Holt's Gamble (4 page)

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. I was only trying to be a gentleman." At that, he dropped with a graceful thud to the soft dirt below.

"Ha!" she scoffed from above. "That's a good one. If you were a gentleman, you would have walked away from that game like Calvin Bennett did." She threw her leg over the balcony and wavered there, gripping the rail in one hand and her bag in the other.

Holt's brows furrowed together and he placed his hands on his hips in aggravation, craning his neck up to see her.

"This is hardly the time to be discussing the finer points of etiquette, lady. Let's
go
."

She let the tapestry bag fly and missed hitting his shoulder by mere inches. He caught it one-handed and set it down soundlessly on the street. He glared back up at her.

"You missed."

"
That's
a shame. I didn't mean to." She glared back at him.

She had climbed trees a thousand times with her younger brother Matthew and she was good at it, too. Balconies, however, were another matter altogether. She climbed down as far as she could, gripping the banistered railing, but as soon as she let go with one hand, she lost her grip with the other, bandaged one and, with a small cry, plummeted, humiliatingly, into Holt's waiting arms.

Had it been any other time, any other man, she would have gracefully admitted that he had been right and thanked him for catching her. But it was
this
man with his arms around her and a silly grin on his face. She twisted free from his grip, still feeling the heat of his touch where his hands had circled her waist. With fists clenched, she glared at him.

"I
told
you I didn't need your help. I could have done it by myself."

He stared at her for a moment, utterly dumbfounded.

"Pardon me,
Princess,"
he returned finally in a disgusted whisper, "but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have to carry you out of town with a sprained ankle or worse because you were too bull-headed to ask for my help." He slapped irritably at his buckskin leggings, sending up a small cloud of dust. "So, let's get moving, shall we?"

Without waiting for an answer, Holt turned and stormed off into the darkness, muttering something about ungrateful wenches.

Kierin narrowed her eyes and set her jaw against the anger that welled in her. He had been right about her bullheadedness and she even grudgingly admitted to herself that she would have certainly hurt herself if not for him. But she would be damned if she would thank him for it.

Ungrateful? Ha!

As if she should be grateful that he had won the next few years of her life in a game of cards. The man had nerve. If she hadn't been sure that she had no chance of escaping Talbot on her own, she would have turned and run in the opposite direction. But they were still close enough to the saloon to hear the music and laughter spilling from the open doors.

Shivering at the thought of being found, she hurried to follow Holt's long-legged strides. The tapestry bag, which he had pointedly left behind for her to carry, bumped along uncomfortably against her leg and she cursed him silently.

Princess, indeed. Damn you, Clay Holt.

She didn't know how, or when, but she'd find a way to get away from him. She silently vowed she would never be his, or any other man's slave again.

Chapter 2

John Talbot leaned back in his tufted leather chair and slugged a double shot of fine Irish whiskey down his throat. He grimaced as it burned him, closing his eyes with relief. Whiskey seemed to be the only thing that brought him relief these days.

He got up from his desk and paced, silently cursing the turn of the evening's events. Women. The truth was he had no use for any of them, but for what they could give him in bed. He snorted derisively, pouring himself another drink. Lately, even the bottle gave him considerably more pleasure than that. That damn little McKendry bitch would have gotten what was coming to her tonight if only he'd won that hand. With Lily out of the way—

Talbot slumped into his chair again. He thought of the woman he'd taken on as a partner two years ago when he had first moved into this town. He'd had a small stake—enough to start a modest saloon which would have, in time, grown in reputation to what the Independence was now. But Lily—a madam with a reputation already built on first rate clientele and enough money to give him the edge over the competition—had offered to throw in with him.

It was a decision he had never regretted, because the success of the saloon had given him the power he had always craved. He was, without a doubt, one of the richest citizens of Independence now and owned a good portion of its real estate and commerce.

No, taking Lily on as a partner had been smart business. But when it came to the girl, Kierin, he and Lily butted heads. For as fine a businesswoman as Lily was, something about the McKendry girl brought out the mother hen in her. She had taken Kierin under her protective wing as soon as Talbot had brought the girl to work here for him. And despite Talbot's objections, Lily had made sure that Kierin's bed was off-limits not only to the customers, but to him as well.

Well, Lily was gone for a few days to St. Louis. It had been the perfect opportunity for him to teach Asa McKendry's brat a lesson. Somehow, he thought angrily, it had all gone awry.

And Clay Holt. Right under his goddamned nose and he hadn't even known it. Talbot's thoughts skipped erratically as he paced the room again, becoming more and more agitated.

A knock interrupted his pacing and he shot to the door, swinging it open wide.

"Well?" he demanded of Kyle Jessup, who stood with his hand still poised over the frame.

"They're still up there, Mr. Talbot. I've got two men watching the door."

"Damn." Talbot stalked across the room again and slammed his empty glass down on the desk. "What the hell are they doing up there?"

Jessup shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. His look indicated that the answer to that was only too obvious to him, yet he wisely kept his mouth shut about it.

"Did Holt know you were watching him?"

"No sir," Jessup answered too quickly. He straightened up and slicked his greasy hair back with one hand. "He made a big deal about buying up drinks for the house and takin' a bottle up for him and the girl."

"Sonofabitch."

