A Wife in Time (Silhouette Desire) by Cathie Linz Read Free Book Online Page B

watched in silence as Kane gathered up his winnings. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he told his fellow poker players. “It’s been a very pleasurable experience.” He shot a fiery look at Susannah as he said that.
    “Wait, sir,” J.P. protested. “You must give us the chance to recoup our losses.”
    “Another time, perhaps,” Kane replied. “I must see to my wife’s health. Could one of you recommend a respectable boardinghouse nearby?”
    “There’s one two blocks away,” J.P. said. “Turn right once you get outside. You can’t miss it.”
    “Thank you.” With a nod, he returned Susannah’s jewelry to her before taking her arm and gallantly escorting her out of the tavern.
    Once outside, she gratefully inhaled the fresh air. Turning to face him, she said, “Fits? I’m prone to fits?”
    “I had to tell them something.”
    “You didn’t have to kiss me!”
    “Yes, I did. They were getting suspicious. I had to distract them.”
    “Yes, well...” She floundered, the truth being he’d distracted her and how! “You’re just lucky things worked out as well as they did.”
    “Luck had nothing to do with it,” he replied, stashing the remainder of the nineteenth-century money in his inside coat pocket before taking her arm and setting off at a brisk pace.
    “Are you saying you cheated?” Susannah demanded, struggling to keep up.
    “Of course not.”
    “Then what did you mean?”
    “That I’m an experienced poker player.”
    “Sure, you are. And that was why you were losing?”
    “Exactly. I was baiting the hook and they snapped.” Seeing her look of disbelief, he added, “Look, I’ve had a lot of experience testing software and one of the programs I designed a number of years back turned out to be the bestselling poker program on the market today. So trust me when I say that I knew what I was doing back there, okay?”
    “No, it’s not okay!” Susannah couldn’t help herself. She socked him on the arm.
    “Ow! What was that for?”
    “For scaring me to death and not warning me what you were up to ahead of time!”
    “And have you spill the beans by the look on your face? No way. Instead everything worked out just as I’d planned. You looked panic-stricken and that certainly helped our cause.”
    She couldn’t help wondering if kissing her had been part of his master plan. Somehow she rather doubted it. He’d seemed as stunned as she was by the desire that had flared between them.
    Rather than dwell on his kiss, she quickly latched on to another subject. “Wait a second. Why are we going this way? The man at the table told us that the boardinghouse was two blocks the other way.”
    “I checked with Jed, the bartender, ahead of time. That boardinghouse is a dump. But don’t worry about a thing. I’ve got another place in mind. It’s only about a fifteen-minute walk from here.”
    Five minutes of that time was spent trying to catch her breath at the fast pace he was setting. Her rented velvet dress felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. “If you’d already spoken to Jed, then why did you ask those men about a boardinghouse?”
    “Because I wanted them to think that’s where we’d be staying in case one of them got the bright idea of trying to recover their money by stealing it back.”
    “Suspicious, aren’t you?”
    “I prefer cautious,” he replied.
    Susannah was both cautious and suspicious when she discovered, ten minutes later, the next surprise Kane had up his sleeve.
    “I’ve already rented us a room,” he declared.

Three
    “A room. As in one?” Susannah repeated in disbelief, her hand on his arm pulling Kane to a halt beside her. After having had him literally kiss her senseless a few minutes ago, she knew darn well that sharing a room with him would be too...tempting. Too dangerous to her peace of mind, she immediately corrected herself. “We’ll need two rooms.”
    “I agree. We need two rooms.”
    “Good.”
    “Unfortunately we only have enough money