Nan Ryan (33 page)

The open black brougham waited in the drive, old Jess standing beside it. Nevada, her arm looped through Malcolm’s, strolled down the walk directly behind Johnny and Miss Annabelle.

“Jess, is that you?” Johnny shouted gleefully and started to laugh.

The old man blinked in the bright morning sunshine and stared and finally his wrinkled face broke into a wide grin. “My Lawd, it cain’t be … I’se seeing things, I sho is!”

“No, you’re not, Jess. It’s me and I’m home,” said Johnny, hurrying eagerly toward him.

“By the saints above if not be Mist’ Johnny, as I lives and breathes!” The gray-haired black man was shaking his head and grinning.

In three long strides Johnny reached the stooped old man and Nevada watched, transfixed, as the pair laughed and hugged and slapped each other on the back.

“You old rascal, you been behaving yourself?” Johnny asked, hooking a long arm around the old man’s shoulder.

A work-calloused black hand jerkily lifted to touch and pat Johnny’s smiling, handsome face. The old man laughed with tears in his eyes. “I has tried, Mist’ Johnny. What ’bout you?”

“Nope. I haven’t even tried. You know me, Jess.”

“Yassir, I does. I knows my bad boy!” And they both roared with laughter.

Malcolm was not amused. “Jess, I’m going to be late.”

“Yassir, Professor Maxwell. Right away, Suh,” said Jess, wiping the tears of joy from his eyes.

Malcolm turned to Nevada, “Good-bye, dear. I’ll see you late this evening.” He kissed her cheek, helped Miss Annabelle into the carriage, and climbed in himself.

Johnny gave Jess’s shoulder one last affectionate pat and helped the old man up. Then he turned and approached Nevada. She saw the wicked gleam in his eyes.

Johnny said, “Good-bye, dear. I’ll see you this afternoon.” And kissing her cheek, just as Malcolm had done, he murmured under his breath, “And we’ll find us a card game, Lady Luck.”

31

Nevada was on pins and needles.

And had been from the moment she’d looked up to see Johnny Roulette standing in the arched doorway of the Maxwells’ dining room. A week of worrying and wondering if he would expose her for the fraud she was. Each time he opened his mouth to speak she cringed.

Now, pacing restlessly back and forth in the drawing room, she jumped when the solid oak mantle clock chimed loudly. Two in the afternoon. Malcolm was at the university. Old Jess had driven Quincy across town to a meeting of her garden club. Miss Annabelle had gone up to her room to rest.

And Johnny? Why, right out there in the white
garçonnière
, unconcerned about anything, totally relaxed. No doubt enjoying the turmoil his presence had stirred.

Nevada squared her narrow shoulders. She had to know if he meant to ruin everything for her. She’d been dying to get him alone, but there hadn’t been an opportunity since the night he arrived. If she hurried, it would be out to the guesthouse and back with no one the wiser.

Her decision made, Nevada fled the silent drawing room, climbed the carpeted stairs, and went directly to Miss Annabelle’s closed bedroom door. She stood just outside and softly called Miss Annabelle’s name. No answer. Nevada spoke again, a little louder. Still no answer.

She smiled. Miss Annabelle was deep into an afternoon nap, as were the servants. Nevada rushed to her own bedroom, stepped inside, closed the door. Crossing the room, she caught sight of herself in the free-standing mirror and speculatively approached her reflection.

Leaning forward, she pushed her heavy dark hair back over her shoulders, then grabbed up a brush and drew it through her tousled locks. She pinched her cheeks to give them color and wet her lips. She turned to the left, she turned to the right. She placed her hands on her small waist and critically appraised herself from head to toe.

She smiled, pleased.

Then immediately made a face at herself. Ashamed that she would even consider her appearance and its possible effect on Johnny, she promptly quit primping. She shook her head about and sent her long curly hair back into casual disarray. She’d not have him thinking she cared about looking nice for his sake.

