The Gambler

by Lois Greiman

  Charm remained very still, neglecting to breathe but finally coming up with a viable excuse for his words. "You could have guessed my age and made it hers as well, in an attempt to fool me."

  "When's your birthday?" His tone was deep and quiet.

  "I'm not Chantilly Grady!" she insisted, tightening her fist in his shirt.

  "When's your birthday?" he asked, quieter now.

  "I don't know," Charm snapped, and though she planned to drop the topic, found herself hurrying to add, "Jude was gone when I was born. When he returned, Mother had already taken ill. He never knew the exact date of my birth."

  He watched her like a bird of prey or perhaps like a black raven.

  "It's true," she spat, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. She'd always regretted not knowing when her birthday was.

  "October 6," Raven said softly.

  "What?" The word escaped on a breath.

  "Chantilly Grady was born on October 6 on a steamboat called The Belle."

  "Not me," she whispered.

  "Your mother was only sixteen when you were born. She had black hair, like her mother. Green eyes. Cora, your darkie, said they were like spring leaves."

  "Her eyes were brown," Charm insisted, her voice stronger now. "Her hair fair, like corn silk."

  "You remember?" he asked.

  "Jude told me. He told me all about my mother. Said she had eyes like an angel." It was true. Jude had said those words more than once, but only when he was drunk. It was then that the melancholy moods would take him, and he would rave against the undiscriminating hand of death, the weaknesses of men, and his own folly. "It wasn't his fault," Charm murmured. "How could he know?"

  "Know what?"

  Charm noticed Raven again. For a moment he had faded as she became seeped in memories and thought, but now she looked into her tormentor's eyes, which were like an angel's, though he'd inherited the soul of a demon. Perhaps her mother's had been that lovely speckled brown.

  "He was only planning to be gone a few days. He would never have left her for long. Not when she was about to give birth. Not when he loved her so. No one would do that." Her voice, she noticed, had dropped again. She cleared her throat, feeling foolishly near tears.

  "Bullshit!"

  Charm stared at him incredulously, forgetting her archaic weapon for a moment. "What?"

  "I said that's hogwash," Raven explained, and for an instant his emotions were obvious. Anger—as clear as the morning sky. But why?

  "You know nothing about it," Charm said, her chest suddenly aching.

  "On the contrary," said Raven, and with a suddenness that was almost frightening he smoothed away his angry expression, replacing it with one of cool unemotion. "I know much more about it than you know. I've been living a bastard's lie for twenty-six years."

  Despite herself Charm scowled, intrigued by this man who could feel such anger, yet hide it on a whim. "What do you mean?"

  He shrugged dismissively and didn't answer. "How did you get the scar on your thigh?"

  Charm drew in a sharp breath and pulled back, letting the point of her stick ease away from his neck slightly. "How—"

  "In the woods," Raven interrupted. "When you dropped from the horse and I pulled you down the slope." He paused, but something in her expression must have made him continue. "I would have liked to examine you more closely," he said softly, "but then Clancy arrived. Always did have the damnedest timing."

  They stared at each other, point blank.

  "You have very nice legs, Chantilly Grady."

  "I'm not—"

  "Very long."

  She couldn't catch her breath. His eyes were mesmerizing, the warm russet color of a floating autumn leaf.

  "And shapely," he added.

  Her grip on his shirt loosened a bit, but she reminded herself to take a breath and tighten her hand again. This was her enemy. Her crazed enemy. But his eyes made her forget, and his slightly parted lips looked almost boyish against the masculine backdrop of his rough-whiskered face.

  "It seems you have me completely at your mercy," he whispered.

  They were hip to hip and belly to belly with her legs firmly cradled between his. She moved her lips, trying to speak, to remember why she was there, and who she was.

  "You wouldn't take advantage of me now, would you?" he asked.

  Something coiled sensuously in the area of her stomach.

  It was true; he was at her mercy, and if she wanted she could touch him where she would without fear of repercussion. Could discover the mysteries of his maleness that suddenly disturbed her. Kiss him full on the mouth. There was nothing she couldn't do. The coil tightened. She would be a fool to let him touch her, but the same could not be said if she touched him. Just a little. Just for a moment.

