go off the deep end on me now, she lectured herself, snapping out of her momentary reverie to curtly say, “I am no friend of Polly’s.”
“That’s right,” Kane confirmed. “She’s with me.”
“Begging your pardon, sir. I didn’t mean no disrespect. It’s just that we don’t get many decent women in here.”
“Well, you’re about to get one now,” Susannah haughtily informed him, striding through the doorway, only to stop in her tracks at the force of fifty lascivious eyes turned to focus on her.
“What happened to keeping a low profile?” Kane dryly inquired in her ear.
She told herself her shiver was caused by the fifty-or-so eyes still trained on her. But the truth was it was caused by the feel of Kane’s warm breath tickling her ear. Since she’d always been ticklish that way, it was no big deal. Or so she told herself.
Getting out of this bar was a big deal, though. And something she planned on doing immediately.
But Kane had other ideas. Sensing she was about to bolt, he circled her arm with his fingers. “You’re not going anywhere. I told you that we need money.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Well, I’m not about to earn it the way Polly out there does!”
For one split second his gaze slid down her body as if he were mentally undressing her. It was what the twenty-five other men in the room had done when she’d first walked in. But where their looks had turned her stomach, Kane’s heated look curled her toes. And the feel of his fingers on the sensitive skin just above her elbow was creating more-than-justifiable havoc.
“Stop jumping to conclusions,” he reprimanded her, his cool voice decidedly at odds with the intimate look he’d just given her. “Stay here a minute.”
Without further ado he released her in order to stroll over to the bar where he began speaking to the bartender—Jed, the streetwalker had called him. Susannah stood nearby, close enough to Kane that the other men in the room wouldn’t get any ideas about approaching her themselves, but too far away for her to hear what Kane and Jed were quietly discussing. While waiting, she fanned herself with her right hand. It was incredibly warm in the tavern. Downright stifling, in fact.
Remembering she had a fold-up fan in her purse, a convention giveaway, she dug inside the large bag hanging from her shoulder until she found what she was looking for. As she did so, she was struck by culture shock. When she’d gotten the free fan that morning, the year had been 1995 and she’d been a woman confident of her agenda.
Now she wasn’t confident about much of anything; but one thing was sure—that old saying about you not missing something until it was gone was right on the money. Now that the conveniences of modern life were gone, Susannah missed them more than she could say. Air-conditioning topped the list. Air freshener and deodorant were right up there, too, she decided with a dainty sniff. The room could use the former and the men in it, the latter.
A few minutes later, Kane returned to her side. “Are we leaving now?” she asked hopefully.
“No. We’re going to play some poker. Or more precisely, I’m going to play poker. You’re going to stand nearby and keep quiet.”
“Surely you jest,” she retorted.
“Not at all.”
“And how do you plan on playing poker with no money?”
“I suppose I could try and use you as the stakes,” he responded teasingly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Try and die.”
“Somehow I figured you’d say that. So we’ll use your jewelry instead.”
“What’s with this ‘we’ business? And you’re not getting your grubby hands on my jewels.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, which gave him a devilish look that went well with his dark tux and tails.
“You know what I mean,” she muttered.
“You have a brighter idea?”
“There must be another way. A more reliable way than gambling.”
“If there is, we don’t have time to find out,” Kane said. “Jed tells me there’s a game just beginning in the back room. You’re welcome to wait outside with Polly, if you’d rather.”
She gave him a look that would have withered a rattlesnake before coolly informing him, “I’d rather have an iced cappuccino in front of an air conditioner set on High, but that doesn’t appear to be an option at the moment.”
“You’ve got that right. You’ll just have to make do with me.”
The man was laughing at her, damn him! She was prepared to give him a tongue-lashing—to use the vernacular of the time—when he put his arm around her, as if to solicitously lead her through the crowd in the tavern to the back room and the poker game. As he did so, he whispered a warning in her ear. “Don’t cause a scene here. Remember Bellevue.”
Bellevue? He had that right! She belonged in a mental institution for agreeing to this harebrained plan of his. Unfortunately she couldn’t come up with an alternative moneymaking scheme of her own at the moment.
So she kept quiet as Kane used the two rings she always wore—one a wide gold antique filigreed band she wore on her left hand, the other a half-carat channel-set diamond ring her parents had given her for her twenty-first birthday—as an opening stake into the game. Wryly wondering if her insurance policy covered losing her jewelry in a poker game held in 1884, Susannah was all too aware of the interested looks she was getting from the men in the smoky back room. Again, she was the only woman present.
The blue haze of cigar smoke was enough to make her stomach turn. Her queasiness was increased by the speed with which Kane began losing. Next he demanded her bracelet.
She immediately protested. “This was my—”
“Favorite bracelet. I know,” Kane said in a curt voice. “I’ll buy you another one.”
Despite the fact that he was losing, something about his confidence had her handing over her garnet-and-gold bracelet. And then her matching earrings. But she’d refused to take off her great-grandmother’s necklace. She absolutely drew the line there!
She watched with concern as the stack of coins Kane had been given dwindled to one. Kane had warned her not to say anything, but he was crazy if he thought she was going to stand here and watch him go into hock.
As if sensing her thoughts, he sent her a warning look before drawling, “Gentlemen, I appear to have a problem with dwindling resources.”
“Too bad,” a cigar-smoking man named J. P. Bellows said after spewing a series of perfect smoke rings. He was the most talkative of the bunch. “Appears I’ve won, then.”
“Not so fast,” Kane replied. “There’s still my wife’s necklace.”
Wife? Susannah doubted her hearing. Her ears were starting to ring from exhaustion. She’d gotten up at four that morning
