Life on the Level (34 page)

“You afraid of losing to a girl?” Dolly smirks.

Taylor grimaces and flips over his cards. He’s got the shittiest hand of all. A single high card. I don’t smile. I am steel. I am stone. I am ice. There’s a small cheer that goes up around me. Dealer pats me on the back.

“I knew you were buying the pots,” Dolly mutters in her high-pitched little voice.

“Not against the rules,” Taylor says, a smirk returning to him.

The dealer button moves to me. Someone sets a shot of whiskey beside me, like a congratulatory prize.

I let Dolly shuffle the second deck, and look at Taylor. “You’re not going to get away with it.”

I should keep my mouth shut. I deal. My own cards are crap, but I want to see how far I can go. I like playing big, but straight up, which is hard to do when you’re surrounded by strangers. Cards start to fall all around the table, and there’s that tension that comes with playing with people who visibly hate each other.

Just on the flop I have two pair of tens, with an ace kicker. Not bad, but not amazing. Maybe this time Taylor does have something to beat me with, but my pulse races, and I find myself adding another five hundred. I know I have Taylor when he splashes the pot. Willie Nelson doesn’t like it. He gets up abruptly.

“I counted these,” he says before heading over to the bar.

There’s the turn, and I raise. Taylor calls. On the river I get three pair with an ace kicker. I keep my eyes on him and wait. I’m raising, pushing him to show his hand. He doesn’t go for it. He folds, and I buy the pot.

Taylor bites his thumb. Before I realize it, I’m up, and it’s midnight. My eyes burn, I’m so tired. There aren’t breaks in places like this. The dealer button gets passed along. I fold the next hand to give myself a break. Taylor follows me to the bar. I grab a beer just to have something in my hands and to wet my tongue.

“And here I thought you’d be halfway to Canada by now.”

“I was hoping to find you. I know what makes you tick, River.” He sets something on top of the bar. My phone. It’s charged halfway. There are some missed calls from Sky and Leti. Then from that unknown number.

But I’m not afraid anymore. What do I have to lose? I’ve always thrown away the person I loved the most. Why? Pride? Because I don’t know another way to be?

That’s not true, is it?

What did Clara tell me when I told her I tried, and still failed?

You gotta try more than once, honey.

“Now you just owe me a bottle of Percocet and we’re even,” I tell him.

“Oh, we’re way past that. Just you wait.”

I return to my seat to find Grizzly Hat gone and a new player at the table. He’s stiff. Uncomfortable. He sits back and watches each and every person at the table. His sure, strong fingers count the chips in front of him.

“Hutch,” I whisper.

“Are you her boyfriend, too?” Dolly asks him.

She lifts the corners of her cards, then grins across the table at Hutch. Out of everyone here, he looks like he belongs the least. Even the professor with his sensible sweater and big glasses fits in better than Hutch.

“Sure you want to do this?” I ask, though I know it’s too late.

The cards are on the table. I’ve never seen Hutch play, but I don’t have to. He doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into. I have trip aces on the flop, and a full house on the turn. Hutch is betting sloppy, throwing his money in against me and Taylor. Hell, everyone sees him as an easy mark so the pot keeps growing. I want to tell him to get out. I know what he’s trying to do, and he shouldn’t.

I try to catch Hutch’s eyes. He’s like an open book, the way he catches the back of his head, the way he looks at me like he has a thousand things to say. The way he looks at Taylor like he might just kill him when this is all over.

He takes out a wad of money. “I need to buy more chips.”

“Stop it,” I say, hard.

He doesn’t listen to me. How many times have I been down to my last hand and my last dollar, then borrowed from the house? I don’t have any right to lecture him. Except, this is my world. I know what’s going to happen.

“Taylor just brought
all
his friends here,” Blue Eyes mutters.

“We’re not friends,” is all Hutch says.

“Whatever you are,” Dolly says, “I fold like a hooker over a politician’s knees.”

That makes me laugh. It’s the first time I’ve laughed all day and it feels good. There’s the turn, and I’ve got four of a kind, queen high. Taylor’s still in the game, but he’s only checking. He’s more interested in the showdown between Hutch and me.

“Why did you come here?” I ask, relenting to the aching questions running through my mind. With all the effort I’d put into not thinking of him, I made him materialize out of thin air.

