Gambler's Tempting Kisses

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “I—I’m not sure it’s worth the cost,” he hedged. “Perhaps we’ll stay in Dodge a few days. Rest up and decide on our next move.”

  The preacher looked again at the lowing, shuffling herd, which was nearing the first businesses on Front Street. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t join you. Right now I could use a whiskey, and then I’m buying my train ticket home. If you’ll excuse me . . .”

  Devereau watched the man in black step off the boardwalk into the dusty street, wondering if he ever intended to apologize to Charity for all his lies. Maybe he’d spend the last hours until his train left getting suckered at monte.

  But suddenly there was no time for pondering past wrongs. A raucous female laugh rang out across the street, and a chamber pot came sailing from a window above the Alamo Saloon. The plodding longhorns, startled by the shattering china, bellowed in unison and charged full speed down the street, right toward Noah.

  Devereau had seen those murderous hooves trample a man into pulp, and had witnessed the fatal gorings of those pointed horns, so he sprang toward the preacher. There was no turning back—no time to think—as the animals stampeded toward him. He grabbed Noah’s shoulders and shoved, not knowing where he got the strength for such a feat, not even aware that he was screaming.

  When Charity heard his cry, her heart stopped. All she saw was a roaring mass of mottled, bony

  bodies armed with wicked horns, and then she herself dove into the nearest doorway to escape the cattle that came crashing down the boardwalk. The noise was deafening, and the dust drifting in under the batwing doors nearly choked her.

  Were Dillon and Papa alive? For endless minutes, hooves and legs thundered past the saloon she’d landed in, and she could only wonder.

  When the roar receded, followed by the cursings of the helpless cowboys, Charity stood up. Her heart throbbed . . . the dust was so thick and Front Street so wide, it was impossible to tell if the stampede had claimed any lives. She forced herself to step out to the edge of the boardwalk, where the shattered hitching rail lay in a dozen pieces at her feet.

  There was still no sign of them. But as the brown cloud settled and the buildings across the way became visible, a movement on a second-story balcony caught her eye. A woman was leaning out to gaze at the street below her—has to be a mighty drunk whore, to throw a chamber pot out the window, Charity thought angrily. And then she gaped.

  It was Mama.

  “Ouch! Are you using Satan’s own tweezers, doctor?”

  “Hold still, Reverend, or so help me I’ll tie your hands behind your back!” came the reply. “Devereau here was the perfect gentleman while I wrapped his ribs.”

  “He’d sing a different song if you were picking glass out of his face.”

  Charity sat in the doctor’s tiny waiting room, listening to the volley of remarks that came through the wall. Papa’s spectacles had shattered when Dillon knocked him to safety, and one sleeve of his coat was torn, but they were picking themselves up out of a heap, just inside a dance hall door, when she’d found them.

  She’d hugged them fiercely and then marched them straight to the doctor’s office. Neither man was a gracious patient during the examination for broken bones, but Charity could understand that, after the ordeal they’d been through. It was a miracle they survived.

  The door opened and the grizzled Dr. Wason shook his head at her. “Don’t envy you the job of keepin’ these two scallawags quiet for a couple days,” he said in his gravelly voice. “You got rooms, Miz Devereau?”

  “Yes sir, but—”

  “Keep ’em there. Anybody fool enough to run in front of a stampede won’t live long in this town.”

  “Yes, sir.” Charity bit back a grin when her father and Dillon filed into the room, wearing expressions that told her they had no intention of playing patient. “How much rest do they need? And when should Dillon’s wrap come off?”

  “Two or three days oughtta do. And the longer those ribs stay wrapped, the better they’ll feel.”

  They made a curious sight crossing Front Street, with Papa hobbling ahead and Dillon leaning heavily on her, but there were few people paying attention. The fireworks show was just beginning, lighting the night sky with splashes of red and blue and white. Charity longed to watch for a while, but she knew neither man would stay in the room without her supervision.