Talbot's choler rose at the mere thought of the two of them together, but he had to be smart about this. He couldn't risk gunplay in the saloon. Nor could he take the chance that Holt would survive long enough to finger Talbot for his past transgressions. Holt hadn't spent the last three years chasing Talbot's shadow for nothing. He was a dangerous adversary and Talbot wasn't about to underestimate him again.

"I want him, Kyle," Talbot said finally. "He's not going to get away from me this time. Now that we've finally met face to face, there's nowhere he can go."

"It's too bad those hired guns—Sands and Wilkerson—weren't in the saloon tonight," Jessup said, leaning against the splendid mahogany desk and eyeing the crystal decanter of brandy there. "They would'a known Holt right off."

Talbot sneered. "Those two idiots wouldn't know a snake if it came up and bit them on the ass. They told me this morning that they'd lost him in St. Louis. The bastards didn't even realize that he was right under their noses here in Independence."

"Do you think he followed them here?" Kyle asked.

"I don't know. I may be wrong but I still don't think he knows who I am. But that just puts the odds a little more in my favor. Kierin overheard me talking to Sands and Wilkerson this morning. I can't take the chance now that she'll tell someone." He paused, then added, "We'll have to kill them both."

Talbot eyed Jessup, trying to gauge his reaction to the order. Jessup was not much more than a hired gun himself and had killed his share of men for Talbot and others. Still, he knew some men had qualms about killing a woman. He wondered if Jessup fit into that category.

Jessup puckered up and let fly a long stream of tobacco juice, which hit, more or less, the center of the brass spittoon beside Talbot's desk.

He rearranged the wad in his mouth and then nodded at Talbot, a slow grin spreading across his face.

The office door burst open and another of Talbot's men, Gunther Hallas, rushed into the room.

"Sorry, boss, but... we lost them."

"You
what?
I thought they were upstairs in the girl's room!"

Hallas swallowed hard. "So did we, Mr. Talbot, but it got mighty quiet in there, and we figured to take us a look. They uh... they went out through the window."

"The window?
How long ago?"

"Couldn't be too long," he said. "I'd say they've only got ten minutes on us. I've already got the others out lookin'."

Cursing foully, Talbot strapped on his gun belt and checked the knife he kept sheathed inside his boot. There wasn't time to waste berating the morons who had let the two of them escape. If he wanted this job done right, he'd have to do it himself. Talbot turned to the first man.

"Jessup, you stay with me. Gunther, you take the others and fan out." He jammed his hat down on his head and headed for the door.

"When you find them—nobody touches the girl until I'm done with her. Is that clear?"

Hallas and Jessup nodded.

"What about Holt?" Hallas asked.

"Kill the son of a bitch."

* * *

Kierin drew a jagged breath and leaned against the splintery weather-worn wall of Connelly's Feed and Seed. She closed her eyes and swallowed down the panic rising in her throat. They had been running for nearly five minutes, but to Kierin it seemed more like hours. Her legs ached from trying to keep up with Holt's long-legged strides, for she had to take two steps for each one of his. Yet, he stood beside her now, annoyingly unaffected by the run. He had slipped deftly in between the shadows of buildings, keeping the two of them hidden all the way to the west end of town until they were fairly certain no one had followed them.

"Where are you taking me?" Kierin demanded when she caught her breath.

Holt spared her a quick glance. "To get my horse. I left him at the farrier to be shod this afternoon."

"Oh,
that
was good planning."

"Keep your voice down," he said. "Besides, when I left him I wasn't planning on having
your
charming company or half the town chasing me on the way back."

Kierin sniffed unsympathetically. "You have only yourself to blame for that, Mr. Holt."

"Yeah, well, remind me of that fact the next time I'm about to do something stupid, will you?"

Kierin's gaze followed him as he edged out of the shadows to get a better view of the shops between them and the river. She didn't plan on being with him long enough to remind him about anything. But she wouldn't tell him that.

Grudgingly, she joined him at the corner of the building and tried to make out the darkened street ahead. They were near the edge of town. The moonlight danced on the newly paved cobbled road that led to the waterfront wharfs and slivered through the wavering shadows cast by the rows of poplars which lined the main street.

Holt pushed away from the wall and slipped cautiously down the row of shops, with Kierin close behind. They stopped alongside the newly constructed Beaudry's Livery. Its raw, unpainted siding was still fragrant with resinous pitch. The woodsy scent drifted to them with each breath as Holt and Kierin pressed deeper into the barn's shadows. A bone-chilling cold settled upon her as soon as she stopped moving, but Kierin stubbornly resisted the temptation to press against Holt's warm bulk. The damp river mist slithered between the thin wrap and her nearly bare shoulders and she pulled the shawl more tightly around her, pressing her fists to her face.

A screech owl's cry pierced the night's quiet. Kierin ducked her head as the huge bird swooped down close by to scoop up an unsuspecting mouse who had ventured into a moonlit patch of street. She let out a small horrified gasp as she watched the tiny mouse dangle helplessly from the talons of the night creature who disappeared beyond the trees.

She stood very still, eyes fixed on the darkness, unable to control the tremors that gripped her body. Unwelcome tears burned the backs of her eyes and she swiped at them with her shawl-entangled fist. She felt at that moment as out of control of her own destiny as that tiny mouse certainly was. The currents of the night's events had swept her into dark and unfamiliar territory with a man she did not know.