The Cowboy's Cinderella

by Carol Arens

  Even Tom hadn’t known her.

  “Good morning, miss,” he’d said, his smile as open and friendly as ever. “I’ll be happy to escort you to your room.”

  “Gosh almighty, Tom!” She’d nearly slapped him on the back, but somehow, it hadn’t seemed quite fitting, given what she was wearing. “Don’t you know me?”

  “Ivy?” He squinted his eyes, then suddenly they looked like they were going to pop out of his head. “Glory, it is you!”

  It was hard to blame him for being so surprised. It wasn’t only her looks that had changed. She was different inside.

  The last time she had heard this stair squeal, she’d been a girl with no one to look out for but her own self; her own dreams were all that had mattered.

  At the top of the stairs, she paused to listen to all the sounds she remembered. The shouts of the roustabouts, the whistle of the twin stacks, the call of shorebirds settling in for the night—all so dear and familiar.

  She walked to the rail and looked at the mountain range to the north. Sun still glittered on the peaks, but lower down evening shadows took over the land. It wouldn’t be more than a few weeks before snow dusted the peaks.

  Everything was the same...except for her. She still had dreams, but no longer of commanding this wonderful vessel.

  Tonight her dreams would be of a man who was gone. A man whom she loved and would probably never see again. The note of farewell he’d written had been fairly clear on the point. She was to marry another and no longer think of him.

  “Thickheaded fool,” she muttered.

  “I hope you aren’t speaking of me, Ivy.”

  “Why howdy, Captain Cooper.” The new captain of the River Queen and a man she had known since her childhood leaned his elbows on the rail and gazed out at the mountain peaks. “I would never say that about you.”

  “You certainly do clean up well,” he said. “What a lovely woman you’ve become.”

  “I’m still me, just all gussied up and mannerly. I’m hoping this here gown might give me an advantage tonight.”

  The gown she wore was a few inches shy of being modest, but she knew some of the men she would be gambling with. They might get distracted by the view.

  One thing was sure. They wouldn’t recognize her. If they thought she was only a lady looking for adventure, she might have an advantage.

  “Your uncle tells me you need to win big in order to save your inheritance.”

  “There’s plenty of folks who are depending upon me winning.”

  “Here’s something you might be interested in, before you decide what to do with all that money. I’m selling the Queen.”

  “But you only just bought her! Why the Queen is as fine a boat as you’ll ever find.”

  “That she is, but do you hear that train whistle off yonder? The rails are going to do in the river trade...mark my words.”

  “That’s what Uncle Patrick always said.”

  But the Queen was for sale? She could have her old life back, her dear paddle-wheeled friend. Even if she only put her to dock and used her for gambling and entertainment, she would be home.

  She could bring Agatha.

  “It’s tempting, and I won’t say otherwise. I miss this old Queen and the wide Missouri. But the thing is, I’d miss the Lucky Clover as much. I never expected to take to being a landlubber, but gosh almighty I do.”

  Ivy closed her eyes, feeling the heave and roll of the deck under her shoes. She breathed in the lush green scent of the river.

  When she opened her eyes she saw a man walking across the gangplank on his way to shore. His hair was ragged and so were his clothes. But his carriage looked familiar. Could be he’d been a regular on the Queen in days gone by.

  “I wish you luck tonight, Miss Ivy, I surely do.”

  She looked away from the man’s back. Funny how he made her feel so odd.

  “I reckon I could use a prayer along with the luck. I’ll need a heap of money. Sure do hope the gents came with their pockets full of cash.”

  “From what I hear, the safe is pushing at the rivets.”

  He kissed her cheek then climbed the steps to the pilothouse.

  The safe was full and her nerves were taut. It was all adding up to a gripping evening.

  What was Travis doing on this gripping evening, she wondered, the same as she did every sundown. Had the good Lord kept him safely through the day as she prayed He would?

  Would the blamed man ever come home and find that she had kept the ranch without having to marry Bill?

  If he did, would she shoot him or hug him to death?

  All she could hope was that time would tell.

  * * *

  The trip into town had been worth it. Travis didn’t feel so much like a bear now that he’d had a shave and a haircut.

  Walking into the saloon of the River Queen, he felt the most human he had in quite some time.

  Everything looked the same as it had last time he was in this room. Plush furniture scattered about offered the promise of a comfortable evening. The soothing golden light from the lamps gave the saloon an air of ease.

  Even with all that, a tremor of excitement hung on the air. Tonight was a night for the rich and powerful to challenge each other, herd leaders coming together to butt heads and tangle antlers.

  This early in the evening, though, it was the young men who sat at the gaming tables testing their luck. The rich men would arrive later.

  Travis spotted Tom and would have liked to sit beside him but the table was full. He joined another group and slapped his money down.

  This was small change compared to what was coming later. But for Travis, an unemployed drifter, it was what he was comfortable spending.

  After an hour of playing, he’d lost a few hands but won a few more. At the end of two hours, he noticed that those joining the game were gentlemen of better means. Not the high-class fellows who would be coming soon, but prosperous enough to make him cash in his small winnings.

