Desperado

  She gave him a considering appraisal. “Are you any good at gambling?”

  He grinned. “Yeah.”

  She shook her head with exasperation at his inflated ego. “Do you cheat?”

  He flinched. “I can’t believe even you would say something so offensive.”

  “Lord, you’re right.” Ducking her head in shame, she apologized.

  “Are you with me on the gambling, or not?”

  She studied him for a really long time, during which he held his breath. “For now,” she said finally.

  He exhaled slowly with relief. “You won’t regret it, Helen.” He patted her hand reassuringly.

  She slapped his hand away. “I already regret it. And, believe me, I’m going to make you regret forcing me into this position. You’ll wish you’d never met me.”

  He doubted that very much.

  Who said luck had to be a lady? . . .

  Sacramento City pulsed with life. And if gambling was its heartbeat, then gold surely was its pumping blood.

  The first gambling “casino” they entered was a huge round tent. Numerous lanterns hung from the ceilings, casting an eerie glow. The small string orchestra that played to one side could hardly be heard over the raucous noise of shouting miners crowded around at least fifteen tables. Frazzled waiters darted between the tables serving drinks to grubby prospectors betting their hard-earned fortunes on games of chance, like lansquenet, monte, faro, poker, or roulette. More gold and silver than she’d ever seen in her life lay in piles on the tables.

  “C’mon. C’mon. Who’ll buck the tiger?” she heard more than one banker call out.

  Still others cajoled, “Jack and deuce. Make your bets, gentlemen. All down? All down?”

  Or, “One hundred against the house. Who’ll be a winner tonight?”

  At the bar, cut-glass bowls were filled with peppermints, lemon drops, and the blasted cigars, and bartenders with wide thumbs took pinches of gold dust from the customers in exchange for what appeared to be whiskey, wine, ale, and liquors.

  The babble of voices, slap of cards, jubilant shouts and doleful groans, music, clinking of glasses and bottles, all provided a backdrop to the smells. And they were overwhelming. Body odor, perfume, whiskey, cigarettes, stale liquor, and Chinese punk, which lay smoldering in miniature jars for the convenience of those needing to light up.

  “Oh, boy!” Rafe exclaimed.

  “What?” she said, then gasped as she noticed the direction of his gaze.

  The circular canvas walls were covered with paintings, no doubt completed by some down-and-out artist turned prospector. The murals all depicted women. Nude women in erotic poses.

  “Great! The Playboy Club of the old West!”

  Rafe laughed.

  “Maybe you can pick up a bunny later,” she proposed sarcastically. Only a few women, clearly prostitutes in sleazy, low-cut gowns, were there. Some dealt cards at the gambling tables; others acted as “come-on” girls or lures for the bar; still others worked the crowd for their own personal gain.

  “Honey, I’m not that horny. These bunnies bark.”

  She was about to chastise him for his crudity, but saw that he was smirking expectantly, just waiting for her to rise to his bait. She clamped her mouth shut.

  “Besides, I have you, babe,” he crooned softly in her ear.

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “Behave.”

  As they moved through the crowd of about two hundred, Helen saw some of the men glancing from her to the paintings, probably picturing her in similar positions. She shifted uncomfortably.

  “Let me guess. You want to go somewhere else.”

  “Can we?”

  Surprisingly, he agreed. “It’s too crowded in here anyway, and smoky. We can’t have you fainting all over the place.”

  The next tent, The Plains, also was adorned with oil paintings, but these were of scenes of the overland trail to California: Independence Rock, the Sweetwater Valley, Fort Laramie, the Wind River Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Pass.

  Rafe decided that tent was too crowded, as well.

  They strolled through J and K streets near the levee where most of the saloons and gambling places were located. As they made their way through the labyrinth of half light and moving shadows, musical instruments sounded from practically every quarter—flutes, French horns, violins, fiddles, trumpets. And because the establishments were jammed so close together, all the musical sounds blended into a chaotic symphony.

  In the distance, she heard the occasional report of a gun firing and the sound of male baritones singing ballads, like “Old Dan Tucker” and “Sweet Betsy from Pike.”

