Devereau concealed his surprise. Charity sounded familiar with this situation, so he let her handle it as their visitor swayed a few steps closer to him.
“I—I can understand why I wouldn’t exactly be welcome here,” Marcella began in a silky voice, “but I came to apologize, Dillon. I was out of my head—had no idea how serious an injury I was inflicting when I burned your hands that way.”
Devereau merely crossed his arms, listening.
Mama’s eyes shifted continuously between the two of them as she slowly maneuvered herself into the doorway, where she was silhouetted by the afternoon sunshine. She fixed her feline gaze on Charity, her expression softening.
“It was an eventful train ride for all of us,” she said in a beseeching voice. “I—I know I deserved it, but imagine my heartbreak when I heard my only child singing about never missing her mother until she was dead and gone. You have a haunting voice, Charity.”
How many years had she longed to hear such praise from Mama? Yet she managed a short, mirthless laugh. “You were so heartbroken you maimed my husband and then tampered with the train’s brakes? Spare us, Mother.”
Marcella scowled. “What are you talking about? Why would I risk killing my own daughter and the only man who could snare Erroll Powers?” she protested. “I hope you stuck him good today. That pig deserves it, for running out on me.”
Devereau took a step toward her. “You’re talking in circles, Marcella,” he said coldly. “You had no qualms whatsoever about injuring me, and you know damn well by the way we returned here that we didn’t lose to Powers. The door’s behind you. Use it.”
Mama hung her head. When she looked up again, Charity sensed a shift in strategy as her mother focused pale, tearful eyes on her. “All right, I’ll go,” she mumbled, “but not before I say some things that have gone unspoken for far too long. I’ve been the worst sort of mother, Charity, and I apologize. I can’t imagine what you must think about my despicable behavior these past ten years.”
Charity raised an eyebrow. “Until a few weeks ago, I thought you were gravely ill and then murdered. Since I learned those lies were designed to fool a little girl, I’ve been much too busy to think about you even being my mother.” The callous words startled her, but they were true. And as she saw a smile spreading across her mother’s face she warned herself to beware of its artificial warmth.
“You have been busy,” Mama agreed. “Your new dresses are quite becoming, and you’ve picked up enough poker to assist Dillon today. You were always quick to catch on to new things.”
She paused, studying Charity as though she couldn’t soak in enough of the daughter she gave up so many years ago. “You’re pretty, and intelligent, and you’ve married a wonderful man. You’ve surpassed my fondest dreams for you, Charity. I regretted leaving you with your father, and I thought about you every single day. I’ve kept your dear letters, daughter, from the ones where your printing was large and blocky to the best ones, which revealed what a delightful, caring young woman you’d become. I missed you more than I can say.”
Despite her best intentions, Charity felt herself weakening. Mama was dressed in a soft white blouse and a dark skirt, exactly like the photograph of the sainted invalid Charity had gazed at for more than half her life. She longed to believe her mother loved her, despite the cruel, selfish separation she’d enforced for ten years. Was it naive to think Mama’s words didn’t contain a single ounce of truth? Was it childish to want to embrace the woman she’d yearned for since she was eight years old?
When her mother opened her arms, Charity rushed into them, bridging ten years with five hurried steps. Mama’s hug was warm and tight, stronger than she’d anticipated from a woman of her own height and build. It felt so different to be crushed against another set of breasts rather than clinging to skirted hips, as she had when she was eight. She clung to her mother’s shoulders until awkwardness set in, and then stepped back to look into the face that was so like her own. Mama’s eyes had the silvery sheen of tears, and even though she knew this reunion wouldn’t be permanent, Charity mumbled, “I missed you, too, Mama. Every day you were away felt like forever, and I ... I was devastated when I thought I’d never see you again.”
Dillon saw Marcella’s mouth twitch. He sensed she wasn’t misrepresenting the truth entirely, but her spiderlike intentions were quite clear—and her power over Charity made him extremely uncomfortable. He tempered his words with suave patience, hoping to catch her in her own web without endangering his wife. “Charity has indeed grown into a fine woman,” he said. “In fact, it was her ingenuity that saved me from ruin and brought the law down on Powers today. So now that he’s been jailed for embezzlement, what will you do?”
