He shoved the rest of his chips to the center of the table and gave her a slow nod, thinking maybe it’d scare her off. All in. She met him there.
“Time to show me what you’ve got,” the dealer said.
The woman flipped over her cards. It was a full house—three eights and two sixes. And all he had was a pair of damned twos.
“Eights over sixes,” the dealer said in his monotone, sweeping the chips her way. “The boat wins it. ”
She grinned a yellow tobacco smile as she began to stack Rob’s chips into neat, color-coded piles.
He was bust. It hadn’t been luck he’d had a premonition of—it was disaster. He was done. Nothing left. As it was, he’d need to figure out how to talk his way into a credit for that marker. He calculated his next paycheck—one week till he could pay it all back. What would he do in the meantime? Maybe dip into
Helen’s purse—he’d done it before, God help him.
He checked his watch. Ten A. M. Damn. How had that happened?
The kids would be in school. Or would they? No, it was summer. His oldest would be home doing whatever he did, while Emmett and Ellie Lynn would be at daycare.
Was that right? He tracked his mind back to yesterday. He’d had his shift at the hardware store till seven, which meant it’d been Friday, which made today Saturday—Helen would be working at the tavern, and the kids would be…somewhere.
It meant he needed to get home and get to sleep before she got off her shift and the rest of them returned, one loud bunch, clueless to his crisis. He couldn’t bear to face any of them, and sweet sleep was the easiest road away from the shame. He’d go home and strip and crawl into bed, where he could fall into blackness.
Someday he’d hit his big pot, and then he’d stop. Someday he’d show Helen he was a winner.
Eight
Laura reached the parking lot, panting hard. She’d pushed herself that morning, doing a hilly seven-mile run rather than her usual leisurely four, but not even the scenic route to the old fire road and down around Granite Lake was enough to clear her mind. She slammed her heel onto one of the posts that lined the driveway and leaned over to stretch out her hamstrings.
Eddie. Cute, cocky Eddie. His face swam in her vision, making it go red.
He’d been getting the best of her since they were kids, and here he was again. Him and his construction project. It would put her family’s business under. He claimed it wouldn’t, but she wasn’t stupid. Sure, it might bring new people at first, but eventually Fairview would add a darling gift shop, and then would come the old-timey saloon, and finally they’d build a folksy little diner that felt homey but was really run by the corporation, and eventually tourists would forget the Big Bear Lodge even existed.
But would Eddie listen? No. He only laughed it off. He had that attitude, that guy attitude, the kind that came with being easy and well-liked and hot.
Damn his hot.
She stood tall and grabbed her foot, stretching it behind her to get her quads. Her muscles trembled, and still it wasn’t enough. Because, in addition to her worries about the family business, it was Eddie’s hot she couldn’t get out of her head.
It’d been like that for as long as she could remember. Him flirting with her—flustering her.
The stupid softball game had only reminded her. She hadn’t wanted to play in the first place, and she definitely hadn’t planned on watching him play. What a mistake that had been. She should’ve stayed in the tent, serving beers and slopping out helpings of chili. Helen was a pain, but she was better than Eddie.
He’d always been cute in his bad-boy way, but something had happened on that field, like light shifting through a prism, and all of a sudden there he was…hot. Disarmingly so.
Athletic guys weren’t supposed to be her thing. If she were going to have a man in her life—which she wasn’t—it’d be a millionaire software engineer. Or maybe a high-powered business exec in an Armani suit. Not Eddie in his tool belt.
After all these years, she hadn’t expected to still find him so attractive, but now she couldn’t stop thinking about him, and it annoyed her. It was the last thing she needed. She’d tried to blow it off, thinking how it was just one of those phenomena—put a guy on a field with a ball, or on a stage with a guitar, or in a uniform with pretty much anything, and boom…instant hot.
But then he’d stood behind her at bat.
Her breath hitched at the memory. She did not still feel those solid legs cradling hers, and she definitely didn’t feel that hard stomach at her back, or the tickle of his breath in her ear, his voice a low and sexy rasp…
“Aw, hell. ” She squatted and rose and squatted and rose, feeling the burn in her butt. Exercise was what she needed. It’d been forever and a day since she’d been with a man, and that was the only reason remembering his touch made her feel this strange…tug.
He’d wrapped his hands around hers as she’d held the bat. They were large and tanned and strong and callused from laboring on houses all day. “Dammit. ” There it was again…the tug.
She straightened her legs and flopped in half to touch her toes. With a sharp exhale, she fought to reach her palms all the way to the ground. The stretch danced on the edge of painful, but she pushed it—all she needed was to work out her muscles harder than before and she’d get these traitorous urges out of her system.
A guy was the last thing she needed—especially this guy. She’d put the softball game behind her. She was playing a different game now, and she needed to get her head in it. She’d messed up a job before, and she wouldn’t make that mistake again.