  When they reached Miss Silks’s establishment, Dillon hastened to open the door for Noah, who was about to run into it.

  “Thank you, but I’m not helpless,” Scott groused. “And if going through the back door of a bordello isn’t bad enough, it’s unadulterated shame to be seen going in the front.”

  “Papa, hush,” Charity warned, smiling politely at the ladies who watched them enter. They looked a fright, the three of them, and she was embarrassed to be tramping across these elegant Persian rugs.

  But Papa’s complaining grew louder, and Charity was mortified. “Papa, please—they’ll think we’re not grateful to be—”

  “Enough! I just thank God I’ll never again have to rely on your husband’s choice of lodgings.”

  Charity felt anger rising into her throat, and she could barely contain herself until the door of their room was closed behind them. “What do you want?” she demanded tersely. “My husband saved your wretched neck today! Maybe he should’ve let Mama’s stampede take its course.”

  The words hadn’t left her mouth before she realized the seriousness of her remark, and realized how overwrought they still were from the confrontation with Mama. But dammit, he could show her a little decency after all the deceptions he’d kept alive the past ten years. Unless . . .

  “Papa,” she said with a tight sigh, “were all those things Mama said today true?”

  Devereau had been expecting this conversation, just as he’d guessed Marcella started that longhorn charge. Easing onto the bed, he watched the Reverend Noah Scott sag into a chair, like a candle left too long in the sun. The clergyman peeled off what was left of his coat, his face fixed in a grimace of private agony.

  “I’m afraid they were, daughter,” he said in a subdued voice. “I used to tell myself your mother gave me no choice—repeated a litany of indignities I suffered because she left me. And when she wrote about her life of leisure with another man, only a few weeks after the divorce, it was more than I could bear. You were too young to understand that, of course,” he said in a gentler voice, “and I couldn’t tell you your mother wasn’t really ill. We’d made a deal with the devil and we were both upholding it, but it was I who paid for it. And you, Charity. God knows you didn’t deserve to live between the lines of our lies.”

  She’d never heard this miserable timbre in her father’s voice; had never considered that despite his fame and fire, Noah Scott was a very lonely man. Charity stood awkwardly before him, feeling humbled and small for all the times she’d laid blame on him. “I—I’m sorry, Papa. I never realized—”

  “How could you have known?” he interrupted with a shrug. Her father smoothed his hair back, letting his fingers wander to the jagged line of stitches that curved from his temple to his cheek. “By the time I realized the consequences of our deception, it was too late to back out of it. The parishioners were sympathetic, you were hearing from your mother regularly . . . and she was right. My gambling was an easier habit to hide once she was gone.”

  Charity wished with all her heart she’d considered her father’s feelings before forcing him into this journey. Suspicions about their marriage had nagged at her for years—especially since Papa never visited Mama—yet she’d ignored her intuitions and insisted on traveling to Leavenworth. But what else could she have done? It was unthinkable not to mourn her own mother.

  “Don’t blame yourself, daughter,” Papa said quietly. “I didn’t believe your mother had been murdered—who would’ve written that letter, if she were dead? But I wondered if she was in some sort of trouble and needed my help,” he said lamely. “It was my part of the bargain to inf
orm you of these things on your last birthday, and I ...I couldn’t.”

  She’d been staring at the floor, and looked up to see Papa’s face contorting with anguish. Charity went to him immediately, sadly aware that it had been years since she’d embraced him. “Don’t worry, Papa,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I understand. I never meant to—”

  “Let me finish,” he said in a ragged voice. “Confession is my only outlet, Charity, because I’ve been a poor excuse for a father. I kept you in threadbare dresses, hoping the young men wouldn’t notice you were as beautiful as your mother. I deceived you all these years, because I knew that once you learned how truly reprehensible I was, you’d leave me. And I couldn’t bear that, Charity. You’re all I have.”

