Canyon City, Colorado

Late summer 1867

Out of money, out of luck, alone, and frightened, the girl known as Evening Star did the only thing she could think of to stay at the saloon’s poker table.

She bet herself.

But first Eve shuffled the deck with dazzling speed, subtly arranging the cards as she had been taught to do by Donna Lyon. While she worked, she tried not to look at the dark-haired stranger who had sat down at her table without warning. The man’s hard good looks were unsettling.

Outlaws like Raleigh King and Jericho Slater were enough for any girl to deal with. She didn’t need a handsome stranger to make her sore hands shake.

Eve took a secret, steadying breath and said, «Five-card draw. Table stakes. Ante up.»

«Just a minute, little lady,» Raleigh King objected. «You’re busted. Where’s your ante?»

«Sitting right here.»

«Huh?»

«I’m the ante, Mr. King.»

«You’re betting yourself?» Raleigh asked in disbelief.

Reno Moran didn’t have to ask. He had read the determination in the girl’s posture when he sat down and took cards. It had been her combination of steady eyes and slightly trembling lips that had lured him across the room.

Whatever happened, he knew she meant every word.

«Yes, I’m betting myself.»

Eve glanced at the jewelry and coins stacked around the table in front of each man.

«I’m worth as much as anything any one of you has now,» she added.

Then she smiled a brilliant, empty smile and continued shuffling.

Silence spread out from the poker table, followed by a rush of whispering as the other men in the room asked one another if they had heard correctly.

The whispers told Reno that a lot of men had wanted the girl, but none had gotten her. A cynical smile shifted the line of Reno’s black mustache. There was nothing new in that particular game. Girls had been teasing and promising and then withholding their bodies for a long time.