Hooper, Kay - [Hagen 09] (13 page)

He shook his head slightly. "Not really. I usually
have more late nights than early mornings. The game just broke up a
few hours ago."

So
that's why he's here.
"It's over, then?"
she asked.

He knew what she was asking. "No. Not quite. One
more game tonight, and it will be. But I wanted to see you. Will you
come have breakfast with me?"

Jennifer hesitated, fighting herself. "That
wouldn't be very wise, would it?"

Dane smiled crookedly. "No."

Tomorrow, she thought, he'd be gone. "All –
all right. Let me leave a note for my mother."

Five minutes later, she found herself back In the
gleaming white sports car and heading for Lake Charles. Unwilling to
let a silence grow between them, she ventured, "Aren't you
tired?"

He shrugged. "No, I'm used to late nights. I'll
catch a few hours' sleep later today."

Catch, she thought vaguely. Something on the run,
something elusive. It bothered her. And he
was
tired, she
realized, despite his words. There were no obvious physical signs,
but she could sense something finely honed in him, as if some surface
protection had been worn away by strain.

After a moment, she said, "Who won last night?"

"I did." He was matter-of-fact about it.

"Did Kelly cheat?"

Dane was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "No.
And he lost a great deal last night. Jenny. So if cheating were a
habit with him, he would have done it."

A little tightly, she said, "Are you saying he
didn't cheat when he won Belle Retour?"

"I'm saying he probably didn't." Dane's voice
was steady. "Men who cheat at cards tend to make a habit of it.
Kelly obviously doesn't do that. He's just a very good player."

Jennifer looked blindly through the windshield. So she
was left without even that, facing the knowledge that her home had
been fairly taken away from her. "Did you cheat to win last
night?"

"No."

That answer sounded a little tired, she realized, and
she couldn't leave it. "I'm sorry. It's just that I can't forget
what you said. That, if the stakes were high enough, you probably
would."

Dane was silent for a few minutes, until he turned the
Ferrarl Into the parking lot of a restaurant and stopped. Then he
shut off the engine and half turned to look at her. "How high is
high enough? That's what you asked once. I've played when the stakes
were higher than you can imagine. But I never lost sight of what I
was doing. It's just a
game.
Jenny," he said softly.

She looked at him mutely.

"Just a game. A game of cards. A game of skill and
tactics and bluff. Stop damning me because I happen to be good at
it."

"How can it be just a game to you?" she asked,
trying to understand. "You've told me, more than once, that
you're a gambler, a professional."

"Yes, I am. But the very fact that I
am
a
professional should assure you that I would never risk anything I
cared about in a
game.
Would a carpenter live in a badly built
house? A race car driver get Into a car he knew could fall apart on
him? Would you. an artist, deliberately corrupt your talents?"

"You're comparing apples and oranges."

Dane reached for one of her hands, holding it strongly
in his own. "No, I'm not. Jenny, you believe that because
your father lost everything in a game, your getting involved
with me is somehow a danger to you. That I could hurt you the way he
did. But you're wrong. You're the one comparing apples and oranges
when you compare your father to me. Amateur gamblers are reckless.
Professionals aren't."

"You said that every gambler knew one day the
stakes might be everything." She kept her voice even.

He carried her hand to his lips and held it there for a
brief moment, gazing steadily into her eyes, then held her hand in
both his. "That's the point. Jenny. To an amateur gambler,
everything is everything; he'll stake anything he can call his own,
including his home and his self-respect. But to a professional,
everything
is only what he can afford to lose, and that never
includes a home – or any harm to someone he loves."

Jennifer could feel his tension as well as her own, but
she was still trying to reach an emotional understanding of what
he was saying. Her mind acknowledged his meaning, but her heart
remembered the pain of her father's betrayal.

"The very skills that made me professional rule out
the possibility that I would ever bet what I couldn't afford to lose.
Jenny, to me, it's a
game.
A test of skill and concentration.
If it ever stops being a game, if the next turn of the card means
more to me than the test of those traits, then it'll be the last time
I risk anything."

"How can you be so sure?"

"After twenty years? Twenty years. Jenny. Playing
cards for fun, for practice, for information, for business. And
in all that time, it was only a game I used. Never a game that used
me. It never meant more."

"Then why can't you stop?"

"I've been asking myself the same thing during the
last few days. And the answer is complicated."

"You won't tell me?"

Dane hesitated, watching her with restless eyes. "Is
the reason so important. Jenny? It doesn't change anything. In a
way it has to do with something we talked about before. Honor,
integrity. If there are any right reasons to become a gambler, then
my reasons were right. And if I walk away from it now, I would be
saying the last twenty years were meaningless."

Jennifer didn't respond for a long moment. She looked
down at his beautiful, long-fingered hands holding hers, conscious of
his strain and her own. And in the tangle of her emotions, one
thought emerged clearly.
He doesn't have to say this.
He could
say gambling meant nothing and that he would give it up if she
asked. She would be eager to believe him.

He could have avoided these complications easily, if a
relationship with her had meant less than it obviously did to him.
But she had been right in believing that there was a core of
integrity in him, a basic honesty. He wouldn't tell her what she
wanted to hear, because it would be a lie. He wouldn't offer her easy
answers, simple solutions, because sometimes the answers aren't
simple ones.

It all came down to a question of trust, and he
obviously knew that as well as she did. He had tried to assure
her, as carefully and reasonably as possible, that he wasn't a
compulsive
gambler, that he would be, by this very
professionalism, incapable of a reckless, hurtful act such as
her father's. And at no time had he taken advantage of the strong
desire they were both constantly aware of in order to sway her to a
point beyond reason. He could have, and they both knew it.

"Jenny ..."

