by Jodi Thomas
She didn’t move, but sat with her back perfectly straight for a few minutes, then slowly pulled button after button free until the gown fell to her waist. The thin scars, some layered on one another, ran to her waist and beyond, he guessed.
“No one should be beaten like this. No one,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. He brushed his hand over the scars, wishing he could brush away the memory of the pain she must have suffered. “Anna, tell me, how did you survive?”
She looked at him over her shoulder, but she didn’t say a word as she buttoned up her gown. Somewhere along the way she’d been trained too well not to talk, even to someone she trusted.
When he raised his arm, she moved into his hug. For a long while he held her, his hands spread across the damage that had been done to her so many years ago.
CHAPTER 26
A LITTLE BEFORE DAWN EM, LEWT, SUMNER, AND Wyatt crossed the Rio. No one said a word. They had no idea what they faced, but Wyatt swore that the gambler he’d talked to several nights ago at the border had said the roadhouse where outlaws came to drink and gamble wasn’t more than a day’s ride from the river.
Em believed the ranger, Wyatt Platt. He might be a man of few words, but he was proving to be a true friend to Duncan. No one else had bothered to tell them her cousin was missing. Maybe the ranger thought he’d eventually make it back, or maybe none wanted to face Duncan’s father, Travis McMurray.
Once on the other side, Wyatt rode ahead scouting and they followed at a slower pace. The idea, though Em didn’t think it was a particularly good one, was that if Wyatt got caught by lookouts around the ranch where the roadhouse stood, he’d say he was alone and wait for the other three to come get him.
Em thought it a better plan to storm the roadhouse firing and demand Duncan back, but Sumner reminded her that they had only a gambler’s word that Duncan was there, and everyone knows what that’s worth.
Lewt glared at the old man, but didn’t comment.
Sumner talked them into making camp in a grove of trees an hour before dark. He said that if his memory hadn’t failed him, the roadhouse was about three more miles and this would be a safe distance to camp. With the wind from the west and the low cloud cover threatening rain, they all decided to risk a small fire.
Wyatt rode in with the sunset and told them he’d circled the place twice. He thought he saw a few men who might be guards posted around Three Forks but none on horseback patrolling the area. He didn’t go in because with his years in the rangers, there was a good chance someone might recognize him.
Sumner offered to go, claiming he’d been out so many years any outlaws who knew him were long dead. Em thought of telling them she’d go into the place and act like she was looking for directions or something, but a woman traveling alone in these parts would be too rare to be normal.
“I’ll go in,” Lewt said from the tree line where he’d disappeared while Em and Sumner made camp.
Em turned to argue, but her words caught in her throat. Lewt Paterson stood before her, all six feet of him, dressed in a tailored white suit made of fine wool and a gold vest that reflected the firelight. As he had in the black suit he first wore, the wrangler clothes she’d given him, and the expensive western wear he’d bought in town, Lewt Paterson looked like he belonged in what he wore.
He hooked a finger into his vest pocket as if he’d done so a thousand times.
“Evening, Gambler.” Wyatt laughed. “I was wondering when you’d decide to shed your skin and let your true colors fly.”
Sumner stood. “You should be able to convince them you’re there to play cards in that outfit, son, but can you handle the game of poker?”
“I’ll manage.” Lewt’s slow smile had a glint of the maverick in it. “No one knows me this far south. I’m the only one of you who can walk into the place and not draw too much attention. I’ll ride over tonight and see what I can find out. If Duncan is being held there, someone will know. Folks talk more at night when they’re drinking than they do in the morning when they’re hung over. All I got to do is play a few hands and listen.”
Em wondered if Lewt could pull off such a disguise, and then she remembered how he’d once told her that the only conversation he’d had with a woman involved asking, How much do you charge for an hour? Apparently, the rich mole family who raised him and never taught him to ride but let him play with a knife in church also let him gamble and carry on conversations with women who sold their time by the hour.