“Figured this was the only way to get through to you.”

All eyes are on me on the turn. I drum my finger on the green. I turn the chip in my hands. Hutch doesn’t belong in this world, and I’ve got to get him out. That’s what I’ve been trying to do from the start.

I win the hand. A couple of people bow out, muttering that this is getting too personal for them. Some people even go to other tables. The buy-in is too high for Taylor at this point, and he does a shitty job at keeping his feelings to himself.

It’s just Hutch and me. Dolly shuffles my cards, and I’m dealer. It’s either the luckiest night of my life, or the game is rigged.

“How’d you find me?”

He raises the pot by five hundred. A few tongues click, and instigators holler. “Small town.”

“Not that small.”

He smiles. It’s heartbreaking. “What else do I have, River, if you’re gone? I told you, I’ll be damned if I let you walk away from me again.”

I take a sip of my beer. I feel heavy, and the room spins a little, but I’ve got a killer hand. At least, I think I do. When did I start to doubt myself like this? The last two months has thrown me off my game.

“You like to gamble, don’t you?” Hutch asks me.

I deal the turn, but I don’t even look at it. “That’s obvious.”

“How about this. If I win, you walk out of here with me. I know that you love me, and I know it’s been the worst couple of days. But I’m not giving up on us.”

“What if you lose?” someone asks.

When Hutch sets those dark eyes on me, I think I might just break apart. “Then I’ll walk away, no questions asked.”

Dolly looks from me to Hutch. “Don’t be stupid, girl.”

I know the cards that I have. I know that for all my life I thought I was broken. There has to be something wrong with you if your own mother can’t find it in her heart to love you, right? But what about Leti, and Sky, and the rest of the family that took me in when I was at my worst? What about my dad, who, for all his faults and vices, was the one who stood by me? What about Hutch?

I’ve been loved my whole life and I’ve been too stubborn and stupid to see it.

I burn a card, and deal the river. He doesn’t even look at it; he just pushes his cards in. He’s baiting me. If I ask to see his cards he might lose, and then he’ll walk away. I keep asking him to, but he’s just as stubborn as I am.

“I’m all in, River,” he tells me. “I’ve been all in since the moment I met you.”

The room is quiet. Even the other tables have turned around to watch us. I’m trying not to break. I’m trying to keep myself together, because that’s what I’m supposed to do. My daddy didn’t raise me to fold when I have such a good hand. My daddy raised me better than that.

But he also raised me to be loyal and to love unconditionally.

I look at my cards to give myself some time to think. What is there even to think about? The man who loves me, the man that I love, has laid everything out for me.

I’m afraid to be weak. I’m afraid to be foolish. I’m afraid to let someone hurt me so much that I’ll never be the same again.

I throw my cards onto the table. “You got me.”

The entire back room of the Golden Rose claps as Hutch makes his way around the table and scoops me up into his arms.

We cash out. At the end of it, we walk away with twenty grand. We leave together, emerging out of the men’s bathroom, which has a few local drunks pissing on themselves when they see us. I hold his hand tighter than ever because I don’t want to let him go. When we reach the parking lot, he pulls me into a kiss.

“Don’t do that to me again.”

“Let you win, or nearly walk out on you?”

He pulls back. “Let me win?”

I push him against his truck and kiss him over and over again.

I don’t hear the footsteps. I don’t hear the cock of the gun until it’s already pointed at me. Hutch pushes me away, and reaches for the gun at his hip, aiming it at the man in front of us. I don’t recognize his face until the motion-sensor lights in the parking lot light up his scars.

“Hey Riv,” Kiernan says. “Did you miss me?”

I’ve always hated guns. I know that it’s Montana and that everyone here grows up with them. But so did I. I’ve seen way too many injuries and deaths. I start to shake, and my heart thunders against my ribs.

“Kiernan.” I say his name like I’ve seen a ghost.

“You know, I’ve been looking for you.” He moves a little further back, and aims his gun at me.

“If you so much as take another step,” Hutch says, “it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

Kiernan laughs. His cool, green eyes sparkle in the dark. His ash blond hair is longer than I remember, and swept across his face to cover the marks where I cut up his face. The scar on my thigh burns at the sight of him.

