Once A Gambler. Carrie Hudson
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you up to it, but panel thief or not, they should be hung for taking advantage of a deranged woman—”
She held up her injured finger. “See? It actually burned my—Deranged?”
But what his eyes landed on instead was the rock on her finger. It was yellow and perfect and didn’t look like any paste jewel he’d ever seen in his life. If someone put him up against a wall, he would swear it was a diamond. What was a little pickpocket like her doing with a rock like that? Against his better judgment, he began to calculate what a ring like that might be worth.
He ran a disconcerted hand over his mouth, then bent to pull on a polished pair of boots. “And on that account, I might be persuaded not to press charges.”
“Press charges? For what?”
“Breaking into my room.” He fitted a pair of cuff links into his cuffs. “Stealing my watch.” He tried to avoid looking at the ring, but the sparkle drew his eyes to it again.
“Listen, mister, I did not come here willingly. When I woke up this morning I was minding my own business. It was like any other day in Deadwood.”
His hands went still on the buttons of the burgundy silk vest he’d just slipped on. “Deadwood?”
“That’s right, Deadwood, South Dakota—”
“You mean the Dakota Territory.”
“No, I mean South Dakota, the state.”
He chuckled and finished buttoning his vest. “There’s no state called South Dakota. The gold rush that madman, Custer, set off two years ago is the only organized civilization in the Black Hills, be that what it is. If you don’t count the starving Sioux and Cheyenne up there.”
“Custer? As in Custer’s-last-stand Custer?
Jake frowned. “Last stand? That’ll be the day someone gets that black-hearted bastard.”
She swallowed hard. “I’m gonna hate myself for asking this, but…what’s the date?”
“May tenth.”
“And the…year?”
“Same as it’s been since January first, Visa—1876.”
She gasped. “First of all, huh? And second of all, what?”
He shook his head, slipping on his black coat and tucking the money envelope into his inside pocket. “How long have you been like this?”
“Five minutes. Maybe six. I mean, please, do I look like I’m from 1876?” She spread her arms wide. “C’mon. Sports Illustrated? Last year’s Swimsuit Issue? You’d have to have been living in a cave to have missed it—” she stopped at his blank stare “—or…or in 1876…”
He raised a brow patiently.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, no.”
He shoved his gun into his gun belt and strapped it on. And from underneath the pillow he pulled a much smaller, palm-size handgun, which he then concealed inside his boot. “I don’t have all night,” he said at last and held out his hand to her.
“Okay, first, my name’s not Visa. It’s Ellie.”
“Where’s the watch?”
“And that little square thing? That’s a credit card. Plastic.”
“I don’t care if your name is—”
“Have you ever seen plastic before?” she asked, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It’s money in the real world. Not that play stuff you have in your pouch. But real money. With magnetic strips, computerized chips with security encoding…and…and automatic transfer.”
He blinked at her, unsure how to proceed with someone as unstable as she.
“Lady, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Snatching up the square card from where it lay on the floor, he confronted her with it. “But real money is in that poker game down the hall. A thirty-thousand-dollar pot just waiting for me to claim it. Real money is what I need to get the hell out of here. This…little…bendable piece of…glass—”
“Plastic—”
“—only proves my point about you.” He flung the card across the room, where it smacked against the wardrobe. “You’re a liar and a thief. And you’re—pardon me for saying so—unstrung.”
“I’m,” she began, looking lost, “somebody in 2009. You may not know that, but I am. I’m on Vogue covers.”
“Vogue covers?” he repeated, unbuttoning his pants and tucking his shirt into them. “What’s that?”
Her face clouded up. “You’re right. How pathetic is that? The one thing I swore never to trade on, my celebrity, and first mess comes along, what do I do?” She sighed. “Forget what I said. If you could just please tell me how to get back to—”
“Take off your clothes, Visa.”
“What?”
“Your clothes. Take them off.”
“I will not.”
“Or,” he suggested, “I can just take them and toss you from my room bare-ass naked. On the other hand, I can lock you in here until I get back. Without your clothes, of course.”
“You wouldn’t.”
He pulled his gun out of its holster again and cocked the hammer. “Oh, yes. I would. And you’re not leaving this room until I get back what you stole.” He flicked the tip of his gun in her direction. “Do it.”
Something shifted in her eyes. Something catlike and unsettling. “All right,” she said, unbuttoning the top button on her denim britches. “But first you have to tell me one thing. Where exactly are we and how do I get back to Deadwood?”
“That’s two things.”
She smiled slowly. “Fine. I’ll give you one piece of clothing for each answer then.”
Why was it that women like her could turn a civil conversation around on a man?
“All right.” He cleared his throat. “We’re on the Natchez, a Mississippi River steamer out of New Orleans heading to St. Louis. We’re twelve hours out of Memphis, a day or so more out of St. Louis.”
“St. Louis?” she said, talking to herself. “I’ve flown through there a few times, but only diverting from O’Hare.” She looked up at him. “That’s smack-dab in the middle of the country, isn’t it?”
He tipped the gun toward her trousers, waiting.
“Oh, right.” She slid them over her hips, stepped out of them and kicked them his way. “That’s one.”
Jake didn’t reach for the pants. He couldn’t. Because he was too busy staring at her smooth, mile-long legs and what she was—or rather wasn’t—wearing. “What’s that?” he asked, gulping.
“What? This?” She shifted her hip to give him a better view. “You’ve never seen a thong before?”
He felt color rise high in his cheeks.
“And Deadwood?” she asked.
“Huh—wha—?”
“Where is it?”
“Oh.” He dragged his gaze up to hers. “North. About eight-hundred and fifty miles as the fish swims. It’s partly reachable by steamer, but this one only works the Mississippi. You’d have to catch one in St. Louis going up the Missouri.”
“Interesting.”
He gulped again as she tugged off her top and tossed it to the floor at his feet until she was standing before him in some little smooth scrap of fabric covering