“You’ll need a gun belt,” Sumner said. “I noticed all you brought with you was that rifle I lent you the other day.”
“No,” Lewt said. “I’ll go in unarmed. A gambler with a gun is just asking to be called out if his card playing comes into question. If I’m unarmed, men are more likely to want to settle any argument with fists.” He glanced at Sumner. “Before you ask, I can handle myself.”
Wyatt smiled. “At least as far as they know, you’re unarmed, right? Duncan told me once that you can halve a fly in flight from across the room with one of your thin knives.”
“One of?” Em echoed. It never occurred to her that the bumbling man who could barely ride a horse might carry two or more weapons.
He met her stare. “Em, I’ll be all right. It may take me all night, but I’ll find out what we need to know. I’m the only logical one to ride in. If we all tried it at once, we’d be cut down.”
Wyatt reached for his horse’s reins. “I’ll ride with you as far as I can, but once you go over that hill, you’re on your own.”
Lewt moved to his horse and pulled off his saddlebags.
Em walked up behind him, not sure what to say. She didn’t want him to get hurt, but someone had to go in, and he did seem the only logical one.
He handed her the bags. “I’ll leave my other clothes here along with everything else. Watch out to pack my other boots if you move camp. I kind of got used to those riding boots.” He brushed her arm. “If something happens and I don’t come back, there’s enough money hidden in these bags to bribe a guard or maybe even win the auction if it comes to that. Use it however it’s needed.”
“Lewt, you don’t have to do this. You hardly know Duncan, and I’m not sure you can pull off being a gambler.” She’d worried about him every day this week, and now he thought he could handle an outlaw camp all by himself.
“Oh, believe me.” Wyatt laughed. “He can pull it off.”
Lewt stared into Em’s eyes. “I’ve stepped into worse places than this one to gamble the night away.”
Sumner talked with Wyatt as they moved away from Em and Lewt. She had no idea if they did it to offer them privacy or just so they could continue talking about alternate plans.
Lewt stood for a moment, watching Em as though he were trying to remember every detail of her face. “Duncan and I have been best friends for years,” he said, low enough that the men couldn’t hear. “I owe him my life many times over, but it was my idea to go meet his cousins, not his. I had this wild idea that I needed a rich wife, but lately, I’ve reconsidered. Marriage isn’t for men like me. I’ve never had anyone to worry about me, and I don’t want you worrying tonight. If something does happen to me, forget you ever knew me and go on with your life, Em.”
She straightened, trying to harden, but for some reason it wasn’t working tonight. “I won’t. If you seem determined to go in alone and get yourself killed, I won’t try to stop you, but I will not forget you.”
“Good,” he said. “Any chance you’d kiss me good-bye?”
She shook her head. There were too many things about him that didn’t add up. The man she thought she knew was changing before her eyes.
“How about when I get back?” he teased, as if he were only taking a ride and not probably going to his death.
“If you get back,” she whispered.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll think about that kiss, then. It’ll help keep me awake tonight. I might surprise you and live just to come back to you, bu
t if I do, I expect one long kiss.”
He swung onto his horse and was gone before she could answer.
She watched him ride, realizing he’d made her smile when only a moment before she’d been about to lose her hard shell and cry.
Sumner walked toward her. “You really should have kissed the fool, Miss Em.”
“Maybe I will when he gets back.”
Wyatt laughed. “After we save Duncan, he’s going to kill that gambler, so it will be too late for kissing then.”
Both turned to the ranger and said “Why?” at the same time.
“Because,” Wyatt answered. “Lewt Paterson done stole one of Duncan’s lady cousins’ hearts. I was standing not five feet from Duncan the night we rode out with Captain McNelly. He told Lewt his dad and uncles would shoot him double dead if he sent a gambler to court the girls.”