  From one of the tents, a brassy woman’s voice said, “How do you want it, cowboy?” followed by a gruff male reply, “French.” Three other men were lined up outside, waiting their turns.

  Helen blushed and pretended not to hear, even when Rafe chuckled.

  Next, they tried The Humboldt, The Mansion, The Diana, and Lee’s Exchange. Eventually, they settled on a small tent at the end of K Street. It had only three tables and a board over two barrels that served as a makeshift bar. Whiskey was the only beverage served. A dark-haired señorita in an off-the-shoulder camisole and a colorful full skirt leaned against the tent pole talking to a handsome Spanish vaquero. A thin brown cigarillo dangled from her loose lips.

  At one of the tables, chuck-a-luck—a simple dice game—was being played. At another, it was monte. At the third, poker.

  “Which one are you going to try?” she asked in an undertone.

  “Monte. It’s the fairest game. Least chance of cheating.”

  They stood for a half hour, watching the action, before a young miner threw in his cards, having lost what seemed a fortune to Helen.

  To her discomfort, she recognized the banker—the slimy Frenchman who had wanted to purchase her earlier that day for a brothel in San Francisco. His cold snake eyes watched her and Rafe with calculating interest.

  Rafe squeezed her hand when she shivered with apprehension.

  “Well, Monsieur Ángel, care to try your luck?” the gambler said with oily condescension. “My name is Pierre Lamoyne.”

  “Sure,” Rafe said, sitting down on the stool, “and the name is Rafael Santiago. Mr. Santiago to you.”

  Lamoyne’s elegant nose turned up at the affront. In the background, Helen heard someone remark snidely, “These greasers jist don’t know their place.”

  “And this is my wife, Helen.” Rafe reached over his shoulder and pulled her up tight against his back, placing her hand on his shoulder. “For luck,” he said aloud to the other men, but for her ears only, he murmured, “Stick close, baby. I’m not feeling warm, fuzzy vibes here.”

  That was an understatement.

  “Enchanté, ma chérie!” Lamoyne said in response to Helen’s introduction, inclining his head toward her with respect. Then he ruined the aristocratic effect by remarking to Rafe, “Your wife? Non, she is certainment a . . . um . . . une fille de joie.”

  “What did he say?” she asked, leaning down near Rafe’s ear.

  Rafe told her, “He thinks you’re a pavement princess, babe. A hooker.” When her fingers clawed into his shoulder, he cautioned, “Take it easy, hon.”

  “Where is your ante, monsieur?” Lamoyne barked, suddenly impatient.

  Rafe pulled out his meager pouch of gold dust and ignored Lamoyne’s snort of disdain.

  “Five dollars a hand,” Lamoyne announced.

  “Two,” Rafe corrected.

  “Alors, perhaps you and your wife should go down the street where the stakes are lower and the company less discriminating.”

  “Perhaps,” Rafe said smoothly and started to rise.

  “Two dollars then,” Lamoyne capitulated ungraciously.

  After an hour in which Rafe won some hands and lost others, Helen was disgusted to see that his pile remained pretty much the same as when he’d started. Lamoyne looked equally disgusted.

  “Enough of these penn
y-ante games. Let us increase the odds here, monsieur.” The gambler laid a pile of nuggets in the center of the table. “Five hundred dollars.”

  Reluctantly, Rafe shook his head. “Can’t do. I don’t have that much.”

  The sleazeball twirled his mustache with sly satisfaction, his crafty eyes connecting with Helen. “Ah, but you are wrong, my friend. You have something of equal value to wager.”

  Rafe’s body under her hand grew rock stiff. “She’s not for sale.”

  The gambler shrugged and started to pull his pile of nuggets back.

  Rafe raised a halting hand. “Perhaps we can make a deal.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Ray-Bans. Worth a hundred dollars,” he said and put them on to demonstrate. “They protect your eyes from sunlight.”

  “I thought Pablo took those, Helen said.”

  “He did, but he gave them back to me today . . . said they were useless.”

  Lamoyne checked out the sunglasses when Rafe laid them on the table. With a grunt of derision, he picked them up and tried them on. The señorita made a cooing sound of appreciation at his appearance, and the vain little fop preened.

  “So, do you want them?” Rafe pushed.