  He bought a beer and settled into an easy chair in a dim corner. He wouldn’t mind seeing the moneyed folks shuffling their high-stakes chips back and forth. He imagined that at some point during the night there would be enough chips on the table to pay off the note to the ranch.

  His imagination ran wild and he let it. Staring at the table as though this was happening, he saw himself laying down the last, winning hand, scooping up the chips, cashing them in then riding for home to save the ranch and claim Ivy as his own.

  Too bad the ranch had already been saved and Ivy was already claimed.

  All day long he’d been tickled by the strangest sensation. Whenever he rounded a corner, he felt that she might suddenly appear, wearing her red-flowered sash and floppy hat with a mouse in the pouch.

  Memory was a powerful thing. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so lonely if he got a job here, taking solace in whispers from the past.

  Or maybe he needed to move on and find a life of his own.

  For now, he’d sit in his corner and drink a beer while watching other men live their lives.

  He must have closed his eyes, drifted toward a doze, because he was drawn slowly back to reality when the drone of conversation stopped.

  “Good evening, gentlemen. May I join you?” The honey-sweet voice seemed to caress the room.

  His eyes came into focus on a pink gown, sharpened on a mostly bare bosom.

  “I’ve always wanted to play this game and well, now that I’m a widow there’s no one to forbid me!”

  Ivy?

  His heart slammed against his ribs; his breath came in short puffs.

  A widow? William was dead? He must be or he wouldn’t be allowing her to wear that revealing gown.

  What the damn hell? She’d barely had time to be a bride
let alone a widow! The way she was smiling flirtatiously at every man at the table, she hardly appeared to be grieving.

  He’d only half risen when a hand clamped upon his shoulder. “Sit down, son.”

  Patrick Malone, captain to his soul, would tolerate nothing but compliance.

  “What the blazes is going on?”

  “Sit quietly and you’ll find out.”

  “But she’s—”

  “Trying to win her home,” Malone whispered harshly. “If she knows you are here it will ruin everything.”

  He’d heard the River Queen was for sale. It was understandable that she would want it. But now that she was a rich woman—or possibly a rich widow—why didn’t she just buy it? Why gamble away good money...dressed in that? If William was alive he sure wouldn’t let his wife go out in public that way.

  “I do know how to play,” she said to the group of wealthy fellows seated at the table. Men with fortunes to spend must have come in while he slept. “My husband taught me by the fireside at night. I did win sometimes, but I fear that he let me. I would appreciate the chance to know if I’m really any good at this game.”

  As a group, they didn’t seem to know what to say. They were stunned by her beauty, was Travis’ guess.

  Ivy did look like an angel, even if her halo was a bit off-kilter. Lamplight cast a glow on her skin and a glimmer in her hair. The sweet pink color of her dress gave the impression of innocence. The fit said something else.

  Glancing over at Patrick Malone, he saw the man grinning.

  “I brought some money.” Ivy hoisted a lacy bag. She waggled it.

  “Please.” One man stood, pulled out the chair beside him. “Do join us, ma’am. Your company would be most welcome.”

  “You are beyond kind.” Ivy clutched the bag to her chest as she sat, smiling sweetly at the men. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here. Life at home has been so dreary of late with my...” Her smile faded, she sniffed.

  “Think nothing of it, my dear,” said a portly man with a wet, lecherous-looking grin. “Please do join us. You’ll be a lovely addition to our little game.”

  Apparently, Ivy had finally learned to sigh the way Madame had taught her to.

  The dealer dealt the first hand.

  Ivy lost.

  “Oh, dear. That used to be a winning hand when I played with Charles.”

  Charles! Who the blazes was Charles?

  Travis glanced at Patrick Malone. The man was grinning—almost looked like he was proud.

  Of all the—Wait a blamed minute! A niggling suspicion gathered in his mind.

  Ivy was not here to soothe her grief over a dead husband. Unless he missed his guess, she was not even married. How could she be? William liked things to be under his control and clearly, Ivy was under no one’s control but her own.

  He turned to the captain, his mouth open to demand an explanation. What he got was a swift jab in the ribs, a firm headshake.

  Ivy won the next hand.

  “My word,” she gushed, looking pleased and proud. “Next time I’ll have to bet more money.”

  She lost the next three hands.

  “I’m having such fun with you gentlemen.” She clapped her hands then set out her largest wager yet. “I hardly care if I win or not.”

  But she did win.

  “I suspect,” Ivy said with a wink to her fellow players—to her victims, “That you let me win that one.”

  Maybe one or two of them believed it, given that they were smiling indulgently at her. Uncle Patrick would know better—so did Travis.

  What Ivy’s uncle knew, and Travis did not, was why she was here and where she had come by the funds to risk such high-stakes gambling.

  Why the damn bloody blazes hadn’t she married English like he’d told her to?

  If it wasn’t for the fact that the captain would lay him flat if he stood up or made a sound, he’d leap from the chair and demand to know.

