Chapter 3: Blackjack
The ceiling of room four had a crack in it that ran from the corner to the center like a dried riverbed. Joseph had been staring at it for what felt like hours, counting the seconds between the creaks of the old building settling, listening to the distant sound of a dog barking somewhere across town.
Sleep wouldn't come.
It rarely did these days. His mind kept circling back to the photograph in his saddlebag, to the face of a woman who had smiled at him with such warmth, such trust. And then to the man who had taken her away.
Joseph swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, running his hands through his hair. The room was dark, but his eyes had adjusted enough to make out the shape of his boots on the floor. He pulled them on, laced them tight, and grabbed his hat from the bedpost.
The night air hit him like a cool cloth on a fevered brow.
Rhodes was quiet in a way that felt almost foreign to him. No gunfire in the distance. No drunken shouts echoing down alleyways. Just the soft whisper of wind through the sagebrush and the occasional chirp of crickets. The moon hung low and fat over the rooftops, casting silver light across the dust-caked streets.
He walked without purpose, letting his feet carry him past darkened storefronts and shuttered windows. The barber shop. The bank. A feed store with a painted sign showing a horse that looked remarkably like the one on the hotel's mule.
Then he saw it. A warm glow spilling from the windows of the Sheriff's Office, cutting through the darkness like a beacon.
Joseph paused in the middle of the street, considering. It was well past midnight. Normal folks were asleep. But the Sheriff—Isabella—had said she often worked late. He found himself walking toward the light before he'd fully made the decision to do so.
The door was solid oak, scarred with years of use, and he knocked twice before he could second-guess himself.
Footsteps. Slow and measured. The latch clicked and the door swung open, revealing Isabella standing in the threshold with a lantern in one hand and her revolver in the other, held low but ready.
She relaxed when she saw him, but only slightly. "Mr. Black. You're out late."
Joseph removed his hat, a reflex he couldn't quite shake. "Couldn't sleep. Saw your light burning and figured I'd see if everything was alright." He paused, feeling suddenly foolish. "Sorry to bother you, Ma’am."
"You're not bothering me." She stepped aside, gesturing for him to enter. "I was just going over some paperwork. Lots of it never seems to go away, no matter how much I get through."
Where the hotel had been warm and welcoming, the Sheriff's Office was utilitarian in a way that spoke to function over comfort. A scarred desk dominated the center of the room, littered with papers and wanted posters.
Two chairs sat across from the desk. A gun rack hung on the far wall. The scent of old leather and gun oil mixed with the faint aroma of coffee that had been sitting too long.
Isabella set her revolver on the desk but within easy reach, then gestured to a chair. "Take a load off if you want."
Joseph hesitated at the threshold in a subtle dance of propriety. "I don't want to keep you from your work."
"You're not." She sat down behind her desk, but turned her chair to face him properly. "Truth be told, I could use a distraction. I've been staring at these ledgers for three hours and I can't make heads or tails of them."
Joseph took the offered seat. A wanted poster caught his eye—a man with a thin face and darker eyes, rewards printed beneath his likeness. Not Colm Bell. Just another soul who'd lost his way.
"Rough day?" he asked.
Isabella let out a soft laugh. "Rough week. Had a cattle rustler trying to move stolen stock through the north pasture. Caught him red-handed, and he had the nerve to act surprised." She shook her head. "Some folks think the law is just a suggestion."
"I've known a few men like that," Joseph said carefully.
Isabella studied him for a moment, her blue eyes catching the lamplight. "And what about you, Mr. Black? You ever have trouble with the law?"
The question hung between them, weighted with implication. Joseph knew he could lie—knew he probably should—but something about her directness made him want to be honest. At least partially.
"Had some trouble finding the law worth following," he said. "But I've never had trouble with it finding me."
Isabella's lips quirked. "That's a politician's answer."
"I'm no politician, Sheriff."
"No," she agreed, her eyes tracing the line of his jaw. "I don't suppose you are."
The silence that followed was comfortable, filled with unspoken questions and shared understanding. Joseph found himself relaxing, his shoulders dropping from the tension he'd been carrying since he'd ridden into town.
He stood, realizing he'd overstayed his welcome. "I should let you get back to your paperwork."
"Isabella."
He paused, looking at her.
"Just Isabella," she said, with a warmth that surprised him. "When we're not in official capacity."
Joseph nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips.
She stood, moving around the desk. "Actually, I was thinking about heading to the saloon for a nightcap. They keep a bottle of decent whiskey under the counter that they don't offer to just anyone." She tilted her head toward him, a hint of challenge in her expression. "Care to join me?"
