Anita Mills

Also by Anita Mills

Duel of Hearts

Devil’s Match

Scandal Bound

Follow the Heart

Secret Nights

Bittersweet

The Rogue’s Return

Autumn Rain

Miss Gordon’s Mistake

Newmarket Match

The Fire Series

Lady of Fire

Fire and Steel

Hearts of Fire

The Fire and the Fury

Winter Roses

Beyond the darkened gaming room, a slice of yellow light fanned out from a half-closed door. And on the other side of that door, four men sat sprawled beneath a single lantern suspended over the baize-covered table. For what seemed like an eternity there was no sound beyond the creak of the paddle wheel as it rhythmically churned through the dark river water. Finally, silver-haired Roland Fletcher sighed, then leaned forward. A large diamond on his little finger flashed in the flickering light as he pushed an assortment of chips and banknotes to the center of the table.

“I ought to call it quits,” he said heavily, “but I guess I might as well see what you’ve got.”

Beside him, a heavy-browed fellow considered his hand, then tossed it down. Reaching for the pocket watch that dangled from a thick gold fob, he flicked open the cover, then observed laconically, “Three-fifteen—time to turn in, I’d say.” With that, he heaved a decidedly corpulent body from the chair and inclined his head slightly. “Good night, gentlemen. Giroux.”

A derisive smile lifted the young Frenchman’s perpetually petulant lips as the fat man left. “One should not play if one cannot afford to lose,” he observed contemptuously. His pale eyes reflected the kerosene’s yellow light as he turned his attention to the dark-haired gentleman across from him. “It is a privilege not to be taken lightly—
n
’
est ce pas, monsieur
?”

Matthew Morgan regarded him almost lazily for a moment, then smiled faintly. Straightening in his chair, he retrieved his wallet from beneath his perfectly tailored coat and counted out ten one-hundred-dollar banknotes as if the large sum meant nothing. “Call,” he said abruptly.

Giroux’s face flushed, betraying his excitement. “Ah, but you have made the grave mistake of challenging my skill with the cards,
messieurs,”
he announced smugly. “This hand—like this night—is mine, I think.” Looking across the table, he grinned broadly now. “I have beaten you at your own business—
mais non,
Monsieur Morgan?”

“I said
I
was calling you, too,” the gray-haired Fletcher reminded him. “I reckon I’ve got as big a stake in this as he does.”

“Ah, but you have not the reputation,” Giroux said softly, his eyes still on the elegant gentleman across from him. “You have the money, yes, but he is
Morgan
—he is the gambler.”

“You going to show that hand or not?” Fletcher demanded testily.

“But of course. I have—” To prolong the moment of satisfaction, the young Frenchman held out his cards, but did not lay them down. “Ah,
messieurs
—it is so perfect, I think—so very perfect—”

“Damn you—just get on with it!” the older man snapped.

Enjoying himself enormously now, Giroux looked again to Matthew Morgan. “And you—are you in such a hurry to lose also, I wonder?” he murmured. “No, I shall make you think of what you have lost perhaps before I—” His words died on his lips as the gambler’s fingers suddenly gripped his wrist, forcing his hand to the table. His whole body stiffening, Giroux’s face reddened.

“Now, open those fingers real slowlike,” Morgan said, his voice deceptively soft. Instead of complying, the Frenchman’s hand closed around his cards, holding them so tightly they bent. The gambler sighed, then looked to Fletcher. “Since he’s not going to make this easy, pry ’em loose.”

The Frenchman’s flush turned to a sick pallor.
“Monsieur
, this is an outrage!” he blustered when he found his voice. “I shall, of course, demand satisfaction for the insult! No one has
ever
called Philippe Giroux a cheat and lived! You will—”

“If you’re honest, you’d want to show your cards,” Morgan cut in curtly.

Fletcher hesitated. “Old Alexandre’s not going to like this, Matt. And I don’t know as I’d want the old man for an enemy—not in these parts, anyway.”

Giroux seized on the notion like a drowning man hanging on to a life raft. “You’ll pay for this, monsieur. When my father is done with you, you’ll never—
ooowwwwww!”
he yelped as Morgan slammed his wrist hard against the edge of the table. His hand opened involuntarily, releasing the crumpled cards.

“Count ’em, Roland,” Morgan ordered.

“Look, Matt, I don’t—”

“How much are you down—twenty thousand?”

