by Sharon Ihle
“I would have gotten out. Somehow, even if I hadn’t been arrested, I would have figured out a way to leave the gang that day.”
J.R. shrugged. “Don’t matter now what you might a done. What you did was get tossed in jail. Pa never forgave you for that, you know. He says you’re a, well, he calls you some bad names, and faults you for getting arrested like that. He says it made us all look bad.”
Able to imagine some of the names his father had called him over the years, Gant offered a wry grin and continued his campaign.
“I don’t care what the old man thinks or what he calls me. I got arrested because I couldn’t stomach what I saw that day, pure and simple. It had nothing to do with a lack of guts or because I was afraid.”
Trained to defend the gang, J.R. countered, “But Pa never meant to shoot that gal. You know that.”
Gant shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t, but us being there, robbing folks, is what got her shot. Understand what I mean, that Pa is responsible for killing her whether he meant it or not?”
Staring down at the straw floor, J.R. sighed heavily. “It don’t make no difference what I think. Like I said, Pa’d never let me go, and even if he did, what would I do? Know anyone who wants a dumb old polecat like me on the payroll?”
Sure now that he’d been right, and that his younger brother sometimes dreamed of making a new life for himself, Gant’s enthusiasm caught fire.
“You’re not dumb, J.R. You just think you are because that’s what Pa and Luther call you. You can learn to be something more if you want it badly enough. I’ll even send you to school if you want, and get you educated for whatever suits you. If I can learn a new way of life in prison, you sure as hell can learn one in school. What do you say?”
J.R. stuck his finger up inside his hat and scratched. “I don’t know. Don’t see how that could work. I can’t even read.”
“I’ll teach you,” Gant promised. “And more than that, I’ll support you until the day you can take care of yourself, legally. Isn’t that guarantee enough?”
J.R. glanced up at Gant, quickly looked away, and then glanced at him again. His sad eyes stayed riveted on his brother, gleaming with a tiny spark of hope as he said, “You’d do all that for me and pay to get me taught?”
Gant nodded. “For anything you decide you want to be, and for as long as it takes.”
J.R. giggled. “Anything a’tall? What if I took a notion to be something real important, something like say, a banker?”
Gant burst out laughing. “A banker, J.R.? You don’t have a heart cold or black enough to be a banker. Might as well go to undertaker school.”
Giddy with thoughts of a new, respectable life, J.R. joined in with Gant’s laughter. That rare moment of levity, especially with this favorite brother, ended much too quickly as Luther’s disapproving voice crawled up from behind them.
“What are you and our little sister so all-fired giggly over, J.R.?” he asked. “Do you know that I’ve been looking all over this damn boat for you?”
Back to his usual subservient manner, J.R. whispered to Gant, “That there’s one of them names Pa likes to call you.”
Luther sharpened his tone. “I’m talking to you, dummy. You damn well better be answering me, not him.”
J.R. spun around on his boot heel. “Sorry, Luther. I didn’t know you was looking for me. We was just talking a little.”
“That so?” Luther leveled his gaze and the next question at Gant. “Did you decide to join up with us again, or might it be that you’re just biding your time, waiting until this circus hits a couple of really big towns.” He slammed his right fist into his left palm. “Then, boom, you take them for all they’ve got. Right?”
“Wrong,” Gant said. “There’s no point in explaining why to you since I doubt you’d understand.”
“I ain’t the dummy here.” Luther grabbed hold of J.R.’s arm. “He is and we’re leaving now.”
Gant focused on his little brother. “J.R.? You don’t have to go with him if you don’t want to.”
Luther squeezed his arm, hard, and J.R. said, “It was nice talking to you, Gant, but that’s all it was. Talk. See you again sometime, you think?”
Gang sighed. There was no use in trying to persuade the kid with Luther clamped to his arm, censuring his every move. Maybe, he thought, he wasn’t cut out to be this brother’s keeper after all.
His voice and heart heavy, Gant reluctantly said, “I hope I do see you again some day, J.R. Somehow, I kind of doubt it.”
*
Shortly after midnight, Rayna awoke with a start. She’d had the dream again, the nightmare actually, where Queen Persia hurled those hateful Gypsy curses at her, condemning her to a life without love. She’d had the dream often of late, every night in fact since she’d first laid eyes on Gant. She didn’t know what it meant for sure, but thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that she’d been so long without a man. Without a man to hold. To touch. To give of herself, save for her heart. No man would ever have that, especially not the one whose hot Apache blood stirred the Gypsy in her soul.
Restless and frustrated as her mind took her places her body could not, Rayna tossed the light blanket aside and carefully climbed down from the upper bunk. The mattress creaked and groaned in spite of her precautions. She poked her head under the lower berth to check on Maria and heard the sound of her light snoring. She was dead to the world, exhausted from her first performance and all her various worries.
Assured that she had not disturbed her mother, Rayna tiptoed across the small room, and then draped her fingers along the sill beneath the opened porthole. She breathed deeply of the cool night air, of the thick perfume of jasmine, and then worked at setting her mind on something other than Gant. Resting her cheek on her hand, she stared off toward the settlement. Only a few lanterns flickered in the night, and except for an occasional burst of raucous laughter coming from one of the tents—a makeshift saloon, she supposed—everyone slept. Everyone but Rayna. And the frogs.
