Poker was poker.
“Adam? Your turn to open.”
Bob Kramer acted as dealer tonight, a role the man seemed to enjoy.
Might as well, since he was a piss-poor gambler.
It never seemed to bother Bob that he couldn’t keep a poker face or read a hand of cards or any of the other players. He came each month and cheerfully lost his stake and always came back the next month for more. Strange bastard.
Maddox flicked his gaze over to Adam Kendall, a man whose friendship he’d deliberately courted over the last few years. It never hurt to have the law in one’s corner. As the man in charge of the Ranger post in Waco, Kendall was the most visible symbol of the force in the entire county. Despite his efforts, though, Maddox hadn’t managed more than a “friendly acquaintanceship” with the man.
Fine
.
Adam
had
found him two gunslingers, a couple of out-of-work former army buddies of his to fetch Sarah, and that had been an enormous help. In fact, Adam’s act of kindness had been the perfect gesture at the perfect time.
“Yeah, I’ll open. A nickel,” Adam said, tossing the coin into the pot.
Downstairs in the main saloon stood tables where men bought in and used chips when they played cards. Any time, day or night, if a man wanted a little game, the chance to win just a little coin, then those tables would suit. Upstairs the table awaited real money and real men. Maddox could never see the point in prettying the game up with chips, trying to give it an air of respectability, as if sitting down and anteing up constituted a harmless diversion. Why not call things what they were?
Gambling was gambling.
“Hear you went and got yourself hitched a few weeks back, Maddox. But I ain’t seen hide nor hair of a wife. You keeping her chained up out at your place? Or did she already run off?” Gareth Peterson of the big mouth and small cock—according to Mandy here at the Old Ranch—never failed to irritate the hell out of Maddox. Despite that, Peterson’s decision to attend tonight’s game had figured prominently in Maddox’s presence. He wanted to win every damn cent the bastard had on him.
Gareth Peterson always seemed to be just one step ahead of Maddox, scooping up the best bulls at auction, the best opportunities for investment, just as Maddox reached for them himself. But a new deal was blowing in the wind, a new opportunity that Maddox determined would be the making of his fortune, his future,
and
his name. Something that would make him the richest man in all of
Discovering the opportunity and knowing no one else hereabouts knew about it yet resulted in Maddox scrambling for every penny he could lay his hands on. Quietly, arrangements had been made. Soon, he would be in possession of enough money to buy hundreds of acres of East Texas land. It would be his before pecker-head Peterson even heard word of the new gold rush about to be unleashed in the land: oil.
Competition was competition.
Maddox planned to grind Gareth Peterson into the dust. When he finished with him, the man would wish he’d never been born. Now, however, he only said, “I’ll be having a huge party to introduce my wife once she arrives. She’s on her way here now, from Chicago, even as we speak.”
“You sly dog, Ty,” Silas Jones, the final member of their game said. “All those times going up north to negotiate for your beef. It wasn’t just the beef that drove you. It wasn’t all just business, was it?”
Maddox felt little respect for Silas, a man he considered a fool. But fools sometimes had deep pockets and, as in this case, could sometimes prove to have other uses.
“A smart man knows never to close himself off to whatever opportunities may arise. Sarah is the daughter of the man I’ve been doing business with for years. I first set eyes on her a couple of years ago, but I had to wait until she came of age. Her father kindly gave his consent during my most recent visit, and I didn’t want to risk his changing his mind. I am a very lucky man.”
“Take ’em to your bed young, then break them in right. That’s the way, Maddox. Too bad you had to leave her behind, after finally nailing her and all. Poor bastard, had your wedding night rut and then took off? Must be hard to do without, once your cock gets to dip into that fresh young cunt.” Peterson said. “These last few weeks must have been hell.”
The other men around the table tensed. Silas looked as if he would swallow his cigar. Adam made a subtle move that alerted Maddox the lawman could easily grab his gun, and would, if necessary. Kramer fidgeted in his seat.
There existed a basic code of behavior, one understood by gentlemen even in as rough and tumble a place as Waco, Texas, and Gareth Peterson had just crossed it. Maddox’s own cross draw thirty-caliber Remington
lay on the small table by the door but that was all right. Bullets weren’t his preferred ammunition where Gareth Peterson was concerned. Bullets would only wound his flesh. Maddox knew his adversary, knew the financial coup he planned would be a far more hurtful wound. And then, when the man lay bleeding, he’d see to it that certain people knew certain things, and his name, his reputation would be destroyed.
The silence drew out and only he and Peterson sat perfectly still, gazes locked, each perfectly attuned to the other.
“I assure you I had no trouble heeding the urging of my better angel, allowing my wife a little extra time to bid farewell to family and friends. I’m certain that under similar circumstances, you would have done exactly the same.”
Kramer snickered at that because it was a well-known fact that Peterson’s wife wore the pants in that family, and if her pussy saw any action, it sure as hell wasn’t from Peterson’s shriveled up old cock.
“I’ll see your nickel and raise it to two bits,” Maddox said, easily keeping his tone pleasant. He tossed the money into the kitty, then turned to give Captain Kendall a steady look. After just a moment, Kendall nodded and relaxed.
As far as any of the men seated in that room were concerned—Peterson included—Maddox had simply let those unfortunate words roll off his back.
But inside, Tyrone Maddox seethed. Peterson was an ass, but he couldn’t allow that insult toward his wife to goad him to action before he was ready, not under any circumstances. Instead, Maddox added that insult to the list of crimes his adversary had committed. Just one more mark against a man who had sealed his fate years before.
Revenge was revenge. Tyrone Maddox planned to have his soon.
