder.

  Dillon knew if he gave himself even a heartbeat to think about it, he’d be thrusting inside her despite her innocent trust in him. He sat up to take a ragged breath, enjoying the dazed sweetness on her race despite his discomfort. “Honey, I want you desperately. Next time I’ll have to take more.”

  Still woozy, Charity managed a grin and bent his head down for a kiss. She was struggling to sit up against the wall, formulating a reply that would sound coy yet encouraging, when the door opened and her father stepped into the room.

  “I daresay you can have all you want of her, Devereau,” Noah said in a mocking voice, “because any man who takes such liberties with my daughter is going to marry her. Tonight.”

  Chapter 11

  Too stunned even to gasp, Charity stared at her father and then hastily sat straight up. Dillon had been thoughtful enough to drape her skirts over her legs again after he proved how much trouble one finger could cause, but she might as well have been stripped naked. Her face was aflame. Even if her father had only been guessing at what they’d done, she knew her expression confirmed his worst assumptions. She’d always been a poor liar, because it seemed the man in black could look into her soul and know how much she’d reveled in whatever sin she committed—and this one was certainly her worst.

  Dillon stiffened, sensing another of Noah Scott’s devious ploys. “Apparently you didn’t have your ear pressed to the wall quite firmly enough,” Dillon said in a biting whisper. “Had you really listened, you’d know that I’ve done nothing to disgrace your daughter.”

  Scott let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “The fact that you even talk to Charity disgraces her, Mr. Devereau. I’ve expressly forbidden the two of you to see each other when I’m not present, and since you’ve ignored my wishes repeatedly, marriage is the only recourse. I’ll not allow Charity to spit in our Lord’s face the way her mother has.”

  “Your daughter is still a virgin—a fact any doctor can verify,” Dillon asserted as he rose from the fainting couch. He approached the preacher slowly, hoping a devil’s-advocate strategy would force Scott to back down. “So why would you sentence her to
life with a man whose profession defies everything you’ve taught her? You’ve done nothing but condemn me since we met.”

  The preacher gripped the lapels of his black frock coat, as though lifting himself to Devereau’s height. “Those who have lusted in their hearts have fornicated in the eyes of the Lord. Marriage and children are sure cures for those wandering thoughts of yours, Brother Devereau. And they’re Charity’s chance to reclaim her salvation.”

  “You don’t love your daughter much, do you?”

  The tiny room became so airless Charity thought she’d suffocate. Dillon and her father were poised to spring at each other, and her first impulse was to run—to flee the shame she’d associated with sexuality since she was a child, and to escape the consequences of not bending to Papa’s will. But where would she go in this town full of strangers? How could she leave Abilene, when her earnings from the Crystal Queen were in the suitcase Dillon hadn’t brought in yet?

  “Get out of our room, Devereau. We’ll see you in an hour, when we’re ready to walk to the church.”

  Dillon grunted. “If you think for one minute I’ll go along with this farce of a—”

  “I think you’ll do what’s best for Charity,” Scott said coldly. “Now leave, so my daughter and I can prepare ourselves for the ceremony.”

  Clenching his fists at his sides, Dillon looked at the young girl who was cowering on the couch and knew Noah Scott would have his way. Charity was miserable, pale-faced and pinched with fear, but she would look even less like a bride if her father resorted to physical punishment—“Spare the rod and spoil the child” was undoubtedly his favorite line of Scripture. With an impatient sigh, he backed toward the doorway. “You know you’re wrong, Scott. You can’t force two adults to—”