Texas Lucky (19 page)

She gave an exaggerated shrug and tossed her long red hair. “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Since we didn’t do nothing on account of you passing out, I’ll let you owe me if you’ll just hurry up and get on out of here so I can get busy and make it up. I got a few hours left till day.”

He sat up and reached to snatch his shirt off the bedpost. At least, he noted, his gun and holster were still hanging there…a wonder she didn’t steal them, too.

“I don’t owe you anything and you know it,” he said tightly, anger smoldering—but at himself, not her. It was not her fault he had not gotten his money’s worth, and the fact was she could probably have serviced three or four others while he was sleeping in her bed.

The hard set to his jaw and the steely glint in his eyes made her take a step backward. Holding up her hands in surrender, she said, “All right. All right. We won’t argue about it. Just get out, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t come back. I’m known for being good at what I do, but if word gets out I’ve got men passing out on me, it ain’t gonna speak well for me, understand?”

He thought he did but wondered what the hell difference it made. She got her money. He hadn’t had to pay for a hotel room. Everybody should be happy.

Only he wasn’t.

He was miserable as hell…and not because he had wasted a chance for pleasuring. The truth was, he didn’t care about sleeping with her or any other woman…except one certain little filly with golden curls and big blue eyes that made him turn to butter when he gazed into them while making love to her.

Actually, when Irma had sidled up to him in the saloon, he had been ripe for company and nothing more. He was tired of being alone, because it gave him too much time to wonder about what he had done.

Maybe he shouldn’t have taken Tess’s money. No doubt she hated him for it. Not that it mattered now. The fact he had left her without warning when she was begging him to see her all the way to Dallas was enough to make her curse him all the way to hell and back.

He just wished she could understand why he had done it. He had tried to explain in the letter he had written to enclose with the money, which he had mailed to her address in Philadelphia as soon as he had reached a place where he could send it.

He had written that he had taken it to whittle her funds down to where she would have second thoughts about staying, hoping she would realize five thousand dollars just wasn’t quite enough for a full-scale ranching operation.

But most of all, he had hoped that acting like what they had shared hadn’t meant anything would squash her pride like prairie grass in a buffalo stampede, making her want to hightail it home and forget him and everything else bad that had happened to her in the West.

There were just two things wrong with that.

What they had shared
had
meant something to him. And treating her like he had made him feel lower than a snake.

“Are you gonna git?” Irma nudged his leg with her toe. “Or do you want me to call one of the boys from downstairs to throw you out?”

“I’m going.”

He yanked on his shirt, not bothering to button it, and strapped on his holster.

Sitting back down on the bed, he began pulling on his boots and considered how he had to get hold of himself and stop brooding over something that was done and finished.

Tess was probably back in Philadelphia, or well on her way, and once there, she would likely get married and not give him another thought.

He was glad he had sent the money so quick, because he hated feeling like a thief. He had done some things in his life he wasn’t proud of, but stealing wasn’t one of them. He wouldn’t have even robbed the assay office had he not believed Tess was entitled to Saul Beckwith’s money. So he sure had no intentions of keeping any of it.

But he sure could have used it. Hope was fading that he would ever be able to get hold of enough money to buy his own spread.

So now it was time he got a job. Summer was at hand. Ranchers were hiring. He needed money. Most of all, he needed to quit drinking and stop thinking about blue eyes and golden curls and a smile to make his heart sing.

Maybe then he could go back to wanting women and enjoying them and making sure they enjoyed him as well.

Till then, till he could put Tess wholly and completely out of his mind and his heart, he was going to leave women alone.

He would work hard, save his money, and maybe one day his luck would change.

Irma nudged him again, harder. “I’m gonna count to ten, and then I holler.”

He put on his hat, tipped it to her, and started for the door.

But suddenly she padded after him and grabbed his arm. “Listen, don’t go away mad. I didn’t mean what I said about not wanting you to come back. So when you get a yen, I won’t charge my usual, ’cause I really like you.”

She stood on tiptoe, twining her arms around his neck and offering her parted lips.

Her robe fell open, and she pressed her naked breasts against his bare chest.

He felt a stirring, as any man would, but all he could envision was holding Tess, caressing her, raining kisses all over her lovely face, and…

“I mean it, honey,” Irma cooed, her hand sliding down to his crotch.

Gently, he pushed her aside and continued on his way.

Until he could get Tess out of his blood, he didn’t want a woman.

What he
did
want was to think about the future before he wound up like so many gunslingers—broke and alone and finally dead because some young upstart wanting to make a name for himself happened along when they were too drunk to make the quick draw.

He walked on down the dimly lit hall, wrinkling his nose against the odor of stale smoke and urine. God, how he longed for the fresh sweetness of the open range mingling with the pungent smell of leather, and horses, and cattle.

That was his world.

Not this.

The gambling was just something he did to try to win a stake to get a place of his own, but now that was over.

He didn’t have two bits to his name.

He had nothing, except…

Stopping in his tracks, he took his hat off and ran his finger inside the band.

It was still there.

His lucky gold piece.

Flipping it in the air, he caught it and crammed it in his pocket with a disgusted snort. Some lucky gold piece. It was all he had left, so maybe it was actually a curse.

He continued on his way, walking down the long, narrow steps to enter the rear of the saloon where the gambling tables were located.

