Gambler's Magic Page 13

  Joy Hardesty wasn’t a kid any longer. Elijah scowled as he continued to pet the kitten. She was a woman—could even be a remarkably attractive one—but she had no idea what to do with her womanhood.

  Damn that mother of hers. Elijah would wager almost anything that Joy would have been a nice person if she hadn’t been so badly warped so young. It seemed a real pity to him. Not that he aimed to do anything about it. He was no do-gooder. Not Elijah Perry. And especially not for someone who wouldn’t appreciate his efforts on her behalf. In fact, he thought with yet another grin, she’d undoubtedly fight him tooth and nail if he tried to instill some human charity into her.

  The kitten got up, arched its back, and stretched, digging its back feet into Elijah’s bandaged ribs.

  “Ow! Dammit, Killer, I already took a whupping today from my nurse. I don’t need one from you too.” He gently shoved the cat aside and struggled to a sitting position. He had to pee and looked around for the chamber pot Joy always had handy. He didn’t see it.

  Annoyed about having his bed get up and leave him, the marmalade kitten hissed once at Elijah, then burrowed into the quilt and shut its eyes again. Elijah smiled in appreciation. He liked cats. They didn’t give a hang about anything but their own comfort.

  “Joy Hardesty could take a few lessons from you, Killer.”

  Well, hell, he didn’t know where the chamber pot was. He hoped to God it wasn’t under the bed, because he was in no shape to bend over and fish it out.

  “Blast it, I wish I hadn’t riled her so bad. I need her.” He didn’t like admitting it. On the other hand, he’d ever been an honest man. “Reckon I owe her an apology, Killer. Especially for saying she was unfit to call herself a woman.” His own words came back to him, and he winced at the memory. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and winced from the pain. He wasn’t sure which felt worse, his guilty conscience or his healing bullet wounds.

  “Well, if the dad-blasted chamber pot isn’t nearby, guess I’ll just have to go out back and find a bush. I sure as hell can’t hunker down and crawl under the bed.”

  With a heavy sigh, he stuck his feet into the pair of Mac’s slippers he’d been using. They were too small for him, but beggars, as the old saying went, couldn’t be choosers. Then, taking a good deal of care since his side and his arm and his thigh still hurt, he shrugged into a bathrobe. With very small, very painful steps, Elijah limped through Mac’s house, made his way to the kitchen door and walked outside, thankful that the path was smooth and looked like it had been raked recently. He relieved himself in some creosote bushes against the back fence.

  “Reckon not even my pee can kill greasewood.”

  As he tucked himself back into his robe—rather, into Mac’s robe—he peered up into the blue, blue sky. There sure was a lot of sky out here in the territory. There was a lot of sky in Texas, too, but there were many more people in Texas than there were here. For some reason beyond Elijah’s ken, all those people running around made their surroundings seem less vast than these. He took an experimental breath of fresh air. His chest wound didn’t scream at him, so he took another, deeper one.

  “Damn, it feels good to be outside.” The sun felt warm on his shoulders. His skin felt as if it were sucking up its rays like a man dying of thirst might suck up water. Shoot, he hated being laid up, even if he was having fun with his nurse.

  The truth of his random thought rattled him, and his eyes popped open. He was having fun with Miss Grim-and-Proper Joy Hardesty? He tested the notion, rolled it around in his consciousness, and decided it was true. Well, glory be.

  Because it felt good, if painful, to be out of bed, Elijah decided not to return to Mac’s spare room immediately. Rather, he aimed himself at the mercantile, fixing to sit beside the old pot-bellied stove for a little while. Maybe in a day or two, he could spend an hour sitting in a chair outdoors. He’d see how this first excursion went first. With luck, he’d find that Joy had set The Moonstone on the counter, and maybe he could read ahead a little bit. God knew, there wasn’t anything else for a crippled man to do around here.

  Because he had to move so slowly, his progress was relatively silent. Therefore, when he shuffled into the store on his slippered feet, saw Joy behind the counter with her face buried in her hands, and stopped dead in his tracks to stare at her, his presence did not register with her. His heart flopped in his chest, and he pressed a hand to it, wondering if it was his wound acting up, or if some unfamiliar emotion had made it squeeze so hard. He decided, to his astonishment, that it was emotion.