A flirtatious smile played across Marcella’s lips. “As you’ve guessed, I’ve come to talk to you—to implore you to consider my plight. I’m not asking for any of Erroll’s properties, but more than once I risked my life to help—”
“That’s an interesting perspective on theft,” Devereau interrupted, “but Charity and I have already agreed to repay the Kansas Pacific. The future of the whole state will be bankrupted if her railroads fail.”
Disdain flickered in Marcella’s pale eyes. She released Charity, keeping a loose hand at her daughter’s waist, but her gaze and voice remained intense. “Right or wrong, I devoted ten years of my life to Erroll Powers,” she protested. “All my worldly possessions are in that Leavenworth estate, and now I don’t even have train fare to return there and claim them.”
Devereau chuckled. “A woman of your diverse talents should have no trouble raising money. But you won’t get any from me,” he added brusquely. “You’re damn lucky I’m not turning you in as an accessory to Erroll’s crimes.”
“But what will I do? I’m divorced, I’ve been abandoned—”
“And after the way you treated your family, you deserve to scrape for the rest of your days.” Their voices rang in the small room, and he despised Marcella for ruining their afternoon—for taking advantage of his wife’s childlike loneliness. “And I won’t fall for blackmail, so don’t even consider it.”
The emotional timbre of the conversation brought Charity out of her brief euphoria and made her step back. She sensed that Mama, who again had her hands in her pockets, would stop at nothing to get what she came for. “Isn’t it enough that you probably ended Dillon’s career?” she demanded in a wavering voice. “Why don’t you just leave us alone?”
In the pause that followed, Charity heard hoof-beats that halted in front of the house, but Mama didn’t acknowledge them. She was staring them down, calling up yet another underhanded strategy, so when a treelike figure came silently to the door behind her, she wasn’t aware that her shadow was now considerably longer.
“Dillon Devereau is a very wealthy man,” Mama retorted. “He’ll never have to pick up another playing card to keep food on his table. I’m destitute, I tell you! Powers left me penniless, and—”
Charity was too busy hiding her fear to listen to her mother’s rantings. The dark, buckskinned man behind Mama was grinning demonically; the finger he laid atop his lips was unnecessary, because she couldn’t have talked to save her soul! She’d never told Dillon about Jackson Blue’s presence on the train, so her husband had no idea that his best friend could have been planning his demise, and might be helping Mama get a hold of Erroll Powers’s estate.
Devereau kept this second surprise in check and stepped closer to Charity, though he had no idea how he’d protect her if things got nasty. Blue’s loyalties were hard to gauge from one minute to the next, and this tinderbox situation would explode with a single inflammatory remark. The scout was turning the doorknob with the skilled stealth of a burglar, his dark eyes watching Marcella’s backside.
Dillon focused his attention on Charity’s mother, whose hands were now tensing beneath the folds of her dark skirt. “I’ve told you I won’t be a party to blackmail,” he repeated. “If I give you train fare now, you’ll find another trumped-up exc
use to demand more.”
“You blackhearted bastard!” Marcella lunged for Charity and pulled her forcibly against herself as she backed toward the door.
Devereau’s heart stopped. The hand that held his wife hostage was ringed with the dull gleam of his knuckle-duster; its short silver blade rested just below Charity’s ear. How the hell could he rescue his wife? Unless he could convince Blue to disarm Marcella before she realized the scout was behind her, Charity would become the ultimate sacrifice to her mother’s monumental greed.
Marcella wore a feral grin as she tightened her arm around her daughter. With her other hand she pulled the pistol from her pocket. “You’ve got one more chance! I want a fair cash settlement, and I want my clothes and jewelry from Erroll’s estate, and—”
“Souls in hell want ice water, too,” the man behind her stated with deadly calm. Blue had eased the door open without Marcella being aware of it, and he gripped her wrists. “Didn’t I warn you not to harass these people? Let her go, Maggie. Drop the gun.”
When Mama shrieked, Charity writhed free and dropped to the floor. As she scrambled toward Dillon, a bullet shattered the parlor window. Her mother was attacking Blue with the fierceness of a startled animal, but the Indian caught both her arms in his huge, dark hands.
