slow but steady tub if I'm lucky. Might get in in the wee small hours if the skipper keeps his word about putting on some speed.'
She sipped the last of her coffee, her hair glowing as pretty as old gold in the fading light from her left as she replied she was sure they'd have been moving faster by this time had the skipper really cared about getting anywhere in a hurry. She added, 'At least I booked a stateroom on the seaward side this time. I almost steamed myself to clam chowder coming down this coast a week ago.'
He didn't say anything. But it was a good thing he wasn't playing poker with such a keen-eyed gal. For she demanded, 'What did I say wrong, ah, Custis? Don't you think I should have booked myself a stateroom on the cooler side?'
To which he could only reply, since she'd asked, 'If seaward was the cooler side, Miss Lenore. Winds blow from where it's cooler to where it's warmer. Come daybreak the sun-baked plains to our west will send hot air rising to suck in cooler air off the gulf to our east. But the gulf ain't all that cool as seawater goes. So once the plains cool off a tad under starlight, the warmer waters of the gulf ought to suck land breezes out to sea through such portholes as might be open on the landward side.'
The Eastern gal stared across at him like a blue-eyed owl as she insisted, 'But I was on that side, coming down the coast just a week ago, and as I said, I got steamed like a clam baked in seaweed!'
He chuckled at the memory of some clams he'd had that way the time he'd spent back East on Long Island with another blonde. He said, 'I never told you the landward staterooms would be cool. I only meant they wouldn't be as hot and stuffy as the ones catching no breezes at all. You don't have to answer if you find this too indelicate, ma'am. But may I take it you were trying to sleep in a steamer stateroom this far south, at this time of the year, in, ah, modest attire?'
She blinked and said, 'Well, of course I had my nightdress on, if that's what you mean! Would you have a lady retire under her sheets as bare as some sort of tropical savage?'
He managed not to grin too knowingly as he quietly replied, 'I ain't sure how savage the old-time Coahuiltic were when they still owned this part of Texas, ma'am. But their Mex descendants don't retire under a sheet or anything else when it gets this hot. Seeing I'll be getting off come morning, I'd be proud to let you sleep in my stateroom instead.'
He could tell, even by such poor light, how hard she blushed as she gasped, 'You really are in a hurry, aren't you!'
He had to laugh. Before she could spring up and flounce out he quickly explained. 'I only meant I was willing to swap with you for just this one night! I ain't that subtle when I ask a supper Companion right out to let me call her sweetheart.'
It was her turn to smile, sort of dirty, as she said, 'I'm sorry, Custis. I know you've behaved in a perfectly proper way since I first sat down here. Could it have really been less than two hours? How could I feel I've known you such a long while?'
He said, 'Time drags out here on the water with nothing but one another to bother knowing. Meeting at sundown helped some. We've shared sunshine and shadow as well as plenty of grub and rum-laced coffee.'
She smiled archly. 'I'd better not have any more rum if you're to remember me as a lady who keeps her clothes on after dark.'
Then she caught herself, blushed again, and softly said, 'oh, I must have had more rum than I thought. I didn't mean to tease like that, Custis. I'm really not the sort of girl who takes anything off in mixed company. But I suppose you knew all the time I was just a flirty old maid, didn't you?'
He assured her, 'I've been teased worse, and you ain't old enough to be ashamed of being a maid, if we both mean maid as a gal who's still innocent. Being innocent is what lots of gals brag about, at least to the age of twenty-nine or SO.'
She looked away and murmured, 'I'll be twenty-six this August, and I'm not sure I'm still bragging. But I can't help the way I was brought up, Custis. So unless the man I've been saving myself for comes along, I suppose I'll just wind up like that poor old Olivia Lee in the Congregational burial ground back home.'
He had to allow he'd never heard tell of Miss Olivia Lee.
Lenore sighed. 'I never knew her either. She died a long time ago. Her headstone reads, 'Here lies Olivia Lee, who died a virgin at ninety-three, God rest her poor soul!''
Longarm didn't laugh. He didn't think such a fate was funny. But he didn't want the responsibilities that would surely go with busting any twenty-five-year-old cherry so far from home either. So he asked whether she wanted to swap staterooms or not, and once she said she could sure do with an even slightly cooler upper berth, he suggested they get busy with their baggage.
They did. Passengers signed for food and drink and settled with the purser before getting off. But Longarm still left some coins on the table to make up for their longer than usual stay there.
He escorted her to her stateroom first. She was traveling light for a gal who slept with duds on. So he needed no help with her two bags, and never sent for any. He led the way along a corridor running abeam from starboard to port, and put her bags on the floor inside his own cabin. Then he lifted his saddle from the bottom berth, saying, 'I'll just tote this load over to your stateroom and we'll both be set. Would you like me to straighten out the purser about the switch, or would you rather thrash it out with him seeing as you'll be staying aboard long after I've gotten off and nobody will be likely to say anything dumb?'
She suggested whichever of them saw the purser first ought to work it out with the steamer line. He agreed that made sense, and backed out the narrow doorway to shift the weight of his heavily laden army saddle higher on his free hip. She came out after him, as if to keep him from getting lost on the way back to her old quarters. It would have sounded dumb, as well as rude, to tell her no girls were allowed. So he never did, and in no time at all his possibles were safely locked away, thanks to their swapping keys. Then the two of them were alone on the starboard promenade deck, staring seaward at the rising moon as they leaned against the rail together. He wanted to kiss her so bad he could taste it. But he didn't, He knew that once they got to swapping spit there'd be no reining in till he found out whether he might or might not go farther. Either way, somebody was likely to get hurt more than finding out would be worth. For Longarm knew all too well how good it could get with a pretty lady suffering from a case of pent-up passion, and even a pretty gal that just lay there had pissing beat by at least a furlong. But one night of love with the Queen of Sheba, played by the lovely Miss Ellen Terry, fresh from a perfumed bath, couldn't make up for that hurt look a man saw in the eyes of a gal he was really letting down.
So he softly suggested, 'Land breeze ought to be fixing to start over on the port side, ma'am. Why don't I carry you back to my old stateroom before I go see whether those two you spotted at supper are packing two guns
