The Honour-Bound Gambler

Disturbed by the return of that grin, Cade frowned, uncomfortably reminded that he didn’t truly know Blackhouse well enough to discern his intentions but had to trust him anyway.

Although charming, wealthy and advantageously footloose—with a private luxury train car and a loyal valet to prove it—Blackhouse was nonetheless a mysterious figure to Cade. They had met at a poker table in San Francisco and had become friends (of a kind) while outlasting every other player at the table. When Blackhouse had unexpectedly offered to finance Cade’s search for Percy Whittier, Cade had cautiously agreed. He hadn’t had the stakes to continue alone. Likely, Blackhouse had known that and had decided to exploit it…for whatever reasons.

He still didn’t know what Blackhouse’s interest in Whittier was. Knowing Blackhouse, it was something frivolous. All Cade knew was that Blackhouse had the money, Cade had the tenacity, and between them they could bring Whittier to heel.

“I don’t have time for any women,” Cade said. “Rom or not.” He told Blackhouse about spotting Whittier at the Grand Fair and about losing him during the dance. “He must still be in town.”

“Yes. Faro is his game. He’d be unlikely to miss the tournament.” Agreeably, Blackhouse cut the cards. He arranged them on the table between them, then nodded cannily at Cade. “Go ahead. Choose four. If you pick out all the aces, I’ll lay out an extra thousand for tonight’s gaming. And maybe lend you my overcoat, too.” An amused look. “You seem to have lost yours.”

Cade didn’t take the bait. He didn’t want to discuss giving his warm overcoat to the grimy-faced child sharper in the Morrow Creek alleyway. “I don’t need any more of your money.” Not yet. “Besides, the odds of choosing all four aces in a row are—”

“Inordinate. I know. That’s the point.” With a leisurely gesture, Blackhouse summoned Adams, his valet. “Do it.”

“Fine.” Exasperated, Cade flipped up four cards.

In short order, a queen and three aces stared up at him.

“See? Just as I thought.” Blackhouse pointed. “Not all four aces, that’s true, but still a good enough draw to prove I’m right. You should be delighted.” Yawning, Blackhouse selected a postmarked envelope from the silver tray that Adams offered him. He tossed it in front of Cade. “By the way, this letter from your brother arrived this morning. I hope Judah is well?”

Cade nodded, still boggling at his chosen cards. Turning up three aces was unbelievable. “His leg should be almost healed by now.” Distractedly, Cade frowned. “You must be double dealing.”

Blackhouse scoffed. “I’m not double dealing. I’m not trimming cards. I’m not even wearing a holdout, despite my enthusiasm for collecting such things.” He spread his arms, showing he was free of mechanical cheating devices. “It’s you, Foster. Just you. Your usual good luck has clearly returned.”

Dubiously, Cade regarded the cards. Like most sporting men, he believed in superstition. It was foolhardy and unreasonable not to. A man needed all the breaks he could get. But this…

“I think it must be your reformer who did it,” Blackhouse opined. “She’s your lucky charm. That’s the only explanation.”

Lucky charm. Cade could use one of those, especially now.

Still filled with disbelief, he scowled at the cards. He didn’t want to agree with Blackhouse. He didn’t want to believe in luck alone. But with no other leads readily available….

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Cade asked. “That’s to find my ‘lucky charm’ and see what happens.”

Then he threw on a necktie, grabbed his suit coat and hat, and went in search of his very own private do-gooder and (potential) good-luck charm.

God help him, he seemed to need her.

When Violet glimpsed the town newcomer, Cade Foster, from across the room at the charity kitchen she’d organized with the help of Grace Murphy and her ladies’ auxiliary club, she knew she had to be imagining things…which wasn’t altogether surprising, given how preoccupied she’d been since yesterday.

All afternoon long, even while ladling up soup and passing out bread donated by Molly Copeland’s popular bakery, Violet had relived last night’s dance at the Grand Fair. She’d recalled Cade Foster’s smile. She’d remembered his features. She’d contemplated his intriguingly muscular personhood and sighed over his eyes. She’d even envisioned herself seeing him again.

