Lisa Plumley (10 page)

But if you lose,
the minister had gone on to caution him, wearing a peculiar smile,
you must agree to find yourself honest work, as an honest laborer, and give up all your gambling ways.

Even the “gambling ways” that have benefited your church coffers and your own pocketbook?
Cade had asked with a grin. It was just like a pious man, he’d reckoned then, to try to reform him...even while he profited from his supposed debauchery.

But the wager had been all but set at that point. There’d been no way Cade could foresee losing a bet to a fumble-fingered, outlandishly overoptimistic minister—especially one who let tender emotions overrule common sense. No self-respecting professional sporting man could have. So Cade had merely shook hands with Violet’s father, requested a fresh deck of cards from Harry, Jack Murphy’s able barkeep, and begun a new game.

Two hours later, Cade had stared in patent disbelief as gray-haired, newly jocular Reverend Benson had scraped all his winnings into his overturned hat, issued an incomprehensible bit of scripture as a final condolence, then bade him farewell.

Don’t forget!
his parting words had rung out.
Honest work! In an honest trade, with a fair exchange of labor for wages.

Cade scarcely knew what that meant. And he scarcely knew how to explain this disastrous misstep to Blackhouse, what’s more. His benefactor wouldn’t be pleased with this wrinkle in their plans. Whatever Blackhouse’s reasons for wanting to find Whittier were, they’d kept him in the hunt for a long while. The bachelor ne’er-do-well of the rails was unlikely to quit now.

Considering the thorny issue of explaining himself to Blackhouse, Cade dragged his arm over his eyes. He wanted to shield himself both from the daylight shoving its way through his hotel room draperies
and
from his own recriminations.

How could he have been so brash? So reckless? Not only had he put his search for Whittier in jeopardy, but he’d also cut himself off from seeing Violet. She would never understand this.

Wondering if the reverend would tell his daughter the truth about their situation, Cade groaned. Of course he wouldn’t. He’d wanted to force Cade to stay away from Violet, and he had—in a fashion that Cade could neither argue with nor back down from.

I believe you’re a man of honor,
Reverend Benson had told Cade as he’d made ready to leave the gambling table and Murphy’s saloon last night.
For Violet’s sake, I’m glad of it.

That was him, Cade thought now with a new sense of irony. An honor-bound gambler: the first and last of his kind. Because when it came to Violet and what she deserved from him, honesty was paramount...but honor came hard on its heels. For Violet, Cade would have clung to the merest of honorable intentions. How else to explain why he’d entered into such a foolish wager at all?

Sprawled amid his tangled bed linens, beset with regret and the rough aftereffects of too much Old Orchard whiskey, Cade groaned again. The only thing to do was get on with it. If he went on lying here, turning over the events of last night in his mind, he’d surely lose the will to get up altogether. Judah had found him that way once, Cade recalled unwillingly, half-drunk and entirely naked, stuck in a nameless hotel room from which he’d felt no inclination to leave for almost a week.

He’d lost track of Whittier on that occasion, too. That had been years ago now—years and many disappointments...the latest of which had left Cade completely averse to carry on fighting.

Get up,
his brother had urged him.
You’re scaring me.

Judah’s blue eyes—so like their father’s—had looked especially large and fearful that day, set against the youthful features of his familiar face. He’d been not quite twenty then. Cade had just turned twenty-four. It felt a million years ago now.

Please,
Judah had said then.
I need you to keep trying.

But now Cade’s brother was hundreds of miles away. There was no one to rouse him from his bed this time. There was no one to lie to him and tell him there was still hopefulness left.

A sharp rap at the door startled Cade.

Judah?
he couldn’t help thinking. Had Blackhouse really brought him there, as he’d suggested he’d do so many times now?

Impossible. “Go away.”

Another knock. It sounded more determined this time.

“Leave me alone.” Maybe it was the maid. Yesterday she’d flirtatiously suggested using her feather duster to tickle his fancy. Cade hadn’t been interested. “I don’t need anything.”

That was a lie. He did need things. He needed answers and resolve and maybe a kind word or two. He needed Violet Benson.

“I don’t need anything you can give me,” he clarified with a certain belligerence. He swore. “Go bother someone else.”

The knocking quit. An instant later, the doorknob turned.

Cade gawked at it. It rattled vigorously. Next came the distinctive click of a key being inserted into the lock.

