Page 47 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

Uncertain if the Barrancas cousins were searching for them in Chihuahua, Ty and Jenny stayed off the streets as much as possible, seldom venturing outside their hotel room.

Jenny decided being cooped up in the room was the worst part of her healing process.

She would go stark raving mad if she heard Graciela whine, “What can I do now?” one more time.

Staring blindly at the pages of a Mark Twain novel that Ty had bought for her, she considered her situation regarding Graciela.

She didn’t want to be a parent, had sworn never to be a parent, and she hated being forced into the responsibilities of a parent.

She didn’t like kids, had never liked kids, didn’t believe that she ever would like kids.

But, much as she detested it, she was starting to sound like a parent. This astonished her as greatly as hearing parental-type admonitions and cajoling fall from Ty’s handsome mouth.

If their circumstance hadn’t been so wearing and worrisome, it might have been amusing.

She and Ty were two people who disliked children and had never expected to have to deal with any.

But here they were, struggling with parental problems such as lack of privacy and setting an example, arguing over a six-year-old and expectations of her capabilities, and, at the moment, trying to hang on to their sanity while confronted with a bored and irritable kid.

Given the same situation, would actual parents have taught their child to play poker and twenty-one? Jenny had to believe they would, even Marguarita.

“Should I raise, call, or fold?” Graciela asked impatiently, tipping her hand toward Jenny while shielding her cards from Ty’s sharp glance.

Jenny sighed and looked up from her book. She’d read the same paragraph ten times. “I told you. I make it a practice never to advise a man how he should play his hand.”

“I’m not a man. I’m a kid. Fold, right?”

Jenny looked into Graciela’s disappointed eyes and nodded. “I’m not telling you what to do, but,” she leaned over the corner of the table to whisper, “you only have a pair of fours. If it was me, I’d fold. Now don’t interrupt me again.”

Graciela tossed her cards on the table with a look of disgust, and watched Ty grin and pull a pile of matchsticks toward his chest. “Let’s play again.”

“Can’t,” Ty said, counting his matchsticks. “It’s almost time for supper.”

Jenny considered abandoning any attempt to read. “Teach her how to play solitaire, will you?” she suggested. “That will give us a break.”

“I don’t want to learn another game, I want to play poker,” Graciela insisted, pushing her mouth into a pout. “And I want to win. Mama and Aunt Tete let me win at games.”

Jenny laughed, and even Ty grinned. “Well, you can forget that. Nobody here is going to ‘let’ you win. The day you win a pot from me or your uncle Ty, you can pat yourself on the back because you’ll have won it honestly.

Until that distant and improbable day, you are going to lose, so just make up your mind to it. Now stop talking, I’m trying to read.”

“Why don’t you read out loud while Uncle Ty and I play another game of poker?”

Jenny narrowed her eyes and sighed. “I read to you this morning. Now I want to read to myself. Maybe I’ll read more to you on the train, but not now. So, shut up.”

Graciela let her shoulders slump and did her best to look utterly dejected. Jenny studied her a minute, then slammed her book shut.

“Since you already feel rotten, this is a good time to remind you that your uncle Ty and I are going out tonight. I don’t want any grief from you about this.”

Graciela’s mouth dropped in exaggerated astonishment, and she stiffened in outrage. “You’re going out without me?”

Ty shuffled the cards and eased them back into the box. “I hired the hotel owner’s wife—you know her, Senora Jaramillo—to stay with you while we’re gone. You won’t be alone.”

“I hate Senora Jaramillo. She’s fat, and she has a mustache. I won’t stay with her, I won’t!”

“Yeah, you will,” Jenny said calmly. “You can scream and shout and cry all you want, but you’re staying here. I told you about this three days ago when I showed you my new gown.”

“I’m going, too!” Her hands formed into fists on the tabletop, and tears streamed down her face. “We own each other. We’re responsible for each other. You have to take me too!”

“Oh for heaven’s sake.” She frowned at Ty’s stricken expression.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she snapped.

“But just remind yourself who the adults are and who the little snot is. If we let her get away with this crap, then she’s right.

She owns us.” She turned a glare back to Graciela. “And that isn’t going to happen.”

“I hate it when you talk about me like I can’t hear you.”