“Devereau’s pistol and his knuckle-duster?” Blue demanded. “Let’s suppose you managed to kill Dillon or Charity. How would you collect what you claim he owes you?”
“That’s none of your goddamned—”
“Well, these weapons are my business,” Jackson declared above her outcry, “so drop them, before I have to hurt you.” The buckskinned scout held her firmly in his grasp and turned toward Devereau. “You’ll have to excuse Maggie. For ten years she’s been salivating over Powers’s money, and—what the hell happened to your hand?”
Dillon grimaced as he peeled the glove from the chafed, unbandaged palm that throbbed to life when he’d grabbed Charity. “That she-dragon you’re tangling with held both my hands against a stock pot in the train’s kitchen, so be careful. She’s lethal even without any weapons.”
Charity thought the Indian seemed alarmed enough about Dillon’s injury to have been unaware of it. And he had rescued her from her mother’s death grip. But as she watched him squeeze her mother’s wrists until she gave up the pistol and then the bladed knuckle-duster, she had to hear some straight answers. “After seeing you leap from that livestock car to join my mother,” she began pointedly, “why do I have a feeling our runaway train ride was partly your doing?”
Blue’s face furrowed. “I can understand why you’d assume that, after the way I baited you and let your mother remain one town ahead of you. But far as I know, the train brakes were just strained beyond their limit, or improperly applied. And wasn’t I right about Maggie?”
“That’s beside the point. You’re obviously in cahoots with her.”
“Obviously—to everyone except Maggie.” The Indian put a halt to his hostage’s struggling by turning her until she rested against him with her arms crossed in front of her. “She was too busy ingratiating herself to Powers to consider me a serious contender. I was good enough to have some fun with—to make Erroll jealous—but not wealthy or refined enough to be thought of as a potential mate.”
Devereau raised a teasing eyebrow. “You consider yourself husband material? Marriage was always an inconvenience, as I recall.”
“It was—until I watched my closest friend assume a whole new purpose in life when he took a wife.” Jackson Blue’s dark face eased into a serious smile as he looked at them over the top of Marcella’s head. “You’ve suffered a few setbacks since you put that shiner on Charity’s finger, but you look pretty damn happy, my friend.”
Charity felt her husband’s satisfied chuckle as his arm tightened around her, but she remained skeptical. Was this the same savage who had called her mother a whore, and who so crassly interrupted their wedding night?
Blue’s obsidian eyes lingered on her dress and hair, all signs of his former belligerence gone. “It probably sounds farfetched, coming from a reprobate like myself,” he admitted, “but when I saw you and Dillon playing in that stream, easing each other’s pain after your ordeal in the Cheyenne Camp, I realized what I’d been denying myself. At my age, I need someone to talk to now and then, to—”
“Talk?” Marcella piped up. She’d stopped struggling, but she was obviously tired of being discussed as though she weren’t there. “You’re too damn busy chasing buffalo ghosts and riding that black stallion to the ends of nowhere to keep a steady woman.”
“But I promised I’d be here for you when Powers put you out, didn’t I?” the scout replied earnestly. “He’s done that rather often over the years, and who did you run to?”
“That doesn’t mean I’d consider—”
“Why not? Because of my heritage?” the burly Indian turned her to face him, his broad hands gripping her shoulders. “My dark skin doesn’t bother you in bed, Maggie. And you never hesitate to be seen in public with me.”
Mama looked every bit as dumbfounded by Jackson’s change of heart as Charity felt, watching this intriguing scene play out before her. “Things are different now,” her mother stammered.
“Yes, they are,” Blue replied. “I’ve learned that you’re a woman with secrets and motivations every bit as underhanded as my own. And instead of being strung along by a handsome huckster, you’re being wooed by a man with as much pride and money as Powers ever had. What do you suppose I’ve done with the fortune I earned hunting buffalo and gambling and guiding wagon trains?”
Marcella chuckled, looking away. “You certainly haven’t spent it on clothes.”
With an exasperated sigh, the Indian lifted her up until her face was even with his. “Maggie Wallace—because no matter who you once were, you’ll always be Maggie to me,” he said in a deep voice. “If I buy out San Francisco’s finest menswear store, and replace the gowns and gems Powers bought you with, and promise you’ll never have to behave like a conventional wife, will you marry me?”
