Covert Cowboy

by Harper Allen

  Holly had just demonstrated that she still wasn’t ready to break her silence on the subject—not even to a sister. But maybe to a sister she could bring herself to hint at the truth, Marilyn thought worriedly.

  “I’m not prying, Holly,” she said carefully. “I know you have your reasons for wanting to keep the identity of Sky’s father to yourself. But tell me one thing—other than having the same grandfather, is there any relationship between the child growing inside me and your Sky?”

  She knew as soon as she’d spoken what her sister’s reaction was going to be. Holly’s green eyes, normally a mirror to her every thought and mood, turned instantly blank. Her features seemed suddenly pinched.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marilee,” she said distantly. She took a final polite sip of her tea, pushed her chair back, and stood.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about at all,” she said softly.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Henri, thanks for recommending that Burgundy the other evening.” Con touched the black-clad wine waiter lightly on the arm as he paused by their table. “You obviously know your wine.”

  So this was the contact Con had telephoned last night during Holly’s visit, Marilyn thought, taking a sip of her Perrier and lime and letting her gaze drift with assumed aimlessness around the gambling club’s intimate little lounge. Its decor had been chosen with an eye to a Roaring Twenties theme, with art deco–styled furniture set around the horseshoe-shaped mirrored bar. She allowed her attention to wander back to the conversation.

  “My pleasure, Mr. Ducharme. Are you playing tonight?”

  “Maybe a little flutter at the poker table later,” Con drawled. “If there’s an interesting game, of course.”

  “Ah.” Henri nodded in comprehension. “I believe the gentleman I alerted you to who made the reservations for this evening will be starting a game within the next half hour, sir. No limit to the stakes. Shall I put your name in to play and have your house chips sent along to the Red Room?”

  “Yeah, if that’s where the game’s being held.” Con exchanged a glance with the man. “We’re talking fast company? I don’t want to walk in and find a roomful of fish, Henri.”

  “All very experienced players, Mr. Ducharme. The club makes every effort to steer novices to games more on their level,” the waiter assured him.

  As Henri left their table Marilyn toyed with the miniature silver spear impaling her slice of lime, hoping her outward manner displayed none of her inner turmoil, but when she spoke her voice held a nervous edge.

  “So this is the night?”

  “If my money just bought accurate information.” Con’s own tone was uncharacteristically clipped. He frowned across the table at her. “Tell me again why you’re not back at the apartment with the bodyguard I asked Colorado Confidential to provide for you, cher’?”

  She lifted her chin. “Because we don’t want Tony to suspect this is a trap until he walks into it. And if my presence can allay his suspicions one iota, then I want to do my part. Next question?”

  For a moment Con held his scowl. Then he gave her a rueful smile. “My next question? How about why did you choose that outfit to wear when you knew I’d need all my wits about me tonight?”

  She looked down with feigned surprise at the dress she’d bought earlier that day. “Why, this old thing? Heavens, I just chose it because it was comfortable.”

  “Comfortable for you, maybe.” His gaze took in the midnight-blue jersey neckline swooping low to reveal more than a glimpse of creamy breasts. “But it’s got me feeling damned uncomfortable, heart.”

  “Poor baby.” She glanced teasingly upward at him through her lashes. “I guess we’ll just have to find something to do about that when we get home, won’t we?”

  “I guess we will,” Con said huskily. “But that doesn’t help me much right now.”

  And it didn’t do much to help her, Marilyn admitted shakily as their gazes met and the temperature in the room instantly seemed to go up by about fifty degrees. The man sitting across the table from her looked every inch the riverboat gambler tonight. Perfectly tailored black broadcloth spanned those broad shoulders and chest, then moved in very slightly at the waist in a cut and length old-fashioned enough that Rhett Butler might have worn it. Pistols at dawn, indeed, she told herself faintly—right down to the string tie that was a southern variation on the western-themed silver-and-turquoise bolos she’d spotted on a few ranch and oil-baron types around the room.

