The Baby Gamble (Texas Hold'em)

With a trembling smile this time, June nodded and followed Annie back to the kitchen.

BLAKE WAS DEALING the draw just after nine Wednesday night when Cole Lawry’s cell phone rang. Instantly on edge, fearing something had happened to Annie, he stopped midturn and listened.

In a matter of seconds, all of the Wild Bunch and the guests filling up the empty chairs that evening were watching Cole, listening to his end of the conversation.And when he hung up the phone, every single man there, without saying a word, threw in his cards. The game was over for the evening.

Verne Chandler had just passed away.

“IT’S HARD TO UNDERSTAND exactly how the mind works in times of emotional stress,” June was saying as her fingers played with the edge of the napkin Annie had placed by her teacup half an hour before. “Or why it’s different for different people.”

“But you knew what Dad did…his choice…wasn’t your fault,” Annie said. Even as she said the words, she was angry with herself for the double standard she’d held all these years. Her mother had been the quintessential wife, supportive through good times and bad, patient

. Laughing with her husband through his good times—and supporting, encouraging him, pulling him up when he fell into the darkness.She’d loved Annie’s father with every ounce of her being.

Which was why she’d taken his death so hard. Grieved for years, at the expense of the children he’d left behind.

Wasn’t that it?

It had never occurred to Annie that her mother might have blamed herself. But why not? If a thirteen-year-old girl could take the blame, why couldn’t a grown woman? One who was closest to him?

Annie had been through all the counseling. Understood that the loved ones left behind to grieve suicide victims almost always went through some stage of guilt.

So why had that never applied, in Annie’s mind, to her mother?

“I assume Reverend Wayne set you straight on that,” she said now, still angry. With herself. And maybe with her mother, too. Why hadn’t June been home, sharing all of this with her children? Why hadn’t they been able to grieve, and heal, together? As a family?

June’s gaze fell, her lips straightening, as she shook her head. “Reverend Wayne was asked to leave the church, did you know that?” she murmured, seemingly from left field.

“Since he was transferred, you mean?”

“No.” June looked at her, and Annie hardly recognized the steady look in her eyes. The determination. “He wasn’t transferred. He was asked to leave.”

“Fired?”

June nodded.

“Way back when Reverend Mary came?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Suddenly aware that she was going to hear something significant, Annie wasn’t sure she was ready.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“WAYNE RICHARDS WASN’T a bad man,” June said, and Annie instantly believed he was. Before she even knew what her mother was going to tell her. He’d brought the slump back to June’s shoulders, and that was enough for Annie to dislike the man.

“What’d he do?” She couldn’t wait for an answer before she said, “He didn’t molest you, did he?”“No.” June’s smile was bittersweet. “I almost wish he had.”

“What? Why?”

“Something like that would have been easy to identify. To put a name to, to understand, to see.”

“But…”

“Wayne was a power junkie.” June’s voice took on an odd note—one of a gentle strength, as though it had been hard-won and still wasn’t sure it belonged where it had ended up. “And I was a perfect target for his addiction.”

Annie poured more tea for both of them, wanting to take her mother’s hand, as she had Becky’s the other night, but not quite sure how to do that. How to cross the years of separation she’d erected between them.

“The more he kept me weak, the stronger he felt,” June said.