“Gabriel searched his cabin.”
Gabriel explained. “He is called Nathan Thomas, probably one of many aliases.”
“Who’s he after?”
“You,” Gabriel confirmed.
“What do you mean, me? Brett Reall or—?”
“You,” Gabriel repeated. “I foun’ a wanted poster in his valise. And this advertisement from a Mississippi newspaper. The state of Louisiana’s offerin’ a ten-thousand-dollar reward for you—dead or alive—with a bonus of five hundred dollars if you’re caught before you cross the state line.”
Brett’s mouth went suddenly dry. “Ten thousand, dead or alive? All these years, I’ve thought he wanted to watch me swing.”
“There is good news, oui” Pierre added. “The artist’s sketch, it is hazy, and ten years old. Not much resemblance to Brett Reall, gambler and Canadian gentleman.”
Brett didn’t show up for lunch, but Nat did. After Brett left their twice-interrupted breakfast, Delta had resisted returning to her stateroom, knowing she would only spend the morning contemplating her latest fears. Their night together huddled inside her like a precious gift, wrapped in shiny paper and tied with ribbons of fear.
Would they ever love like that again? Brett had made everything sound simple, viable. Then Cameron had come aboard with objections to Brett, and Pierre had threatened the relationship with objections to her. And there was Nat.
She had drawn Brett inside her room instinctively the night before, her one thought to protect him from Nat. To protect him? Reason told her that any man who had remained a fugitive from the law for ten years did not need the help of a woman barely out of childhood.
That’s how she felt. As though she had just curled her pigtails and lowered her skirts. As though she had never been courted, never been loved.
Certainly she had never been loved.
Not even yet. Regardless of Brett’s offhanded use of the word, she must not allow herself to be deluded into thinking he truly loved her.
But his words ran continuously through her brain: “Any man who spends the night with a respectable woman like yourself had better be prepared to call it love.”
To call it love. It was the last word that echoed the loudest, and she knew she should busy her mind and her hands with other things before it took root in her brain.
Brett Reall was not in love with her.
She probably wasn’t even in love with him. But her insides turned dewy at the very thought of finding herself once more in his arms.
When Nat took her elbow, she pulled away. “Come sit with me,” he invited. They stood outside the lower entrance to the dining room, the same place where she had met Brett only days before for dinner.
She glared at Nat, fear swelling inside her.
“That gambler stood you up, Delta. Else he’d have been here by now.”
“What makes you think—?”
“That you’re waiting for him? Come on, Delta. Don’t play innocent with me. I’ve seen you two together.”
Delta concentrated on the crowd, making an effort to appear unaffected by his claim.
“Let’s go.” Nat encouraged her with a nudge to her spine. She flinched, but he ignored it. “If we don’t hurry we’ll have to sit with the old folks.”
With one last glance around for Brett, she sighed and let him usher her inside the teeming room.
“I need to talk to you anyway,” Nat was saying. “I met your cousin, the Pinkerton agent. Did he tell you?”
His directness took her by surprise. Distracted by what she would reply, she sat in the chair he held for her at a table with several strangers.
A couple of hours earlier, the Mississippi Princess had docked at the landing at OK Bend, just north of Helena, Arkansas. Captain Kaney had opened the dining room to guests from the landing, on a paying basis, of course.
While she was still wondering whether to acknowledge that Cameron had indeed mentioned meeting Nat, he asked again.
“Did your cousin tell you about our little chat?”
Waiters moved between them. “Yes,” she answered.
“What did he tell you?”
Studying the thick vegetable soup, she made a hasty decision. “Everything.”
Nat chortled. “Humm, that sounds promising.”
“Don’t count on it,” she responded. “I’m not interested in bounty hunters.”
“Or their prey? Aren’t you interested in—?”
“What are you implying, Nat? Cameron said you’re taking a holiday. Did you lie to him? Are you instead after someone on the boat? Brett Reall, perhaps?”
