Trail of Aces (Hot on the Trail Book 8)

by Merry Farmer

  His body was tense. His hands on her back felt heavy. Without knowing what she’d stumbled across, Olivia had struck a nerve. If only she could figure out what it was, beyond the fact that her rogue of a husband was the last person she could imagine being raised by monks.

  “You there,” one of the river men called to them from the bank. “We need you to move your wagon further down the meadow to make room for others.”

  Charlie let his shoulders drop, his hands moving away from Olivia’s waist, and stepped back. Olivia cursed herself for being disappointed. She covered the unwanted emotion by jumping into work.

  “There’s plenty of space at the far end” She marched over to their wagon, Charlie following. “See? Where Pete’s assistant, Bob, is directing people.”

  “I see him.” Charlie nodded, then rolled his shoulders as if shrugging something off. His grin returned, and he winked at Olivia. “We’d better do as we’re told, don’t you think?”

  She couldn’t help it. “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who has ever done as he was told.”

  Charlie laughed. Not his teasing, playful laugh, but one that rose up from his gut, one that was genuine. He worked with her, even following her lead at times, to get their oxen moving and to direct them down the line of wagons coming across the river. Bob was busy directing people to make two lines—one of people heading to Denver City and the other going to Oregon City. Olivia and Charlie lined their wagon up with the Oregon City pioneers. Once that was done, there was little for them to do but wait for the rest of their train to cross.

  Waiting had never been Olivia’s strong suit.

  “Do you have any shirts, or even socks, that need mending?” she asked, pacing through their temporary camp as Charlie sat on a barrel with his deck of cards.

  “No, ma’am,” he answered, dealing a hand of solitaire onto the crate he’d brought down from the wagon. “Call me a dandy, but I like to keep my clothes in good repair.” He peeked up at her as he finished dealing a row in his game. “And you’ve already patched the one sock that was beginning to show some wear.”

  Olivia hummed and crossed her arms. She paced, glancing back to the river. As nice as it was to be proud of her husband’s appearance—and, all right, she was willing to admit that Charlie was handsome and dressed well, and she liked it—not having anything to do with her hands was unacceptable.

  She could only pace as Charlie flipped through his cards, intent on his game. It must have been nice to be carefree enough to play when so many people around them were working.

  “Did the monks teach you to play poker?” she asked when she couldn’t bear the silence or her inactivity any longer.

  “No.” He laughed, a softer, nostalgic sort of sound. “They didn’t discourage my playing, though. But like you and your friends, they made us play for pretty stones we collected or bits of colored glass or the like.”

  Olivia stopped her pacing and sat restlessly on the barrel across from him. “So did the monks run an orphanage? Are you an orphan?”

  “Not exactly, and not quite.” He glanced up from his cards long enough to meet her eyes, then focused on his game.

  It was a surprisingly frustrating answer from a man who seemed to have no problem talking so much. “So where did you learn to play, then?”

  “New Orleans.”

  Which didn’t tell her much.

  She opened her mouth to ask another question, but he cut her off with, “I can show you a few tricks, if you’d like.”

  She closed her mouth, a foolish rush of eagerness filling her. “What kind of tricks?”

  In an instant, his game was abandoned. He swept the cards into a pile, squaring them, cutting the pile into two, then shuffling. “Dexterity is an important trait for a card player,” he began, shuffling the cards a few times, then cutting and folding each half of the deck with one hand. “It helps you to play a tight game and keep the other players guessing.”

  He fanned the cards in each hand, then shuffled them back together. The cards danced so fast that Olivia could hardly keep track of them. As he worked his magic, Charlie’s smile grew, until at last, all of a sudden, he shuffled the cards back into a single pile and plopped it in front of Olivia.

  “How many cards in a deck?” he asked.

  “Fifty-two.”

  He nodded to the deck. It took Olivia a moment to catch on to the fact that he wanted her to count them. She picked up the deck and swiftly sorted through, counting silently to herself.

  “Fifty?” She frowned when she finished her count. Prickles of suspicion worked their way down her back. “Charlie, are you not playing with a full deck?”

  He laughed. “My mistake.” He held out a hand, gesturing for her to return the cards to him.

  With a series of movements that seemed somehow too eloquent for shuffling cards, he broke the deck in two, then shuffled it back together. Once again, he plunked the deck in front of her and nodded.

  Olivia picked up the cards and counted, making certain she was extra careful this time.

  “Forty-eight?”

  “Hmm. That’s a puzzle.” His eyes fairly glittered.

  “It’s no puzzle at all. You took the cards.” She didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed.

  “Did I?” He swept the deck back from her, splitting it and shuffling again. “Are you sure you’re not just counting wrong?”

  She watched him, watched his hands, as intently as she could while he shuffled some more. Again, something about the smooth movement of his long fingers wasn’t quite right, but she failed to catch what she was looking for. He finished shuffling and plunked the deck in front of her once more.

  Immediately, before he could try anything else, Olivia picked it up and counted it.

  “Fifty-one,” she said, loud and accusing. “You’ve still got one card.”

