The Wrangler (3 page)

"It was the th-third bottle that got me," the drunk slurred to his friend who followed him out onto the boardwalk.

"It weren't yer fault, Baldy." His friend clapped him on the back. "That feller insulted ya. What else waz ya gonna do? Ya had ta punch 'im."

"Yer right, Skinny. I hadda do it." Baldy gave an emphatic nod. "C'mon. Let'ssss go next door."

"They got better whiskey anyway."

The pair lumbered off. Thank goodness as her lungs were bursting. She dared to draw in a small breath—still skunk tainted. Did she really want to go in? Did she really want to do this?

Suddenly she wasn't as sure about her plan. Well, she'd come this far.
Just do it, Kit.

She tugged the bandana higher up her throat, pushed through the swinging doors and swept into the saloon where clouds of cigar smoke assaulted her and blotted out the dim light from the overhead lanterns. Conversation drifted her way.

"Next time throw him out
before
he gets like this." A one-handed man with a handlebar mustache hauled broken pieces of a chair off the floor. "As soon as Baldy finishes his second bottle, he's out the door. Got it?"

"It's a lot to remember, Louie." A skinny guy, more boy than man, gave a good-hearted shrug. "The table's busted all to hell. Ain't no way to fix it."

"Might as well pick up those pieces and toss 'em out back. Move those tables over to cover the gap. We'll add it to his bill."

"Got it." The young man leaped to comply as Kit moved further into the saloon.

Several men in various states of drunkenness were recovering from the fight. One fellow swiped blood off his forehead with his sleeve. Another searched the bloody cavity where a front tooth had been. Another straightened his clothes, rose to his feet and scratched his crotch. He glared at Kit, and she made a beeline for the bar.

Head down,
she thought.
Ignore the tickle from the hair above her lip.

"Who the hell are you, kid?" Left-Hand Louie had returned to the bar and glared at her with a cold black gaze.

Her heart skipped. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. "Howie Chapman."

"Chapman, huh? Then you'd best be payin' your brother's tab."

"He owed you money?" Why wasn't she surprised?

"He owed everyone money." Louie produced a rather unclean dishcloth and began wiping the scarred bar. "Never saw anyone win so much so fast and spend it even faster."

"Yep, that was P—my brother." She corrected herself in time. Pa's ability to rack up debt was one of the biggest reasons they had always kept on the move.

But no longer. That's why she was here.

"What'll you have, Howie?" Louie's handlebar mustache bobbed when he spoke.

A whiskey? No, not a good idea as she'd never had it before. Tea? No, too ladylike. "Sarsaparilla?"

"That's what I'd expect from a city boy," the barman scoffed. "No self-respecting man in these parts would drink that."

Good to know for next time. Louie slapped a bottle on the bar with one hand, accepted payment and an extra payment toward Pa's account, and left her be. She took a swig of sarsaparilla straight from the bottle and surveyed her surroundings.

Up front, a woman in a shocking pink petticoat sat down in front of an upright piano, her ample cleavage spilling out of a laced-up black corset. There were maybe a dozen or more tables, all filled with games in progress.

In the far corner, men argued over a pot. One man stood up, shook his fist at another player across the table. His face glowed beet red. His familiar face. It was Tannen Sinclair, her neighbor.

It would be good to stay away from him if she could. Kit took another sip of her drink. Her fake mustache tickled.

"Howdy, there." A young man about her age plopped onto the neighboring stool. "I hear you're Hubert's brother."

"News travels fast." She eyed the newcomer. Medium height, lean, very tidy. His blue muslin shirt was perfectly pressed down to the creases in his sleeves. "I'm Howie."

"Dewayne." He took off his hat to reveal more curls. "Bet you came out to take care of the kids. Poor things, being left like that. And that fire—I hear they barely made it out of the house alive."

"It was tough for them," she choked out. That hellish night still haunted her dreams. They'd worked feverishly trying to get their things out of the house before the flames drove them out.

"It's good of you to come help. Were you and Hubert close?"

"Sometimes." Her voice quivered. She remembered to lower it. So far, her disguise was holding up. That was good, but she hadn't come here to chat.