  A thought struck her. “What do you mean, if your money bought accurate information? I didn’t see any money changing hands between you and Henri just now—oh!” Her eyes widened. “But Con, I was watching you. How did you do it?”

  “Trade secret, cher’.” A quick grin flashed across the tan of his face. Leaning across the table toward her, he lazily plucked something from the bodice of her dress. He sat back, the silver coin glinting between his fingers. “Now, sugar, you should know better than to slip a man’s lucky piece away from him like that,” he said in mock reproval.

  A low ripple of laughter escaped her. “You’ll have to demonstrate that ‘the hand is faster than the eye’ trick when we’re alone sometime,” she murmured, still tingling from the touch of his fingers on her skin.

  He shook his head, his gaze on hers. “Ain’t no good fast, Mar’lyn, honey. What I’ll do is keep my hand real slow and easy, so you get the chance to see how I work it.”

  Just like that he could make her melt, Marilyn thought dazedly. If he took her wrist right now and led her from this table to a secluded hallway—

  Hastily she brought her drink to her lips and took a sip. She set the glass down and fixed Con with what she hoped was a steely glance.

  “Stop that, Ducharme.” Her voice didn’t sound stern, it just sounded breathy, she noted. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Let’s concentrate on what’s going to happen tonight. Why won’t you tell me exactly how you plan to get Tony to divulge his uncle’s whereabouts to us?”

  “Because I’m not sure what the plan’s going to be.” He shrugged at her raised eyebrows. “Look, heart, this is where ColCon and I part company.” His truncation of the organization’s name seemed dismissive. “Colleen Wellesley, the woman I told you about who runs the outfit, is big on rules and procedure and planning an operation right down to the last damn detail. I don’t like rules, I figure procedure’s just a way of letting someone else make the decisions for you, and I know that the best-laid plans can get all shot to merde as soon as the other guy does something unexpected.”

  He inhaled tightly. “Sorry. This team-playing stuff was a bone in my gullet right from the start. What I’m trying to say, cher’, is that my only plan tonight is to wing it with Tony—size him up as we go along, try to figure out what makes him tick, and then take it from there. That’s the way I play poker and that’s the way I handle an investigation.”

  “I guess I can see your point,” Marilyn said slowly. “There was no way we could have foreseen Holly’s visit last night, and my suspicion about Tony being Sky’s father came right out of the blue. If it’s true it could change everything, Con.”

  “Not quite everything.” His expression was grim. “DeMarco won’t want to let anything get in the way of his plans for that virus. But I know what you mean—if you’re right about Corso it puts a whole different slant on whether or not Sky will ever be returned to his mother.”

  “I don’t think Tony’s capable of bonding with Sky the way an ordinary man would with his child. But it might appeal to his ego to have a son he can raise to follow in his footsteps, the way he’s followed in his uncle’s,” Marilyn said worriedly.

  “And seeing you tonight could set him to wondering whether two sons following in his footsteps might be better than one,” Con said tightly. “Dammit, cher’, why don’t you let me call Colleen Wellesley right now? Along with ColCon, she runs a security agency right here in Denver called ICU. They could ha
ve someone here within minutes.”

  “I’m not about to trot meekly back to the apartment with a hired bodyguard breathing down my neck while you’re doing something to bring Sky home, and that’s final, Con.” She picked up her drink again. “You know as well as I do that Tony wouldn’t try anything here. I’d rather talk about why you don’t seem convinced about Holly and Tony having a one-night stand.”

  “You sure you never played poker, shug?” His question was sharp. “’Cause I get the feeling you did some pretty fancy shuffling of the cards just now. What are you trying to distract me from?”

  Not for the first time since Holly’s inopportune visit the night before, Marilyn found herself wishing that her sister had buzzed for entrance just thirty seconds later. Those thirty seconds would have made the difference between still carrying around the burden of a lie—a burden, she thought hopelessly, that was getting heavier hour by hour—and having everything straight between her and the man she loved. Three times today she’d screwed her courage up to tell him, and three times something had happened to derail her intentions—Jim and Dan had dropped by to see how she was, her mother had phoned from Boston, Con had decided she looked pale and had hustled her out of the apartment for a few hours of shopping and a leisurely ramble around Denver’s eclectic and offbeat Larimer Square.

