The Baby Gamble (Texas Hold'em)

“I love you.”

“I know, Annie. I love you, too.”

“Call me as soon as you’re done, okay? Sooner, if you need me.”

“Okay, I will. Thanks, Annie, you’re the best.”

“So are you, my friend. So are you.”

Annie rang off and headed back to the bathroom. There was no time like the present to see if her future was going to be anything like Becky’s.

BLAKE CLOSED THE CONDO deal over breakfast, at eight o’clock Tuesday morning. In spite of the fact that he’d looked at his watch every other minute. Annie should have called by now.

Was he going to be a father or wasn’t he?And if not, was he going to try with her again, or leave well enough alone?

He was meeting a prospective client, a referral from Colin, at ten. Should he phone her before then, or continue to wait for her call?

Why hadn’t she called already? Because she’d had bad news? Or good? Or had something prevented her from taking the test at all?

When he realized that he had no idea at this point whether or not Annie would find a positive test good news or bad, Blake put his cell phone back in the case resting against his hip, picked up his briefcase and headed to his next appointment. He had a business to run. A life to live.

Annie would phone him when she was ready.

BLAKE DIDN’T HEAR from Annie all day. For a good part of the time he managed to keep his mind under control, in order to focus on the business at hand. He’d had a lot of practice at it.

But by late that afternoon, he’d run out of self-control. He tried several times to reach her, and when she didn’t pick up, he finally dialed Cole, who hadn’t heard from his sister in two days.“How you doing, buddy?” Cole asked, as he had each day since Friday night’s episode, managing to find various pressing reasons to call.

“Good. Yourself?” Blake asked.

“All right. Ron was after me about joining the game tomorrow night.”

“So invite him. We work around him.”

“My mother’s trying to rope me into building a new dais for Santa for the church bazaar next month.”

“Remind me to stay away from June!”

“Yeah,” Cole grunted. “So, you’re good?”

“I’m fine, Cole.” If he hadn’t been so uncomfortable with the attention, Blake would have been amused. “Really. It’s under control.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Just sorry as hell I caught your face. How’s the shiner?”

“Gone. Wasn’t much. And I was a fool for getting in your way,” Cole said. “It was clear you weren’t there. I don’t know what I was doing.”

“You were trying to help.”

And that was precisely why Blake had to live alone. He’d slugged his best friend. It made him sweat, to think of the damage he could have done. What if it had been Annie? Or, God forbid, their child? What if he’d broken Cole’s nose? Or done more serious damage?

“Becky said you probably saw the symptoms coming.”

“I pushed myself too hard.”

“And if it hadn’t been just me, if there’d been someone else around, someone you might, say, hurt with your superior strength, you would have made different choices about pushing so hard.”

Of course. He managed responsibly….