by Gigi Moore
“For the second time,” Cade joked.
“Not to mention Aunt Aura’s house might have burned down by now,” Thayne said.
“It was either stay there and wait to take the lasagna out of the oven while the madman threatened to kill us all or get the hell out of Dodge.”
Thayne and Maia both laughed at the irony of Cade’s statement, and Cade joined them.
“Considering the circumstances, I suppose we made the right decision,” Thayne drawled.
“There’s a restaurant over there.” Maia pointed to a plain wooden storefront with a sign out front that simply read Restaurant several doors down. No brand names, no familiar golden arches, no pitchman with royal lineage or little girls with red ponytails.
“I hate to break it to you, honey, but I don’t think they’re going to have anything in the way of vegan selections,” Thayne said.
“I’m sure they won’t, but when in Rome…”
Cade hated that she had to compromise on something so important to her, but their predicament called for all sorts of compromising, and the food issue was only the beginning.
“So, about the money question?” Cade opened.
Thayne reached for the wallet in his back pocket.
“And we can’t use anything on us.”
“Oh, right. I forgot just that fast,” Thayne said.
Maia looked down at his wristwatch. “Maybe we could trade for that.”
“I don’t think wristwatches have become popular yet. It would bring too much attention to us, and we’re going to have enough of that already.”
“You’re right.” Maia looked at Cade and arched a brow.
“Don’t look at me. All I’ve got on me is a wallet full of credit cards and a BlackBerry, which would be even more attention grabbing.” He’d failed to mention the condoms in his wallet. Maia didn’t need to know about them, at least not yet, and he didn’t think Thayne the prude would appreciate the allusion, either.
“Think, people. What do we do?” Thayne asked.
“I’m still up for several hands of poker,” Cade said. “I’m telling you, it’s easy money.”
“In a town where no one knows you from Adam’s housecat and none of us has a gun to protect ourselves?”
“Would a gun really help?” Maia asked.
“It’s all a matter of perception, and out here a gun is just an extension of the man, a necessity and a deterrent.”
“Even if you don’t know how to use one?”
“Who says I don’t?” Thayne responded.
“Oh. I thought since you’re a doctor and a Wiccan…”
“I wasn’t always a doctor, a Wiccan, or a vegetarian. I did some shooting and hunting as a kid with our Uncle Jeff. The knack was a necessary evil and kind of unavoidable on a spread like he and my aunt owned.”
“I understand.” Maia turned to Cade. “I’m assuming you can shoot, too.”
“I do okay.” He’d kept up with his skills long after the childhood that Thayne mentioned, especially when he had been helping LAPD close those missing-persons and murder cases and his name had regularly appeared in the local papers. There were a lot of crazy people out there who just didn’t appreciate what he could do, even if he did it for noble reasons. Some factions, mostly Christian fundamentalists and Teabaggers who leaned toward book burning, especially of the Harry Potter variety, believed Cade’s abilities came from the devil and that he, by default, was one of the devil’s minions. Consequently, he’d learned to fear the God-fearing on so many levels it just wasn’t funny.
Cade couldn’t help thinking that people like him, Thayne, and Maia had regularly been burned at the stake at one point in history. He was glad that Thayne hadn’t shuttled them back to that time and place, at least.
“So is that our next order of business, after food? Getting guns?” Maia asked.
Cade heard the disapproval in her voice, and he wished he could set her mind at rest, but he couldn’t. “If we need them,” he said.
Maia sighed and nodded her head in resignation, since it had already been established that they would need them.
“I guess we’ll start with that poker game Cade is itching to get in on, and then, if he’s as successful as he thinks he’ll be, we’ll need to go on a shopping spree for some clothes and accessories before we hunt down that Sabrina lady and bed down for the night.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Cade said, clapping and rubbing his hands together.
“Don’t get so excited. You know I don’t approve of you using your powers this way.”
“Yeah, yeah, like Maia doesn’t approve of guns. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, guys, but we’re all going to have to make some sacrifices.”
“I almost forgot, since we’ve established we can’t use our own money and don’t have anything else of value, what will you use to stake your game?” Maia asked.
Oh shit, Cade thought. Good point.
He stood for a moment chewing his bottom lip before his eyes landed on the jewelry at her neck and on her hands.
Maia’s hand went to her throat as if to ward off a physical attack and made him feel like the lowest kind of parasite, but there wasn’t any help for it.
“I promise I won’t lose any of it.”
“Cade…” Thayne started and stopped in acquiescence when he probably understood that they didn’t have a choice.
“It’s okay, Thayne. I’m not wearing anything important like your pendant.” She turned to Cade then and grinned. “I trust you.”
His heart did a funky little dance in his chest at her words, and he realized that he’d do anything within his power to keep her trust and not disappoint her.
They waited while Maia took off her ankh necklace, Goddess ring, and moon earrings.
She handed the items over to Cade. “You think this’ll be enough, or do you need my bracelets, too?”
“This’ll do.” What she’d given him was good for a start and would have to do. He refused to strip her bare unless it proved absolutely necessary. “Let’s head in.” Cade turned and marched toward the saloon that had the several horses tied to the hitching post outside, figuring it their best bet.
