The Baby Gamble (Texas Hold'em)

Annie was blinking tears from her eyes, furious with herself, with Blake, with a fate that would show her the magnitude of love, only to dangle it just out of reach, when she rounded the corner to her street minutes later and noticed someone stumbling about in her front yard.

Someone young. Male. With dark hair. In Wranglers, a T-shirt and sneakers. No sweater, in spite of the sixty degree weather. She knew him.

“Shane?” she asked, sliding to a quick halt and hopping off her bike. “What’s wrong?”

The young man’s skin was pasty looking. His eyes were big, his pupils distorted. He took a step and almost fell.

“I don’t feel so good.” His slurred words made her bristle, even as Annie’s heart went out to Becky’s son.

“You’ve been drinking, huh?” she asked, slipping an arm around his back, intending to get him inside—and sober—before his mother saw him. Becky would hear about this. Annie just didn’t want her friend to see it.

Bec already had too much on her plate. Too much she ate herself up with guilt about.

“N-no, Annnnnie,” he stuttered. “I ssswear.”

He stumbled again, falling into her with a whoosh of breath against her face, and the first bit of alarm raced through her. She’d been around drunk people enough times to know that their breath reeked. And that they didn’t usually stutter.

Maybe Shane wasn’t drunk.

“What did you take?” she asked, brusque with worry and a need to get help in case his life was in danger.

“N-notth-thing,” he said, his eyes wide and frightened as he leaned against her. And Annie believed him. His pupils were dilated. That couldn’t be good.

“C-c-c-ould you c-call my mom?” His stutters were getting worse.

Annie had to get him inside. And call for help. Cell phone at her ear, she did both at once.

“BLAKE, GOOD TO SEE YOU.” Dr. Elizabeth Magnum shook his hand, joining him at the conversation pit in her downtown San Antonio office Monday evening. “It’s been awhile.”

The doctor was in her late fifties, with short salt-and-pepper hair and broad shoulders, and Blake found her comforting to be around. As did hundreds of other people, if her extensive client base was anything to go by. She wore no jewelry. Not even a wedding ring. He had no idea if she was married, had family or lived alone as he did.“Thanks for working me in.” Pursing his lips, Blake sat in his usual chair, across from the doctor’s corner of the couch. “I thought I was better.”

“You are better. Amazingly so.”

He loosened his tie. “My night stalker has returned.”

“Are you taking your Desyrel?”

“For the last two nights. Fifty milligrams.” The sleep aid’s minimum dosage.

“And before that?”

Hands on the arms of the chair, Blake focused on relaxing his muscle groups, one at a time. “Not for about six months.”

“With no problems sleeping?”

“They were minimal.” He’d been experiencing bouts of insomnia since he was a kid—probably since his parents’ car accident, but he didn’t know that for sure. Those he could deal with.

“How are you doing with the alcohol consumption?”

“No problems at all.”

“And depression?”

“I’m good there.” Never had had much of a problem in that area, if you disregarded those first couple of months he’d been back in Texas—and that had been completely understandable. He’d lost a child, a wife and an uncle in one fell swoop.

Dr. Magnum looked down at the folder in her lap, as though checking Blake’s records—except that the blue file was still closed. “You know the three categories of symptoms,” she said. “Tell me where you’re at.”

“Flashbacks had lessened, but I’ve had a few lately. One episode of completely reliving the event—felt as if I was there, was shocked to come out of it and find that I wasn’t.” Category one. “A guy in my poker game recently returned from Iraq. We met for drinks last week and he talked some. I’m not going to Wednesday night’s game. Have twice picked up the phone to bow out of the game permanently. Haven’t been able to read even so much as a headline about Iraq all week.”