Deal Me In

“I’d be happy to prove it to you,” he said. “You pick the person, Dad, and I’ll teach him to play. The quarter finals of the U.S. Poker Play-offs is coming up in just a little more than five weeks. I’ll bet you I can coach that guy into a seat at the final table.”

Marshall covered his shock with a belly laugh. “Interesting bet. Just exactly what are we wagering on, Brady?”

This conversation had suddenly taken a serious turn. For a second Brady wondered if he was getting in over his head. But he quickly banished that thought. He was a damn good poker player. “Tell you what, Dad. If I have your pick at the final table in the USP, you give me training rights to Amber Mac.”

Marshall sobered. “Big talk, Brady.”

“You think I can’t do it?”

“That’s right,” he said. “I think you can’t do it.”

Brady wasn’t about to back down. He knew his dad well enough to know that the gambler in him was intrigued. “Then what have you got to lose? Try me.”

Marshall looked at Dobbs. “What do you think? Should we give this upstart a chance to eat his words?”

“I don’t know.” Dobbs considered. “What do we get out of it if the kid loses the bet?”

Brady smiled. “I’ll pay your entry fees at the local game for one year.”

Both men eyed each other over the table. Hundreds of dollars were now at stake, making this a serious bet. “And we get to pick the person for the wager?” Marshall asked.

“You pick. But be reasonable. The guy has to be of age and have moderate intelligence.”

At that moment, Molly cleared her throat and tapped on her order pad. “Sorry to interrupt such momentous wagering, boys, but I thought you might want to bet on who gets the check.”

Dobbs chuckled before sitting back and leveling a serious look at her. “What about Molly?” he said to Marshall. “She’s clever.”

Brady glanced at Dobbs. He couldn’t be serious.

“Now, hold on, gentlemen,” she said. “My name has just been mentioned in the same conversation with the word wager. That’s enough to make anybody nervous.”

“Don’t be,” Dobbs said. “I’m presenting you with the chance of a lifetime. How would you like to be a student of Brady’s for a five-week course?”

She frowned. Not exactly a reaction designed to boost a guy’s ego, Brady thought, even if they were just kidding around.

“I don’t know anything about racehorses,” she said.

Dobbs grinned. “We’re not talking about horses. We’re talking about poker.”

“I know even less about that.”

Dobbs looked at the other two. “See? She’s perfect.”

Molly took a step back. “Perfect for what?”

Dobbs gave her a grin that was part confident Texan and part cocky Irishman. “What do you say, sweetheart? You want to come to River Bluff and learn to play poker from a master?”

CHAPTER TWO

POKER? Molly couldn’t suppress an unladylike bark of laughter. Her father would heat under the collar of his clerical robe if he knew she was about to even participate in a conversation about gambling. There wasn’t even a deck of cards in the modest house she shared with Luther Whelan.

She stared at Marshall Carrick, the man who carried the weight of Cross Fox Ranch on his broad shoulders, and waited for him to say something to make sense of this. When he didn’t, she picked up one of the empty glasses on the table and made a show of sniffing it. “I’m thinking you boys have been sipping something a whole lot stronger than lemonade.”

Brady smiled, an easy full-bodied grin that had her believing he could talk people into almost anything, just as she knew he had. The younger Carrick resembled his father in stature and size. But Brady’s bronzed complexion was less weathered. His light brown hair was sun-streaked and just long enough to fall over his forehead. The collar of his blue oxford-cloth shirt had a distinctive lack of Western ornamentation. Unusual for a horseman in the heart of Texas.

“It’s okay, Molly,” Brady said, his voice a smooth, cultured version of typical ranch-hand drawl. “We were just playing a game of ‘what if’ over lunch.”

Dobbs leaned forward. “‘What if?’ So now you’re backing out?”

“No. But there isn’t any reason to get Molly mixed up in this.”

“Of course there is,” Dobbs insisted. “We picked her.”

“This is getting weird.” Molly waved the check in the air. “Who’s going to pay this bill?”

Dobbs pointed to Brady. “Mr. Big Shot.”

Brady pulled his wallet out of his jeans.

“Here’s the thing, Molly,” Dobbs said. “Brady claims he can take a novice card player and lead him—or her—all the way to a final table at the Texas Hold ’Em quarter finals U.S. Poker Play-offs in Las Vegas in February.”

