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What occurred to him next sent a current of excitement through his brain.
Under the guise of the poker game, he could ask her anything he wanted, find out her secrets. That intrigued him almost as much as Fortier’s whereabouts.
Again the warning whisper in his brain. If you weren’t curious about her in the first place, you wouldn’t give two figs who won the game.
But he was curious. Interested. Drawn to her, even.
All of it. Clayton sighed as she peeled two cards off the top of the deck and slid them into her hand. Her eyelids flicked down, then up. “Call.”
He laid his cards faceup on the desk. “Two pair, kings and jacks.”
“Full home,” she replied in a matter-of-fact voice. “Three queens and a pair of fives.”
Clayton stared at the cards. “Full house,” he mumbled. “Hellfire, a full house!”
“Excuse me, yes—a full house.” She glowed with triumph, her cheeks rosy, her green eyes dancing.
“And now, for my question.” The smile she sent him made his head spin.
“Yeah?” It was all he could think of to say.
The lady with the cherries on her hat cocked her head. “Tell me, then, Mr. Black. What exactly are you hiding about Brance Fortier?”
Clayton jerked. “Why do you think I’m hiding something?”
“I just do. I sense it. When you talked about him this afternoon, you stared at the floor. Only the floor. Yet when you spoke of other things, you looked directly at me.”
“I did, did I?”
“You did.”
“You’re pretty observant,” he grumbled.
“I am extremely observant, yes,” she agreed, her voice low. “And you owe me a truthful answer. What really happened in Texas that you should come all the way to Oregon to settle it?”
Lord, he was trapped. Hoisted in his own net. He closed his eyes.
He didn’t know whether he could tell her. He was honor-bound to speak the truth, but he wasn’t sure he could get the words out. Wasn’t sure he could live with himself if he heard his voice say out loud what had really occurred.
“Mr. Black?” she reminded. “A pledge is a pledge. I’m waiting.”
“You bring any whiskey for the coffee?”
Her eyes grew round. “No.”
Clayton groaned.
“But I could get some,” she added quickly. “From the establishment across the street.”
“Forget it. I don’t want you going into a saloon. I’ll do without it.”
She waited. Over the sound of their breathing in the soft night air came the scrape of crickets and a tinny piano playing an old song he used to like. “Lorena.”
All at once he couldn’t breathe. He’d have to speak of it, maybe not tell all of it, but enough to satisfy the game of honor he’d so foolishly started. God in heaven, he prayed. He wasn’t sure he could do even that much.
“Okay, Miss Hardisson. Listen up.”
The penetrating green eyes traveled over him as if he were a bug caught under a magnifying glass. He resisted the urge to stand up and smooth back his hair for inspection.
Irene focused her attention on the cords that stood out on Clayton Black’s tanned neck. She had him now. But for some reason her feeling of triumph faded as she watched him lick his lips over and over. Whatever he had kept hidden, it was hard for him to speak of.
Suddenly she was sorry she had asked that particular question. His obvious pain made her throat ache.
“Pa—my father—was Josh Black. A Ranger, like me. Last spring he tracked some of Juan Cortina’s old gang over the border into Louisiana, and I went with him. Turned out my mother’s half brother was one of them. We caught up with him at my mother’s place near New Orleans.”
Clayton angled his body away from her, spoke with his face turned toward the window. “We split up to make the capture, and Dad moved off a ways to draw Fortier’s fire away from me. When he yelled for me to move in, Fortier spun around and shot him. I—”
He stopped and pressed his lips into a straight line. “I should have gotten a bullet into the bastard, but I wasn’t fast enough.”
His long fingers closed into fists. “I tried to get to Dad, but Fortier came toward me and then my kid sister ran out of the house. Fortier grabbed her and put a revolver to the back of her neck. Jannie kept looking at me, kind of smiling, even though I could see she was scared. ‘You’ll do the right thing, Clay,’ she said.”
A horrible sense of foreboding settled over Irene. She reached out one hand to stop him.
“Fortier saw me coming and he put a bullet into me to stop me. Just missed killing me. Then he dragged Jannie off behind the stable and…” He sucked in a harsh breath.
Irene pressed her fist against her mouth. No more. She could not stand to hear more.
“By the time I reached her, he’d shot her, too.”
“Oh, I am so sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry to have asked you to speak of it. I beg your forgiveness, Mr. Black.”
He leveled his gaze on her, his gray eyes unfathomable. “Luck of the draw, I guess.”
She racked her brain for what to say. “I—of course you would prefer not to play any more poker.”
His lips formed a one-sided smile. “Who says so? Can’t say I enjoyed losing the first hand, but the game’s not over, Miss Hardisson. Not by a long shot. You owe me a chance to recoup my loss, so to speak.”
“Oh. Well, I…” She shuffled the cards to hide her confusion. She definitely did not wish to admit her part in freeing Fortier. But if what Clayton Black said was true, if Brance Fortier was a murderer…She didn’t know what to do.
On the other hand, she would like to find out all she could about the enigmatic man sitting across from her. One way to do that was to win another hand of poker. But could she really do that?
Of course she could! It was a simple matter of keeping her head and hiding her feelings. Goodness knows, after twenty-five years in straitlaced Philadelphia society, she was an expert at that!
Clayton cut the deck and she dealt another hand, gathered up her cards and suppressed a gasp. Ace, king, queen of diamonds. Quickly she discarded the two unrelated cards. She needed a jack and a ten, and she put all her concentration on those numbers.
Clayton grunted. “I’ll hold.”
