SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (32 page)

“What is it you expect me to say, Mr. Tate?”

He reached for my hand again, and I was not quick enough to pull it away before he caught it. This time, he didn’t release at my tug.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Ella,” he said, his voice low. That ring of sincerity was back, and now it brought a terror I couldn’t describe. He gave me a bemused smile and leaned very close. I felt his hot breath at the skin beneath my ear. I could smell his hair tonic and the soap he used. But beneath it, there was something dark in his scent, something that shocked me and made me want to fight free.

“Sometimes when I see a woman, I just have to have her.”

“And what if she belongs to another?” I asked when I should have stayed quiet.

“But she doesn’t,” he said, leaning so close his lips nearly touched my neck.

“I’ve already told you, Mr. Tate. I belong with Sawyer.”

At last he pulled back and leveled those sparkling, blue eyes on my face. “I don’t think so, Ella.”

“I assure you it is true.”

“You believe that, girl. But he won’t fight for you. He ain’t got it in him to fight for something. He’d just as soon turn you over as do that.”

I knew the color had drained from my face, but I kept my chin up. “I don’t need a man to fight for me, Mr. Tate. I’m capable of doing that myself.”

“You going to put a bullet through me?”

“Are you going to force me to do so?” I asked.

He threw his head back and laughed. “You’re a sassy one. I like that.”

I didn’t want him to like it. I wanted him to think me trouble and, therefore, not worth his time.

“See, you might have gotten away with shooting Lonnie Smith, but you can’t just go around killing people and not get caught.”

“Can’t I?” I said, before I could stop myself.

He cocked his head and said, “No. But some people need things proved to them. I’m sensing you’re one of them.”

I bit back the challenge that longed to come out. I was smarter than that. I had to be or I would not survive.

“You’re thinking hard, girlie. That’s good. Because there’s nothing you can dream up that I ain’t already thought of.” He leaned in and murmured, “You don’t think Honey’s tried to kill me before?”

I hadn’t thought her capable of such a thing. She wasn’t like me.

“Oh, she has. Ask her what I did. She doesn’t try it no more.” He winked at me. “You won’t, either.”

With that, he stood, leaving me sitting at the table, trembling.
He can’t just take me
, a part of my mind shouted. There was no need to be afraid. But I couldn’t stop remembering what Honey had told me. And I realized that nothing in my short life had prepared me to deal with such a man as Aiken Tate.

As he strolled over to the bar, Sawyer came from the back room with a box of whiskey in his hands. He glanced at me and then did a double take as he noted of my new attire. I felt as naked as I had last night at the springs as that mysterious gaze flowed over my bare skin. The look had a touch and feel that lit something deep inside me and I gave it back, responding from instinct to the desire he roused. For an instant, only he and I existed and the rest of the world fell away. Had my legs not been trembling, I would have stood and gone to him, consequences be damned.

Aiken moved then, breaking the spell that had taken me and distracting Sawyer from his concentrated inspection. Aiken gave me a dark look as he slid onto a barstool in front of Sawyer and lit a cigarette. I shuffled my cards and watched like a nervous bird as he leaned forward and spoke to Sawyer.

Whatever he said made Sawyer look up at him, a frown drawing his brows together. I read his expression and felt the blood rush to my face. Aiken had told him what I’d said. I thought of bolting but couldn’t find the courage to move. Sawyer turned his head to look at me once more, and I braced myself for his rejection, but what I saw was not that.

Again, he let his gaze travel from my eyes to my throat to the bare skin above my breasts. The heat in my face spread throughout my body until the spark he’d started burst into flame. He locked eyes with me, and I knew he saw all that I was thinking, feeling.

I’d said I was his woman to protect myself from Aiken. But I realized as I stared back at him, that I wanted it to be true.

Diablo Springs: Chapter Twenty-Nine

Gracie and Analise sat at a table away from the others, looking at the ledger and listening for Reilly to come back down. He hadn’t been gone long, but a feeling of malaise had been tripping down Gracie’s spine, and she caught herself looking at the stairs several times.