  Tears trickled down her face and she crushed Papa’s head to her breast. It was impossible to comprehend the change that had come over the proud, swaggering revivalist she’d resented for most of her life, but Charity had no doubt that his words were sincere. As she stroked his dark hair, she realized the wetness coming through her dress wasn’t like the tears Papa often summoned in the pulpit. “Forgive me for all the nasty things I’ve said and thought,” she mumbled.

  “Forgive me,” came his muffled reply. He hugged her tightly, and then reached for his handkerchief. “You’re a woman now—a wife—and Devereau earns a damn sight more at cards than I do,” he added with a shaky laugh. “Your affection for him is clearly being returned, so I no longer have such qualms about letting you go, daughter. I’m boarding the train tomorrow, for Jefferson City. It’s time to get on with my life.”

  Charity nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “What will you tell everyone about Mama?”

  He dabbed at his face and replaced his handkerchief. “They think she’s dead, and for all practical purposes the Marcella Wallace I married is gone,” he said quietly. “I’ll let it stand at that. Everyone will miss you, but they’ll be ecstatic when I tell them about your marriage to Devereau here.”

  Papa stood up, and after giving her shoulders a squeeze, he walked over to Dillon with his hand extended. “For all our differences, I think you’re a decent, respectable man and I know you’ll take care of my girl,” he said, his voice returning to its usual strength. “Bring her home to see us now and again, will you?”

  “Certainly, I—” He swung his legs to the edge of the bed, but the preacher stopped him.

  “Don’t get up. We’re supposed to be invalids, remember?”

  Dillon smiled. “If you’re ever in Kansas City, drop in at the Queen.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” He turned toward the door, nearly bumping into the washstand on his way to his room. Then he faced them again, wearing a myopic scowl. “No need to see me off tomorrow. The train leaves early, and you’ve plenty of reasons to stay in bed.”

  Charity’s heart rose into her throat, but Papa’s pride kept her quiet. He was a different man, standing there with his torn, dusty frock coat draped over his arm and a red cut circling his eye, and tomorrow when he was freshly groomed he’d have no patience for a tearful farewell. Appropriate parting words were hard to come by, given what they’d been through. “Be sure to get new glasses first thing when you’re home,” she said in a tight voice.

  Papa chuckled. “Of course, daughter. Seems I’ve always been nearsighted.”

  When the door to the adjoining room closed, Devereau saw his wife’s shoulders slump and he slid off the bed to comfort her. Such strength in this slender frame—such heart, to bear the burdens her parents had thoughtlessly thrust upon her. Charity turned in his arms and he held her as tightly as his bruised body would allow. Her lips sought his, and he kissed her long and hard, tasting the salt of her tears and the sweetness of the desire he felt rising between them.

  But when Charity rested against him, he knew she was drained. “I think we’ll turn in early,” he murmured against her hair, “and see what comes up in the morning.”

  She chuckled, and after they’d bathed and were stretched out in bed, she quickly relaxed against her husband’s comforting length. “Good night, Dillon,” she mumbled.

  “Sweet dreams, my love.”

  She was asleep before he said it, and as Devereau studied her nightgowned figure in the dusk, he recalled the first time he’d watched her in slumber, in his bed at the Crystal Queen. She’d looked helpless and innocent, and his loins ached with the same longing he’d felt for her then, even though neither description fit her now. But it was just as well she slept, he mused, because they both needed their strength for what tomorrow would bring.

  Charity reached for her husband, and when she realized how cold his side of the bed was, she awoke with a start. As her eyes adjusted to the pale light coming in around the curtain edges, she saw that he’d propped a note against the dresser mirror—and his trunk was gone!

  “Damn you, Devereau!” she said in a hoarse whisper. Why was it that men cowered in the face of good-bye? And what was she supposed to do now? Crawling back to Jefferson City with Papa was unthinkable, and Dodge certainly wasn’t her sort of town.

  She went to the dresser to grab the note, and then noticed the thick white envelope lying beneath it. Charity gasped: it contained more cash than she dared to count.