She pressed two cards facedown on the desk, then set the deck aside and peeked at her hand.
Nothing. Not even two of a kind. She’d have to bluff. She could feel his eyes studying her, and she tried to keep her face expressionless. “I bet one question.”
“Raise you one.”
“You mean if I win, I may ask two questions?”
“That’s right. And if you fold—”
“Oh, I won’t fold,” she said with an assurance she did not feel. Desperately she hoped he would be taken in by her pretense and would toss in his cards first. That way, she need never show her worthless hand and she would win another—no, two—more questions. It was worth a try.
“Meet my bet or fold,” he instructed.
“Very well.” It occurred to her that he might be bluffing as well. She hoped so. That way she might save face. She watched as he laid his cards faceup on the barrel.
“Pair of kings,” he said in a low voice.
“Oh. I—well, I…” With a sigh she laid down her cards. “You win.”
“Damn right,” he drawled. “Now you get to give me some answers.”
Chapter Four
Irene flinched. She looked up into Clayton Black’s hard, steady gaze and her heart gave a little skip. Such cool, calculating eyes, and that knowing expression, as if he could see into her thoughts. She steeled herself to admit as little as possible but still forfeit the “truth” he’d won.
Clayton’s lips opened. “Okay, here’s my first question. Why are you unmarried?”
“What?” The breath caught in her lungs. She expected him to ask about Fortier, not her.
“You heard me. I figure you’re about twenty-five. If I remember correctly, most society ladies back East have a brood of younguns by that age. How come you don’t?”
“I’m twenty-six,” she said quickly. “I’ve been…busy.”
“Busy,” he repeated. “Busy being a lawyer instead of a woman, is that it?” He sat back, considering. “Sorry, but I don’t buy that. Nobody with a functioning blood supply is that busy. Now, you owe me the truth, so let’s hear it.”
Irene bit her lower lip. What insolence! He had no right to ask such a thing. No man with any manners would pose such a question.
“Don’t you want to know about Brance For—”
“Nope. At least not yet. I figure I’ve got plenty of time for that.” He folded his arms across his chest and waited.
You lost the bet, a voice reminded. Now you must pay up.
“Oh, all right,” she blurted. “My mother died when I was four, and I resolved I would never…entertain any gentlemen callers. I made a promise on her grave to devote my life to taking care of Papa.”
His eyes flickered, then softened. “How’d she die?”
Irene swallowed. “She was out riding. The horse refused a jump and threw her. Her neck was broken.” She drew in a breath to steady her nerves. “Why would you want to know such a thing?”
Clayton gave her a long, assessing look. “Don’t know, exactly. Just wonder what a pretty woman’s doing in a little picture-book town like Crazy Creek. Why she’d come out West to be a lawyer. It isn’t for money, I knew that right off. Your dress and that hat say you don’t need money. So why?”
Irene opened her mouth, then closed it. “I assume that is your second question?”
He nodded.
She thought for a moment. True, she did not need money. But she did need…something. Freedom, maybe. A new start in life. Something. However, she wasn’t about to admit this to Clayton Black. No sirree. He would laugh at her.
But, she reminded herself, she had to answer truthfully. He had done so, at some expense; it was a matter of honor.
“I have never been completely on my own before,” she confessed.
“Thought so,” Clayton said, his voice quiet.
Her head came up. “You what? I assure you, Mr. Black, I am a very capable attorney.”
“Thought that, too,” he responded. “Just curious is all.”
“About what, exactly?” Her tone sounded extra prim, even to her.
“About you.”
“Me! Why would you want to know—”
He chuckled. “To find that out, you’re gonna have to win another hand.”
Another hand? Her pulse jumped. Actually, she enjoyed the game—it was the forfeited truths that bothered her. Answering his question made her uneasy, as if she were filled with sand and telling things about herself allowed some of her insides to leak away. She wondered if he felt the same way.
She should end this charade right this minute. Return to her cottage and read or…do something. Anything. Even hang wallpaper.
Her brain told her it was just a card game, a harmless pastime. Her heart told her something else—that it was dangerous. The more he unearthed about her, the more vulnerable she felt.
And that, she realized all at once, was how she had grown up—protecting herself from the real world of loss and pain by keeping everything hidden inside herself.
She felt dazed. Some sort of tension was building between herself and Clayton Black. Not as an opponent, but as a man.
Against her better judgment, Irene gathered up the deck and reshuffled it. She laid out five fresh cards for each of them and watched his capable fingers fold themselves around his hand.
“You know,” he said as she gathered up her own cards, “When I find Fortier, I just might kill him.” The words he heard himself utter sent a cold fist of surprise into his gut. He’d never shot a man in cold blood. Never even considered it.
“I don’t believe so, Mr. Black. For one thing, you’d hang for murder.”
“Tell the truth, sometimes I kinda figure on that. I don’t know how I’ll feel living and remembering what Fortier did to Pa and Jannie. Dangling at the end of a rope would be quick and easy.”
Irene heard his words through a jumble of her own thoughts. The man had given up hope. He would throw his life away because he was desperately lost, alienated from himself. Alone. She knew how he felt, knew the hurt, the helpless fury that came with the loss of someone you loved. They had both come to Crazy Creek on the same quest—to find a reason for living.
A little flutter of pleasurable apprehension laced across her belly. She wondered about him. She wanted to know…all kinds of things. She had to win the next hand!
Which she did. Her three nines beat his pair of jacks.
“Now for my question, Mr. Black.” She paused to phrase it with gentility. “What is the reason for your curiosity regarding my person?”