  With heightened color, Lamoyne snarled, “Oui, fifty dollars.”

  Next Rafe took off his camouflage shirt, leaving on his tight-fitting green T-shirt.

  “You can’t do that,” Helen admonished. “It’s against Army regulations.”

  He cut her a telling glare that said clearly, “Get real!”

  The shirt brought another fifty.

  “How about black silk boxer shorts?” Rafe offered.

  Helen burst out laughing. “You are crazy.”

  “Well, I can’t think of anything else. I don’t want to give up my boots.”

  “Boxer shorts?” Lamoyne asked.

  “Men’s underpants.”

  Lamoyne balked. “Why would a gentleman want another man’s filthy undergarments?”

  “These are silk,” Rafe informed him. “And clean. I washed them last night, didn’t I, Helen?” Without waiting for her answer, Rafe leaned over and unlaced his boots. Then he stood and began to undo his pants. “Look the other way, honey,” he told the señorita, but he winked at Helen and told her, “You can look, though.”

  By the time Helen peeked back, Rafe’s boxers were lying outrageously in the middle of the table, and he was zipping up his pants over bare skin. Helen forced herself to stop thinking about all that bare skin under his pants.

  After examining the shorts—joined by the other card players and the señorita—Lamoyne agreed to another fifty dollars.

  “That’s only a hundred and fifty dollars,” Rafe muttered.

  “How about my underwear?” Helen blurted out, and everyone in the room turned to gawk at her. Including Rafe, whose gawk quickly changed to an ear-to-ear smile.

  “I mean, if you can give up stuff, so can I,” she said in a weak voice. After a few quick words from Rafe, she went to a back room, partitioned by only a red calico curtain, and removed her bra and panties. Rafe stood guard on the other side of the drape.

  Face flaming, she returned and placed the white lace bra and French-cut briefs on the table, along with her camouflage blouse.

  Rafe sat back down, then glanced back over his shoulder, taking his first gander at her. His eyes locked on her breasts, naked under the thin T-shirt. Licking his lips, he whispered huskily, “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, after all.”

  To her embarrassment, her nipples hardened under his appreciative scrutiny.

  Rafe’s sharp inhalation of breath only made them tighten more. She folded her arms over her chest and demanded of Lamoyne, “Well, do you want them or not? We can always go elsewhere if you’re not interested.”

  The gambler picked them up, one at a time, examining them closely, especially the filmy cups of her bra.

  “Jay-sus,” one Irishman exclaimed, “you could prob’ly sell that over at Lola’s for a thousand dollars.”

  Rafe sat in front of her, barely stifling a snicker. She cuffed him on the shoulder.

  Finally, Lamoyne grumbled, “It’s a bet.”

  And fifteen minutes later, Rafe and Helen left the tent post-haste with their belongings, as well as $520 in gold nuggets and dust.

  “Let’s get away from here,” Rafe said, pulling on her hand. “I don’t trust Lamoyne. He’ll be after us in a flash.”

  “I know.” She rushed to keep up with him.

  Rafe looked at her and groaned.

  “What?”

  “Your breasts are jiggling in that T-shirt. I think I’m about to co—”

  “Don’t say it,” she snapped. “I’ll put my blouse on as soon as it’s safe to stop.”

  He mumbled something about never stopping.

  But he did stop soon after that in front of the City Hotel. “Did you say something earlier about being willing to sell your soul for a bath and a bed?”

  “Oooh, yes!” she said on a long sigh. “I can’t wait.”

  “Me neither, baby. Me neither,” he agreed, taking her hand and leading her through the front door.

  Something in Rafe’s smooth-as-butter voice set off alarm bells in Helen’s head, and she halted, pulling him back sharply. “I’m not selling anything here, Rafe. Especially not a corkscrew.”

  A warm laugh escaped his lips before he wagged a finger chidingly. “Tsk, tsk, Prissy. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh.” She felt heat rise from her chest to her hairline.

  “Although I do think I deserve a reward for being a winner.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Like what?”

  “Oh, well, I don’t know. Let’s see.” He tapped the edge of his bristled jaw with a forefinger consideringly, then brightened. “How about a kiss?”

  “A kiss? That’s what you want? That’s all?”

