by Delynn Royer
Arthur shrugged. "Nah. She said she'd come back for me. And she would've, too, except she died before she had a chance. Whose turn is it?"
But Cole could see his eyes watering. He picked up his own cards and discreetly looked away. "It's your turn, kid. And by the way, what was that score again?"
"Sixty-one to twenty-two. You don't have a prayer."
*
Gwin watched Cole through veiled lashes as he finished setting up their sleeping berths. Ever since the handcuff incident, he’d been sticking to her like a tick, and it was getting on her nerves.
"I have to use the convenience room," she said.
Cole's jaw tensed as he continued to spread a bed linen on the upper berth. "You just used the convenience room."
"I have to use it again."
He fixed her with a look that could have melted lead. "What's it going to be this time? Fainting in the aisle or shouting 'Fire' again in an effort to create a panic?"
She managed to muster an innocent expression in reply to this reference to their last dinner stop. "I thought I smelled smoke."
He bent down very slowly until they were nose to nose. Her eyes started to cross, and she jerked her head back a notch to focus better. His murderous expression didn't improve any with distance. "In a train station ... you thought you smelled smoke. How alarming."
She had finally succeeded in wearing those cool Pinkerton nerves down to a frazzle. She could now, in good conscience, call it a day. "Really" she said, "this mood of yours is horrid. Maybe you need to get some sleep."
"Maybe I do." He straightened, towering over her like a disapproving redwood.
"So, what'll it be tonight?" she inquired breezily. "Are you going to tie me up again?"
The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, the first in many, many hours, and Gwin's guard went up.
"Not tonight, your ladyship. Tonight we're going to do things a little differently." Cole tapped Arthur, who was busy playing solitaire on the lower berth. "You're up top tonight."
"Really? You mean it?" Arthur gathered up his cards and scrambled up onto the second berth. "This is gonna be fun!"
Gwin wrinkled her nose. "You mean, I'm stuck sleeping with him?"
"Not quite." Cole pointed to the lower berth. "You're down here."
"Oh, well, that doesn't sound so bad." Gwin tossed her valise onto the berth and started to bend down, then straightened abruptly at a startling thought.
Surely, he wouldn't dare. Gwin's cheeks flushed. She sputtered like an old water pump. "Oh, no! You can't ... you wouldn't ... that would be—"
"You're got two minutes to get undressed and do whatever it is you do before getting all the way under those sheets. After that, ready or not, I'm coming in."
Gwin squared her shoulders. "This is highly irregular, Shepherd."
Cole narrowed his eyes dangerously. "You are highly irregular, Gwin."
Gwin searched his face for any sign that he might be bluffing. There was none. "But what about my reputation?"
"Which one? Horse thief? Or cardsharp? "
"That's not funny. You know what I'm talking about."
"Well, if you weren't such an all-fired pain in the—" He caught himself, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes again. He began in a calmer tone. "You proved to me last night that you cannot be trusted sleeping alone. Fine. Tonight we sleep together. Now, thanks to you, I'm about dead on my feet, so shut up and get your pretty little bottom in there before I put it in there for you." He pulled out his pocket watch. "Your two minutes starts now."
"I can't believe you're doing this. What are people going to think?"
"If anybody asks, we'll tell them we're married. We sure as hell act like it. One minute, forty-eight seconds."
Gwin's mind worked furiously. He was bluffing. He had to be. After all, Cole was not the kind of man who would stoop to such improper levels just to teach her a lesson. Would he? Gwin scrutinized his grim face. Of course he was bluffing. Well, she was an expert at short card games. She could bluff with the best of them.
"I see what you're doing. You're still mad about last night, so you're trying to get a rise out of me. The joke's over. You've had your laugh."
"One minute, thirty-six seconds."
Gwin bit her lower lip.
"I'd get moving if I were you."
