Ignited (Roman Holiday 5)

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

“What do you want, a four-star meal?”

“I don’t. But Mike’s been getting brochures from those all-inclusive resort places. I think we’re going to try one in the Bahamas.”

“So you’re not coming back even if I save it?”

“Not this year.”

When she didn’t respond, he added, “We’ll be sorry to miss the company, though. You and Esther and them.”

She tossed her cards down, childish in her disappointment. “No matter what I do, it’s pointless.”

“No, it ain’t.”

“I thought I’d fix it up some. Attract new people, too. I mean, I know it won’t always be exactly the same. I know that. But I want to keep it the same for a while. In Grandma’s memory, you know? I think she’d like that.”

“Hmm.” He pointed at the pile of matchsticks. “Your bet.”

Ashley reluctantly picked up her cards and looked them over—red, black, clubs, diamonds. She tried to breathe. The matches were vibrating. Her leg, jiggling under the table.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

She wasn’t even sure what she meant.

At the fire pit, Michael whooped. Smoke swirled around Roman, whose palms rubbed back and forth on the stick, spinning it. Spinning. He bent sideways, low to the ground, and blew, squinting against the sting.

A flame flickered into being.

Without thinking, she was on her feet. She’d spilled her cards on the table, flipping a few of them faceup. Straining to see. Elated that he’d done it.

Stanley glanced at the fire. Then at her face.

“Thought I taught you to bluff better than that,” he said mildly.

The back of her neck went hot. “We’re not …”

He waved his hand at her. I don’t want to know.

She sat back down, and they returned to the game.

She lost. Lost again.

She was running out of matchsticks. And excuses.

“Did you know she’d sold?” she blurted.

He shook his head.

“Did you know she was sick again?”

He lifted his seamed face. “We weren’t that close.”

“I don’t understand it.”

“You should talk to Esther.”

Her grandmother’s other best friend, Esther, lived in Wisconsin. She was Mitzi’s opposite—grandmotherly where Mitzi was sleek and sexy, conservative where Mitzi was permissive. “You think she knows something?”