  Against all sense, she found herself lifting her weight slightly to learn forward, drawn to him like an enchanted moth.

  Beside her thigh something pulsed and shifted. Charm felt the hard movement of his desire and jerked herself back to reality.

  "Lord save me!" She cried out, but Raven's hands were still held warily palm up.

  "I won't move," he whispered, his voice like a dark, haunting dream. "You've no need to fear."

  For just a moment she was drawn back under his spell, but the vivid memory of Jude's acid warnings awakened her wariness. "What do you want from me?"

  He actually sighed, as if he had been achingly close to something wonderful before it was ripped away. "Where did you get the scar on your thigh, Chantilly?"

  "I'm not Chantilly Grady!" she objected.

  "How did you get it?"

  The scar was halfway between her knee and her hip. He should never have seen it, but somehow the knowledge that he had only intensified the raw ache of these new and terrifying feelings. "I don't know," she murmured.

  "You don't remember?"

  She shook her head, letting the loosed ends of her hair brush his chest. "I was very small," she said, and noticed how a few of her stray locks had remained at the top opening of his shirt, spread against his tanned flesh there. The sight of it captivated her somehow. She remained frozen in place, staring at the sight of her dark sienna tendrils against his skin.

  "It was a burn." Raven's voice was very soft, very seductive. She felt transfixed by it, captivated by him. "Your grandmother, old Sophie, didn't receive many letters from your mother, but one of them told of the burn. Caroline didn't say how it happened. And she never admitted her regret over leaving home."

  "What?"

  "It must have been hard, going from such wealth to a life of travel. With a young child. And a husband who gambled."

  "But I..." She tried to breathe, to think. "But Jude said..." Her hands were shaking, she realized suddenly, and she felt strangely cold.

  "It's all right now," Raven said quietly. "I'll take you home."

  She listened to the tone, neglecting the words. How long had it been since she'd been held in someone's arms? Surely, sometime in her past, there must have been someone. But who? Suddenly it was difficult to imagine Jude comforting an infant.

  "Relax now. We have to take the bad with the good," Raven soothed, as if he himself had quit listening to his words. But the phrase reminded her of Jude, who when he was drunk would sometimes say the same thing. Charm stiffened, trying to regain her decorum.

  "There now, just relax," Raven continued, pressing her gently against the firmness of his chest. "I won't hurt you, little Chantilly Charm. Why don't you drop the stick?"

  Chapter 10

  "Stick?" Charm said the word softly.

  "Put it down."

  "You knew all along it was a stick?" she asked.

  "It was a good trick," he said. "Worth a try."

  "You mean you never doubted your safety?"

  Raven heard a strange note in her voice. He thought it odd that despite everything they'd discussed, she was inclined to talk about the blasted stick that still remained poised at his throat.

  "You weren't in the
least bit worried."

  Her voice had risen another notch. She was either even more bloodthirsty than he'd realized, or she was thinking something he didn't like.

  "Don't get me wrong," he said, still flat on his back and trying to pacify her. "I don't doubt for a minute that you could kill me with that stick." Her expression was unreadable. He hated unreadable expressions; they made life so confusing. He much preferred it when every emotion showed on his opponent's face. "No, sir, if there ever was a woman who could kill me with a stick, it would be you."

  Women loved to be complimented, Raven reasoned. Clancy, damn his hide, had told him so.

  "I don't believe you." She rose stiffly to her feet, drawing her archaic weapon away from his neck with a jerk.

  "I beg your pardon?" Raven said, propping himself on his elbows.

  She pursed her mouth with the corners still turning up slightly. What a lovely thing she was, even now when she was obviously upset. Not that she shouldn't be upset, of course. After all, he had tackled her, tied her up, dragged her over the withers of a running horse, and insisted that she lie. Which, by the way, she had done a bang-up job at. What was surprising was that she seemed, after all this, to be distressed only because he hadn't been sufficiently terrified.

  "You never doubted your safety for a moment," she said. "You thought you were perfectly safe."