"Nice meeting you." She hopped off her stool, bottle in hand as a fight broke out in the corner. A chair sailed over a table and crashed on the floor. Men surged to their feet, punches flew and blood spattered. A gunshot echoed and a bullet zinged into the ceiling.

"Next time I won't miss," Tannen growled, his Peacemaker smoking. "You slipped a queen of hearts out of your sleeve. I saw it."

"Hey, I'm innocent." The accused party, an unshaven cowboy in chaps and spurs, swiped blood from his nose. "It was a mistake."

"Check up his sleeves and see," Tannen demanded of his fellow players.

Best to avoid that table. Join it only as a last resort. Not all the poker games looked rough. Take the table of old men, for instance. Really old men, she noticed, once she took a careful look. Withered, wrinkled, jowls sagging. Talking slow and careful, whistling any S's through gaps of missing teeth.

"I'll raise you a penny," one old guy said with a wink.

Nope, those stakes were too low. Best to move onto the next table. She spied younger men seated at the next one over, maybe in their twenties. Now, that was more like it. Piles of coins glinted on the center of their table like a little mountain of silver...mostly nickels and dimes.

No, she shook her head, still too small. Well, that was disappointing. Her winnings there might help with the groceries for the week, but wouldn't fund the longer range portions of her grand plan.

There had to be a game in here that would work. She took another sip, resisted the urge to itch her scratching fake mustache and squared her shoulders. She eyed a table near the front window where middle-aged men played a friendly game and headed their way, using her best manly swagger.

The batwing doors chose that moment to swing open. A tall man with mile-wide shoulders and a masculine presence strode in, dark against the background of sky and setting sun. The tilt of his black Stetson was commanding, the strike of his boots ominous. The blood drained from her veins. She didn't need to see his face to recognize the man.

Dakota Black ambled into the dim lantern light, his iron-jaw set, his rugged face as hard as carved granite. A trickle of fear winged into her chest, fluttering behind her heart even though she knew he wasn't dangerous.

Well, not dangerous to her.

He surveyed the room with one long, cold scan, stopped when he spotted her. A trace of a grin hooked one corner of his chiseled mouth. He said nothing as he passed her by on his way to the bar.

Of all the men in the territory who could walk into this saloon, why did it have to be him?

 * * *

Dakota couldn't believe his eyes. So that's what the gal was up to. She was a gambler? Or at least it looked like she was trying to be. He shook his head, bellied up to the end of the bar and tossed his hat on the stool beside him. He signaled the barkeep. "Whiskey."

"Comin' right up, Mister." The bartender swallowed, looking a little pale. Probably thought he was an outlaw.

He got that reaction a lot. It wasn't entirely untrue. He tossed a coin on the bar, watched it roll. It made bartenders less leery when he paid up front. A shot glass landed in front of him. He snatched it up, turned on the stool and kept one eye on the little miss.

"Sorry, no room at our table." A middle-aged store clerk tossed his arm in front of the empty chair beside him. "This is a regular game between friends."

"In other words, you're not welcome." A jackass with salt and pepper hair combed sleekly off his forehead gave a smirk. "Try sitting with your own kind. Over there."

Dakota followed the gesture toward the loser game, where down and out cowpokes in thread-worn clothes and mended chaps gambled for pennies.

Might not be a bad idea for the gal to start off there in case she didn't know what she was doing. Thinking you were a good card player and actually being one were two different things. He took a swig of whiskey to wet his parched tongue and nearly choked when the sheriff strolled in.

Didn't take long for the law to show up. He'd been in town, what, less than three hours.

"Hey, Beauregard." The barkeep slapped a shot glass on the bar and slid it the lawman's way.

"Heard you had a problem in here. Shots fired. Could hear them all the way down the street." Sheriff Beauregard sidled up to the bar and tossed back his free drink.

"It was Tannen, hot-headed as usual." The barkeep rolled his eyes, as if this wasn't out of the ordinary. "He put a hole in the ceiling, but the cost to repair it has gone on his tab."

"All right, then. As long as there are no dead bodies." The sheriff's gaze traveled down the bar, landed on him and narrowed. He frowned. "I haven't seen you before. You look familiar, like you remind me of somebody."

