Hooper, Kay - [Hagen 09] (12 page)

"No. She's wise enough not to get burned twice,"
he said finally, steadily.

"Are you both so sure she would be burned?"
Skye didn't sound surprised, as if he'd expected this.

"She isn't willing to risk it. I can't blame her
for that." Dane shifted restlessly. "I have to get back, or
Kelly will come looking for me."

"Wait." Skye was silent for a moment, and when
he spoke his voice was unusually sober. "If you walk away from
her, you'll never be the same. Neither will she."

"What she feels about her father's betrayal runs
deep. I don't know how to fight it ... or even if I can."

"You'd never hurt her the way he did."

"How do I convince her of that?"

"Any way you can. As long as you do." Skye's
low voice, curiously disembodied because he was hidden in darkness,
might have been the voice Dane had been trying to Ignore since he had
left Jennifer at her house days ago. The voice urging him to try, to
keep trying until he somehow found a way through the wall between
them. He had tried to ignore the voice because he knew what he would
risk in the attempt, and the gambler in him was wary, mistrustful of
the odds against winning.

He would have to risk everything. Not the way he would
willingly risk material things to keep his promise to Jennifer,
but a different, far more painful risk. Himself. Everything he was,
his weaknesses as well as his strengths, his self-doubts and inner
torments along with his certainties and convictions. With her own
wounds, Jennifer would never trust and believe in him until she saw
him clearly.

Loving her, Dane was willing to bare himself to her, but
after so many years of too many gambles, he was half afraid she would
see nothing worthy of trust or belief when he found a way to shine a
light on all the dark places in his soul. And that would be no
surface rejection, mistrusting him because he was a gambler, because
of what he did. That would be a rejection of what he
was,
of
the very foundation of him – and it would be one he'd never
survive.

"I have to go," he told his partner quietly.
Then, just before he turned away, he added, "I hope you brought
along some coffee; you may have a long watch after I leave him the
morning."

"No problem," Skye murmured.

Dane strolled back up the hall toward the parlor,
mentally pulling on his mask – and finding it less of a mask
now. There was, he realized, something to be said for accepting what
had to be, even if it was potentially painful.

Risk hell to win heaven. He thought that now, finally,
he was willing to risk everything.

* * *

It was past four a.m. and the men in the parlor had
discarded their jackets and loosened their ties. In the last three
hands, Dane had folded early, yet the majority of the money on
the table still lay before him. Kelly's luck had been in and out; he
had won the last hand with a skillful bluff, but had been forced to
run the stakes far too high in order to do so.

Dane had been unobtrusively watching the other man,
waiting for certain signs, and he saw them now. Kelly was clearly
feeling the strain and yet, like so many gamblers, he continued to
grow more intent, almost feverishly certain that the next hand would
be the best. Dane knew that the other men hardly noticed their host's
increasing desperation because the signs were almost Imperceptible,
but after twenty years of card playing Dane saw them clearly.

It was time to make his move, and Dane made it with the
sure skill and total concentration of a professional. He took the
next two hands in rapid succession, deliberately winning with
colossal bluffs and making certain every man at the table
realized it. By the third hand, after winning with a pair of threes
that any one of the others at the table could have beaten, he had
them caught in blind determination, and he knew It.

Kelly dealt, and Dane watched very carefully to make
certain the other man used no tricks. If he had, Dane's only choice
would have been to fold instantly rather than risk losing. But there
were no tricks, and Dane found himself holding three kings, an ace,
and a deuce; since the dealer's choice had made aces wild in this
game, it meant he had four of a kind. He discarded the deuce, and in
its place. Lady Luck smiling brilliantly down on him, was dealt
another ace. He had five of a kind now, kings. The winning hand.

It was far better than he had hoped for, and his only
task was to continue raising the stakes until he forced Kelly to bet
all the cash he had. He knew the older man was blindly bent on
recovering his losses, just as the other men were, all caught in the
gambler's compulsive drive to win.