Molly had some knowledge of Texas Hold ’Em. Her husband, Kevin, had played the game when he was away on the rodeo circuit. “I’ve seen that on TV.”

“Sure you have,” Dobbs said. “The players that get to the last table in just the quarter finals can win, what, Brady? Thousands of dollars?”

He nodded. “This quarterly event draws mostly local players, and even sixth place can be a decent payoff.”

She pointed her pen at him. “And you think you can coach somebody who’s never played before to the final table?”

He shrugged. “Look, we were just shooting off steam.”

Marshall leaned back and smiled. “So you’re saying you can’t do it now?”

Brady scowled. “I can do it. But Molly doesn’t want to be involved. She must be thinking we’re crazy.”

“She’s involved already,” Dobbs said. “I told you—we picked her, didn’t we Marshall?”

“We were sure talking about it.”

“And Brady said it was our choice.”

“Yep, he did.”

Brady folded some bills in his hand. “Don’t let us keep you, Molly. Do I pay you or up at the counter?”

Determined he wasn’t about to put her off, she stared into the deepest green eyes she’d ever seen. “Pay me. And you’re not keeping me. It’s almost time for my break. I’ve known Dobbs for years. If he says they picked me for this wager, then I guess that puts the cards on my table.”

Brady chuckled, but it seemed a self-conscious effort to appear unruffled. He handed her the money.

She tucked it into her pocket. “So you can do it? You can teach me to play poker?”

“Sure, I could, but…”

“What would you get out of this?” she asked. “What’s at stake for you?”

“It’s personal.”

“Tell her,” Marshall said. “She’s got a right to know what we’re betting on.”

Brady stared at his father a good long moment before he said, “Not that I think that’s true, but okay.” He looked up at her. “I win the right to train the horse we just bought.”

“And this is important to you?” Molly said.

He didn’t answer that. He didn’t have to. The fire in his eyes was proof enough. “I see that it is,” she added.

Brady darted a quick uncomfortable glance at his companions before turning back to Molly. “But look, all that doesn’t matter. You have to understand what it would take to get to the final table. Long hours. Personal sacrifice. This is a tough training regimen for a woman.”

“For a woman?” Molly repeated.

Brady looked down. “Don’t take that the wrong way.”

The part of Molly that her father said she inherited from her mother and called her “rebel soul” flared to life. She was suddenly interested in this proposition for two reasons. She stated the first one. “If I won, would I get to keep the money?”

Marshall muffled his laughter behind his cupped hand. Dobbs didn’t even try.

“I don’t know,” Brady said. “We’d have to work that out. But we could come up with a fair split I suppose.” He shook his head, glared at Dobbs. “Look, I’m sorry we brought this up. Like I said, it’s a crazy idea and you can’t seriously be thinking of pursuing it.”

Oh, but she was. After all these years of Trevor Dobbs coming into this diner, fate had finally sent the legend of Cross Fox Ranch himself, Brady Carrick. Who was Molly Davis to spit in the eye of fate?

The name Brady Carrick had been playing like a sad movie in her head for a year and a half now. Every time she cried herself to sleep. Every time she carried another plate of runny eggs to a table in the diner. Every time she tried to tell her son why his daddy wasn’t coming home. So even without the substantial financial payoff he’d mentioned, reason number two for considering this would be incentive enough. She could ease some of that heartache Brady Carrick had inflicted on her and let him finance her way to a new beginning.

She’d never get her life back the way it was, but just maybe the guy who stood to inherit Cross Fox Ranch would pay for what he’d done to Kevin by helping his widow and son start over. If she won, she could buy a nice, cozy house for her and Sam far away from Prairie Bend and the rules set by Luther Whelan. She stacked the empty plates from the table and gave the men her most winning smile. No matter what happened, she had to think of the tip.

Brady slid out of his seat. “It was nice meeting you, Molly.”

The first signs of panic tingled down her spine. They were leaving. “Have a good trip back,” she said.

The three walked out of the restaurant, and Molly went over to the cash register. Struggling with a mountain of indecision, she absently passed the money over the counter. You’d better do something pretty darn quick, Molly Jean, she said to herself. When these men drive out of the parking lot, they’re taking your opportunity with them. You’ll probably never see Brady Carrick again or get the chance to make him pay.

