Tempter by Nancy A. Collins Page A

to keeping Tee’s naked warmth beside him. He yawned and closed his eyes...
    And fell into someone else’s life.
    In his right hand he held a smoldering cigar, in the left were playing cards. Men dressed like extras from Gone With The Wind , only not as clean, surrounded him. The man seated directly opposite him was dressed in a silver brocade vest. Rossiter stared at their muttonchops and waxed mustaches.
    Silver Vest scowled at the cards in his hand, a foul-smelling cheroot clamped between yellow, crooked teeth. A woman in a low-cut floor-length dress, her hair adorned with brightly colored ribbons, leaned over Silver Vest’s shoulder. Silver Vest growled something under his breath and shrugged her off. The woman pouted but did not leave his side.
    He was aware than the other men at the table were watching him, their cards abandoned
    alongside piles of lacquered wooden chips. “Well? What’s it going to be?” Although the words came from his mouth, it was not Rossiter’s voice.
    Silver Vest glowered at him. “This hand stinks, Legendre.” There was no mistaking the accusation in his eyes.
    “Then you fold, monsieur ?”
    “Did I say anything about folding, coon-ass?”
    Rossiter’s spine stiffened, although he was uncertain why he should feel insulted. “I am no more a Cajun, monsieur , than you are a nigger!” he replied sharply.
    “I don’t give a hoot in a hail storm what you are. All I’m saying is that this hand ain’t worth shit. Just like the last three hands you dealt. Ain’t that right, boys?” Silver Vest looked to his fellow gamblers for support, but none were willing to meet his gaze.
    “What is it, exactly, that you are accusing me of, monsieur ?”
    Silver Vest looked like he was about to bite his cheroot in two. “Accuse, hell! I’ll come out and say it to your face, you god-damned cheatin’ coon-ass!”
    Rossiter pulled the revolver from his jacket and fired it with ease of a practiced duelist. Silver Vest’s forehead disappeared, splashing brains and blood onto the whore with the ribbons in her hair. The other players at the table quickly fled the scene, leaving only Rossiter, the whore, and what was left of Silver Vest in the salon.
    He got to his feet and walked around the table to where the body lay sprawled on the floor. He languidly waved the pistol back and forth to clear the blue-gray smoke from the air. The whore gave a single, piercing scream as she stared in horror at the body of her slain paramour. Rossiter clucked his tongue and plucked a brightly colored chip from the poker table.
    “This should take care of the inconvenience, cherie ,” he said, slipping the poker chip into her bloodstained cleavage.
    “Alex! Alex, wake up! You’re having a nightmare!”
    Tee shook Rossiter’s shoulder as hard as she dared, but he continued to make the same weird, muffled cries that had awakened her.
    “Alex! Wake up!”
    Rossiter’s lids flew open. His eyes stared about wildly, jerking back and forth in their sockets. “Thank goodness you’re awake!” she sighed in relief. “You were having one hell of a nightmare!”
    Rossiter stared at Tee as if he had never seen her before, and then a horrible recognition seemed to fill his eyes, twisting his face into a mask of loathing. He grabbed her by the throat with the speed and strength of a snake striking a rabbit. She tried to scream, but all she could manage was a strangled shout. She struggled to break his grip, pulling both of them off the bed.
    Rossiter awoke the moment he struck the floor. He rolled onto his back, rubbing his eyes and groaning as if recovering from a bender. He sat up and looked around, a quizzical expression on his face. “What happened? How’d I end up on the floor?”
    Tee stood naked in the doorway, a butcher knife clutched in one trembling hand. Tears were running down her face. “Get out of my house.”
    “What’s going on?”
    “Get out!” She grimaced in pain as she raised her voice. There