The Gambler (3 page)

"I mean," corrected the girl, her voice as soft and sweet as boiled molasses now. "My father's very ill. I'd best see to him myself."

"But I promised to buy you a meal at the first possible opportunity, Miss Fergusson, and surely you must be famished."

For just a moment Raven thought he saw the flash of some flinty emotion light her face, but it was gone before he could assess it. She now graced him with a timid smile, which she soon turned on Burle.

"That's ever so generous of you, gentlemen, but I really must think of my father," she said, tugging Jude toward her.

"But surely you must eat," argued Raven, dragging him back.

Her smile didn't slip a bit, but remained neatly etched on her seductive lips. "We'll have a bite at the inn," she said, reeling Jude in.

"We won't be servin' supper no more tonight, miss," Burle observed, his eyes slightly narrowed. "Was I you, I'd take Mr. Scott up on his offer. Maybe you could have somethin' sent up to yer pa."

She turned her luminous gaze on Burle, but before she could speak, Raven launched himself back into the dispute. "It's settled, then," said he, yanking Jude from Charm's grasp to place him, a bit more roughly than he'd intended, beside the innkeeper's huge form. "Burle here will assist your father to his room, while you and I have something sent up to relieve his hunger. Anywhere you might suggest, sir?"

Burle's expression was open to interpretation, but blatant curiosity would be a fair description. "Wendel's is the only place still servin'," he said, obediently taking a firm hold on Jude's arm.

Raven nodded expansively. "Wendel's it is, then. Shall we, Miss Fergusson?" He extended his arm, but Charm turned her head and seemed preoccupied with lifting her dark skirt, as if suddenly concerned with the mud that encrusted its hem. "Or would you rather dig your own way out of this grave?" he asked quietly.

Her smile, when it returned, could light up the night. Casually ignoring Raven's extended arm, she turned her radiance on the innkeeper. "If you're certain it's not too much trouble, Mr. Burle."

Burle's momentary bedazzlement couldn't be mistaken. It was the strange by-product of Charm's appeal, suddenly turned loose in full force on the innkeeper. Raven watched her hone her allure, and couldn't deny her aptitude. It was possible he'd met his match as a scoundrel.

"No." Burle shook his head, never losing contact with her eyes. "No trouble at all," he said, but momentarily forgot to move from the spot.

The silence was beginning to sweat when Raven stepped into the void. "Then perhaps Fred here could carry the luggage, and you should go, Burle," Raven suggested, "before Mr. Fergusson weakens further."

"Oh." Burle wrested himself from his trance with admirable speed. "Yeah." But now Jude pulled free from the innkeeper's grasp with a wheeze and a shred of dignity.

"Scott." His voice was raspy, but his back was straight. "You lay a hand on her, I'll chew your head off," he said in flat warning. Turning, he hobbled back in the direction from which they had come.

With a nod, Burle followed. Fred, too, turned away, though he looked regretful of the anticlimax to such excitement.

Raven watched them go. "Tell me, Miss Fergusson," he said, absently reaching for her arm, "did
Jude
name you Charm or is it simply a characteristic you inherited from your old man?"

With a snap, she yanked her elbow from his grasp. "Don't touch me," she warned, her tone low and rushed.

"Well..." Raven smiled at her, hoping to achieve the same bright hypocrisy she attained with so little effort. "I guess that answers my question then, doesn't it?"

From a nearby doorway a pair of miners approached them. Raven nodded and held his expression, and Charm smiled, too, matching his toothy insincerity with obvious and disconcerting ease.

"Yes." She dimpled when she answered, causing the moon to cast crescent shadows in the delicate hollows of her cheeks. "I guess it does."

“Then we understand each other," said Raven.

"Perfectly," she agreed sweetly and, grasping her small reticule to her chest, strode primly off.

Wendel's Roadhouse was a modest establishment that had once stood at the edge of town. Deadwood, however, had managed to render up enough gold to cause the booming community to engulf and enliven it, despite frequent and bloody skirmishes with the Sioux.

Inside, Wendel's was illuminated by a lamp placed upon every occupied table, which meant there was little enough light with which to see by. For even the rough-edged inhabitants of Deadwood had to sleep sometime.