  "With a killer woman like you?" he asked, easily managing to make his tone sound dismayed, for in truth, he knew better than to think her harmless even under the most clement circumstances. "Never." He sat up, still watching her face.

  "You knew you were safe," she repeated. "And so you saw no reason to tell the truth."

  "What are you getting at?"

  "Lies!" she stormed suddenly. "You tell nothing but lies."

  "Now wait a minute." He rose warily to his feet, not certain if he should expect her to charge him with that damned stick, or if she were more likely to make a wild dash for the forest behind her. The terrain that surrounded them was marked with huge, dark-needled pines and towering cliffs of stone. If she bolted, he wouldn't find her in a thousand years. "Why would I lie?" he asked mildly.

  "I don't know." Her tone was, at best, uncompromising. "And neither do I care. You promised to set me free."

  Well, for Christ's sake, after all he'd said, she still didn't believe a word he'd told her.

  "You said if I lied to your friend you'd let me go. Never bother me again." She paused, holding him with the piercing flame of her emerald eyes. "Were you lying then, too?"

  Absolutely! Most definitely he'd been lying. But it wasn't supposed to matter, because she was now to believe she was an heiress, and therefore willing, hell, eager, to travel with him to receive her inheritance. "No," he lied quickly. "Of course I wasn't lying."

  "You must think me terribly stupid."

  Stupid? No. Strange? Yes. "Hardly that," Raven said, trying to make his tone soft and inoffensive. "It's all true. I spoke with your Aunt Eloise and Caroline's old wet nurse, Cora. I read the letters from your mother to her. They told about the burn on your thigh, about—"

  "Quiet!" she shrieked, but her voice warbled with the single word, and the stick quivered with the force of her emotion. "You think I wouldn't remember such a thing? You think I wouldn't remember my own father and mother? She died, I tell you. She died when I was born."

  Raven remained silent for a moment, watching her, grappling to gain some sense of her thoughts. "What is it you're so afraid of?"

  "Leave me be!"

  "Why?"

  "Why?" Her voice was high-pitched and hysterical. Her laughter accentuated the wild tone.

  "Why not go with me? Meet Eloise. She's not what you would expect. She's..." He shrugged. The truth was, Raven himself had been surprised by Eloise Medina, when, in fact, people rarely surprised him anymore. She must have met a hell of a man to fall in love at this late point in her life. "Come to St. Louis. Meet her. Judge for yourself."

  "You're insane."

  "What would it hurt?" he asked. "Why not do it?"

  She paused, staring at him, looking breathless, but she found her voice in a moment and turned her expression to haughty disdain. "I know what you want from me."

  "Oh, for Christ's sake! Not that again!" he groaned, turning away before swinging rapidly back. "Please, tell me anything but the wearying theory that I lust for your body!"

  For a moment she was silent, then, "You're a degenerate! Dung! Deceitful spawn of Satan."

  "Yeah, yeah," Raven said, gritting his teeth and feeling anger rise against his will, carefully trained though he was to hold back the tide of rage. Emotion was a luxury he could ill afford. "But you know what else I am?" he asked, stepping up close in front of her, barely containing that clear, awful passion within him.

  He could hear the gasp this caused, and knew that she was suddenly afraid. Damned if his anger hadn't reached the forbidden level where it showed on his face. Damned if he hadn't frightened her.

  "I'm sole possessor of your mother's Bible."

  "No." She made the denial softly, like a hopeful prayer.

  He waited a moment, assessing every nuance. "Do you have it, then?"

  She blinked. It was amazing how she could look suddenly very innocent and pathetically vulnerable. "It's lost in the hay at the livery."

  He shook his head slowly.

  "Yes. I sent a letter to the stable owner, telling him to save it for me. I'll go back after..."—she swallowed—"after you're gone."

  "No need to go back," he said with quiet finality.

  They stared at each other, face to face, without breathing.

  "You lie."

  Raven allowed himself the slightest smile and dipped his hand toward his pocket. She gripped her stick in both hands, pointing it at him as if it were a bloodied bayonet held by a trained and deadly soldier of fortune.

  "Don't move," she ordered tersely.