Hellfire.
Probably Blackhouse had bribed a hotel employee into unlocking Cade’s room—possibly for the express purpose of gloating over Cade’s loss to Reverend Benson last night. Cade didn’t think anyone knew about the outcome of their wager. But during their acquaintance, Blackhouse had proven surprisingly adept at collecting information—at least when he could be bothered to bestir himself from his usual pleasurable pursuits.

With an even more raw and heartfelt swearword, Cade heaved himself from his bed. Bleary-eyed and shirtless, he padded across his hotel room’s plush Oriental rug. With one eye on the door, Cade dragged on his trousers. He’d just buttoned them when the lock finally gave way. The door burst open with a bang.

Violet Benson stood there, her arms full of books and ledgers and papers, all held higgledy-piggledy in her grasp. Her face was flushed, her breath was hurried and her smile was enchanting. Cade knew he must have imagined her. He must have conjured her from some devilish mixture of despair and regret, specifically to taunt himself over losing the chance to be with her. He could be unforgiving that way, he knew. He could be cruel, especially when it came to himself and what he needed.

“I don’t want to bother anyone else,” Violet piped up with giddy, adorably girlish certainty. “I only want to bother
you
!”

She
looked
real enough. She sounded real enough. She even reacted realistically enough when she belatedly noticed that Cade was tellingly tousle haired and mostly undressed.

Unlike him, Violet did not appear at ease with his near nudity. Blushing even more furiously, she gave a one-handed wave in his direction. “But I can wait until you’re dressed. To bother you, I mean. I don’t mind waiting for, um, you to—” She broke off, obviously floundering. “That is, I did come here on purpose, you see, but I was not quite prepared for such a speedy entrée into the world of, well, courtship and...things.”

“Courtship? And things?”

“Indeed.” A nod. “Although I believe it’s customary to be dressed, at least for the initial stages. So you should—”

“You haven’t spoken with your father yet, then?”

Violet gave him a puzzled look. That only convinced Cade he was probably losing his mind—or maybe was still a little drunk.

Perhaps, he thought with the sudden insight of the formerly sober, he shouldn’t have chased his Old Orchard with mescal.

“My father was ministering to a congregant this morning,” Violet informed him. “So no, I haven’t spoken with him today. But if you’re concerned about earning Papa’s permission—”

“I’m not.” Not with
this
Violet, Cade wasn’t. With
this
Violet, he still had a chance to indulge all his fantasies.

Intrigued by the possibility—even if he
had
fabricated an inconveniently prim version of her—Cade took a step nearer.

Violet’s upswept hair was mussed, he noticed. Her skirts were askew, as though she’d run all the way upstairs to his room. Which she couldn’t have done, of course. Because a proper young woman like Violet Benson— a minister’s straitlaced daughter, no less!—certainly wouldn’t risk her reputation by taking herself alone to visit a scurrilous gambler like him.

That all but proved he’d conjured her somehow. Whether through some consequence of the liquor he’d drunk or simply his own overwhelming desire to see her, he’d imagined her there in his room. Still watching her, Cade realized that if
this
Violet wasn’t real—if this wasn’t really happening at all between them—then he didn’t need to be gentlemanly or restrained. He didn’t even need to watch what he said for fear of scaring her away.

“You’re lucky I’m wearing even this much,” he said as a test of his theory, gesturing at his low-slung trousers. “Until I heard the knock at the door, I was lying in bed entirely naked.”

Her gaze skittered to the unmade bed. Her eyes widened. She was picturing the sight, Cade reckoned...exactly as he’d meant for her to do. If this was the real Violet, she’d scurry away now.

Instead, she lifted her chin. “I bet that was...comfortable.”

Cade raised his brow. His imaginary Violet was sassy. He liked that about her. “It was. You should try it sometime.”

She nodded, biting her lip in apparent deliberation. At that, Cade’s imagination truly galloped away with him. Wholly unbidden, it offered up a tantalizing vision of Violet lying there in his bed, with her skin bare and her luscious curves ready for him to touch. Swallowing hard, Cade shook his head to clear it...even as Violet nodded in thought once more.

“Yes. That’s a marvelous idea. Perhaps I will try lying in bed naked.” She eyed the bed and its rumpled covers as though considering the notion more carefully. “Perhaps very soon.”