Walking through, he heard the faint
click-click-click
of the roulette ball as the wheel spun, and hesitated.

Roulette was something he had never tried. Poker was his game, but always the high stakes, not the ordinary one- or two-dollar limits. And, because he had been in a hurry to get a stake for his ranch he had unwisely bet big and subsequently lost big, which only left him with what he now considered his unlucky gold piece.

His head still ached, and he wanted desperately to find a place where he could sleep all day. But as he made his way through the crowds gathered at the tables, the
click-click-click
of the roulette ball was like a finger tapping him right on his brain, trying to tell him something.

He paused at the roulette table.

He knew a little bit about the game and how a lot of cheating went on by tilting the wheel or rigging it with magnets. And even when the game was honest, players bucked great odds. There were twenty-eight numbered slots and three unnumbered ones, marked with an eagle, a zero, and a double zero. And though the wheels had thirty-one slots, the house paid only twenty-six to one on single number bets with a thirteen percent advantage for the house.

The roulette table he was standing next to currently had two betting layouts with, he estimated, around twenty thousand dollars in gold coins being played.

The stacks of coins gleamed in the overhead lights despite the cloud of smoke rising from players with cigars clamped in their teeth.

Painted-up women in revealing gowns crowded about the men, eager to share winnings or comfort losers…for whatever they had left.

Curt watched a few spins and observed that each time bets were made, no one placed a coin on the black square with the number thirteen in white.

He nudged the man next to him and asked why.

The man looked at him like he was crazy, even taking a step back. “Why, nobody wants to bet on thirteen,” he said. “It’s a cursed number. Don’t you know your Bible? Don’t you know that when Jesus sat down to the last supper, there were thirteen people? Jesus said one of them was a devil, who turned out to be Judas Iscariot.”

Others at the table glanced at Curt with only mild curiosity, too engrossed in their gambling to be concerned with someone reckless enough to consider betting a number believed taboo by most.

Curt had never been the superstitious sort and challenged, “But thirteen hits sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“I…I suppose,” the man said uncertainly. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

He turned his back but continued to dart anxious little glances over his shoulder at Curt.

The wheel spun again and again. Money was won and lost, but the gamblers continued to play.

Curt continued to watch, fascinated by the amounts being wagered by the cluster of obviously high rollers.

Outside, night faded as dawn broke on the horizon.

Inside, the crowd was thinning.

“Last spin,” the game tender declared wearily. “We’ll be closing till noon.”

There were grumbles from those hoping to win back some of their losses before the night ended, and everyone scrambled to get bets down on the table.

“It’s winner take all,” a woman with ruby lips and raven hair said as she sidled up to Curt. “That means one number wins everything on the table. House don’t take nothing on the last spin.”

“Really?” Curt realized he knew very little about roulette.

“For a fact.” She grinned and hooked her arm through his and pressed closer. “You gonna bet, cowboy? Me and you could have some fun with all that money. And if you lose, I’ll show you such a good time upstairs you’ll forget all about it.”

He winked at her. “Thanks, but I just left Irma.”

“Oh.” The grin faded as quickly as she did into the crowd.

“Last call,” the game tender warned.

Curt fished in his pocket, brought out the gold coin, and laid it on black thirteen. Betting on a taboo number, he figured, was the best way to get rid of an unlucky lucky piece.

There were a few raised brows, and then the game tender gave the wheel a spin.

Curt watched the ball going around and around, and then the wheel slowed. Gamblers gasped in turn as the ball bounced from slot to slot, teasing, tantalizing, promising to stop and make someone a lot of money, only to bob along, continuing the torture.

Red twenty-seven.

Green double zero.

Red one.

“That’s my number,” a man shrieked. “Hot damn, I did it.”

The girl who had cozied up to Curt was now wrapped around the winner.

Curt turned away.

His unlucky gold coin was gone.

He was totally broke.

So be it.

“No…goddamn it, no…” The man who thought he had won was in a rage. “Bounced again. Damn it to hell…”

Curt shook his head and kept on going.

Roulette could be a devil, making a man think for the flash of an instant he was a winner, only to snatch it all away to give to somebody else.

“Hey, mister.”

It was the girl again, calling to him.

Curt walked faster.

“Hey, you, come back here.”

Another voice was calling, a man, sounding real excited.

Curt turned and saw it was the game tender.

“Mister, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”

Curt shook his head, not understanding.

Everyone was staring at him, which bewildered him all the more.

“You won,” the game tender said. “Black thirteen.” Curt walked slowly back to the table, a haze of disbelief folding around him.

And sure enough, the roulette ball was cozily nestled in the black slot marked
thirteen
.

Chapter Fifteen

Tess gazed beyond the grove of live oaks and anaqua trees to the prairie rolling away to the horizon.

Rich grasses, waist high, were splashed with red, gold, and blue wildflowers.

Mingled with the patches of mesquite trees were tall prickly-pear cactus, and, hidden beyond, Tess knew game abounded—deer, quail, antelope, and turkey.

It was Texas, raw, wild, and sweet, all rolled into one, and she loved it.

It was also spring roundup time at the Bar M Ranch, and she was loving that, too.

She had bedded down beneath the chuck wagon and could see the camp in the lavender and gold light of dawn.

No one else was awake, but then no one else was as excited. To them, it was just another part of the ranching life, and they were content to sleep until the last possible moment before starting the day.