  “Yup.”

  “Just one?”

  He hesitated. “For now.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  He dazzled her with a wicked look of triumph then, and the promise in his pale eyes nearly scorched her already hot skin.

  She almost reneged on the deal, especially when he added, “But I’ll take my reward later, after we bathe, because . . .”

  He was already pulling her along into the hotel when she prompted, “Because?”

  “Because when I collect my kiss, I want it to last a real long time.”

  Chapter Ten

  It was just a kiss. Hah! . . .

  Helen sat cross-legged on the homemade, three-quarter-sized bed that took up most of the small room they’d rented in the City Hotel for the night. The two-story building with its projecting balcony was a former sawmill built by the famous Captain Sutter—primitive by modern standards—but they were lucky to get a separate room. The majority of the guests slept dorm-style in tiny cubicles or in double-decker bunks, sharing a bathtub and even—God forbid!—a communal toothbrush and razor.

  The only other furniture in the second-floor room was an oak washstand, hardly visible in the shadowy light thrown by a lone lantern. Wooden pegs on the wall held their meager supply of clothing. Crimson calico lined the walls.

  Despite the crude accommodations, Helen felt gloriously clean, though slightly sunburned. She’d just bathed and donned a scratchy cotton nightgown, which Rafe had purchased while she was in the tub. His consideration in paying extra cash from their small hoard for clean water and a locked door to the “bathroom” would endear him to her forever.

  He was down there now, taking his own bath, but he’d made her promise not only to bar the door from the inside but to brace a slat under the handle for extra insurance, and to keep one of the pistols handy. The gambler Lamoyne might still come after them, or the sheriff could have second thoughts.

  Combing her wet hair, Helen felt hopeful for the first time in days. A bright moon shone through the one grimy window, and Helen figured it must be well past midnight.

&nb
sp; “Helen, open up.” Rafe’s whispered voice came from the hallway, accompanied by a sharp knock. “Hurry! I just saw Lamoyne out on the street, and he didn’t look like he was coming over to say ‘Howdy.’”

  Briskly, she removed the wooden slat and slid the bar. Rafe walked in, barefooted, carrying his dirty clothing and boots in one arm, and a raised revolver in the other. Without even glancing at her, he dropped everything to the floor and locked the door, double-checking the strength of the bar and wooden brace. Next, he examined the open window to make sure no one could enter that way, either. Luckily, there was no roof or balcony nearby to give access to their room.

  Only then did he turn to Helen. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Rafe was wearing only his camouflage slacks, slung low on his hips, exposing his navel. Beads of water still rolled off his slicked-back, wet hair and down his neck to bead on his chest. He had even shaved.

  Helen swallowed and a knot of tension coiled in her stomach. She tried to avert her gaze from the wide expanse of shoulders, the muscled planes of biceps and ridged abdomen, the flat male nipples. She really did try—but his body was so beautiful.

  “I like to look at you, too, Helen,” he rasped out.

  Her eyes widened, locking with his. He smiled knowingly at her, but not in a mocking way.

  He moved closer, an easy job in the close confines of the tiny room. The hungry, predatory gleam in his eyes alarmed, and excited her.

  Helen backed up a bit, hitting the wall next to the bed with a bang. The comb she still held in her hand dropped to the floor. “What . . . what are you doing?”

  “Collecting my reward,” he said huskily, reaching out to brush a loose strand of damp hair behind her ear.

  She gasped at the intense pleasure created by just that whisk of his fingertips across her face. “What reward?”

  He grinned, then licked his upper lip with his tongue. He made a low, savage sound deep in his throat and stepped even closer. An animal moving in for the kill. “My kiss. Don’t you remember, Helen? You promised me a kiss.”

  A kiss? That’s all he wants? A kiss? Helen’s jumbled brain tried to assimilate the softly murmured words. She felt the heat of his bare chest, only inches away. She smelled the strong odor of lye soap, and clean male skin . . . Rafe’s own scent. Her breasts filled and tautened into aching points. A delicious shudder rippled through her body, and she clenched her fists at her sides to keep from opening her arms in welcome. She’d never been aroused so swiftly or so fiercely by a man in all her life.