This seems like as good a place as any to give you some information about me. My name's Bart Maverick, not that it would make any difference to you. I'm what's known by everyday folks as a gambler, card sharp, con man, scoundrel, bounder, tin horn and a dozen other names, although none of those happen to be correct. I'm a professional poker player.
I have been my whole life. Well, at least since I was ten years old, when I won my first pot from an adult that wasn't a relative. I'd won money before that, but always from someone whose last name was Maverick. There's a whole bunch of us that play the game for a living, all with the same last name. Father, brother, uncle, cousin, and me. If we were to work like other folks, the family business would be poker. Thank God poker isn't work.
Now don't sit there and pass judgment on me or my kin. The reason I discount all of these derogatory labels is that the Maverick's don't cheat. Let me say that again. Maverick's don't cheat. We might do a lot of other things in life, but cheating at poker is not one of them.
I've impersonated a lawman, a Pinkerton detective, several crime bosses, a saloon manager, a ranch foreman, a cowhand, a horse wrangler, an investment broker and once, even, a bank robber. My brother and me travel the country playing cards for a living – sometimes together, sometimes separate, sometimes on the way to meet each other somewhere, like we were right now. I was making my way to Baton Rouge when I got caught in the downpour. That's where I was supposed to meet my brother Bret – not for another two weeks, thus my hesitancy to get drenched for no particular reason. It's a good life for the most part, and none of us would rather be doing anything else. That's why I've only played at all those other things.
I have to be quick, observant at all times and know how to read people, skills that are all essential to be successful in my chosen vocation. And ready for just about anything, because an entire life can change on the turn of a card. But the one thing I wasn't prepared for was exactly what happened that day. After almost two full days of nothing but boredom, my peaceful little kingdom had turned into a drawing room farce. From nothing but rain and wind to two horses, a French Creole soldier, an unknown paramour and a beautiful woman who was professing her undying love to somebody named Broderick, only it was me she was kissing.
I started to pull back from the kiss in a moment of sanity, but the pressure from her hands behind my neck pleaded with me to stay right where I was. Well, why not? I threw my heart and soul into it and returned the kiss exactly the way she'd offered it to me – with fire and passion, doing my best to convince her pursuer that I was Broderick and we were mesmerized by what we were doing. Her eyes, which were closed when she presented me with her lips, opened briefly, and there was a look of surprise and then amusement in them. The kiss seemed to go on forever, and I expected the soldier to step in and pull us apart at any second, but he had grown rooted in the earth and never moved. Finally she broke the kiss but held the embrace, and looked up at me with big golden eyes. "My darling," she murmured as I watched her.
"Here now, that's enough," the uniformed man ordered in a heavily accented Creole voice. "This can't be Broderick. This is a . . . a what you call it. A cowboy."
I gave him a scowl of my own and drawled back in my best Texas accent, "I most certainly am not a cowboy. I'm a Texan."
The girl in my arms did her best to maintain her composure, finally unwrapping herself from my neck and turning to face the man in such a fine uniform. There was just a faint trace of a Creole accent in her words. "What, I cannot love a Texan? Does Jacques think me incapable of such emotions? Is that why he sent you racing after me, to prevent me from being with the only man I truly desire?" She shifted her attention back to me. "Tell him, Broderick, tell him how completely Kate Duecet loves you. Tell him how I would marry you, die for you, go to the ends of the earth for you. That I would bear children for you and stay with you for the rest of our lives."
I blanched when I heard that one little word, marry, but the soldier was watching the woman and didn't see my reaction. I just stood behind her and waited for the next move. I didn't have to wait long.
The corporal drew his saber and his pistol, pointing one at me and one at Kate. "We are returning to the estate. I have my orders."
I didn't like the sound of that. I hadn't sat in this shack for two days trying to stay warm and dry just to leave under a cloud of mistaken identity. "And just what are those orders, soldier?"
He could have ignored me completely, but the man was well-trained. Someone had asked him a question and he gave the appropriate response. And my stomach turned over when I heard it. "Miss Duecet will be returned to her fiancé, as I was instructed, and Broderick Michaels will be hanged once that return has been accomplished."
"What . . . what?" It took a few seconds for me to realize that the almost inaudible squeak that asked the question came from my mouth. I put my hands on Kate's shoulders and spun her around to face me and tried again. "What?"
"It is not true!" she insisted, but I found the strength of her insistence a bit lacking. "Jacques Armand would never issue such an order. He knows that if he harmed a single hair on your head, he would spend the rest of his days alone and unloved."
"And I would spend the rest of my days dead," I muttered, just loud enough for Kate to hear. What was this all about, and why had I been the lucky recipient of Broderick Michael's death sentence? And just who was this Michael's character, anyway? Was he real or a figment of Kate Duecet's imagination? Apparently the soldier that had come to fetch Broderick and Kate had never seen the man, since he was willing to accept me as such. I shook my head. I could just hear my brother's voice asking, 'Bart Maverick, how do you manage to get into these things?' The only answer I had was, I just wanted to stay dry.