The Honour-Bound Gambler

“Why, that’s fine,” Violet began. “One more is always—”

“He shanghaied me!” The boy, Tobe, jerked his arm out of Cade’s grasp. He glowered at Violet. “I tole him, that lady done dropped her reticule! I was only gonna return it to her, is all. Nothin’ more’n that. Until this here knuck picked me up clean off’n the depot platform and said it was the sheriff or you—”

Cade kicked his foot. As though recognizing that signal, Tobe quit talking. Instead he raised his chin. Then he sniffed.

“Is that chicken I smell?” Enthusiastically, the boy strode inside the house. “Chicken and biscuits, maybe? Mmm, mmm, mmm.”

With a confidence that belied his few years, Tobe stepped farther into the entryway. He propped both hands on his hips. “This might be all right, I reckon. Only don’t you get no ideas about sellin’ me into white slavery or nothin’, Miss Benson,” he warned. “I done heard’a you plenty. I aim to be on my guard the whole time I’m here, and that’s for certain. I ain’t no fool.”

“Well, I—” Mystified by his wrongheaded notions about her, Violet hesitated. “We’ve only just met. I wouldn’t think to—”

She glanced to Cade for guidance. He was watching Tobe with a strange, mingled sense of stoniness and nostalgia on his face.

“—sell anyone,” she continued, wondering all the while at Cade’s unusual expression. “I’m certainly not a white slaver!”

Where in the world had the boy gotten such a nonsensical idea? Violet could scarcely fathom it. Indeed, she helped many different people in town, including children, but the people whom she helped were generally grateful for her assistance.

“He’s afraid you’ll send him to a foundling home,” Cade explained, doubtless recognizing her confusion. “He told me so on the way here. Screamed it, more precisely. Not that I can blame him. Those orphanages are nasty places sometimes.”

As he made that curious statement, Cade stepped inside, too. He shut the door behind him. His presence filled the entryway. Instantly her household felt twice as exciting with him in it.

“Tobe insists he’s happier on the streets,” Cade went on, giving the child another odd look, “among his felonious little friends. He says he has everything he could ever need.”

“Oh. I see.” That couldn’t possibly be true. Could it? Where were the boy’s parents? Violet might yet suggest that Tobe go to a temporary home of some kind, she knew. Everyone deserved a home and a family who loved them. Violet was fortunate enough to have both and deeply cherished them. “Well, then there’s no need to rush to an orphanage, is there?” At Tobe’s still-wary expression, Violet tried another tack. “I mean, I’m very pleased to meet you, Tobe! Why don’t you tell me about yourself.”

Tobe regarded her with evident suspicion. His little face was filthy. His hair might once have been blond; now it was tangled and too dirty to discern its true color. A knit cap, doubtless pilfered, partly shaded his eyes. His britches sported holes in the knees. His shirt needed mending, too. Only his woolen overcoat, which was so large it hid his hands and dragged on the floor behind him, appeared to be in reputable shape.

Concerned, Violet gave him a smile. “Are you new to town?”

“I come in off’n the train. With my mam. Only she’s—” Tobe broke off. “Gone,” the boy finished flatly. As Violet and Cade exchanged a troubled glance over Tobe’s head, he looked with interest at the Benson household. “So…how ’bout that chicken?”

Deciding that further questions could wait, Violet nodded. “It will be ready very soon. I made oyster stew to start, a lovely braise of kale and turnips, and chicken with dumplings.”

Tobe shot a triumphant look at Cade. “Tole you so!” He held out his small grubby hand, fingers waggling. “Pay up, chump.”

With a resigned grin, Cade plunked a nickel into the boy’s palm. To Violet, he explained, “We had a small wager going.”

“On the constituents of my dinner?” Violet shook her head in disbelief. “I wonder what you’ll make of my dessert then?”

On her cue, both males—one tall and one small—raised their heads to sniff the air like the most persistent of bloodhounds.

“Something with cinnamon.” Tobe perked up. “Pumpkin pie?”

“No.” With a mien of concentration, Cade inhaled once more. “It’s apples. Apple pie…No. Apple pandowdy. With cream.”

Slack-jawed, Violet stared. “It is apple pandowdy!”

With a genial chortle, the males traded that very same nickel once again. Glimpsing the surprising camaraderie between them, Violet felt unexpectedly moved. Cade Foster seemed like a hard man. He seemed tough and unwavering and more than a little bullheaded. But when it came to a child in need, apparently, he was entirely mush-hearted.

“You two are almost as incorrigible as Papa,” she confided with a shake of her head. “He’s at a congregant’s, offering them counsel, by the way. That means he’ll likely be late to dinner.”