Gwin decided in that moment that he was, indeed, serious, and what had he said? One minute, thirty-six seconds? She moved, and pretty quickly too, ducking barely in time to keep from smacking her forehead into the upper berth. "This is an outrage!"
She went in head first on all fours, posterior presented toward the aisle, when she was suddenly struck by the idea Cole might see fit to help her in with the toe of his boot. She scrambled around, still crouching on all fours, and yanked the curtains closed behind her. She blinked in the dark, listening to the abbreviated conversation above.
Arthur's awestruck voice. "Geeee whillikins! Hey, Cole, are you really gonna—"
"Go to sleep," Cole said flatly.
Arthur clammed up, and Gwin heard the upper berth creak as her brother settled in for the night. She knew that he would be asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He'd be no help to her at all.
"One minute, fifteen seconds."
"Be quiet out there, you ... you ..." She couldn't think of a word vile enough to hang on him, so she let it drop, rolling onto her back and bringing one knee up to hurriedly unlace a shoe.
He's trying to rattle you, she lectured herself sternly, pulling off her shoe and throwing it down. Don't let him get to you. Stay strong. Stay calm. So what if the two of you are going to be sleeping together? Sleeping is sleeping. This is stick-in-the-mud Cole Shepherd we're talking about. It isn't as if anything is actually going to happen ...
Gwin couldn’t control the blush that burned from her cheeks to her ears. Holy Moses! It had to be at least a hundred twenty degrees in here with the curtains drawn.
She sat up, smacked her forehead into the upper berth, and swore as she unbuttoned her blouse with unsteady fingers and shrugged it from her shoulders.
"Fifty-eight seconds."
"Unchivalrous cad," Gwin mumbled, rising up on her knees to unhook the back of her skirt. She sat again, rolled onto her stomach, pushed the skirt down over her hips, and wiggled it the rest of the way down to her ankles. He had some nerve! She would make him pay for subjecting her to this indignity. In spades. And soon.
"Twenty-five seconds."
Gwin yanked pins from her hair to set curls tumbling free past her shoulders. Now stripped down to her chemise, pantalets, and stockings, she searched in the dark for her discarded clothing. Gathering her skirt and blouse, she crammed them, along with a handful of hairpins, into her valise, snapping it closed with an angry oath.
"Five seconds and counting, Gwin."
"You just stay where you are, Shepherd, or, I swear I'll scream, you despicable worm, you... you..."
She batted aside the curtain, remembering at the last second to grab one side up to her bosom as she stuffed her shoes and her valise beneath the berth.
Cole's jacket was off, slung over one arm, and his shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open, allowing just a glimpse of his broad, bare chest. Gwin's mouth went as dry as if she'd swallowed a cupful of chicken feathers. He spoke first.
"Your time is up."
Chapter Seven
Cole sat on the edge of their makeshift bed, bending down to pull off his boots, as Gwin inched backward, plastering her body against the far side of the berth in an effort to put as much distance between them as possible. She tried to slide undetected beneath the coverlet.
Cole ignored all of her various contortions as he shed his gun belt and started to unbutton his trousers.
Gwin was horrified. "Holy Moses! You're not actually going to take them off, are you?"
"Gwin, it's hot enough to fry an egg. Now, what do you think?"
Gwin groaned and slipped the rest of the way under
the coverlet while Cole stripped down to his drawers and socks. He stowed his gun belt and clothing beneath the berth.
Gwin was grateful that it was dark. What little she could see, the outline of his broad shoulders and chest, was disturbing enough. What was left to her imagination was just about enough to give her the vapors.
Cole collapsed onto his back with a weary sigh, the berth creaking precariously beneath his weight as he settled in for the night.
Gwin lay stiff and very still, feeling suddenly smaller than she could remember feeling since she was a child. She had stopped growing at sixteen, stalled at a petite five feet three inches, but that was no matter. She'd learned early on how to deal with people taller than she. A little attitude added a good six inches, and the rest was just fluff. Lying next to Cole, however, seemed to be an altogether different matter. He suddenly seemed so ... big.
