Just Once (5 page)

Jemma waited until they had traveled another block and were virtually alone on the street. No one else was moronic enough to stay out in the rain. As she hurried along, trying not to let the woodsman out of her sight, Jemma shoved her splayed fingers into her hair and tugged the wet curls in all directions until her hair stood out around her head like a madwoman’s.

After loosening the string on the worn, sodden cape so that it hung limply off one shoulder, she took hold of the pale silk fabric of her gown at the shoulder and tugged until she heard the stitches pop. With one final jerk, she separated the shoulder seam until there was a wide tear. Her skin showed between the ragged edges.

She gathered up her skirt and started running headlong down the street, her footsteps pounding against the wooden banquette. Launching herself at her objective, she grabbed hold of the stranger’s leather sleeve and tugged on his left arm.

The instant she touched him, he somehow managed to whip out the knife that had been sheathed at his right side. The long rifle clattered against the boardwalk. He had grasped a hank of her hair and had whipped her around, effectively pinning her against him while he held the knife to her throat.

Jemma gasped, afraid to move, yet afraid to hold her tongue and have him slit her throat before she could even utter an explanation.

“I need help,” she whispered, holding her teeth clenched, afraid if she opened her mouth that the cold, Lethal steel at her throat would slide into her skin.

She felt the pressure on the blade ease, but the giant continued to hold her clasped against him. He was glaring down at her, his eyes glittering like emerald shards in the lamplight.

His image began to swim before her eyes. Rainwater dripped off the brim of his hat, down into her face. Jemma blinked rapidly. He let go of her long enough to drag her with him until they stood beneath an overhang.

“What’s this all about?” he demanded.

When he spoke, his voice was strong and deep, just as it had been when he apologized to the Creoles on the street. She forced herself to remember how he had offered those men an apology to avoid a confrontation. She prayed she had not been hasty. Surely such a man would not harm her.

Wincing as his hand tightened on her hair, Jemma grabbed the front of his fringed coat. She screwed up her courage and shouted, “You’ve got to save me!”

Chapter 3

“Shit.”

Hunter groaned aloud. He didn’t need this. He really didn’t.

Doubting his own sanity, he stared down at the disheveled blond with bewitching china-blue eyes and twin dimples and knew that plenty of the “Kaintucks” roaming the streets of New Orleans would not have hesitated to drag her off to a crib in the Swamp district first and ask questions later. Her breath was coming fast and shallow, her face smooth and pale as moonlight except for twin spots of high color on her cheeks and the shadows in her dimples.

“Save you from what?”

“Put the knife away and I’ll tell you,” she ordered.

“Lady, you’re the one who flew out of nowhere and grabbed
me
. Start talking.” To appease her, he lowered the knife, but didn’t relax his guard. His gaze flicked to his rifle. It was lying on the boardwalk where he’d dropped it. Then he glanced up and down the street. There was not a soul in sight.

“They’re still after me, trying to track me down and capture me.” A tremor shot through her as her eyes widened in fear.

“Who?” He looked down the street again. There was no one around.

“I’ve sworn not to let them take me, even if I have to
kill
myself.” Her small hands tightened on his fringed coat.

“
Who’s
trying to track you down?” Certain she was mad, he spoke slowly and distinctly.

“Do you think you could please let go of my hair? You’re hurting me.”

He could see he was not going to get to the bottom of this very quickly, and his rifle was getting soaked. He let go of her hair, kept one hand on her arm, and sheathed his knife. Hunter dragged her over to the weapon and picked it up before ducking back beneath the overhang. Then he pulled the wool cloak over her exposed shoulder.

“I asked who was after you,” he repeated.

“The emir’s men, the palace guards. They’ve chased me half way round the world … from Algiers.”

“Algiers?”

“It’s on the coast of northern Africa.”

“I know where it is.” He
really
didn’t need this.

“You do?” She looked him up and down.

“What were you doing there?”

“I’d just left the convent.”

“The convent?”

“You certainly ask a lot of questions.” She took a deep breath. “My father had been forced to send me there after he lost the family fortune. By the time I received the letter carried by special envoy, it was too late. The nuns wouldn’t let me go.” She paused long enough to smile and cast her gaze heavenward. “They believed I had a special calling, certain I was destined for sainthood. Like St. Theresa.”

“Christ,” he mumbled.

“No, St. Theresa.”

“How did you get out of the convent?” Despite his well-greased buckskins, Hunter was nearly soaked through. This was a night he would not remember fondly.

She shrugged. “Why, the way any sane person would. I tunneled under the garden wall.” Her eyes took on a faraway glow. “It took months.”

“And the emir’s men?”

