Lisa Plumley Read online

  TEMPTING THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER

  Plain preacher’s daughter Violet Benson is always the wallflower—until charismatic gambler Cade Foster takes her under his wing. Suddenly the men of Morrow Creek start looking at her with new eyes—and the women with envy—but Violet is interested in only one man: Cade.

  Agreeing to be his “lucky charm”, Violet becomes embroiled in the gambler’s thrilling world. With her newfound confidence, Violet is determined to uncover the secret sorrow behind the eyes that smolder beneath Cade’s Stetson, and prove to this fascinating man that he can take the biggest gamble of all…with his heart.

  “A charming, humorous and enjoyable read.” —RT Book Reviews on The Rascal

  “I’m here to ruin my reputation, Cade,” she announced firmly. “With you.”

  Stunned by that scandalous notion, Cade couldn’t speak.

  But Violet didn’t seem to mind.

  “I’m here to make some thrilling memories,” she went on, “and maybe change my future while I’m at it. And we’ve already wasted a great deal of time, so—” she smiled perkily “—shall we get started?”

  *

  The Honor-Bound Gambler

  Harlequin® Historical #1139—June 2013

  Author Note

  Thank you for reading The Honor-Bound Gambler! I’m so happy to share this story with you. I always fall in love with all my characters while writing about them, and Cade and Violet were no exception. They quickly found a special place in my heart—as did Tobe, Reverend Benson, Adeline, Judah…and even that mysterious rascal Simon Blackhouse!

  If you enjoyed this story (and I hope you did!), please try another book in my Morrow Creek series. It includes Mail-Order Groom, The Bride Raffle and several others (including some short stories), all set in and around my favorite Old West town.

  You can learn about all my books at my website, www.lisaplumley.com. While you’re there you can also download a complete book list, sign up for new-book alerts, read sneak previews of forthcoming books, request special reader freebies and more. I hope you’ll stop by today!

  Also, as always, I’d love to hear from you! You can visit me online at:

  www.community.eharlequin.com/users/lisaplumley, send an email to [email protected], “friend” me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/LisaPlumley/164790176872702, follow me on Twitter @LisaPlumley, or write to me c/o P.O. Box 7105, Chandler, AZ 85246-7105, U.S.A.

  Available from Harlequin® Historical and LISA PLUMLEY

  The Drifter #605

  The Matchmaker #674

  The Scoundrel #797

  The Rascal #825

  Hallowe’en Husbands #917

  “Marriage at Morrow Creek”

  Mail-Order Groom #1019

  The Bride Raffle #1035

  Weddings Under a Western Sky #1091

  “Something Borrowed, Something True”

  The Honor-Bound Gambler #1139

  Other works include

  Harlequin Historical Undone! ebook

  Wanton in the West

  Did you know that these novels are also available as ebooks? Visit www.Harlequin.com.

  To John, with all my love,

  now and forever.

  LISA PLUMLEY

  When she found herself living in modern-day Arizona Territory, Lisa Plumley decided to take advantage of it—by immersing herself in the state’s fascinating history, visiting ghost towns and historical sites and finding inspiration in the desert and mountains surrounding her. It didn’t take long before she got busy creating lighthearted romances like this one, featuring strong-willed women, ruggedly intelligent men and the unexpected situations that bring them together.

  When she’s not writing Lisa loves to spend time with her husband and two children, traveling, hiking, watching classic movies, reading and defending her trivia-game championship. She enjoys hearing from readers, and invites you to contact her via email at [email protected], or visit her website at www.lisaplumley.com.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Morrow Creek, northern Arizona Territory October 1884

  “A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.”

  —William Bolitho

  From the moment he saw the boy, dirty faced and shabbily dressed, Cade Foster knew he was in trouble. Darting a glance at the middling horse, wagon and foot traffic surrounding him in the territorial backwater he’d arrived at this afternoon, Cade frowned. He stepped sideways, intent on making a detour.