She turned the page. The ledger was filled with small, precise numbers, aligned in columns detailing the day-to-day business of the newly minted Diablo Springs Hotel. It showed an incredible profit, parsed down to income from gambling, liquor, and entertainment. A shorthand code followed each entertainment entry that neither she nor Analise could figure out until Chloe joined them and peered at the book, too.

“The girls,” she said softly.

At their blank look, Chloe pointed to the pictures hanging around them.

“The women were the entertainment.”

After that, it made sense. The letter following each entry must be an initial. Gracie came to a new page with Aiken Tate written at the top. This sheet seemed to show Aiken’s investment in the business and the daily debits against that. In a matter of weeks, his stake dwindled to almost nothing.

“He was a gambler,” Chloe said. “Not a very good one, though.”

A sudden crack of thunder startled them all, followed by the deafening roar of the downpour. Gracie tried not to think of the rising water, of the risk that torrential floods posed. The Diablo was old. How much force would it take to sweep it off its moorings?

Gracie looked back at the long column of numbers and turned the page. Each page looked much like the first, some with different names at the top, some dated, all in that neat hand.

Until the next one. The date at the top was August 26, 1896, and though the handwriting seemed to be the same, the penmanship was no longer tight and methodical. Numbers crept from their designated column, some scratched out, others written over with such carelessness it was impossible to read. A few of the columns hadn’t been totaled at all. And in the margin, the words,
He’s not coming back
.

A sound came from upstairs, and they all tilted their heads back. All but Michael. He sat at the table, huddled in a blanket even though it was still hot inside. His eyes looked dull, his skin gray. He hadn’t spoken since his whispered,
He wants what’s his. He’s everywhere
.

The next page had few numbers, more writing:
A baby is on the way. He’s never coming back, but sometimes I feel him. Does that make me crazy?

It went on like that, little notes scrawled at random. Sometimes they were mixed into the columns of numbers, sometimes they took up the whole page. Most made little sense to Gracie but Chloe seemed to be connecting the dots as they appeared, and she whispered her own narration after reading each entry.

“These are Ella’s notes. Look there.” She pointed to the word
Misery
, circled with no explanation. “That’s my mother’s name.”

“Your mother was named
Misery
?” Analise exclaimed.

Chloe nodded but was too distracted by the ledger to explain. Bill had found a hurricane lamp in a cupboard, and it flickered on the table. Suddenly, the flame began to dance. All three dogs lifted their heads from where they lay on the floor.

The room felt too still, too silent, and the air too thick. The scent of meat still simmered in the warmth, and the storm was battering against the windows. The candles burning around them seemed incapable of holding back the clustered dark, and Gracie wished that Reilly would hurry up. The feeling of foreboding had been growing by the moment, and she couldn’t tamp it down.

Something moved to her right. She froze, her startled scream silenced deep in her chest as the hazy form of a man took shape less than a foot away. Full of fear and surprise, Gracie stared at him as he faded in and out of focus, but she could see Chloe and Analise from the corner of her eye, still bent over the ledger, unaware of him.

“Who’s Sawyer?” Analise asked. Chloe didn’t answer, never looking up from the page. Bill had joined them, but Michael still sat, staring off into space.

Slowly, Brendan pushed his chair back and stood. He was staring at the man, too.

The hazy man tilted his head, as if confused by what he saw. She sensed a frustration in him and then a pressure that strummed hard against her fear. Cautiously, she got to her feet.

“Where you going, Mom?” Analise asked.

She turned, and the man faded to a dim glow, but on the other side of the room, a hard light began to pulse and grow. Gracie felt something lingering in the shadows, a presence that meant them harm. The two lights took up places opposite one another, flickering with a sinister rhythm, casting shadows in every corner. One of them began to grow and elongate as the other shrunk to a pinpoint. Gracie’s heart seized as the bigger of the two became a shape with legs and arms.

“Shit,” Brendan breathed.

At last, Chloe and Bill looked up. A second man appeared, this one crystal clear and fully formed. He wasn’t much taller than Gracie, and he was dressed in a tie, jacket, vest, and trousers. Though formal, the clothes looked worn and threadbare. A feeling of menace spread out from him, lit from within, as thick and terrifying as the cloying scent in the air. It rolled over her like a dark wave, filled with vengeance, hatred.

