Red River Showdown Page 4

  They both caught their breath and stayed still for a few seconds. At that moment, it seemed as if Mia was only just realizing what she was doing. She brushed her hair from her face and looked around. When she looked back down at Clint, she was smiling brightly.

  “I wish I could find those men who tried to rob me,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I owe them my thanks.” Rocking slowly back and forth, she added, “Without them, I might not have crossed your path.”

  “I’d rather think about you right now.”

  Smiling even wider, Mia leaned back and supported her weight with both hands braced on Clint’s knees. “That’s one hell of a good answer.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Mia said as she leaned back and rolled her hips forward and back. She glided up and down along Clint’s erection with a rhythm that slowly built in speed and intensity. Soon, she had her eyes closed, her head turned to one side and her hips moving like a piston.

  Clint rubbed her breasts with both hands, cupping them as she continued to wriggle on his lap. She leaned forward again to grab the back of the chair on either side of Clint’s head. Now that she had a firmer grip, she rode him hard enough to knock the chair against the wall.

  Clint wasn’t about to let her do all the work. As soon as he felt her slow down, he wrapped his arms around her sweating body and pumped into her again and again.

  Mia buried her face against Clint’s neck and let out a throaty moan as her entire body was wracked by a powerful orgasm.

  Clint could feel her tightening around him. Even her arms clamped around him as if she was clinging at the edge of a cliff. When she was able to catch her breath, Mia started riding him again. This time, she looked down at him so she could watch every second of the pleasure she was giving to him.

  Moving his hands from her breasts around to her tight backside, Clint let her keep riding him until his pleasure reached its peak. They moved to the bed and made it a whole half an hour before starting again.

  TEN

  Clint and Mia both woke up early the next day. It didn’t have anything to do with them wanting to get out of bed, since both of them would have been more than happy to stay naked under the sheets for a while longer. Their eyes were opened by the loud knocking on their door.

  Sitting bolt upright after the second knock, Clint’s first impulse was to look for his gun. The modified Colt was still in reach, exactly where he’d left it. He didn’t take the pistol in hand just yet, however, since Mia was slowly sitting up as well.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  Apparently, she’d been loud enough to be heard through the door. The knocking stopped and a woman’s voice could be heard from the hall.

  “Mr. Adams?” the woman outside the room asked.

  “Yes,” Clint replied.

  “Were you waiting for the Misty Morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s just arriving now.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  There was a quick “You’re welcome,” followed by shuffling steps away from the door.

  Clint kicked off the covers and pulled on his jeans as he made his way to the window. As promised, there was a riverboat approaching the dock.

  “Is that the one?” Mia asked excitedly as she stepped up behind Clint.

  With the touch of her naked body against his back, it was difficult for Clint to concentrate on the view outside his window. Eventually, he replied, “Probably. I can’t see the name on the side, but I think the innkeeper would know better than to wake folks up for a false alarm.”

  Mia leaned forward a bit more and then quickly pulled back. “It is the Misty Morning. I can see the name on the bow.”

  Clint watched the boat move toward the dock. Standing in the window, he could feel the rays of the early morning sun warming him through the glass. As the boat got closer, men swarmed toward the dock to greet her. In a matter of seconds, the dock appeared to be almost as busy as the saloon had been the night before.

  “How long do you think they’ll wait?” Mia asked.

  “It’ll be awhile before they’re ready to take anyone on board. You don’t have to rush.” As he was saying that, Clint turned around to discover Mia was already straightening her dress and cinching up the laces.

  The dress didn’t look half as good as it had the previous night, but that was mostly because Mia wasn’t doing anything more than pulling it over her head and making sure she was fit to walk outside the room. “I need to get my things,” she said.

  “You didn’t bring them in here?”

  “When was I going to do that, Clint? We were pretty busy.”

  “Please don’t tell me you left your bags somewhere.”

  Patting his cheek, she hurried over to the door. “I got my own room, but you’re very sweet for worrying about me.”

  “Not so much worried as sorry that you paid for a room you never used.”

  “First of all, you’re not sorry. Second, I’ll be winning plenty of your money to make up for the fee.” With that, Mia winked at Clint and rushed through the door.

  Clint stayed by the window to watch the men at the dock tend to the riverboat and guide her into position. Ropes were thrown, knots were tied and commands were shouted back and forth. All of it may as well have been in a foreign language as far as Clint was concerned, but it was still interesting to watch.

  What was even more interesting was the sight of the people gathered across from the dock. There were several men and women standing next to their bags, chatting among themselves or simply observing one another. Clint had no trouble recalling every face he could spot as someone from the saloon the night before. The ones who caught his attention the most were the gamblers who took the time to turn and look toward the Boathouse.

  One of those men spotted Clint immediately and tipped his hat.

  Clint gave the man an offhanded wave and stepped away from the window.

  “I guess it’s time to meet the competition,” Clint said to himself.