There was a round of discards and newly dealt cards, and
then all settled down with the hands they had decided to play. At
first singly and then in Increasing numbers, hundred-dollar bills
fluttered to the center of the table.

"I'm out," one man grunted, tossing his cards
down because he had nothing left on the table to bet.

Ten minutes later, a second man folded. It had come down
to three players.

"Call. Raise three hundred."

"Call. Two hundred up."

"Call. Another five."

"Damn. I'm out."

Two players now, Dane and Kelly. Dane watched the other
man calmly as they played, vaguely curious, as always, to observe the
signs of desperation, of reckless-ness. He had seen it before, often,
but had never felt it himself. Satisfied when he beat the odds,
mildly annoyed when he didn't, Dane had always considered poker
just a game. He had more than once bet most of what he had, but
material possessions had never meant a great deal to him, so in that
sense he never bet more than he could afford to lose.

As Skye had observed, Dane enjoyed the game for Its own
sake, and though he had perfected the composure and skill of a
professional gambler, he could shrug off winning as easily as losing
with little Involvement of his emotions. That was his professional
edge.

He watched Kelly now, knowing the older man had a good
hand simply by the excited glitter in his eyes. But knowing that his
own hand couldn't be beaten gave Dane the leisure not to worry about
strategy or tactics; all he had to do was keep raising the stakes.
And since Dane never changed expression, nor gave himself away with a
single movement or mannerism no matter what kind of hand he held,
Kelly had no way of knowing that he had already lost every cent on
the table.

The clock on the mantel ticked loudly in the tense
silence while the pile of money grew steadily higher.

"Half a million on the table," one of the
other men murmured in a kind of fascination, having obviously kept a
running tally of the money bet.

Dane glanced at him, then returned his gaze to the cards
he was holding. He had measured Kelly's remaining stake, and
knew his opponent had twenty thousand left to bet; as for
himself, he had fifty thousand in cash, and a cashier's check in his
pocket for another hundred thousand. He was wondering now how far
Kelty was willing to go tonight. But the only answer to that would be
to find out.

He stacked his cards facedown, saying pleasantly, "It's
almost dawn; why don't we finish this up for the night?" He drew
the cashier's check from his jacket pocket and placed it, along with
the fifty thousand in cash, into the pot. "Your last raise of
ten thousand . . . and another hundred and forty thousand."

One of the other men grunted in surprise – or
perhaps in awe – but that was the only sound.

Kelly's gaze was fixed on the mound of bills for a long
moment, then lifted to Dane's steady, unreadable eyes. "I can't
cover that in cash," he said, his voice strained. "Not with
what I have on hand."

Dane shrugged slightly, and gave him the accepted
gambler's answer, one they all understood very well. "Then you'd
better fold."

Kelly looked at the hand he was holding, then shook his
head. "I can have it by tomorrow night," he said in an
attempt at casual certainty. "Get it from my bank later today."

That was a bald-faced lie, and Dane knew it. At best,
Kelly had a few thousand left in his bank account. What he did
apparently have, however, were the means to print his own money. But
Dane had no intension of letting on he knew that. He shrugged again.
"I'll take your I.O.U. in that case," he said calmly.

Two minutes later, a scrap of paper with Garrett Kelly's
promise to pay one hundred twenty thousand dollars lay, along with
his last twenty thousand in cash, in a pot that now totaled over
three quarters of a million dollars.

"Call," Kelly said hoarsely.

Dane picked his cards up, fanned them out, and lay them
faceup on the table. Kelly stared as if he couldn't believe it, while
his unsteady fingers put his own cards on the table. He had a royal
flush, in spades. Ironically enough, he had used a wild ace in place
of the ace of spades – because that had been one of Dane's wild
cards.

The sky was gray in the east as the men left the house,
talking casually, men who could lose tens of thousands of dollars
each and not mind very much. Except for one of them.

Kelly walked Dane out to his car, and he was composed
in the way very desperate men can sometimes be, especially if they're
gamblers with an irrational belief in luck. He was even smiling
as Dane opened the door of his Ferrari and prepared to get in.

