18 

What are you doing here?” Bram asked when Jamie slid on the barstool next to his.

Ignoring him, Jamie signaled Duffy for a drink, then shook his head when the bartender ambled forward with a Dr Pepper in hand. “Not tonight, Duff—I need the hard stuff.” And bad, if the spasm in his cheek was any indication. He mumbled his thanks while Duffy poured him a whiskey, grateful the house was jumping tonight. He needed the familiar distraction of the cozy gambling hall that had become a second home since Duffy’d hired him years ago. All of it—the raucous laughter of crowded gambling tables, the snappy sounds of a ragtime band, the comforting smell of Duffy’s pot roast mingling with that of bourbon and beer and the intoxicating scent of perfume. And women. Oh, yeah—lots and lots of pretty women to dance with, flirt with, and take your mind off whatever you wanted to forget, and he certainly needed to. He slammed the shot of whiskey to the back of his throat. Forget that his heart had just been hog-tied by a Texas beauty who intended to keep him on a short rope.

“Uh-oh . . . whiskey instead of soda pop?” Bram drew air through clenched teeth, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me an innocent cowgirl fleeced Oly’s billiard champ two years running?”

“You have no idea,” Jamie said with a grunt. He slapped the empty glass on the bar and shoved it toward his boss, enjoying the burn that crawled all the way to his belly. “Another.”

“Hey, slow down, Mac, or you’ll drink your paycheck afore you earn it,” the owner said with a chuckle. He poured more whiskey with a wink. “’Course, you can always earn your keep on this side of the bar in that fancy suit, making the ladies thirsty.”

Jamie bolted his drink and grabbed the bottle with a scowl. “Leave it, Duff, and then leave me alone, will ya? It’s my night off, so I’ll spend it the way I want.”

“Apparently not,” Bram said with a worried smile, his gaze drilling into Jamie’s temple. “Don’t tell me the indomitable Jamie MacKenna struck out with a girl?”

“I should be so lucky,” he muttered, staring at the glass in his hands. Huffing a sigh, he waited for the whiskey to calm his nerves. “So, where’s Logan and Blake?”

“Logan had one drink and went back to his Palace penthouse, which is good because his mood wasn’t much better than yours.” Bram nodded at the roulette wheel across the room where Blake was flirting with the girl manning the table. “The ‘Rake’ has been working on Duffy’s new dealer since we got here.” He took a swig of his ginger ale, a grin tipping his lips. “Swears he’s in love.”

“Again?” Jamie poured more whiskey down his throat, the biting taste finally glazing his mood as well as his mind. “Hang it all, I wish I could fall in and out of love that easily.” Unbeholden to a woman. He stared at the amber liquid in his glass, willing it to numb his brain to the fact that he was no longer in control with Cassidy McClare. Oh, no, she was calling the shots, and he hated that his hands were tied as thoroughly as those blasted steers she lassoed and broke, all trussed up until they couldn’t move.

Just like him.

Bram cuffed his shoulder. “No, you don’t, Mac. Blake has Logan’s blood in his veins, so he’s not looking to settle down for a good long while, but you? You’re looking for that one woman who can turn your head, your heart, and your fortune, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said, taking another drink. “Although tonight I’m looking to forget.” He closed his eyes to knead the headache searing his temple—the one branded in the flesh by Cassidy McClare. He’d been in control of his own life since the age of twelve, holding the reins, making his own decisions, in charge of his own destiny—until now. He upended his glass.

“So, what happened, Mac?” Bram asked quietly. “I haven’t seen you touch the hard stuff since Jess got really sick two years ago.”

Jamie slammed his glass on the bar. “Cassie said I could court her.” He gouged the bridge of his nose. “If you can call it that.”

The concern in Bram’s eyes creased into a smile. “That’s great, Mac.”

“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Only it doesn’t feel so great right about now.” Hunched over his whiskey in a near stupor, Jamie twiddled the glass in his hands.

“Well, well . . .” Blake strolled up and glanced at his watch, giving Jamie an “I told you so” grin. “He thumped his fist on the bar to get Duffy’s attention, indicating a need for another glass. “Looks like a McClare has redeemed our pride at last.” He grabbed the shot glass Duffy slid his way and poured himself a drink, hoisting it in the air. “Because you guzzling the hard stuff can only mean one thing, Mac—ol’ Cousin Cass has put you in your place in more ways than one.”

