When Mason rode the rest of the way to where the Delta Jack was docked, it was on the same horse that had brought him this far. This time, however, he was the one sitting in the saddle. One of the overmen who’d found Winslow rode alongside him and the other rowed the boat to the dock. The gunman in the boat was so thick through the chest and arms that he made the task seem relatively easy.
Mason was escorted back onto the riverboat at a little after ten in the morning. Surprisingly enough, he was given until the agreed-upon time to clean himself up in his own cabin. Fighting the urge to lie down and catch some sleep, Mason gathered up everything he needed, splashed some clean water onto his face, and changed into fresh clothes. Those simple things alone made him feel like a new man.
On his way down to the main card room, Mason walked around to the starboard side, where the rowboat had been hauled up from the water by a pair of hooks. He leaned over the edge and saw Winslow still lying in the little boat like a piece of forgotten baggage.
The card room wasn’t quite as full as it had been during the middle of the night, but there was still a respectable number of gamblers at the tables. Most of them had gotten even less sleep than Mason, and the ones who had brighter eyes carried the bulk of the conversations. The biggest difference at that hour was the number of working girls standing at the bar as opposed to sitting in men’s laps. At that time of day, even for the truest night owls, breakfast was in higher demand than sweet talk from a pretty set of lips. One of the ladies not at the bar spotted Mason and came right over to him.
“Where have you been?” Maggie asked.
“I got tossed overboard,” he said.
When she looked him up and down, only to find a clean set of clothes wrapped around his lean frame, she clearly wasn’t feeling any sympathy. “The least you could have done before catching a nap was let me know you were done in Virgil’s cabin.”
“Did he give you any trouble?”
“Not a bit. He got awfully presumptuous the longer I kept him distracted, but I’ve managed to shake free of worse than him. Did you find what you were after?”
“Not enough to settle my debt,” Mason replied, “but enough to give me a good running start at it.”
“Speaking of that,” she said while reaching into a pocket stitched into the bodice of her dress. “Here’s some of that money I offered.”
“This is very generous. Are you sure you can part with it?”
“I’m not parting with anything,” she said. “It’s a loan. Save your gratitude until after I let you know what the interest will be.”
Mason let his eyes wander up and down over her figure. “I can tell you where my interest lies right about now.”
She smiled at him in the same way she would smile at a precocious boy. Patting his cheek in a similar fashion, she said, “That’s very flattering, but I doubt you could handle any vigorous pastimes right now. You look like one big bruise.”
Although he wasn’t sure how he looked, Mason did know he could feel the playful touch of her hand against his face as if it were an angry slap. He did his best to hide his wince and said, “Sometimes the best thing for a man to help recover from his wound is a mighty good distraction.”
“You really don’t let up, do you?”
“Nope.”
“If you had showed me this side of you while we were playing cards,” she said, “I might not have considered lending you this money.”
“I do like to make a good first impression,” he said.
“And the impressions after that?”
“A man can only hold back his instincts for so long.”
Maggie let out an exasperated sigh. There was something in her eyes, even as she was rolling them, that told Mason she was enjoying the conversation at least a little bit. “I wasn’t about to carry all that money with me,” she said. “I can get to the rest real soon. Instead of handing it over in a roomful of card cheats and gamblers, why don’t I bring it to your cabin?”
“That sounds like a good idea. It’s number twenty-four.”
Turning her back on him, she tossed a disinterested wave over her shoulder and said, “A bath couldn’t hurt, you know.”
She shook her head and quickened her pace to get away from him.
“Or us?” Mason added.
Maggie didn’t respond to that. She could have heard him, but she also could have been too far away to catch his comment. He put the odds at an even fifty-fifty between the two. He was more interested in something else, however. Something that could prove to be much more promising than any wager laid down at a poker game.
He leaned back against a wall, partly to appear as though he didn’t have a care in the world and partly to support the weight of a very tired body. “Come on, now,” he said under his breath. “Don’t disappoint me.”
Maggie kept a purposeful stride as she went to the door leading out of the card room.
“Come on . . .”
There was no possible way she could have heard the words that Mason spoke quietly to himself. Even so, she honored his request by turning to look back at him one last time before walking out of the room.
He was right there watching her and tipped his hat to the lady. “Much obliged, ma’am,” he said.
