head to flash her a mischievous smile before jumping feet first into the water, his back still presenting.
“Looks like we’re even, mister,” she said when his face broke the surface of the water.
She felt safe enough even though she kept only a twenty-foot buffer between them instead of the boat length. If he made an untoward move, she’d be off as quick as a minnow.
“What’s your name, gambler?” she asked then ducked under the water, surfacing a foot closer to him.
“Travis.”
Travis went under the water then came up a yard closer to her. His handsome face was dotted with water. He shook his head, splattering droplets from his short brown hair. It stood up in spikes all over his scalp—gave him a real boyish, friendly look. That sure was contrary to her first impression of him being a no-nonsense man of authority.
“What’s yours?”
“Ivy.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ivy.”
Naked sure was an odd way to meet a fellow, but the night was dark and so was the water.
“So, how much did you lose to keep you restless so late?” She ought to swim to the other side of the boat and float about gazing at the stars, but she was enjoying gazing at Travis’s face instead.
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t do much gambling.”
“Most folks aboard the River Queen come just for that.” A fish nibbled her toes. She kicked it away. “There’s some who just need transportation, but mostly they’re gamblers. Big money gamblers.”
“Are you familiar with the ship?”
“A bit.” She didn’t want to say she knew every inch of it, every board and shadow. That she was training to be a pilot. A lady pilot tended to be frowned upon and for some reason she did not want Travis frowning upon her.
“I’m looking for a woman named Eleanor.”
Her swim time was about up. If she didn’t rap on Uncle Patrick’s door telling him she was safely aboard, he would come looking.
“A sweetheart?” Gosh almighty she couldn’t swim away without knowing about that.
“No...not a sweetheart.” Oh? For some reason she was relieved to know it. “She’s inherited a ranch. I’ve got to find her and let her know.”
“And you believe she’s aboard?”
“I have reason to think so,” Travis answered, parting the water between them.
Only ten feet of sparkling river lay between them. Just because the water was dark did not make her any less naked.
Her imagination saw a dozen things that her eyes couldn’t.
It was time and past for her to be in her room.
She ducked under the surface and swam away. When she came up for air she looked back to see Travis on the deck, knee-deep into his britches.
Whoever this Eleanor was, she was a mighty lucky woman to have him looking for her, even if they were not sweethearts.
* * *
With the exception of one gambler, still in his chair but dead asleep with his head lying on the poker table, the saloon was empty.
The man’s pockets were turned inside out. His heavy breathing stirred the cards in front of his mouth.
Travis figured the fellow must have fallen asleep over the losing hand in front of his nose. No doubt, the smile tugging his mouth meant he was dreaming of the winning hand for tonight’s competition.
A lingering scent of cigars hovered in the corners of the large room. For all its size and elegance, the saloon was still cozy. The overstuffed chairs near the windows, the padded stools about the gaming tables, all invited one to stay and enjoy an evening.
With the piano covered for the night, the lamps turned low and everyone abed but the lone sleeper, Travis decided to continue his restless night right here, with his butt snuggled into a plump brown chair and his feet up on a gold ottoman.
For comfort, it beat the hell out of the cot he’d put up beside his horse on the main deck.
He’d taken only a small amount of money on his quest to find Eleanor. The more he left behind for the ranch to keep going, the better.
Since he was on his own, it would not be a problem to live frugally for a time. Even the little bit of gambling he’d done had been for the purpose of gaining information about Miss Magee. It sure hadn’t hurt that he’d won a few dollars.
Hadn’t gained a thing by way of discovering anything about Miss Eleanor, though.
At daylight, the boat was going to turn south. If the lady was not aboard, it would cause him all kinds of trouble. He only hoped the Pinkerton knew his business.
If Travis didn’t come up with any information by nightfall, he’d try and get a moment of the captain’s time, not an easy thing to do, he’d discovered, with such a busy man. But if he couldn’t find out something about Eleanor from her own uncle, he despaired of finding it at all.
That was a notion he couldn’t let his mind dwell on. Futures depended upon him bringing her home.
Hell, what he did want to dwell on was the magical water nymph.
Ivy. Even her name conjured up things fresh, green and growing with abandon, having no regard for rules.
He closed his eyes, reliving the memory of her diving into the water, of her face as she surfaced, so full of the joy of just plain living.
If only he could be more like her. Not that he wanted to run from his responsibilities, but if he could rise above them from time to time...
When Ivy invited him to strip down and join her in the water, he’d felt ten years old again.
He’d liked being ten. By then he was past the constant grief that his parents’ deaths had caused and had come to love his life on the Lucky Clover Ranch.
For a few moments last night, he had been that boy again because looking at Ivy—and he didn’t just mean in appreciation of her lovely body, but her smile and the love of life that shone from her eyes—he’d felt fresh. Renewed.
He’d come from the water full of hope and now he sat in this chair because the only way to hold on to that feeling was to hold her memory fresh. To keep her in his mind so that he could draw on that brief moment out of time.
When life was not so fresh, he would remember Ivy.
Too bad he would never see her again. No doubt by now she was back in Coulson doing whatever a free spirit like her did in the wee hours.
Turning frogs into princes, coaxing butterflies from their cocoons, maybe even leading a symphony of light with fireflies as her instruments, that’s what he would like to think, even though