So a part of her wasn’t at all surprised to catch sight of him there. The rest of her knew that she should pinch herself—especially when Cade Foster spied her, raised his hand in a masculine greeting, then determinedly headed in her direction.

“Yes!” someone whispered nearby. “It’s definitely him!”

“Did you see them dancing together?” someone else added.

“I saw her leave him standing heartbroken on the dance floor!” a third gossip added in breathless tones. “Imagine that! Plain Violet Benson, the minister’s daughter, having the cheek to turn her back on a man who’s willing to dance with her!”

Well. Being the subject of such vaguely uncharitable gossip took some of the fun out of things, Violet thought. That was a new and unwelcome experience for her—one she’d helped Adeline through a time or two, though. Besides, she retorted to herself silently, she hadn’t left Cade on the dance floor. She’d gone to fetch her father—it was an entirely different thing. Tightening her hold on her soup ladle, she went on watching Cade approach.

Plainly, he was close enough to hear everything her fellow helpers were saying, Violet realized. Because almost imperceptibly, he angled his head toward that chatty clump of gossips, flashed them a brief but brilliant grin, then kept right on going.

Collectively, the three women swooned. For herself, Violet only stood there with her ladle at the ready. This, she realized with another flutter of excitement, might be her chance to fly!

Cade Foster might be her chance to dance through every part of her life—her chance to have some fun. It was exactly what she’d yearned for at the Grand Fair last night. Violet certainly didn’t have much to lose by trying something new. So that’s exactly what she meant to do—beginning right now, with Cade.

Maybe the local men hadn’t been able to glimpse Violet’s charms past Adeline Wilson’s dazzle, it occurred to her, but Cade had. That made him special. That made him worthy of joining her in her newfound quest to spread her wings.

At least that way, when she was Mrs. Sunley’s age, Violet reasoned, she’d have some thrilling memories to look back on.

Oblivious to her hasty decision making, Cade reached her.

“You’re a difficult woman to find.” This time, his smile touched her alone, leaving aside her sharp-tongued cohorts. “I’ve been to the jailhouse, Dr. Finney’s medical office, your father’s church and the schoolhouse—I was told you sometimes volunteer with schoolmarm McCabe. And now here you are in the very last place I thought to look.”

“Well, you always find everything in the very last place you look, don’t you?” Violet couldn’t help staring. She felt defenseless against his charisma, spellbound by his voice, fascinated by his just-for-her smile. With Cade Foster inside it, her charity kitchen suddenly felt much too small and meager. “If you kept on searching after that it would be silly.”

Cade Foster blinked. Then he laughed. “That’s true.”

“You may be glib, Mr. Foster, but I’m sensible.” Violet ladled up some soup for the next recipient. She gave the needy woman a smile, then received a warm thank-you in return. The line of recipients moved up a pace. “As you can see, I’m quite busy here, as well. So if you want to talk charming nonsense to me, I’m afraid you’ll just have to do it later.”

A shared gasp came from nearby. Evidently, her colleagues were still eavesdropping, and they fully expected her to fall at Cade’s feet, lovesick with longing, at the first opportunity.

He gave her another grin. “You think I’m charming, then?”

“And glib. I also said ‘glib.’ Didn’t you hear that part?”

“I heard it. But I don’t think you believe it.”

Violet smiled. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”

“Truly?” Mr. Foster seemed intrigued by that notion, commonplace as it was. He moved closer, nearly shoulder to shoulder with her. “Do you always say exactly what you think?”

“Why not?” Violet stirred her soup. “Don’t you?”

“I’m a professional sporting man, Miss Benson. I make my living on hope and happenstance. Honesty doesn’t enter into it.”

“It seemed to do so last night. Between us.”

At her words, he seemed taken aback. “Well, I was honest with you about not being a desperate man,” Mr. Foster said, “so if that’s what you mean regarding honesty between us—”

“No,” Violet interrupted gently. “I mean that, after we danced, you told me I would be swamped with suitors. That’s what you said. Honestly. I didn’t believe you, but you were right!” Gleefully, she confided further, “After you left the Grand Fair, I went through two more dance cards!”

