Free Daring by Sylvia McDaniel Page B

caress.
    “Oh no, you’re not going into the saloon dressed like that. Your papa would come back from the dead and haunt me.”
    She frowned at him. “Stop. You’re not talking me out of this. I need your help, and I have very little time.”
    “I don’t care. You’re not going dressed like that. If you were my wife, I wouldn’t even let you wear that dress around the house.”
    “Well, I’m not your wife, so there’s no need to worry.”
    Oh God, he really should tell her the truth, but he wasn’t ready to answer her questions. There was no way to make Ruby understand his choices without telling her everything.
    “I need you to play a few hands of cards with me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m the card dealer tonight, and if I don’t know what I’m doing, I won’t get the job.”
    “Good. Then you’ll come to your senses and see I was right. You’re taking a senseless chance.”
    She took a deep breath. “Deke. Play cards with me. If you don’t, I might get shot.”
    He shook his head and motioned her inside his room. Glancing up at the ceiling, he said, “Sir, I’m sorry, I tried to talk her out of dressing this way. She’s definitely your daughter because she’s so damn stubborn.” He knew he couldn’t stop her, but he was hoping maybe guilt would work. But she was stubborn as they come and he didn’t even faze her.
    Ruby walked by and punched him in the gut. “Stop it. Let me deal the cards to you.”
    Sitting down on the bed, she shuffled the deck and dealt him a hand. Even her sitting on the bed was enough to send his mind spinning with what they could do on that mattress. How she would look naked against the sheets.
    Focus!
    “Always make certain the cards are turned down, so the other players can’t read the card their neighbor received,” he said, watching her sitting on the edge of his bed, thinking that dress just begged him to remove it, to peel it slowly from her shoulders, down past her waist to her pantaloons. He’d like nothing more than to stare at all that creamy white flesh.
    “Okay.”
    “Do you know the rules of poker?” he asked, focusing his eyes on her forehead and not her chest. Man, these men were going to lose tonight, and the house was going to love her. They wouldn’t care she was stealing their pay bit by bit. They would be lost in her beautiful blue eyes and those breasts. The dress was a definite distraction to any man sitting at her table.
    “Yes, at least the way my sisters and I used to play.”
    “Oh God, you’re going to get killed.”
    “You don’t know that. Annabelle could deal a mean hand of five card draw.”
    He glanced at her. “I’m sure Annabelle is quite the card shark.”
    “She is. You look at her all quiet and innocent, and she will strip you of your money.”
    Just like Ruby was going to steal these crooks blind when they lost themselves in her beauty. God, he had to be there to protect her. “What about twenty-one? Do you know the rules of that game?”
    “Seems pretty simple.”
    “But you’re the dealer. You have to know how to run the table. You have to stand on seventeen.”
    “Okay, I can do that. What else do I need to know?” she asked, looking at him all innocent eyed and beautiful, and they, neither one, would live through the night. He was certain he’d die in some kind of fight protecting her.
    “Watch for cheats. Sometimes men have been known to hide cards they need. So watch their hands carefully,” he warned, trying to focus on what she needed to know.
    She shuffled and dealt another hand of five card stud.
    “No, don’t do that. You can’t look at your cards until everyone has received their hand,” he told her.
    “Oh.”
    “Ruby, I feel really nervous about this.”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll do okay. If I can play a saloon girl, I can do a card dealer.”
    “Why didn’t you do the saloon girl part again?” he asked, wondering why she’d put herself in so much danger.
    “Because the saloon girls