Chapter 4
Sarah thought it just might be possible she would never forget the sound of metal wheels on rails or the sensation of the rocking sway of train travel. In fact, she wondered if she would ever willingly submit herself to this torture again. She turned her attention to one of her traveling companions. Across from her, arms folded on his chest, hat pulled down over his face, Caleb Benedict slept as soundly as a babe in a nursery.
When she awoke that morning, Sarah gave herself a firm talking to. She was on her way to join the man she had married. Yes, it was an arranged marriage, and no, Tyrone Maddox wasn’t a man she likely ever would have chosen on her own. But the marriage had taken place, it
was
fact, and she’d determined before ever laying eyes on her escorts that the proper course of action for her to follow would be to simply make the best of the turn her life had taken. She reminded herself there could be worse fates than marrying a man she didn’t know, that other women had entered into arranged marriages down through the ages, and many of those unions had proven successful, even happy. Before she opened the door to her hotel room, she felt renewed in her determination to do her duty with a whole heart.
They’d been traveling for just half an hour, and Sarah already could feel her grip on that resolve slipping.
It took no effort to recall the short amount of time she’d spent with Tyrone Maddox three weeks ago. He came to dinner the evening before the ceremony, and seemed polite, if distant. He kissed her hand, told her she looked lovely, and saw her seated at the table. He complimented her stepmother, Miranda, in the same offhand manner. And then he spent the rest of the evening in conversation with her father. He’d barely paid her any attention after the first few moments.
He kissed her when the priest directed him to at the end of the wedding ceremony—a not unpleasant brush of his lips on hers. But their wedding night…thinking about it, even now, weeks removed from the event, Sarah felt her face color in embarrassment and shame.
Men had never flocked to her. Likewise, she’d never felt any kind of attraction to any man before yesterday when she met the Benedict brothers. That was one of the reasons Sarah went along with her father’s decree that she marry Maddox. She wanted to be married, to have children. And while the man was older than she would have liked, he was well established, financially secure, and those were important considerations.
She knew what to expect on her wedding night, for Colleen had, with a great deal of blushing and stammering, told her.
What she hadn’t expected was to kiss her husband goodbye the next morning, virginity still intact.
Against her will, her mind conjured the time spent so far with these two gunslingers. They had paid her more attention than the man who had taken her to wife. And they had inspired more tingles and excitement in her body than she’d believed herself capable of feeling.
In that instant, Sarah understood that in doing her duty she would be sentencing herself to a life without passion or pleasure, excitement or romance.
“Are you all right?”
Sarah blinked and looked up. She’d been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed that Joshua had moved from his seat across from her to sit beside her.
“I don’t mean to be presumptuous, Mrs.—Sarah. You just looked so very sad all of a sudden.”
He looked at her with more attention, more concern, than Tyrone Maddox had. He saw her, where she doubted her husband had seen her at all. “I’m fine, thank you for asking, Joshua.”
Oh, Sarah, you must stop these thoughts!
Searching for something else to say, her gaze wandered to Caleb, still held in the depths of sleep.
“Is
Caleb
all right? He fell asleep before the train even left the station.”
“He’s fine. He stayed awake all night, keeping watch. So now he’s catching up.”
“Keeping watch? Keeping watch for what?”
“Not what, whom. He kept an eye on the door to your room all night. Guarding you.”
“Oh.” Sarah had nothing to say to that. She didn’t think, in all her life, anyone had ever gone to such effort on her behalf. Well, no, that wasn’t right. Colleen had stayed by her bedside once when, at eleven, she’d been sick with a bad ague.
She let her eyes rest on Caleb. He had exhausted himself watching over her. She felt something soften inside her. “I guess I never considered that beyond being escorts, you’re guards. I…thank you.”
“I’m going to be presumptuous again, Sarah.” Joshua pitched his voice low. The car wasn’t crowded. Barely a dozen other souls occupied space with them this morning. That might change as the day wore on and they pulled in to more stations, but for now, no one sat too near, and no one seemed to pay them any particular attention whatsoever.
“You don’t seem very eager to join your husband. Now, I’m not condemning you for that. I think it’s strange, in the first place, that a man would leave his bride behind. And strange that you appear more like a woman heading to the gallows than one destined for connubial bliss. What’s going on here, Sarah?”
She should have realized that beneath Joshua’s happy-go-lucky exterior lay a man more sensitive to his surroundings, and the moods of others, than most.
How should she answer him? For he had been right when he’d announced he was about to be presumptuous. He’d asked an extremely intimate question, the sort of question one might expect only from one’s closest confidante.
Oh, God
.
Tears threatened, and she blinked once, fiercely commanding them back. Reality rose up and slammed into her. She was miles from home, miles from all she had known and loved, thrust into a situation she never could have imagined just one month ago. Her future loomed, completely uncertain, and she felt more than alone. She felt
bereft
.
These men, at this point in time, were her
only
friends in the world. Her conscience began to protest, albeit faintly. She silenced it with brutal force.
If Mr. Maddox didn’t want me to trust these two, he should not have sent them to fetch me like some…some left behind package in the first place.
“Connubial bliss? Oh, no, Joshua. I doubt very much there will be any of that in my future. I’m married to Mr. Maddox, quite simply, because my father sold me to him.”
* * * *
“Aw, come on, Adam, I didn’t mean nothing by it. Me and Spence just had us a bit of a disagreement, is all. You don’t have to go arresting me.”
Adam shook his head as he led a handcuffed Walter Pritchard to one of the cells in the back of the Rangers’ office.
“Now, Walter, we’ve been through this before. The townsfolk don’t take too kindly to having a man, drunk and disorderly, swinging at another man and calling him a son of a whore, a godforsaken heathen, or a donkey fucker. I know it sounds all prissy and such, but it seems mothers especially object to their children hearing these new words because children will, of course, repeat them.”