  The little sharper moved in the same direction. “Wanna try your luck, mister? I got me a nickel says I’m luckier than you.”

  Unhappily distracted, Cade glanced down at the coin the boy brandished. It looked cleaner than all the rest of the urchin combined. From his grimy fingernails to his shabby shirt, the boy looked powerfully worse for wear. Unfortunately, he also looked a little like Judah. Maybe that’s why Cade stopped.

  The boy grinned, revealing a smile that jabbed at Cade’s heart like a sterling-silver knuckle-duster. “Ain’t nothing finer than a fast game of craps, sir.” The boy, probably twelve years of age or a little more, extracted a pair of dice from his trouser pocket. With élan he shook them in his scrawny fist. “How ’bout we toss ’em over yonder, where it’s quiet?”

  He nodded toward the nearest alleyway. Hesitating, Cade squinted up the main street toward the two-story brick house that was his destination. All Morrow Creek’s movers and shakers were expected to be at the benefit being held there tonight, during which the Territorial Benevolent Association Grand Fair would raise funds for a new public lending library.

  “You got yer roulette, el Sapo, rondo, rouge et noir, faro, and vingt-et-un—” the boy rattled off the names of those popular games of chance the way most youngsters recited their ABCs “—but for a fast win and real excitement nothin’ beats craps, sir.”

  Transferring his gaze to the child again, Cade noted the boy’s hollow cheeks and the dark smudges below his eyes. He saw the way the pint-size “sporting man” hunched his skinny shoulders against the autumn chill. He assessed the boy’s nimble movements even as he listened to more of the imp’s patter.

  “If you roll those bones as ably as you talk,” Cade interrupted, “I’d be a fool to strike a wager with you.”

  “You’d be a fool not to, you mean. It’s just a nickel.”

  To a boy like that, a nickel was the difference between eating and going to bed hungry. Cade knew that more than most.

  He also knew, with another proficient glance, that the dice the youngster jiggled were likely a pair of dispatchers—so named because they effectively “dispatched” their intended targets: suckers. Like all gambling men, Cade recognized the tools of a cheat. There was no other way to assure himself a square game.

  Not that he ever expected to actually get one. Cade reckoned that every game he went up against was crooked one way or another. But if he ever wanted to find Whittier, he had to follow the gambling circuit. Tonight, at least a few of its members would be scouting for prospects—and showing off—at the Grand Fair. Once Cade made his way up the street to that big brick house, he’d have to do his best to impress them.

  Winning was the only way to progress up the circuit—to make it to the high-stakes tables where men
like Whittier wagered.

  Not that throwing dice with this youngster would help Cade do that. He should have tried harder to go around him—regardless of the boy’s resemblance to Judah. Now it was too late.

  When Cade glanced up again, wondering if he could sidestep the kid without taking too hard a punch to his conscience, the boy was shrewdly studying his watch chain. Doubtless he was envisioning the expensive gold Jürgensen timepiece—a particular favorite of professional gambling men—that dangled at its tail…and wondering if he could win it.

  Seeing no other choice, Cade nodded. He ambled to the alleyway with the boy leading the way. They set their wager.

  “I’m in a hurry.” Cade nodded. “Go on and roll.”

  Smartly, the boy refused. “Let me see your nickel first.”

  Obligingly, Cade produced a coin. On the verge of throwing it in their makeshift kitty, he frowned. “Tell you what,” he said in a tone of studied carelessness. “A nickel’s not much of a bet. I’ll put up my coat in this bargain, too.” He was happy to forfeit the damn thing if it would keep this urchin warm for the coming wintertime. That was the least his problematic conscience demanded. “Just to keep things interesting.”

  “Yeah?” The boy jabbed up his chin. His eyes gleamed with wanting Cade’s warm coat, but his decidedly unchildlike sense of skepticism demanded more. “What do you want of mine, then?”

  Cade thought about it. “I want those fine dice of yours.”