Sliding Blake a sour smile, Jamie snatched the bottle back to tip more solace. “Not completely,” he said with a grimace. “Although she did clobber me at pool just like you said.”

Hip to the bar, Blake studied Jamie with an annoying grin, eyes twinkling like the whiskey in his glass. “And your harebrained notion to court her?”

Jamie knocked back another shot. “Let’s just say she got her licks in before she said yes.”

Blake stood up straight, surprise curling his lips. “No kidding? Sweet little Cassie, my brokenhearted cousin who’d just as soon shoot a man as look at him? She said yes?” He slapped Jamie on the back. “Well, good for you, Mac—Cass is just the girl to keep you in line.”

“No joke,” he groused, no patience for Blake’s banter. “And trust me, it’s a tight rope.”

“And why’s that?” Bram asked, shifting on the leather stool to face Jamie head-on, his glass as empty as Jamie’s enthusiasm for a courtship where his hands were tied behind his back.

Exhaling, Jamie gouged his temple. “There are Texas-sized conditions to this courtship, I’m afraid, and every last one of them carries the jolt of being bucked by a longhorn steer.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Blake asked, emptying his drink in one long swallow.

Jamie’s chuckle was a half grunt. “Like a trial friendship on her terms where I attend church twice on Sundays, a weekly study on some book called Pilgrim’s something or other, and the biggest burr in my backside?” He slashed fingers through Brilliantine hair that riled curls till they stood up on end. “I can’t touch or kiss the woman except for hugs or holding her hand.”

Blake let fly with a low whistle. “Jamie MacKenna—hog-tied by a girl. Never thought I’d see the day.” He grinned. “Well, good for Cass, but I don’t think you can do it.”

“Oh, I’ll do it, all right,” Jamie said. “I just don’t have to like it.”

“I’m not worried about the physical part,” Bram said. “Blake and I both know you can do that. You’re a rock when it comes to willpower, Mac, in the ring or with women.”

Blake raised his glass in a salute. “I’ll drink to that.”

Bram propped an elbow on the bar, studying his best friend through a squint. “It’s the spiritual aspect that concerns me. I thought your goose was cooked when you told Cass you didn’t believe in God, and now suddenly you do?”

“Nope,” Jamie said with a swig of whiskey, “but she doesn’t have to know that.” He turned to give Bram a stale grin. “Besides, you’re going to help me.”

“Me?” Bram’s brows pinched low. “How?”

“Of the three of us, you’re the devout one here, Hughes, so I figured you could just fill me in on some of that religious mumbo jumbo since your uncle was a priest and all.”

“Uh-oh . . .” Blake banged his glass on the bar and slapped Jamie on the back. “That’s my cue to visit the roulette table.” He winked at Bram. “Definitely not drunk enough for any of your sermonizing tonight, Padre. Good luck, Mac,” he said with a grin over his shoulder. “The McClare women tend to be on the spiritual side, so if I were you, I’d drink up now.”

Blake left, leaving Bram’s mouth in a sag. “Do I really sermonize?” he asked, tone hurt.

Jamie grinned. “Only to guys like Blake who see a limit of one beer as a sermon.” He vented with a sigh, his humor depleting along with his sobriety. “So, you gonna help me or not?”

Bram studied him with concern. “You can’t fake faith in God, Jamie,” he said quietly.

“Sure you can.” Resolved hardened his gaze. “Cassie is the woman I want to marry, so I’m not about to let God stand in the way.” He angled a brow. “She wants a man with faith?” He tossed the last of his whiskey down his throat. “I’ll give her a man with faith.”

“Yeah, but the thing is, Mac,” Bram said slowly, gaze as sharp as the guilt that prickled Jamie’s gut, “you actually won’t be giving her that, and I’m not sure that’s fair to Cassie. Even so, Cassie’s as down-home and bottom line as you get, so she’s going to see right through you.”

“Not if you’re a good teacher.” Jamie peered up beneath leaden lids, grateful for the strong and stable influence of a friend like Bram—a man with a quiet faith that didn’t judge Jamie or anyone, for that matter. In the seven years they’d been friends, Jamie had come to respect Bram and the unruffled morality that governed his life. Unlike Blake—and Jamie at the moment—he wasn’t prone to overindulgence with women or whiskey. Ginger ale and an easy, open manner were his hallmarks. Gratitude swelled in Jamie’s chest. And an honest and true relationship that felt more like blood than friendship. A grin tipped his mouth. “Besides,” he said with a slap of Bram’s back, “If God’s a friend of yours, Hughes, he’s a friend of mine.”