Alone in her bedroom afterward—with care and no small measure of disbelief—she’d pressed those signature-filled dance cards between her Bible pages for safekeeping. She’d thought they might be her only mementos of that extraordinary night. But now that Cade Foster had arrived, all broad shouldered and fascinating, at her charity kitchen, the world felt ripe with possibilities. Given his occupation, he seemed twice as likely to be capable of satisfying her urge for extra zest in her dutiful, workaday life.

“Two dance cards? You danced that much?” Relief softened his features, lending sparkle to his vivid eyes. “That must have been fun.”

“It was unprecedented,” Violet told him candidly. She handed a hunk of bread to the next recipient. “I’ve never danced so much in all my life! I’m sure it was because of you. By dancing with me last night, you seem to have kindled some sort of curiosity about me, Mr. Foster.”

“The men in Morrow Creek aren’t alone in being curious about you.” Intimately, he lowered his voice. “I am, too. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

“I’ll only be sorry when it’s over.” Violet sighed, still reminiscing about last night. “Before long, folks in town will forget this, and I’ll be back to cheering up the wallflowers at parties while everyone else…” She paused, belatedly realizing the astonishing admission he’d made. “You? Thinking about me?”

She nearly had to use her soup ladle to close her gaping jaw. The very notion was dumbfounding. And thrilling too!

“Yes. You’re going to be very important to me, Miss Benson. I can feel it.” Pausing to study the visitors to the charity kitchen, Cade Foster stepped into place beside Violet. Adeptly, he handed a bowl of soup and some bread to the next person in line. The poor woman who received it nearly fainted with glee at being served by him. He didn’t seem to notice her obvious ardor. “I’d like to become equally important to you, if you’ll let me.”

Violet flashed him a dubious look. She might be hopeful, but she was not an imbecile. Nor was she especially naive.

“You could have the company of any woman in town.” As proof, Violet gestured to the other volunteers. To a woman, they were gazing swoonily, chin in hand, at Cade Foster’s handsome countenance. All three of them sighed. One waved. “Do you expect me to believe that of all the ladies in town, you are interested in me? I know what I look like, Mr. Foster. As a minister’s daughter, I can’t bring you a fine dowry, either. So—”

“I’m not asking for your hand in marriage.” He seemed disturbed by her rebuttal and maybe a mite perplexed, too. “Is there someplace we can talk about this privately?”

Violet shook her head. As much as she wanted to be more venturesome, she did have obligations to consider. Besides, thinking about adventuring was not the same as doing it.

“Not unless I quit work,” she said, “and that’s—”

Impossible, Violet meant to say.

But before she could, her fellow volunteers interrupted.

“Very easily done!” one of them said.

Chattering and smiling, they stripped Violet of her soup ladle. They untied her apron and smoothed her upswept hair. They filled in her place in line, then all but shoved her forcibly out the door with the gambler. At that, Violet couldn’t help forgiving them their unkind gossip earlier. She wasn’t a woman who held a grudge. No doubt they’d simply been surprised that she’d been so popular with Mr. Foster last night…and today.

That made four of them. Because she was surprised, too.

“Go on!” one of her friends urged cheerfully. “You work all the time! If anyone deserves a break, Violet, it’s you.”

“Yes. Have fun.” Another friend winked. “We’ll take care of everything here. Don’t you worry about a thing. He’s a gambler, isn’t he? So why don’t you take a chance for a change? On him!”

So, with no further avenue of protest available to her and with Cade Foster standing patiently nearby, Violet did just that: she took a chance…on a gambler.

Sitting beside Cade on a narrow bench outside the charity kitchen next to a sweeping ponderosa pine tree and a branching rivulet of the nearby creek, Violet Benson shook her head.

Plainly surprised, she asked, “You want me to do what?”