  Unsure what to do, he paused, holding onto the door jamb. Was she crying? Elijah’s aching heart lurched even more painfully, and he strained to listen.

  “Oh, dear Lord, please help me,” he heard, uttered in a soft, almost strangled voice.

  So she wasn’t crying; she was praying. Elijah, who’d never had much to do with God, wondered if it was wicked of him to listen in as this poor disturbed girl poured her heart out to the Almighty. Then he decided, since he was already damned for all eternity if he were to judge himself by Joy’s standards—or even his own—he guessed it didn’t make any difference if he listened or not. So he did.

  “Please, please, please, show me what to do, Lord. I don’t know any longer. I’ve always believed what my mother told me, but now Mr. Perry and Mr. McMurdo have made me doubt the correctness of my mother’s teachings. Could she have been wrong, dear Lord? Could my father have been right all along, and not merely weak and misguided as Mother always said he was? Oh, I can’t stand it! I hate this uncertainty, Lord! Please help me.”

  Elijah gritted his teeth, squinched his eyes, and grieved to hear his sanctimonious nurse express such anguished doubt. He wished he could remove the burdens from her heart and clear everything up for her, and marveled at the impulse. What the hell did he care about this starchy, overly religious old maid?

  The problem, he realized the instant the question popped into his head, was that, however it had happened, he did care about her. Damn, how had that come about? She was as mean as a rabid dog and as bullheaded as a mule. The good Lord and Satan both knew she didn’t want his assistance, much less his empathy.

  Hell’s bells. Elijah hated it when charitable urges struck him. Fortunately they didn’t do so often. He leaned forward, trying to catch her next words.

  “Oh, Lord, I’m so confused. Is Mr. Perry a tool of the devil?”

  Elijah straightened up and frowned, Joy’s question having stung him, although he could think of no good reason it should have done so. If he’d been asked if he was a tool of the devil, he might well have said yes. He’d have been making a joke, though, and he was positive Joy didn’t consider it funny.

  “My mother would say he was. I know she would.”

  Yeah, Elijah knew she would too. And she wouldn’t have considered it a joke either, the bitch.

  “But the things he said to me, while unkind, sounded terribly like the truth.”

  Damned right, they were the truth. Elijah told himself so, even as he continued to hurt for poor Joy and regretted having been so hard on her.

  “But what if Mother was right, dear Lord?”

  She wasn’t! Elijah wanted to shout. He didn’t, because he didn’t want to interrupt Joy’s confession. He felt another minuscule pang of guilt about listening in on her conversation with God, but he could stand it. Hell, he was accustomed to doing much worse things than eavesdropping.

  “If she was right, then I’m going straight to hell. I know it, because I can’t fight against my weak nature any longer, Lord. Not without Your help, I can’t. The things she taught me are beginning to make no sense to me. How can I denounce people I don’t even know, Lord? I don’t want people like Mr. McMurdo and Mr. Perry to hate me because I’m a self-righteous prig, God. And I don’t believe it’s my place to condemn them. Does that make me a sinner? Oh, Lord, I’m so confused!”

  Elijah couldn’t take any more. Shaking his head, he backed out of the store, makin
g as little noise as he’d made coming into it, and limped back to Mac’s house. He felt pretty rotten. He tried to tell himself it was because he was a wounded man, but he had a feeling his state of misery had more to do with Joy Hardesty’s unhappiness than with his own physical condition.

  Blast it, what did he care if the poor girl was suffering? She epitomized everything he’d ever hated in so-called good women. “Hell and damnation.”

  His glance fell on Mac’s desk as he passed through the parlor. He scowled. What in the name of glory was a Bible doing there, conveniently sitting on top of a pile of papers? Feeling as if the fates were ganging up on him, Elijah tried to ignore the Bible and continue on to his room. His progress was hampered by the marmalade kitten, who took that moment to step into his path and then proceeded to rub against his legs, winding his fluffy tail around each of his calves in turn, and making walking impossible.

  “Damn it, Killer, go away.”