"And what would you be wantin'?" asked a man who appeared from the dimness. He wiped his hands on a greasy apron and waited.

Had Raven not already become acquainted with the Fergussons, he might have thought the innkeeper unfriendly. As it was, Wendel's proprietor seemed just about average for the inhabitants of this backwater town.

Finally seated at a small table, Raven and Charm ordered perfunctorily and then sat in silence. Two nearby diners stood and left, followed not much later by a trio of others.

They were alone now, unless one counted the menagerie of gamblers who occupied the adjoining card room.

"You're looking at me!" Charm's words cracked the silence like a dropped egg, but Raven merely tilted his head slightly, pretending not to comprehend.

"What's that?"

"I said you're looking at me!"

He raised his brows at her and leaned back in his chair. "And is that a crime in these parts, Miss Fergusson?"

"I don't like to be looked at."

"Really?" He almost laughed. "And is this a longstanding attitude or one that changes with your attire?"

She drew herself straighter in the slat-backed chair, pursing her fine mouth slightly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

He did smile now, grimly and carefully. "Then let me explain. Back at Burle's... you were trying to seduce me."

Her eyes widened, and she gasped. "How dare you!"

"How dare I be honest?"

Her lips moved long before she managed to force a sound from between them. "How dare you assume—"

"Oh, I wasn't assuming. I
know.
You were trying to seduce me, make me lose my concentration. Not that I resent it. In fact, I enjoyed it. But now..." He shrugged lazily. "You owe me."

"You're crazy!"

"Are you saying you had the funds to pay the good Mr. Burle for his hospitality?" She rose swiftly to her feet, but he merely shrugged again. "If that's the case, I'd be happy to accompany you back to the inn. I'll get my money back, and you can explain the situation. Is that what you want?"

She didn't speak, but stared at him with eyes mean enough to torch water.

"That's what I thought. Then sit down, Miss Fergusson," Raven said stiffly.

She did so, though slowly. "What do you want from me?" she whispered as she clenched her hands into fists.

"I only want what you promised."

"I didn't promise you anything."

"Oh, but you did," he argued, picking up a fork to twirl it between his fingers. "You promised me everything... with your eyes."

She drew a deep, sharp breath through flared nostrils and fumbled with her reticule to finally extract a white, pocket-sized book. “ ‘And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy,'" she jabbered rapidly. " 'And—' "

"I don't mean to be rude," interrupted Raven, "but what the devil are you yammering about?"

"Revelations. Chapter 13. Verse 1," she breathed.

Raven scowled, watching her face in bemusement. "Crazy as a coot. Waste of cleavage," he murmured. "Tell me, Miss Fergusson, are your parents closely related? Siblings perhaps?"

Charm's nostrils flared again as she lifted her chin. "My mind is perfectly sound, but I know your kind. I know about men. Can read them like a book."

Raven ignored both her disdain and her biblical blathering. "It's a clever little scheme, distracting men with your..." He raised his hand casually toward his own chest. "Charms," he finished. "Promising them pleasure with your eyes then running out before you live up to your end of the bargain."

"I make no bargains with Satan's spawn."

"I'm not complaining," he said, easily ignoring her intended insult. "I'm merely stating my admiration and wondering if the deception might work for me. Tell me, if I batted my eyes and showed some chest, would you be distracted?"

Her lips moved again in that strange wordless way she had, and then the Bible was suddenly flipped open to a new page.

" 'Save me, O God! The water is up to my neck. I am sinking in deep mud, and there is no solid ground. I am out in deep water, and the waves are about to—' ”

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" rasped Raven and, reaching out, snatched the volume from her hands. "What the devil is wrong with you?"

"Give me!" she demanded and tried to grab it back as they both jerked to their feet, but their fingers bumbled now, and the book fell, spilling open to the front page where a name was penned in dark, scrolling ink.

"Eloise Medina!" Raven read aloud.

Charm made a wild grab for the book, but before her fingers could touch the white leather, Raven scooped it back into his hands to stare in disbelief at the swirling words on the inside front cover.

"Where'd you get this?" he demanded.

Charm lifted her chin. Her breathing was harsh, and her eyes sparked with anger, but Raven failed to care, for never in all his searching for Chantilly Grady had he come so close.

