Lisa Plumley

by The Honor-Bound Gambler

  Cade didn’t want to discuss his own progression from a green youth to a hardened man. If he was right, Percy Whittier was partly responsible for those changes in him.

  Trying to cut to the heart of the matter, Cade squinted at Whittier. It felt impossible to match the man before him with the man in his recollections…or with the man in the faded tintype he always carried. It had been years since he’d seen Whittier this close.

  It had been many more years since he’d seen….

  Cade gestured with his pistol. “Come closer.”

  Obligingly, Whittier did. Cade still wasn’t satisfied.

  “Where did you get that Jürgensen?” he asked.

  He wished he’d asked that question years ago, when he’d first won it. But it hadn’t been until later that Cade had spied the message engraved on the back of the timepiece—the message that had made him connect Percy Whittier with…everything.

  Whittier lowered his arms. “It was a gift from my wife.”

  “The truth.” Cade cocked his pistol. “Please.”

  That courteous touch was Violet’s influence, Cade reckoned. He couldn’t help feeling a little bit proud of himself for that.

  As if sensing her angelic inspiration even now, Whittier glanced around. “Have you seen a little redheaded gal around here anyplace? She and I had a talk the other day. She told me—”

  He had to mean Violet. “Answer the question.”

  Tight-lipped, Whittier glanced to the door. Then he relented. “My wife, May, gave me that watch on our wedding day.”

  Cade’s hand wavered. “My mother’s name was May.”

  It was her name that had been engraved on that watch, along with his father’s name and the year of their marriage. For that reason alone, Cade had considered himself lucky to have come across it, even by capricious gambling—even by winning it from a man whom he hadn’t recognized when sitting down with him. At that point in his life, Cade had only been trying to find his way in his new world of cardsharps and roulette-wheel spinners.

  Then, he hadn’t been as good—or as lucky—as he was now.

  Then, he hadn’t deserved to win that watch. But he still had. Those paradoxical facts had niggled at Cade for years.

  Whittier gazed at him, not speaking. But Cade could still hear his last words reverberating in his head, all the same.

  My wife, May, gave me that watch on our wedding day.

  At the recollection, Cade felt dizzy. His heart hammered. He willed it to slow down, but it didn’t work. He wondered…

  No. He’d come here looking for courage, not a damn miracle.

  “That little redhead.” Whittier rambled on. “She seemed to think it was never too late to say you were sorry. I reckon—”

  “But my mother, May Foster, never married Percy Whittier.” Regaining his nerve, Cade clenched his pistol more tightly. His shoulders felt as hard as granite. His feet felt rooted to the floor. “So here’s what I think. I think you met my father, and you stole that watch from him, and then when I won it from you—”

  “Cade—”

  “Don’t call me that.” His father would have called him that. This could not be his father. Not after all this time. Not like this. The only thing that had gotten Cade through the past years was believing his father was dead—believing he’d left his family not by choice, but by a cruel quirk of fate. Knowing this could not be happening, not like this, Cade closed his eyes.

  Unfortunately, that paltry act was not enough to shut out Whittier. He just kept on talking, talking as if he’d kept the words bottled up for years and couldn’t hold them in now.

  “You know Whittier isn’t my real name,” he said in an uneasy, falsely jocular tone. “You’ve known that all along. You of all people—you weren’t fooled by my name or my running away—”

  At that, Cade snapped open his eyes. “You’re wrong about that. Your running was too real to ignore. For all of us.”

  Whittier swallowed. His gaze looked imploring. “Is Judah—”

  “Stop.” This couldn’t be happening. Cade strode sideways. His grasp on his pistol slackened. He glanced at it with sudden dismay, then rammed it into its holster. “You’re dead.” He shot an angry glance at Whittier. “I mean you’re not him. He’s dead.”

  “If you mean Ben Foster…then I guess you’re right.”

  At the sound of his father’s name, Cade quit moving.

