“Hey, I’m not quitting the game, just this hand. There is no way I can beat Saul’s three of a kind, because the odds aren’t good enough for me to get dealt a pair that would match one of the three cards I had.” He flipped another card to Jenny.
“No help,” he murmured, and then tossed one across the table to Amelia. “That’s no help either.”
Colt flicked a card over and dropped it onto the table for Saul. “Sh—oot,” he finished, biting off the curse. He had dealt Saul yet another deuce. He grinned at Jenny and Amelia. “My suggestion is to fold. He’s got both of you beat with what he has showing on the table. I can’t deal him another deuce, but…neither one of you can beat him.”
Jenny promptly flipped her cards face down. Amelia smiled at Saul. “Looks like you’ve won.”
“I won?” Saul came out of his chair. “I don’t have to do chores tomorrow?”
“Sit down,” Colt said. “You won this hand, but we ain’t done playing.”
Colt gathered in the cards, and then pushed the pile of crackers to Saul’s place. “Let’s try five-card draw, and go once around the table. You can drop three on the draw.”
“What?” Amelia asked. “Will you please explain that to us in English?”
He shuffled the cards without looking at them. “It means I’ll deal five, face down. Pick them up, make the best hand you can and discard what you don’t need. I will then deal out a second round and you can take up to three cards.”
When all five cards were dealt out, Colt dropped two of his own onto the table. Jenny’s brow was knit with concentration. Then she placed one card on the table. Amelia stared at her hand, frowning. Colt chuckled. He had seen that frown before from a lot of beginning poker players, players he had won a lot of money from.
“If you aren’t sure, Amy, remember pairs and three of a kind. Unless you’ve got a straight or a flush.”
“What’s a flush?’
“All the cards are the same suit. A straight means they’re consecutive. Best hand anyone can ever have is a royal flush. That’s a straight in the same suit with the face cards and ace.”
Amelia studied her cards again, and then pulled out one and set it on the table. Saul dropped two. Colt dealt the second round of cards and said, “I never can win at this one. Don’t know why I picked it.”
The evening flew by, with the winning hands going more often than not to Saul or Jenny. At one point, Amelia said with a laugh, “You’re stacking the deck so they win, aren’t you?”
Colt smiled. “Nah, it’s just beginner’s luck.”
Shortly, Colt was down to one cracker.
Saul grinned. “I’ll loan you a couple of crackers, Colt.”
Colt laughed. “Great. Just what I need. A loan of a few crackers. Slide ’em on over here, kid.”
Amelia stood, stretched, and glanced at the mantel clock. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “It’s after midnight.”
Jenny and Saul looked up, their expressions stricken. Amelia sat down again. “We’ll finish this hand, but then you two have to go to bed.”
Jenny and Saul nodded. When the last hand went to Saul, he leaped up from his chair, proclaiming, “I won! I don’t have to do any chores tomorrow.”
“Okay, both of you,” Amelia said. “Come get into your night clothes and get to bed. Saul, you are hereby relieved of all duties and chores for tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Saul whispered triumphantly. “No chores.”
Colt stayed at the table, never taking his gaze from Amelia as she walked Jenny and Saul to their rooms. Jenny was holding Amelia’s hand, and Amelia had her other arm draped over Saul’s narrow shoulders. Everything Colt had ever hoped for, had ever dreamed of having was here within the walls of this small home. And a pile of cigarette butts on a ridge had shattered those dreams beyond repair.
Colt stood. An ache that started in the depths of his soul seared through him. He pulled his hat off, and tossed it across the room to the hat rack. He pumped water into the coffeepot and set it on the stove, and then tossed a few pieces of wood into the belly of the stove.
Jenny padded into the kitchen, her hair twisted into braids. She held her arms up to him. He swept her up and hugged her tightly. Jenny wrapped her slender arms around his neck and pressed a kiss against his cheek. A lump formed in his throat. Colt set her on the floor, ruthlessly quelling the stinging in his eyes.
He turned her toward her bedroom and managed, “You’d better head on to bed now, Miss Jenny.”
She started to leave, paused, and smiled at him over her shoulder. As she disappeared into her room, Saul appeared in the doorway of his own. “Good night, Colt,” the boy called. “Thanks for teaching us to play poker.”
Colt nodded. “I just don’t want to find out you’re gambling at school. Your sister will have my hide hanging out to dry if you do that. I kind of like my hide on me.”