She watched out the window as the men crossed the lot to a pickup truck with a horse trailer hitched to the back. Brady opened the driver’s side door and got in, and in that split second she made up her mind.

“I’m going on break, Uncle Cliff.”

He picked up the money. “Okay, but hurry back. I need you to fill the ketchup bottles.”

She headed to the door.

“Wait a minute, Molly,” her uncle called. “Your tip’s in here.”

She hurried back. The lunch tab had been just under twenty-two dollars, and Brady had given her thirty. She took the eight dollars change and stuffed it in her pocket.

“That’s a good tip,” Cliff said.

“Yeah.” Though she definitely needed the money, she grumbled to herself, “No wonder Dobbs called him Mr. Big Shot.”

LEANING OVER to look out the passenger door, Brady watched Molly come across the parking lot. A cool breeze whipped the ends of her ponytail around her face and shaped her skirt to the curvy outline of her legs. Brady couldn’t look away. For a moment he imagined her in the hill country around River Bluff standing on a rolling green crest, not here in a dusty diner parking lot.

“Look there,” Dobbs said. “Molly’s walking over.”

Brady patted his pockets. “We must have left something on the table. Did either of you forget something?”

Marshall shook his head. “Got my wallet and checkbook. Cell phone’s in the glove box.”

Brady set his elbow on the steering wheel. “Then what does she want?”

“Only one way to find out,” Dobbs said. “Hush up and listen.”

She stopped within a few feet of the open door, where Marshall and Dobbs stood. She leaned over to peer into the truck cab at Brady. “Something wrong?” he said.

“No. Just came out here to tell you I’ll do it.”

He knew darned well what she meant, but he needed to buy time to catch his breath. “Do what?”

“I’ll learn poker.”

Dobbs slapped his thigh. “Hot damn. That’s what I like. A woman with gumption.”

Brady gave him a warning glare, got out of the truck and walked around to her. “You can’t be serious.”

“You keep saying that. But I am.”

“Look, we were just kidding in there.”

“I wasn’t,” Dobbs said. “You weren’t serious about wanting to train Amber Mac?”

Brady narrowed his eyes. “You know I meant every word of that.”

“Then I can only assume you meant every word of the wager.”

Marshall smiled in a noncommittal sort of way. “I heard the bet. It was clear to me. But I’m going to leave this up to the three of you.”

Brady stared at Molly. She held his gaze with about as much determination as he’d ever seen. “I can’t let you do this,” he said. “First of all, I’ve never played poker with a…”

Her eyes sparked, just enough for him to know that what he was about to say had better stop before it left his mouth. Hell, he loved women, considered them different but equal, and he was comfortable with that view of the sexes. Especially the different part. But he didn’t know if he could enjoy his appreciation for feminine virtues over the green felt of a poker table.

She arched her eyebrows, took a step forward. “You don’t have a problem teaching poker to a woman, do you?”

He held up his hand and hoped she believed him when he said, “Of course not. But you’ve got to give this a lot of thought.”

“I have. And I’m not agreeing to this lightly. I’ve watched poker tournaments on TV. The game doesn’t look all that hard to me. I can learn it and I can sure use the money.”

It was as if a whole bale had just dropped down in front of him and he had to start grasping for every straw he could get his hands on. “But what about your job? You’d have to leave it to come to Cross Fox in River Bluff.”

She feigned a sorrowful look over her shoulder. “Leaving all this would be a real shame, wouldn’t it?”

“And what about family? There must be people who would worry about you.”

“I wouldn’t be leaving anybody that matters.” She pointed through the window. “See that man at the counter?”

Brady looked at the middle-aged guy behind the cash register. “Yeah.”

“That’s Cliff. He owns the diner and he’s my uncle. As long as there’s a waitress here to fill the ketchup bottles, he won’t miss me.”

Brady figured there had to be someone in her life who could raise hell if she took off, so he asked the most important question. “Are you married?”

“No.”

He thought of the cowboy she’d flirted with a while ago. “Have you got a brawny boyfriend with a high-voltage ego who’d come after you?”

“No.”

“How about other responsibilities? You must have bills here, maybe a mortgage.”