“Graciela, honey,” Ty said in a coaxing voice. “Senora Jaramillo knows how to play poker.”

Jenny noted that the kid didn’t give in right away, but she brightened a little.

Pride insisted that she string out her sulk and make it abundantly clear that she’d been hideously betrayed.

By now, Jenny recognized the ploy, and she almost laughed.

She wondered if she had tried to manipulate the adults in her life when she was Graciela’s age.

If so, she had been as certain of failure as was Graciela.

Ty stood, guilt writ large across his face. “If I take you out for supper while Jenny is getting dressed, will that make you smile?”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “And you said I’m an egg yolk. Look at you. She has you wrapped around her little finger.”

“I’ll get my cape,” Graciela said happily. Shooting Jenny a triumphant glance, she slid off her chair.

“Sucker.”

Ty laughed and settled his hat on his head. “We’ll be back in about an hour. Will that give you enough time to bathe and dress?”

He had performed his ablutions earlier and stood before her tall and heart-stoppingly handsome, wearing tight-fitting black suede pants and a black velvet Mexican jacket over a starched white shirt. The flowing red tie at his collar caught her eye, as she hadn’t seen him wear a tie until tonight.

“You look wonderful,” she said softly, letting her gaze travel along the taut muscle swelling at shoulder and thigh.

A light shudder thrilled down her spine as she thought of the nights they had shared during this week.

Now, they were familiar with each other’s bodies.

She knew he could shatter her with a kiss or a touch.

And she knew she could direct him or stop him with a whisper.

A glint of fledgling power shone in her eyes. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” he answered gruffly, narrowing his gaze on her lips. “I hope you’ll enjoy what I have planned.”

He wouldn’t say more, but the hard promise glittering in his expression spoke volumes. Wherever he planned to take her, she wouldn’t be disappointed.

She wet her lips and swallowed, smiling when she noticed his jaw tighten. “While you’re out, would you check the train schedule? I’m feeling right as rain and ready to head for Texas tomorrow. Graciela? You remind him. It’s time to go.”

Because she was buoyed by the prospect of an evening alone with Ty, it struck her as amusing that Ty soothed Graciela’s fits of temper by offering her a treat whereas Jenny aimed for the same result by assigning a task. The kid, she suspected, was clever enough to see through them both.

After they departed, she ordered up a bath and carefully laid her new gown on one of the beds, letting her fingers linger on the whispery apricot-colored satin.

A month ago the calluses on her palms would have snagged the smooth, embroidered fabric.

Now that she wasn’t driving every day or wrestling cartons of freight, her calluses had faded.

Yesterday, for want of something to do, she had even borrowed Graciela’s file and shaped her nails.

Smiling, she decided that hell had frozen over the minute she applied a file to her thumbnail.

Henceforth, sinners would shiver instead of sweat.

Graciela being Graciela, and knowing about such things, had bought a cake of rose-scented soap, and Jenny borrowed it for her bath, working the fragrant lather against her skin and scalp.

One nice thing about short hair and dry desert air, she decided while toweling off, was how quickly her hair dried. Standing naked before the bureau, she leaned to the small mirror on top and combed her hair back from a center part so it would dry close to her head.

Next she examined an item of clothing she had vowed would never touch her body, a corset.

Laughing at an image of Ty buying such an intimate contraption, she held it up for inspection, flexed the steel bones, and studied the lace and ribbon trim.

At least it hooked up the front. Even so, she doubted she would have worn the evil thing except that Graciela had insisted her gown wouldn’t fit properly without a corset to nip her in here and push her up there.

Once she had assembled and donned her undergarments, she returned to her hair, pleased that it had dried slicked back from her face.

Here her fingers moved with certainty. Though she would have submitted to a whipping rather than admit it, over the years she had secretly experimented with comb and brush.

Hair, her own hair, was a feminine item that she understood.

In a flash, she had pinned a circlet of flowers near the nape, creating the illusion of a bun on her neck.

Next came a spritz of Graciela’s rose cologne, then she hesitated. How foolish would she feel if she patted powder over her cheeks and bosom? Just a slight dusting. Before she could change her mind, she applied powder to her face, throat, and shoulders, then leaned to inspect herself.