“Now why would I waste valuable time tracking down a gambler?”
“You tell me.”
“Brett Reall is a two-bit smuggler posing as a gambler, Delta. I have no time for either.”
“Then who are you hunting?”
With movements as swift as a bird in flight, his hand disappeared beneath the table. She flinched when he squeezed her thigh.
“You.”
She jerked her leg away from his grasp. “Take your hands off me.”
“Come, now, Delta,” he whispered in her ear, “don’t tell me you’re that stuck on him. That gambler doesn’t deserve a peach as pretty as you.”
In a flash of fury she shoved back her chair and jumped to her feet, but Nat caught her arm before she could run from the table.
“Sit back down,” he urged. “Finish your meal.”
She glared at him, unaware of the attention their row had called until a man directly across the table spoke up.
“Need any help, ma’am?”
She looked toward the voice, too embarrassed to see much, other than a fuzzy face.
“If this gentleman’s becomin’ a bother, I’ll be happy to remove him.”
The fuzzy face came into focus. It belonged to a blond man in his mid-twenties with the largest set of shoulders Delta had seen on a man other than Brett’s uncle, Pierre.
She glared back at Nat, furious.
“Calm down, Delta. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Like hell you didn’t,” she seethed. But when the giant across the table made a move to rise, she responded, “It’s all right. Thank you.”
“A misunderstanding,” Nat was saying to the giant. “Lover’s—”
“Shut your mouth,” Delta ordered, slipping back into her seat. “And keep your hands to yourself,” she added in a stage whisper.
She concentrated on her meal, picking at the baked chicken and dressing. Nat didn’t speak again until the waiter had cleared their entrees and served dessert—a bread pudding topped with brandy sauce—and coffee.
“You really interested in who I’m after?” he quizzed.
Her hand froze in midair. Instantly she wondered why she was so tense. He’d already said he wasn’t after Brett. Anyone else probably deserved it.
“Not necessarily.” She resumed her meal.
“I’ll tell you anyway, in case you start to wonder later … tonight.”
Turning her head, she glared at him, eliciting another chortle. “Know what, Delta? You’re as easy to read as an open book. You really should work on that, being a journalist and all. Why, if you play the game right, I might give you a scoop.”
“I’ll find my own scoops, thank you.”
“Probably not one as good as this. Not by your lonesome.”
“That’s all right, there are others.”
But he continued to needle her, until exasperated she turned to him. “Who are you tracking, Nat. Tell me, then leave me alone.”
“A murderer,” he answered. “Man who murdered his wife and—well, we’ll leave it at that … for the time being.”
Relief began to relax her, knowing that Nat was indeed tracking a criminal, but that it wasn’t Brett Reall.
“We could work together on this,” Nat suggested.
“We? How?”
“I nab him, you write about it. What say we team up, Delta? First time I laid e
yes on you, I knew we’d work well together.”
“No thank you. I have enough interviews lined up.”
“It’ll be a scoop. Maybe the scoop of your life. Who knows, might make you a star reporter.”
She smiled, excusing herself from the table. “I’ll think about it.”
But returning to her cabin she found a message that took her mind completely off Nat, the bounty hunter. It lay on her nightstand, and read: “Sorry about lunch. Meet me for dinner and dancing. Same time and place as before. B.”
Suddenly her heart sang again. She hugged her arms about her waist and danced around the small room, bumping into the bed, falling back on it, laughing up at the paneled ceiling. It felt so good. So good.
She no longer had to worry about Nat being after Brett. And she didn’t have to worry about why Brett hadn’t shown up for lunch. She didn’t have that big a claim on him, after all.
She hugged herself again. But she did have a little claim on him. Else he wouldn’t have invited her to dinner.
And dancing.