As if that outrageous statement were simply a long-expected promise, she met his gaze squarely. Cade scarcely dared to wonder what his make-believe Violet would say or do next.

“I’m here to ruin my reputation, Cade,” she announced firmly. “With you.”

Stunned by that scandalous notion, Cade couldn’t speak.

But Violet didn’t seem to mind. “I’m here to make some thrilling memories,” she went on, “and maybe change my future while I’m at it. And we’ve already wasted a great deal of time, so—” perkily, she smiled “—shall we get started?”

Chapter Seven

“G
et started?” Cade repeated. Did she really mean what he thought she meant? That they should be together...intimately?

“Yes.” With an air of plucky certainty, Violet set down her books and papers and leather-bound ledgers. “We should have all the time we need, so don’t worry about that. I told the hotel clerk that I was here on a charitable mission for the church.”

“The church?” Cade repeated dumbly, still stuck on the possibility that Violet might willingly lie naked in his bed.

“Yes. I embark on altruistic works all the time, you know,” Violet assured him. “Everyone in Morrow Creek is aware of that. So they won’t find it the least bit questionable that I’m here visiting you like this. After all, you’re new in town, and you’re most certainly in need of ministering to. It’s undeniable. I mean, just
look
at you!” She beamed at him as if delighted by his debauchery. “I felt immensely clever when I realized that on my way here. Isn’t it utterly convenient?”

“Yes.” It
was
convenient, Cade realized. Ingenious, too.

Contrary to all expectation, Violet’s logic suggested that a virtuous woman could misbehave far more readily than a scandalous one could...and not be suspected of being anything less than upright in the process. No wonder Violet seemed so all-fired pleased with herself. She had a veritable license to sin.

And she wanted to use it with Cade.

“No! No, it isn’t convenient,” he blurted, realizing too late that he had to backtrack. For honor’s sake. “Everyone will find it
very
questionable that you’re here. Alone. With me.”

I’m here to ruin my reputation, Cade. With you!

“You can’t ruin your reputation,” he insisted. “You made me promise that
I
wouldn’t ruin your reputation. This is madness.”

“It’s not. It’s actually quite sensible. Besides, my feelings have changed on the matter of my reputation. Given our newfound...closeness, I think this will be fine.” Her satisfied smile seemed to settle the matter. “The desk clerk remembered you coming in intoxicated last night. He remembered you swearing about losing your latest wager. Because of that, he was fully prepared to believe I’m here to reform you.” Violet paused to deliver him a suggestive look. “However long it takes to do so.”

For a moment, Cade couldn’t breathe. His entire existence was taken up with imagining the authentic Violet Benson seducing him this way...with wondering if she would have wanted him like this. He thought she would have. After all, he
hadn’t
concocted the attraction between them. It had seemed unlikely to him at first. But very quickly it had felt real and true—and tempting.

“I think you’re mistaken about what ‘reform’ means, Miss Benson.” Cade couldn’t help cracking a grin. Damnation, he wished she was real. He wished Violet’s idea of “reforming” him really did include alluring looks and promises to lie abed naked with him. “But I confess to liking your take on the notion.”

“Yes. I thought you might.” Surprisingly, Violet grinned too, leaving him feeling overcome by the impish beauty of her smile. “The truth is, I wasn’t intending to go this far when I set out for the Lorndorff a little while ago. But partway here I realized this might be my only chance to experience lovemaking, Cade.
You
might be my only chance. I don’t want to miss it.”

“Miss...lovemaking?” Cade repeated, scarcely able to form the words. Her frank way of talking left him electrified. He’d never expected to hear such things coming from Violet’s mouth.

Then, too, he
wanted
to be her only chance, just as she’d said. God help him, he
wanted
to be the one to introduce her to lovemaking and all the pleasures it had to offer. He wanted
her
.

But this...wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

Trying to recover his wits, Cade shook his head. Somehow his harmless fantasy had grown fangs. Now it was torturing him.

Violet was off-limits. Violet was proper and good. Violet didn’t want a man like him—a man without a future to offer her.

“Yes. Lovemaking,” Violet said firmly. “I might never be married—not the way things are going, anyway—and I can’t see why I should be penalized for that. So I have to make this good. I have to do whatever I can to
feel alive
before it’s too late!”