* * *
Mason went back to his cabin, his steps carrying him as if he were fresh as a daisy and ready to grab the world by the throat. Once he got inside, however, he relaxed his guard and let out the breath that had been keeping his chest puffed out all the way from the main card room. He unbuttoned his jacket and then his vest, peeling them both off to lay them on his bed. There was a small shaving mirror hanging from the wall above the washbasin, which he’d mostly ignored up to this point. He’d seen his own reflection plenty of times before and hadn’t been anxious to see the state of it after all the hell he’d gone through recently. After what Maggie had told him, though, he was curious as to how bad it could be.
“Good Lord,” he groaned when he got a look at the bruised and battered man staring back at him from the looking glass.
His eyes were sunken from sheer exhaustion, as were his cheeks. Bruises covered his face like blotchy paint, and one side of his jaw was swollen. Cuts marred him even further, making him look every bit the wreck that Maggie had hinted at. Since he was already surveying the damage, Mason unbuttoned his shirt to get a look at the rest of the picture.
There were at least five different shades of black and blue smeared along his rib cage, mixed with a generous portion of red and yellow. Part of Mason’s reasoning for not setting his eyes on what he’d figured would be an ugly picture was that he might be able to convince himself that it wasn’t so bad if he couldn’t see it. To some extent, he’d been correct. Now that he was looking straight at the calling cards left by all the punishment he’d taken recently, the pain throughout his body seeped in that much deeper.
Inch by inch, Mason tested his ribs and worked some of the kinks out of the joints in his upper body. Every movement was followed by a wince. And with every wince, there came a fresh jolt of discomfort. He might not have been able to recall each time he’d taken a punch or was otherwise knocked around, but he could feel every last one of those encounters etched into the fiber of his aching body.
“How the blazes are you still standing?” he asked the reflection in the small circular mirror.
Mason went to his bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. If he was going to keep his appointment with Greeley, he couldn’t stretch out or make himself very comfortable. Even closing his eyes for too long put him in danger of sleeping through the rest of the day. Mason split the difference by putting his elbows on his knees and allowing his head to hang forward while his eyelids drooped until they only allowed a sliver of the outside world to make it through.
Even with the precautions he took, Mason began to feel sleep encroaching on all sides. Like a stalking predator, it intended to bring him down and wasn’t about to be discouraged. It was, however, frightened away by a sudden sharp sound that came from the door.
Mason’s head snapped up and he rubbed his eyes. As he was trying to figure out whether or not he’d imagined the noise, it came again. It was just a knock and still it had sped his pulse up to keep him from collapsing. He went to the door and opened it just enough to get a look outside.
“Did I wake you?” Maggie asked.
“If you did, I’m grateful,” he said. “Come in.”
She stepped inside. The sunlight seemed brighter than it had when he was last out of his room. Whether that was due to the advancement of hours or the sensitivity of his eyes, Mason did not know. He was simply grateful to shut the door again.
Maggie carried an envelope that was folded shut but not sealed. “Here you go,” she said. “The rest of that money I offered.”
It wasn’t until that moment that Mason realized he hadn’t even counted the first bundle of cash she’d given him. He took the envelope and reflexively hefted its weight in his hand. “I’m grateful,” he said. “Very much so. Thank you.”
Her features took on an expression of exaggerated pity as she said, “You look awful.”
Suddenly very much aware of his partial state of undress, Mason shrugged. “Not exactly what a man wants to hear when his shirt is off, but I suppose you’re right.”
Having walked past him to stand near the porthole, Maggie stepped closer to him. “Actually, for a man who’s been tossed overboard after being dangled a couple of inches from a moving riverboat’s paddlewheel, you look very good indeed.”
It seemed the story regarding Mason’s encounter with the overmen on the third deck had made the rounds throughout the Jack, but had become slightly exaggerated. Since she seemed to be responding well to the embellishments, he wasn’t going to split hairs over details.
“It was quite the harrowing affair,” he said. “I did, however, fare much better than most other men who might have found themselves in a similar position.”
“I would say none the worse for wear,” Maggie replied while tracing her fingertips gently along his bruised chest and midsection, “but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate.”
“Perhaps I should spare you the sight of my injuries by more properly attiring myself.”
“Or . . . we could tip the scales in the other direction.”
Mason brought his hands up to the portions of her blouse that hung low on her shoulders. He gently pulled them down before diverting his attentions to unlacing Maggie’s bodice. She made no move to stop him and smiled warmly as her dress loosened enough to be removed.
“Aren’t you concerned with keeping your appointment?” she whispered.
“I was,” he said. “Not so much anymore, though.”