Betting the Rainbow (Harmony) (13 page)

He saw the sadness in Ronny. The beautiful lady had experienced her share of trouble, and he didn’t want to add to it. “How about calling Kieran and seeing about getting me back to the lake? Even with the wild hogs, I’ve got a feeling we’d be safer there.”

“I agree. Uh . . .
Captain
?”

“Another time, another life. The doc must have read my records. This wasn’t the first tumble I’ve taken or the first shot a doctor dug out of me.”

“Lucky to be alive,” she said softly.

“That’s what they tell me.” He didn’t add his thoughts about the jury still being out on that one. Maybe the lucky ones die young in glory.

He guessed she didn’t have anything else to say. Truth was, neither of them was much on conversation. He learned more about her from listening to her talk to Dusti and Abby while he dealt cards than he probably would have ever learned on his own.

He wasn’t good with people. He’d understood the army, but the outside world didn’t make sense to him most of the time.

Austin guessed she was the same. They’d both traveled all over the world but could barely keep a conversation going. He did love watching her move, though. He’d always thought
love
was just a word that people said. Even now, watching her tidy up the room, he figured he felt more lust than anything else.
Love
wasn’t a word he’d probably ever use.

Surely that wasn’t anything a lady like Ronny Logan would want from anyone, much less him. She seemed to treasure her silent life on the lake.

Yet she’d kissed him.

Chapter 21

TRUMAN FARM

R
EAGAN WALKED AROUND THE ORCHARD WITH
U
TAH TUCKED
in a carrier that strapped around her. He was asleep, but still she talked to him as she wove among the tables.

“My uncle Jeremiah would be worried about the poker players bothering the roots of the trees. He never liked folks coming onto the farm much. Except, of course, for Miss Pat Matheson. She could come over anytime she liked. He even built steps over the fence between the Matheson ranch and the back of the orchard.”

Utah didn’t answer. He just kept sleeping.

Reagan smiled. In truth, the orchard looked beautiful with brightly colored tables among the trees. Tomorrow would be a practice run for all dealers and volunteers, and then the next day the games started at seven. It would still be daylight when everyone sat down to play. Phil Gentry, the unofficial expert on poker tournaments, thought that half the games would be over before dark. The winners’ tables would be set up in the barn where they could hang enough lights to make it easy to see. Twenty tables of ten would start, then the winners would move to two tables, then finally one. With any luck, the three rounds would be over long before midnight and everyone could clean up and go home.

Reagan looked forward to getting back to normal. Her quiet farm. Her little group of friends. All of it gave her peace, and maybe that would be enough.

Some thought the last games might go on all night when the winners from all the tables joined the last table. By then there would probably be no first-time players or men who were “just lucky.” This last table would be the two people who were winners at each of the second-round tables. They’d held the entries to exactly two hundred so all would work out. Dusti Delaney had been the last to buy in.

If by any chance Dusti made it to the final table, that was the game Reagan wanted to see. She knew nothing of poker, but she guessed that the two who made the last table would have bragging rights for years, and she’d love it if one of those was a woman.

“It’s almost sunset, Utah, we’d best get to the western chairs,” Reagan whispered as she moved back down the trail toward the house. “It’s going to be a great one tonight.”

In the years since her uncle died she’d thought of removing the lawn chairs he’d set in the yard so he could see the sun rise and set each day, but something had always kept her from doing it. Often Miss Pat Matheson would come over from next door and join her just before sunset. They’d watch the sky turn and talk of the day, and then Pat knew she would be invited in for a piece of pie before her nephew, Hank, came to pick her up.

All the stories of the three families who’d founded Harmony passed from Pat Matheson to Reagan. Pat’s health might be going, but her mind was still sharp. She often said it was because she spent thirty-six years of teaching reciting her times tables over and over. She claimed it sharpened her mind.

Reagan wanted to tell her the truth about Utah and how he came to the farm, but she couldn’t share the story with anyone before she talked to Noah.