Recognizing his own words on her lips, Cade groaned. He aimed his gaze heavenward, desperate now to end this reverie—if that’s what it was. He was beginning to have serious doubts.

“I’ll never touch a drop of whiskey again,” he swore fervently, hoping to snap out of his fantasy. “I swear it.”

“See?” Violet’s ever-comforting smile touched him. “That’s very well done of you to play along! Anyone passing by would believe I’ve been partially effective in reforming you already.”

As if tardily realizing then that any idle passersby could indeed glimpse them, Violet punctuated her statement by pushing Cade’s hotel room door completely closed. Its thudding slam alerted him to the fact that perhaps—almost certainly—he wasn’t imagining things. He wasn’t imagining
her
.

What, exactly, was happening here?

“But even if I’ve licked your awful problem with drinking, there’s still the matter of your
terrible
gambling impulses to deal with, Mr. Foster.” Violet’s expression turned alarmingly teasing. She seemed almost cocksure...for her. “You need my help. You really do,” she insisted earnestly, crossing the room to come nearer to him. When she arrived to stand almost atop his big bare feet, she smiled up at Cade coquettishly. “When Henry—he’s the desk clerk...I’ve known him since we were both in the schoolhouse together—gave me my own key to your hotel room, he wished me good luck in coping with your...uncontrollable urges.”

Uncontrollable.
Yes, that was exactly the way Cade would have described his desire for her just then. Trying hard not to think about that, Cade glanced at the hotel room key she’d used. Even now it mocked him from atop the ledgers and things Violet had set aside. Feeling suddenly beset by those selfsame urges she’d alluded to—or at least by a few illicit impulses exactly as passionately felt—he clenched his jaw.
Violet was real.

She was real, she was here, and Cade could not give in to any of the things she was suggesting. No matter what.

“This is a test,” he announced, realizing it must be true—diabolically so. “It’s a test to see if I’ll keep my word, the way I promised to. Well, you can tell your father that I did.” Cade raised his hand to swear it. “This is one honor-bound gambler who won’t endanger your heart
or
your reputation.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to tell my father about this.” Violet raised herself on tiptoe. She clasped her hand with his upraised hand for leverage, then pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Or that.” Another kiss, followed by a tentative smile. “Or that. Or anything that might happen between us from now till midnight.”

“Midnight?” Maybe he’d misunderstood. After all, he’d never been “reformed” before. Maybe he’d been dreading the notion unnecessarily all this time. “What will take until midnight?”

“More kissing,” Violet specified. “More touching. More looking.” Audaciously, she sent her gaze over his bare torso. “I like the way you look, you know. I like it very much.” Another, bolder perusal. She nodded. “You look very strong. And capable.”

It was still possible he could deter her before it was too late. Hoping to do exactly that, Cade said, “I
am
capable.”

Her mouth parted. Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink.

“I’m capable,” Cade went on, gazing into her eyes, “of giving you the kind of pleasure you couldn’t possibly have imagined. I’m capable of making you yell with enjoyment—of making you writhe and pant beneath me, begging for release.”

Violet swallowed hard. But her gaze never left his.

“I want that,” she said. “I want you. I trust you.”

She shouldn’t do that.
Hellfire.
Closing his eyes, Cade tried to summon whatever fortitude and integrity he had left.

“Don’t, Violet. Just...don’t.” This time, paradoxically, Cade was the one begging—and they hadn’t even reached his bed. “You don’t know what you’re doing...what could happen. This is—”

“Perfect,” she breathed. “It’s going to be perfect, just as soon as you give in. Just as soon as you realize that I
want
this. I want
you
!” Eagerly, Violet shucked her long woolen coat. Beneath it, her calico dress swayed with her movements, showing him a glimpse of stocking-clad ankle. “Please, Cade. I’m not going to beg. But we’ve had an understanding between us for a while now. You must have known this was inevitable. Because I know you see me as I am, and I see you, too, the same way.”

“No, you don’t,” Cade disagreed, needing to disillusion her. “There are things about me that you can’t conceive. Dark things. Things I can’t explain and don’t have answers to.”

“Then you can tell me all about them. I want to know.”

He hauled in a ragged breath. If he had no choice...

“Because I’ve realized something about us, Cade.” Violet offered him a bashful smile. “Something about us together.” With her eyes shining in anticipation of her coming statement, she inhaled. “Somehow, I think, we’re each other’s last chance.”