  Tonight, she told herself desperately. No matter how late we get in, no matter how it turns out with Tony, tonight I’m going to tell him that whatever erroneous medical information he’s received about his ability to father children, the baby inside me is his. And after he gets over being furious that I’ve kept this from him so long, he’s going to be delirious with joy.

  Except right now it was important she keep her secret just a little longer. Right now Con didn’t need anything that would take the edge off his upcoming confrontation with Tony Corso. She raised her eyes to his.

  “I’m not trying to distract you from anything. I’m just nervous, Con.” That much was true at least, she thought guiltily. “As far as I’m concerned, with Holly’s reaction to my question last night, the stakes just got a whole lot higher. Like I said, what if Tony’s decided to keep his son for himself?”

  Con’s gaze remained narrowed a second longer, as if her explanation still rang slightly false to him. Then he sighed, and sat back in his chair. “It’s the Silver Rapids flu thing, cher’. If he knew Holly was carrying his child, how could he have arranged for you to take her there the day the virus was released? I just can’t—”

  “Mr. Ducharme, sir?” Henri was at Con’s elbow. “The game you’re signed up for will be starting any minute. The gentleman we discussed is already there, along with a few of the other players.”

  “Thanks.” Con’s voice was level. “And Henri—I’ll be drinking bourbon on the rocks during the game. Inform the bar staff that cola with dash of bitters looks just like bourbon in a glass, and tell them that’s what I expect them to serve me, no matter what my order is.”

  “Je comprends, monsieur.” The waiter’s dark gaze sharpened as he lapsed into his native French. “Bonne chance.”

  Con grinned. “Good luck? I was born with it, Henri,” he drawled. “Just like you were born on the bayou, not in Paris.”

  Startled, Marilyn looked up in time to see first disconcertion, then chagrin, chase across the other man’s features. Looking around, he bent to their table.

  “You called it, Cap—Cajun through and through and proud of it. But French goes with waiter like Zataraines goes with hot sauce, right?” His grin was accompanied by a slow wink. “You don’t need my luck, how ’bout takin’ a li’l bit of Louisiana into that poker game with you? Laissez les bons temps rouler, Ducharme.”

  “Laissez les bons temps rouler,” Con repeated with a slow smile as he pushed back his chair and got lazily to his feet. “Yeah, I’ll go along with that.”

  “Care to translate?” Marilyn asked tartly as they made their unhurried progress through the lounge.

  “Translate?” Con looked blank for a moment, and then gave a low laugh. Lightly grasping her by the elbow as they entered a plushly carpeted hall, he nodded toward a discreet sign above a gold-handled set of double doors and steered her toward it. He pushed open the doors and stood aside to allow her to enter.

  “Laissez les bons temps rouler means let the good times roll, cher’. Down home we say that before a party or a fight.” His smile tightened, and he narrowed his gaze on a man standing by the other side of the room, highball glass in hand and a cowed-looking blonde by his side. “And me, I think I’m spoiling for a good fight,” he said under his breath. “There’s Corso. He hasn’t spotted us yet.”

  Marilyn followed his glance reluctantly and almost immediately looked away again. Why was she suddenly so nervous? she wondered. She wasn’t going to be the one sitting at a poker table for the next few hours, trying to read what lay behind the closed expression and emotionless eyes of a man who was almost certainly implicated in a proposed scheme to unleash a biological weapon on innocent people.

  “How ’bout we go over and introduce ourselves, sugar?” Con’s flatly voiced suggestion broke into her thoughts. “It’s never too early to get the other guy off-balance, I say.”

