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  Fortunately, Eulalie and Marjorie were about the same size, except that Eulalie’s bosom was somewhat larger than Marjorie’s. In Eulalie’s estimation this was a good thing, since it was sure to titillate the males who would pay to watch her parade her wares. Eulalie felt nothing but contempt for most men. She’d loved the one good man she’d ever met, and now he was gone. She was almost looking forward to teasing these beastly Westerners with her forbidden fruits for Patsy’s sake. She worked her hair up in the way her mother had taught her, weaving faux pearls in it and then stabbing a perfectly garish ostrich feather through the knot on top.

  She put down her comb and surveyed the result of her work. “There. I’ve never seen you look worse, Eulalie Gibb.” She was so pleased with herself that she grinned.

  In spite of the saloon’s rough clientele and locale, Mr. Chivers had a well-appointed, if smoky, establishment. There was even a stage rigged with a purple velvet curtain and gold scalloped edging. If it weren’t for the dust coating everything, that curtain might even be pretty. Eulalie didn’t suppose there was much one could do about the dust out here, since the wind seemed to blow constantly, and there was nothing by way of trees or shrubs to stop it. Nobody’d warned her about the wind.

  There was also an orchestra of sorts, consisting of a piano, a violin—fiddle, she supposed she should call it—and a horn. The piano player was a consumptive drunk, the fiddle player was a fifteen-year-old boy, and the horn player was a Mexican man who seemed to have trouble with anything that didn’t have a Latin beat to it, but Eulalie didn’t care. She could sing with them or without them. She aimed to make the whole town love her voice and her shape, if not her personality, so that she’d make a lot of money fast.

  Her costume was low-cut in front, and Eulalie’s bosom was more than ample. She had plenty of cleavage, in other words, and she stuffed her Ladysmith between her breasts. She wasn’t going to take any more chances than she had to.

  A knock came at the door, and she turned quickly, reaching for the Ladysmith as she did so. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Miss Gibb. Nick Taggart.”

  “What do you want?” She didn’t bother to try to sound polite.

  “Dooley wanted me to tell you it’s almost time.” He sounded offended. Eulalie didn’t care.

  “I can tell time, Mr. Taggart. And I know when I’m supposed to perform.”

  There was a several-second silence from behind the door. Then Nick said, “You’re very welcome,” and Eulalie heard him stomp away. Since she hadn’t heard him stomp up in the first place, she presumed she’d annoyed him with her acerbity. She didn’t care about that, either.

  He was right, though. It was almost time. Eulalie replaced the Ladysmith, sucked in a huge breath for courage, and bowed her head for a moment of silent prayer. Then she squared her shoulders, opened her door, and marched to the wings.

  * * * * *

  Nick Taggart had met unpleasant people in his day, but he’d never met one as aggravating, mouthy, and crusty as Miss Eulalie Gibb. He’d like to turn her over his knee and paddle her bottom. And then strip her naked and tussle with her until she begged for mercy.

  When, after a suitable and almost tuneful introduction by the Opera House musicians, she slithered out onto the stage, looking for all the world like a professional harlot, his mouth dropped open and his fantasies dried up and blew away like so much chaff. He ceased thinking entirely. In fact, for a moment or two, he didn’t believe it was really her. The Miss Eulalie Gibb he’d met couldn’t look like that in a million years.

  Could she?

  The moment of stunned silence that filled the saloon was followed by a din the likes of which Nick had never heard before. The noise, consisting of whoops, catcalls, whistles, stomping feet, and bellows of approval, jarred him out of his slack-jawed contemplation of Miss Eulalie Gibb’s abundant charms.

  She was … she was … Nick couldn’t think of a word for what she was. Several came close. Magnificent. Shapely. Breathtaking. Gorgeous. Splendid. Stimulating. Arousing.

  Arousing. That was it. In fact, she was so arousing in her present state of undress that Nick’s prior wish that he could strip her naked thundered back into his head like a randy bull. When he could pry his gaze away from her, he looked at the other men in the room and decided they all felt the same way.

