A Winning Hand

by Maria Lake

  “You're just saying that to make me feel better,” Josie said, sniffling against his shirt front.

  Sam shook his head. “Seeing as how I'm the only one around here who has ever bothered to call you out for bad behavior, if I'm not faulting you for this, I think you can go ahead and believe me when I say you didn't do wrong. Keep him in your memory the way you want to remember him. Grieving's a personal thing.”

  She didn't know how long they stayed like that, standing by the doorway, just outside of her bedroom. Long enough to stop crying. Long enough to feel safe in Sam's arms. Long enough to feel exactly how muscled his broad chest was-- he was stronger than she'd even dreamed about. Is this how he would hold her if they were married?

  And just like that, as her thoughts turned from sorrow to tenderness, Sam seemed to realize that he was holding her tightly against his chest. Carefully, he removed her arms from his neck, and moved out of their embrace.

  “My apologies, Miss Josie,” he said, a hint of color spreading across his face. “I've overstepped.”

  And then Sam turned away.

  Josie put her hand on the door-frame, as she felt her breath suddenly coming fast. What was it with that man? Why was it that whenever he got close to her, she felt such strange pangs? She shook her head and closed the door to her room, reminding herself that there would be no courting by Sam or anyone else during her mourning period. It was going to be a long year. Yes, she reminded herself, she would be nearly twenty-one then.

  And then Josie felt herself smile. Twenty-one. That had to be a good sign. Same number as in Blackjack.

  Another daughter might feel guilty thinking about cards at a time like this, but Josie went and opened up the deck that she kept in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

  “To Daddy and Grandad,” Josie said quietly, as she set up the cards. It was the only tribute she could think of. And maybe, just maybe, it might be the way out of the mess that she was in. She thought back to that sign in the window of the Holiday Saloon-- if she was lucky, they'd still have that poker game going when she was out of mourning. And if they did, that was a real opportunity to win the money she needed to save the ranch. Yes, she thought, she'd work with Sam if she had to, and she'd let him make the changes and improvements, but in the end, she'd do what she could to save this place. She was the third generation of Lanshaws to live on this ranch, second generation born on it, and she wasn't going to give up on what Grandad and Daddy had worked on. Their blood and sweat had built this place, had expanded it, and she sure wasn't going to let them down by losing it. The Holiday Saloon might be a questionable establishment for a lady, but its poker game sure seemed like the perfect place to make a lot of money really quickly.

  Gambling on mines had been a terrible mistake, but her family had never gone wrong with cards. That was a family strength. And Josie really needed to be strong right now. She was not quite twenty and she was already an orphan.

  Chapter 13

  It had been a long year. Josie had worn her black, and then her gray. Life had been every bit as dreary and dull as the colors she wore for her late Daddy.

  The only relief she had was arguing with Sam over running the ranch. They'd sold more cattle, which she hadn't liked. She'd fought with him over the horses, and when he went and sold one, she'd gone and purchased a few. Sam hadn’t been at all happy about that. She knew he'd be even more upset with her if she'd told him how much they had really cost, instead of the lower number she'd invented. It wasn't that she meant to lie to him, but coming home with the horses, she'd had a sudden pang of guilt, and figured a lower number would bother him less. He was right that they didn't need the new horses, but she was in no mood to admit that, not even when other bills became due and she didn't have the means to fully cover them. Maybe Sam did have good business sense, but it took more than that to run a ranch. Didn't he understand that this place was her home? That she needed it to thrive? To teem with noise and animals and people, just like it always had?

  And then, finally, her mourning period had been over. She was still arguing with Sam about the ranch, still feeling the crushing weight of bills that were past due, bills that she'd hidden from him. But now was the time to be alive. Now was the time for music, and dancing, and enjoying her age.

  She had bought new fabrics, and this time, when she fashioned her dresses, she would not let Mrs. Martin dictate the style. She was wearing a corset now, and her new clothing accented her figure.

  “And no,” she found herself saying to Mrs. Martin, “I do not wish to wear a shawl over the top of my dress. I'm not chilled and I would like it if one of these days you might stop glaring at me just because my dresses have a scooped neckline.”

  Mrs. Martin could fuss as much as she liked, Josie thought, it didn't matter as long as she liked how she looked in her new clothing. For once, she finally felt that she was looked at like she was a real woman. And she sure liked how the ranch hands responded to her new wardrobe.

  She hadn't really meant to be a flirt, but she was feeling restless, and Sam was unfortunately still showing no sign of interest in her. He didn't even complement her on her new wardrobe. She had proudly modeled her best dress, hoping to catch his eye, but he'd sounded just like Mrs. Martin when he warned her to be careful not to catch cold like that. If only Sam had taken a quick look at her bosom, maybe he would have liked what he saw, she thought angrily. Well, fie on him! She had a nice new wardrobe that finally set her off to the right advantage. She felt more womanly now.

  And if Sam didn't appreciate her new looks, at least there were others who did. A few of the ranch hands had forgotten their place and had been flirting with her lately.