Bram shook his head, waving Jamie off when he offered a drink from his bottle. “Oh, you can put your money on that, Mac. The sad thing is he always has been—you just haven’t seen it for that monumental grudge slowing you down.”

“A grudge? Slowing me down?” Jamie poured another whiskey and held it aloft in a toast. “There’s not a lady or boxer in San Francisco that would agree with that, my friend.”

Bram slipped a couple of bills from his wallet and rose with a patient smile. “Maybe not, MacKenna, but that devil of a headache you’re gonna have come morning?” He tossed payment for the bottle onto the bar. “Trust me, it doesn’t get any slower than lying flat on your face.”

“Oh, I just love fireworks.” Cassie’s bare toes wiggled beneath her white eyelet dress, hands propped behind her head next to Alli on a blanket sprawled on Uncle Logan’s lush Napa lawn. Her uncle’s laughter drifted from his house at the top of the hill where he sat with Aunt Cait and Father Harry on a curved stone terrace overlooking miles of neighboring vineyards. Bougainvillea spilled from pots on a rock wall, lending splashes of pink that matched the color of the sky bleeding on the horizon. Cassie breathed in the flinty smell of sulphur and gunpowder from the firecrackers shot off after dinner while dusk settled on the valley with an ethereal glow.

“Me too,” Allie said, fireflies flitting over Uncle Logan’s terraced backyard dotted with blankets and people. Smoke hung in the air like an acrid perfume mingling with the fragrance of rose bushes heavy with bloom, embedding the scent of Napa into Cassie’s brain.

Cassie’s sigh was one of contentment as she watched Jamie set up the fireworks display with Bram and Roger Luepke. “Fireworks and Napa have to be two of my favorite things.”

Alli snuck a sideways glance to where Liddy chatted with Blake while her sister Patricia sat on a blanket a few feet away with Maddie and Meg. “While we’re on the subject of fireworks and favorite things,” she whispered, turning back to Cassie with a dance of brows, “how’s the pre-courtship trial going?”

A glow as pink as the sunset sky warmed Cassie’s cheeks. “No fireworks yet, except the ones in his eyes,” she said with a sheepish smile. “And in my heart.”

Alli shifted to give her a tight hug. “Oh, Cass, I couldn’t be happier! I swear when you two are together, the air’s as charged as Fourth of July.” She tossed another glance over her shoulder at Patricia, whose gaze bore into Jamie. “Of course, with sparks like that, I hope somebody doesn’t get burned. Patricia’s eyes shoot fire every time she looks your way. She’s pretty head over heels, and Liddy says she’s not been happy Jamie seems smitten with you.”

“We don’t know for sure Jamie’s smitten,” Cassie said slowly, desperate to remain cautious in a situation that involved her heart.

“Come on, Cass, the man goes to church twice a week and is reading books he has no desire to read. Trust me, Jamie MacKenna wouldn’t do that for any woman unless he wanted something pretty badly.” Alli paused, assessing Cassie through curious eyes. “And speaking of wanting something badly, how’s the spiritual training going?”

Cassie’s smile faded like the light of dusk while she watched Jamie carry a crate of fireworks to the back of the lawn, muscular arms bulging from the weight. “Okay, I think. He seems to be picking things up quickly, but I worry his heart’s not in it for the right reasons.” Her stomach did a little flip when he winked on his way back up the hill, and a sweet shiver traveled her body despite the hesitation in her tone. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing, Al?” she asked quietly. “You know, using our relationship to coerce him into seeking God?”

“Look at it this way, Cass—if you open his eyes to God, you just saved yourself years of heartbreak by falling in love with the man God has for you. And if he’s not?” She squeezed Cassie’s hand. “Then you may just save his soul. Either way, you’ve won. And so has Jamie.”

