Bobbi Smith (21 page)
Authors: Heaven
“There is an explanation . . .” he began, desperately searching for the right words to protect Alex’s reputation and his own.
Jim went on, completely unaware of his discomfort. “Indeed there is. That particular bend in the river deals everyone a fit. It’s dangerous even in daylight, but at night, it’s treacherous.”
“Oh, the river . . .” Winn didn’t know when he’d ever been so relieved. He found himself grinning almost stupidly as the steamer captain explained the dangers of sandbars.
“Yes, running aground like that can cause a lot of trouble, but mostly it’s upsetting for the passengers. It takes a good pilot to back her off without any damage, and it looks like our man did a fine job. I’ve just been checking the decks and everything seems to be in order. Did you have any problems down here?”
“The rail may be split back there,” he said, indicating the place where Alex had been thrown against it.
“Thanks, Father, I’ll get some repair men on it right away.” Jim Westlake stopped to inspect the rail.
Winn didn’t realize how the captain’s unexpected appearance had worried him until he reached the entrance to the main cabin and the tension began to ease out of him. More than ready for a stiff drink and a little diversion, he headed straight to the saloon.
Eleven
A haze of smoke hung in the air, and the mood in the bar was one of easy male camaraderie. Several card games were already in progress as Winn entered, but he decided to have a drink before joining in. He ordered his whiskey straight at the bar and then positioned himself to observe the poker game Matt was playing. Matt won easily, and Winn realized he didn’t have any real competition. When one of the other players folded, he decided he’d try his luck against him.
“Mind if I sit in?” Winn asked.
“Fine with me,” Matt said, and the three others who remained offered no real objection.
“You gamble a lot, Father?” one of the gamblers, a man who introduced himself as Melvin, asked. The thought of a priest joining their game bothered him a little.
“I’ve been known to play a hand or two in my time,” Winn replied easily as he got a bottle of whiskey from the bartender and settled in at the table. He was amazed at how good it felt to be in a smoke-filled room, drinking whiskey and playing cards again.
“You don’t have any connections upstairs that’ll give you an advantage over us, do you?” Melvin wondered with a laugh.
“I wish I did.”
It was Matt’s deal, and he did so proficiently. Play began. The player leading off was a young man named Josh. He was barely twenty by Winn’s estimation, and he had the look of a farm boy. It was obvious right away that he’d had very little real gambling experience, and Winn figured the others had been winning handily off of him all night.
Several hands were played. Winn won steadily. Josh lost goodly sums each time for he refused to quit, not realizing what cards had been played and when it was time to fold. As the youth’s pile of money got smaller and smaller, Winn noticed that he grew more nervous and rushed in his play.
More hands were dealt. More whiskey was drunk. Betting grew spirited. Melvin dropped out of the game first, followed by Richards. It was down to just three of them—Matt, Winn and Josh.
“Well, after this hand, I think I’ll go see how my lovely wife is doing,” Matt said casually, inventing an excuse to leave the game.
Winn had been enjoying himself—for a little while. He’d actually managed not to think about Alex for a few minutes. The moment Matt mentioned her name, however, he remembered her protest to him on deck that he was a priest and she was married to Matt, and his mood turned foul. With narrowed eyes and serious intent, Winn concentrated on the cards as he’d never done before. Suddenly, the game meant something. He was going to beat Matt, and he was going to beat him soundly. When he did, he was going to enjoy every minute of it. With cunning and expertise, he deliberately ran the stakes up higher and higher. He didn’t give a thought to Josh. He thought only about how good it was going to feel when he trounced Matt and won the hand.
“I call,” Josh announced nervously as he threw the last of his money in the pot. He’d stayed with them, matching their bets until now, but with the last raise, he’d run out of funds. He didn’t know what he was going to do if he lost. He’d just bet every cent he had in the world. . .. He was scared, but he hoped the fear didn’t show in his eyes.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Matt told him.
Josh spread out two pairs—jacks and sixes.