  The kitten remained. He even looked up at Elijah and meowed, showing his sharp, pointy teeth. Elijah could have sworn the blasted cat was grinning at him. He sneaked another peek at the Bible. A breeze from somewhere—Elijah didn’t see any open windows or doors—caused some papers upon which the book rested to slide, and the Bible fell open. Another breeze riffled its pages. The air around him bloomed with sparkling dust motes.

  Elijah looked up at the ceiling. Then he looked down at the kitten. Then he sighed heavily and looked back at the Bible. As much as he tried to be honest with himself, still more did he try not to piss off the Fates.

  “Aw, hell.” As soon as he picked the book up, the breeze stopped blowing, the marmalade kitten bounced off to chase a dust ball, and Elijah’s scowl deepened. He looked down at the page to which the Bible had opened. “Aw, hell in a hand basket.” He picked up the book and made his way back to the bed in his sick room, holding it close to his chest.

  Once he was comfortably propped against his pillows, he settled the Bible on his lap and began to leaf through it. Although the phenomenon fostered an uneasy sensation in his breast, Elijah wasn’t entirely surprised when the Good Book seemed to fall open at passages extolling tolerance and goodwill.

  He frowned heavily. “There’s something more going on here than mere coincidence,” he growled to himself. He didn’t expect the forces of nature to respond to his declaration, and they didn’t.

  That didn’t mean, however, that he wasn’t going to give Joy Hardesty holy hell for deserting him the next time he saw her. The marmalade kitten took that opportunity to jump up on his bed, climb on top of the Bible, and stare into Elijah’s eyes.

  “It’s not up to you, damn it, Killer,” he barked at the cat. “She ran out on me.”

  The kitten made a noise that was so near an aggrieved sigh as made no difference, and Elijah felt as if all the forces of nature were ganging up on him.

  # # #

  Alexander McMurdo, watching everything in his mind’s eye, chuckled with appreciation. He loved a good sinner, and Elijah Perry was the best one to cross Mac’s path in a long, long time. He’d be the cure of Joy, Elijah wood, and she’d be the cure of him, although neither of them knew it yet.

  Because Mac had a good deal of sympathy for Joy, he sent a wizardly blessing her way. He didn’t want the poor lass to suffer too much. She’d already been so damaged by her black-hearted mother that Mac was afraid she’d teeter over the edge into despair, or even madness, if he didn’t play his hand exactly right.

  He grinned when he envisioned her lifting her face from her hands, and saying, “Blast! Why are you being such a morose, blithering simpleton, Joy Hardesty?”

  She pulled her already-damp handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose ferociously.

  “Sulking and stewing never got you anywhere before, and they won’t get you anywhere now. You have to deal with life as it is, and stop wishing it could be different.”

  She got up and fluffed out her skirt. Then she gave her nose one more defiant blow, smoothed her hair back, and straightened her shoulders. “You have duties to perform—and don’t you dare lecture me, Mother!”

  Mac chuckled out loud when he pictured Joy scowling around his store as if she suspected her mother of lurking behind a nail keg, prepared to pounce on her. Poor lass. He waved his hand.

  Twelve miles from the O’Fannin ranch, Joy squinted at about a million sparkles that had suddenly burst into the air around her. They were just like the sparkles that had hovered over the fishing pole earlier in the day. “I’ve never seen such a curious phenomenon in my entire life.”

  She batted her hand in the air, but only succeeded in making the sparkles change color until she was staring at a veritable kaleidoscope of swirling shimmers. She blinked at them for a moment, enraptured.

  Then she gave herself a brisk shake. “Stop mooning this instant, Joy Hardesty. Mr. McMurdo left you in charge of that man, and however much you disapprove of him, you still need to do your duty.”

  She turned abruptly and walked through the sparkles to the counter, where she picked up six fair-sized trout and a huge bunch of asparagus. Spying the provisions she’d provided by her very own hand cheered her up considerably.

  “You might not know much, Joy Hardesty, and you might be as sour as a pickle—according to Mr. Perry. As if he’s any judge—but you’ve certainly furnished the fixings for a very tolerable meal.” Her smile faded. “Maybe a good dinner will make him forgive you for leaving him alone all day.”