Saul giggled and darted back into his room. Colt pulled the bubbling coffeepot off the stove as the rich aroma filled the house. He walked to the door and pulled it open, gazing out in the night.
The rain had stopped, and the temperature had dropped significantly. Colt stepped out onto the porch, shivering with a cold that came from within. A brisk wind scoured the velvety blackness, leaving the stars twinkling and glittering. The barest sliver of a moon rode low in the horizon, playing hide and seek among the thin remnants of the rain clouds.
How long did he have? Whoever had been on the ridge had been watching the house, and he wasn’t about to make the mistake of thinking that it had nothing to do with him. He hadn’t survived as long as he had by deluding himself. He had this night, maybe the next day because of the rain. He didn’t know a soul who liked to be riding out in the rain, and even a man with vengeance on his mind preferred to remain holed up in bad weather. But now that the rain had ended…how long?
He surveyed the barn, shrouded in darkness. If he was lucky, he’d have the next day to take Saul out and teach him how to use his rifle. Then he had to saddle up and put the homestead behind him. He’d stop in town, tell the marshal and anyone else he saw that he was leaving, just to be sure no one would come looking for him at Amy’s. He would leave a trail so obvious and so wide even a blind man could follow it, so that whoever had been on the ridge watching the house would come after him, leaving Amelia and the kids alone.
The lump in his throat threatened to choke him. Damn it, why had he let himself care?
Colt straightened and marched to the barn. He flung the door open, walked down the short aisle, and stared out the back doors of the barn into the darkness where the ridge and its pile of butts were.
“Colt?”
He turned around. Amelia stood in the doorway, holding her hand out to him. Against his better judgment, he held out his own. She closed the distance between them, and her fingers curled around his. He pulled her to him and rested his cheek against her hair as her body melted to his. She still smelled like rainwater and vanilla. He swallowed hard.
He felt her every breath, her every heartbeat. “Amy—”
“It’s all here, Colt, everything you told Jenny you wanted. It’s all here, if you want it.” Her fingers, intertwined with his, pressed his palms to her waist. “Make a bet with me, Colt. Play me one more hand of poker. If you win, I won’t say another word to try to stop you from leaving. If I win, you stay, or we leave with you. We can go somewhere that no one knows who you are.”
He could as easily stop his own breathing as he could add a solid foundation for the hope shimmering in the depths of her eyes. With a groan of anguish, Colt pulled his fingers free of hers and stepped away.
“Even if I agreed to those terms…” He trailed off, unable to voice how much he wanted to stay. He knew if he told her, she would only try that much harder to keep him there. He moved over to Angel and shoved the horse’s nose away from his shoulder.
“We want you to stay, Colt, all three of us. I know if you asked Saul and Jenny, they’d tell you the same thing.” She hadn’t moved, either closer to him or away. “You want to stay here, without having to worry about us because of who you were. Isn’t that what you told Jenny you wanted?”
“Who I am, Amy. Not who I was.” Colt raked his hand through his hair. “And those kids don’t understand the risks involved. I don’t think you fully understand the danger I have dogging my heels. Hell, Amy, let’s get serious here. Not only am I a gunman, I’m a cad. I took your virginity. Most men want a virgin for a wife, not someone else’s leavings.”
Amelia flinched, and bright color stained her cheeks. “If you leave—”
“When.” He couldn’t allow her to draw him into a debate. He was already wavering.
“If you leave, there will be no other man.”
Anger with himself and with her flared brightly. “You are the most stubborn thing I have ever met, Amelia. How many times do I have to tell you that I am not staying? I’m not good for you. I can’t offer you a damn thing. No tomorrows, no promises, not a single moment beyond this one.”
She moved toward him. “If you can’t bring yourself to promise me anything other than this moment, then I will settle for just this moment.” She pressed her palm onto his chest. The heat of her hand seared him like a brand, and Colt knew he was lost.
Her arms slid around his neck and he was straining for her mouth. His hands moved up and down her back. A tiny mewling sound broke from her throat as he ravaged her mouth. She plucked at the buttons of his shirt and then he was tugging at what seemed to be thousands of tiny buttons of her dress, all suddenly much too large for the holes.
