The Baby Gamble (Texas Hold'em)
He shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
“So what brought it on this time?”
Glancing around, Blake focused on a young couple at the back of the room—the only other patrons in the joint. Not many people in this neighborhood needed sustenance at three o’clock on a Monday morning. In another hour, however, the place would be packed with factory workers on their way to their early shifts.
“Just one of those things.” He gave the friendly woman the same answer he always provided. And the grateful smile, too.
“You want your usual?” she asked, smiling back, her eyes filled with more than just a professional welcome.
“Please.”
And when, ten minutes later, she delivered his scrambled eggs and wheat toast, he thought about asking her to dinner sometime.
But, as always, he didn’t.
CHAPTER SIX
ANNIE WAS JUST RIDING away from the River’s Run office on Monday when Becky pulled around the corner. With one foot on the ground to steady her bike, Annie waited while her friend rolled down the Tahoe’s window.
“You got a minute?” Becky asked.She always had time for her friend, especially when Becky wore that concerned frown. While Becky dropped off her weekly column of health tips to Mike Bailey, Annie threw her pack into the passenger seat of the vehicle and unloaded Becky’s bike from the back. Within minutes the two of them were wheeling their way out of town.
“Did you talk to Shane?” That was the first question Annie asked, relaxing for a moment as bits of hair tossed against her forehead in the wind. Becky’s son had still been asleep when Annie had talked to her on Sunday.
“He says it was just a joke.” Becky didn’t sound at all convinced. “He claims that Devin was in the Jeep and that they’d just come from the video store when Katie stopped them and asked for a ride home. Says she had a fight with her boyfriend.”
“You don’t believe him.” Annie slowed her pedaling to stay even with Becky.
With a quick sideways glance, her friend said, “Did you see Devin in that Jeep?”
“No.”
“And the kiss didn’t look like any dare to me.”
Annie hadn’t thought so, either. And she was more worried now than she’d been on Saturday evening. If Shane was lying to Becky, they had bigger problems than just an intimate exchange between the young man who was like a nephew to her, and the out-of-control older girl who lived across the street.
“Did you call Danny?”
Danny was Becky’s ex-husband.
“No.”
“Because Luke’s back in town?”
One of Becky’s feet slid off its pedal. “Of course not.”
Annie sped in front to let a car pass them on the quiet, two-lane country road, and then slowed down until she was beside her again. “Are you sure about that, Bec?” she asked.
When Becky didn’t answer, Annie started to worry in earnest. Luke Chisum had broken Becky’s heart when they were in high school. It had taken Becky years—and cost her a failed marriage—before she’d been able to find the peace and calm she now showed.
“Be careful, Bec,” Annie said, ducking to avoid the branch of a cypress tree.
“Like you’re being careful?” Becky’s quiet comeback was almost lost on the breeze.
They’d reached a hill and Annie concentrated on using hamstrings, as well as quads, keeping her calves loose as she switched to a lower gear and headed up the slope. In jeans and a sweater, she was dressed for the office—this was not a strenuous bike ride, but she didn’t much care.
Riding cleared her mind. Calmed her heart. Which was why she almost never drove the car that was parked in her garage.
And climbing like this, facing the physical challenge head-on, strengthened her. At the moment, she needed all the strength she could get.