  Which made him angry. All at once, he experienced an almost overwhelming urge to rush up to the stage, wrap a blanket around Eulalie Gibb, and haul her off so that none of these other men could ogle her the way Nick was doing.

  “Holy shit,” Nick heard at his side. He shot a glance at Dooley Chivers and discovered him staring, bug-eyed, at Miss Gibb. Dooley’s mouth hung open, too, and his cigar barely clung to his lower lip. Nick repressed the urge to shove the lit cheroot down the older man’s throat.

  His reaction was stupid. Nick knew it, and he forced himself to get a grip on his emotions. What the hell did he care if Miss Eulalie Gibb made a spectacle of herself in front of a mob of lustful men? It was no skin off his teeth. She was nothing to him but a pain in the neck. Or in another part of his anatomy.

  Nick suppressed a frustrated moan when Eulalie, smiling provocatively and, posing with one pink-slippered, well-shaped foot poised in front of the other, lifted her arms for silence. He gulped hard. When she lifted her arms like that, her bosom damned near popped out of that teensy piece of bright pink material she had draped over it.

  “Lord above, I ain’t never seen nothing like it,” Dooley murmured, awed.

  Nick hadn’t either. He didn’t say so.

  Dooley finally managed to drag his lascivious gaze away from his new singer and peered at Nick. “I swear, Nick Taggart. If I waren’t lookin’ at her with my own eyeballs, I’d never believe it was the same female. Did you think she’d turn out like that?”

  Since he didn’t trust his voice, Nick only shook his head and continued staring at Eulalie.

  Looking as if she were the conqueror of the world, which she pretty well was in the very small world of the Peñasco Opera House, Eulalie smiled her seductress’s smile at her ravening audience once more, and then signaled to the orchestra.

  Nothing happened. When Nick glanced at the musicians, he discovered them gaping at Eulalie, too stricken with lust to play their instruments. He decided things had gone on long enough.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Get to playing, you fools!”

  His voice was virile, deep, and loud, and it made everyone in the room jerk to attention. The whistles and stomps and catcalls stopped. Nick threw a cracker from the bowl on the bar at Griswold Puckett, the piano player, who immediately slammed his hands down on the piano keys, producing a chord that sounded like fifty cats screeching.

  He recovered at once, however, and launched into the tinkly strains of What Was Your Name in the States, a song that had originated among the California gold-mining camps, but which held a good deal of appeal to the men populating New Mexico Territory nowadays. In fact, a new round of cheers went up from the men, many of whom, Nick knew, had been less-than-stellar citizens in the States and had left their original names behind when they moved to the territory.

  When Eulalie began to sing, the room went quiet again.

  “Sweet Lord, have mercy,” Dooley whispered, which expressed Nick’s sentiments to a T.

  He’d never heard anything like it. Sweet and pure and as loud as the alarm bell on top of the sheriff’s office, Eulalie’s voice filled the air like sunshine after a storm. She had the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard in his entire thirty years of life. He felt like a pure fool when tears filled his eyes. Yet when he glanced around the room, he saw that most of the other men, those who weren’t too drunk to be pervious, were sneaking hands to their eyes, too, and wiping tears away. A couple of bandannas appeared, even.

  At least five minutes of thunderous applause followed Eulalie’s rendition of What Was Your Name in the States. This time when she lifted her arms for silence, the men obeyed her.
Nick had never seen a person, male or female, control an audience with such ease. He wondered if she’d been trained as an actress.

  He decided she must have had some kind of training when she launched into The Man on the Flying Trapeze. She strutted and pranced on the stage like she’d been born on it. By the time she’d finished that one, every man in the house was drooling.

  Nick himself had never seen a female kick so high. And her legs … Well, if he’d ever seen more delicious legs on a woman, he couldn’t remember when. The fishnet stockings she wore didn’t hurt any either. Nor did the black-and-pink garter she’d pulled up to about mid-thigh. Lord on high. He discovered within himself a fierce desire to shoot all the other men who were lusting after her, and told himself to stop being an idiot.