Maia caught up to his purposeful strides and grabbed his biceps. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for me to go in with you guys.”
Cade arched a brow, unable to understand her concern until she voiced it.
“I don’t think I’ll be welcomed.”
“Why? Because you’re a woman?”
“Hel-lo! I’m a black woman.”
“Maia, this isn’t the South. Black cowboys thrived in the Old West right next to whites and in some instances did better.”
“I don’t know,” Maia hedged. “Racism and lynching traveled far and wide.”
Cade couldn’t deny either racism or lynching existed here, especially coming from a time where both still existed in one form or another despite all of man’s advancements, but he couldn’t let Maia go on worrying herself either. “They didn’t have Jim Crow out here. Right, Thayne?”
“Yes and no,” Thayne said. “Jim Crow wasn’t the law out here like in the South, but depending on the town’s leanings, they might have enacted their own version of Jim Crow and enforced it however they saw fit. You might have had some sympathetic proprietors and businesses that treated everyone equally, but more often than not respectable women, black or white, weren’t welcomed in saloons.”
“Thanks,” Cade drawled.
Thayne shrugged.
“Maybe I should wait out here,” Maia said.
“By yourself? Are you out of your mind?” Cade asked.
“I just think it would be easier.”
It was too early in the game to get beat down, and he hated to see such a defeatist attitude from Maia. Sure they had to compromise here, but not on this.
Cade took her by the hand and led her over to the swinging front doors, Thayne close on their heels. Cade paused just outside the doors, and when he didn’t
notice any signs that said No Negroes Allowed, though he did catch one that said No Indians Allowed, he continued inside.
If riding through the town earlier had been a culture shock, then stepping into that saloon really was like stepping through a doorway back in time. The place wasn’t like any other bar Cade had ever patronized or worked in the twenty-first century.
The place was softly lit by kerosene lamps and the sun streaming into the windows reflecting off the mirrors behind the bar. It contained all the basic elements that gave an Old West saloon its well-known character.
Steer horns, spurs, horseshoes, and saddles decked the walls, and behind the bar hung a colorful nude painting of a Rubenesque woman.
A player sat at the piano in one corner of the wooden floor, and just across the room a big, grizzled man in a white shirt and black vest stood behind the long-paneled mahogany bar, cleaning glasses and wiping down the already shiny top. A gleaming brass footrail with a row of spittoons spaced along the floor encircled the base of the bar. Several rows of towels hung along the ledge.
In a back room Cade spied a pool table and more than a few cowboys, gamblers, and miners playing at it and other tables featuring chuck-a-luck, three-card monte, dice, and finally a table where a woman sat in on a game of faro.
Cade semaphored Maia and Thayne with a tilt of his chin and watched as their eyes widened in surprise at the sight of a woman playing at one of the gaming tables.
Thayne grinned and nodded at him as if to say, “point taken.”
Back on the floor where Cade, Maia, and Thayne found themselves, numerous tables occupied the space, but one particular table seating several steely eyed, stone-faced men playing poker stood right in the center of the floor.
Looks like five-card draw. Not exactly a high-stakes tournament game like seven-card stud or a mixed game of H.O.R.S.E. Not that it mattered, as Cade excelled at all of the poker games that made up H.O.R.S.E.
“Come on.” He pulled Maia along as he traversed the floor to the card game.
He’d already noticed that all action had ceased when the three of them entered. Even the piano player had stopped tickling the ivories. The behavior wasn’t totally unexpected.
What Cade didn’t expect, however, was the reaction they got from one of the poker players who looked up at them, zeroing in on Maia before sneering.
“We don’t allow her kind in here.”
“Cody,” the bartender snapped. “You know I don’t cotton to that kind of thing in here. Most everyone’s welcome.”
“Now that’s just the kind of business practice that’s going to lose you respectable, paying customers, Hank.” Cody, shifted a lit cigar from one side of his mouth to the other as if to back up his acumen and expertise on the subject.
“T’ain’t nothing much respectable about you, Cody Paxton. And if you don’t like my practices, well then, you can just git your rump on outta here, and don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.”
The other players at the table chuckled, as did several other patrons standing at the bar, all gaining Cody’s ire as he shot daggers at everyone. “I won’t be made a fool of.”
“Either ante up or not, Cody. We ain’t got all day,” one of the card players said around a wad of chewing tobacco.
“You know what? I think I’ll just take my business elsewhere.”
“You’re welcome to do that,” Hank said, unperturbed.
Cody grumbled, getting up in a huff and sweeping his money off the table with much fanfare before slamming his hat onto his flaxen head. He glared at Cade, Maia, and Thayne as he passed them to leave. “I’m going to remember you three troublemakers.”
Cade clenched his hands into fists he itched to use on the racist cretin’s face, but Maia held onto his biceps with both hands and squeezed as if in warning.
“Remember, we don’t want any trouble,” she whispered.
