Read Online Savage Impulses by Danielle Dubois - Free Book Online Page B

teasing
note to his voice, but there was something terribly serious
underneath it as well. He was drawn to her as much as she was drawn
to him, and that made her brave enough to continue.
    “You're... you're the most exciting man that
I have ever known,” she said. “I had never dreamed of a man like
you in Bristol, where it takes at least a bit of a dowry to make a
marriage of any sort.”
    “Ah, bride price,” he chuckled. “Among my
mother's people, the men pay for the woman's worth. It shows his
regard for her and how well he values her.”
    Marigold smiled at that thought, of someone
coming to the garret she had shared with her sister Elspeth and
offering her money for her to be his wife.
    “Would you pay a great deal for me?” she
asked softly. She held her breath while he thought about the
question.
    “A fortune,” he said softly. “Buffalo robes.
Beads. Guns. Horses. You would be worth all of it and more.”
    She smiled, blushing and burying her face in
his chest.
    “Do you miss your mother's people?” she asked
curiously. When he hesitated, she stroked his chest soothingly and
patiently.
    “Sometimes,” Jake said at last. “I was almost
five before I noticed I was different from them, and, not long
after that, my father found us. He was the one who took me back
east, and it took more than ten years of hell-raising before he
gave up and decided that I was better off out here.” He paused,
considering.
    She snuggled closer. She could read a
lifetime of pain in his light words, and she wanted to fix it for
him. She couldn't go back in time and comfort the child he was. Now
all she could do was hold the man he had become.
    “I was... a handful for him. I got up to a
lot of trouble, and some of the mildest involved gambling.”
    “You were playing in a game when I met you,”
she said, remembering his appearance at the table.
    He shifted uneasily next to her.
    She wondered if he was uncomfortable.
    “I was playing again tonight,” he said. “I...
I am very good at it, let's leave it at that.”
    “You make it sound like you have some kind of
gift from the devil himself,” she said teasingly.
    “I'm very good,” Jake responded. “Some of the
people back in Boston did say that I have the devil's own luck when
it comes to the tables, but I think it's just that I watch, and I
listen. A simple thing, but few people have that gift.”
    “You watch and you listen,” she echoed
dubiously. “Is that all it takes?”
    “You'd be surprised. There was plenty I saw
in you that night when I stopped being a fool long enough to
look.”
    “Really?”
    “Hmm, yes. When I stopped to look, I could
see that you were terrified. You didn't want to be there, and you
might have fallen down on your knees if I offered to take you
away.”
    There was a pause, and she wondered if he had
fallen asleep, but then he gathered her up in his arms and held her
close.
    “I'm sorry for that,” he whispered. “I was
too much of an idiot to see how frightened you were or how much you
needed gentleness. That was... not well done of me. In the future,
I pray I will do better.”
    She fought back the tears that welled up at
his tender words, pressing her body against his, trying to tell him
that she forgave him.
    “Will you go into town again tomorrow?” she
asked softly. Suddenly she wanted him to stay by her. The idea of
the two of them settling in this quiet area with nothing to hurt
them appealed to her, and she didn't want him far away.
    “I'm not sure,” he admitted. “I need to go
back to town again, but I did win a mare tonight. If I keep this
up, the good people of Langtry are going to start thinking I'm
using marked cards. It's happened before.”
    “A mare?” she asked, confused. “Another
horse?”
    “Yes, a man offered her up as a stake because
he didn't have any more cash. It wasn't a good idea. The stakes had
already gone higher than he was prepared to go, and he had a poor
hand. He spent the rest of the