  He considered laughing, but one look at her expression made him think better of that idea. Instead, he lifted his hands upward, palms out, remembering how she liked him to think her to be quite deadly. "Get it yourself, then," he suggested evenly.

  Her eyes went wide and her body tense. Suddenly he realized her thoughts. She would have to touch him to retrieve the precious Bible herself. She hated to be touched, and she hated touching. He almost smiled.

  Charm drew a deep breath, making her bosom rise slightly above the deep neckline of her gown.

  Damn! The thought of grinning swiftly fled from Raven's mind. This situation could not possibly be considered arousing, he told himself sternly. It could not, not even under the most celibate living conditions. And yet his body seemed to be blatantly disagreeing. He could feel the hard edge of desire unfurl within him, tightening and erupting, making him angry at his own weakness. "Get it yourself," he repeated.

  "I'll get it!" she snapped, then nervously licked her lips.

  Raven watched the pink, sharp tip of her tongue dart out. He felt ridiculously tense at the thought of her touch. Maybe she did deserve to be taught a lesson, but he would be a fool to be the one to teach her. If he was aware of anything, it was the limits of his restraint. "Fine," he said nevertheless.

  She took a stilted step forward. "Wh—where is it?"

  "My pocket." He remained very still. Desire was a great deal like anger; it made fools of men.

  Charm shifted her stick nervously into her right hand. She seemed suddenly aware that his present clothing had only two pockets, both of which happened to be in his pants. "You're lying," she whispered, but the now familiar words were weak and faint, as if she believed his statement more than she believed her own.

  "No, Miss Charming," he countered, watching her. "I'm not lying. It's in my pocket."

  She gave a disbelieving shake of her head, then darted a furtive glance down past his abdomen to his pockets. Raven waited, only watching her eyes as they lifted rapidly back to his.

  "It's not there," she denied, but all the color that had d
rained from her cheeks rushed back now in a sweeping tide of hot blood.

  Raven allowed himself the freedom of a half grin. "I'm flattered, sweetheart, that you think me so well-constructed, but I fear you overestimate my... appeal. The Bible is in my pocket."

  Her eyes were round as goose eggs and her jaw dropped. A gentleman would have mercy on the fairer sex, he thought dryly. Thank God he wasn't one. "'Course if you're afraid—"

  "I'm not afraid of you," she said quietly, her face red.

  There was something in her tone that made the grin slip from Raven's face. He tried to convince himself this was a bad idea, for he could feel his own hot blood surging, albeit in different places than hers. For a moment, good sense flooded back to him, and he moved slightly, intent on retrieving her Bible before things got out of hand. But again she thrust the stick toward him, making him stiffen with anger.

  "Which... which pocket?" she breathed, not looking down, but holding his gaze with her own.

  "Oh for Christ's sake, woman, let me get it," he said. Apparently, his better sense hadn't completely abandoned him after all, and the ache in his nonthinking parts hadn't driven him past the point of reason. But he made himself a promise. The first town he came to, he would find himself a woman. Someone willing and soft, with no particular proclivity toward deadly weapons.

  "You may think me dense," she said, "but I'm not so foolish as to let you get a hand on your gun."

  Raven raised his brows in wonder. "That's what you're worried about? You think there's a gun in my pocket?" The ridiculousness of the situation was not lost on him, and yet he felt frozen in place, waiting.

  She scowled, apparently not willing to answer. "Which pocket?"

  "Left." Raven tried to keep his tone normal, but what was considered normal to most of the world was not applicable when one was dealing with the killer woman. His words came out low and gravelly.

  She swallowed. He could see her throat contract. Despite the circumstances, he thought it a lovely throat, slim and graceful, running smoothly downward toward... heaven. Oh, hell! He had to get a grip on himself, he reasoned, but just then she stepped up close, took a deep inhalation, and reached for him. Raven felt her knuckles graze his waistband and slip lower, down along the taut length of his abdomen with nothing separating him from her but the thinnest bit of cloth. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists against the rampant sensations. It was a snug fit. Raven could feel the slight tremble of her fingers as she thrust them into his pocket, searching. There was a moment of breathtaking anticipation.