“What I didn’t know, as I made my escape, was that the convent was under siege. It seems there was a fortune in jewels hidden in the old chapel. The emir’s Berber guard had the place surrounded. I tunneled right into their hands. When they saw my hair—you know, blond hair is quite an oddity in Algiers—they realized I had not yet taken my solemn vows. The guards became determined to deliver me to their master for his harem. They expected he would pay a huge sum for a … well, you know.” Her cheeks stained with color and she quickly looked away.

He had no idea what the emir would pay more for, or what hair had to do with taking vows. “But somehow, you managed to escape.”

She nodded. “Barely. And only by slipping into a huge empty oil jar. I stowed away and that’s how I ended up here in New Orleans tonight. Those men will stop at nothing to find me again.”

She paused for breath. Hunter had forgotten he was holding her, until he realized she was actually leaning against him. He abruptly let her go. Although he was fairly certain she was a crazy lunatic and just as unpredictable, she was too small to do him any physical harm. The poor wit-scrambled girl was running from something all right, but he was willing to bet everything he owned that it was from an insane asylum.

“Will you help me?”

Somebody always wanted something.

Hunter took a step back, intent on going his own way. Amelia White had already made a bigger fool of him than any woman had a right to. Not only that, but she had run off and left behind her daughter Lucy, who was no kin to him at all. Even though Amelia had done him a big favor by leaving, he wasn’t about to let any woman talk her way into his life again, especially this addlepated blue-eyed blond with the face of an angel and twin dimples.

“I’m afraid I’m getting out of the savior business. You’ll have to find somebody else.” He tipped the brim of his hat and succeeded in sending a stream of water down over his hand. Without a backward glance, Hunter started down the street, fighting to ignore the girl’s startled expression of disbelief.

“Are you just going to walk off and leave me standing out here alone like this?” Her voice came to him through the rain, reed-thin and shaky.

“Yep.” He told himself to keep walking. He didn’t want to dwell on her standing there soaked through, shivering with fright. With those eyes and that figure, she was most likely a whore trying to escape her pimp, not some convent escapee on the run from Berber tribesmen.

For half a block she followed him. He could hear her light, rapid footsteps dogging his on the boardwalk; then there was silence. Hunter warned himself not to turn around, not to get involved. She had come from someplace and she would end up somewhere else. She could damn well get there on her own. He didn’t need to worry about what happened to her.

He put a few blocks between them and was about to step off the end of the walk and negotiate the muddy street when he heard the scream. The sound tore through the night air. He spun around.

In the distance, two shadowy figures struggled beneath a lamppost. The yellow glow from the lantern radiated around the silhouettes locked in a frenetic tussle. Raindrops glistened in a shimmering halo around a head of wild, curly blond hair. Hunter picked up his pace, his moccasins slapping hard thumps against the wooden walk.

A gent dressed like a card shark in a tall hat, cutaway coat, and natty stirrup pants was accosting St. Theresa of Algiers.

The gambler was so intent on attacking his helpless victim that he didn’t see or hear Hunter until it was too late. Six paces from the gambler, Hunter got a strong whiff of whiskey. In two paces he reached out and whipped the man away from the frantic blond, drew back his arm, and sent his fist crashing into his victim’s chin before the gambler knew what hit him. The man’s waistcoat was spattered with blood. The sateen shone in the glow of the lamp as the man lay face up in the pelting rain.

The girl threw herself against Hunter, nearly toppling them both. He drew her under cover of an overhanging balcony once more.

“Good God! I could have been killed … or worse! You just can’t leave me alone like this,” she said, clutching him tight. A sob caught in her throat and she shuddered. Genuine fear was reflected in the tears shimmering in her eyes.

He thought of Lucy, Amelia’s girl, who wasn’t much younger than this one. What if Lucy were out alone on the streets and no one helped her? Not that shy little Lucy would ever find herself in such a fix, but still, he couldn’t help but compare the two. Years of being responsible won out.

“I’m headed for Tchoupitoulas Street. I’ll put you up in a hotel, but you’re on your own from there.”

“Tchoupitoulas?” She worked the word around on her tongue.

“Fronts the river. You might have seen it when you climbed out of your oil jar at the wharf.”

She looked confused and then sniffed. “I was only in the oil jar until it was carried aboard ship.” Trembling as she glanced over at the still-inert gambler, she rubbed her arms and shivered.

“There are some places to bed down, none of them decent, but you’ll be safer than you would be in the Swamp.”

“The Swamp?” Her eyes were huge.

Enough time had been wasted. He started to drag her down the street. “Plenty of other whores down there, too.”

“
Other
whores?” She stopped abruptly, refusing to budge.

“You heard me.”

“I, sir, am
no
whore.”