  Reluctantly, the scamp examined his pair of clinkers. He’d probably been earning all the sustenance he had with them. He appeared disinclined to part with them. But the kid would be better off without those cheaters in his hands. They’d only get him in trouble. Nobody was likely to keep the boy from earning some much-needed money with fast gambling—and truthfully, Cade wasn’t inclined to try—but at least the practice could be made safer. With a keener pair of loaded or expertly shaved dice—like the pair Cade kept ready in his coat pocket, for instance—the boy’s subterfuge would be less detectable. All Cade had to do was slip them to the little sharper, easy as pie.

  If the morals of helping a child to cheat were supposed to have bothered him, Cade guessed he was past repentance. Because this boy reminded him of his brother—of those hellacious orphan trains the two of them had been shoved onto and the hopes they’d had crushed for all those long-ago months—and he’d be damned if he’d let one small boy shiver for the sake of his own need for a heavenly reward.

  Besides, the boy’s future marks weren’t any concern of Cade’s. Any man who would set out to purposely bilk a down-on-his-luck child at gambling deserved to lose a few coins. Cade wasn’t that man. But the boy didn’t know that and never would.

  At the child’s continuing reluctance to strike a weightier wager, Cade heaved a sigh. “No deal? Fine. I’m late already.”

  “Oh? You goin’ to Miss Benson’s gala benefit?”

  “You stalling for time? It’s an easy bet. Yes or no?”

  The boy toed the dirt. He eyed Cade’s coat. “Add in that nice watch of yours too, an’ you got yourself a good wager.”

  Against all reason, Cade admired the boy’s pluck. “I won this watch in the biggest game of my life. It’s sentimental.”

  “You sayin’ no? ’Cause I ain’t familiar with sentiment.”

  If Cade had been a softer man, that admission would have broken his heart. As it was, he only sobered his expression, then shook his head. “You can’t have my watch.”

  The boy shrugged. Appearing resigned, he shook his fistful of rigged dice. With elaborate showmanship, he yelled, “Hold on to yer britches then, sir! Here comes the first roll, gents!”

  Too late, Cade realized they’d drawn a clump of onlookers. In the shadows cast by the setting sun, four strangers watched as the dice spewed from the boy’s hand, rolled on the ground, bounced theatrically from the nearest lumber wall, then stopped.

  A five-spot and a one-spot winked up. Another roll, then.

  Cannily, the boy let himself lose the first several throws. All the while, he kept up an animated pitch—a talk meant to reel in Cade and keep him wagering even after he began losing. Such tactics were all part of the game—a prelude to the inevitable swindle after which the boy would walk away victorious.

  If a grown man had tried such tactics on Cade, he wouldn’t have been so patient. There was a reason he carried a derringer, two wicked blades and a surfeit of suspicion wherever he went.

  As the alleyway grew darker and the dice rolled on, side bets sprung up among the spectators. Money rapidly changed hands; good-natured insults were traded along with the wagers. Cade wasn’t surprised. In the West, gambling was as common as breathing. After all, what was mining if not wagering that you’d find more gold than dirt in the nearby hills? Compared with wielding a pickax, pitching dice was hardly backbreaking.

  As the dice rolled again, a sharp breeze whirled into the alleyway. The boy shivered. So did Cade. He’d upped the ante on their wager several times already. Now it was time to end this.

  “My turn.” Cade accepted the dice. Deftly, he switched them for the pair from his coat pocket. He rolled. Then he swore.

  Exactly as he’d planned, he’d lost everything.

  “I won! I won!” the kid crowed. “I get your coat, mister!”

  The boy’s eyes shone up at him. In that moment, Cade didn’t mind that he’d made himself late for the Grand Fair. Then the urchin deliberately schooled his expression into his previous toughness, Cade remembered that he was a hard-nosed gambler who was in town only long enough to find the man he’d hunted through several states and territories…and the world righted itself.

  “Tough break,” a bystander commiserated. “You was just coming back, mister. You ain’t got no kind of luck, do you?”