Joseph blinked. "It's near one in the morning. You sure?"
"I'm the law in this town. I can break curfew if I want to."
He laughed—a genuine sound that surprised even him. "How could I say no to that?"
The saloon was different at night.
Where it had been lively and bustling during the day, now it held a quieter atmosphere. A few lanterns burned low, casting long shadows across the bar. A piano sat silent in the corner. Behind the counter, a gaunt man with a handlebar mustache was polishing glasses with a rag that looked older than the building itself.
He looked up as they entered, nodding to Isabella with the familiarity of someone who knew her well. "Sheriff. You're out late tonight."
"Couldn't sleep, Tom. Figured a drink might help." Isabella slid onto a barstool and gestured for Joseph to take the seat beside her. "Two whiskeys. The good stuff."
Tom raised an eyebrow but didn't argue. He reached beneath the counter and produced a bottle without a label, its amber contents catching the lamp light. He poured two glasses and slid them across the polished wood.
Joseph took a sip and felt the whiskey burn its way down his throat, smooth and warm.
"Good whiskey," he said, turning the glass between his fingers.
"Tom's got connections in Kentucky that he won't talk about," Isabella replied, a hint of mischief in her voice.
Tom grunted from behind the counter, polishing the same glass he'd been working on when they walked in, but said nothing.
A loud laugh echoed from across the saloon as a chair scraped against the wooden floor. Joseph looked over to see a man rising from a card table near the far wall—broad-shouldered, with a thick mustache and clothes that had once been fine but had seen better days.
He crossed the room with the kind of swagger that came from either too much confidence or too much drink. Joseph noted the way he straightened his vest as he approached.
"Sheriff Linton," the man said in a tone meant to be charming but landing closer to wheedling. His eyes flickered to Joseph briefly; then dismissed him.
Isabella's expression barely shifted. "John."
"This is a coincidence, running into you here," John continued, leaning against the bar with one elbow in a pose that looked rehearsed. "I've been meaning to talk to you for a while now. Every time I come by your office, you're either out on a call or busy with paperwork."
Joseph took a measured sip of his whiskey, watching the exchange unfold without interrupting, reading the two of them.
John straightened, puffing his chest out slightly, and there was a tension in his shoulders that betrayed how much this took from him. "Let me take you out, Sheriff. Proper. Dinner. Dancing in Lagras, a picnic, whatever you want."
Isabella opened her mouth to respond.
"You know what," John said, cutting her off with a hurried rush of words. His tone shifted to something lighter, his lips curving into something close to a smirk. "Let's make it interesting. If I win at blackjack, you come out with me."
Isabella's eyes flickered with amusement as she studied him for a long moment—the man who had, by all accounts, been circling her for years, always timing his advances poorly, always misreading her kindness for interest.
"Okay, John," she said.
John's grin split his face as he jabbed a thumb toward the card table in the corner. "Why don't we do this now? No time like the present, right, Sheriff?"
Joseph watched Isabella push her glass aside, catch his eye briefly, and then rise from her stool. Her fingers brushed along the bar. She moved past John toward the edge of a green felt table where a deck of cards was waiting, her stride suggesting she had all the time in the world, whereas John's hurried step betrayed everything.
She sat down, the worn chair creaking under her weight. A quiet confidence radiated from her as she picked up the deck, shuffling with practiced ease, the cards fanning between her fingers like water.
Joseph leaned against the bar in the dim saloon light, one elbow resting on the counter. He watched the scene.
"Is this gambling for a date, or a date for gambling?" Isabella asked, dealing two cards across the felt, the soft slap of each card punctuating her words.
"Either way, I aim to win," John replied, picking up his cards with a confidence that seemed to come from the whiskey he'd been drinking. He fanned them out in his palm and let out a self-satisfied chuckle.
Isabella didn't look at her own hand. Her eyes stayed fixed on John's face, calm and unhurried, as if she already knew what the outcome would be. She waited for him to make his move.
"Hit me," he told her, and she slid another card across the table; he flipped over his hand, grinning wide and lopsided. "Twenty. Beat that."
Isabella set her cards on the table and turned them over in one smooth motion. A king and an ace. Twenty-one. She simply smiled.
John stared at her cards, his grin dissolving as the weight of the moment settled over him.
Isabella's hand hovered over the two bills she'd placed at the edge of the table; she slid them back into her pocket, then stood with an elegance that made the chair scrape softly behind her.
"Same time tomorrow, John?" she asked, but didn't wait for an answer. She walked back to the bar and slid onto the stool next to Joseph, close enough that he could catch the faint scent of her hair. She picked up her glass of whiskey.