“Probably more than that.” Sighing, Fletcher picked up the Frenchman’s poker hand. As Giroux’s gaze dropped to the floor, the older man looked up at Matt Morgan. “Wait a minute—there’s only four here. All he’s got—” He paused to lay each card down, then declared, “Two pairs—just treys and queens. All right, Philippe, where the hell’s the other one?”

“On the floor,” Morgan answered. Releasing Giroux’s hand, he kept his eyes on the sullen Frenchman. “Well, do you want to move that foot, or do you want me to kick it out of the way?”

The young man’s jaw worked visibly; then he seemed to accept the inevitable. With both of them watching him, he slowly lifted one highly polished black slipper, revealing the painted back of a card beneath it. Morgan bent down to retrieve the nine of spades, and laid it in the center of the table.

“Not exactly a thousand-dollar bet, is it, Philippe?” he murmured. “Not with Roland sitting there with those three nines you dealt him.”

“How the hell did you know I had nines?” Fletcher demanded testily.

“I could see them in the lantern glass—and so could he. That’s why he moved it a couple of hands back. When he couldn’t beat the nines with two pair, and one of those matched the card up his sleeve, he decided to use it. Go on—show him the queen,” Morgan prompted Giroux.

“But we’ve been playing with four queens all along,” Fletcher protested. “I counted out the deck myself.”

Morgan shrugged. “Sometimes four aren’t enough for a cheat.”

“I still don’t get it. Why just hold an extra queen?”

“It’s a high card, but it’s not an ace—an ace draws too much attention. This way he could wait until he knew you and I didn’t have one in the same suit as the one he was hiding—right, Philippe?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the young man retorted. “I have nothing,
monsieur
—nothing! Go on, take your money,” he growled at Fletcher.

The older man stared hard at him for a moment, then shook his head. “Maybe you’d better roll up that sleeve, and give me a look-see first. If Morgan’s right, and you’ve been cheating, I figure you owe me a whole lot more than one pot.”

Giroux’s hand went to his other wrist as if he meant to unbutton the fancy frilled cuff. Then he rose suddenly, overturning the table. As the money and chips scattered over the carpet, he produced a small Colt Cloverleaf. Pointing the pocket pistol at Fletcher, he said nastily, “Now—which one of you killed the other, I wonder?”

“Don’t be a fool, Philippe!” Fletcher snapped, trying to get the table off his lap. Before he could stand, the gun belched fire, and the older man clutched his bleeding shoulder. “You little French bastard,” he choked out. “You’ll never get—”

Half turning toward Morgan, Giroux cocked the hammer again. As the shot went wide, he staggered backward several steps, a bewildered expression on his face. He dropped the little gun and grabbed the knife hilt protruding from his chest. He looked down, and saw the blood seeping between his fingers. Then he collapsed. By the time Morgan reached him, the light had left his pale eyes.

The gambler leaned down to retrieve his knife; then wiped it on Giroux’s expensive silk coat. Sliding it back into the sheath beneath his shirtsleeve, he saw the corner of a card lying under Giroux’s hand. Using the toe of his boot, he eased it into the open. It was the queen of diamonds.

“You all right?” he asked Fletcher over his shoulder.

“I’m bleeding like a stuck pig, but I’ll live. Giroux?”

“Dead.”

“Whoooee, but that was some lucky aim, son,” the older man declared. “Another second, and he’d have plugged you, too.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, I’ve been around a long time,” Fletcher went on, “but I’ve never seen anybody come up with a knife that fast—except maybe Jim Bowie, back when I was a kid. Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Around. I’d have gone for my gun, but the table was in the way,” Morgan admitted.

Shaking his head, Fletcher stared down at Philippe’s body. “Well, I’m glad the bastard’s dead, but I’m afraid you’ve bought yourself some real trouble. Old Man Giroux won’t care whether it was self-defense or not, you know. You won’t get a fair trial around here.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“If you don’t run, you’ll hang.”

The words were barely out of Fletcher’s mouth before somebody started pounding on the outer room’s door, shouting, “What’s going on in there? Who’s shooting?”

“Nobody!” Morgan yelled back. He looked to Roland Fletcher. “You’d better come with me.”