Em was tired, but her mind began to put the pieces that had never made sense together. Lewt hadn’t come from a rich mole family who stayed at home and counted their money. He stayed so pale because he’d been playing cards all night and sleeping all day. Of course he’d have skills with a knife; he probably fought in fights all the time in saloons. And last, what would he say to the women he met? He’d say, How much do you charge by the hour? No rich family. No fine education. For all she knew he’d been born in a saloon and cut his teeth on shot glasses.
Em grinned as the three of them huddled around the small fire. When all this was over, she planned to kill him herself. All through the meal of beans and crackers, she thought of ways Lewt Paterson would die, and then, when she curled up in her bedroll, she remembered one fact she’d forgotten. He hadn’t courted her. He hadn’t known she was one of the ladies. In fact, he still didn’t know; he’d been mad because she’d passed herself off as a McMurray. He thought she was just some woman who worked with the horses.
He’d kissed her for no other reason than he wanted to.
Em revised her plan. She would kiss him when he came back. She’d give him a kiss he’d never forget, and then she’d kill him.
CHAPTER 27
LEWT PATERSON WALKED INTO THE ROADHOUSE called Three Forks. The place might have been a ranch headquarters fifty years ago, but this owner had found selling supplies and sin far more profitable than cattle or crops. The original house looked like it had been added on to several times without any consideration given to the architecture.
He’d seen worse, but it had been a long time since he’d played cards in a place like this. Most of the men looked like they hadn’t had a bath in months, and the girls working the room for drinks and opportunities didn’t look much better. The floor was filthy and needed a good fight to mop it up. From the looks of it, men had given up even trying to hit the spittoon. The place reminded him of a saloon in Fort Worth that was so bad they didn’t clean up from a gunfight until the body got to smelling worse than the floor.
The gambling hall at Three Forks was big, several tables in play and a roulette wheel just inside the door. There was no stage or music. Men who came here came to drink and gamble. Along the back wall was a long bar and a wide door that opened into what looked like a café. Thirty or forty men were in the place, and most, including the two guards at the door, looked like they were long past drunk.
There were no social drinkers here, and he guessed the card games were not played for sport either.
Lewt turned slowly, noticing everything as he stretched and complained to the bartender about how it had taken him forever to ride in from Texas.
He counted six exits, but except for the double doors at the front, all looked like they went farther into the building. One was probably the women’s quarters, and from the number of men walking in and out, the girls were doing a good business tonight. Men usually paid for an hour but needed only five or ten minutes. He heard a girl laugh once and say she worked a forty-hour day one night.
Another door, up a few steps of stairs, was probably where the rooms were rented for the night. A sign over the opening said, BED—ONE DOLLAR, BATH—TWO BITS, SEE BARTENDER. Two small doors were near the back of the bar. One might be the direction to the outhouse; another probably served as a pass-through to a kitchen.
Lewt almost missed a catwalk near the top of the high ceiling. It ran half the way around the saloon, a plain balcony fashioned to blend into the ceiling beams. One old woman, dressed in rags, stood watching like hell’s guardian angel. Lewt had a feeling she missed little, from men cheating to bartenders pocketing cash. She reminded him of a buzzard on a perch.
“First drink’s on the house,” the bartender said in English as he shoved a whiskey in Lewt’s direction. “I’m guessing you came to gamble.”
“That’s right.” Lewt took a swallow of the terrible whiskey. “I heard there’s money to be made here for an honest man who likes to bet.”
“Keep it honest and you’ll stay alive. Most of this crowd wouldn’t hesitate to fire first and ask questions later.” The bartender pointed with his head. “Slip that man in the chair by the door a few dollars and he’ll sit you at a good table. There’s no charge to play other than the money you lose, but we collect for the food and drinks when we deliver. That way we don’t have anyone go broke owing a tab.”
“Food any good?” Lewt asked, to pass the time. He wanted to get a good feel of the place before he sat down at a table. “I don’t see any samples sitting out on the bar.”
“Best we’ve had in years. Made to order until six, then you take what’s left in the oven. What would make you happy?”
“What you got?”