Cade took a deep breath, right about then wishing he was into all that transcendental meditation and yoga crap that made Thayne such a calm Zen Buddhist.
After several moments of clenching his teeth, he managed to get his temper under control, proud of his efforts to not be a hot-head.
“So, whattaya say, partner? Seems we just got room for another player. Are you game?” The tobacco chewer looked up at them and indicated with a nod of his head the seat recently vacated by Cody.
Cade went to the table and gently placed Maia’s jewelry on the round table where it commenced to twinkle beneath the light of the room.
The players all leaned forward to take a gander, some reverently fingering the items, others wrinkling their foreheads in concentration.
“T’ain’t never seen no jewelry like this before, but it looks like silver,” said one of the cigar chompers as he sat back in his seat and looked up at Cade appraisingly.
“It’s all pure sterling silver,” Cade assured him.
“So, you want to stake a hand with this here stuff?”
“I’d like to. You see, our stagecoach was set upon by bandits, and we all barely escaped with our lives. Unfortunately, we lost most our valuables in the robbery.”
“That’s a right shame.”
“Least you got away with your lives,” said the other cigar chomper.
“Pull up a chair then,” said the tobacco chewer.
Cade looked back at Maia and Thayne and gave them a secret thumbs-up before he took Cody’s vacated seat.
Game on!
Chapter 17
Thayne had never watched his brother in action when he played in tournaments. He’d never had the time or the interest to see Cade squander his gifts at what amounted to games of chance. However, never had he considered the type of concentration and skill it took to beat the odds and win at various card games.
Standing at the bar behind his brother watching several hands, Thayne had to amend his opinion. He didn’t believe Cade squandered his gifts at all.
“I don’t know much about the poker, but Cade looks pretty good over there.”
“He does,” Thayne said, noticing with a tiny bit of pride swelling his chest that his brother had already won the first few hands he played.
At this rate, they might be able to fund their needs for the day and still have a substantial amount left over.
Thayne was glad about this, but he was even gladder that Maia wouldn’t lose the jewelry she’d donated to the cause. Even if she said it wasn’t important like his pendant, he knew the pieces all meant something to her.
Thayne raised a glass of beer to his lips, took a sip, and winced at the bitter taste of the room-temperature beverage. Goddess, he didn’t know how the English did it! Had he a choice, he would have declined, but once word of his, Maia, and Cade’s dire straits got around, the offers started pouring in. From everything Thayne had read on the Old West and learned during his tour of the museum back in Colorado, refusing a free drink was a grave insult to the man offering, no matter the nastiness of the liquor served.
After several more hands where Cade’s eidetic memory served him well, Thayne started to feel the tension rising in the room—from the players and the engrossed spectators.
From what Thayne could tell, the poker players weren’t taking kindly to losing to the strangely dressed visitor and probably wondered whether Cade benefitted from cheating or luck.
Thayne worried about this part the most. All it took was one well-placed, vocal accusation of dishonesty and foul play and all of Hank’s kindness and his patrons’ goodwill could go right out the window.
Though torn between staying and watching or leaving his brother to do his job without his and Maia’s nervous, watchful gazes following him, Thayne couldn’t pull himself away. On the one hand he needed to stay close in case Cade ran into trouble, yet on the other, he wanted to get Maia away from any possible violence. In a place like this with alcohol and testosterone freely flowing and bad tempers simmering, gunplay could break out at any moment.
“Tarnation, I ain’t eve
r seen a run of luck like your’n!” The cigar chomper got to his feet and put on his hat as Cody had before him only an hour before. “I’d like a chance to win my money back some other time.”
“I can’t make any promises about our stay, but if we’re here, you’ve certainly got that chance,” Cade said, and Thayne smiled at the smooth way he handled himself, how he unobtrusively slid the winning pot from the middle of the table over to his side of the table.
The other players began to disperse, too, grumbling about their bad luck and Cade’s hot hand. No one said anything about cheating, and for this, Thayne remained glad. His heartbeat finally leveled out to a less erratic beat, at least.
Cade gathered his winnings, finished for the day.
“You play a good game there,” Hank observed.
Cade shrugged. “I had a lot of luck on my side.”
“That may be so.” Hank nodded. “But I ain’t ever seen anyone around these here parts get the best of Luke Beckett at cards.”
Luke had been the silent, sable-brown-haired man at the table. He was the one Thayne had worried the most about, and now it seemed with good reason, as he was probably one of the resident professional gamblers.
“Listen, if you folks need a place to bed down for the night there’s—”
“The Baldwins mentioned Sabrina’s boarding house at the end of town,” Thayne said.
Hank nodded. “There’s the Walker place, yep. There’re also a couple of rooms upstairs free in case that’s more to your liking.”
Thayne looked at Maia and Cade to gauge their reaction.
He had a pretty good idea Hank wasn’t offering just room and board but other amenities that might be provided by a couple of the numerous dancehall girls and painted ladies who had been circulating the floor since they’d all arrived.
“That is, unless you’re already fixed for…mutual solace,” Hank said, not unkindly as he averted his gaze from Thayne and Maia and looked at the floor, face flushed.