  One afternoon, Josie was sitting on a fencepost, surrounded by a few of her adoring ranch hands. She was full of smiles for the men, gleefully tossing her hair, as she basked in their attention. She was doing her best to flirt with them. It wasn't that she was in love with any of them, but she was enjoying their appreciative glances and their teasing words. It was nice to feel appreciated for being female. And besides, this was good practice. If she intended to marry someday, she would need to know how to deal with men the way they liked to deal with a woman.

  Josie didn't know what was happening until it was too late.

  One minute, she'd been teasing Nat about kissing her, and the next she'd put her lips in a big old pucker and closed her eyes.

  But instead of her first kiss, she'd got two strong hands gripping her tight around her waist. She was startled, but she knew who it was before she even saw him. She'd never forgotten what it had felt like that time he'd caught her in town. Once again, Sam's grip was like iron.

  He hauled her halfway across the field before he spoke to her.

  “Did Nat kiss you?” Sam demanded.

  “He was about to before you came and ruined everyone's fun.”

  “Anyone else kiss you?”

  “With you around as prison warden?”

  “You kiss any of them?”

  “You didn't even give me half a chance.”

  “You shouldn't have given them half a chance.”

  “It was just playing around,” she complained. “No one expected it to lead to marriage.”

  “No, but they may well have expected it to lead to other things,” Sam said darkly.

  He marched her the rest of way back to the house.

  “How dare you embarrass me like that?” Josie demanded.

  “Seemed to me you were doing a pretty good job embarrassing yourself.”

  “It was just fun,” she insisted, “life's serious enough.”

  “And I told you, it could have gotten a lot more serious real fast,” Sam warned. He shook his head. Did she understand what could have happened? How innocent was she? “Fine,” he said gruffly, “you want to claim it's just fun? Its still distracting my men.”

  “Your men? I thought they were my men?”

  “You paying them to work or to play? Because it's easy to see what they would rath
er do.”

  “Why so stern anyway? Why not let them have a bit of fun, every now and then?”

  “That's why they get time off at the end of the week. That's when they go have their fun. And don't you go giving them the idea that they don't need to leave the ranch for that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it might not work out so much fun for you if you understood where that sort of thing led. And because I don't need to point my barrel down at someone who got the wrong idea about what the lady wanted.”

  “How do you know what the lady wants? Maybe the lady wants to learn how to kiss so she'll know what she's doing when she finally meets a beau and gets married.”

  “The lady's husband'll teach her everything she'll ever need to know about marriage.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Josie demanded.

  But Sam got tight lipped and wouldn't say anything else about it.

  Darn that man, Josie thought, stormily. He cut off every conversation just when it was getting to the most interesting part. Husband? And why did he say that word like he was born to that job?

  Chapter 14

  Sam might not have shown much interest in her as a woman, but the longer time stretched on, the more Josie was aware of him as a man.

  Like most nights, Josie sat in the darkness in her bedroom, her curtains open as she watched Sam walk to his cabin. The light flickered on inside, and then Josie ducked out of range as he went to the window to close his curtains.

  Sam hadn't seen her watching him. Now that his curtains were drawn, there wouldn't be much left to watch, just his dark silhouette as he moved about the cabin, readying himself for bed.

  He sat down on the bed, and she imagined him pulling his boots off. His pants would be next, and she could swear she heard the faint jingle of his belt as he unbuckled it. But that was just her imagination, and her memory of what she had heard that time when he had threatened to use his belt on her.

  Sam stood, and she watched as he lifted something over his head. His shirt. Not for the first time, she wondered what, if anything, he still had on when he got into his bed. But she was left to picture those naughty images in her head while Sam turned out the light.

  Naughty. That's how Sam viewed her, and maybe he was right. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to just completely indulge her naughtiness. She knew where Daddy'd stored his liquor-- what if she went and threw back a glass of whiskey? Would she have the courage to go up to Sam and kiss him straight on the lips?

  What would it feel like? She knew enough about whiskey to know that the liquor would burn, but she strongly suspected that the kiss would be even hotter. Kissing Sam would likely melt her right to her very core.

  But how would Sam react? Josie sighed. As much as she dreamed about him throwing his arms around her and returning her kisses with reckless abandon, she strongly suspected that rather the opposite might happen. It would break her heart if he pushed her away after she'd thrown herself at him like that. Knowing Sam, he'd probably tell her she was being silly, and if she wished to behave like a silly schoolgirl, well there was only one answer for it.

  Sam had never actually brought his hand down against her, but he'd certainly meant to spank her that time outside the Saloon, and she could swear he'd been ready to spank her after he had caught her flirting with the ranch hands.

  What would it feel like, to have his hand come down against her bottom? His belt?

  The confused feelings from when he had hauled her over his lap outside the Saloon still bubbled up inside her from time to time. And sometimes even more often than that.

  She remembered being angry at him for even thinking about spanking her, and her nervous fluttering feeling as she feared what it would feel like... She had been filled with a sense of shame of knowing that anyone could have walked by that alley... anyone at all could have walked by and seen her in such an embarrassing position.

  Surely a levelheaded lady would not want to be humiliated like that again. So why was she beginning to crave that from him? Why did she want him to take control over her like that? To be pressed so close to him, to have him be so utterly in control of her body... shouldn't have wanted to experience that again. How could she possibly think she would like that? No one could want that. But she hadn't yet figured out how to stop dreaming about it.