“I guess we have, haven’t we?” Cassie said softly. She breathed in a deep swallow of air, her excitement returning. “I’ll tell you what, Al, when Jamie MacKenna stole my wind at the train station that day, I had no earthly idea he’d also steal my heart. But every moment I spend with him, I fall a little more in love.” She chewed on the edge of her lip, her smile tremulous at best. “But it’s downright scary falling for another pretty boy.”

Alli’s laughter joined the chatter and giggles from the other blankets, drifting in the air along with the sharp smell of summer and smoke. “Amen to that. My heart’s been broken twice now by gorgeous guys, so you’d think I’d learn my lesson. But no, here I am once again, heart thumping over the handsome apprentice of Uncle Logan’s neighbor.”

Cassie peeked at Roger, concerned over Alli’s growing affection for a man as pretty as Jamie. “Well, on the outside, he seems nice enough, and Uncle Logan certainly seems to like him.”

“It’s not the ‘outside’ I’m worried about.” She scrunched her nose as she watched the men work. “Seems I have a knack for attracting rats and charlatans, first with Peter Rutherford in high school, then Tom Alt two years ago.” She shivered. “Pretty boys, both, who deceived me into believing they were something they’re not.” Her sigh was wispy. “One a rake, the other a fraud.”

“Yes, but keep in mind you have Uncle Logan around more now, a watchdog ready to expose any man unworthy of his niece. He’d never allow Roger even close if he didn’t approve.”

“I suppose . . . Oh, look!” She skittered into a sitting position, bare arms wrapped around the knees of her white day gown. Shiny toes buffed with Graf’s Hyglo nail polish paste poked out, twitching with excitement. “They’re gonna start!”

Adrenaline coursed as Cassie jumped up to sit cross-legged, grateful no corset restricted her today. And a mighty good thing, too, she thought with a roll of her pulse when Jamie caught her eye with a smile, expanding her chest way too much with a quivery sigh. A thought struck, and her smile suddenly dimmed. “Al . . . ,” she began slowly, “you don’t think Jamie would be like Mark, do you?” The question choked, shrinking her throat. “You know, a f-fortune hunter?”

Ridges puckered in her cousin’s brow as she squinted at the man in question, taking way too long for Cassie’s comfort. She glanced over at Cassie, eyes pensive. “I won’t lie, Cass—I think he used to be, before you. I remember him joking once with Blake about he may as well fall in love with a rich woman as a poor one, and I do know he’s only shown interest in girls from wealthy political families. But . . . ,” she cocked her head to give Cass a pixie smile, “I’ve never seen him look at any of them like he looks at you, and Liddy says he hasn’t taken Patricia out in over a month, and they were practically courting.” Alli’s smile slid into a smirk. “Which means he’s falling for you instead, and she’s as rich as Midas and a senator’s daughter to boot.”

“Maybe he thinks I’m rich too,” she whispered. “After all, nobody knows about Daddy’s dry wells except you, Uncle Logan, and Aunt Cait.”

Alli gripped her arms to give her a little shake. “Cass—he’s not after you because he thinks you’re rich. He’s smitten, and anybody can see that. Trust me, he may have bowled you over at that train station, but it was definitely Jamie who took the fall.”

Cassie’s heart pounded, as loud as the boom accompanying a spider streak of golds and scarlets. She paused. “Well, then, you don’t think . . . he’s pursuing me because I’m a challenge, do you?” She bit at the side of her lip as she peered up at Alli. “You know, the only woman who’s spurned his advances? Hard to get, then once the chase is over, he’ll be bored?”

“Aw, Cass . . .” Alli tucked a stray curl behind Cassie’s ear. “I know Mark wounded you and believe me, nobody knows more than me how skittish that makes a girl about falling in love. But Jamie cares for you deeply, and he’s trying hard to show that.”

“I know,” Cassie whispered, chewing on a sliver of nail. “I just don’t think I could go through that again, you know?” She spit.

Alli stroked her hair. “I know. A heart is a fragile thing, especially in the hands of rats like Mark. But you and I have been praying about your relationship with Jamie ever since you gave him the ultimatum, so I say take a deep breath, trust God, and enjoy the fireworks.”

Cassie nodded, eyes straying to where Jamie stood across the lawn in the dark, his boyish grin tingling her skin in the soft glow of a torch. Trust God? Yes, definitely the safe and right thing to do. But enjoy the fireworks? Cassie gulped. Maybe . . . if the loud boom of her heart didn’t scare her to death first . . .