  With its crimson and gold wallpaper, dark carpeting and cut-velvet upholstery, the Red Room’s decor was obviously meant to convey a sense of opulence, she realized as, with Con’s hand lightly on her back, they made their way through the scattered knots of players and their guests. To her the room and its furnishings felt heavy and oppressive, the mood undoubtedly exacerbated by the unusual lighting setup. Gold sconces set at intervals along the walls gave off a weak and unpleasantly sallow light, but in the middle of the ceiling a massive fixture, suspended on chains, shed a cold and shadowless illumination on the round, felt-covered table below.

  The shiver that ran suddenly through her had nothing to do with the temperature. She glanced at Con, knowing he couldn’t have failed to feel the tremor and expecting him to comment on it, but his gaze was on a young man standing a few feet away.

  “Dude Walker.” Finally Con had realized she was looking at him. He spoke out of the side of his mouth, his eyes again scanning the room. “M.I.T. grad, mathematical genius, a rounder like I used to be.”

  “What’s a rounder?” It was a little annoying to hold a conversation with someone whose attention was so obviously elsewhere, Marilyn thought.

  He frowned. “What? Oh. A guy who makes his living playing poker, cher’. On the other hand—” he inclined his head unobtrusively toward a fleshy, balding man already sitting at the table “—there’s someone who stopped worrying about making a living a couple hundred million ago. Sandoval Malaga, once a gunrunner, now a European business tycoon who can’t say no to a deck of cards. Don’t matter if it’s Texas hold-em or Go Fish, he plays like he’s spilling his blood on the table instead of chips.”

  “I don’t get it.” Marilyn blinked. “Are you telling me you’ve played with everyone here in this room, Con?”

  “All except for Corso,” he answered distractedly. “High-stakes poker’s a pretty small world, and although I don’t play for a living anymore I keep my hand in.”

  “High-stakes,” she repeated. “How high?”

  “This game?” He exchanged nods with a leathery-faced man Marilyn recognized as being one of the bolowearers from the lounge. “Minimum buy-in’s twenty-five grand. My personal opinion is that before the night’s over young Walker’s going to lose that fancy condo in Aspen he bought a few months ago. But then again, maybe I’ll be the one who signs over a deed when the last hand’s played. Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Raising his brows, Con gave an almost inaudible whistle. “See that gray-haired woman in the glasses over there? She’s Molly Otis, one of the best—”

  “Twenty-five grand? Just to get into the game?” Marilyn had stopped dead. Now she pulled sharply enough on his jacket sleeve to get his full attention. “Are you kidding, Con? Where are you going to get—”
/>
  She looked around and lowered her voice to an appalled whisper. “Where are you going to find that kind of money? Come on, let’s get out of here.” Again she tugged at his sleeve, this time frantically. “We can phone Colleen Wellesley, alert her to the fact that Tony’s here. Colorado Confidential will just have to come up with some other plan to get the information we need out of—”

  “Firstly, cher’, the membership fees here include a substantial purchase of house chips that can’t drop below a certain minimum amount, and secondly, the last time I walked into a game with no more than a set of steel ones and not enough front money I was thirteen years old. When the other players found out they took me to a back alleyway and read me from the book, chapter and verse. I didn’t look too pretty for a few weeks after.” He smiled briefly. “I don’t walk into games I can’t afford to play. Luckily for me, there aren’t too many games out of my price range these days.”

  “I don’t—” Marilyn began, but he didn’t let her finish.

  “I’m filthy rich, cher’. I got an inheritance from a great-uncle and the rest I made myself during my serious playing days.”

  “Long time no see, Marilyn.”

  Suddenly Tony Corso was standing in front of them. Without looking at his blond companion he handed her the glass he’d been holding and tipped his head to one side.

  “There’s something different about you. No, don’t tell me, let me guess—new hairdo? Different lipstick shade? Nah, that’s not it.”

  “Hello, Tony.”

  Even in her ice-queen prime she couldn’t have done better, Marilyn thought gratefully. Her voice was steady, her tone frigid. With cold eyes she appraised the man she’d once dated.