Nevada stepped out the open French doors giving onto the balcony. She went to stand for moment at the gallery’s white railing. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes and peered across the immaculately manicured yard to the small white guesthouse almost hidden now in a summer-green forest of weeping willows and tall oaks and flowering rosebushes.

She took a deep breath, slowly descended the back stairs, and looking all about, practically flew across the sun-splashed grounds. She stopped a few feet from the
garçonnière
, looked about again, and spotting no one, ducked under the low-hanging limb of a live oak, and stepped up to the door.

It was ajar.

Nevada knocked loudly on the doorjamb and waited for Johnny’s tall frame to appear and fill the doorway. It never happened.

A deep, lazy voice, coming from the depths of the room, said uninterestedly, “It’s open.”

Rolling her eyes heavenward at his rudeness, Nevada gritted her small white teeth, jerked the screen door open and stepped into the
garçonnière.
. All the draperies were pulled against the afternoon sun. The room was almost dark. Standing just inside the portal, she blinked in the sudden dimness, searching unsuccessfully for Johnny.

“Over here, honey.”

Her head snapped around, her gaze following the sound of his voice until she located him. Flat on his back on the huge mahogany bed. His white shirt was open down to his waist, exposing the crisp black hair on his chest. The out-of-fashion trousers he wore pulled tautly over a fiat belly and slim hips. His long, stretched-out legs were crossed at the ankles. His feet were bare.

Long, crossed arms cradling his dark head, he was looking directly at her and his black eyes gleamed in the dim light Johnny nodded his greeting and his lips stretched into a slow grin of sexual appraisal. Standing there, backlit by the glaring sunshine, she was frightfully alluring. So tiny she appeared to be a mere child, save for the very womanly curves evident beneath the soft fabric of her summery pastel dress. Her wild dark hair was in need of brushing, her delicate jaw was rigid, and her expression one of apprehension mixed with anger. Undeniably appealing.

“What took you so long, darlin?” he drawled indolently.

Nevada’s reply to his tactless question was “Get up from there. I need to talk to you!”

Johnny chuckled, agilely rolled off the big soft bed, and came to his feet. He raked brown fingers through his coal-black hair, then idly shoved the tails of his rumpled white shirt down into his trousers.

“Won’t you have a seat, Miss Hamilton,” he said politely, bowing, and sweeping a long arm out toward the pair of leather easy chairs before the cold fireplace.

“I will not. I haven’t the time.”

“No? I’m disappointed. I thought perhaps you had changed your mind about a game. The card room down at the Majestic Hotel is full every afternoon and we might—”

“I’m not here to talk about gambling.”

He looked at her as though puzzled. “What then? Is something bothering you, sweetheart?”

“You know very well what is bothering me. Why did you have to come back here? Was it to torment me? And just when are you going to leave?”

“You’re forgetting I had no idea you were here. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I came here because I had no place else to go.” Johnny drew a fresh cigar from a box on the bureau. Searching about for a match, he said, “Surely you realize that tormenting you is the last thing I’d dream of doing.”

He stuck the unlighted cigar between his teeth and propped an elbow atop the heavy chest of drawers. Nevada looked at him standing there, his arm resting on the polished wood, right beside the framed daguerreotype she’d seen that cold March day when she and Denise had slipped into the guesthouse.

Momentarily distracted, she crossed to him, curious. Glancing at the picture as though for the first time, she reached out, picked it up, and said casually, “Anybody you know?”

His laughing eyes never lost their teasing light. “My mother and father,” he said. “And the baby—me. Adorable, don’t you think?”

“You … you look a lot like your father.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Was he … a—”

“Gambler? No, a businessman and a very successful one.”

“Really? Why didn’t you follow in his footsteps? Surely you could have been something more than—”

“Ah, well, my dear, I think I’ve done rather well for someone who was cut off in his youth without a shilling.” He took the framed picture and put it back in its place. “Besides, it’s your fault I’m not currently prosperous.”

“My fault? Hardly! As you recall, I offered you all the money I have. That offer still stands, if you’ll take it and go.”