  “Do I?” He held up his hands, almost the way a robber would hold up his hands when faced with an armed policeman. “Where?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, studied him from head to toe. The blatant teasing in his look was all the admission she needed that he had cheated. Now, if she could just figure out how and where the card had gone. But no, there didn’t seem to be a hiding place for a card anywhere on him. She even lifted to a half stand to look down his sleeves. Nothing there.

  “I don’t understand how you did it.” She sat with a huff.

  “It’s magic.” He turned his wrists to slip into a shrug.

  A blink of an eye later, the missing card was in his right hand. The ace of hearts.

  “How did you do that?” she whispered, hand pressed to her chest. All right, she was impressed.

  “If I told you that, it wouldn’t be magic anymore.”

  Olivia blinked, then settled into a frown, hands on her hips. “Men are shot dead for cheating during poker games.”

  “Yes, they are,” he agreed, his grin so self-satisfied that she didn’t know whether she wanted to smack him or kiss him. “That’s why I never cheat during games. At least, games where my opponents are armed.”

  “I see, but if they’re not armed.” Her wry banter ended with a sharp gasp. She jolted straighter. “I wasn’t armed. Did you cheat to win my hand in marriage?”

  He pressed the ace of hearts to his chest with mock horror. “I am a gentleman of honor. Do you really think I would trick a lady over something so important?”

  The moment the words were out of his mouth, she knew that not only had he cheated, he had done it with a rogue’s grin on his face the whole time.

  But what did that mean for their marriage? If he cheated to win her hand, were they really married?

  She swallowed. Of course they were. Rev. Kilpatrick certainly hadn’t been in on the bet. Charlie had fooled her to win. Looking back, he’d been obvious about it. And she’d been the one who insisted that they go through with the marriage.

  Blast Charlie Garrett. By the sparkle in his eyes and the way he casually dealt himself another game of s
olitaire, he knew that she’d just figured the whole ruse out. All of it. And he wasn’t going to say a thing. He was just going to sit there and…and be her husband.

  “I don’t think I should play cards ever again,” she muttered, suddenly feeling as though the barrel she sat on was filled with explosives.

  “No, Sweet Pea, you shouldn’t.” He winked at her. The rogue actually had the audacity to wink at her. He knew. He’d been in on the game from the first.

  And she was married to him.

  “Do you want me to teach you to play solitaire?” he asked at length, soft and sympathetic.

  “No, I’d better stay as far away from cards of any sort as I can from now on.” The question remained, should she stay as far away from card players as she could?

  Charlie chuckled. The sound was low and tempting, sending vibrations through her, even though she sat feet away from him. “Would a kiss make it better?” he asked.

  “It most certainly would not.” She crossed her arms.

  The problem was, in spite of the discovery of the truth, she knew she was at fault. And curse him, the quiet acceptance in Charlie’s eyes was a kind reassurance that he didn’t hold it against her. He’d been the one to cheat, but she felt better because he forgave her for being cheated. The man was frustration incarnate.

  And a kiss would have made her feel much better.

  Because now she knew she wasn’t married to a man because honor had bound her to him, she was married to him because she didn’t want to cry foul and risk the whole thing falling apart. She was married because she wanted to be married. To him. Charlie Garrett. A gambler and a cheat. She wanted to be his wife with all that entailed.

  Now what was she supposed to do?

  Chapter Seven

  Marrying a man out of a sense of honor and fair play was one thing. Wanting to be married to him, long after figuring out that that sense of honor was misplaced, was entirely different. It was something that Olivia wasn’t exactly sure how to handle.

  “Do you want me to help?” Charlie asked from the back of the wagon. He rolled the canvas up on one side of the back bow to let a little air into the wagon bed.

  “I can manage here,” Olivia replied. She crawled to where Charlie secured the canvas from the front of the wagon. “Mr. Evans needs every able-bodied man to help haul clean water up from the spring, and Gideon will need someone to help him take his chlorinated water around to the wagons.”

  Several cases of dysentery had broken out a couple of days ago, and the wagon train had been forced to stop to deal with the illness, even though they were only a day away from Ft. Laramie. Everyone had been charged with the task of scrubbing out their wagons in the hope of stopping the disease before it spread. But that wasn’t why Olivia had to summon up her courage just to meet her husband’s eyes.

  Charlie finished tying the canvas, then leaned one elbow along the open edge of the wagon bed. “I’m sure he would let me off the hook if you need my help here. Helping one’s pretty wife is far more important than carrying water.”

  There it was again. That sense of gallantry that was just slightly off. It didn’t help that he looked particularly handsome today in just his shirt—which he had managed to keep mostly white in spite of the dust of the trail. It was unbuttoned to his breastbone, giving Olivia that taste of dark hair scattered across his firm chest that she’d wanted to see for so long. She’d been married for a month, and she still had no idea what he looked like under his fine clothes.

  Not that she—

  Oh, never mind. She let the contradictory thought go with a sigh. She did want to see more of her husband. It was time to give up and admit that now. That was what married people did, after all, and heaven help her, she wanted to be married.

  “I can think of a lot of people who would disagree with you there.” She squatted, then sat, swinging her legs over the edge of the wagon’s tailgate. “Mother always used to say that our first duty should be toward our neighbors before we turn inward to help ourselves.”