"Give it back," she demanded hoarsely, extending her hand.

Raven grasped her wrist. "Where'd you get it?" he asked again.

For just a moment an indefinable expression crossed her face, but it vanished, replaced by arrogant rage.

"Where?" he repeated with a tight grip and cool, feigned patience.

"From my mother," she gritted and with an Amazonian effort, yanked her arm from his fingers.

"You, my dear," Raven said, remembering his gentlemanly demeanor lest he get thrown from Wendel's for improper behavior, "are a world-class liar."

"And you," she retorted with bitter sweetness, still standing and breathing hard, "are the very spawn of Satan."

He watched her, feeling his temper rise, but holding it carefully in check. "For all I know, you may be right, Miss Charming, but I believe we were speaking of
your
parentage. Now..."—Raven took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes—"about the Bible. Where did you
really..."
he began, but suddenly a movement caught his eye, tripping his memory with hair-trigger speed. "Take it," he ordered sharply, thrusting the Bible toward her.

Charm's mouth formed a circle of surprise, but there was no time to delay. Pushing her back into her chair, he found his own seat.

"Put it away," he insisted quietly.

"What?" Her eyes were round and her tone breathless.

"Hide it," he ordered, but through his teeth now, for the trouble he'd seen approaching had materialized into a man.

"Well... Mr. Joseph Scott," said a familiar voice. Clancy Bodine, damn his hide, spoke with the molasses-slow drawl of the Southern boy he was. "Been a long time."

Charm sat immobile, still staring at Raven as if he'd lost his mind.

Hide the blasted Bible!
Raven wanted to yell. But such agitation might cause a bit of suspicion. So instead he rose slowly to his feet, pushed his sleeves away from his wrists, and slammed his fist squarely into Clancy Bodine's handsome face.

Bodine careened backward, crashing into a chair that broke beneath him like a matchstick house. He lay motionless there, momentarily stunned, his battered hat askew.

There was a gasp from Charm and a brief moment of silence from the cardplayers next door. Clancy put a hand to his chin. He grimaced, looking only mildly surprised and waggling his jaw a bit as if to make certain it was still attached. "Can I assume, then, that you're still carryin' a grudge?" he asked, looking up from the floor.

"No." Raven kept his gaze on his ex-partner as he shook the pain from his bruised knuckles. Clancy always did have a hard head. "No. I don't hold grudges," he said, and seeing that Charm had finally stashed the Bible back under cover, he sat down.

"Well..." Bodine rose slowly, grimacing again, this time as his back left the broken shreds of the chair beneath him. "It's good to know you learned somethin' from me, Joseph."

For just a moment Charm had hoped she might be afforded a chance to slip away unnoticed, but she saw now that was not the case, for the violence seemed to have come to an abrupt and quite unsatisfactory finish. Watching the man called Raven, though, she saw his left brow dip slightly over his deep-set eyes and wondered if it might not be a sign of anger. Since she had already learned she was a poor judge of the man's thoughts she could only hope—not be sure—such was the case. He should have been holding the losing hand when gambling with Jude. His every idiosyncrasy had indicated poor cards. And yet he had won. Maybe the man would lose his temper now and provide her a chance to escape.

Luck was certainly not a lady. It was a man!

"Sure," said Raven now. "I learned a great deal from you, Bodine. Nothing that wouldn't get me hanged. But a great deal, nevertheless."

Clancy laughed, wiggling his jaw again and approaching casually.

Beneath the table, Charm opened the drawstring of her reticule and slipped her hand inside to let it rest there unseen. She had difficulty breathing the stifling air. Who was this Raven, and what did he want? And now Clancy Bodine! Feeling the panic well up within her, she closed her hand about a smooth, familiar object, drawing comfort from its presence. She sat in silence, carefully reading every nuance of her unwelcome companions and waiting for the proper moment to escape.

"Now, Joseph, you're bein' unfair," Bodine complained. "You wouldn't want to give your ladyfriend here the wrong impression." He turned toward Charm now and removed his hat as he smiled. His teeth were perfect, his ruffled mop of hair wheat-toned, and eyes so blue she was certain a host of women had been lost in them.