“Tempting,” he said and ambled away. He picked up the long gold tassel of the heavy drapery, gave it a tug, and flooded the dim room with afternoon sunlight. “Very tempting. And very curious as well. Why, I wonder, would a young lady offer to pay a gentleman thousands of dollars for nothing.” He frowned as though genuinely puzzled.

Fighting down the urge to shout at him, Nevada, leaning back against the tall bureau, said conversationally, “I have what I want.” She smiled engagingly. “I’d like you to have what you want as well.”

“I see.” Johnny nodded and, dropping down into one of the matching leather chairs, hooked a knee over its arm, swinging his bare foot back and forth. “I guess I never knew how much you cared. Never thoroughly appreciated what a selfless, kind person you are, darlin’.”

Continuing to smile, Nevada pushed away from the chest, came to Johnny, dropped to her knees beside his chair, the frothy skirts of her dress mushrooming about her. Her expression angelic, her voice warm as honey, she laid a hand on his knee and said, “I do care about you, Johnny. Very much. I’d like you to have—”

Deep masculine laughter interrupted her. Nevada faltered and stopped speaking. Her seraphic face quickly changed. His lean brown hand swiftly covering hers, Johnny said, “I think I liked you better before you became a lady. As I recall, you were delightfully honest back then.”

She tried to snatch her hand away, but he refused to release it. She hissed, “Are you suggesting that I’m a liar?”

Forcefully pressing her hand flush against his hard muscular leg, Johnny leaned forward in the chair. “You sneaked out here this afternoon while no one was looking. You offer me bribes to get me to leave town. And you have the nerve to say you’re doing it for my sake!” He laughed again, captured her jutting chin, and tilted her face up to his. Leaning close, he said, “Sweetheart, you must be forgetting who you’re talking to. It’s me, Johnny, remember? You can level with me.”

“All right!” she shouted, her blue eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry you came here, sorry you found me. I want you to leave.”

“Why?”

“You always know everything! You tell me!”

He grinned and skimmed his thumb over her bottom lip. She angrily turned her head away. He turned it back. “Nevada Marie Hamilton, you came out here to buy my silence. Isn’t that it? Well, darlin’, you can relax. I wouldn’t dream of telling the learned professor and his overly protective mother that Miss Marie Hamilton of the Tennessee Hamiltons once entertained,”—his deep voice added an extra inflection to the word
entertained
—“aboard the
Moonlight Gambler
, a gambling palace down in Memphis or that I was lucky enough to share a heated night of—”

Furious, she forcefully threw his hands off and shot to her feet, jabbing a finger in the air toward his face as she said, “Tell them any damned thing you please, you bastard! I don’t care. Go right now and place it on the front page of tomorrow’s
St Louis Postl
”

“Perhaps I would,” he said, coming to his feet, “but there’s a rather easy three-card monte game waiting for me down on Olive.”

She whirled and stormed away.

He laughed and called after her, “Do come again when you can stay longer.”

“You go to blazes!” she called over her shoulder, banged out the door, ducked under the live oak, and stormed angrily across the yard.

Sinking back down into the chair, Johnny continued to laugh.

That evening Johnny had been absent from the dinner table and Nevada had given silent thanks for small favors. She was so angry that she wasn’t certain she could have been civil had Johnny been present.

Without him dinner was a pleasant, leisurely meal, and afterward when Malcolm had suggested they go outdoors to enjoy the lovely May night, Nevada had contentedly nodded. On the long settee Malcolm spoke of books and music and of their wedding. And before they realized it the hour had grown quite late.

Not sleepy, they remained on the moonlit veranda. When Malcolm’s arm went around her shoulders Nevada smiled at him and turned her face to his. Malcolm bent his head and kissed her fully on the lips, a sweet, soft, gentle kiss. Then he kissed her again. And then once more. Several kisses. Warm, tender kisses of affection.

At last he sighed and said teasingly, “All this kissing has made me quite thirsty.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Shall I see about some refreshments?”