Runaway Read Online Free PDF Page B

cried, shaking her head.
“Mon Dieu alors!
You are here,
chérie. S’il te plaît
, before that German bites my head off! Whiskey for the card players.”
    There were always dozens of card players. “I’m going right now,” Tara promised. “Which table?”
    “You cannot miss it!” Marie promised her. She took the time to pause for a minute, looking Tara over from head to toe. “The German is tall, lean, and very good looking, like a Viking! Then there is Smiling Jack, as sharp—and dangerous—a Frenchman as you may hope to see.” She had been rushing. Cute, dark, petite—and very kind—she stopped suddenly to give Tara a word of advice. “Either one of them,
chérie
, would surely pay you your passage in a single night!”
    Tara shook her head, blushing slightly, amazed that she could still do so. Pretty little Marie couldn’t begin to understand why she didn’t want to sleep with one man one night and make more than she could in two weeks slaving away for Eastwood. To Marie tending to the tableswas nothing more than a way to acquire a good clientele.
    “Well, if you could miss the German or the Frenchman,
chérie
, I promise you will not miss the Americans. One is very young, handsome, and light. And the other”—she paused, smiling—“the other is McKenzie.” She said it almost reverently, with no other description, as if nothing more were needed once the hallowed name was mentioned. It didn’t matter. Tara could surely find the right table from the descriptions Marie had given her already.
    “Well, I’ll try not to miss your McKenzie,” Tara told her, amused.
    “Oh, you won’t miss him!” Marie called, hurrying onward for a tray filled with steaming crawfish. But she paused, looking back. “He’s black Irish, they say, just so you know.”
    Tara paused. “Pardon?”
    Marie sighed with a wistful little sound. “Black Irish, so they tell me. Sometime, years ago, when the English defeated the Spanish Armada, the Spaniards landed upon Ireland before trying to sail home. So now there are these Irishmen with jet-dark hair and coal-dark eyes! As hot blooded as the Spanish plains and as fierce as those ever-fighting Irish. You’ll notice McKenzie, I swear it.”
    Tara smiled, turning away. Marie noticed any man. All he needed was his hair—well, some of his hair—two legs, decent teeth—and plenty of gold.
    She hurried through the bar and found a bottle of whiskey and a number of Eastwood’s short, heavy glasses. When she came back into the main room, the smoke from the fire caused her to pause for a moment and look around. A few sailors sat with their doxies, all laughing the night away in a far corner. Another set of riverrowdies leaned against the far wall, taunting Lisette, Marie’s cousin. Lisette seemed to be doing just fine with the lot of them. There were at least three tables of card players, but Marie had been right.
    She could not miss the table of men that had been described to her. There was the German, just as Marie had described. The Frenchmen, and the Americans. One man seemed just a little bit younger. He had an easy smile. He leaned on an elbow, watching the game.
    Then there was the fourth man. McKenzie.
Black Irish
, Marie had said. It fit him perfectly. She didn’t think that she had ever seen hair so rich or jet in color. In fact, she didn’t think that she’d ever seen any man quite like him. From the moment she discovered the table, she discovered that he had been watching her. His eyes were large, sharp, and so dark that they seemed as ebony as his hair. His features were hard, rugged; a stubborn, determined chin, high, broad cheekbones, ebony, high-arched brows, a long, straight nose, deeply bronzed skin. Yet despite the ruggedness of his face it was a strikingly handsome one. The bone structure was excellent. His mouth was full, wide, sensual.
    And his eyes were intense. As dark as night. And fixed upon her. He caught her stare. A slow smile curved his lips. She