She’d told herself she’d give the facts to Noah calmly and without crying, and then she’d wait and see what he planned to do about it.

Whatever he did wouldn’t involve her. Reagan had made up her mind that she couldn’t marry a man who lied. No matter how much she loved him. She couldn’t. She’d been lied to all her childhood by social workers and counselors. She’d even lied to herself.

But no more.

If Noah kept the baby, he’d raise him alone. If he didn’t want Utah, Reagan had decided she’d adopt him. Maybe Noah would visit. Maybe they’d become friends helping raise the baby, but they’d never marry. They’d never be lovers again. If she allowed that to happen she’d always worry, when he was out on the road, if he was getting drunk and sleeping with a nameless woman.

In the darkness between the orchard and her house, Reagan cried. The sounds of the night blanketed her sobs, and the wind wiped her tears. There had been very few times she’d let even one tear fall, but tonight before all the craziness started, she’d cry for the loss of her dream of loving one man all her life.

By the time she reached the yard, she’d shoved her tears aside.

Big Biggs was waiting for her on the porch.

“Howdy, Reagan. I figured you’d be out walking with that baby.” Big stood up, looking like a mountain on her gingerbread-trimmed porch. “When’s your friend going to come after the boy?”

“A few days,” Reagan lied. “You got time for some supper?”

“No, I’m just delivering some supplies the hospital figures they’ll need out here if a fight breaks out.” He scratched his head. “I don’t know why they think anyone would fight. It’s just a card game. I’m not even going to drink more than one beer. Ester’s signed me up to drive the bus delivering folks from here to their cars parked half a mile away. She thinks they can walk in. It’ll still be light when the games start. But when they leave, with all the curves on Lone Oak Road, some of the drunks trying to find their cars would be roadkill.”

“Come on in, Big, and have some pie?” Reagan didn’t want to be alone. “You can tell me if you talked your brother and Beau Yates into playing out here before the poker starts. That will draw folks early and give the losers something to do after they leave the tables.”

“Pie sounds good. A few pieces won’t spoil my supper.” Big followed her inside. “Beau and Border will be here early while everyone’s paying in and getting set up. Harley said no one will be at the bar while the game is going on. He plans to open about eight so all the losers can drown their sorrows. I asked Harley if he planned to come out and he said, ‘Why?’ like having fun wasn’t in his vocabulary.”

As they always did, Big sat at the kitchen bar and she stood on the other side. This made them about the same height and they could talk. Big understood her. He’d raised himself, pretty much, along with his little brother. He understood how important it was to have someone who would cover your back. Someone you could trust.

When Utah woke, Big said he had to get back because Ester should be finished burning dinner by now.

He let himself out while Reagan climbed the stairs and gave Utah his bottle in the old rocking chair that Uncle Jeremiah had said rocked him to sleep.

After Utah finished, she put him in the swing she’d bought and let him rock while she cooked her dinner and ate alone.

“Funny,” she said to him. “You don’t do anything but cry, poop, and eat, but you’re a lot of company to have around. If your momma comes back, I’m loading her Chevy up with all the stuff I’ve collected. I’ll tell her you really love the swing.”

He smiled at her, and though she knew he was just passing gas, she smiled back.

Logic told her she should start laying out plans, but there were still too many questions. Would the baby stay? Would Noah take him? Would she say good-bye to Noah for good? Would she want to stay in Noah’s life as a friend? Could she?

She’d loved Noah from the moment he had befriended her. Even when she was mad at him, she still loved him. How could she turn that kind of love off? And, if she didn’t, could she survive the next time he lied to her?

Reagan tossed most of her dinner in the trash and picked up Utah. “I got enough to worry about right now. How about we just decide to worry about it tomorrow.”

Utah made a little sound and she added, “You’re right. Tomorrow’s a busy day. How about we worry about my problems when this poker game is over. I’ll have the rest of my life to figure it out.”

Armed with a bottle, more diapers, and Utah, she headed upstairs again.