  At that, Cade grinned, pinned by an unexpected sense of irony. This time, with the boy, he’d lost on purpose. But he hadn’t enjoyed his usual run of good luck lately—that was true.

  In fact, if his current unlucky streak continued, Cade didn’t know what he’d do. He was so close to finagling a way into the high-stakes gambling circuit he’d been chasing. He desperately needed to keep up with that league of professionals.

  It was the only way to find Whittier. He ran with that circuit; if not for his vaunted appearances at the table, he might as well have been a ghost. The minute rumors had flown that he’d been spotted here, in Morrow Creek, Cade had pulled foot for the town, too, hoping to catch up with him.

  Besides, Cade had already tried everything else he could think of to track the man. His more legitimate search methods had turned up nothing.

  “Well, it’s like I always say,” Cade told the bystanders, “if you must play, decide upon three things at the start—the rules of the game, the stakes…and the quitting time.” As he spoke, he slipped off his overcoat. He dropped it, covertly divested of all the items he wanted to keep, on the boy’s shoulders. “Now it’s quitting time.”

  “What? You ain’t even gonna try to win your money back?”

  “Not tonight.” Cade turned away. Behind him, he heard two awestruck whistles and several gruff, gossipy murmurs. Whoever said women were the only ones with flapping jaws was dead wrong.

  “Hell! I’d say we got ourselves a new sporting man in town, boys!” one of the local men said with a chortle. “And he’s droppin’ money like he’s got holes in his pockets, too.”

  The urchin ignored the chattering men. He chased down Cade, the oversize coat trailing on the ground behind him, then tugged at his suit sleeve. “Hey, mister! I know I won and all, but…I don’t reckon you meant to leave this behind. I found it in your coat pocket.”

  He held up a wad of greenbacks, fastened with an ivory clip, which Cade had won off a cotton merchant down South.

  Cade had meant to leave that money with the ragamuffin. He didn’t have much use for his winnings—aside from their ability to stake his reputation, admit him into the elite high rollers’ circle and eventually get hi
m invited into their next private faro tournament. If he was lucky, that’s where he’d find Whittier. Cade had already skimmed off a sufficient quantity of cash for his own incidentals. He had a fair bankroll set aside at his hotel. And there was always his benefactor, Simon Blackhouse, to rely on if he needed more funding, too.

  But what concerned Cade now wasn’t his own well-being. Because behind the boy, out of sight of his stupefied gaze, all those onlookers stared at Cade’s carelessly lost money with hungry eyes. Surely they wouldn’t actually steal from a child?

  Cade didn’t know. All he knew was that some things—not many, in his experience, but some—weren’t wagering material.

  “You show me how to get to the Territorial Benevolent Association Grand Fair,” Cade said, “and you can keep it all.”

  Wide-eyed, the boy nodded. Quick as a wink, he shoved the wad of cash down his pants for safekeeping. “For this much scratch I’ll take you there myself! But I ain’t stayin’. I done heard of kids bein’ lured in by Miss Benson and then they ain’t never seen again! I don’t want no reformer gettin’ ahold of me.”

  Cade only shrugged. “I don’t care much for those do-gooder types myself.” He started walking, with the boy eagerly dogging his every booted step. Something about the urchin’s sudden devotion bothered him, but Cade shrugged that off, too. “Give me a bottle of mescal, a pretty girl, a fair hand and a chance to square off against Lady Luck, and I don’t need much else.”

  The boy skipped ahead, belatedly taking the lead as he’d agreed to do. He pointed to their destination. “The fair’s up yonder at that ole’ brick house.” He eyed Cade. “You fixin’ to steal all the raffle money for the new library or somethin’?”

  “Nope. I’ve never stolen anything in my life. I’ve never had to, and I’m not starting now.” Speaking in all honesty, Cade leveled his gaze on the house. Morrow Creek residents came and went in all their meager territorial finery. Music and lights spilled from inside, foretelling exactly the frolic he expected. “I’m here for something even better than raffle money.”