The little house quaked with silence. Then, in a plaintive voice, Marcella said, “Please . . . you’re hurting me.”
Blue set his hostage on her feet, and after a moment’s consideration he released her.
Marcella was flushed, and as she smoothed her hair she mumbled, “Jackson, really—that’s my daughter you’re spouting off in front of. I—”
“And since you had a hand in making her such a fine woman, I’m convinced the right man could turn you into a decent wife. Not that I’m a champion of decency,” he added quickly, “but I think you were seeking Erroll’s companionship as much as you wanted his—”
Marcella bolted, and within seconds she was down the front steps and racing along Winthrop Street atop Satan. Dillon and Charity joined Jackson at the door, their stunned silence broken only by the retreating hoofbeats of the Indian’s horse.
Devereau cleared his throat. “Looks like she gave you the slip, ole buddy.”
Jackson chortled, his dusky face creased with admiration. “I’ll give her a head start, as usual. Maggie’s an independent sort, but she’ll come around once Satan and I take her for another swim.” He smiled at them, reaching for the doorknob. “Mark my words, when I see you back home, she’ll be my wife. And she’ll never need to hurt either of you again.”
Blue took the stairs two at a time and then loped in the direction of the Bay, his strides as swift and graceful as a gazelle’s. Charity moved to the broken parlor window for a better view, still amazed by the scene they’d just witnessed. The man she’d despised had saved her life and turned a potential tragedy into a romantic comedy. Who would have thought Jackson willing to perform such a miracle?
“This is too good to miss,” Devereau murmured.
He went to his trunk, grasped the binoculars between his wrists, then returned to stand beside his wife. Blue had cut across hills and lawns and was now catching up to the stallion as Satan cantered n
ear the shoreline. “Watch this,” he said, chuckling as he offered the binoculars to Charity.
She focused on the distant pair, her mouth ajar. Mama was laughing, steering Satan in wide circles around the tall Indian. Jackson, too, was enjoying the sport, and then Charity realized why: he was gesturing to the stallion, and the horse began to follow his master’s commands rather than Mama’s. He stopped suddenly, and with a grace amazing for such a massive beast, he raised his front quarters and walked toward Blue on his hind legs.
Charity gasped, because had Mama not clutched Satan’s neck, she would have tumbled backward onto the street. Dillon hugged her shoulders, still chuckling. “Blue calls that stunt dancing with the devil.”
“Well, I call it—oh my Lord . . .”
Once again the horse circled the buckskinned Indian, and this time Jackson sprang onto his back and reached around Mama for the reins. Satan bolted into a gallop then, heading toward the wharves. Charity gaped, horrified, as Blue charged down a narrow pier at such a startling speed they couldn’t possibly stop before they reached the deep, sparkling waters of the Bay. “I can’t watch this,” she murmured. “He’s really going to kill her this time, even if he doesn’t intend to.”
Devereau held his wife against his chest, squinting to follow the drama on the docks. Just when it looked as though the horse would go hurtling into the Bay, he took a sharp turn. “Well, I’ll be—I had no idea Blue was in the shipping business. They jumped on to that last boat, but I can’t read the name on its side.”
Cautiously Charity lifted her face to peer through the binoculars. She found the vessel with the black horse on board and watched its white sail flutter as it rose up the mast. “It ... it’s called the Maggie Blue,” she whispered. “Jackson must be serious.”
“No doubt in my mind. He goes after what he wants until he gets it.”
As he gazed at the auburn-haired woman in his arms, Devereau was struck by the appropriateness of Blue’s philosophy. He was captured in the liquid green loveliness of Charity’s eyes, as he’d been captivated since the moment she first sang on the Crystal Queen’s stage. He had encouraged her dependency, and then had abandoned her and sent her away, yet she’d followed him across the country and through the depths of a depression that could have killed him. Did such a strong woman need a man? God knows it was Charity who’d seen to every detail of their life since he’d lost the use of his hands. “It’s time to talk,” he breathed.
Gambler's Tempting Kisses Page 34