  From The Man on the Flying Trapeze, she went on to Lorena and Streets of Laredo and a couple of other tear-jerkers. Several men in the audience sobbed aloud. Nick was astounded.

  Then she took a bow, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. She had knockers the size of watermelons. He heard Dooley suck in a deep breath. He’d noticed, too, Nick presumed. Who wouldn’t? She was flaunting them for everyone to see and appreciate. Which, Nick gathered from the renewed chorus of whoops and hollers, everyone did.

  “Jehosephat, Nick, it’s a good thing you’ll be stayin’ here tonight. Otherwise, I ain’t sure she’d survive the night.”

  Nick wasn’t, either. Although she took several curtain calls, the noise didn’t abate. Finally she stopped returning to the stage, and for a few tense minutes it looked as if the men might riot and tear the Opera House apart. Nick bounded onto the stage and drew his hogleg, however, restoring calm without more than several fights breaking out.

  “She’ll sing again tomorrow night, boys,” he shouted above the din. Cheers erupted. He noticed Dooley was surrounded by men, all of whom, Nick presumed, were asking how much a tumble with Miss Gibb would cost. Nick saw red for a minute, and fired his gun into the planking of the stage.

  Dooley Chivers said, “Aw, hell, Nick!” but Nick didn’t feel very guilty about it. It wasn’t the first time a gun had been fired in the Opera House, and it assuredly wouldn’t be the last. At least this one had only made a hole in the floor. Usually, when a gun went off in the saloon, the bullet made a hole in a man. This was much less messy.

  Again, men dropped like rain, flattening themselves on the dirty floor like lumpy carpeting. When Dooley had hollered at Nick, his cigar fell from his mouth and landed on the back of Jem Flick’s neck. Jem hollered and swore, but he didn’t get up. Any time gunplay broke out in the Opera House, most fellows considered themselves fortunate to escape with a cigar burn.

  “Miss Gibb isn’t for sale, boys,” Nick called out. Groans and curses met his announcement. He was prepared for disappointment and didn’t holster his gun immediately. “But Miss Violet and Dooley’s other fine ladies will be happy to take care of you.” He winked at the men on the floor, some of whom had lifted their heads to listen better.

  Dooley, who had grabbed his cigar and apologized to Jem, nodded. “Nick’s tellin’ ya the truth, boys. Miss Gibb, she said she ain’t in any but the singing-and-dancing business.”

  “That’s right, boys. Miss Gibb’s an honest-to-God actress, trained in Chicago.” Nick didn’t know if it was true or not, but it might as well be. She was surely good enough to have been trained somewhere.

  Unhappy mutterings rumbled up from the floor. Men began to get to their feet and dust themselves off now that it appeared there would be no more guns going off.

  * * * * *

  Eulalie listened from behind the door of her small dressing room, wishing the door had a stronger lock. She had her own gun—the Colt Lightning this time—drawn, just in case. Her heart thundered like a herd of buffaloes stampeding through her chest. She’d never been so scared in her life as she was there for a second, when she’d wondered what she’d do if any of those men decided not to take no for an answer. One or two, she could probably handle with her Colt. More than that, and she’d be lucky to escape in one piece.

  She and Patsy had formulated a contingency plan for conditions such as these that might arise, but Eulalie wasn’t eager to implement it. For one thing, she’d hoped to get through this ordeal without having to depend on a man. She especially didn’t want to acknowledge that she needed a man to protect her.

  Aside from all that, she and Patsy had both learned the hard way that men were unreliable at best, even when they were working for money. More often than not, men were pure beasts. Eulalie wouldn’t hire a bodyguard except as a last resort because she was done with beasts in this life if she could help it.

  It began to seem like she might not be able to help it, however. She wasn’t going to give up yet, but she decided she’d better keep her options open and her guns handy. If she had to fall back on her contingency plan, it looked to her as though Nick Taggart might be her best bet to hire as a bodyguard, but she couldn’t be sure until she’d studied him a little longer. Which meant, of course, that she had to survive tonight in one piece. The wrong choice might be fatal to her plans.

