Devil's Dare. Laurie Grant

LaFleche in the morning. I’m willing to bet you can’t talk her into it for that same fifty dollars, either.” Earp lit a cheroot and inhaled deeply.

      “Go ‘head, Devil, you kin do it!” urged Clancy McDonnell, another of the boys. “The Devil here could charm a snake outa his skin,” he boasted to Earp.

      Sam considered the challenge, rubbing his unaccustomedly clean-shaven chin. “You’ve been with her?”

      “That I have, on a couple of memorable evenings,” Earp admitted. “Believe me, friend, she’s worth every red cent of the cash you’ll place on her nightstand. She’s got tricks that will turn you inside out and leave you begging for more.”

      “But how do I know you’re not in league with the, ah, lady? You two could have set this up ahead of time,” Sam noted.

      “But I didn’t. On that you have my word, Devlin. You gonna take the dare? I’ll even give you the fifty—say, as an advance on your winnings.”

      Sam didn’t know why, but he believed the other man. He might be a clever cheat at cards, but he sensed Earp was dealing straight now. “I think I’ll go you one better, Earp.”

      “How’s that?” Earp inquired with lazy interest, but his gaze was intent.

      “I’ll take the same stakes—twenty thousand, twice what you won from me—but I’ll have the lady between the sheets within three nights without parting with any of your fifty.

      She’ll be with me all night—and she’ll do it for free.”

      Earp’s jaw fell open. “You’re loco.”

      The Devil’s Boys hooted and clapped. “That’s the spirit, boss!”

      “I can’t do this,” Earp protested. “It’d be like takin’ candy from a baby!”

      He stared at Sam, but Sam kept his gaze steady. All of a sudden he was bursting with confidence. A clever cardsharp might get the better of him with a marked deck, but with women he knew he had the advantage. He knew the secret—which was that all women, even those who made their livings on their backs, wanted to be treated like ladies.

      “So…where is the divine Mercedes?” drawled Sam. Now that he’d figured out a sure bet, he was eager to begin the campaign to win his money back.

      “I haven’t seen her downstairs for a while. She went upstairs with a cowboy about the time you began losing that last hand,” Earp said, then pulled out a pocket watch, which he flicked open with a well-manicured fingernail. “Hmm…by my calculations she oughta be down in about half an hour, unless the cowboy paid double. How about letting me buy you another drink?”

      Sam shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ll just sit around and keep my boys outta trouble.” The whiskey was singing a sweet song inside his head, but he knew better than to drink any more of it. Too much of it, and he’d be just another bleary-eyed, slurred-voice cowboy making importunities to the queen of the calico queens. “But if you’d like me to find another table so you can start a new game…”

      Earp shook his head, gracious in victory. “No need for all of you to move. I’m just going to mosey over yonder where those boys’re beckoning for me to join them.” He indicated a table with a trio of cowboys Sam recognized as some of Lee Hill’s hands from San Antone. “But never fear, I’ll keep my eye out for Mamselle Mercedes so I can point her out to you.”

      Earp left, and for a few minutes the Devil’s Boys went on drinking, with Sam just watching the stairs.

      “Hey, would ya look at what Tom Culhane found, gents?” Jase Lowry said suddenly, pointing toward the entrance.

      Six heads swiveled to look up at the swinging doors. Through them sauntered the bowlegged young cowboy who’d groused earlier about his wages, his arm around the waist of a slender, fine-boned blonde who was eyeing him with a mixture of admiration and nervousness.

      Spying the table full of familiar faces, Culhane aimed the blonde in their direction, his stumbling gait proclaiming the fact that he’d already been downing a considerable amount of rotgut at another Abilene establishment. “Lookee what I found, boys! A beauty, ain’t she? An’ guesh what? She sh-said she seen me earlier today an’ thought I wuz a han’some fella an’ wanted to meet me! Ain’t that a wonderful turn of events, boys?”

      Smacking the table and laughing, the Devils’ Boys all agreed it was. Jase Lowry rose and pulled out a chair.

      “Why don’t ya offer the lady a chair, Tom? What’s wrong with yore manners?” He bowed with exaggerated care. “Jase Lowry, ma’am, at your service, if this here saddlebum fails t’ please ya.”

      The blonde blinked at the towheaded cowboy she’d come in with, then, blushing, she accepted the chair Jase held for her. “Why, thank you, Mr. Lowry, you’re very kind.”

      Cookie guffawed. “Kind? Jase? Ma’am, he’s just hopin’ t’ cut ya out before Tom here gets his brand on ya!”

      Sam’s eyes narrowed as he studied the girl sitting by Culhane. She seemed awfully young to be one of Abilene’s soiled doves, though the sidelong glance she was currently bestowing on the goggle-eyed Culhane was full of coquetry and much fluttering of her sandy lashes. Her clothing, compared to the flashy, flounced satin dresses of the other whores, was almost demure. She wore an embroidered Mexican peasant blouse, an innocent enough garment—or at least it probably had been until she had pushed it down so that it revealed slender shoulders and the tops of her breasts swelling above her corset—and a somewhat faded black cotton skirt. Jet black earbobs dangled from her ears. Her face was innocent of paint, though.

      “Tom, you haven’t introduced your lady friend,” Sam said, keeping his eyes on her. The blonde giggled at the sight of her companion’s crestfallen face.

      “Oh, yeah! Sorry, boss!” Culhane said with a grin, as if the scene this afternoon had not taken place. “Gents, this here’s Miss Charity Fairweather. Miss Charity, these’re the Devil’s Boys—my boss, Sam Devlin, Cookie Yates, Manuel Lopez, Clancy McDonnell and Jase, who ya already met.”

      Miss Charity Fairweather dimpled as she acknowledged everyone’s greetings. Then she seemed to start as she saw that Culhane was pouring her a drink of whiskey. As Sam watched, she hesitated, then raised the glass to her lips with a hand that trembled slightly. She sipped, sputtered, giggled, then drank some more.

      The boys cheered, and Culhane hugged her with one hand while he whispered in her ear with the other. Then she winked at something Culhane whispered in her ear and was rewarded by an enthusiastic kiss, which she returned with apparent relish.

      Well, maybe she was new to the calling, Sam thought, and hadn’t been on the job long enough to dress and paint her face like the others. It sure wasn’t his job to watch out for the calico queens. Chances were this soiled dove was more than up to coping with the likes of Tom Culhane. Maybe she even left off the paint on purpose, so that her customers would be lulled into thinking her just a whore with the proverbial heart of gold. Meanwhile she’d be picking their pockets, or helping herself to the rest of their money while they dozed.

      Yessir, if Tom kept guzzling the Alamo’s whiskey at that speed, that was exactly what would happen, and Tom would be grouchy as a gored steer in the morning. But Tom was a man grown, so Sam went back to watching the stairway for the reappearance of Mercedes LaFleche.

      

      Mercy woke with a start in the darkened bedroom, awakened by a sudden sense that something was wrong. It was too quiet. Charity’s snoring was a normal nocturnal accompaniment to her dreams, but now all she could hear was the neighing of a horse in a corral down the street. She reached out a hand, and realized the space next to her on the bed was empty.

      Had Charity gone to the outhouse? Usually if nature called in the middle of the night, the girls used a chamber pot that was kept underneath the bed, for both of them were afraid of meeting spiders and snakes in the darkness. But perhaps her sister’s stomach was upset from something