Just Once (6 page)

“What’s a purty lady like you doing with an ugly cuss like that?” The yellow-toothed man indicated her companion with a jerk of his head.

“I … I’m … he …”

She couldn’t form a cohesive thought as she stared into the blackest, most evil eyes she had ever seen. The fires of hell burned inside them. Jemma shivered. What in heaven’s name had ever,
ever
possessed her to take to the streets?

The man had his hand on her arm. His fingers bit into her flesh through the threadbare wool cloak. When she winced and tried to wrest her arm from his hold, his eyes lit up with a perverse glow.

“Please. I …”

“What’s the matter? Ain’t I better than that no-good son of a polecat you walked in with? I can show you a better time without tryin’.” His breath was rancid. Up close she could see the pores of his oily skin.

Hunter was almost at the bar. Her attacker pulled her up against him, so close she could feel the rough scratchy wool of his shirtfront and smell his fetid breath. Jemma decided not to wait for her newfound escort to save her.

She lifted her knee, planning to ram her foot down on the man’s shoe, but in the process she hit him hard in the crotch. The result was almost instantaneous. He let out a yowl of pain and lurched back as he grabbed himself with both hands and began to spew curses the likes of which she had never heard before.

Jemma was awestruck, determined to remember the move and the curses. Every man in the room burst into gales of laughter—every man but Boone, who was bearing down on her with quiet rage simmering in his eyes. He grabbed her arm and whipped her up against the nearest wall before she knew what was happening.

She began to argue. “I’m getting a little tired of men grabbing me—”

“Keep your mouth shut,” he said, pressing closer. “Look up at me as if you’re going to kiss me.”

After what had just happened, she had no idea what to expect next. Shoved against the rough plank wall, Jemma stared up at the big man hunched over her. In the haunting glow of the oil lamps hanging from the rafters, he looked even more forbidding than he had outside. His eyes were an intense, liquid green, his lips full, set in a hard line, but he was fairly clean and didn’t smell at all bad. And he had all of his teeth.

Somehow she knew it had been the sun and not laughter that had creased the skin at the corners of his eyes. His hair, light blond, was wet.

“You don’t look like you want to kiss me very much,” she said, fully aware of the precarious predicament she had foolishly put herself in. Had this man suddenly turned on her, too?

“I
don’t
want to kiss you,” he muttered, leaning close enough to be almost nose-to-nose. “Put your arms around me.”

She slipped her arms around his neck. “Now what—”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“But you don’t want to?”

“No. We’ll just be doing it for the audience.”

“Why?”

He closed his eyes and sighed heavily, then stared down at her again. “They’re all just like your friend over there.” He nodded toward the mustachioed man with his eyes glazed with pain and his hands hugging his private parts. Hunter was so close now that he was whispering against her lips. A very queer tingling sensation quivered through her, one that ran right down to her toes with his every word.

“There are men in this room who would just as soon cut your throat for a picayune as look at you, not to mention all the colorful things they’d like to do to you first. Raise up a bit more on your tiptoes.”

When she did as he bid her and raised herself up onto her toes, her breasts pressed against his chest. She could see the slashes of emerald against the lighter green of his irises. He really did have magnificent eyes for a man.

Flattened full against him, she barely had time to adjust to the very strange sensations that were leapfrogging from her breasts to her belly to unmentionable places below that, when he lowered his lips to hers and their mouths touched.

The kiss was feather-light, no more than a meeting of lips. He slowly pressed his mouth to hers. His lips were warm, softer than she had ever imagined a man’s mouth would be, and surprisingly gentle. Even though this didn’t seem to be the most utterly sinful kind of kiss imaginable, for he hadn’t done the unspeakable and tried to slip his tongue into her mouth, this definitely was not what Sister Augusta Aleria would have called a sanctioned spiritual union. No indeed. It if had been, her blood wouldn’t have begun to simmer so quickly.

After a moment or two she lost track of time. Hunter lifted his head. He quickly straightened away from her. Disoriented, Jemma had a hard time concentrating. Her head was spinning.