“Look at you, Riv. Gone and found yourself a John Wayne. You know, when I got a call from you, I wasn’t expecting to hear some guy’s voice. Then he told me where you were, and I thought—wow. Little River Thomas, trying to clean herself up. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“You’re a lot of things,” I tell him, standing between Hutch and Kiernan. “But you’re not a killer.”

“I’ve had to become a lot of things since your godfather got me banned from every table in the city. Do you know I have to go all the way to fucking Jersey to sit at a table?”

“Cry me a river,” I tell him.

He takes a step forward and raises the gun over my head to point it at Hutch. “I’ve always hated when you said that.”

I know he’s going to shoot. I can feel it like a deep freeze in my bones. I charge at him.

“River!”

I go for the gun, pushing his hands up over our heads. We fall to the ground. The gun shot rattles my insides, and I hear the gun fall on the ground. Kiernan grabs me around the throat, flips me over, and pins me to the ground.

“Drop it!” someone shouts.

Another gun hits the floor.

The barrel of a gun appears at Kiernan’s temple. “I said drop it!”

It’s a woman’s voice. High-pitched and shrill. Dolly?

Kiernan lets go of me and raises his hands over his head. A crowd has gathered around the parking lot. There are police sirens in the distance, and for a moment it feels like I’m back home. Hutch comes to my side and pulls me into a bone-crushing hug. I tap him to signal that I can’t breathe, and he releases me.

Kiernan is arrested, and a few moments later, Taylor is brought out in cuffs by the same mustached man that tried to buy me a drink at the bar. The undercover cops look so different here than they do back home.

“Are you okay?” Hutch asks. He brushes my hair back and holds my face in his hands. I pull him close to me and push myself up on my tiptoes so I can kiss him. It’s the adrenaline. It’s the dark of the night. It’s knowing that Hutch is alive and unhurt, and here for me.

It’s just us.

Dolly clears her throat behind us. “If you don’t mind, I need you to come down to the station and give a statement.”

We drive down behind them. The station here is bigger than the little jail cell I was in a few days ago. Taylor spits at me as a cop pushes him past us and into a cell. Under the florescent light, I can get a better look at Kiernan. It’s strange, looking at him after so much time has passed—I feel like I’m looking through a mirror leading into the past. I can’t believe the girl who let herself be with him is the same person I am now.

Dolly pulls the wig off her head.

“Holy shit,” I say.

“This thing is too hot to be comfortable,” she says in her high-pitched voice. Then she looks at me, and smiles. “For someone from the big city, you sure do shock easy.”

“I don’t know why people keep telling me that,” I say.

Hutch squeezes my hand to let me know that he’s still there. I haven’t forgotten.

“New York is pretty boring compared to Montana.”

One of the desk clerks laughs, and a look from Dolly—Detective Rosado—silences him.

“We’ve been following Taylor Patrick for a while,” she says. “There’s never been enough evidence to hold him, and he’s changed aliases several times in the past ten years. I have to say, River, when you sat down at that table I couldn’t have asked for a better stroke of luck.”

I smile. “My daddy used to say there’s no such thing as luck in poker.”

She shakes my hand, and after a paramedic takes a look at us we’re free to go. All of the previous charges against me are dropped. I remind them that Randy is also innocent. I decide to press charges against Kiernan. I might not have been able to get him arrested back home, but him pointing a gun at me changed that. Too bad that’s what it took.

A cop car drops us off at my motel. I gather my stuff and we walk to Hutch’s car from there. This town is so small that I can walk from the poker room to the precinct, then to my motel and back to the poker room, in the span of twenty minutes.

Hutch drives like we’re in the Indy 500, and I cling to his side the whole time. He decides to carry me into his house, and I let him.

“I told you,” he says.

“You told me a lot of things.”

“I told you I wasn’t done with you.”

It’s like that first night again. We’re fumbling in the dark of his house. Money falls out of our pockets and scatters all over the floor, but I’m too busy stripping the clothes off him.

This time I know just where the bedroom is. I press my hands on his chest and lead him through the door and onto the bed. He takes my hand and kisses me from my wrist to the inside of my elbow and back down again. I run my hands through his hair and pull.