Chapter 10

Brett stirred the simmering sauce, but his mind wasn’t on whether or not he needed more basil or oregano. His mind was on the woman presently on the phone in her office. He hadn’t been thinking, when he’d invited Kirby to go to the store with him, about her small town, the folks in it, and what they might have to say to her stepping out with her only guest. Not that hitting the grocery store together was like a candlelit dinner for two, but why would she be shopping for the ingredients for one with a paying guest if that wasn’t her intention?

No, all he’d been thinking about was spending more time with her before she latched on to whatever grip she was clearly looking for and stopped spending time with him. He was her source of income at the moment, and he hadn’t discounted that she might be willing to play tagalong for that reason alone. But what had happened right over there next to the fridge, and in her shower, made him think otherwise.

Plus, she was too straightforward for that kind of subterfuge. She was such a refreshing change from the life he’d led, one that demanded straight faces and a lot of bluffing. He didn’t think Kirby was capable of pulling a bluff. Everything she was thinking was out there to see. Good and bad. And, in the store, he could tell that she’d felt a bit put on the spot, having to figure out how to play off their joint venture. He wished he’d planned things a bit better…but his thoughts had been on getting her on the back of his bike-and wrapped around him. He didn’t want to put her in a bad spot…but he didn’t want her finding excuses for walking away just yet, either.

But where the bike had been a great idea…the store, and the folks in it, not as much. On the bike ride back she’d kept things more chaste. And before he could set her up next to him with a cutting board and a good chopping knife, the phone had started going off and she’d had to go take what was presumably a business call. She’d disappeared into her office shortly after answering the phone. Which was where she’d been ever since.

Hiding? Or taking a particularly difficult call?

He turned the pan down to simmer and thought maybe he’d go find out, when his own cell phone hummed on the clip on his belt.

There was only one person who’d be calling him. He checked the read-out anyway and smiled before answering it. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“That’s what I was calling to find out,” Dan said. “You on radio silence? Something up?”

“Not in the way you mean,” he said, thinking he’d been more up in the past twenty-four hours than he’d been in the past twenty-four years. “I was going to call you later this evening. How is everything out there?”

“Fine, good. You all done with the Brett Hennessey USA tour? Coming home anytime soon?”

“I-I’m not sure. That’s what I stopped here to figure out.”

“And here is exactly where?”

“Pennydash, Vermont.”

Dan chuckled. “Right. Because you suddenly had a craving for snow and wanted to learn to ski, desert boy?”

“I hope not,” he said with a chuckle. “There’s no snow here. It’s a warm winter in New England.”

“Ah.” Dan paused, then said, “So, what’s her name, then?”

That caught Brett off guard and he took a moment too long to respond. Not that he knew what he’d have said. And not that he wouldn’t tell Dan about her, just…he hadn’t figured out what he was thinking about her just yet.

Dan hooted. “Wow. And the best bluffer in the world can’t even pull off a simple denial. She must be something.”

Brett fought a brief internal battle, then said, “She definitely is that.”

There was another moment of silence, then Dan said, “You’re not kidding, are you?”

“I haven’t kidded about anything now in quite some time. If you didn’t really want to know, you shouldn’t have-”

“Whoa. No, I want to know. Everything, actually.” There was a short whistle, followed by another laugh, only this one sounded kind of stunned.

“Is it so impossible to believe?” Brett asked, both amused and a little surprised.

“That a woman would go for you? No. Assuming she’s breathing, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. That you noticed? Yeah, that surprises me.”

Now Brett smiled. “It was hard not to notice.”

“That hot, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“How did you meet her?”

“She…kind of fell right into my lap.”

“They have those kinda places in Pennydash, do they?”

“Very funny.”

When he didn’t add anything else, Dan sighed. “I want details and you’re not going to give them to me, are you? My closest buddy finally trips over his own heart…or some body part anyway, and I get nada.”

“When I figure things out, you’ll be the first to know. So, listen, how are things otherwise? Your dad good? Vanetta okay? Did you get the buy-in numbers for me on the Omaha series?”

“I’ll let you change the subject, but be forewarned, we’ll be circling back.”

Brett smiled briefly. He and Dan had always shared everything with each other. Dan was both best friend and brother. His father was the closest thing Brett had ever had to the real deal, with Vanetta there to keep him walking the straight and narrow. “Fine,” he said, “just give me the latest.”

Dan sighed. “No news is good news, right? Dad’s good, his golf game still sucks, and Vanetta is riding herd on a bunch of college students who have shacked up in her place looking to make their college tuition at the casinos this summer.”

Brett laughed. “Well, they picked the right place to stay then. If they win anything, she’ll be the one to see that it actually goes for classes and books.” Vanetta was pretty much single-handedly responsible for keeping him focused on the prize. Which was not a shiny diamond-studded bracelet. No, he owed a good chunk of his degrees to her riding herd on him to keep his studying up to par and learn to say no every once in a while to the promoters and marketers. Born and raised in Vegas, she’d seen it all in her seventy some years. Her boarders were all her babies, regardless of age, background, length of stay, or reason for coming to the gambling capital. If those students staying there now thought they’d come to Sin City for something other than college tuition, they didn’t stand a chance with Vanetta holding court. Might be the best education of their lives. “And the Omaha buy-in?” There was another silence and Brett snorted. “That good, huh? Dammit.”

“It was down over thirty percent from last year when you competed.”

“Who are they marketing? Who’s the new poster boy?”

“You mean whose soul are they sucking from?”

Brett didn’t rise to the bait. By not bailing out sooner, he’d essentially allowed them to do the sucking, while he quietly or not so quietly really, went about making a shit ton of money. So, he could hardly complain about that now, could he? “What about that Irish kid, Iain Summerfield?”

“You mean the kid with only two measly championships wrapped around his wrist? He’s like, what, twelve?”

“He’s twenty-five.”

“And you had, what, like nine of them by then? Now you could cover both arms with them, Brett. It’s going to take a very long time, if ever, before they stumble across anyone who is the dream machine you were. And are.” He paused. “No…urges?”

“Other than to mess up your prettier-than-average face right about now? No.”

“Good.”

“You that worried about me?”

“It was a surprise when you walked away like you did, you know that.”

“You’d been telling me to for years.”

“And you’d been ignoring me. And I sure as hell didn’t expect you to walk all the way to freaking Vermont. So sue me if I’m making sure you’re okay now that you’ve had some time away. What are your plans?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Me. Dad. Vanetta. Folks who care. There are a few that exist who want you back for reasons other than making dime off your pretty face and freakish ability to get good cards. Don’t forget that.”