The Honour-Bound Gambler. Lisa Plumley
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you with new eyes. They’ll wonder why I want you—why I’m captivated with you. They’ll imagine…all manner of things.”
She inhaled again, steadying herself. “Good things?”
The lilt of hopefulness in her voice was heartrending.
“Good things,” Cade affirmed, feeling touched by her beyond all reason. He didn’t know why he wanted to help her—why he wanted to erase her wrongheaded notion that she was undesirable and unnoticed. He only knew that he did. “Everyone wants what they can’t have. Especially men. I know more about human nature than I want to, after all these years of wagering, and I know that’s true. Let me show you, Violet. Let’s strike a deal.”
Hesitating, she bit her lip. “Who will know about this?”
“As far as your friends and neighbors are concerned, I’ll be courting you,” Cade swore, taking her hand. “That’s all.”
A glance. “But really I’ll be bringing you good luck.”
She was smart, he realized. And much less naive than he’d thought. That made Cade feel better about this whole endeavor.
“Yes,” he said. “You’ll be bringing me good luck.” He offered her a winning smile—one he knew was persuasive. “But hopefully that good luck will be shared by us both.”
“You know,” she mused, giving him another of her patented, too-observant looks, “I think you’re an optimist at heart.”
“I think you’ve only just met me,” Cade disagreed, “and it shows.”
Her smile touched him, suddenly mysterious. “Well, you’d better find some optimism, then. Because I can only do this if my father agrees. That means you’ll have to impress him at dinner tonight and obtain his blessing. Will I see you at six?”
Sunnily and capably, Violet gave him the particulars.
Dumbstruck at the realization that he’d have to impress a straitlaced minister to put his good-luck-charm plan in motion, Cade hesitated. Then he nodded. The minute he did so, Violet Benson jumped up from her bench, briskly said goodbye, then left him alone while she returned to her charitable good works.
That was twice she’d left him stranded, Cade realized as he watched her leave. The first time, on the Grand Fair dance floor, he’d purposely allowed her to do so. The second time…
Well, the second time, just now, he hadn’t. Damnation. Was it possible that an innocent small-town girl had outmaneuvered him?
Worse, was it possible that a reformer had outfoxed him?
No. He was worldly, intelligent and determined. No one could outwit him. Except maybe Percy Whittier. And even then only a few times.
But the man wasn’t a god, and he wasn’t infallible. He was only irredeemable. With a little more effort, Cade knew he would find him. Then he would get the answers he needed.
The answers he’d promised Judah.
In the meantime, Cade had a few more hours to spend before dinnertime at the Benson household. That was just enough time, he reckoned, to write to his brother, beat Blackhouse at cards a few more times…and strategize how best to turn Violet Benson into an irresistible temptress, all before Cade left town in the next week or two.
Chapter Four
When Violet heard a decisive knock at the door at precisely fifteen minutes before six o’clock that evening, she felt her heartbeat perk up a notch. Jittery and breathless, she untied her ruffled apron. She hung it on its hook in the kitchen. She smoothed down her skirts, then hastened to the front door.
There, she stopped. Staring at that ordinary white-painted, wooden-framed door, so familiar and yet so unremarkable, Violet couldn’t resist feeling that something momentous was about to occur. For the first time ever, she’d invited a man to dinner. He’d accepted. And now…who knew what might happen.
Fastening a smile on her face, Violet tugged open the door.
The gambler Cade Foster stood on her front porch, with the setting sun and all of Morrow Creek behind him, attired in yet another of his well-designed suits. His dark hair, brushed from his face in waves, framed his features superbly. His white shirt looked crisp. His necktie looked silky. His coat set off his broad-shouldered physique to perfection. He looked…wonderful.
The only thing missing in his appearance was—
A smile. Just as she thought it, Cade gifted her with one. At the sight of it, Violet’s poor heart pitter-pattered twice as energetically. He really was so handsome. And so charming!
Unfortunately, while Violet was savoring the sight of him, Cade was enjoying an equal opportunity to scrutinize her. He sent his gaze roving over her flowing calico skirts, her dress’s high-buttoned bodice, her lace-trimmed shawl…and nodded.
“You look lovely.” He took her hand in greeting. His fingers felt warm over hers—warm and deft and masculine. “That dress brings out the green in your eyes. They’re sparkling.”
“That’s because I’m happy to see you. Please, come in!”
Violet stepped back with a flourish, feeling uncommonly pleased that he’d approved of her ensemble. The oak plank floorboards creaked under her feet; the scent of roast chicken and root vegetables wafted from the kitchen’s cast-iron stove. Expectantly, she clasped her hands, waiting for him to enter.
Cade didn’t move. Instead he gave her a doubtful frown. “I hope it’s all right if there’s one more for dinner.”
From behind him, Cade reached for something. He dragged it forward. At first it looked like a bundle of cast-off clothing. Then it resolved itself into a scrawny child—a boy with wary eyes, sharp features and an overall air of shameful neglect.
“Tobe Larkin, I’d like you to meet Miss Violet Benson,” Cade said. To Violet he added, “Tobe is one of the first people I met in Morrow Creek. I…ran into him on my way here and decided to bring him along.”
“Why, that’s fine,” Violet began. “One more is always—”
“He shanghaied me!” The boy, Tobe, jerked his arm out of Cade’s grasp. He glowered at Violet. “I tole him, that lady done dropped her reticule! I was only gonna return it to her, is all. Nothin’ more’n that. Until this here knuck picked me up clean off’n the depot platform and said it was the sheriff or you—”
Cade kicked his foot. As though recognizing that signal, Tobe quit talking. Instead he raised his chin. Then he sniffed.
“Is that chicken I smell?” Enthusiastically, the boy strode inside the house. “Chicken and biscuits, maybe? Mmm, mmm, mmm.”
With a confidence that belied his few years, Tobe stepped farther into the entryway. He propped both hands on his hips. “This might be all right, I reckon. Only don’t you get no ideas about sellin’ me into white slavery or nothin’, Miss Benson,” he warned. “I done heard’a you plenty. I aim to be on my guard the whole time I’m here, and that’s for certain. I ain’t no fool.”
“Well, I—” Mystified by his wrongheaded notions about her, Violet hesitated. “We’ve only just met. I wouldn’t think to—”
She glanced to Cade for guidance. He was watching Tobe with a strange, mingled sense of stoniness and nostalgia on his face.
“—sell anyone,” she continued, wondering all the while at Cade’s unusual expression. “I’m certainly not a white slaver!”
Where in the world had the boy gotten such a nonsensical idea? Violet could scarcely fathom it. Indeed, she helped many different people in town, including children, but the people whom she helped were generally grateful for her