Joseph took a sip, turning his glass in his hand as he studied her. A flicker of warmth moved behind his eyes. "You can play, Sheriff."
Isabella smiled, settling back on her stool. "I was dealt good hands all evening. Seems I'm on a lucky streak."
She took a sip of her whiskey, and Joseph found himself studying the line of her throat as she swallowed, the way her fingers curled around the glass. He looked away quickly, focusing on the amber liquid in his own cup.
Tom drifted to their end of the bar, and Joseph reached for his coin purse before she could move, laying a few bills on the counter with a casual gesture through the dim light. "I've got these."
Isabella raised an eyebrow. "You don't have to do that."
"I know. But I want to." He slid the bills toward Tom, who pocketed them and gave a terse nod. "Call it appreciation for the company."
Isabella's cheeks colored slightly, a subtle shift in the lamplight that she covered by raising her glass again. "Well, then. Thank you."
"Don't mention it." Joseph let the silence settle between them, comfortable and easy, the sound of the saloon fading into the background.
Isabella drained her glass and set it on the bar with a soft clink. She slid off her stool and smoothed down her shirt, moving toward the back of the saloon with an easy stride. "I'll be right back. Don't run off on me."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Joseph watched her walk toward the hallway at the back of the saloon, where a sign hung above a door marked WASHROOM. He turned back to his whiskey, swirling it slowly, letting the warmth of the alcohol and the pleasant hum of the evening settle into his bones.
A few minutes passed.
The bartender Tom resumed polishing his glasses, the rhythmic squeak of rag on glass a steady backdrop. A couple of older men played cards in the corner, their voices low and unhurried. The piano sat silent.
Joseph checked his pocket watch. Four minutes. He drummed his fingers against the bar.
The hallway remained dark and quiet. John had been leaning against the far wall, nursing a drink he'd barely touched since Isabella had beat him at blackjack. His eyes kept drifting toward the washroom door with a certain stubborn, drunken focus that Joseph noticed but chose not to engage.
Five minutes. Six.
Joseph set down his glass, about to stand, when a voice cut through the quiet—sharp, indignant, unmistakably Isabella's.
"Let me take you home, Sheriff."
John's voice, slurred and too loud, drifted from the hallway.
"You're drunk, John. Go home." Isabella's tone was firm, edged with the authority she wielded so naturally, but there was a tightness beneath it that Joseph caught immediately.
"You're really pretty, you know that?" John's words were wet, stumbling over themselves. "I can show you a good time. Better than that stranger you brought in here."
Joseph was already moving.
The bar stool scraped against the wooden floor as he rose, his boots carrying him toward the hallway with measured speed. Tom glanced up from his glasses, concern flickering across his gaunt features.
In the dim light of the hallway, John had Isabella cornered against the wall, one hand gripping her arm, his body crowding her space. His head was tilted blearily toward her, a wolfish grin on his face.
She wasn't cowering, wasn't shrinking—her jaw was set, her blue eyes blazing with annoyance, but he had her pinned, his weight trapping her against the wall with a forced intimacy that made Joseph's stomach turn.
"John." Isabella's voice was low and dangerous. "I'm telling you to stop."
John leaned in closer, his free hand bracing against the wall beside her head, and Joseph saw the flash of frustration in her eyes. "Come on now, Sheriff. A woman like you needs a man to—"
"She said stop."
Joseph's voice cut through the hallway like a blade, low and cold, dropping the temperature of the air by several degrees.
John turned his head, his blurry gaze landing on Joseph. He let go of Isabella's arm but didn't step back, his chest puffing out in some pathetic display of bravado. "Mind your business, friend. This don't concern you."
Joseph stepped closer.
His movements were unhurried, almost casual, but there was a coiled tension in his shoulders that spoke to a violence held carefully in check. He moved until he was close enough that John had to crane his neck to meet his eyes, close enough that the smell of whiskey on John's breath mingled with the oil and leather of his own coat.
"Don't make me say it again," Joseph said, his voice quiet and even. No heat. No anger. Just certainty.
The hallway seemed to press in around them, the silence between his words heavier than any shout. John's eyes flickered from Joseph's face to his hands, then back up again, something shifting behind his drunken bravado—a flicker of recognition, of calculation, the sober part of his mind weighing the odds.
John's jaw worked. He opened his mouth, searching for words—
Tom appeared from behind the bar, striding down the hallway with the quiet fury of a man who had seen this scene play out before. He grabbed John's shoulder and spun him around with surprising strength. "Alright, that's enough. You're done for the night."