  Charlie offered her a hand. Olivia took it, letting herself appreciate the firm strength of his grip as he helped her down.

  “I’m not sure how well your mother and I would get along,” he said with a wry twist to his lips.

  Olivia laughed. “Chances are she’d adore you at first sight, then dismiss every one of your flaws, no matter how often they showed themselves.”

  “Flaws?” He clasped his free hand to his chest. “Madam, you wound me.”

  Whether it was the sunshine above them, the excited anticipation of reaching one of the trail’s largest forts the next day, or her resolution to give up her resistance and commit to her marriage, Olivia didn’t know, but she found herself laughing at Charlie’s antics instead of shaking her head over them.

  “You know you have a couple,” she said. “Here and there.”

  The effect of her comment and her laughter was subtle, but it was immediate. The teasing fell away from Charlie’s expression. His smile grew as pleased as a student she’d given perfect marks. But that was only the beginning.

  She relaxed her hand and moved to continue with her work. Charlie tightened his grip, though, and instead of stepping away, with one gentle tug she found herself off-balance and stumbling into his arms. The way he closed his arms around her—slowly, tenderly, as if they hadn’t a care in the world—had her heart beating as if she’d danced all night.

  “I suppose I do,” he agreed, lowering his head so that their lips were only a few inches apart. “I’m relying on you to teach me how to rid myself of those flaws and to educate me on the finer points of being a better man.”

  “It would take a far more skillful teacher than me to do that.” Why did her words sound as if they’d come from someone else? Someone both warmer and bolder.

  “No, Sweet Pea. You are a far more talented and tempting teacher than you give yourself credit for.”

  Before she could protest, he closed those last inches between them, slanting his mouth over hers. He didn’t bother with the pretense of kissing her lightly, with lips only, before drawing her in fully and coaxing her lips apart with the tip of his tongue.

  They’d kissed before—though not enough, Olivia’s rebellious heart reminded her—but this kiss was different. She knew what it felt like to have his mouth lay claim to hers, to teach her how to be kissed and how to meld with him. Now it was as if their kiss extended through their entire bodies.

  He slipped his arms around her, hands spreading across her back and pulling her near. The feeling of pressure in her breasts increased a hundredfold as they pressed against the firm plane of his chest. Her stomach fluttered with angel’s wings as it too pressed toward him. As if drawn by a power she had barely known and certainly didn’t understand, her hips too sought to wiggle as close to his as they could. The surprise of finding part of him hard there was only matched by the knowledge of what that meant. Her mind tried to convince her it was forbidden while her heart longed for more, and her hips whispered to her to grind a little harder.

  He moved a hand to cradle the side of her face, which deepened their kiss in ways she didn’t expect. It was only when she lifted her lowered eyelids to find him transported with longing that a jolt of understanding hit her. She wasn’t the only one who had changed the day she figured out she’d been tricked. She wasn’t the only one who thought they might just have a chance at happiness.

  “I have an idea, Sweet Pea,” he murmured against her lips, fingertips brushing her cheekbone. “Let’s get married.”

  It took her a few breathless seconds to reply, “We’re already married.”

  His smile was devilish, sending zips of excitement all through her, lodging in the most inappropriate spots.

  No, not inappropriate for a wife.

  “So we are,” he said, then kissed her again.

  She lifted her arms to settle around him, feeling foolish for having let them hang by her sides, inactive for so long. So much of her life had been stan
ding there, doing nothing, while the fates battered her about. Well, no more. The heated, exotic taste of Charlie’s mouth hinted at so many things that she could have, if only she would take her determination to face life’s challenges one step further.

  All at once, he broke away and stepped back. “I do believe there’s water to be carried,

  he said, out of breath and flushed. He made no effort to hide the bulge in his trousers from her.

  “I…suppose…yes, there is.” The words didn’t make any more sense to her than she assumed they would to anyone else.

  “I’d better go help with that, then.” He took another step back, but the fire in his eyes said he would have rather stepped closer and wrapped her in another embrace. “Something tells me we’d only get into trouble if I stayed where I am.”

  “Probably,” she replied before she could grasp the full implication of that one word. Once she did, she clapped a hand to her mouth.

  Charlie chuckled, returning someone to his devil-may-care self. “Until later, Sweet Pea,” he said, winking, then turned to go.

  Olivia watched him far longer than was proper, even for a married woman. As soon as he disappeared around the edge of a wagon, the reality of her situation sank back in on her. She may have committed to being married, but there were far more important things going on around her than any sort of awakening on her part.

  Clearing her throat and smoothing her dress, she reached into the wagon bed and started removing whatever crates, sacks, and barrels she could lift. Manual labor would be good for her. It would put her mind back in the right place. Although as she worked, she noticed it also made her as aware of her body as ever.

  There wasn’t time to dwell on it. She worked with as much focus as she could manage, which wasn’t much. As soon as the back of the wagon was cleared, she hopped into the bed and began shifting trunks and baskets so that she could wash down first one side of the bed, then the other. With the summer heat, the water she used dried quickly, and within a relatively short time she was arranging and stacking both hers and Charlie’s belongings.