A door banged upstairs and all of them jumped and looked up—all but Brendan who stood transfixed in horror as he stared into the black glitter of the apparition’s eyes.

Footsteps sounded above until they reached the stairs. At first Gracie felt relief as she saw Reilly’s legs coming down the steps. But then she realized he had his hands behind him and his expression was grim.

The apparition beside her hissed and wavered, but a new terror had replaced her fear of it. Jonathan followed Reilly . . . and held a gun pressed to his head.

Diablo Springs: Chapter Thirty

June 1896

Diablo Springs

The night passed in a blur that left no time to think about Sawyer and what he may or may not be thinking about me. I told myself I was relieved, but I knew it was a lie. And each time I caught my breath and looked up, it was to find him doing the same. Aiken remained at my table through most of the night, gambling with skill but no luck. A rough-voiced miner sat to his right and trumped him at every hand. A smarter man would have left the table, but Aiken seemed determined to be the last player of the night. He nearly was. The men who had burst through the doors in the early afternoon seemed disinclined to leave the same way. They stayed and drank until the drunken rowdiness created a din all around us. For the most part they were respectful around me and the other girls, but I was not fool enough to think that would last once they grew used to our presence.

It was after three in the morning when the last man stumbled from the saloon into the street. Aiken stayed at my table, watching with narrowed eyes as Sawyer locked the doors and pulled out the money he’d collected that night. I stood and brought my winnings to the bar. Sawyer looked up as I crossed, and once again I felt hot from the gaze that traveled my body.

“Made yourself a fortune tonight, looks like,” Aiken said amiably, watching as Sawyer sorted through the money.

“Did all right.”

Aiken’s pockets should have been bulging, as well, but he’d lost his money faster than the girls could earn it. Not an easy feat when all of them, right down to Athena, had been servicing the customers without pause since business had begun. I couldn’t allow myself to think of the hours they’d spent upstairs or the exhaustion they must feel right now.

Sawyer counted out the money I’d delivered, took his cut, and pushed what was left back to me.

“You did fine tonight,” he said.

“She cheated, is what she did. She’s going to get us both shot if she’s not careful.”

Sawyer’s eyes snapped to my face. “I didn’t cheat,” I said angrily. “You are simply unlucky, Mr. Tate.”

His face reddened at that, and I knew I should have kept the last jibe to myself. But he infuriated me. How dare he accuse me of cheating?

“You best check on your own business,” Sawyer said, his voice calm but deep enough to tell me he hadn’t liked what Aiken had said. He hadn’t exactly defended my honor, but I knew he believed me over Aiken and that only added to the jumble of mixed-up feelings inside me.

He pulled out his ledger and handed it to me.

“She doing your books, too?” Aiken said. “A piece of tail like her? She’ll rob you blind and you’ll deserve it.”

I picked up a pencil and forced my attention to the columns. Ignoring Aiken, Sawyer set two glasses on the bar and splashed three fingers of amber whiskey into each. To my surprise, he pushed one in my direction and took the other himself, leaving Aiken out completely. I’d never drunk whiskey, though after tonight I certainly smelled of it. It had been splashed over my hands, my arms, my dress, my neck, and in my hair at least a dozen times.

“I see how it is,” Aiken said when neither of us responded to his insult. “You think you can muscle me out, you’re wrong. I ain’t no fool you can just set off like I don’t own a bit of what’s what.”

Sawyer looked at him then. “You don’t own any of it, Tate.”

Aiken frowned. “I was good enough to borrow from when you needed it.”

“And I’m good enough to pay you back. Nobody’s questioning that. You got your girls working under a roof. You got your business. Don’t mess with mine.”

Aiken looked at me as if I were to blame for what Sawyer had said. “I thought we was partners.”

“I never said that. Never did.”

“But I was good enough to borrow from.”

Sawyer picked up the stack of money beside him and counted out five hundred dollars. I knew we’d been busy, but I’d no idea that he’d brought in so much. When he was done, there were still small satchels of gold and coins piled beside him. I estimated over a thousand dollars had been made in the one night. I, myself, had close to thirty dollars of winnings that were mine. I didn’t know how much it would cost to send Chick and Athena on their way, but it was a good start.