Her cell phone remained on the kitchen table. Even if there was a midnight call, she wouldn’t answer it tonight. Noah didn’t know it yet, but she was already pushing him away.

Chapter 22

DELANEY FARM

D
USTI MISSED HER POKER LESSON BECAUSE OF
A
USTIN
H
AWK.
Everyone had their hands full getting him home and settled into his place.

To her surprise, Austin seemed grateful and thanked them all, though he hated being fussed over. He didn’t take offense at Abby’s orders, even told her she was doing a good job. She’d taken on the nursing part of his recovery and told Dusti that as long as she gave orders like a general, Austin listened.

Ronny took over the cooking. Kieran set up a bed downstairs and shifted all the furniture around so Austin could move with crutches from his porch to the kitchen. The doctor had told him to stay off his leg for a week, but he showed no sign of having heard her. Within an hour he was hopping around.

Dusti didn’t have a job, other than hauling supplies from one side of the lake to the other. While she was in town buying groceries, she dropped by the bookstore and bought two books on how to play poker. Dusti knew the game now, but she kept forgetting the vocabulary. Reading the first chapter of a book seemed easier than looking dumb.

The flop, the turn, and the river all got mixed up in her mind. Why couldn’t he just say the first three cards on the table, the next one, and the last one to go down faceup.

Dusti decided Texas Hold’em’s vocabulary was made up by men who wanted to convince their wives that the game was hard so they’d never ask to play.

By the time she read the first few chapters, Dusti was convinced Texas Hold’em was made up not by husbands but by fools locked away in an asylum somewhere.

While the others moved Austin Hawk’s home around, she studied on the porch. She had to stay focused. This was too important to let a day slip. This was the only way out she’d thought of in two years, and she was going to fight as hard as she could.

When Kieran finally joined her back at her farm, she was shuffling cards.

“You ready to play, lass?” he asked, and the twinkle in his eye made her consider which game he was talking about.

“I’m ready to play cards. Teach me to win.”

They began.

She watched the way his hands handled the cards and the chips, but she listened to every word he said. His Scottish accent came out stronger at times, and he’d grin at her as if he knew exactly what she was holding, but he taught her the rules, over and over, almost as if she were learning a foreign alphabet.

“It’s a game of strategy, not luck. If you don’t get good starting cards in the hole, fold.” He was all business as she shuffled for another round. “From the minute you see the flop, start thinking of what someone else has at the table that can beat you. When the flop doesn’t help you, fold. Whenever you’re not sure, fold. Never pay to see the other players’ cards. Never bluff a player with nothing left to lose.”

Dusti took it all in. Only a few days left before the game and she planned to be Harmony’s winner. The rest of her and Abby’s lives depended on it.

Kieran left midafternoon, saying he had to do some things with his grandmother. Dusti wanted to scream that there was no time, but she couldn’t. He was giving her all the time he could.

“Come back tonight after you eat supper with your granny,” she said as he opened his car door. “We can work a while longer.”

“Sure,” he said. “But only for an hour or two. No more.”

For a moment his smile vanished, and she wondered what he was thinking. She still couldn’t read him.

Dusti watched him drive up to the road to Rainbow Lane. He was pulling away from her even though he was trying to teach her all she needed to know. Maybe it was because he knew that there was a chance he’d be playing against her in one of the final rounds. Or maybe it was getting harder and harder for him not to kiss her.

The knowledge that if she played against him, she’d have to beat him, hit her straight between the eyes.

That would make for an awkward date after the game if she beat him. She was so attracted to him. In all their talks she’d told him why she wanted to win. Hell, she’d told him her whole life story, but he hadn’t said a word. All she knew about his was that he flew planes for a living and traveled all over. He’d mentioned his past, his parents, but the man seemed to have no present, or future.

Was Kieran down here just to play poker, or did he have an important reason for coming back to Harmony? He’d taken off work to be here. This game had to be important to him. But why?

She’d know soon enough.