The Baby Gamble (Texas Hold'em)

“You call, and I’ll go pick it up,” he replied, retrieving his keys from the counter where he’d dropped them.

He could provide his own dinner. And dinner for her. He couldn’t accept something she made for him. She got that, too.

“We have to talk about the baby.” Biting into a piece of pizza that she didn’t want at all, Annie forced herself back to reality. To the life that she was going to have to start living again.Blake stopped, a piece of pizza halfway to his mouth. “You already know you’re pregnant?”

She couldn’t tell if he was relieved, horrified, or if he even cared at all. “There are some over-the-counter tests that claim they can tell three days after conception, but no, I don’t know I’m pregnant.”

Annie couldn’t help remembering the last time they’d done this—discussed a baby they’d made together. And how very different, and yet completely the same, it was. Blake hadn’t shown much emotion then, either. Not even when she’d told him that she’d been to the doctor and knew for sure that they were finally going to have the baby they’d been trying for.

When he’d left on that business trip, she hadn’t even been certain that he wanted the child she was carrying.

“The results really aren’t going to be accurate unless I wait a couple of weeks.” She wasn’t sure why she continued to speak to him about things he clearly had no interest in.

“So we’ll talk then.”

And that was that. Regardless of the million and one questions rattling around in Annie’s brain.

Things such as, If I am, are you really going to insist on some kind of shared parenting arrangement? Am I going to have you skating around the perimeter of my life forever?

Tempting me to invite you into my bed forever?

Am I always going to hurt like this?

They were questions she couldn’t ask. Not because he wouldn’t answer them, although she suspected that he wouldn’t, but because she couldn’t have him know how out of control she really was.

And that night, after Blake loved her, and left without fallin

g asleep in her arms as she’d invited him to, she knew she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with the feelings of abandonment he always caused.

Their lovemaking interlude had been an incredibly precious three days. And now it was over. She would not be inviting Blake into her bed again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“MR. SMITH, you got a minute?”

Blake dropped the proposal he’d been reading, leaving behind the fine print with regret, as his new semi-employee approached him Monday afternoon. Blake had been fully engaged, focused, in the realm where he was confident and sure and had complete faith in himself.“Sure, Colin.” He waved the young man in, indicating a seat across from his desk. Still not completely sure why the young man was there, or why he’d allowed him to stay, Blake was somewhat curious as to what the college graduate would have to say.

“I found that horse.”

He hadn’t expected that. “You did.” Impossible. Or nearly so. Folks spent years looking at breeders, bloodlines, wins. Assessing data and percentages, visiting farms, scrutinizing sires and mares, living conditions and owners, before they even considered spending the kind of money Blake had been talking about when he’d sent Colin on a search for a possible horse for Brady Carrick.

“It’s the perfect horse,” the young man said, the same passion in his voice now as he’d had when he’d sold himself to Blake. “It’s in Dallas.”

“You can’t buy a horse sight unseen,” Blake said, enamored enough with the boy’s enthusiasm to be willing to have patience, to teach him a thing or two.

“I’m not suggesting that anyone do that.”

“We can’t recommend him to the Carricks, sight unseen.” Blake made his point more clear.

“I wouldn’t suggest that, either, sir.”

“Then…”

“I drove up to Dallas over the weekend,” Colin surprised him by saying. “It’s a seven-month-old weanling that isn’t even broke to bridle yet. He’s the one. I’m telling you, sir, I know he’s the one.”

Blake didn’t know any such thing. But hand on his chin, he sat back, assessing his new employee, wondering what quirk of fate had sent him to Blake, and whether or not he was going to be a gift or a curse.

“Go on,” he said, in deference to the fact that he didn’t yet know which Colin was.