Chapter Fifteen #2
He believed what he was saying. Belle saw the truth in his eyes. He thought he was riding the fame of the show. And he worried about what was going to happen when his ride crashed and burned.
“If I’m your inspiration, then try writing one song for me,” she said. “Any type of song you like. Whatever inspires you. Country, rock, Mongolian…” She looked at him.
A smile ghosted his lips. “Death metal.”
“Mongolian death metal. Write me a song.”
“Are you sure about that? I don’t work for free. I don’t work for petty cash anymore, either. How are you planning to pay me?”
She had him. She wanted so much for him to be happy with his success that she felt almost giddy.
Giddy enough to be rash. “I’ll make it worth your while. It depends on how good the song is.”
“Oh, it’s going to be good. But consider yourself warned.” Humor and heat lit his face. “Good doesn’t come cheap.”
*
Beau
It was after hours, so Beau tossed the costume for a sweatshirt and jeans. He’d promised Belle he’d be at her place before midnight, but her mother put an end to that dream. Shanda had taken it upon herself to teach him how to play a card game called Faro.
Teaching him how to play included teaching him how to cheat, and he got wrapped up in it a little too quickly.
A special board, a dealer’s box called a shoe, silk thread, and a tiny mirror used by the dealer to see the cards dealt were involved.
The thread was used by the player to move bets when no one was looking.
Sketchy lighting from an oil lamp didn’t help potential victims.
Beau examined the shoe. “Everyone knew about this?”
“After few drinks nobody cared. But there were usually a few people new to the table who thought they had it all figured out and were willing to take their chances.” Shanda’s cheeks dimpled, making it easy to see how a man willing to take his chances could be drawn in by her.
“Cheating was part of the game. Mind you, there were lots of sore losers.”
She shuffled the deck. Beau tried to keep track of what she was doing, but cheating at card games was clearly her thing. She placed the deck in the shoe and started to draw. The first three cards she flipped over were aces.
He’d watched her. She’d been fast, but unless she had a computer in her head instead of a brain, the odds were unlikely. “How did you manage that?”
She handed him a card. “Feel it.”
He rubbed his thumb across the glossy surface. It was textured, not smooth. “Still impressive,” he said, returning the card to her. “You shuffled those cards like a pro.”
“I used to work as a dealer.”
Didn’t that figure.
It was past midnight before she called it a night. By then, Beau was antsy. He’d been checking the clock for the past hour, wondering when she’d get tired, but he should have expected that nights were when she was active. Predators operated under the cover of darkness.
Their bedrooms were inconveniently adjacent to each other. He could hear her moving around. He had to wait another half hour after she went to bed before he felt confident she was asleep.
He climbed out of his window and tiptoed to the railing that ran the length of the second floor of the saloon. Her window was open, which wasn’t good, because it meant she could hear every small noise. He hoped she was a sound sleeper.
He swung one leg over the rail, then the other, and lowered himself until his arms were fully extended.
Then, he let go. He hit the ground with his knees bent to absorb as much shock as possible, then sank into a crouch to help keep his balance, but the drop hadn’t been very far.
It was pitch black though. The rain from earlier in the day had stopped but the cloud cover lingered, obscuring the moon.
He listened for any sign that he’d been heard while he waited for his vision to adjust to the dark.
Nothing. So far, so good. He started toward Belle’s house, careful to keep to the shadows.
And he bumped into someone a few steps past the front door of the saloon.
Beau squealed and drew up his hands like a little girl who’d had a mouse run over her foot. Hard hands clamped his head and his mouth.
“Keep it down,” Adam hissed. He had the nerve to sound annoyed. “You trying to wake up the whole town?”
No. Beau was trying to breathe, but his lungs were two solid concrete blocks that weighed his chest down. Burning Scrub was shaving years off his life. He thumped his chest, trying to dislodge his heart, currently being crushed by his lungs.
“What are you doing out here?” he managed to wheeze. “Let me guess. You don’t trust me to watch Shanda.”
“She left forty-five minutes ago.” Disdain smeared Adam’s tone.
“Impossible,” Beau said. “I was right next door to her, and I was watching the window. I would have known if she left.”
“She didn’t crawl out a window. She left through the front door.”
Didn’t he feel like a fool. “Why aren’t you following her, then?”
“Pay attention. Benny and Mavis want her to find the money they hid, remember? She thinks I’m on my way to Butte to pick up Sheik Ali, so this is her chance to search for it.”
It irked Beau that he’d been so easy for her to ditch. “Why are you still lurking around if she’s already gone and you’re supposed to be in Butte?”
“I was watching for you, Romeo.” Adam folded his arms over his chest. If the look he was after was menace, he nailed it. “Stay away from Belle.”
The smart part of Beau warned he should be careful. He didn’t know for sure that Adam was Belle’s father, but chances were good. Not to mention, Adam would have zero problems tossing him out of the van on the way to the airport if he didn’t want the information released.
The stupid part of Beau interfered. “She’s a grown woman who can make her own choices. What’s it to you who she sleeps with?” Because he wanted to know if what he suspected was true.
Adam’s fists tightened, and Beau braced himself for it.
Adam, however, was cagier than that. “Belle’s had other relationships, but they were always with someone who had similar interests.
Other students. Men as smart as she is.” No insult meant there.
“If she’d been serious about any of them, we would have left her alone and let her live her life.
But she wasn’t. She’s a nice, quiet girl who always has her nose in a book, more interested in studying than men.
We brought her here where she’d be looked after, she can practice medicine, and she can study whatever she wants.
She and Jayce were hitting it off. Mavis likes having her around.
Belle is a granddaughter to be proud of.
She makes up for the lousy way her daughter turned out.
” His fists loosened and tensed as he flexed his fingers, as if warming them up. “Then you came along.”
“Bullshit,” Beau said, because he’d never shied away from a beating.
“Mavis is proud of her, sure. Belle is most definitely someone to be proud of. But Mavis is no nineteenth-century delicate flower who believes women need men. She believes women should take care of themselves and make their own choices. She would never have used Belle to fill Shanda’s shoes.
” If he was going to goad Adam, he might as well do it right.
“You know what I think? I think you’re the one who decided the town needs a doctor and insisted on bringing Belle here.
You gave Mavis the excuse she needed to get to know her granddaughter.
” He pushed his luck even further. “Which makes me wonder—why would you be so anxious to keep Belle in Burning Scrub?”
Adam quit flexing his fingers. “Quit talking crazy. I told you to stay away from her, and I mean it.”
But Beau had gone too far to quit now. “She says her father is a Canadian college professor serving a twenty-year sentence in the US for money laundering. He had to be a first-time offender, or he’d never have been allowed across the border.
What do you suppose the odds are that he was paroled after five years and extradited to Canada?
Belle would have been nineteen by then. Legally, an adult.
If he were paroled, why would he not try to contact his daughter?
” He went for gold. “Because she’s not his daughter.
You want to keep her here because you’re her father, not some dumbass Canadian her mother suckered in. ”
He didn’t have enough time to duck, but he managed to turn his head far enough to keep his nose from getting broken. The blow landed hard, though, and proved Adam meant business. It knocked Beau a few steps backward, although he managed to keep his feet under him.
Adam shook his fingers as if just getting started.
“You tell that story to Belle,” he said, his voice friendly enough to be extra scary, “and you and I will go bear hunting together.”