Cade didn’t understand. “Last chance for what?”

“For feeling loved!” Violet took his hand. “I know I want that. You must want it, too. Wouldn’t it be downright foolhardy to throw away that chance just for the sake of propriety?”

He grinned. “You make a compelling argument.”

“And you make a surprisingly reluctant participant,” she teased. “For a renowned scoundrel and known chance taker.”

“I’m not reluctant. These stakes are higher than most.”

If he wanted to behave honorably, Cade knew, he’d tell Violet that propriety trumped all. If he wanted to avoid hurting her, he’d tell her that he
had
felt loved, many times over, and had no need of her paltry caring now. But that would be a lie—an especially egregious one—and Cade could not deliver it. Because all at once, he saw Violet in a new and vulnerable light, and he knew that
not
being with her might hurt her more than being with her ever could. And Cade decidedly didn’t want that.

“But I reckon it
would
be a sin to throw away a chance at love,” he finally agreed with a reckless grin. “A terrible sin.”

Her eyes brightened. “I’m happy you see things my way.”

“Me, too,” Cade agreed after broadening his smile, and with that, he quit resisting altogether. After all, he’d duly warned Violet. He’d described exactly what would happen between them. He’d even alluded to his frightful past. And still she remained there. No one could fault him for giving her what she wanted.

And if this wasn’t following precisely the intent of his wager with Reverend Benson...well, that could be forgiven, too. Especially if no one ever found out about it, as he planned.

Because Cade hadn’t called on Violet. She’d come to him. She’d come to him and she’d offered herself to him, and he was just a man, with a man’s needs and a man’s eagerness to pleasure a woman, and no one short of a lunatic would expect him to refuse her. Particularly not while she stood there, seeming so ripe and inventive and intriguingly innocent. He’d never had an innocent woman, it occurred to Cade. From his first paramour—a kindhearted whore who’d lived down the street from Cade’s third set of foster parents—to his last, everyone he’d been with had been experienced and jaded. Like him, his partners had been wholly uninterested in any connection beyond lusty pleasure.

But Violet was different. Violet was sweet. She was caring.

All she’d talked about was
feeling
loved, just this once. They’d both be fools to surrender that chance. So with his mind made up, Cade broadened his smile. He gave Violet a lingering, up-and-down perusal...one designed to heighten her innocent awareness of exactly how close they were about to become.

“It
would
be a sin to throw away a chance at love,” he repeated. Then, “Do you know what else is a sin?”

Violet swallowed hard. In a shaky voice, she ventured, “Coveting your neighbor’s skill with a knitting needle?”

He smiled. Damnation, but he could have fallen for Violet...if he’d been a settling-down kind of man. Which he was not. Giving her a tenderhearted smile nonetheless, Cade said, “Not understanding what your body is capable of feeling. Not experiencing all the sensations that are waiting for you.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “I see. Such as?”

She was so brave, it occurred to him. Even in this. He couldn’t help admiring that about her. Moving closer, Cade skimmed his hands along her hips to her waist. With slow, deliberate movements, he traced the curves he found there.

“Such as...this.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Do you feel that? Do you feel the way your body differs from mine?”

She shivered...even while her body radiated warmth to his fingertips. With sham contemplativeness, Violet crinkled her brow. “I’m not sure. Perhaps if you demonstrated some more?”

“Minx.” Cade grinned again. “You’re deliberately encouraging me to continue.”

“Yet you’re decidedly
not
continuing. So...”

“So you hadn’t reckoned on my self-control, I guess.”
He
hadn’t either, he realized. He hadn’t reckoned on his resolve crumbling so much in the face of Violet’s naive allure. “Try to pay attention this time,” he said, “and I’ll demonstrate again.”

Smiling, Violet stood erect. “All right. I’m ready.”

So was he. He was ready to lay her down on the waiting bed, strip off those interferingly fussy clothes of hers and make her his. But that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as this...as much fun as carefully sliding his hands from Violet’s hips—again—to her waist. To augment his lesson, he kissed her, exceedingly gently.

“Where you’re curvy, I’m straight,” Cade explained. “Where you’re soft and yielding, I’m sturdy...even rigid.”
Damnation, he was rigid
. It felt as though his hastily yanked-on trousers had shrunk in the past few minutes. “We fit together, you and me.”