The Baby Gamble (Texas Hold'em)

But she didn’t take back the words.

SHE HAD TO TELL HIM. Had to talk about it. But she just wasn’t ready. Couldn’t find the language. Or even land on solid thoughts.

“Everything just keeps drifting away,” she said, too worn-out to find it odd that here she was, at nine o’clock at night, leaning against the chest of the ex-husband she’d said she could never be with again.The one who wouldn’t let himself be with her.

“Where yesterday I had a plan, a value system, a firm understanding of right and wrong, justice and injustice, smart living and poor choices, today I’m not sure of anything.”

“Sure you are.” Blake’s voice was soft, reassuring, and so confident that she wished she could climb right inside him and simply hold on. “You value love,” he said. “Which means you value the people you love.”

Yeah. He was right about that.

“And injustice is when someone is hurt, most particularly when that someone seems the least deserving of pain.”

Okay.

“Right is being kind. Thinking of others. Wrong is thinking only of your own interests at the risk of taking from or hurting other people.”

Yes.

“Smart living is caring for the people you love, which includes you. Tending to them physically, emotionally and mentally.”

Right.

“And poor choices are any that take you away from that.”

Lying there against Blake, hearing his voice reverberate in his chest, she couldn’t help wondering where this man had come from.

Not because of the things he said, but because he was saying them. And she told him so.

“A man tends to change some when he’s stripped of everything, when he’s lying on rock bottom and has no way to get up.”

She’d always felt Blake was deep, had loved that sense about him, had drawn great security from knowing that there was so much to him.

“I spent four years locked away by myself, Annie. I learned to value conversation.”

“You’re still quiet a lot.”

“I’m naturally reticent, you know that,” he admitted. “I like to listen. To assess. Makes me more comfortable. But at the same time, I’ve grown to value the ability to express my thoughts where I think they might be useful.”

“You’ve always done that in business.”

“Yes.”

“So tell me about it, Blake. Tell me about those years.”

He was quiet for a while and Annie hoped he was collecting his thoughts, determining how best to give her the information she sought.

“I can’t, honey.” His reply disappointed her, more now because of the changes in him.

“Maybe someday I will, but for now…”

She sat up. “It’s okay, Blake, I understand.”

“No, Annie, I don’t think you do.”

The sad tone in his voice got her attention. His gaze mirrored the tone. “It’s not that I’m choosing not to tell you, exactly. It’s that I know if I do, I risk another episode like the one you witnessed on Friday. Becky told you that I know the signs—that I can tell when one is coming.”

Hanging on to the words he was giving her, Annie nodded.