Red River Showdown (10 page)

“I didn't,” Mia replied. “I'm just trying to think of some way you could narrow it down. Maybe if we ask around, someone can help us find him.”

Even though Clint hadn't played very much poker with her, he thought he caught the faint scent of a bluff coming from Mia just then. Deciding not to call her on it, he let it pass and headed down to the laundry to check on his suit.

The door to the laundry was locked. Since there was barely a soul in the hallways anywhere near that room, Clint honestly didn't expect anything else. And he didn't expect one of the doors clear down at the other end of the hall to pop open after he'd only rattled the laundry's door a few times.

It was the Chinese lady who popped her head out, and she smiled widely when she saw who was making the little bit of noise. “I'm glad it is you,” she exclaimed. “Stay there. I fixed your suit.”

Clint took a few steps toward her door, but didn't even make it halfway before she stepped out again. The lady had Clint's suit draped over her arm as if it was a royal cloak.

“I stitched it up as best I could,” she said. “I cleaned, too, but it wasn't that dirty. Just wrinkled.” When she saw Clint hold the suit and look at it, she asked, “Is it all right?”

“It's better than all right,” he told her. “Honestly, I was just hoping to get my own clothes back. This loaner doesn't exactly suit me.”

“Come in here and try it on,” she said. “If I missed something, I can fix before you go.”

“No, that's all right. I'll just take—”

“Come in here now!” she snapped.

Before Clint could get another word out, he found himself running toward the Chinese woman like a kid being threatened with a freshly cut switch. Her room was small, but meticulously clean. Tapping a stool with one hand, she quickly gathered up a needle and thread.

Clint shed the suit jacket and put his own on in its place. The Chinese woman looked over every last inch and then wound up smiling in front of him.

“Good as new,” she said.

“How much do I owe you?”

“I owe you my life,” she replied. “Fixing your suit is the least I can do. Don't insult me by offering money, too.”

“All right. Thanks so much.” After stepping down from the stool, Clint said, “There is one more thing.”

Her eyes widened expectantly, but she waited quietly for Clint to continue.

“Has that man with the knife been around here any more?”

She shook her head. “No, but I think I might know what room he's in.”

Clint stood there for a moment to figure out if he'd heard her correctly. Although the lady spoke with a slight accent, there wasn't enough of one to make her hard to understand.

“How would you know that?” he asked.

She walked to her door and motioned for him to follow. Using a key she took from her pocket, she led him into the laundry and turned the knob on the only lamp in the room. That lamp didn't produce very much light, but she maneuvered around the piles of clothes and stacks of baskets as if she could have done so in her sleep.

“Look,” she said as she took a hanger from one of the hooks on the wall. “See?”

All Clint saw was a set of clothes on a hanger. Looking a bit closer, he picked out a red stain on the collar of the shirt. “Is that blood?” he asked.

She nodded. “Blood on a shirt that man with the knife was wearing. You hit him in the face, remember?”

Clint remembered, but he didn't recall seeing the man bleed. He sure as hell didn't remember if some blood had dripped onto his collar. “This could have come from someone else,” he pointed out. “How are you so sure it's his?”

“This one has cream-colored buttons and not black. It has a shorter collar and these sleeves were rolled up just as far as the ones on that man's shirt when he was down here swinging that knife around. I wouldn't forget anything about that crazy man.”

The longer he stared at that shirt, the less Clint seemed to recall what that man had been wearing. He remembered the knife in his hand and the way he'd fought. The rest just hadn't seemed all that important.

It was obvious that the Chinese woman wasn't lying to him. She spoke with as much conviction as a preacher quoting the scripture. Clint supposed that made sense since she was talking about things she saw and worked with every day. If someone needed to know about a model of a gun or how to modify a rifle's sights, they would probably get a similar earful from Clint.

“All right,” he said. “Suppose that is his shirt.”

“It is! And look,” she said while holding the hanger a little closer to Clint. “There's the room it came from.”

There was a tag pinned to the shirt with the number five written on it. “Is there a way for me to get into that room and have a look?” Clint asked.

“I don't have a key, but I can get one from the maid. She's sleeping now, but I could go wake her up.”

“If it wouldn't be too much trouble.”

The Chinese lady nodded and hurried out of the room. Before Clint could finish going through the pockets of the bloody shirt and put it back on its hook, the lady returned.

“I didn't even have to wake her,” the lady explained. “Her spare key was on a hook where I keep mine. You can keep it for as long as you want. If she needs it, I'll say I took it and I'll come find you.”

“I appreciate this,” Clint said. “I'll try to get this back to you as soon as I can.”

“Just try to catch that crazy man. If you need anything else, you just ask for Lucy.”

“Lucy?”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “It's just what everyone calls me. You won't get nowhere if you ask for me by my real name.”

Clint tipped his hat and left. Now that the riverboat was moving again, the poker games should be back in full swing. Just to be safe, Clint decided to change clothes and wait awhile before paying a visit to room number five. On a boat full of gamblers, the odds of finding an empty room would only increase as the night moved along.

By the time Clint made it back to his room, he was itching to get out of the borrowed suit and into a familiar set of clothes. That itch became even greater when he opened his door and got a look at what was waiting for him inside. Seeing Gretchen lying on his bed with nothing but a sheet draped over her made Clint forget all about getting into his own freshly stitched suit.

“What are you doing here?” Clint asked in surprise.

Gretchen stretched her arms over her head and arched her back. Those motions dropped the sheet almost all the way off of her body. The only reason it didn't fall completely off of her was because it hung on her breasts just long enough for her to get ahold of it again.

“If you object to me being here,” she said, “I could just leave.”