  A knock came at her door a moment after the noise in the saloon quieted to its more normal low roar. Eulalie kept her gun drawn. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Nick Taggart, Miss Gibb. May I come in for a minute?”

  At least he was being polite. At this point in her career in Rio Peñasco, Eulalie didn’t trust Nick Taggart a speck more than she trusted any other man in the damnable place, but she did consider his politeness in this instance encouraging.

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open, holding her gun at what would be chest height on him. She also stepped back, in case he lunged at her. She’d had practice with this sort of thing, unfortunately.

  Chapter Three

  Nick frowned at Eulalie’s revolver. “How the hell many guns do you own, anyway?”

  “That’s for me to know, Mr. Taggart.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to need to use that one on me, Miss Gibb. I only came back here to tell you that I’ll be watching out for you tonight.”

  Immediately suspicious, Eulalie said, “What do you mean, you’ll be ‘watching out for me’? What does that mean, Mr. Taggart? And where do you presume to be doing this watching?”

  Nick’s frown deepened into a scowl, which he directed at her Colt Lightning.

  “I know how to aim and shoot it, Mr. Taggart, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “Dammit, I’m not the one with ideas here. You’re the one with ideas, if you think I’m going to do anything to you. I’m the one who saved you from those men out there, lady, or have you forgotten that?”

  Eulalie searched his face. He was obviously offended, but she couldn’t say that she cared much about that. What she cared about was whether he could do her the kind of service she might need of him. It did seem that the other men in town respected him. That was an auspicious sign. He was also good-looking, in a rugged sort of way. If she discovered she had to use him the way she thought she might, his looks might be a bonus, especially if she had to persuade him to help her by using more than mere money. She didn’t want to mess up the sheets with any man at all, but a repulsive one would be beyond endurance. Life was hard enough without that.

  She decided to give him a try and lowered her gun. “Thank you for that, Mr. Taggart. I beg your pardon if I seemed to misunderstand your intentions, but you must know that a woman’s life as an actress isn’t one of unalloyed peace and joy. A woman has to be able to protect herself.”

  He didn’t look convinced. Nor did his scowl abate. “Maybe, but a fellow don’t much like having a gun pointed at his belly by a woman he’s just saved from being assaulted, either, in case you give a hang about that.”

  She gave him one more good, overall, penetrating look. “Actually, I’m not sure that I do. However, if your aim is to protect me from the rest of the men in Rio Peñasco, perhaps you can begin by guarding the door while I change my clothes.”
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br />   His eyes went as big around as mush melons, and she noticed their color for the first time. They were a rather startling green, and quite lovely, shaded as they were with long, thick, dark lashes. Eulalie wasn’t surprised. In her experience men were more apt to have beautiful eyes than women, which was about as unfair as everything else in life. Her own eyes were nice, which was a benefit in her profession, but they were a plain old everyday blue and not nearly as exotic as Nick Taggart’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Taggart. There’s a modesty screen in the corner.” She gestured with her gun toward the Chinese screen blocking off a corner of the room. “You won’t even have to avert your eyes.”

  Nick seemed to deflate. “Oh, yeah. I see it.”

  Eulalie couldn’t tell if his tone reflected relief or disappointment, although she had her suspicions. Men were, after all, men. “Will you please lock the door, Mr. Taggart? Just in case.” She made her eyes go squinty. “I presume you meant it when you said you were here to guard my person from marauding males.”

  “Of course I meant it. I told Dooley I would.”

  He didn’t appreciate having his word questioned, either, Eulalie noted. Well, that was too bad. Eulalie wasn’t about to take anything, least of all a man, and especially not one as large and intimidating as Nick Taggart, on faith.

  “Thank you.” She went behind the Chinese screen, where she’d already laid out the clothes she intended to change into. She was ravishingly hungry. After all, she hadn’t eaten anything since the stage stopped a little before noon that day.

  Since she was in a testing mode with Nick Taggart, she called out a question as she wriggled free of her costume. “Is there some place in town where a lady might get a bite to eat this time of the evening, Mr. Taggart?”

  “Eat?” He still sounded annoyed.

  “Yes. Eat. You do know what the word means, don’t you?”