"I get told that a lot." His guts tensed up. They always did whenever the past threatened to rise up and grab him. It was a matter of time, but the past always found a man. He set his jaw and willed his heart rate to calm down, his stomach to unclench. He shot off the stool and stood, looking the lawman in the eyes. "I'm in town looking for work."

"There isn't much hereabouts, sorry to say." Beauregard didn't look sorry.

"I'll be moving on if there isn't." Dakota met his gaze. There were a lot of things the lawman might not like about him. He'd run across it before more times than he bothered to count. Maybe it was the attitude, or two years of hard labor he'd done while in prison. "I don't intend to cause any trouble."

"See that you don't." The lawman left his glass on the bar, nodded in thanks to the barman, shot a warning look to the man called Tannen in the corner and strolled out of the saloon.

"I know someone who is hiring." The tidy shopkeeper type midway down the bar moved closer a few stools. "Are you looking for ranch work?"

"Horses, mostly. I'm a wrangler, but I can work cattle."

"I was doing the final fitting for Mr. Sinclair. He bought a new suit. He told how he had to fire one of his best cowhands for stealing. You might have a chance of getting the job."

"I'll look into it. Thanks." He appreciated the tip. His gaze swiveled to the gal. Looked like she was having more trouble. The penny-ante gang shook their heads, pointing out there were no free chairs at the table. Like they couldn't draw up an extra one. He crossed his arms over his chest, wondering how long it would take for folks, even drunk folks, to figure out she wasn't what she first appeared.

"We got an extra seat over here." A sly, deep-noted voice called above the rumble of bets and calls. The pianist came to the end of her song and in the beat of silence, heads turned. Conversations stilled. He had to shout over the first strains of "Oh Susanna". "You're lookin' to play and we're short a player."

"Because you shot him." The disguised girl braced her feet, gloved hands fisted. The gesture wasn't entirely masculine, but it wasn't wholly feminine either. An improvement.

"Didn't shoot him. There's a hole in the roof to prove it." The man's Cheshire grin widened. Whoever he was, he'd spotted a tenderfoot and figured he could take him for all he had.

This was gonna get interesting. Dakota rocked back on his heels, watching the girl as she gave her hat brim a tug, squared her slender shoulders and gulped. At least the red bandana hid the graceful column of her throat.

"Don't worry, boy, we won't bite." Tannen pulled out the spare chair next to him. "This won't hurt one bit. Come have some fun."

Don't do it.
He willed the advice as she bit her bottom lip, debating. What was there to debate? The men were out of her league. They'd take every cent she had. He'd seen the tale before.

"Fine. I'm in for a couple of hands. At least you're letting me play, and I thank you." She hitched the gun belt strapped to her hip and marched across the saloon.

Hell, no way was this was gonna end well. He squeezed his eyes shut. Good thing his Peacemaker was strapped to his thigh. He might need it.

And why was he getting involved? The question shot through his brain, but he ignored it. Looking back, he might come to regret that decision. She made something inside him rear up like a wild beast, powerful and protective. It had to be because of her gentle horse, obviously well loved. Anyone could win him over with that. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman. Nope, that wasn't it at all.

He shoved his empty shot glass at the barkeep. It looked like things were about to get interesting.

Chapter Three

"Looks like you lose again, kid." The man called Tannen began to gather the fat pile of money he'd won. "That's what happens when you bet small. Nothing good ever comes from that."

"This is my first real time playing." The truth tripped off her tongue before she could call it back. Great. Now they had a reason to kick her out before she could win her eight dollars back.

"Your first real game? Ha!" Tannen counted out his latest winnings. "What did you do, kid, play with your pa in the kitchen?"

"He taught me everything I know."

"That explains it then. I'm sure he did his best." His calculating gaze turned mean. "Well, there's a lot to learn in the real world, and we'll all be glad to teach ya. Right, boys?"

"You bet." The balding guy on her left grinned like a hyena right before the attack.

Not comforting at all. Not one bit.

"You stick with us, kid." The rough looking gunslinger across the table grinned, showing tobacco stained teeth and the wad tucked against his cheek. "We'll show you the ropes."