"I know we hadn't planned a game for tonight,"
he told Dane, "but how about it? Just you and me. It'll give me
the chance to get even."

"Fine with me," Dane told him casually. "It'll
have to be the final game, though, win, lose, or draw. I have to be
getting back to Miami."

Kelly nodded agreeably. "Same time, then?"

"I'll be here." He got in and started the car,
then followed the long, dark lane away from Belle Retour.

* * *

Jennifer thought of risks. Each night, restless in her
bed, she thought. And felt. Sometimes during those long, lonely
hours, she finally faced the inescapable fact that what she was
feeling, what tormented her almost beyond bearing, was only partly
caused by physical desire for a heartbreakingly handsome and
charming man. Her body, she acknowledged with both relief and
pain, had not become a separate entity apart from her mind and heart,
beyond her control.

It was only that her body, free of the restraints of
reason and bitter memories that held her mind and heart, had
responded instantly to a truth too primitive to be denied. And now,
alone in the dark, she faced that truth fully.

She was falling in love with Dane Prescott.

And it hurt. She wondered dimly if she would have felt
with such depth and power if he had been a different kind of
man, and knew somehow that she wouldn't have. An irony of life,
perhaps, or of fate that she, with all her mistrust and bitterness
toward gamblers, would fall helplessly in love with one.

Her mother knew from long experience of her daughter
that Jennifer would resist Interference; she was bound by her own
nature to fight her way through her emotions alone. But she talked to
her quietly when Jennifer had returned from her afternoon with Dane
so shaken she could hardly think.

Francesca, with her acute perception of emotions, didn't
hesitate to pinpoint the root of her daughter's confusion. "My
baby . . . you must obey the greatest rule of life. Do not
anticipate
pain.
It is a part of life, and of love. But if you wait for it,
fearful and nervous, then you blind your heart to the joy of love."

"What if it happened again?" Jennifer had
asked. "Dane's a gambler, he – "

"Do you love this man?"

"I – I think so. I didn't want to, but –
"

Intensely, Francesca said, "Trust your love. And
trust him. You must trust, Jennifer, or your doubt will destroy
you both."

Struggling to lay those last doubts to rest, Jennifer
finally asked her mother a question she had longed to ask for years.
"What about you, Mother? How can you still feel like that after
what Dad did to us?"

Francesca smiled gently. "We had twenty years
together, my baby. He loved me, and he made me happy. Should I stop
loving him now, or stop believing in love, because the ending was a
painful one?
No."

"He lost your home," Jennifer whispered.

"He lost himself. Rufus was sick, Jennifer. I do
not believe that your man has that sickness. But I do not know. Nor
do you. Just as you do not know how many happy years lay ahead of
you. There is little certainty in life, so there must be certainty in
love. Give all your heart to this man – or give none of it.
Anything less will only hurt you both."

Jennifer thought about that as the days passed. But her
emotions were jumbled and uncertain. Still, she had to reach some
kind of understanding, some peace with herself. She was falling in
love with the last man she should have, and that was something she
had to face and deal with.

But the days passed.

He probably has left anyway,
she reflected
tiredly as she showered and dressed. It was barely after eight in the
morning, and she had met Dane less than a week before; she hadn't
seen him in days. Now, in the silence of the house, her mother
sleeping, Jennifer went to turn on the automatic coffee maker and
then to get the morning paper.

The white Ferrari was parked in the driveway.

She didn't notice it until she straightened from
picking up the newspaper, and by then Dane had gotten out and
was coming toward her. She stood perfectly still, holding the
rolled-up paper with both hands, strongly aware of a suddenly racing
heart.

"I didn't know if you'd be up yet," he said
quietly when he reached her.

Jennifer felt hungry, starving, and she couldn't stop
looking at him. Odd, she had forgotten how incredibly handsome he
was, but those eyes, like none she'd ever seen before . . . those
eyes she remembered so well. "I'm an early riser." she
managed to say. "You are too, I guess."