  She felt guilty because she hadn’t even prepared lunch for Elijah today. She’d just abandoned him in a snit. She hoped he hadn’t hurt himself foraging for food.

  “Good grief, you’re thinking about him as if he were a wild animal or something.”

  Which, all things considered, wasn’t a bad analogy. It made Joy grin again as she walked back to Mr. McMurdo’s house with her armful of food stuffs.

  # # #

  Elijah glanced up when the door to his room opened. When he saw Joy back into the room, a tray of food balanced in her hands, his heart lit up as if somebody’d struck a match to it. Any idea he’d cherished of berating her for running out on him vanished in a spurt of happiness.

  “You’re back!” he cried, and then wished he’d kept his blasted mouth shut.

  She turned around, opened her mouth, probably to shoot a retort at him, then stood still and goggled, her mouth hanging open. His happy smile evaporated. He squinted at her. “Something wrong?”

  She gave a little jerk, as if awakening from a trance. “You’re wearing spectacles,” she said, making no move toward him.

  Elijah reached up and fingered his eyeglasses. “Oh, yeah. I forgot I was wearing them. I wear ‘em to read.”

  He saw Joy swallow, and his frown intensified. What the devil was wrong with wearing specs to read with? Lots of folks did. He opened his mouth to ask her, but didn’t get the chance because she spoke first.

  “And you’re reading—” She paused with a gasp. “You’re reading the Bible!”

  Then she went off into such a peal of laughter that Elijah was afraid she’d drop his dinner tray before she managed to set it on the bureau. Damn, he was hungry.

  Chapter Nine

  “Well, I couldn’t find The Moonstone. Or the chamber pot. Or my lunch.”

  Elijah sounded very crabby. Joy knew she should stop laughing, but she couldn’t. It was as if all the laughter she’d kept bottled up for twenty-five years had popped its cork and was now rioting out of control. Tears ran down her cheeks. She managed to set the tray on a bureau before her knees gave out, and she collapsed into the chair beside Elijah’s bed. Her whoops sounded improper and they embarrassed her, but she couldn’t contain them.

  He scowled at her. “What’s so damned funny about me reading the Bible?”

  “N-nothing. Nothing at all.” She doubled over, helpless to withstand the power of her mirth.

  “Is that food I smell there?” Elijah asked with some asperity. “Do you plan to feed it to me or torture m
e by making me smell it? I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, you know.”

  She nodded, and couldn’t get any words formed. She needed to apologize for not feeding him sooner. She would apologize. As soon as she regained mastery over her giggles.

  The only sounds in the room for several moments were Joy’s unladylike snorts as she tried and failed to stop laughing, and the purr of the marmalade kitten snoozing on Elijah’s blanketed legs. After several moments of this, Elijah said, “What do you think, Killer? Should I throw something at her? You suppose that’d make her shut up?”

  Joy looked up, wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron, and gulped several times. After a moment, she managed to choke out, “You’re—you’re not going to call that poor sweet kitten Killer!”

  “Oh, yeah? Says who?”

  Oh, dear. He looked really quite exasperated with her. She could hardly blame him. She gasped twice, swallowed another laugh with a good deal of difficulty, snorted three times, and blurted out, “I say so!”

  “You weren’t here,” Elijah reminded her coldly. “And I’ve already taught him his name, so there.”

  Joy sat up and gathered the shattered ribbons of her dignity around her. “Nonsense! I wasn’t gone long enough for you to teach anything to anything.” She frowned. “Or something like that.”

  “That’s what you think. You were gone all day long, and he already knows his name is Killer.”

  “Fiddlesticks.” Joy struggled out of the chair. She had a stitch in her side from laughing so hard. She couldn’t remember such a thing ever happening to her before. Laughter had been frowned upon in her family, at least by her mother, whose will was so strong it had eventually choked the levity out of her father. Such a thing seemed a shame to her now, in light of the fact that her insides felt much less knotted up after her bout of glee than they had earlier in the day. Why, she could hardly feel the painful weight she always carried around in her chest.