She had thrust her chin at him in defiance until he looked her up and down and had the satisfaction of seeing her quell beneath his glare. Giving her a tug, he started her moving again.

“Then what the hell are you? This time I want the truth.”

She sniffed. “How can you be so cruel? I’m a defenseless young woman alone … trying to … to get to her long lost father … and brother.”

“And where might they be?”

Her gaze touched on his and then quickly slipped away. “Where are you headed?”

Her ability to turn the tables was giving him a headache. “Upriver, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Aha! Don’t you
see
?”

“Lady, I don’t see anything but two fools jawin’ out in the rain.” They were passing the cathedral. The river was not far away.

“It just so happens that
I’m
desperate to go upriver too. Up the mighty Mississippi to join my father and … and my older brother. They are on a mapping expedition in the wilds of Canada. You and I are headed in the very same direction. That’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he mumbled.

When they stepped out from behind the cathedral and started across the square, they were set upon by four policemen rounding the corner of the building. Shoving Hunter aside, one of the men quickly took his weapons while another held a gun on him. The second pair of uniformed officers grabbed the girl. Hunter’s stomach lurched as he watched an officer snatch the hood off her shining hair, grasp her chin, and tilt her pretty face toward the lamplight.

“I swear I never saw her before.” Hunter struggled against the men’s holds, nearly broke free, and earned a sharp blow to his temple for his efforts.

“She’s not the one.” The policeman abruptly let the blond go and then nodded toward Hunter. “Let him go, too.”

As Hunter shook the men free, he couldn’t help but note the intense look of relief upon his petite companion’s face.

“Who are you looking for?” she managed.

“A girl named Celine Winters. Have either of you run into a black-haired young woman in a dark cape?”

Hunter shook his head. The blond was trembling like a leaf. He threaded her arm through the crook of his.

“We haven’t seen her.” He held out his hand to the men holding his weapons. “Now, I’d like to get her out of the rain,” he told them.

He was handed his knife and he sheathed it, then he took his rifle. The officers quickly apologized and hurried off, headed across the square.

“Thank you,” she said, then added, “Will you help me now? My God, there are murderers actually running these streets.” She frowned at the shadows around the cathedral and then glanced up and down the street.

“As well as lunatics,” he mumbled.

“I can pay you handsomely.”

“You don’t look like you have a dixie on you.”

“What’s a dixie?”

“It’s a ten-dollar note that says
dix
on one side. That’s French for ‘ten.’”

She probably wasn’t from New Orleans, he decided, or she would know that rivermen had named the place
Dixie
after the paper money issued in English on one side and French on the other.

They were splashing along the quay now, headed toward the cheap hotels and floating gaming flatboats moored along Tchoupitoulas. She had to run to match his stride.

“What’s your name?” She called out.

“Hunter Boone. What makes you think you can trust me? How do you know I’m not going to cut your throat and take your money?” he puzzled aloud.

“If you were going to harm me, you’ve already had ample chance. Besides, I was watching you on the street long before I approached you. I heard you apologize to that dandy with the oily hair and that ridiculous mustache. You’re just the level-headed sort of escort I’m looking for. That knife you’re wearing convinced me I should enlist your help.”

They had reached a ramshackle hotel built of unpainted, mismatched planks salvaged from parts of crude river craft. A hand-lettered sign that said ROTGUT hung over the door. Hunter pushed her up the steps and then through the swinging doors of the tavern that fronted the rowdy establishment.

“What
is
this place?” There was more curiosity than fear in her eyes.

“This, St. Theresa, is where we part company.”

Jemma took stock of the small tavern in horrified wonder. The place was beyond shabby, the patrons cutthroats and scoundrels. There wasn’t a woman in the room. It was dangerous and sinfully thrilling.

Grandpa would have loved it.

Across the room, two long planks had been laid across tall oak-stave barrels to form a bar. Half a dozen men were swilling the liquor that gave the place its distinctive odor, not to mention its name. Here and there, rickety tables with mismatched chairs dotted the floor. Most of them were occupied, but not all of the occupants were conscious.

The man called Hunter Boone had paused inside the door. She could tell he was taking stock of his surroundings, judging each man, sending them threatening glances. She was convinced she had made the right choice.

“Come on,” he said softly and walked away, headed toward the bar.

She made the mistake of staring too long at a shady-looking character in a black hat seated at the nearest table. He was smiling at her quite menacingly and flashed the few yellow teeth he still had beneath a thick black mustache with curled ends. Enveloped in a long, black greatcoat, he looked like evil incarnate.

When the man pushed out of his chair and came toward her, she froze as if her stained slippers had suddenly been nailed to the floor. She opened her mouth to cry out to Hunter, who was now halfway across the room, but nothing more than a pitiful, inaudible squeak escaped her.