  “Ben Foster might as well be dead,” Whittier went on, “for all the good he did for his family. His wife. His two boys—”

  “You’re lying,” Cade insisted. He mustered up a mighty scowl, a fearsome expression designed to show the world that he should be feared. He balled his fists, refusing to look squarely at Whittier. “You’re standing in church and you’re lying to an armed man. You really are crazy.”

  “You put away your weapon,” Whittier pointed out. “And this little church happens to be the only reason I didn’t skedaddle already, like I usually do—or at least that redheaded girl I met in here is. She talked to me, and she made me see some things, and she convinced me to stay in town awhile.”

  Violet. Again. At the irony of that, Cade shook his head. He didn’t want to believe it had been Violet, not him, who’d stumbled upon Whittier. Violet who’d talked to him. Violet who’d persuaded him to stay in Morrow Creek. But she’d told him so herself. I saw Percy Whittier today. I met him. I talked to him.

  “If not for her,” Whittier went on, “I’d have pulled foot for the next town already. I’d have kept right on running, just like I have been. But I wouldn’t have found any peace in it.”

  “You don’t deserve any peace.”

  “That may be true.” Whittier gave him a level look. “But you do. Judah does. Once I realized that, I couldn’t leave.”

  Hell. Whittier talked like his father would have. He looked a little like his father would have—at least like Ben Foster would have looked, years later. But after all this time, Cade couldn’t risk believing this was his father. Feeling newly shaky, he searched the ceiling, looking for courage. For so long, he’d wanted answers. But now that they were imminent…

  Cade wasn’t sure about any of them. This wasn’t the conversation he’d imagined. This wasn’t the man he’d imagined. This wasn’t the reunion he’d longed for, alone in the unfamiliar households where he and Judah had been fostered, put to work, ignored in their idle time, then made to leave when the harvesting season was through or the factory work was done.

  “There’s nothing you can say,” Cade told Whittier in a harsh tone, “that will explain away everything that’s happened. Maybe, when I was still a boy, if my father had come back then—”

  “I couldn’t come back. I left for you! I left to protect you and Judah and your mother—” Whittier broke off, his careworn face full of regret. “I didn’t hear she’d taken ill until it was too late. By then, you and your brother were gone, on your own.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Mulishly, Cade shook his head. His feelings veered, wildly, from belief to fear to skepticism. “Maybe, before you stole that watch from my father, you heard him talk about us. Maybe he missed us.” That had always been Cade’s secret hope. “Maybe he wanted to come back and couldn’t.”

  Whittier only gazed at him. “You were stubborn like this as a little boy, too. You didn’t believe the fire was hot till you touched it. It didn’t matter how often we warned you away—”

  Cade wished someone had warned him away from this. “Stop.”

  “I can’t. Not now.” Whittier shook his head. “That’s what that little church gal told me, and I believe her.” Raggedly, he inhaled. Loudly, he blurted, “I’m sorry, Cade. I’m so sorry for everything I put you through! I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I made a wager and I lost—I lost so much more than I knew I would. If you knew the kind of people I was indebted to—”

  “I know them.” Seemingly from nowhere, Simon Blackhouse appeared. Wearing a troubled, deeply determined look, he strode nearer. He
glanced at a dumbfounded Cade. “Hell, I’m related to them, and I wish I wasn’t. He’s right, Cade—they’re bad people.”

  “Simon?” He had to be imagining things, Cade realized.

  Simon Blackhouse—the Simon Blackhouse he knew—was neither this serious nor this stealthy. The Simon Blackhouse that Cade knew was an irresponsible layabout with nothing on his mind beyond the next willing woman or the next pleasurable game.

  But this Simon Blackhouse…this Simon Blackhouse proved his transformation by continuing in stark, plain-speaking terms.

  “If you hadn’t gone on the run, you would have been killed,” Blackhouse told Whittier. “They meant their threats.”

  Thoroughly confounded, Cade stared. Again, “Simon?”

  “My uncle meant those threats,” Blackhouse continued relentlessly. “He meant to have you—and probably your family—killed if you didn’t repay that rigged wager of his. For years, that’s what my family has specialized in—extortion, cheating, legalized stealing…all in the name of business or ‘pleasure’ or whatever caught their fancy. I’m the first to break the mold,” he said, “and believe me, the Blackhouses don’t like it much.”