  How often had she bluntly reminded Dillon of their deal, never really expecting it to come to this conclusion? He’d left her enough money to start up a studio or whatever business she desired, and here, in this floozy’s room, Charity felt like a whore who’d been overpaid. Not a whole lot different from Mama.

  Feeling utterly disgusted with herself, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her lacy, low-cut nightgown was rumpled, and her light auburn hair fell unevenly about her shoulders, and her face was a freckled bronze—hardly the portrait of the good Christian girl who’d left home for the first time only a few weeks ago. And there was no turning back, no redemption of innocence lost.

  Dillon’s neat script appeared blurry as she skimmed his letter: he was leaving her this money, as they’d agreed ... a Dodge attorney had the divorce papers ready for her to sign ... he couldn’t in good conscience take her to San Francisco to face more of the torture she’d already endured .. . Powers had wired him, threatening him if he didn’t stay the hell away—but of course, he’d bought his train ticket . . . Papa was a changed man who’d give her a better life, now that the truth was out. He would miss her laughter and her sweet voice, and because he cared for her more than he’d ever imagined possible, he couldn’t risk losing her to whatever traps Erroll would undoubtedly set. It was a private vendetta, avenging his father’s death. It was for the best.

  Charity choked on these last words. Nobody wanted to lose her, yet nobody wanted her either. Mama had abandoned her ten years ago—the pain she’d inflicted yesterday would take months to heal—and Papa had graciously resigned himself to life without her. And now Dillon Devereau, after claiming her heart and soul and body, was on his way to San Francisco.

  For the first time in her life, Charity was totally alone. Once again the people she loved had left her no choice, so she picked up the thick white envelope, tucked Dillon’s note into it, and did what she had to do.

  Chapter 22

  Devereau watched the passing Kansas landscape with a sour taste in this mouth. He’d taken the coward’s way out, and by now Charity was calling him worse names than that—and there she was, haunting his thoughts again. He’d never be free of her. Even now he saw her awe-filled face as she’d gazed out the window on her first train ride . . . heard the music in her voice when she teased him, and felt her body’s sweet surrender as she murmured his name over and over—

  “Stop it!” he ordered. He glanced around his private car and was glad he’d requested one. God knows what the other passengers would think if they heard him swearing at himself this way.

  Yet his elegant quarters were merely a polished, upholstered hell, because had Charity not constantly reminded him of their deal—and had he not watc
hed her parents heap degradation on each other and on her—she would have been sharing this hideaway on wheels. They could have been indulging each other’s fantasies on a honeymoon trip to wherever they pleased.

  But he’d watched Marcella tear two lives apart, and he knew damn well the auburn-haired dragon was also on Erroll Powers’s trail. Devereau intended to get his satisfaction from his old nemesis first, before Marcella got to him. There would be ugly scenes—perhaps a killing—and Charity didn’t need any more pain heaped upon her.

  That’s what he told himself, anyway.

  And what of poor Noah? Without his elaborate deception to maintain, the man was like a sailboat on a breezeless sea. He was doomed to lose himself either to his ministry or to the monte dealers, and Dillon sensed the latter would claim him if he were left to his own devices.

  Charity would know that. She was probably packing at this very moment to start a saner, more comfortable life with her father. Thanks to Mattie Silks’s credit, he’d left Charity set up so well she could afford to do nothing but think about her bank account for the rest of her days. She’d find a new purpose in her life . . . perhaps remarry and have children.

  It sounded good, anyway.

  Devereau shifted in his chair, absently reaching into his vest for his deck of cards. He shuffled and reshuffled, without thought of anything but the soothing riffle the cards made as they flitted between his hands. It was best she wasn’t here to distract him, because the past few weeks without regular play had left his reflexes in sorry shape. He needed to be in top form when he challenged Erroll Powers; no straying thoughts or letting down of his cool, professional facade.

  It was for the best.

  Charity was better off without him, but she was too lovestruck to know it.

  It really was for the best.