Cade didn’t answer at first. He simply felt too distracted by what she’d said earlier: I know what I look like, Mr. Foster.

That admission was telling. It was, as Cade was rapidly learning, characteristically direct, too. If he’d been a crueler man, he would have used Miss Benson’s feelings about her appearance to gain an advantage. As it was, Cade could only examine her through clear eyes, wondering what it must be like to live as Violet Benson did: plain featured and overlooked.

Unexpectedly, a kinship arose inside him. He knew what it felt like to be overlooked—to be left behind. He didn’t want that for her or anyone.

Of a certain, Violet’s pale red hair was not quite as stylishly arranged as the other ladies’ was. Her complexion was a mite too ruddy to be called fashionably pale. Her teeth sported a gap in front, and her nose was too assertive to be considered strictly “pretty.” But her hazel eyes were vivacious, her mouth was full and gentle looking, and her hands…

Well, her hands stirred in Cade an unlikely wish to be blessed by her touch—to be granted that salvation she’d alluded to last night when they’d danced. Appalled by the realization, he frowned. He repeated the proposition he’d just made to her.

“I want you to be my good-luck charm. To be available to me at a moment’s notice before faro games and hands of poker.” He spied her mistrustful expression and added, “I’ll pay you for the privilege, of course. I wouldn’t consider asking you to do this otherwise. It’s only fair that you’re compensated.”

She made a face. “You really believe in good-luck charms?”

“I can’t afford not to. Mine is a precarious business.”

“And you believe I am yours?” She sounded amused. And intrigued. And unexpectedly compassionate, too. Her very presence exuded kindheartedness and care and a certain special exuberance that intrigued him. “Your good-luck charm, I mean?”

“After I met you,” Cade said simply, “my luck changed.”

For a moment, Violet Benson gazed across the street that bordered the charity kitchen. Wagons and buggies passed by; the clomping of hooves raised drifts of dust. Those drifts reminded Cade of cigar smoke—and of losing sight of Percy Whittier.

He might be a fool, it occurred to Cade, to ally himself with the same woman who’d disastrously distracted him from his search for Whittier last night. He hoped he didn’t regret this.

“If you have enough money to pay me, why do you need luck?” Violet Benson asked astutely. “Why do you need to win at all?”

That was easy. “Because I don’t gamble to win money.”

“Then you’re not doing it properly.” She gave a pert smile.

Unable to resist as he should have done, Cade returned that smile. “I entered the gambling circuit to track down a man I’m searching for,” he explained. “It’s been several years now. I’ve come close. I’ve had clues and false leads and near misses. But I’ve never faced him across a gambling table. I’ve never caught up with him long enough to get what I want from him. To do that, I need to win. I need to get invited to all the best tables. I need to fit in among the men he runs with.”

“If you plan to kill him, I won’t help you.” Suddenly chilly where she’d once been warm, Violet Benson examined him. “I’ll help Sheriff Caffey track you down, in fact. I have a fair sense of what you look like, as does every other woman in town.”

This time, Cade smiled more artfully. “I’m flattered by your attention,” he said in a teasing tone. Deliberately, he flashed both dimples. “I have every intention of rewarding it, too, in ways I think we’d both enjoy…very, very much.”

“Right now,” Violet clarified drily, “I’m memorizing your features so I can help the deputy draw a wanted poster.”

Hmm. Charming female subjects was something Cade had learned to excel at. Perversely, he felt impressed that Violet Benson appeared too levelheaded to fall for his misdirection.

“I want answers from him, that’s all.” Cade leveled a square look at Violet. “I want to know why he ran out on his family back East. They loved him and needed him, and he—”

Unexpectedly, Cade heard his voice break. A powerful sense of bereavement and anger and solitude welled inside him.

He scarcely knew what to make of it. Irately, he reasoned that Violet Benson and her damnable compassion had caused it. For the second time that day, he wondered if he was making a terrible mistake by coming to her—by trusting her even this far.