And …
Shortly after lunch she felt the boat move as it departed the landing at OK Bend. Lighting the lamp at the bedside desk, she decided to write her last article on Memphis. It wouldn’t do to arrive in Vicksburg without an article to post to Hollis. And she mustn’t forget to wire Cameron so he wouldn’t become suspicious. Taking out paper, pen-staff, and opening the inkwell, she set to work. But her heart fairly burst with anticipation and she had a hard time concentrating on Memphis. She wanted to finish the article before dinner, though. Tonight she wouldn’t have time. Tonight she would be busy with other things.
Later, while she dressed with great attention, she recalled Nat’s claim that Brett was a smuggler. A two-bit smuggler.
Surely he wasn’t, she thought, striving to put it out of her mind. And in the anticipation of the evening ahead, that was not such a difficult task. She arrived at the dining room breathless, but she tried to disguise the fact by claiming to have taken the stairs too fast.
Brett’s teasing perusal, however, told her clearly that he knew the reason. She watched the vein in his neck throb above his starched collar, and the thought of skipping dinner crossed her mind.
“Dinner and dancing,” he whispered in her ear, seating her at the small table they had shared once before.
“Am I so easy to read?” she questioned, recalling Nat’s accusation.
He took the chair opposite her and stared across the candlelit centerpiece into her glowing eyes. “Only because we’re thinking the same thing.”
She watched him flick the napkin out and place it on his lap. He looked back at her and continued, “But I’ve never danced with you, and I want to. This once.”
The waiter arrived, diverting her attention with the clatter of dishes. She wasn’t certain she had heard Brett’s last words correctly, but the idea that she might have, sent a rush of anxiety chasing her newfound joy.
Across the table Brett took in her gown—blue lace to match her eyes—the pearls at her ears, her hairstyle, which somehow managed to be proper and seductive at the same time. He memorized her face, flushed now under his scrutiny, her eyes, cast demurely toward her plate.
From the way she picked at the roast quail he knew she was no more interested in food than he was. She wanted him. He could tell from the spots of color high on her cheeks, from the pulsating vein in her neck, from the erratic swell of her breasts as she struggled to breathe in a calm, normal fashion.
“I’m sorry about lunch,” he told her. “Pierre insisted I stay close to the cabin.”
She looked up. Smiled. Her eyes teased. “That’s all right. I ate with Nat.”
“I know.”
She scanned the room, taking in the captain’s table.
“He isn’t here,” Brett announced. “Pierre and Gabriel sent him on a mission.”
Her eyes flew to his.
“Nat doesn’t realize it, of course.” At her frown, he added, “He received an anonymous message back at OK Bend.”
“You mean he missed the boat?”
Brett grinned.
“It wasn’t necessary, you know.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Sending him off like that. We had a talk at lunch. He isn’t after you.”
Brett heard her words, recalled the poster Gabriel had found in Nat’s cabin. “What did he tell you?” He saw her hesitate, watched her expression turn serious. Fear stirred in his gut. Fear of a kind he hadn’t known in ten years.
“Word for word?” she questioned.
He nodded, holding his breath, waiting for her answer.
“He said he isn’t after a two-bit smuggler disguised as a gambler.”
Brett stared at her, momentarily taken aback by her direct answer. Then she continued.
“He said he’s after a man who murdered his wife. Not Nat’s wife,” she explained, “the murderer’s wife.”
If he lived to be a hundred years old, Brett knew he would never forget the sickness that sliced through him at Delta’s words, issued from her beautiful mouth, spoken in her soft, seductive voice.
He could see relief written all over her face, relief that he was not in danger from the bounty hunter. Pierre and Gabriel had argued with him all afternoon about seeing her tonight. But it was something he had to do.
He must explain to her in person that he could never see her again. Not that he agreed with Pierre and Gabriel that Delta would intentionally expose him. He knew better than that. But now they knew for certain that Nat was after him, and he had no choice but to distance himself from Delta—at once. Otherwise he would draw her into Nat’s fire along with himself.