John sputtered, "Let go of me, you old—"
Tom didn't let him finish. He marched John down the hallway, past Joseph, his grip like iron on the back of John's collar. The saloon doors creaked open, then banged shut with a hollow thud that echoed through the quiet room.
The silence that followed was thick with the memory of the moment, charged with unspent violence and something else.
Joseph turned to Isabella.
She stood in the hallway, shoulders squared, jaw tight, her blue eyes fixed on the doors that had just swallowed John. The steady rise and fall of her chest was faster than she would have wanted to admit.
"Are you okay?" Joseph asked.
Isabella held his gaze for a long moment, her breathing slowly steadying.
"I'm fine," she said. But her voice was tighter than before. "He's drunk. He wouldn't have done anything."
"He grabbed you. Pinned you to the wall." Joseph kept his tone level, letting the words land as simple observation. "That's not nothing."
Isabella's lips pressed together. A flicker of something crossed her face—frustration, embarrassment, or something else she seemed to be deciding whether to share. "He's an idiot when he's drunk. He's never done anything like that before." She paused, looking at Joseph with an unreadable expression, studying the way his anger was still humming beneath a composed surface. "You didn't have to step in."
"Yes, I did."
"You didn't know he wouldn't have a weapon or friends nearby.” She stepped closer, holding his gaze. "Why did you do that?"
Joseph met her eyes, and for a moment, the hallway felt smaller than it was, the distance between them shrinking until he could see the flecks of lighter blue in her irises. "Because it was the right thing to do," he said simply.
His gaze flicked down to her wrist, where faint red marks were starting to bloom against her skin. "He hurt you."
Isabella looked down at her arm and pulled her sleeve down over the marks, almost dismissively, as if she could hide the evidence of them entirely. "It's nothing."
"It's not nothing." Joseph's voice was quiet, firm.
She felt the warmth of his concern. She let out a breath, some of the sharpness leaving her posture.
"I think I've had enough excitement for one night," she said. "I was planning on heading home anyway."
Joseph nodded, stepping aside to give her room to pass. He caught the faint scent of her as she moved by him—soap, gunpowder, something floral beneath it all.
She paused at the saloon doors, turning back to look at him. The moonlight spilling through the windows caught her face, softening the edges of her features, making her look younger than the weight of her badge suggested.
"You coming?" she asked.
The question caught him off guard, and he felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "I wasn't aware I'd been invited anywhere."
Isabella's lips curved into a small, tired smile. "I'm inviting you now.”
Joseph pulled his hat low and crossed the room toward her. He pushed the saloon door open, holding it for her, and the cool night air rushed in to meet them, carrying the scent of sagebrush and dust.
They stepped out onto the boardwalk, and Joseph let the door swing shut behind them. He paused at the edge of the porch, his gaze catching the shape of John slumped against the hitching post across the street, head bowed, snoring softly. And Joseph paused, his weight settling, watching the man's chest rise and fall with each breath.
Joseph stepped off the boardwalk and guided her toward the quieter side of the street, where the lanterns cast a softer glow. The houses here were modest but well-kept, each with its own small porch and patch of garden. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, answered by another in a different direction.
The silence between them was comfortable, but there was an undercurrent to it that Joseph couldn't quite ignore. He found himself acutely aware of the space between their shoulders, the rhythm of their steps falling into sync without either of them noticing.
Joseph noticed the way she seemed to unwind with each step, as if being away from the office allowed her to breathe more easily.
They reached the edge of the residential district, and Isabella pointed toward a modest house at the end of the street. It had a wraparound porch with a swing hanging from the eaves, and a garden that had been attended to with care—roses and daisies, some of them still blooming despite the late season.
"That's me," she said.
Joseph stopped at the base of the stairs, suddenly feeling the weight of the moment presses in around them. The night air was still, the silence between them filled with something unspoken.
Isabella looked at him for a long moment, her eyes searching his face in the moonlight. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth with quiet warmth, and she turned without a word, stepping up onto the porch.
She stopped at her front door, turning to face him. The porch light cast a soft yellow glow over her features.
"Thank you," she said softly. The words were simple, but Joseph could hear the layers beneath them, gratitude for the intervention, and something else he couldn't quite name.
"Anytime, ma'am." Joseph said, his voice gentler than he intended.
She looked at him, and the moment hung there between them. Then she took a step closer, closing the distance until the gap between them was smaller than he'd expected, small enough that he could smell the faint scent of her, like soap and desert wind and something softer he couldn't place.