“Thick steaks. We got our Texas beef cheap. Any dessert they bring you, don’t turn it down. This late the menu’s light, but the food’s great.”
“Sounds good. I think I’ll play awhile, then have a meal.”
The bartender nodded. “You’re like most. Can’t wait to lose. Be sure and save enough for a meal because once you’re broke, you’re out the door. Toledo’s got a dozen guards to make sure all’s square with the house when you leave.”
Lewt laid ten dollars on the bar. “This should cover dinner in an hour and breakfast at dawn.”
The bartender took the money. “I’ll hand you your change when you leave.”
Lewt paid one of the guards for a chair and sat down to a table of cutthroats who looked like they’d committed every crime on the books and were bored with talking about it. He knew better than to make small talk. They were here to play.
Lewt was good at cards, but tonight he was careful never to win a big pot. He had a feeling the poor losers and the big winners both went out of this place feetfirst.
When the bartender brought his steak, it gave Lewt a chance to sit out a few hands and listen to the talk around him. He moved to a little table in the middle of the place so he could hear several conversations.
Lewt spotted a few other men he knew to be professional gamblers. They were men he’d seen in the rougher saloons before he worked his way up. They looked much the worse for wear. Gambling, for the most part, was a young man’s game and an old man’s pastime. Somewhere in the middle, a gambler would be smart to step out and take a few years to breathe fresh air.
Lewt had that all planned. Or at least he thought he had. A week ago he thought he’d marry a rich wife, settle down, and take his winnings to build a business and become part of the day world. No more all-night games, no more sleeping in the back of saloons with one eye open so he would wake up with his winnings still in his pocket. He’d planned to have a house, a real house with his name on the deed, and an office he could go to, and a wife who’d have supper ready every evening. He wanted to walk with her on his arm to church every Sunday morning and vote in the elections.
Except nothing had worked out like he’d planned. The only woman on Whispering Mountain he’d been attracted to was a long-legged mean-talking girl. He smiled and added in his mind, who had to hold his hand when it got dark. He hadn’t thought her even pretty, but she had a way of growing on a man. W
hen he kissed her, the whole world seem to stop, and if he could get her to look at him he swore she had the bluest eyes in all of Texas.
One of the saloon girls circled by, letting the sleeve of her dress, dipped in cheap perfume, drift along his arms. “Want some company later?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, thinking of Em. Even when she refused to talk to him, she was company to him. Maybe because he wasn’t trying to impress her and she wasn’t flirting with him. He and Em settled comfortably into silence when they were together. Even though their days riding the hills of Whispering Mountain had been hard work, he missed them. He missed her.
When the saloon girl circled back by to ask for the time he’d prefer later, he added quickly, “I have a game that may take me the night. How about waiting awhile?” He noticed that the girl looked exhausted.
“All right,” she pouted, “but tomorrow is going to be busy, what with the auction and all the men riding in from miles around. So if you’re interested, you’d better decide when.”
Lewt forced himself not to look up from his food, but he shoved a chair out for her. She’d just told him more information than he’d gotten in an hour of sifting through every conversation around him.
She took the offered seat and ordered a drink, knowing that if she sat at his table, he’d be charged for her drinks.
“I don’t like the idea of you being too busy. Are you sure it’s going to be packed tomorrow? There’s times I like to spend a while with a lady like yourself and not be hurried by someone waiting outside her door.”
The girl shrugged, and half her dress slipped almost to her waist. Her revealed breast wasn’t particularly big or pretty, but she’d gotten him to look and that had been her purpose. She leaned back and crossed her legs as she downed her drink. “The old witch who runs the joint has a Texas Ranger trapped somewhere around the place. She claims he’s a murderer, and no one here argues with her. Everyone on the wrong side of the law has a relative or friend who was killed by the rangers. The witch, Toledo by name, is holding an auction to see who wants to be his executioner. She calls it ‘helping him get home,’ but we all know whoever takes the ranger won’t be sending him nowhere but to the grave.