The night had suddenly exploded with the croaking of hundreds of amphibians. Had the bullfrogs been courting their females at river’s edge all along and she hadn’t noticed it before now? Rayna glanced above the riverbank to a stand of cottonwood trees, and softly chuckled at the antics of a small group of fireflies darting in and out of the branches, boy chasing girl.
No quiet night after all, but an evening alive with passion. Even the air, heavy with springtime and the sultry odor of musk, encouraged all animals large and small to indulge the whims of spring fever. Rayna was far from an exception. She could almost feel the courtship and mating rituals acted out all around her, and longed to join in Nature’s grand show as a participant, not as a spectator. She drew in another, deeper breath, cooling her suddenly heated blood, and then turned her head in the opposite direction. Maybe, she thought, more restless than ever, a view of the river would be less titillating, more soothing.
When she strained to focus her gaze on the dark waters, Rayna picked up a slight movement near the paddlewheel below. Then she saw him. A man stood staring out at the river, his back to her with one foot propped up on the low railing. The night was cool, but he wore only his boots and Levis, no shirt, exposing his back. There was no doubt that this was Gant. The quarter moon shimmered off of his tawny skin, highlighting the ridges of muscle along his back and the tapered waist of a man who knew how to work and work hard. As one of the ubiquitous Luther Gantry, Junior’s, had he been a ruthless outlaw, a murderer, as she’d read? Or was he just a man? A man burning with the passion she’d seen in his dark eyes earlier in the evening.
Gant’s revelations then had at least explained a few of the mysteries about him, especially the brief glimpse she’d had inside the man and his dark forbidden thoughts, his loneliness. He was dangerous, certainly not a man for her to toy with much longer. They were too much alike, each too volatile in their efforts to keep their secrets just that—secret. The knowledge that their personalities were a
kin to one another only made her want him more.
Rayna shivered. Desire lapped at her senses the way the river softly slapped against the steamboat. Like the river, she could feel herself ripping from head to toe. If she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now. Nothing could stop the force drawing her to this man. Not Maria’s warnings, and not the ultimate consequences. The inevitable was there, waiting for her, and she could do nothing to stop it now. The only question was when to act. Gant stretched his arms high over head then, flexing the muscles of his back, and suddenly, all Rayna had left to her was the answer.
Clinging to the one justification that allowed her to proceed—the belief that once she and Gant joined, she would be sated and this risky attraction would come to an end—Rayna reached up and caught the satin ribbons at the throat of her nightgown.
Then she gave them a tug, releasing the bow.
Eight
It had been one hell of a night.
Gant stared out at the dark waters, and then glanced down at the swollen knuckles of his right hand. Shortly after the circus closed for the night, he’d nearly gotten the salt licked out of him during a fiasco at a tent-city saloon.
Gant and Sam Travis, the twin’s father, had gone looking for their steamboat pilot, but Duke hadn’t been in the mood to cooperate. The ensuing struggle they had dragging him out of the saloon became a free-for-all after Luther and J.R., who were also there, spotted Gant. Luther, so drunk he couldn’t have hit the floor with his hat, took to reciting some of the names the old man liked to call Gant, including little sister. Soon after, some of the men playing poker with him joined in with the name-calling. So did Duke Myers.
Instead of shutting Luther up, or at the least trying to ease some of Gant’s humiliation, J.R. got to laughing along with the others at the bar, howling louder than any of them. By then Gant had been mad enough to drive the riverboat upstream without benefit of the paddlewheel, and had to be restrained by Sam just as he set out to take on the entire room. Was there a full moon, he wondered, or had he just gone crazy?
Gant checked the sky, but could only find a thumbnail sketch of moonlight. Maybe he had gone crazy. If he had, he thought he knew the reason why—Rayna Sebastiani. No matter how hard he tried or how many excuses he came up with for avoiding her, he simply couldn’t get her out of his mind; not her taste, not her scent, and he sure as hell couldn’t forget the way she felt in his arms with all her lush softness brushing against him. At just the thought of her, Gant grew hard. An almost constant state for him these days.
There didn’t seem to be much he could do about this insane attraction. He couldn’t try to court her. Even if she wasn’t a lying, thieving Gypsy, a woman worthy of courtship, Gant didn’t know the first thing about romancing a woman. It was a lesson he’d skipped. He didn’t need a tutor to tell him that courtship led to more than just a few hours of passion, at least where decent folk were concerned. Marriage generally seemed to follow, and then babies. Neither of which were on Gant’s plans for the future. He would have to hate woman a lot to bestow the name Luther Gantry, Jr. on her, and he couldn’t even begin to entertain the idea of having children to carry on in the grand Gantry tradition.