“He must have had a good reason for leaving,” she said in a thoughtful tone, proving his caution was warranted. Naively, she added, “No man would ever abandon his family unless—”

“Percy Whittier did.” Hard-faced, Cade stared at her. He needed to hold on to his fury and hurt. It fueled him when he didn’t want to continue searching. He didn’t need Violet Benson’s natural empathy to awaken something soft inside him—something that was better left to wither and die, as it had been on its way to doing before he’d met her. “Percy Whittier left his family. There’s no reason in the world that excuses that.”

“I see.” Violet inhaled. “You seem very intent on finding this man. Are you a detective, then, hired by his family?”

“No.” Cade noticed his hands were shaking. He clenched them, hoping to make the shaking stop.

“A U.S. Marshal? A lawman of some sort?”

“No.” Hellfire. Why couldn’t he quit shaking? “Neither.”

“Hmm. You’re going to have to be a bit more forthcoming if you expect me to help you.” Through inquisitive eyes, Violet studied him. Lightly, she touched his fisted hand. Like magic, he stopped trembling. Awed, Cade stared as she stroked him, soothingly, the same way a parent might calm a frightened child or a caregiver might help a wounded man. “I might be plain and sensible and occasionally overlooked,” she said, “but I’m also—”

“Forbidden to talk about yourself that way,” Cade interrupted in his sternest tone. It aggrieved him that she kept on referring to herself as ugly and passed over. Surely the folks in this little creekside town weren’t so blind that they couldn’t see she had worth beyond bland prettiness. “I won’t have it. If we’re going to strike a bargain between us, you’ll have to quit reminding me of how ‘unattractive’ you are.”

“I know, I know.” Self-consciously, Violet Benson ducked her head. She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand, a bit nervously now. “What God gave me is just fine. The Lord doesn’t make mistakes in creating us. My father’s told me those things many, many times.” She lifted her gaze to his face, her eyes flashing with a glimmer of defiance. “But that doesn’t mean, Mr. Foster, that you have license to call me unattractive!”

Stricken, Cade gazed at her. “I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve made peace with my looks,” Violet went on rather huffily, “but I still expect common decency from people. Even you! That was thoughtless and unkind. You must know that.”

He hadn’t known that. He’d only been repeating what she’d said herself. Maybe he’d been on this hunt for Whittier for too long. Maybe he was becoming unfit for society. Maybe, with every hand of cards and risky wager, he was losing…everything.

“I’m very sorry.” He was, too. Very rapidly, she was becoming more than a means to restoring his good luck. She was becoming…essential. Carefully, Cade raised his free hand to her slender jaw. He turned her face to his. “I like looking at you. I’ve never known anyone whose emotions were so evident.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a compliment.”

“It is a compliment. From a man who spends all day being as poker-faced as possible.” He smiled. “I find you…fascinating.”

“Truly?” Violet’s lips quirked. Her wide hazel eyes held a challenge. “Can you guess what emotion I’m feeling right now?”

“Suspicion.” Cade stroked her cheek, just once, then made himself let her go. He missed her softness almost immediately. “But you don’t have to be suspicious of me, Miss Benson.”

“Call me Violet. Then perhaps I won’t be.”

That brought a smile to his face. “I’d be honored to do so. And you should call me Cade. Please call me Cade.”

“All right. Cade.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Heaven knows, you might be the only man who ever invites such familiarity from me. I guess I might as well enjoy it!”

Again, Cade looked at her sternly. “I can make sure you enjoy it. I can make sure every man in Morrow Creek wants you.”

She arched her brow at his certainty, seeming more than a little bit doubtful. “You’re not a detective, a marshal or a lawman.” Her smile turned playful. “You’re a miracle worker!” He’d had enough. “The real tragedy in life isn’t failing to believe that hope exists, Violet. It’s convincing yourself that you don’t want any hope, even when it’s right in front of you.”

“Are you talking about me? Or about you?”

Cade snorted. “I’m talking about the likelihood of your choosing from among a dozen smitten suitors if you help me.”

“You mean if I behave as your lucky charm?”

A nod. “Once everyone sees us together, people will look at 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.”