“No. Free and clear.”

There was something about her. Her determination impressed him even as it warned him about possible complications down the road. “How will you get by financially if you leave your job?”

“That needs to be a condition of my training. It’s five weeks?”

“About that.”

“You’ll have to pay my board. It’s only fair.” She didn’t even blink.

Brady raked his hand through his hair. He was beginning to wonder just what this woman might consider “only fair” once the training had begun. But then he pictured Amber Mac, the finest horse he’d ever laid eyes on. Maybe the bet was crazy, but the consequences were real enough. His father was a man of his word and if he said Brady could train the horse if he won this bet, then that’s what would happen.

He gave Molly a serious head-to-toe appraisal. She stared right back at him. She had guts. Her answers were quick and decisive. She was obviously ambitious and she wasn’t afraid of taking a risk. These were all good qualities in a poker player. Maybe this would work out. All he had to do was set some limits, let her know he was the boss. If she listened and worked hard, he could make her a success at the U.S. Poker Play-offs. After all, the world of high-stakes poker was full of exciting underdog stories and Molly from Cliff’s Diner might be another one.

She placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about, Brady, but I’ve got to have an answer. My break’s over and there are some hungry cowboys inside who want their lunch.” Never flinching, she added, “I can do this. You won’t be sorry. So what’ll it be?”

He pulled out a business card for Cross Fox Ranch and handed it to her. “You think about this very carefully. If it doesn’t work and you don’t end up with a nice bankroll, you might want to make sure your uncle will give you your job back. At the end of five weeks, win or lose, it’s over. You’ve got to understand that.”

She put the card in her pocket. “No problem.”

He got his hat from the cab, smoothed his hair back and pulled the crown of the felt Wrangler low over his brow. “We’ve got to go. If I see you, I see you. But don’t wait too long. If I don’t do this with you, I’ll be looking for someone else.”

“Fair enough.”

He turned to head back around the truck but stopped and allowed himself one more lingering look at her. “You know where I am?”

“I do.”

Brady was damn sure it would be the last time he ever saw Molly and, surprisingly, he was feeling bad about that. He got in the truck. Marshall climbed in beside him followed by Dobbs, who gave Molly a thumbs-up. As he pulled out of the parking lot, Brady looked in the side-view mirror. The tires had kicked up a good bit of dust, but he could see her walking back toward the diner, a sway in her hips. “I expect that’s the end of the wager,” he said to the other guys.

“You’re probably right,” Marshall said. “And it’s for the best I suppose. But it was a fun diversion while it lasted.”

Dobbs smiled. “You boys don’t know Molly.”

Clifford Whelan set his spatula next to the hot grill and wiped his hands on his apron. He didn’t like filling in for the diner’s short-order cook, but Jessie had gotten off early to take his daughter to the doctor. Already grumpy, Cliff scowled at his niece. “What do you mean you won’t be in to work tomorrow?”

“You weren’t listening, Uncle Cliff,” she said. “I told you I might not be in at all after today.”

“What are you talking about?”

She pinned a lunch order to the wheel under the warming lights. “I’m taking a long vacation, maybe a permanent one.”

“You can’t do that. I need you here. You’ve got to give notice.”

“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Madge’s sister, Junie, wants a job. I’ll tell Madge to have her show up in the morning. June’s a real nice girl, a quick learner.”

Cliff frowned, picked up the spatula and flipped a row of burgers. “What kind of vacation are you talking about? I’ve never known you to just take off. Where are you going?”

She sighed. He was right. Molly couldn’t remember ever having a true vacation in all her thirty years. As a child, she’d gone with her father to religious conferences, not much fun for a girl who found rules hard to follow. Her so-called vacations didn’t get much better when she was married to Kevin. Before Sam was born, she’d traipse along with her husband to dusty show arenas and the low-budget motels that catered to rodeo cowboys. Since this trip wasn’t for pleasure, either, she’d definitely given her uncle a false impression of her plans.

“I’m going south, around San Antonio,” she told him.

Cliff layered cheese on all the burgers. “Who do you know in San Antone?”

“I’ve got friends there.”

He gave her a suspicious glance. “Since when?”

Since a half hour ago, and I can’t really say they’re friends. “Since I went to community college,” she lied. “They’ve invited me and Sam to come stay a while. I might even get a job there.”