He’d given her her very first kiss. She could hardly believe it. Tonight was to have been her wedding night; but the intended groom was dead, and here she was with a stranger who had just given her the first kiss of her life in a place called the Rotgut.

Truly, the saints worked in strange and wonderful ways.

Hunter was staring at her with an odd, calculating look.

“Keep your eyes down, stay with me, and let me do the talking.” He started to walk away again.

“Wait!” Jemma grabbed his arm.

“What now?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I forgot to tell you my name—”

“I didn’t ask because that’s the way I wanna keep it,” he shot back. “Look, I’m getting you a room for the night and then we part ways.” As he turned around he mumbled, “At least I’ve gotten you out of the rain.”

Jemma refused to budge and whispered frantically, “I told you, I’ve got money. I’m not a charity case.”

“Come on.”

This time when he walked away she stuck close, pulled the edges of the wool cloak together, and tried to keep her gaze lowered. Her surly escort with the soft lips stepped to the bar and spoke to the barkeep.

“I need a crib for the night.”

Jemma glanced up in time to discover another slovenly man, this one obviously in charge, standing behind the plank bar staring at her. From the looks of his shirt, he had spilled more liquor down the front of himself than he had poured into glasses. She felt his disgusting leer even as she forced herself to look away from his gap-toothed smile.

“You got the devil’s own luck,” he told Hunter. “Purty woman and one room left at the inn. Two bits,” the bar-keep said.

Hunter opened his coat and reached into a fur pouch lashed to his waist. He flipped up the cover flap, drew out a coin, and laid it on the bar.

The barkeep’s filthy hand snaked out and closed over the coin. “Back there,” he said, thumbing his hand toward the back.

Hunter Boone tugged her across the room, this time toward a door that sagged on its hinges. As they made their way toward the dim recesses of the tavern, she noticed that her guide continued to flash unsavory glances in every direction. She looked up at his broad shoulders and massive arms and thought that any man who challenged him would have to be out of his mind.

Once inside a squalid, dark room no bigger than both of her armoires shoved together, he barred the door. Once more he reached into the small bag at his waist, this time to withdraw flint to light the smoky oil lamp on a stand in the corner.

As the lamp flared to life, the crude interior of the room was further revealed. A thin, lumpy mattress had been unceremoniously tossed in the middle of the floor along with two blankets of very troubled origin. Sobering reality careened into her thoughts.

She was alone in a filthy room with a complete stranger; just outside the door hovered even more of a threat. She tried to calm her nerves by telling herself that this was what she had wanted. This was
her
choice, not her father’s or anyone else’s. Had she gone through with the marriage as arranged, she would still be locked in a bedroom with a complete stranger right about now.

At least she had picked this one out herself.

As Hunter Boone walked across the room to open a window high in the wall, Jemma decided to calm down and stay put. The devil she barely knew was better than any of those lounging in the other room.

“Keep the door locked and you’ll be safe enough until morning. Just leave before most of them get up.” He nodded in the direction of the outer room.

“Where are
you
going?” His statement took her by such surprise that she could barely form the question.

“Out the window.”

“You really do mean to just leave me here? I … I thought you might be joking.”

“Look, lady, this is no joke. I’m not beholden to you in any way and I don’t intend to be.”

“But—”

His easy dismissal rendered her speechless. She reached up and tried to make some order out of her limp, soggy hair. She realized she must look a sight. Sister had told the girls never to be vain enough to use beauty or flirtatious ways on men, for it would stir a man’s blood and cause him to lose his head and lead an unsuspecting girl into sinful acts.

Jemma wondered if maybe, just maybe, she tried batting her lashes at Hunter Boone—and that was
all
she would try in the way of flirtation—he might be cajoled into staying and watching over her. And skip the sinful acts.

“Surely you realize I need a male escort to escape the city.” She fluttered her lashes furiously and found it very difficult to see.

“You’re going to get a headache doing that. I’ve told you before, I’m not taking you along.” He was frowning intently at her, obviously unmoved. For a moment she thought he might have developed a tic, for his lips were twitching.