The dress slid from her and she was standing before him, gloriously nude. Some part of his mind registered that she had taken off her undergarments before coming out to the barn to seek him. He shrugged out of the sling and shirt, ignoring the dull pain flaring in his shoulder. He spread out his shirt and lowered her into the fragrant hay.
Her hands were at his waist, tugging the buttons of his trousers. He found her breast with his mouth, and sucked her into him. Her gasp quenched the last of his resolve and he shoved his trousers down. His swollen manhood brushed against her sleek stomach.
She brought a trembling hand to his cheek, and then pulled him to her lips. “Colt, I want…”
He entered her, slowly, giving her time to adjust to him. Her body trembled under his and then she lifted her hips. He lost all control with that. He thrust into her, over and over.
Amelia whispered his name and rose to meet his every advance, her nails digging into his back. She was slick around him, tight and pulling him in deeper and deeper. Her cries stoked the fire burning in him and when she tightened around him and her high, thin cry echoed through the barn, he shuddered his release into her.
Breathing heavily, Colt rolled off her, his hand entwined with hers. He gently gathered her into his arms, and stroked the length of her back. She was quiet, and after a moment, he realized she was crying on his chest.
The words to halt her tears stuck in his throat, words he wouldn’t say because he knew he couldn’t. He wouldn’t make a promise he couldn’t keep.
Colt motioned toward the large buck partially hidden in the copse of pine trees. The animal sniffed and tested the air before lowering his head with its massive rack to the summer-burnt grasses. Silent, Saul lifted the Winchester to his shoulder and sighted along the barrel.
“If you’ve got a clean shot, take it. Right behind his shoulder, in the middle of his ribs,” Colt whispered. “One shot and we won’t be chasing him all over the mountainside to finish him off.”
The buck suddenly lifted his head, snorting. His large ears swiveled back and forth, and a moment later he bounded off into the safety of the dark woods, tail flipping up with a flash of bright white. A distant baying echoed under the crashing of the buck through the rain-soaked undergrowth. Saul lowered the rifle with a deep sigh, and then handed it to Colt.
Colt said, “I thought I told you to leave Baby with Jenny.”
“I did,” Saul said. “I even made Jenny promise to keep her in the house.”
Colt’s name sounded through the cool woods.
“Did you hear that?” Saul asked. “Someone is calling you.”
“Yeah, I heard it.” Colt stood and peered through the pines.
“It sounds like Jenny.” Saul’s face was pale.
“Jenny?” Terror coursed an icy path through Colt, and settled heavily in his gut.
Saul pivoted and raced down the trail, toward the sound of his sister’s voice.
Colt ran after him. A moment later, Jenny emerged on the trail. She was sobbing, tears streaking her slender, dirt-smudged cheeks. Baby barked and raced to Saul.
The look of terror on Jenny’s face knifed through Colt. Without a word, he knew Amelia was in danger.
Jenny ran to him. Her slender arms slipped around his waist as she sobbed. Colt pushed her away. As much as he wanted to hold her and console her, instinct told him every moment counted. This time, he couldn’t be a second too slow.
“Jenny, what’s wrong?”
She opened her mouth, struggling to form words.
“Take a breath, Jenny. Relax, and then tell me. You can do this, I know you can.” He smoothed the hair from her sweaty brow, wondering when he had grown to love this little girl so much.
“Jenny, what’s wrong?” Saul demanded, pushing Baby away.
Jenny knit her brow and Colt motioned to Saul. “Don’t rush her.” He dropped to one knee, setting the Winchester on the ground at his side, and tilted Jenny’s chin. “Take your time, sweetie, and you can do it. Tell me what’s wrong.”
The slender girl shuddered with the effort. “He…He…Help Amy.”
It was enough for Colt. He grabbed the girl’s hand and raced down the trail to the horses. He lifted Jenny onto Saul’s horse, and then flung Saul onto the mare behind her. Colt scooped Baby into one hand, and shoved her into Jenny’s arms.
“We’ve got to get home,” Saul said, his voice breaking.
“No, you don’t. I’m going there. You hang onto your sister so she doesn’t fall off, and ride like hell for town and get Marshal Taylor. You hear me? You ride like hell, boy.”
“Yes, sir.” Saul kicked his mare, aided by Colt’s slap to the horse’s rump.
Colt pulled off his sling, slid the rifle into the saddle-boot and swung up onto Angel. He pulled the gelding’s head toward the house and kicked him into a gallop.