“Three kings, ace high,” Winn announced as he spread his cards before him.
Matt muttered a frustrated curse under his breath as he tossed in his hand facedown. “Beats me. You’re one helluva poker player, Father Winn. I’ve had enough. I’m calling it a night.”
Winn was smiling in satisfaction as he raked in the substantial pot. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed winning at poker so much.
“I think I’ll quit, too,” he added, not wanting to give Matt any chance to have time alone with Alex. “I thank you gentlemen for letting me sit in and for a very lucrative evening.”
As Winn stood up, he pocketed the cash, then picked up his bottle of whiskey and handed it to Matt to take with them. “You never know when we might need that.”
Josh, meanwhile, fled the saloon. The humiliation of his defeat was almost more than he could bear. He’d lost everything. He stood outside in the black night, wondering what to do next. Before he’d left home, his mother had warned him against the evils of gambling, but he hadn’t understood what she’d meant until now. The thrill of the betting had robbed him of his common sense. The possibility of winning had become an unquenchable fire in his blood as he’d sat at the table with the other gamblers. He’d believed he could win . . . he’d known he could! He was embarrassed and broke now, and at a loss for what to do next with his life.
Winn emerged from the saloon with Matt to see Josh standing alone on deck, dejected and miserable. The money in Winn’s pocket weighed heavily on him. He was the reason the boy had lost everything. He’d deliberately raised the stakes high to beat Matt.
Winn stared at the stricken boy for a moment. In spite of the liquor he’d consumed, there was no ignoring the chafing of the collar he wore. It nagged at his conscience, urging him to do what was right. Winn told himself he was crazy, that he’d won the money fair and square. But still, he knew what he had to do.
“Wait for me,” he told Matt.
“Where are you going?” Matt couldn’t imagine what he was up to.
“I just want to talk to our young friend there for a minute,” he answered, nodding in Josh’s direction. “I’ll be right back.”
He approached the youth quietly.
“Josh?”
“Yes, Father?”
“Did you learn a valuable lesson tonight?”
Josh gave a short bark of pained laughter. “Yes, Father. I learned a real valuable lesson.”
“Are you ever going to gamble again?”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to. I don’t have any money left,” he admitted wryly.
“But if you did have money. Would you go back to the tables?”
“No, Father. I may not be the smartest man in the world, but I’m smart enough to realize I don’t have what it takes to be a gambler. I won’t be betting again.”
“Good.” Winn smiled. “Here.” He handed him the entire pot he’d just won.
“Why are you doing this?” Josh’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Let’s just say because it’s the right thing to do. Now, you promise you’ll stay out of places like that?”
“Yes, sir.” He looked down at the money he held and then back up at him. He was humbled by the good Father’s generosity. “Thanks, Father,” he said in a choked voice.
Winn clapped him on the back and moved off to rejoin Matt.
Matt had watched the whole scene, but didn’t say anything about the exchange right away. He was thinking of his lovely ‘bride’ and wondering if she was safe in her cabin.
“Did Alex say if she was going to stay up or not?”
“I believe she was going to bed,” Winn answered, hoping to divert him from looking in on Alex. He wasn’t about to let Matt visit her alone, and the last thing he needed right then was to see her again.
“Let’s walk by her cabin just to make sure everything’s all right, and then we can go on to bed,” Matt suggested.
Winn grew tense as they neared Alex’s cabin door. He was afraid that he would see her, but then again, he was afraid that he wouldn’t. When there was no sign of her and everything seemed quiet, he breathed a sigh of relief. They made their way to their own stateroom, and it wasn’t until they were inside that Matt brought up Winn’s talk with Josh.
“That was a very kind thing you did with the boy,” Matt told him as they settled in. “You really are a good-hearted man, Father Winn.”
Winn had had all he could stand. Matt’s simple heartfelt praise was all the spark he needed to set fire to his already heated mood. First, he’d had Alex telling him what a wonderful priest he was and how she wasn’t going to let him break his vows, and now Matt!