She decided to try to buy him off again. She bent over and drew up the hem of her once lovely ice-blue gown. Like her slippers, it was hopelessly ruined. A good third of a yard from the hem up was stained by mud and water. Even more disturbing, the weight of the five gold pieces that had been sewn inside her underskirt felt suspiciously lighter.

“Oh, no!”

He stepped close, bending down to see what she was upset about.

“There’s a rip in the hem.” She moaned as she held the edge of the undergarment up for closer inspection. “I’ve only one gold piece left.”

Working the remaining coin along the hem, she pushed it over to the tear and slipped it out. It shone brightly, the only sparkle in the dim light and squalor.

“Take this in exchange for guiding me upriver as far as you can.”

The sight of the coin surprised him, she could see that. He actually seemed to be considering her offer. Jemma stared at the coin in her palm, wondering how she was going to survive after she turned all of her money over to this man. It was one thing to run off with enough gold to finance a grand adventure, but it was quite another to set out virtually penniless. After two hours and as many attacks on her person, she was beginning to question the idea of heading anywhere but toward safety.

There was still time to confess the entire truth to Boone and have him hire someone to take her to the Moreau plantation. But what if the Moreaus tried to force her to go through with the marriage?

Think of the adventure, Jemma gal. Don’t turn back now
.

Her grandfather’s voice again. She practically groaned aloud. She really would be letting Grandpa Hall down if she faltered now. Things were bound to get better.

Hunter Boone was staring down at the gold piece. He looked as wet and tired as she felt. He didn’t appear to be a man who could afford to turn down her offer.

“Well?” she pressed. “Will you do it?”

Hunter sighed, mentally tallying what it would take to outfit the girl for the journey and how much he would have left over in the bargain. Perhaps enough to by Nette a whole bolt of new cloth for her quilting. Lately he had done little enough for the widow woman who cooked and cleaned for him and all the river travelers who stopped at the tavern and trading post at Sandy Shoals. Then too, Nette had also been raising Lucy since Amelia had left him. The old woman deserved a little surprise.

He glanced up and caught St. Theresa watching him closely and thought he saw something in her eyes he hadn’t seen all evening—a trace of fear. The idea that she might be frightened moved him more than any of her silly eyelash wiggling or the sight of the money. He shook himself like a great bear, but it didn’t dispel the concern he was beginning to feel, no matter how hard he tried to fight it.

He knew himself well enough to know that he couldn’t leave St. Theresa to the mercy of just anyone who happened along. Not after kissing her. That kiss had been enough to convince him that she wasn’t the whore he had first suspected her to be. This girl had no idea
what
to do when a man asked for a kiss, and she wasn’t a good enough liar
or
actress to have carried off such complete innocence.

Again he thought of Lucy. He hoped to God someone would see fit to take care of her if she were ever stranded and in need of help. Someone trustworthy. Someone like him.

It made him mad as hell for even contemplating hauling the girl upriver. He should have walked away when she first approached him. He should know better by now.

If he took her along, it would be for the gold piece she offered and what he could buy with it. It certainly wouldn’t be because she had fluttered her lashes at him or because, if he let himself, he might still be thinking about that damned kiss. He didn’t even know her name.

And he couldn’t very well think of her as St. Theresa forever.

“What’s your name?”

“Jemma O’—” Her eyes widened. “I would prefer not to tell you my last name just yet. At least until we’re out of New Orleans.”

“You wanted for anything, Jemma-O?”

She shook her head and smiled that infernal angelic smile. “It’s just Jemma. And no, I’m not wanted for anything. But … with the threat of the emir’s men always hanging over my head, I feel the less you know, the better for both of us.”

If nothing else, she was one hell of a storyteller. Thinking of the glittering gold piece, he offered, “I’ll take you as far as Sandy Shoals in Kentucky. From there you can join another party traveling up to Canada.”

He cursed himself even as he made the offer. She was bound to slow him down, just when he was set on getting back with his brother’s whiskey money, determined to announce to everyone in his family circle that he was finally heading west.