When the Dark Wins

“Hey, Scylla,” Buckeye answered back with an even more knowing tone. The curvy woman flirted without mercy—or subtlety—every time she happened to be the one answering the door when Buckeye showed up with mail.

The postal carrier let her arms slip around the corset-drawn waist and locked her grip at the wrist. One of these days she’d work up the courage to accept one of Scylla’s relentless offers to go upstairs. Find out if all the rumors about women and tongues were true. Tonight she could just be friendly and enjoy the soft flesh leaning back on her shoulder.

“See, I got you this much closer to the stairs.” The woman teased fingers through Buckeye’s hair with a smirk.

“That’s only because this seat is the furthest from Skinner right now.”

Brother Caleb laughed, a nasal sound, and drew their eyes. Scylla made a small hiss of derision. “Fucking Skinner.”

“I don’t know what she sees in him,” said Buckeye.

“Must be something. Mags always has a reason.”

“She gonna be a good boss, you think?” Buckeye looked at the side of the woman’s face, heart shaped and sorely tempting.

“I think so.” They watched Maggie B slap her palms together, punctuating some joke at which she cackled just as loud as any of her audience. “Miss Rhoda knew what she was doin’. I’m sure she picked right.”

A man stepped past the new madame, heading toward the bar, possibly one of the johns. He didn’t need to pay for it. Not with those shoulders, that scruff of dirty blond stubble. Blue eyes that could stop a truck. But some people had certain things they wanted. Places like The Yellow Rose had all those things.

He caught her staring and cocked a smile.

“He’s lookin’ at you.” Scylla wriggled with mischief. Grabbed up one of Buckeye’s hands and smashed it to her breast. Arched her back with a snicker for the good-looking stranger.

The man chuckled and turned to Cyrus. Asked for a beer of his own.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” Buckeye said, dragging her hand away from a freckled tit and giving the trick a playful jostle of her knee.

The woman giggled, a throaty sound, and leaned in to whisper. “I’ll get you up to my room one of these days, Buckeye Wheeler. And when I do, you’re gonna come so hard for me all the envelopes in your truck’ll come unglued.”

With a nip of teeth at Buckeye’s ear, Scylla lifted herself up and sauntered toward the bar, hips switching to break necks as she went to chat up Mr. Handsome. The mail carrier downed another healthy swig of her drink and shook her head to clear out about a hundred images.

“Maggie!”

Buckeye swiveled in the direction of the holler to see a dark-haired woman’s upper half angling out of the furthest door on the mezzanine. She wore a choker made of antique can pull tabs laced through with leather, but was otherwise topless.

“Mags!”

The madame held up a hand to pause conversation with the Covvie, yelling like everyone else over the music. “Yeah, Dayrene?”

“Can you come up here, please?”

“What do you need?”

“I need you to come up here.” It was a sing-song series of words that rose at the end. Whatever was going on, Dayrene didn’t want to talk about it in front of the crowd.

Maggie gave a tiny head shake and eye roll, and then said something quiet that made the Covvie laugh. When she rounded the end of the bannister to head upstairs, the woman gave Buckeye a couple whacks on the shoulder.

“Good to see you takin’ a load off, Bucks.”

The owner of The Rose thumped up the stairs just as a new song changed up the beat. A few of the tricks exclaimed at what must have been a familiar favorite and, right away, three of them leaped up to dance. Two managed to pull their johns into the open center of the room, and Buckeye smiled to see who knew what they were doing and who was just going along with it.

She didn’t know this song, but the hook of it ground in a sultry way. The lustworkers took full advantage of an opportunity to sell; hips rolling and backs arching everywhere. Against their partners, against each other. Solo and beckoning to a reluctant and still-sitting companion.

“You don’t work here, do you?”

Buckeye sucked in a breath. Dragged her eyes up tan trousers and a shirt about as white as shirts got in this dusty part of the world. Mr. Handsome had materialized to the left of her chair while she’d been paying attention to the dancers.

“I sure don’t.” She grabbed her glass and swallowed down the last of her beer, anything to keep her from sitting there staring at him like an idiot.