  ELEVEN

  In the space of a few minutes, the entire street had changed. When Clint had first walked over to his window, the approaching riverboat was one of the only things in sight that was moving. In the short amount of time it had taken for Clint to get dressed and walk downstairs, the whole place was alive and kicking.

  The Boathouse was filled with smells of breakfast being cooked and workers preparing for business to pick up. Outside, shop owners opened their doors and put on a friendly smile for the new faces who gathered along the boardwalk. Clint watched all of these things happen as he made his way to the street to get a closer look at the newest arrival for himself.

  The Misty Morning arrived as if it had been named for this very moment. The water was coated with a fine layer of fog as the warm rays of the sun met up with a river that had been chilled by the night. The paddle wheel wasn’t moving, so it took plenty of strong arms to pull the boat the few extra inches it needed to bump against the dock. Once there, a plank was lowered and more ropes were tied off.

  From the window in his room, Clint thought that several of the people watching the boat were chatting to one another. Now that he was on street level, he could feel the air for himself and could smell the tension crackling between the gamblers as if a storm was about to set in.

  The gamblers tended to stick to the groups they’d formed the night before. Clint noticed right away that the people who’d played at the same tables stayed together now. Their laughter wasn’t exactly friendly, however, since most of them were still sizing one another up. When they weren’t talking to one another, the groups were staring down other groups and exchanging a few guarded nods or tips of the hat.

  The door to the Boathouse swung open and Mia stepped outside. She was wearing a pale yellow dress with a white ribbon tied around her waist. “Did I miss anything?”

  “No,” Clint replied, “but it seems like you weren’t the only one st
arting your game early.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I’d think twice about whatever you thought you learned from these people during last night’s game. They’re all circling each other so much right now, I’d be surprised if every last one of them isn’t dizzy.”

  Mia swatted Clint’s arm and said, “Oh, last night was just a friendly game.”

  Clint looked over to her and grinned.

  “What’s got you so happy?” she asked as some of his grin found its way to her face.

  “I’m just thinking about how I’m going to spend all that money I’ll win from our bet.”

  “Keep dreaming.” With that, Mia brushed her hair back behind both ears and strutted past Clint to make her way to the nearest group of gamblers. Like most of the others, she started off with the men she’d played against the night before. Unlike the others, she quickly moved along to introduce herself to the other groups.

  Clint had no problem staying where he was and watching Mia work. Her yellow dress wasn’t as expensive as the one she’d been in before, but it hugged her cute little body nicely. Knowing exactly what was under that dress made it even easier to watch her bounce from one group to the next.

  It wasn’t long before Clint was aware that he was being watched.

  That wasn’t much of a surprise, considering the company he was in, but Clint knew it was potentially dangerous to give folks the wrong impression at this early stage of the game. Thinking back to what Mia had tried to do in last night’s game, Clint kept his eyes on her and didn’t acknowledge the eyes that were on him until the last possible second.

  Twitching a bit in surprise as the man approached him, Clint thought he put on just enough of a show to make himself look distracted and possibly even a little nervous.

  “Good morning, there,” the man said as he approached Clint. He looked to be in his early thirties, but could have been a bit younger. A youthful face combined with an expensive, tailored suit made it tough to judge his age any better than that.

  Clint shook the man’s hand and said, “Hello. I didn’t see you coming.”

  “Late night?”

  “I think all of us at that saloon had a late night.”

  The man chuckled and took a cigarette case from his jacket pocket. He opened it and held it out to Clint. After he was refused, he took a cigarette for himself and struck a match to light it. “I’ve seen better places for cards, but you couldn’t beat the company.”

  “I hear that.”

  “Really? Then why didn’t you play?”

  Clint looked over to him and studied the man for a few seconds. There was an edge in the man’s steely eyes that said he knew he was being watched and didn’t give a damn.

  “I’m saving my money for the real games,” Clint said while nodding toward the riverboat.

  “Every game could possibly be the biggest game of your life. If anyone would know that, I would think Clint Adams would.”

  Nodding to confirm the name the other man had thrown out, Clint said, “Then maybe I just didn’t want to go broke before stepping onto such a fine new boat.”

  The man looked toward the dock and pulled in a deep breath. The cigarette in his mouth flared, and soon smoke was drifting from his nostrils. “She does look like a new boat, doesn’t she?” Suddenly shifting around, the man said, “By the way, my name is—”

  “Jean Claude Vessele,” Clint said.

  This time, it was the other man’s turn to look surprised. In his case, he seemed to be genuinely caught off his guard. Either that, or he was just a much better actor than Clint. “I wouldn’t have thought I would be known to a man such as you,” he said.

  “Anyone who wins a hundred thousand dollars and a hundred acres of California property from the same man in the same game is going to be well known,” Clint pointed out.

  Jean Claude shrugged, grinned and puffed on his cigarette. “That was a hell of a game. I should say a hell of a lucky game.”