She met his gaze finally, looking into those
incredible, vibrant eyes, thinking.
He hasn't made me forget
everything but wanting him, and he could
...
he could
. The
ache inside her eased. "Do you know that Frost poem. The Road
Not Taken'?" she asked softly.

He nodded slowly.

With a deep breath, she said, "I haven't had that
choice too often in my life, and when I did I took the safe path,
with no regrets. But when I met you, the choice wasn't easy anymore.
And if I take the safe path this time, I believe I’ll always
wonder about the one less traveled."

He lifted a hand to her cheek, touching it gently, and
suddenly his eyes were like sunlight through purple clouds, lit from
within, vivid with promises. "I hope that means what I think it
does," he said huskily.

Jennifer smiled, feeling warm and lighter than air. "I
thought you were going to feed me."

Two hours later, Dane and Jennifer were walking
together in a park near the restaurant. Since it was summer, the
park was alive with children and young people, exploding with
activity and laughter. Jennifer thought that Dane had brought her
here deliberately, because what he had told her days ago still held
true: They would have little time together until he finished his job
with Garrett Kelly, and it was clear he had no Intention of rushing
things between them.

She walked beside him, her hand tucked in the crook of
his arm and his hand covering hers, very aware of more than one
feminine head turning to get a second glance at Dane. It didn't
surprise her. He was a strikingly handsome man of impressive size and
grace, and there was a curious aura of dignity and old-world charm
about him.

And she felt oddly enclosed by that aura herself. She
was conscious that her posture was straighter when she was with him,
her head held higher, as if some Instinct within her strove to match
his innate dignity. As usual he was dressed with semiformality in a
cream-colored suit, only the tie missing. As for herself, she was in
a casual denim skirt and cotton blouse; she had taken to wearing
skirts rather than her usual Jeans, even though she had carefully
refrained from explaining her motives to herself. But she
realized now it was because there was something very
male
about Dane, about that aura of his, something that brought out the
feminine in a woman.

Absurdly, she caught herself wishing that hoop skirts
and lots of petticoats were still the fashion.

"Riverboats," she murmured to herself.

He looked down at her, smiling. "What?"

Jennifer felt herself flush a little, but she was amused
as well. And since they had reached a kind of careful companionship
during breakfast, she didn't hesitate to let him know her thoughts
now. "I was just thinking how at home you would have looked on a
riverboat a hundred years ago." And, as his smile deepened, she
added dryly, "You've heard that before."

"Once or twice," he admitted.

She sighed. "If I weren't hanging on your arm, you
would have been mobbed by half these women by now."

He laughed, startled. "For God's sake. Jenny!"

"Well, it's true. And you have to know it."
She looked up at him, curious. "Don't you?"

"How am I supposed to answer that?" he asked
somewhat helplessly.

It was her turn to laugh, but she wasn't willing to drop
the subject. "You aren't vain, I know. Most really handsome men
are so aware of their looks that's all you remember once they're
gone. You aren't like that. And with you . . . it's more than a set
of features that happens to be put together well. It's something
else. People notice you, no matter where you are or what you're
doing, and remember you."

"I'm taller than average," he said
dismissively.

Jennifer's amusement increased. He was clearly
uncomfortable with the subject, and there was something
curiously endearing about that because she knew it was sincere. "That
isn't it either," she told him firmly. "But I know what
part of it is. You walk like a cat. Or a king."

That really did startle him, and he didn't seem to know
whether to laugh or swear. "If you mean I'm arrogant – "

"No, you aren't arrogant." She mused about it,
wanting him to understand what it was she saw in him. "Not
haughty. Cats and kings have a kind of self-knowledge the rest of us
rarely attain. A sure sense of their place in the world. They're
centered. Balanced."

A little wryly, he said, "Sure you're talking about
me?"

"I'm not saying you don't have doubts from time to
time; you wouldn't be human otherwise. It's just that there seems to
be something in you that's . . . fixed. Something so deeply certain
that it's almost visible. You said you carried your roots around with
you. Maybe that's it. The only thing you're tied to is yourself."

He was smiling again, faintly. "What brought on all
this analysis?"

They had paused on the path underneath a towering oak,
and Jennifer released his arm to wander over and sit on the white
bench encircling its girth. "You," she said with a sigh.
"And it's your own fault. You've shot my own balance to hell,
you know."

"Sorry," he murmured.

She looked at him wryly. "No, you're not."

"All right, then. I'm not sorry. Why should I
suffer through this alone?"

"This?" She drew a breath, her amusement
vanishing, and added steadily, "We keep dancing around it,
don't we?"

Dane stood looking down at her, suddenly grave. "It's
too dangerous to stop the music."

Jennifer knew very well that he had been at some pains
to keep the music going, to keep things on an even keel between them.
And she knew that he was right to think that way as long as their
time together had to be brief. There was a wildness they were both
conscious of and had little control over, exploding when they touched
in anything but a casual way. They were both wary. She felt it in
herself, and sensed it in Dane.

But she didn't know what he wanted from her, not
completely, and that bothered her. He had never hinted at any kind of
a commitment, saying only that he wanted a chance to find out what
this was between them. And he had certainly had women throwing
themselves at him since his teens. What made her so special that
he wouldn't take advantage of obvious desire? What, indeed . . .

Unwilling to continue along those lines, she changed the
subject abruptly. "You said you were a gambler and a thief. We
haven't talked about the second."

He was silent for a moment, then accepted the change.
"It's accurate enough, depending on your point of view. In
certain quarters, I have the reputation of being a thief, and I don't
deny it. There have been advantages to it."

"As an information broker?" she guessed.

Dane nodded. "Some shady individuals wouldn't talk
to me unless I had the reputation I do. It comes in handy."

Jennifer gazed at him steadily. "Reputations don't
usually arise out of thin air."