Clint stepped into the small cabin and closed the door behind him. Like most of the other cabins on the
Misty Morning
, his was just big enough to hold a cot, a trunk and a stool. Simply stepping all the way inside to let the door close was enough to put Clint close enough to smell the sweet scent of Gretchen's skin.

“You don't have to leave,” Clint explained. “You just caught me off guard. How'd you know which room was mine?”

She sat up so her back was against the wall, one leg was curled beneath her and the other dangled off the side of the cot. She used both hands to hold the sheet over her breasts, but let enough of her show to make it obvious she wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing underneath. “I asked one of the crew.”

Although that wasn't much of an explanation, Clint didn't need to hear much more to imagine her powers of persuasion. In fact, he was feeling some of those powers at that very moment.

“I hoped you'd be heading back here,” she told him. “Since you probably wouldn't be leaving the tables too much later on, I wanted to get ahold of you when I had the chance.”

Gretchen repositioned herself so she was on her knees on the bed. She dropped the sheet and leaned forward so she could pull Clint closer to her. “I love being on boats,” she whispered. “We're always moving, and it makes me want to grab hold of someone and move some more. I knew you were that someone the moment I felt your hands on me.”

Clint tried to think of when he'd had a chance to put his hands on her. Rather than waste time with that, however, he took the opportunity that was right in front of him and placed his hands on the smooth contours of her sides and hips.

Pressing herself even closer against him, Gretchen nuzzled her face against Clint's neck and all but purred when she felt his fingers glide along the gentle slope of her back. She then began pulling off his suit, and was so quick to get his pants off that she ripped one of the seams.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

Clint laughed and ripped the pants some more as he kicked them off. “Don't worry about it. I borrowed the suit.”

The sound of the fabric ripping seemed to light a fire inside of Gretchen, because she sat on the edge of the cot and wrapped her lips around Clint's cock as if she was starving for the taste of him. Her mouth tightened around him, and she took every inch of him in while her tongue circled his thick column of flesh faster and faster.

Clint braced himself against the wall as Gretchen sucked him vigorously. Soon, he pulled her head back and pushed her onto the cot so he could climb on top of her. He was right in thinking that would excite her even more, because Gretchen let out a pleasured gasp when her back hit the cot. She spread her legs open wide and squirmed anxiously as he settled on top of her.

The cot was just wide enough to sleep one person comfortably, so two people putting it to use was something else entirely. After a few quick trials, Clint realized he would have a problem if he continued along this same path. Since stopping wasn't an option, he pushed the cot away from the wall so he could straddle both it and Gretchen.

The hair between her legs was the same golden shade as the long strands from the top of her head. It felt wet and soft as Clint plunged his cock into her. Gretchen let out a throaty moan as she reached back to grab hold of the cot on either side of her head. Every time Clint thrust into her, she pumped her hips forward.

Pretty soon, Clint had to tighten his grip on the cot to keep it from moving around too much. He found it was easier to grab hold of Gretchen instead. Actually, that way turned out to be a whole lot more fun as well.

Her backside was plump and soft in his hands. Clint lifted her just a bit off the cot so he could thrust between her legs without pushing the cot against the wall. With her still grabbing onto the other end of the cot, they struck a perfect balance that allowed Clint to pound into her again and again, while Gretchen arched her back and let her orgasm pump through her.

When her climax was over, Gretchen's body went limp. Clint set her onto the cot and stood over her to catch his breath. She lay with her hair flowing to one side and sweat glistening between her breasts. That sight was more than enough to give Clint the energy he needed to straddle her once more.

Rather than hold her up, he lifted her legs so they were lying upward against his chest. He slid into her easily from that angle and drove all the way inside. Gretchen moaned softly as Clint slipped in and out of her. When she looked up at him, it was with an exhausted smile. She pulled her legs back until her knees were close to her chest. That way, Clint could settle on top of her a bit more and enter her from a slightly better angle.

Clint knew he was hitting a sweet spot inside of her because he could feel Gretchen's entire body tremble. Running his hands along the gentle curves of her backside, Clint buried his cock deep inside of her. When he pulled out, he allowed himself to slip completely out of her and then slid right back in again.

A few more of those, and Gretchen was breathing heavily as another orgasm built up. This time, when she let out a long, pleasured moan, Clint did the same. He drove all the way inside of her and pushed just a little deeper, until his own climax made him weak in the knees.

Clint was up a hundred dollars and could have been up even more if he hadn't been trying so hard to lose. The main room was full of new faces, but most of the ones at his table were familiar. Jones and Barry were still there. Mia sat in her normal seat and, every so often, someone else would drift in and out of the game.

The only time anyone asked any questions was when someone got up to leave the game. When that happened, people looked at the deserter with confusion and pure shock. The night was still young and they were all there to gamble. If not, then more than a few people would ask what else better there was to do on that boat.

Gretchen wasn't anywhere to be seen after Clint left his room, so that excuse wasn't available.

He didn't want to risk being spotted walking in the wrong direction if he simply said he had to relieve himself by getting rid of some of the beer he'd been drinking. That only left one more reason why a gambler would volunteer to walk away from one of the best poker games around.

Clint had to lose.

At first, it seemed like a fairly easy thing to do. He didn't want to be too obvious about it, because that could draw as much suspicion as cheating to win. He also didn't want to lose too much because he still planned on playing some cards when he was done sorting through his other business.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck still wasn't done smiling on him after the gift Clint had gotten in his room earlier that night. Even though he meant to lose a chunk of his winnings for the sake of getting some time away from the poker room, Clint couldn't possibly throw away some of the hands he was dealt.