Read Online Vivid by Beverly Jenkins - Free Book Online Page B

headed back to the house, leaving Vivid alone with Nate
Grayson.
    "I still believe you'll leave before
the worst of the winter," he said, his powerful-looking arms folded across
his chest.
    "I do enjoy a challenge, so I'm
determined to prove you wrong."
    "What else do you enjoy?"
    The tone of his voice made Vivid hesitate.
He seemed to want to know something more than just her leisure activities.
"I enjoy poker, playing billiards—"
    "Billiards," he echoed
skeptically. He looked over at the case that held her stick.
    "Yes. You're familiar with the game?
You lean over a big table that has holes in the corners—"
    "I know how to play, Lancaster,"
he said in exasperated amusement. "But what's a woman like you doing
playing billiards? What did your parents think about this pastime of
yours?"
    “My father taught it to me when I was
seven or eight. He says I have a gift."
    "A gift?"
    "Yes, Mr. Grayson. Women can be
gifted in other things besides hat choosing."
    "Wait," he said, holding up his
hands. "Let me get a seat. I want to hear all of this." He pulled out
the chair, turned it around, and settled his big body in it. "Now, you say
you have a gift for billiards, according to your father. What about your
mother? Does she think you're gifted, too?"
    He was laughing at her, and Vivid narrowed
her eyes at his tone. Would this man ever take her seriously? "No, my
mother thought my gifts were limited to getting into trouble. She nicknamed me
Trabrasera."
    "Which means?"
    "Trouble."
    "So that's what's wrong with my
Magic. She's gifted."
    "She does remind me a lot of myself
at her age."
    "Lord help us," he whispered.
"Go on. Where did you play billiards? Because no self-respecting woman I
know would even walk past an establishment of that type, let alone go inside one."
    Vivid ignored his intimation that she was
not respectable. "I played wherever there was a table. My father is one of
the best chefs and caterers in San Francisco, but when he was younger he cooked
in all types of places—brothels, men's clubs, mansions. Sometimes my
sisters and I had to go along when Mama had to help him in the kitchen. Most of
those places had billiard tables. While my parents and the rest of the staff
people were in the kitchen setting up before the evening's activities, my
sisters and I were encouraged to play, mostly so we'd stay out of the workers'
hair. At night we weren't allowed near the places, but by the time I reached
adolescence, a lot of the gamblers and club owners knew of my penchant for
playing, and I became like a favorite pet. A woman playing billiards was and is
quite an oddity."
    "Your sisters play billiards,
too?"
    "Not as well as I, but yes, they
play."
    "And your father encouraged
this?"
    "He never believed in keeping us from
anything we enjoyed, and he saw no harm in it." She paused for a moment
and then said, "You know, men can be such fools sometimes. They see a
woman with a cue in her hand and for some reason believe she must be using it
to take pots off a stove. Men would bet me outrageous amounts of money and
stand agape when they realized I could play. My mother threatened to send me to
a Mexican convent when she found out how much money I had accumulated."
    Dumfounded, Nate could only stare.
    "You look so stunned, Mr.
Grayson."
    "And that is also how you learned to
play poker, too, I take it."
    "Yes. I'm not as good at cards as I
am with a cue, but I play a decent hand."
    "What other vices do you
practice?"
    "Well, let's see. I've thrown dice
and darts. I play faro and keno. I was a pickpocket for about an hour when I was
ten."
    "A pickpocket!"
    "Yes. When I was young I would go to
go to wharf every day during the summers with my father to buy fresh
vegetables. There were some street children who frequented the wharf. They had
no families and they would steal watches and coin purses, and the vegetables
and fish from the vendors' stalls. One day the constables were chasing the band
through the market and I remember