Angry with herself, she turned over and was doubly horrified to find her breasts all smashed up against his arm and her nose poking his shoulder. "For Pete's sake!" She shot up, thumping her head on the upper berth. "Ouch!"
"You'll want to watch out for that," Cole said.
"You're taking up the whole bed! I can't even move!"
He chuckled in the dark. "How much room do you need? Arthur and I managed just fine last night, and you two are about the same size, aren't you?"
"I happen to be two inches taller than he is."
"Really? Have you checked lately?"
"Ooooohh!” Gwin buried her face in her hands. "I'm never going to get any sleep!"
"All right, it's cramped quarters, I'll admit, but there is a way this can work if you'll cooperate for a change."
"How?"
"Lie down on your left side." Cole tugged on her arm to pull her down next to him. "You do prefer to sleep on your left. Isn't that what you told me?"
Gwin eased down as he instructed, turning her back to him warily. His arm slipped easily around her waist as he snuggled against her from behind.
"See? Just like a couple of spoons," he said.
Gwin barely heard his words. She was having trouble sifting through an assortment of queerly familiar stirrings in the pit of her stomach. She'd felt those stirrings before, but only in her dreams. Dreams of him.
By now, she imagined she could feel the entire length of him, every blessed inch, so strong and firm and warm. She relished the sensation despite herself. Had she imagined anything like this even in her dreams?
He spoke, startling her. "You're stiffer than a pine needle. Relax. You're perfectly safe. I'm so beat, I doubt I could rise to the occasion even if you begged me."
A hot blush swept over Gwin from head to toe—a combination of indignant embarrassment at the suggestive nature of his comment and the horrifying certainty that he had just read her mind. "I thought you Pinkerton men are supposed to be so virtuous. I can't believe you're compromising a lady like this."
"You are not being compromised. If I were compromising you, you wouldn't have the time to be lying here jabbering about it."
"Well, I can't help wondering what your lady friend back home would have to say about this."
There was a pause. "What lady friend?"
"I assumed you had one," Gwin ventured cautiously, unable to deny even to herself that she was fishing.
"That's not the case."
"Oh." She let a significant silence pass before she could no longer resist asking, "Why not?"
"Why not?" he echoed, sounding annoyed.
"Yeah, why not?”
"None of your business why not."
Another moment passed as Gwin listened to the ever-present clickety-clack of the iron horse's wheels from beneath and Arthur's gurgling snores from above. Finally, she spoke again. "Sorry. I didn't realize it was such a sore subject."
"It's not a sore subject. I just don't have the time for it right now."
"Oh. How much time does it take?"
"I'm very busy with my job."
"Is that all? In case you didn't notice, there are plenty of marriage-minded women who are willing to wait around for their men."
"Are there?"
"Certainly. The shrinking violets, the sweet, empty-headed types." Gwin had no idea why she felt so compelled to pursue this subject. "You know the types I'm talking about."
"Ah, yes," Cole replied dryly. "The types who don't steal horses, you mean."
"Hmm, maybe."
"You know," Cole continued, pushing up onto one elbow to look down at her in the dark. "It's just too bad you won’t be around when I get back to Chicago. To help point out these types for me, I mean."
Gwin couldn't help noticing that his hand came to rest intimately across the soft expanse of her abdomen, and he didn't sound nearly as sleepy as he had only moments ago.
"You don't have to go back to Chicago to find them," she said. "They're all over. Take that flirty little blonde in the compartment across the aisle, for example."
Cole hesitated before inquiring too innocently, "What flirty little blonde?"
"Oh, please," Gwin said, disgusted. "I'm talking about the one who's been making cow eyes at you since Topeka. As if you haven't noticed, as if you haven't been egging her on all along, grinning at her and small-taking with her every chance you get."
Cole started to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"You're jealous."
"That's ridiculous."