No, there was no point in trying to court Rayna. Hans Jahner seemed to be first in line for her favors anyway, and the man most likely to be rewarded with them. Every time Gant saw them together, the big German flashed a huge grin of possessive confidence, always making sure his hands were on some part of her luscious body. Rayna didn’t seem to mind one bit. Gant clenched his teeth, and then hurdled a wad of spittle into the river. They deserved each other. Damned if they didn’t.
Gant heard a sudden bump against the right side of the ship, not too far away from where he stood. After the brawl on shore, he figured it might have been anyone with revenge, or even murder on his mind.
Instinctively drawing his Colt, he spun toward the sound and dropped into a defensive crouch. Gant saw nothing at first, and thought maybe his mind had been playing tricks on him. Then he saw a subtle movement, a shadow sliding along the railing on the dock side of the ship. Silently drawing up to his full height again, Gant stared into the darkness, trying to bring the intruder into focus.
It was a woman, he realized, her arms outstretched as if feeling her way along the ship’s skeleton. Like an ethereal goddess, she circled and then slowly glided back toward the main body of the ship, her long flowing skirt billowing out behind her. It had to be the Gypsy. No other possessed that wealth of long black hair or moved with such gracefully sinuous gestures. Rayna didn’t merely walk; she floated. What was she doing out alone at this time of night? Was her destination the stairs that lead to the sleeping quarters, or was she heading to the double doors that opened into the arena?
Something didn’t seem right with her. She’d been walking as if she were in a trance, sleepwalking, perhaps. If that was the problem, she might be in danger. What if she strolled down to the landing, or worse, fell overboard and drowned?
Convinced he could do no less as one of her employers, or as a man, Gant decided he’d better go after her and determine the problem.
*
Back behind the curtain in the farthest dressing room, the one that afforded the most privacy, Rayna listened intently for Gant’s approach. She’d lit a small candle, one that barely gave off a soft glow, and tossed a blanket over the straw-covered floor. Ready for him, she was just beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t have left a trail of breadcrumbs for Gant to follow when she finally heard footsteps.
Raising her arms overhead, Rayna began to dance to the haunting Gypsy fiddles in her mind. As she moved, she kept an eye on the curtain that sectioned off the room, specifically on the two-inch crack she’d left between it and the wall. When someone finally appeared in that narrow fissure, and she was satisfied the profile belonged to Gant, Rayna unleashed the restraints she usually put on her movements. The Gypsy danced like she’d never danced before.
When Gant first stepped into the darkened arena, he thought of backing out in the same second. He was almost certain that Rayna wouldn’t have come here, and assumed that he’d found the doors ajar simply because Gus and Mollie had forgotten to close them up tight. Just as he started to turn back to check the upstairs, he noticed a vague light flickering against the far wall, behind the curtain leading to the dressing rooms. Moving quietly, feeling like an intruder himself, he ducked into the dressing area and made his way past the row of tables until he came to another, smaller curtain. A sign reading, “Ladies Only Please,” assured privacy for the female troupe members who had to make complete costume changes.
Again Gant hesitated, thinking that he probably should turn back. Then he realized that the light was coming from behind the curtain. What if a sleepwalking Rayna had accidentally set fire to the dressing room? He couldn’t simply walk away, not with the entire steamship in jeopardy.
Gant heard some movement then, the subtle rustling of fabric and straw, and decided he had no choice but to investigate. Moving to the space between the wall and the edge of the privacy curtain, he nudged it aside another inch and peeked inside the tiny room.
Rayna was dancing, curling her hands and arms as if they were columns of smoke, gracefully weaving them into impossible positions. She wasn’t merely dancing, but undulating. Her crimson and black skirt flared as she moved, showing him that she hadn’t bothered to don her usual pile of petticoats. If that wasn’t enough to clench his fists, the drawstrings meant to raise the French lace neckline of her blouse to proper heights had been left undone. As she moved, the garment dipped below the swells of her breasts, skimming the deep rose crowns. As if unable to keep up with her gyrations, one shoulder of the blouse slid down her right arm, dropping the neckline on that side even lower until the material clung to the tip of her rigid nipple by the merest thread.
Heat flared in Gant, forcing a deep crimson tide of blood to his neck, and then shooting it south in an agonizing rush. He clutched the curtain to his left, an
d then leaned his right shoulder against the wall. He could hear himself panting, knew his labored breathing would eventually reach her ears and point him out for the leering trespasser that he was, but he couldn’t tear himself away from the spectacle. She was pure poetry, raw sensuality. Gant indulged himself like a starving man at a free banquet.
Rayna twirled, hands writhing, feet stomping, and then began to spin in place. Faster and faster she spun, whirling her supple body in seductive, cobra-like fashion, her skirt flaring upward, reaching to mid-thigh and sometimes beyond. In the frenzy of it all, Gant swore that he’d actually seen a glimpse of her nude bottom, and then a flash of ebony curls. He sucked in his breath, inadvertently gasping out loud, and tried to stifle a groan.
Abruptly Rayna’s dance came to an end. She stood facing him, feet spread, hands on hips. Her breasts were heaving, skin slick with perspiration, glistening in the flickering candlelight. She didn’t say a word. She just stared at him, eyes languid, lashes bobbing against dew-kissed cheeks.