  Unless he leaped from his chair and kissed her.

  Ivy wasn’t married!

  She was not as lost to him as he’d believed she was, all those miserable wandering days.

  After an hour of play, the men began to notice that Ivy’s chip pile was growing while theirs were shrinking. A few of the adoring smiles began to sag.

  “You look familiar to me,” said the man with the lewd-looking mouth. Could he possibly connect the widow to Ivy Magee? “I wonder if we’ve shared a table before.”

  Ivy’s chest rose then fell. Lamplight caught the fine sheen of perspiration on her skin and cast a golden glow on the swell of her breasts.

  “I would never forget a gentleman like yourself. I’d never forget any one of you. Even if my memory did fail, I doubt we would have met in the past. Charles, as dear a man as he was, rarely let me out of the house.”

  Tsking and shaking heads circled the table.

  And not only the table. The men gathered against the walls three deep, watching the competition, falling under the widow’s spell, shook their heads.

  She lost the next three hands. The smiles of her opponents returned. They must be too smitten to notice that even though she’d lost, her pile of chips didn’t go down much.

  After another hour, Travis figured the men should have realized they were being artfully played. The angel in the risqué gown had them so charmed they could not see that they were being beguiled out of their money.

  Damned if he wasn’t ready to slap his small winnings down on the table and surrender them to her.

  At the end of three and a half hours of play, Ivy’s opponents were sweating, drunk and broke...at least until they visited their bankers in the morning.

  Ivy pushed a portion of her huge mound of chips toward the dealer and gave him her thanks.

  “This has been such a delightful evening, my new friends.” Ivy squeezed the hands of each of her victims. “I do hope we can play again next time.”

  “Naturally!”

  “Oh, delighted.”

  “Most charmed.”

  The lusty goat licked his lips.

  Travis started to rise but once again Patrick Malone snatched his sleeve.

  “Don’t let her see you. I’ve a thing or two to say to you.”

  And there was a thing or two he wanted to know.

  * * *

  An hour later Travis sat alone on a bench watching the river slide past in dark ripples.

  Patrick Malone had told him the thing or two he needed to know—and a good bit more that he didn’t want to know.

  He’d learned how deeply the cursed note had hurt Ivy. Malone had been right when he’d called him a harebrained idiot for leaving it. It was a coward’s way of dealing with goodbye. He should have told her face-to-face that he was going away.

  For that, he took the blame. But he hadn’t made a wrong choice in going away, no matter how painful the choice had been for them both.

  Gambling was far from a tried-and-true way to earn money. If he’d known about her scheme, he would have forbidden it.

  He would have—if he’d had the right to. Which he damned did not. The ranch belonged to her. The inheritance from the River Queen also belonged to her.

  A niggling voice in his heart reminded him that her future also belonged to her.

  But didn’t she realize that if she’d done the safe thing and married William, the ranch’s future would have been guaranteed, not left to luck?

  If he’d been willing to throw himself to the lions, she should have been as well. Besides, William English, for all that he was a politician, was not a lion.

  Travis covered his face with his hands, scrubbed his newly shaven chin. Inside he didn’t feel newly anything. He was still the long-haired, harebrained saddle bum who Malone had nearl
y punched in the face for keeping Ivy out all night long after the big storm.

  Only the knowledge that bringing Ivy home in the devil’s weather would have been risky had kept Ivy’s angry guardian from breaking Travis’s teeth.

  Well dang blast it! He’d done what he’d done. Ivy had done what she’d done.

  The fact that she wasn’t married didn’t have him jumping joyful flips off a saddle—actually it did, but only in a small, cautious part of his soul.

  Mostly, he doubted that Ivy would ever forgive him for what he had done. For the decision he had tried to take from her.

  But damn it, he had a ways to go before he got over the fact that she had entrusted the fate of the Lucky Clover to the turn of a card...and done it wearing a dress that had left a few dozen men panting.

  As far as he could tell, he was the last one awake on the Queen. Maybe he ought to leave his face in his hands and fall asleep right here on the bench. Let the sound of the lapping water lull him to sleep.

  A splash brought his head up with a jerk.

  Looking toward the sound, he didn’t see anyone.

  But there on the lower deck was the puddle of a scandalous pink gown.

  * * *

  Ivy stood naked on the deck of the Queen, feeling the soft breeze stroke the sweat of a hard evening off her body.

  It had been a long tense fight for the Lucky Clover. One that at times she had feared she would not win.

  Now it was hers. Agatha was safe and all her father’s people were safe.

  And Travis was still gone.

  Raising her arms over her head, she dove under the cool green water.

  Surfacing, she flipped onto her back and floated. The late summer sky was so full of stars it seemed like she ought to be able to reach out and grab one.

  One bright diamond shot across the sky, then another, and another. Gosh almighty she could make a lot of wishes.

  Funny how they would all be to see Travis again.

  Curse the man.

  Going limp, she let go of her float. She sank under the water, blew out a lungful of bubbles.

  It would be a long time before she swam in this river again. Maybe she never would.