  So that was why Simon was estranged from his family, Cade realized. The situation was much more dire than he’d thought—much more dire than the idle society gossip had implied.

  “But me, being me… Well, frankly, I don’t care what they think about what I do.” Here, Blackhouse offered a vivid grin. “I forgive your debt, Mr. Foster—” upon saying that name, he aimed a decidedly confirming glance at Cade “—which is something I have all rights to do. My uncle’s death passed his authority to me. What’s more, I have the money you lost in that rigged wager to repay you with, with interest, at my private train car. If you’d like to come with me, I’ll give it to you.”

  Now Whittier and Cade both gawked in astonishment.

  “I can’t trust you!” Whittier said. “This must be a trick.”

  “You can trust him,” Cade said, astonished to hear himself admit it aloud. “I trust him. It’s not a trick. It’s…incredible, but it’s not a trick. I’d stake my whole bankroll on it.”

  “Thank you, friend.” Gratefully, Blackhouse inclined his head toward Cade. “That, all on its own, makes sponsoring your search worthwhile.” He turned to Whittier. “It isn’t a trick,” he emphasized, “but I knew you might think so if you heard I was looking for you with the stated purpose of giving you money.”

  Whittier gave a cynical snort. “Sounds like a trap to me. I haven’t survived all these years by keeping up with long odds.”

  “All I want in return,” Blackhouse said, “is for you to accept the money, the settled wager and my humble apologies. No one will bother you again. You won’t have to run anymore.”

  “I see.” Still seeming rather dazed, Whittier gave him a chary look. “If I do all that… What do you get out of it?”

  Cade knew the answer to that one. “He gets back his honor. Or at least a little piece of it.” Still stunned, Cade shook his head at his friend. “Because it really was a matter of honor to you, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me, you bastard?”

  Blackhouse shrugged. “I thought your reason for conducting your search was more compelling than mine. Finding your father—”

  “He’s not my father,” Cade interrupted willfully. “He—”

  “—was more important than correcting another heinous familial wrongdoing, even if I have been traveling the country doing exactly that for years now. I have a long way to go, too. Your father’s was one of the simplest cases to resolve.”

  “He’s not my father!” Cade insisted. “He can’t be.”

  Simon gave him a sorrowful look. Behind them, the church’s door slammed shut. Steady, measured footsteps could be heard.

  “Are you sure about that, Cade?” Judah asked. Painstakingly, he made his way to their position, his gaze fixed on Whittier all the while. “Are you sure he’s not? Haven’t you seen what he’s been doing with that match safe in his hand?”

  Taken aback, Cade looked. Whittier froze in place, his attention fixed, too, on the silver match holder in his hand.

  It rested now, its glimmer temporarily dimmed, between his agile fingers. But until seconds ago, Cade realized with a perception he’d lacked until just that moment, Whittier had been tumbling that match safe between his fingers like a magician with a conjuring trick, juggling it with scarcely any effort at all.

  “That’s what Papa used to do whenever he was worried,” Judah said. “Don’t you remember, Cade? He taught us how to do that trick, too. You were especially good at it, I recall.”

  Mutely, Cade shook his head. He was afraid to believe…

  Whittier tossed him the match safe. Without thinking, Cade caught it. He juggled it as he did so—in the same showy way—to prevent it from falling to the floorboards.

  “Well done,” Blackhouse observed. “Like father, like son.”

  Like father, like son. Dumbstruck, Cade stared at Whittier.

  But Judah only smiled. “I knew we’d find you!” His injured leg scarcely slowed him as he went to Whittier with a smile on his face. Gruffly, he embraced him. “Simon said he’d almost tracked you down. I wanted to be here when he did.”

  Near them, Blackhouse nodded. He glanced at Cade. “How much more proof do you need?” he asked. “Just look at your hands.”

  Cade did. He was, he saw instantly, still nervously juggling that match safe—exactly the same way his father had just done.

  A huge wellspring of emotion surged inside him. Buffeted by it, Cade watched silently as Judah and Whittier—Foster—parted.