The liquor he’d consumed loosened his tongue and heightened his frustration. Winn was bound and determined to convince Matt right then and there that he wasn’t the self-sacrificing, virtuous man they thought he was. “Damn it, Matt! I’m not as good as you think I am! I wish you and Alex would stop trying to make me into a saint!”
“But Father Winn, you . . .” Matt stared at him, stunned by his tone of voice.
“Listen to me!” Winn cut him off before he could say any more. “I’m just an ordinary man. That’s all.”
“Father Winn, you’re anything but ordinary,” he complimented him again.
“Stop it!”
“Stop what? Telling you the truth about yourself? There’s nothing ordinary about you.” Matt had watched him with people during their travels. He’d seen him with old women and children—and with Sister Agnes.
“No, you don’t understand,” he ground out, fighting the overwhelming desire to blurt out the truth and be done with it. The clue had something about ‘two shall be as one, but your fate is not that to be . . . ,’ so maybe the need for using his uncle’s identity was over as well as the need for Matt and Alex’s marriage. He’d successfully avoided the Anthony brothers and he’d won both Matt’s and Alex’s trust. Maybe he didn’t need the priestly disguise any more. Maybe he could finish the quest as himself. Telling the truth at that moment sounded like a wonderful idea to Winn.
“Understand, what, Father Winn?” Matt was puzzled by this sudden change in the priest. He could have sworn he sounded almost angry.
“That I’m not ‘Father’ anything, damn it!”
Matt stared at him in real confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Winn faced him. “Matt, I think maybe it’s time you learned the truth.”
“The truth? What truth?”
“Matt . . .” Winn waited until he was sure he had his full attention, and then he reached up and took off his clerical collar. He tossed it on his bunk. “I’m not a priest.”
Alex couldn’t rest. When she’d first run away from Father Winn, she’d been terrified that he would follow her. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him, so much as she was afraid of herself . . . of what she was feeling. If Father Winn had come after her, she’d feared that she wouldn’t be able to resist him. She’d been attracted to him before the kiss, but now that she knew the wonder of being in his arms, she wondered how she was ever going to look him in the eye again. His embrace had been her heaven and her hell. It had been a taste of paradise, and it was never going to happen again.
At first, as nervous as she was, she’d paced her room in anticipation and fear of his coming. Then, when he hadn’t followed, she’d paced her room in despair, imagining a future without him. Finally, knowing there was nothing else for her to do, she’d undressed and gone to bed.
Sleep, however, had proved elusive. Every time Alex closed her eyes, she saw Father Winn as he’d been that night in the moonlight . . . starkly handsome, wonderfully male. The very essence of him had thrilled her, and his single kiss had left her weak with desire. She’d never known a kiss could evoke such strong emotions. It was as if by that simple embrace, he’d touched her very soul.
Every time Alex had started to slip into the fantasy of being in his arms again, she mentally dragged herself back to face the truth. And the truth was painful no matter how she looked at it. Her feelings for him were forbidden. She would never have his love.
As hours passed and Winn didn’t come after her, Alex knew she’d won. It was a victory she wasn’t sure she’d wanted, but it was hers. They would both honor their vows. They would not sully their relationship.
The thought of seeing Father Winn the next day still troubled her. She’d discovered in keeping her secret about the Anthony brothers that she did have some acting ability. But she didn’t know if she’d be good enough to maintain her composure when they came face-to-face again. If he acted as if nothing had happened, then she would be able to do the same. However, there was no guarantee what she would do if he touched her again. Her heart was still so vulnerable.
Alex lay in bed in the dark, tossing and turning for what seemed like eternity. She finally concluded that she had little hope of getting any sleep and decided what she needed was a breath of fresh air. The stateroom Matt and Father Winn were sharing was on the opposite side of the steamer, so she figured she wouldn’t have to worry about seeing them again tonight. She rose and dressed again, then slipped out on deck to stand at the railing in the moonlight.
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