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to be blessed by her touch—to be granted that salvation she’d alluded to last night when they’d danced. Appalled by the realization, he frowned. He repeated the proposition he’d just made to her.
    “I want you to be my good-luck charm. To be available to me at a moment’s notice before faro games and hands of poker.” He spied her mistrustful expression and added, “I’ll pay you for the privilege, of course. I wouldn’t consider asking you to do this otherwise. It’s only fair that you’re compensated.”
    She made a face. “You really believe in good-luck charms?”
    “I can’t afford not to. Mine is a precarious business.”
    “And you believe I am yours?” She sounded amused. And intrigued. And unexpectedly compassionate, too. Her very presence exuded kindheartedness and care and a certain special exuberance that intrigued him. “Your good-luck charm, I mean?”
    “After I met you,” Cade said simply, “my luck changed.”
    For a moment, Violet Benson gazed across the street that bordered the charity kitchen. Wagons and buggies passed by; the clomping of hooves raised drifts of dust. Those drifts reminded Cade of cigar smoke—and of losing sight of Percy Whittier.
    He might be a fool, it occurred to Cade, to ally himself with the same woman who’d disastrously distracted him from his search for Whittier last night. He hoped he didn’t regret this.
    “If you have enough money to pay me, why do you need luck?” Violet Benson asked astutely. “Why do you need to win at all?”
    That was easy. “Because I don’t gamble to win money.”
    “Then you’re not doing it properly.” She gave a pert smile.
    Unable to resist as he should have done, Cade returned that smile. “I entered the gambling circuit to track down a man I’m searching for,” he explained. “It’s been several years now. I’ve come close. I’ve had clues and false leads and near misses. But I’ve never faced him across a gambling table. I’ve never caught up with him long enough to get what I want from him. To do that, I need to win. I need to get invited to all the best tables. I need to fit in among the men he runs with.”
    “If you plan to kill him, I won’t help you.” Suddenly chilly where she’d once been warm, Violet Benson examined him. “I’ll help Sheriff Caffey track you down, in fact. I have a fair sense of what you look like, as does every other woman in town.”
    This time, Cade smiled more artfully. “I’m flattered by your attention,” he said in a teasing tone. Deliberately, he flashed both dimples. “I have every intention of rewarding it, too, in ways I think we’d both enjoy...very, very much.”
    “Right now,” Violet clarified drily, “I’m memorizing your features so I can help the deputy draw a wanted poster.”
    Hmm. Charming female subjects was something Cade had learned to excel at. Perversely, he felt impressed that Violet Benson appeared too levelheaded to fall for his misdirection.
    “I want answers from him, that’s all.” Cade leveled a square look at Violet. “I want to know why he ran out on his family back East. They loved him and needed him, and he—”
    Unexpectedly, Cade heard his voice break. A powerful sense of bereavement and anger and solitude welled inside him.
    He scarcely knew what to make of it. Irately, he reasoned that Violet Benson and her damnable compassion had caused it. For the second time that day, he wondered if he was making a terrible mistake by coming to her—by trusting her even this far.
    “He must have had a good reason for leaving,” she said in a thoughtful tone, proving his caution was warranted. Naively, she added, “No man would ever abandon his family unless—”
    “ Percy Whittier did .” Hard-faced, Cade stared at her. He needed to hold on to his fury and hurt. It fueled him when he didn’t want to continue searching. He didn’t need Violet Benson’s natural empathy to awaken something soft inside him—something that was