Nat’s reputation for getting his man had spread up and down the river. Young though he was, Nat was an expert shot with both rifle and pistol, and an exceptional tracker. According to rumor he was as patient as Job and as cruel and conscienceless as a timber wolf.
Nat would have no scruples about using Delta to draw him out, and that Brett could not risk. Hence, the fake message calling Nat ashore at OK Bend shortly before the Mississippi Princess left port.
Brett didn’t delude himself that Nat wouldn’t immediately hire a horse or catch the rails and meet the boat in Vicksburg, but by that time Brett would have had a chance to properly end things with Delta—if ending such a relationship could ever be termed proper.
He had spent much of the afternoon cursing himself for beginning it, but seeing her now, so lovely and seductive, he knew he would never regret the time they spent together. His only regret would be in bringing her grief.
And the best way to prevent that was to get out of her life without delay. After tonight.
The music for dancing began as soon as the dining room had been converted to a grand salon, but as eager as he had been to hold Delta in his arms, once they stood on the dance floor, he found himself disconcerted. Admiring her gown again, he started to tease her about her trousseau, but tonight that did not seem appropriate. Instead, he tried to compliment her on her gown, but even there, he fell short.
“That’s one of those skirts that ties around the thighs, isn’t it?” he commented.
Her eyes widened at his public mention of her legs. “The latest fashion,” she agreed, adding with a grin, “You certainly know a lot about women’s fashions.”
Was he blushing? he wondered, feeling the situation slip further away by the minute. Delta saved it by placing a hand on his shoulder and holding the other one up for him to grasp. “It’s a waltz,” she told him.
He laughed, then. “So it is. I wasn’t sure you could dance in that contraption.”
“Try me.”
His eyes found hers, held hers. “With pleasure, m’moiselle.” Once they began to waltz about the room, his equilibrium returned, and with it came a growing unease about Delta’s earlier conversation with Nat.
“So he told you I’m a smuggler?”
Her eyes told him she didn’t care.
“Wh
at else did he say?”
“Nothing much.”
“What kind of answer is that? Did he tell you what I’m supposed to be smuggling?”
She shook her head.
“And from where? Or to where?”
Again she shook her head.
“You aren’t concerned?”
Her eyes held his. “I don’t want to think about it. Not tonight.”
His hand squeezed her waist. With difficulty he kept himself from drawing her body to his, from covering her slightly parted, oh-so-tempting lips with his. He wished to hell it were as easy to keep from loving her.
“What else did Nat tell you about the man he’s after? The man who is supposed to have murdered his wife.”
“Nothing.” After a moment she added, “He said that was all I needed to know for now.”
The music ended. Somehow Brett managed to stop twirling Delta and to keep them both on their feet, not a simple feat considering how his head was whirling. Zanna and Albert stopped nearby, and Brett strove to conduct a normal conversation. Fortunately, Delta’s tendency to babble nervously had returned, so his reticence wasn’t noticed.
After a couple of dances more, she suggested they go out on the deck. When they arrived at the rail, she stood gripping it, staring silently into the dark water.
“Are you all right?” he asked. He had followed her down the deck until they left behind the streams of lamp light spraying, along with buzzing voices, from the various doors of the grand salon.
Turning, she stared him straight in the eye. “I’ve never enjoyed dancing without a partner.”
“What?”
“I don’t know where you were, perhaps with that blue-eyed woman from your dreams, but you weren’t on the dance floor with me.”
He stared dumbly, then felt his ire stir. He started to tell her that she was the one who had driven him into another world, her and her talk with Nat. He started to tell her it wasn’t any of her goddamn business what was on his mind, that she didn’t want to know.
But he didn’t. Instead, he grasped her arms, a little rougher than he intended, and pulled her to him. His lips covered hers, his tongue possessed her, and in her passion and sweetness he began to relax.
Breathing heavily, he drew her head back a fraction. Their noses rubbed when he spoke. “You’re the blue-eyed woman in my dreams, Delta Jarrett.”
Sunrise Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Three Page 17
