The Baby Gamble (Texas Hold'em)

Then he helped her, waiting for her moans of pleasure, the deepening tone that told him she was close. And when she got there, when he felt her start to pulse around him, Blake slid into her one more time, held himself there and offered a silent prayer of thanks.

A BABY LAUGHED. Feeling strong, capable and knowing, Annie moved toward the sound, aware that she couldn’t touch the child, couldn’t speak to it or interact in any way. She was there simply to watch over. To protect and guide. Not to be known. There was a woman with the child: her friend Becky. Annie smiled, only a little sad as Becky scooped up the baby, hugging her to her breast, kissing her neck, inhaling her sweet scent. Becky was truly happy, and that was good. She loved her little girl. She was content and at peace and hopeful. She was looking forward to that evening, when she and her husband were celebrating their second anniversary. Annie sensed her feeling these things. She wanted to reach out to her old friend. To let her know she was there. That all would be well. To tell Becky that she had another fifty years with the man she adored. And that even when they died, they’d be together still.

But she couldn’t. It was against the rules to interfere. She might lose her position if she tried to spoil the way life must unfold. And this job was too precious to her. Too vital. She was who she was meant to be. An angel. Watching over all. Never to be loved for herself. But always to love…The movement startled her, jerking Annie from a warm, if slightly bittersweet place, making her forget, even as she remembered the strange dream. And then, fully awake, she remembered too much.

Blake. Lying in his arms as she fell into an exhausted sleep. Completely peaceful. Having loved with her whole heart.

He was leaving her. She watched him in the shadows as he collected his clothes from the floor, stepping into them quietly. She had no idea of the time; her clock was still out on the living-room floor. But she knew the night had to be at least half-over.

And Blake didn’t have a car here.

“Let me drive you,” she said softly, sitting up.

He jerked around, and she knew he’d wanted to go without waking her. Without facing her.

“I need the walk.”

“Not at three in the morning,” she said, having glanced at her watch as she switched on the light.

Blinking, Blake shook his head. “I’m not having you get up and go out at this time of night,” he told her. “I don’t want you out driving alone.”

He could follow her back. They both knew that. Just as she knew that Blake needed to get away from her now. She wanted to understand why. Tried not to be hurt by the knowledge.

And didn’t really succeed at either.

“My keys are in the tray in the kitchen,” she told him, lying back down and turning off the light. “I don’t need the car until Saturday.”

Blake hesitated, and she was afraid he was going to refuse even this little bit of her help. And then he nodded and she relaxed against the pillows.

“Thanks,” he said. And without so much as another look back, let alone a kiss or a hug, or a promise to come again, he left the room.

Lying there alone, Annie listened for the sound of her keys being picked up, heard him open and close the door leading into the garage. Waited while he started her car and drove away.

And then she cried herself back to sleep.

JUNE STOPPED BY THE River’s Run office on Friday morning to ask Annie if she had time for lunch. It was a regular occurrence between mother and daughter. June asking. Annie declining, and feeling as if she’d done them both a favor. She let June feel she was doing her part as a mother without holding her accountable for any motherly deeds.

“Please, Annie,” June said that morning. “I’m worried about you. Can’t you spare half an hour and split a sandwich at the Longhorn with me? Just long enough to talk for a bit?”If Annie hadn’t been so tired, she might have been better able to ward off the confusion that swamped her at the unexpected switch from their established routine.

“I’m fine, Mom, really,” she said, trying to understand what the expression on her mother’s face meant. It reminded her of something, and for a long time she couldn’t place it.

But late that afternoon, long after June had left to have lunch by herself, it came to Annie. She knew why that look on her mother’s face had been so familiar. It was the same expression she’d seen on her own face the night before. In the dream that had been interrupted by Blake’s departure.

The look of an angel, glancing down with compassion and tenderness and the promise of infinite love for those in her care.

And that made absolutely no sense at all.

WHEN BLAKE CALLED ANNIE on Friday evening, asking if he could drive her to the hospital to exchange cars, she wasn’t surprised. She’d been waiting to hear from him.

And when, after the exchange, he followed her home and into her house, she wasn’t surprised, either.She’d known he would. That he’d be back in her arms again that night. She offered him a glass of wine.

He declined.

An omelet.

He declined that, too.

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” she said. “You want to order a pizza or something?”