“I can’t. I can’t swim, and I’m losing too much blood. Look, I owe you—when they come through that door, I’ll cover your escape,” the older man said quickly. “When all hell breaks loose, you get down on all fours and get going. And if I was you, I wouldn’t stop anywhere before New Orleans.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to tell ’em I hit the floor and didn’t see anything after Giroux shot me. Hell, everybody knows I don’t carry a knife. But you go on and get out of here.”

A crowd was gathering in the corridor, and the pounding and shouting grew louder, more determined. “Open up in there, or we’ll break down the door!”

“If he can’t find me, Alexandre Giroux’ll turn on you,” Morgan warned.

“I’ll tell whatever lies I have to. Now, when all hell breaks loose, you just run for it. Here”—still holding his bleeding shoulder, Fletcher grabbed a wad of banknotes and held it out to Morgan—“you’d better take this. When the rest gets counted up, I’ll keep your half safe for you.” With his free hand, he unhooked the lantern. “They’ll be breaching the outer door, and when they do, I’m throwing this out there. That ought to make ’em dance around while you’re crawling past ’em, eh?”

“Looks like the best odds I’ll get, anyway.” Morgan stuffed the money in his pants. “Thanks.”

“One—two—let’s go, boys!” a loudmouth shouted. “Hit it!”

The wood splintered around the lock, and the heavy doors caved inward, sending a mass of men hurtling into the dark outer room, stumbling into the deserted tables. As they cursed, Fletcher hissed,
“Now,
boy! Get the hell out of here!”

As he said it, he reached around the half-closed door to fling the lantern across the room. “Over here!” he shouted. The glass shattered, spattering kerosene up the heavy velvet curtains, and spilling it onto the patterned carpet. Flame from the wick shot along the liquid trail with the speed of lightning. Then there was a loud
whoosh
as the drapery caught fire. Between stomping at the flames and beating burning pantlegs, the crowd disintegrated into pandemonium.

“Fire! Fire! Man the water pumps!”

“Jesus! What happened!”

“Fire! If we don’t get it stopped, the boat’ll burn!”

As they shouted and trampled each other frantically, Matthew Morgan crawled beneath a line of tables all the way to the corridor beyond the doorway. He’d barely gotten to his feet when he saw two men running toward him. He waved to them, yelling, “Place’s on fire! Get help, or we’re all going to burn up!”

They didn’t have to be told twice. Unable to see much for the billowing smoke behind him, they turned and ran back toward the engine room, picking up the cry, “Fire! Fire!” Below deck, panicked people screamed in the darkness and scrambled for the stairs. By the time they fought their way up, the whole thing would be under control. But right now the commotion they were making would cover his escape.

When he reached the outer deck, it was deserted, and the river below was pitch-black beneath a cloudy, starless sky. He glanced toward the stern, trying to judge the riverboat’s speed by the rhythm of the paddle wheel. He couldn’t even see where the river met the bank, and once he was in the water, the boat’s wake could confuse his sense of direction. Taking off his coat, he climbed onto the rail and sat there for a long moment, hoping to get a sense of where he had to go. The last thing he wanted to do was swim the Mississippi at night. The only thing worse would be swinging from the end of a hangman’s rope.

“There’s the bastard! He killed Giroux’s boy—don’t let him get away!”

They’d gotten through the smoke to the body, and he was all out of time. With one last, quick look downward into the murky, muddy river, he took a deep breath and jumped. He hit the water hard. Then the cold, wet darkness closed over him. His clothes sagged, dragging him downward. Working frantically, he shed his boots, and shot upward, gasping as he broke the river’s surface. A spray of bullets hit the water a few feet in front of him, forcing him under again.

When it felt as though his lungs would burst, he came up, and forgetting everything else, he swam for his life toward Louisiana. It wasn’t until he found the shallow water, stood up, then slogged his way onto the riverbank that he even thought about the occasional alligator sightings. But he was too exhausted to care as he lay down in the mud and tried to catch his breath. Finally, he forced his tired body onto its side and looked back across the river. Lights from the boat twinkled like stars in the blackness, reflecting off the water below, while wood and coal smoke mingled overhead.

Somewhere down the riverbank, something large croaked, then slithered almost silently into the water. That was enough to revive him. Still gasping, he heaved himself up. As soon as he could find somebody, he was going to get himself some clean clothes and a horse; then he was heading for Texas. But right now all he could do was walk inland, distancing himself from the Mississippi River as fast as his legs could carry him. For the first time in an otherwise lucky life, he was a wanted man.