Cade gave her a piercing look. “Does that happen a lot?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes. Papa’s flock needs him.”

“So do you.” As though guessing at the loneliness that Violet sometimes felt, alone inside the quiet, tidy and modest house she’d grown up in, Cade squeezed her hand. “I aim to give you everything you might need and want, Violet. Everything.”

For a long moment, his gaze met hers, private and enthralling. His promise of giving her everything swam in Violet’s head, making her feel downright giddy. When Cade had first made his unusual proposition to her this afternoon, she’d been taken aback, it was true. But now that she’d had time to consider matters, Violet was entirely in favor of helping to bring Cade good luck. His proposition provided a handy cover for her own plans to become more adventuresome, without forcing her to risk rejection. It would probably be fun, as well.

Provided Papa approved the idea, of course.

“Don’t worry, Cade. You needn’t keep wooing me. I’ve already made up my mind. Besides, there’ll be plenty of time to clarify those particulars between us later on. In private.” She shifted her attention to Tobe, who’d wandered into the adjacent parlor. Surrounded by its humble but comfortable furnishings, the boy appeared even more down on his luck than he had before. “After I ask little Tobe to unhand the statuette he’s about to pinch and unburden his pockets of my prize collection of sterling-silver spoons.”

Cade only gawked at her. “He’s been stealing? Here?”

“Well, either that,” Violet clarified with a nod, “or his pants are growing elephantine pockets all on their own.”

Cade scowled. “I’m sorry. I’ll handle this.”

With a laugh, Violet put her hand on his shirtfront. Beneath her fingers, Cade’s chest felt warm and solid and—No. She had to concentrate. “You’ve done enough by bringing him here,” she assured Cade. “It was the right thing to do. But if you confront Tobe now, you’ll likely scare him away for good.”

“Stealing is not polite.” Cade clenched his jaw. “I’ve been spending most of my time at gambling tables, that’s true, but I still possess sufficient manners to recognize that much.”

“I have no doubt you’re wonderfully well mannered.” In fact, she was counting on that. His inherent gentlemanliness would allow Violet to behave more daringly without risk of getting in over her head. Comfortingly, she patted his chest. It still felt superb. “But you relax now. I’ll take care of this.”

Cade gave a reluctant grunt. She accepted that as consent.

“In the meantime,” she volunteered sunnily, “you can consider when you would like your next dose of good luck!”

Then she left with a smile to deal with Tobe.

Even after he’d savored a delectable meal of home-cooked dishes, prepared with a love and care he’d swear he could detect outright, Cade could not stop thinking about what Violet had said before she’d gone to cope with Tobe’s thieving tendencies.

You can consider when you would like your next dose of good luck!

Gazing at Violet now from across the gingham tablecloth–covered table, set with its simple pottery and hand-me-down cutlery, Cade wanted his next dose of good luck soon. Very soon.

He didn’t know how Violet had done it, but somehow she’d captivated him. Her cooking was magnificent, her caretaking was even better and her skills at affable conversation left him as full of contentment as her meal had left him full of chicken and dumplings. He’d come here expecting to employ his usual methods of strategy and artifice and charm. It had turned out, to his surprise, that he’d needed none of those things to earn Violet Benson’s goodwill—especially since her father had yet to appear for dinner—or to discern the most important fact about her.

She was wonderful. To be precise, Cade decided as he watched her while spooning up the last sugary, cinnamony bites of his portion of apple pandowdy, she was soft and sweet and quick with a joke. She was capable and smart and loyal. She was not beautiful; that was still true. She was not flirtatious or trivial or full of flattering niceties, the way some women were.

Violet spoke her mind, sometimes even to her own detriment. She blushed at the drop of a hat—a hat not unlike the expensive, flat-brimmed model Cade had respectfully removed while entering her household—and she lacked all sophistication. She would not have fared well in San Francisco or New York or any of the myriad big cities Cade frequented and sometimes called home temporarily.

Simon Blackhouse, he knew, would have found Violet both gauche and probably unlovely, with her easy laughter and broad gestures. But Cade, to his incredulity and satisfaction, found Violet to be…endearing. Being around her was stimulating in a way that keeping company with other people never had been.

Violet never failed to surprise him, the way she’d done with Tobe tonight. She hadn’t shirked from welcoming the boy or from reprimanding him when necessary. Even though Violet was admittedly ordinary in looks, her high-spiritedness and wit more than made up for her lack of rosebud lips or alabaster skin or any of the other features that prettier women were lauded for.

The plain fact was, Cade realized, Violet’s face drew him to truly look at her…and to keep right on looking, helplessly entertained and absorbed by wondering what she’d say or do next.