“What does your daddy have to say about this?”

“He doesn’t exactly know yet.”

Cliff blew out a long breath. “Oh, great. I don’t want to be around when he hears this.”

Molly coughed.

“He does care about you, Molly.” Cliff smiled. “And he’s awfully fond of Sam. Talks about him all the time. And remember, he took you in when Kevin died.”

“Of course I remember that—I’ve thanked him at least a hundred times.” Despite having to listen to him rant about what a terrible husband Kevin was.

“Plus, he’s gotten used to having you run his house.”

She reached for a pair of platters her uncle had set under the lights. “Right. He’s fine with me cooking and cleaning, so long as I don’t complain about the rules or interrupt him when he’s telling me what a mess I’ve made of my life.”

Cliff conceded her analysis with a nod. “He’s a hard man to live with. He never got over your mother running out.”

Molly pushed that bad memory to the back of her mind. Her father wasn’t the only one who’d suffered over her mother’s abandonment. She checked the orders to make sure they were correct. “He’ll just have to get by without me,” she said. “This is an opportunity for us and I’d be stupid to pass it up.”

“What are you going to do about Sam’s school?”

“He’ll only miss tomorrow and Friday. And it’s only second grade. I’ll get him into a class on Monday in the new place.”

He gave her a fatherly look. “You got money enough to move on? I might be able to lend you a few bucks.”

She smiled at him. Cliff really was a kind man, nothing like his brother. While Cliff, with a couple dozen excess pounds, was a soft and comfy-looking man, Luther Whelan was all sharp bones and unforgiving angles. Molly often wished she’d been born to Cliff instead of Luther. Then, as a young girl she would have had a lap to sit on, and maybe her mother would have stuck around. “We’ll be fine,” she said, hating the hint of doubt in her voice. “I’ve got some savings.”

She headed toward the dining area with the plates. “Don’t tell Dad about this before I’ve had a chance,” she called over her shoulder. “I think he should hear it from me first.”

Cliff snickered. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going near your house tonight.” He read the next order on the wheel and got back to work. “One more thing, Molly …”

She turned around. “What?”

“You take care of yourself. Life hasn’t been easy for you the last year or so. If this adventure of yours doesn’t work out the way you planned, you come on home. There will always be a place for you here at the diner.”

“Thanks, Uncle Cliff. That means a lot to me.”

MOLLY STOPPED at a drugstore on her way to pick Sam up at school and bought a map of Texas. Next she stopped at the bank and withdrew her entire savings, two thousand three hundred and twelve dollars. Not a fortune, but enough to get by for a couple of weeks if things didn’t work out at Cross Fox Ranch. And she had her credit card, which, thankfully, now had a low balance. At least she’d accomplished something worthwhile since Kevin had died. Living with her father, she’d managed to pay off some bills she and her husband had accumulated.

By the time she pulled into the driveway at her father’s house, Molly had a plan. When she reached River Bluff, her first stop would be Cross Fox Ranch. She’d told Brady Carrick he’d be responsible for her board, but even if that didn’t work out, she and Sam could stay in a motel while she looked for a part-time job. While Sam was at school, she’d divide her time between job hunting and learning poker.

If she eventually won a big pot in Vegas, then her future would be secure. She’d put that money toward opening a consignment shop for kids’ clothes. She’d got the idea when she was pregnant with Sam and picking up second-hand baby clothes and supplies. Maybe she’d even open up shop in River Bluff if she liked the small town. With her two years of college math, she could run a bookkeeping service on the side.

And if I don’t win at the U.S. Poker Play-offs… Molly unlocked the front door of her father’s house, followed Sam inside and set her purse on the hall table. Well, Uncle Cliff said there was always a place for me at the diner. It’s not like I haven’t gone back before.

She smiled at Sam. “You want some cookies, cowboy?”

He nodded, and went to the sink to wash his hands before sitting at the kitchen table. She set him up with milk and Oreos, sat beside him and ran her fingers through his sandy-brown hair. “Where’s that happy face, Sammy?”

His lips curled up at the edges in an effort to please her, and Molly’s heart ached. Sam didn’t smile nearly enough for a seven-year-old. Maybe all that would change once they got away from this stifling environment.