Carrie Hudson - Once A Gambler

Ellie held her breath. She’d had some vivid dreams before but this one had them all beat, hands down. Her breath quickened and she held herself rigidly, eyeing his weapon. His touch triggered a wick of tiny explosions of pleasure under her skin—and completely against her will, she found herself beginning to sweat. Had Dane ever deliberately touched her this way? Ever taken more than a second to really look at her? She couldn’t remember now.

“I will admit,” he murmured, scanning the hem near her ankle with his fingertips, “you’d be hard-pressed to hide a toothpick under these.”

“You,” she began, clearing the frog from her throat, “act like you’ve never seen a pair of skinny True Religions before.”

That disconcerted frown appeared again. “I never talk of religion when I have my hands on a woman, skinny or not,” he replied, examining the tiny buckle on her strappy sandal. “And these are…shoes?”

“Very funny.”

He straightened, and with his face only inches from hers, she wondered suddenly, and with a hopeful perversity, if he was going to kiss her.

It was her fantasy, after all.

His eyes were fixed on her. Hazel, but for the solitary spot of clear, emerald green in the iris of his left eye. The fringe of lashes—dark and unfairly long—hemmed in the heat of his look. She would have to remember this dream and those eyes for the next time she—

A knock on the door rudely halted the fantasy. Without taking his gaze off her, he spoke to the intruder. “Yeah?”

The door opened and a shorter, pug-faced man poked his head into the room. “You told me to wake you, Jake. It’s—” He got an eyeful of her and of the sheet-wrapped Jake and faltered. “Uh, it’s time.”

“Jake?” Ellie repeated. “That’s your name?”

The man at the door slid a look down her, then winked at him. “I’ll give you this, my friend. You are good at what you do.”

Jake scowled back at him. “It’s not—She’s not—”

Ellie cocked her head, awaiting his explanation.

“Give me a minute,” Jake told him, watching her the way her old cat, Toby, used to watch the lizards he cornered in the garden—like he wanted to eat them. The other man withdrew, leaving them alone again.

“Time?” she asked. “Time for what?”

“The game.”

“Ohhh, right…” She nodded knowingly, although it made no sense at all. Any of it. “The game. Well, listen, babe, I’d better be going. So…just go ahead and pinch me, please.”

That earned her another scowl. “What?”

“Pinch me and we’ll call it a day. I’ll wake up, and…”

JAKE SHOOK HIS HEAD. He’d seen it before. This sort of delusional female. Once he’d known a girl who worked for Tom Blaine at the Rialto in Missouri who carried a little doll around with her pretending it was her baby. This one wasn’t too far off that mark, he suspected. But he doubted tonight was her idea. He meant to get to the bottom of it.

“You’re one of Hennessy’s girls, right?”

“Who?”

“Calder’s?”

“What?”

“Did they pay you to roll me? Steal my money? Miss the game?” He moved his hand back up to her rear end and gave her a generous squeeze.

A high-pitched squeak escaped her.

“Awake yet?”

She frowned, looking confused. “I don’t think so.”

“Take a seat.” He pointed at his bed with his gun as he began pulling on the long johns. “Turn your head.”

She obliged promptly, but he kept his eye on her. She was the tallest woman he’d ever seen. Those gray eyes were nearly even with his own, and those legs went on and on. The denim trousers didn’t fit like any miner’s denim, either. They fit her as if she was hot butter and they were the mold. The memory of running his hand up the inside of them made him miss the leg of his pants as he tried to pull them on.

Easy, he thought, trying again.

But it wasn’t just her legs. She had a face that could cause a man to throw away a winning hand at faro just to get a better look. And hair the deep auburn color of a banked fire. What the hell was someone like her doing with a bastard like Calder? In his experience, her kind of beauty meant only one thing: trouble. If Calder wants an edge, Jake thought, I’ll give him an edge. One he can step right off from.

He pulled on his shirt, watching the way she ran her hand over the bare ticking of his unmade bed like she’d never felt anything like it before. Staring at his whole room, in fact, as if it was a sideshow in a traveling circus, something unreal and beyond her capacity to understand.

Why me? he wondered, fingering the buttons on his shirt. Of all the times for an interruption like her, why now? Just as he was about to win the biggest pot of his life? Well, it was no mystery if Calder was involved. He’d been out to sabotage him since he’d lost his home in New Orleans to Jake two years ago. But to take his watch. That was low.

The deep, harmonic whistle of the Natchez sounded, making her jump. Her eyes—Jesus, those eyes—jerked back to him.

“What was that?” she demanded, sounding genuine. But how could she not recognize the whistle of the very boat she was on?

Okay, he’d play along. “Just the Natchez announcing itself around the bend in the river. Or maybe pulling into shore to throw off pickpockets.”

Agitated, she stood and ran her hands over the table beside his bed, then handled the brass rail of his headboard.

Then, she squeezed her eyes shut tight. Hard. Then opened them.

Jake’s hands stilled on the buttons of his shirt. What the hell?

She stomped up and down. Twice. Which only seemed to intensify her agitation. Then, like a lunatic, she reached for the cup of water by the bed and tossed it in her face. Whatever it was she was expecting to happen, didn’t, so she wiped the streaming moisture from her nose and whispered, “Oh, my God.”

He was staring at her now, half-dressed and dumbstruck.

“What the hell is going on here?” she asked. “I…I can’t wake up! I mean if I was dreaming, could I do this?” She dropped the china cup on the floor and it shattered against the worn wood.

“Hey!”

“Or…or this?” Lifting the hurricane glass off the lamp, she dipped her finger into the flame and held it there. “Ow!” she shrieked, pumping her hand in front of her, then blowing on her index finger.

“Easy.” He stepped in then, grabbing her arms and tugging her over to the bed. Forcing her down, he looked her in the eye, feeling like a man who’d found himself suddenly stranded in the middle of a wide, muddy river. “Listen, Visa,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, or who put you up to it, but panel thief or not, they should be hung for taking advantage of a deranged woman—”

She held up her injured finger. “See? It actually burned my—Deranged?”

But what his eyes landed on instead was the rock on her finger. It was yellow and perfect and didn’t look like any paste jewel he’d ever seen in his life. If someone put him up against a wall, he would swear it was a diamond. What was a little pickpocket like her doing with a rock like that? Against his better judgment, he began to calculate what a ring like that might be worth.

He ran a disconcerted hand over his mouth, then bent to pull on a polished pair of boots. “And on that account, I might be persuaded not to press charges.”

“Press charges? For what?”

“Breaking into my room.” He fitted a pair of cuff links into his cuffs. “Stealing my watch.” He tried to avoid looking at the ring, but the sparkle drew his eyes to it again.

“Listen, mister, I did not come here willingly. When I woke up this morning I was minding my own business. It was like any other day in Deadwood.”