"That's why you tripped her in the aisle this afternoon when we were boarding at Limon. I didn't realize it at the time, but there it was. Female spite was rearing its ugly head."
"I did not trip her in the aisle."
"Oh, I stand corrected. That must have been someone else's foot attached to your ankle."
Gwin folded her arms stiffly. "You're so conceited."
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he settled again on his side, his hand coming to rest comfortably on her belly. Gwin stiffened slightly when his long fingers began to spread slowly, experimentally, as if measuring the width of her abdomen.
He spoke in a low whisper. "Didn't your mother ever teach you that nice girls don't lie?"
Gwin tried to ignore his physical nearness and the confusing emotions it stirred within her. Somewhere along the way, he had managed to turn the tables. All the fun had suddenly gone from their verbal sparring, leaving only a thick tension between them. Cole Shepherd wasn't nearly as harmless as she had assumed him to be.
Careful not to move lest his hand wander into more dangerous territory, Gwin tried to keep her voice unaffected. "My mother taught me two things, how to shoot straight and deal crooked."
"She must have been an interesting woman, your mother."
"Most men thought so."
Cole's fingers spread again, spanning her abdomen, pressing softly and causing a bone-melting rush of warmth that nearly undid her. "Was she a cardsharp even before she hitched up with Silas Pierce?" he asked.
Gwin sucked in a deep breath as his fingers slid slowly back up to play at the side of her waist. "My mother was a schoolteacher, the youngest daughter of a Methodist minister."
"That's a far cry from dealing crooked cards."
Gwin closed her eyes. His thumb drew lazy circles along the side of her rib cage, sending ripples of pleasure that were difficult to ignore. She grew both apprehensive and eager at the thought of his hand sliding up a little farther, just a little farther, to finally touch her breast. What would happen then? Would they stop talking? It's your dream, Gwin. What happens next in your dream?
She didn't know for sure. A kiss. A caress. Whispered words of love. Her dreams had always ended there, for even her dreaming mind could not imagine what she had never experienced in her waking life. She could not know what it felt like to be made love to by a man. She could only suspect that it started out something like this, awash in a sea of physical and emotional sensations, needing and wanting to touch, to draw closer and closer until two became one.
Gwin's eyes flew open. His fingers continued
to massage her lazily through the thin material of her chemise, and they were moving up.
"Cole! Your hand."
His fingers stilled. "What about it?"
"It was moving."
"Was it?"
"You know darned well it was. I thought you said I was perfectly safe with you."
"Did I say that? Perfectly safe?"
"Yes."
Gwin detected no sign of contrition in his voice. In fact, without being able to see his face, she got the unsettling impression that he knew exactly what he was doing and what effect it had on her. "And you call yourself a gentleman," she muttered, burrowing her head deep in her pillow, trying to force her swirling emotions back into check.
His arm wrapped snugly around her waist again and only part of her was thankful that his hand behaved itself this time as they lay quietly for a moment.
"In the interest of safety, maybe we could both use a little distraction," Cole suggested into her ear. "Tell me more about your mother."
"Like what?"
"Like, what makes the daughter of a Methodist minister turn to cardsharping and confidence games?"
"I don't know," Gwin said, grateful for the opportunity to turn her attention to something else, even if it was Emmaline. "She always had an ambition to sing, to become famous. She dreamed of living in New York City."
"And so where did Silas Pierce fit in?"
"She met Silas when he and his brother got jobs at a skinning house in New Orleans. Emmaline was already working there, singing a few nights a week, dealing faro the rest of the time."
"So, they met in a gambling house? How romantic."
"It was for Silas. He fell in love with her right away, but it was Sidney Emmaline was interested in. He was younger and more ambitious. He had big ideas. He wasn't the type to consider marrying a woman just because they ..." Gwin faltered, searching for a delicate euphemism.
Cole finished for her. "Were involved?"
"Yes, involved is as good a word as any."
"Sidney was your father?"