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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’?