  Worse yet, in her dreams, Sam's hand still landed on her backside. Repeatedly. And as much as it hurt, as much as she cried out, she only wanted him to spank her harder. As the spanking became more intense, even Sam's firm hand wasn't enough for her, leaving her begging him for his belt. Begging, pleading with him to whip her with that thick leather belt of his. To whip her harder and harder and harder, until... until... until...

  Josie gulped.

  That these wild dreams always ended with fervent, intense kissing only confused her further.

  Chapter 15

  “Don't we have something else we were supposed to do tonight?” Josie asked, staring Sam down.

  “You told me we would work on the bills.”

  “And you promised me we would work on something else,” Josie said trying hard not to resort to a girlish pout. She knew he got annoyed when she did that, but she did enjoy getting a rise out of him. She could always tell when she'd really gotten to him-- that's when his hand started to twitch. She couldn't help it-- she enjoyed pushing him to see how much she could get away with. The sassier she got, the more it affected him. She wasn't sure what the end result would be. Would he just storm out like usual? Or would he actually haul her over his lap once and for all?

  “I thought you were going to play with me tonight, Sam,” Josie said, running her hand through her long tousled hair. Instead of immediately bringing her hand back to her lap, she let them linger on the way down, her fingers fiddling absently against the pearl-like buttons that ran down the front of her scoop-neck dress. “Don't tell me you're going to make me beg?”

  “It's pretty late to start with that tonight, ” Sam grunted.

  “Just a little? Please?”

  Sam stomped back to his cabin, but reappeared with both instruments.

  “I still don't think it's a very ladylike thing for you--”

  “Neither is wearing trousers and I've worn them for years. I'm done with my year of mourning Daddy, and what we really need is to breathe some new life into this ranch. Might as well start with some music, don't you think?”

  “Here,” Sam said, pulling over a chair and handing her a guitar. “And be sure to use the pick this time, I don't need you hurting your fingers again. Now, let's start with the basic chords again. Everything builds on them. Once you've got those down, you can mix 'em around, but you've got to learn them first.”

  Josie picked at the strings and then groaned, unhappy with the sound that her guitar made. “Forget it, it's not working.”

  “That's because you don't have patience. Anything worthwhile takes effort.”

  “It doesn't look like it takes any effort when you do it,” Josie pouted, watching Sam's fingers lightly strum the instrument.

  “That's because I've had plenty of practice. I know exactly how each string is going to respond to my touch. I know exactly what kind of sound I'm going to get out of her before I even move my fingers. Here,” he said, getting up out of his seat, “let me show you this way.”

  Standing behind her, Sam moved his hand over hers.

  Well, how was she supposed to pay attention to his instructions? All of her focus was now on his touch, the warmth of his hand over hers. She wasn't one for swooning, but Josie could feel herself sway beneath his touch.

  “There, just like that,” Sam said, moving her hand over the strings again. “Now, you try on your own.”

  Blankly, Josie tried to repeat what he had just done, but she pulled too hard. The unfortunate result was snapping one of the strings.

  “Easy now,” Sam admonished her. “You'll get a better sound out of her if you treat her well.” He reached over to se
e what kind of damage she had done.

  “Her. Why do you call the guitar that? Like its female?”

  Sam shrugged. “Just seems to fit.”

  “Is it because--”

  But Sam just waved his hand. “String's broken, I'll have to restring it.”

  “And then you can continue the lesson?”

  He looked up at the clock. “I think I've taught you as much as either of us had patience for tonight. Unless we've got business to discuss, I ought to be calling it a night. Plenty to do in the morning.”

  Her eyes darted over to the roll-top desk. There were a whole stack of bills that needed paying. She'd closed the roll-top to hide them when Sam had gone to fetch the guitars. She didn't think she was fooling him any, but she knew he wouldn't dare open the roll-top without her permission.

  She had been out of mourning for a few months now, and still Sam hadn’t said anything about the two of them. Did he know that she had overheard Daddy's deathbed conversation with him-- after Daddy died, Sam hadn't said a word to her about marriage, only that he felt obligated to stay on and help during her time of need.

  Had Daddy really talked to Sam about marrying her? Or had that just been her imagination? After all, she had certainly been worked up at the time. Given everything that had happened, it was hard to remember the exact words that had been said. And she had only heard them talking through the closed door.

  Certainly, Josie didn't know what would have happened to her or the ranch without Sam's help. But not once did he try to woo her. 'Course she should have known better than to expect something like that from Sam while she wore her black, or even her gray, but when her restrictions were finally lifted, she thought she'd hear different from him. But no, her mourning time had ended, and he was still the same old Sam, distant and hard to read.

  The only closeness they had was the guitar lessons. They'd been her idea of course. And a good one at that-- they were the perfect excuse to get him close to her. And all she knew was that she wanted him close to her. The two chairs together, feeling his warm breath against her as he spoke. And those moments when he took her hand in his own to show her how to move her fingers... his touch was like fire, and yet it made her shiver inside. Maybe he confused her body as much as he confused her mind.