Silently Reno admitted to himself that Eve didn’t look like a slut at the moment. She looked more like some waif blown in by the wind, worn and sad and frayed around the edges. Her clothes had once belonged to a boy, from the look of them — too narrow in the chest and hips, and too loose everywhere else.
«Whose clothesline did you steal that outfit from?» Reno asked idly.
«They belonged to Don Lyon.»
«Lord, he was a small man.»
«Yes.»
Reno stopped, struck by a thought.
«I didn’t see any new graves when I passed by Canyon City’s graveyard on the way in, but you said the Lyons were killed by Raleigh King.»
Eve said nothing in response to the implied question.
«You know, gata, sooner or later I’m going to break you of lying.»
«I’m not a liar,» she said tightly. «I buried the Lyons at our campsite.»
«When?»
«Last week.»
«How?»
«With a shovel.»
With a speed that startled Eve, Reno straightened and grabbed one of her hands. After a single look at her palm, he released her.
«If you handled cards that deftly with a mess of broken blisters,» Reno said, «I’d hate to take cards in a game with you when your hands heal.»
Saying nothing, Eve went back to tending breakfast.
«You should wash them with soap and hot water,» Reno added.
Startled, Eve looked up. «The biscuits?»
He smiled unwillingly.
«Your hands. Jessi says washing wounds prevents infections.»
«I washed before I went to bed last night,» Eve said. «I hate being dirty.»
«You used lilac soap.»
«How did you know? Oh, you found it when you searched my saddlebag.»
«No. Your breasts smelled like spring.»
A wash of pink went up Eve’s cheeks. Her heart turned over as she remembered the feel of Reno’s mouth on her breasts. The fork she had been using on the bacon jerked, and hot grease spattered on the back of her hand.
Before the pain of it registered on Eve, Reno was there, looking to see how badly she had burned herself.
«You’re all right,» he said after a moment. «It will smart for a bit, that’s all.»
Numbly she nodded.
He turned her hand palm up and looked at the abraded skin once more. Silently he took her other hand and glanced at the palm. There was no doubt that her hands had been hard used, and recently.
«You must have worked a long time to chew up your hands like that,» Reno said.
The unexpected gentleness in his voice made Eve’s eyes burn worse than the skin that had been scored by hot grease. A wave of memories swept over her, making her tremble. Preparing the Lyons for burial and then digging their grave was something she would not soon forget.
«I couldn’t leave them like that,» she whispered. «Especially after what Raleigh did…I buried them together. Do you think they minded not having separate graves?»
Reno’s hands tightened over Eve’s as he looked at her bent head. The acute sympathy he felt for her was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. No matter how often he reminded himself that she was a saloon girl, she kept sliding beneath his guard as easily as the fragrance of her lilac soap was absorbed into his body with every breath he took.
He took a deep breath, trying to control his physical reaction to Eve. The breath didn’t help. Her soft, golden hair smelled of the same lilac soap that her breasts did. He had never been especially fond of scent — any scent — but he suspected that lilac would haunt him almost as much as the memory of her nipples rising eagerly to his mouth.
Reno wanted Eve more than he had any woman in a long, long time. But if she discovered his weakness, she would make his life a living hell.
Reno dropped Eve’s hands and turned away to the fire.
«Tell me more about my mine,» he said curtly.
Eve took a deep breath and banished the Lyons from her mind as Donna had taught her to banish all things she couldn’t control.
«Yourhalfof the mine,» Eve said, and waited for the explosion.
It wasn’t long in coming.
«What?» Reno asked, spinning around to face her.
«Without me deciphering the symbols along the trail, you won’t be able to find the mine.»
«Don’t bet on it.»
«I have no choice but to bet on my skill,» she said. «And neither do you. Without me, you’ll never find the mine. You can have all of nothing or half of the gold mine that rightfully belongs to me.»
There was the kind of silence that precedes thunder after the arc of lightning from sky to ground. Then Reno smiled, but there was no humor in the thin curve of his mouth.
«All right,» he said. «Half of the mine.»
She let out a soft rush of air in relief.
«And all of the girl,» Reno added flatly.
Relief congealed into a lump in Eve’s throat.
«What?» she asked.
«You heard me. Until we find the mine, you’ll be my woman whenever I want you, however I want you.»
«But I thought if I told you about the mine, you would —»
«No buts,» Reno said coldly. «I’m getting damned tired of bargaining for what is already mine. Besides, you need me as much as I need you. You wouldn’t last two days out in that desert alone. You need me to —»
«But I’m not what you think I am, I’m —»
«Sure you are,» he interrupted. «Right now you’re wriggling like a worm on a hook, trying to find a way out of keeping your word. Only a cheat would do that.»
Eve closed her eyes.
It was a mistake. The tears she had been trying to hide slid from beneath her lashes.
Reno watched, savagely shoving down all feeling of sympathy, telling himself her tears were just one more in the arsenal of female weapons. Yet it was nearly impossible for him not to soften. The longer he was with Eve, the more difficult he found it to remember what a conniving little tart she really was.
For the first time in his life, Reno was grateful for the past’s cruel lessons in the ways a woman managed a man. There had been a time in his life when he would have believed Eve’s silver tears and pale, trembling lips.
«Well?» he said roughly. «Is it a deal?»
Eve looked at the dark, oversize gunfighter who was watching her with eyes as hard as jade.
«I —» Her voice cracked.
Reno waited, watching her.
«I was wrong about you,» Eve said after a moment. «I’m not strong enough to fight you and win, so you’ll take what you want from me, just like Slater or Raleigh.»
«I’ve never taken a woman by force in my life,» Reno said flatly. «I never will.»
Eve let out a long breath. «Truly?»
Despite himself, Reno felt a wave of compassion for Eve. Cheat or not, saloon girl or not, no girl deserved the kind of rough usage she got from men like Slater and Raleigh King.
