Chapter 6

Nick left the sheriff's office without saying much to the sheriff. Once outside, he stopped. He didn't know where he wanted to go. Talking to Carol had just solidified what he never wanted to believe – that she never did love him. Then why did she act like she did? Or did she love him once and stop? Or did it really make any difference?

He glanced up at Harry's saloon and remembered that was where he first met her. Despite everything, it still made him smile – to think he met the first girl he really fell in love with in a poker game in Harry's saloon…..

She came in all raven-haired, young and beautiful, and downright confident. She'd have to be to march into a saloon and straight up to one of the poker tables that had an opening. Nick noticed her right away, and she saw him looking at her. She came over, holding her reticule in a relaxed, comfortable way. "May I join you?" she asked.

The other men looked up at her. "Lady, this is a serious game."

She pulled out a wad of money from her reticule and set it down on the table. "I'm a serious girl," she said and sat down.

Nick found himself smiling like a fool – and it didn't fade until she started winning his money. Maybe she was a girl. Maybe she was young and pretty and should have been in finishing school rather than in a saloon, but she knew how to play poker, and Nick couldn't find a tell on her to save his life. In less than an hour, she had raked in practically all of his money and some substantial winnings from the other men at the table, too. They all started to get up.

"Are we finished, gentlemen?" she asked.

"You have all the money," one of the other men said as they walked away.

Nick had been smoking a cigar. Despite the fact that he had only three dollars left, he leaned back happily in his chair and puffed. He said, "You're no stranger to a poker table."

She smiled and began to get her winnings together. "A girl has to make a living somehow," she said, put the money back into a bigger wad and put it into her reticule.

"What's your name?" Nick asked.

"Who's asking?" she asked.

"Nick Barkley," he said.

"Carol Keenan," she said.

"You're not from around here," he said.

"Passing through on my way to Sacramento," she said. "The train broke down, so I came over here. The hotel is full with stranded passengers. Do you know a good boarding house?"

"I do," Nick said. "Mrs. Lambert's, next street over. I'll walk you there if you like."

She abruptly pulled a derringer out of her reticule. "You don't plan to rob me, do you?"

Nick straightened, but then smiled again. "Not now."

And that was the way he had met Carol Keenan. She could have taken the train to Sacramento the next day, but Nick came back into town and took her to lunch instead. "I asked around about you," she said over coffee, waiting for their order to arrive. "You own a big spread here."

"My family does," Nick said. "I run it."

"Awfully young for that, aren't you?"

"I ran it with my father since the end of the war, but he was killed earlier this year, so I'm running it now," Nick said.

"I'm sorry to hear about your father," Carol said, and seemed to mean it. "I lost my parents in a flu epidemic in Fresno a couple years ago."

"You've been on your own ever since?"

"Pretty much. I had a couple marriage proposals, but I was never keen on being the wife of a banker or a tradesman, so I turned them down. A girl can only turn down so many proposals before the boys quit asking."

"Where did you learn to play poker?"

She laughed. "I had two brothers. They taught me."

"Are they the only family you have left?"

"I don't even have them left now. They both died in a wagon accident three years ago – they were bringing supplies home from the store when a storm hit and the wagon wrecked. One was caught under it – the other was thrown clear but hit his head on a rock. Sometimes I think that's why my parents didn't survive the flu epidemic. They just didn't have the strength to go on after my brothers died."

"How have you been making it through life? How have you earned your living?" Nick realized too late it was a poor question to ask.

"Cards," she said. "I'm not the girl next door, Nick."

After what had happened six years earlier, and after his conversation with Carol just now, Nick wondered if any of that story was true. If her love wasn't real, she could have lied about anything. Anything at all.

Nick started over to the saloon, and once inside, he remembered that card game again. He stopped inside the door and stared at that table for a moment. Then he remembered other card games, and he remembered how he was becoming smitten. He brought her home one evening and she began to teach him and his brothers some card tricks she knew. Eugene was just a little kid then and he thought she was the best thing going. She was fun and beautiful. Jarrod – funny, but now as Nick thought about it, Jarrod seemed awfully quiet that night, like he was sizing her up. And maybe he was. Maybe he could see that his middle brother was beginning to fall for this girl. Falling too fast to suit him, probably.

"Nick, are you coming in, or are you just gonna think about it?" Harry, behind the bar, asked.

Nick chuckled a little self-consciously and came over to the bar. "Sorry, Harry, just got lost in my head there for a minute."

"What'll it be?" Harry asked.

"Whiskey," Nick said.

Harry poured him one. "This is a funny hour for you to be in town. Too late for supplies, too early to visit me."

"Ah, I was over at the jail," Nick said and sipped his whiskey.

"Oh," Harry said. "Carol Keenan."

"Yeah," Nick said quietly.

"She was in here last night," Harry said. "Shocked the heck out of me, and then she passed that bad money." Harry shook his head.

"Jarrod's gonna defend her," Nick said, still not liking it.

"I figured he would."

"Really?" Nick asked. "I thought he'd avoid her like the plague."

"Yeah, well – she was yelling she didn't know the money was counterfeit when they took her out of here," Harry said. "Jarrod probably believes her."

"I'm surprised he'd believe her about anything, the way she just up and left six years ago. And I don't think he was too keen on me falling in love with a poker playing woman in the first place. He didn't trust her then. I shouldn't have either."

"Six years is a long time, Nick. Maybe she didn't know the money was counterfeit."

"I still wish Jarrod wasn't defending her."

Harry understood. "She burned you bad, I know, but maybe it was better in the long run. She wasn't the girl for you."

Nick heard what Harry said – and he heard the subtext, too. "Why? Why do you say that?"

"Well, she just – I don't know," Harry flubbered. "She just didn't seem like the type of girl who'd be good for you."

Now Nick was feeling an uncomfortable itch. "Why not?"

Harry realized he'd said too much. "Nothing, Nick. Nothing."

"Now, don't go telling me it's nothing. You didn't just make that up. You know something I don't know. Cough it up."

Harry grew stern, but calm. "Nick, I'm a bartender. A bartender is like a priest. We hear all sorts of things that we aren't going to repeat."

"You heard something? Back then?"

Harry looked uncomfortable. "Like I said, Nick. I'm a priest."

"You don't take any oath."

"I have my rules I live by. If you want to know anything more, you talk to Carol some more or you talk to Jarrod."

Now Nick nearly flipped. "Jarrod? What does Jarrod have to do with this?"

Harry raised his hands in surrender. "Nick, I'm just saying. I'm not gonna tell you any more. You go to Carol or to Jarrod if you wanna know anything else."

Nick knew Carol had said all she was going to say, and now so had Harry. That left Jarrod – but what could Jarrod know about what happened six years ago? He wasn't involved. Nick hadn't even talked to him about Carol except to say he was going to ask her to marry him. What would Jarrod have to do with the reasons Carol left?

And then Nick remembered how Jarrod seemed to be sizing her up the first time they met, over card tricks at the house. He didn't like what else he was thinking one bit.