  They both looked at Cade. He cleared his throat. “Papa?”

  The smile on his father’s face erased all doubt. “I’m sorry, Cade. It wasn’t right, what I did. I need you to know—”

  For once, Cade didn’t need answers. “It’s really you?”

  His father nodded—or at least Cade thought he nodded. It was hard to tell, because his vision went blurry, his eyes stung…and he could as soon have flown as he could have spoken past the lump of emotion stuck in his throat. He tried to move—

  But his father moved faster. With urgent strides, he crossed the short distance separating them. He gazed at Cade, who was trying desperately not to bawl, then hugged him.

  He felt different from the man Cade remembered. He felt leaner and tougher and older, but he still felt…right.

  A heartbeat later they separated, curtly and awkwardly. There were more apologies, more promises—and more vexing, perceptive grins from the likes of Blackhouse and Judah.

  Feeling overcome, Cade scowled at them. He swiped at his eyes, then demanded, “What are you two doing here anyway?”

  Blackhouse shrugged. “You didn’t think we’d let you go on this adventure all alone, did you?” he queried with his usual jauntiness. “We followed you from the train car, of course.”

  “That’s right,” Judah agreed with a nod. For the first time, Cade noticed he was tottering—probably on account of the whiskey he’d drunk. “I’ve just found you again. I wasn’t going to let you sneak away so soon after our reunion. I’m a little slow these days, on account of my leg—” he gave that appendage an impressive frown “—but I’m pretty hard to stop, all the same.”

  “We thought we’d be witnessing your groveling to Miss Benson,” Blackhouse admitted, “but as a secondary feature—”

  “This is mighty fine, too,” Judah alleged. He slung his arm around Whittier’s shoulders with genial—and possibly drunken—aplomb. “Although I was keen to meet the minister’s daughter.”

  Blackhouse clucked with dismay. “Yes, that’s too bad.”

  Violet. Suddenly reminded of her, Cade went still.

  Nothing had gone the way he’d planned this night. But everything had turned out providentially, all the same. Could it be, he wondered, that his good luck was back for good?

  He would have been a poor gambler not to think so.r />
  Filled with new resolve, Cade raised his hand. He turned to Whittier—to, remarkably, his father. “I have more questions for you. There are so many things I want to know. But first—”

  “First he has to settle accounts with a girl,” Blackhouse said, a knowing grin on his puckish face. “With a special girl.”

  “With a damn go-gooder of a reverend’s daughter,” Judah specified, plainly having learned a few more pertinent details from Simon—and then having editorialized them further, “with lovely red hair, an excess of kindness and—near as I can tell—woefully poor eyesight, if she’s smitten with my big lummox of a brother.”

  Cade let that insult slide. He felt too relieved just then—too amazed and grateful and hopeful—to quarrel with Judah.

  “A redhead?” Whittier raised a brow. “Is she skinny? Fearless? Fond of calico and cockeyed pep talks?”

  The trio of Cade, Blackhouse and Judah nodded.

  “I think I know her,” Whittier mused. A nod. “Nice girl.”

  Cade only shook his head. “I let her get away from me once. I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try to get her back.”

  With that, his friend, his brother and his long-lost father all agreed to return to Blackhouse’s train car. “After all,” Simon eagerly pointed out, “I’m having a party tonight!”

  Watching them make plans, Cade knew it would take a while to resolve everything. It wouldn’t be easy to come to terms with the Fosters’ long separation and decide where to go from there.

  For the first time, though, Cade felt the stirrings of belief that they could do it. For now, that was enough.

  Determinedly, Cade tossed back his father’s silver match safe, then straightened his shoulders. “I’ll be next door,” he announced with twice the bravado he felt, “winning back Violet, finding the means to locating Tobe’s mother, dazzling Reverend Benson with my wholesome good intentions and—now that I won’t be carousing through town—possibly saving the whole of Morrow Creek from descending into debauchery.”

  Blackhouse raised his eyebrows. “That’s a mighty tall order you’ve set for yourself.”