  “Sure it was,” Clint replied. “Luck could account for one win like that, but not as many as you’ve had. I heard there was a game in Alaska that left you owning half of a mountain.”

  Jean Claude kept a straight face, but not for very long. He shook his head and gripped his cigarette in the corner of his mouth so he could once again shake Clint’s hand. “Mr. Adams, you have the ears of a hawk and the memory of an elephant. Remind me to give you a wide berth. I believe you’re the first I’ve met in over a year who knows about that game.”

  “Hopefully, that wide berth doesn’t apply to the card table,” Clint said.

  “Did you bring money with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then it doesn’t apply,” Jean Claude said with a wink. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it looks as if the Misty Morning is accepting passengers.”

  Clint looked over to the dock. From what he saw, it looked less like a boat taking on passengers and more like a pile of fresh beef being revealed to a pack of hungry wolves. Rather than wade into the flood of gamblers making their way to the single plank, Clint hung back and counted the number of faces he recognized.

  TWELVE

  The Misty Morning was a new boat. Clint didn’t have to be an experienced sailor to know that much. All he needed was a pair of eyes and a nose to see that the boards in the floor barely even had a scuff on them and still smelled as if they’d just been cut off the tree. There were plenty of riverboats that were bigger. Even the one that had been docked there the night before was plenty bigger. The Misty Morning was made for gamblers, however. Anyone else needed to step off the deck before all their money disappeared.

  The Misty Morning was also a very crowded boat. As soon as Clint walked onboard, he was around so many people that he couldn’t stretch his arms out in any direction. Men in expensive suits were constantly bumping into him. Women in fancy dresses were stepping around him. Needless to say, Clint spent a lot of time guarding his pockets.

  “Have you been greeted, sir?”

  Clint turned to face the source of the smooth, deep voice that he’d just heard. Considering how many people were around, he figured the odds were pretty bad that the voice had been speaking to him. When he spotted the well-dressed man with the salt-and-pepper hair, Clint was surprised to find that the man was waiting for an answer.

  “Oh,” Clint said. “You’re talking to me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The man looked to be in his fifties. His black and gray hair was neatly trimmed and stayed perfectly in place. The mustache on his narrow lip was so thin that it seemed to have been drawn there by a swipe of a pencil. He wore a plain black suit, which somehow stood out from all the other plain black suits milling about.

  “Have you been greeted?” the man asked.

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Then allow me to welcome you aboard the Misty Morning. Your accommodations are provided for you and your room number is at the bottom of your invitation. You do still have your invitation, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Hearing that was enough to break the expressionless mask that had been on the older man’s face until then. “Excellent. May I see it?”

  Clint reached into his pocket and produced the invitation.

  Seeing that he hadn’t been bluffed after all, the older man smiled and let out the breath that had been forcing him to stand as if there was an iron rod running along the back of his jacket. He tapped a small number written at the bottom of the invitation that Clint hadn’t even noticed before. “There it is, sir. You’ ll find that room toward the rear of the boat.”

  Clint folded the invitation again and stuffed it into his pocket. “A lot of these people didn’t bring their invitations, huh?”

  “You would be amazed.”

  “Well, it’ll probably make you feel better to know that plenty of these men will be losing their shirts and most everything they own on this boat.”

  The man didn’t answer, but he wore a real warm sm
ile on his face as he walked away to greet the next gambler.

  Clint found himself pushed in the general direction of the railing, so he stood there and looked over the side at the dock. Even though he was a stone’s throw from the Boathouse, he felt as if he was already miles away. The street looked even smaller from this angle and the river looked a whole lot bigger.

  A whistle blew from higher up near the smokestacks, and Clint thought he felt something within the riverboat start to shift. It was at that moment he realized how long it had been since he’d seen Mia. For all he knew, she could have been somewhere below the deck or even off the boat entirely.

  “Aw dammit,” Clint groaned as he recalled Mia saying she still had some things in a room at the Boathouse. If the Misty Morning was going to leave soon, Mia could get left behind.

  As Clint worked his way toward the gangplank, he saw a younger man working his way up from the dock. There were bags stuffed under each arm and one dangling from his hand. Clint was about to try to get past the heavily burdened fellow, but he felt someone push past him instead.

  “Watch yourself,” Mia said as she hurried down the plank. She waved for the young man and then pushed Clint back onto the boat. “Where do you think you’re going? I think the boat’s about to leave.”

  “I was going to try and find you.”

  “Aww,” she said while patting his cheek. “That’s sweet.”

  “Is that stuff yours?” Clint asked.

  “Yes. There’s no way I could carry it all, and you disappeared before I could ask you.”

  “All of it’s yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “You barely had enough to fill one saddlebag.”

  “I told you I went shopping,” she said impatiently. “You didn’t seem to mind the dress I bought. Why should I even have to explain this to you?”

  Clint held up his hands as if to surrender the point, while also getting out of the younger man’s way. “No need to explain anything. I just didn’t know you bought out half the store.”