One Night Gamble

by Katherine Garbera

  “I’m just saying,” she muttered under her breath, “just because we see a chance, that doesn’t always mean we should take it.”

  “But in this case, it was good that we did,” he quipped. “Now, let’s go bring your Gran her snacks and you can teach me how to play bridge,” he said.

  He was acting like nothing had happened, as if everything had been resolved and all they had left to do was go back to life as it had been.

  She wasn’t sure he’d understood her concerns. Had he just said whatever he had to in order to make her stay?

  That wasn’t what she’d wanted.

  But for tonight, she was done. She had no fight left in her. So she let him follow her to Gran’s house where he was greeted with lots of old lady love and hugs. And when he sat down at the card table to be her partner, she realized something she’d never noticed before—it was only with cards in his hands that Casey was truly at ease.

  He played and won the first hand—beginner’s luck. Everyone said so but she noticed his intense concentration during the game and realized that he was playing to win. And she couldn’t help feeling that earlier that evening, she’d been the one being played.

  Gran was in fine form tonight, as were her friends. They were drinking some Asti Spumante that had been on sale at Walgreens and were telling tales about their youth as they sat around the card table. Casey got a glimpse of everything he’d lose if he couldn’t figure out how to make things work with Talia.

  …

  “Nina was the prettiest of our group,” Mona said. “She used to have all the boys tripping over themselves to impress her.”

  “I was attractive when I was younger,” Gran admitted.

  “You still are, Gran,” Talia said.

  “Thank you, lovey,” Gran said, giving her a pat on the hand.

  “But she only had eyes for one boy,” Mona continued.

  “My grandfather?” Talia asked.

  “Well, hmm, not exactly.”

  “No,” Gran said. “And I think Mona has had enough champagne.”

  “I haven’t,” Mona protested but when she set her hand on the table to take back her glass, she placed it face up. Gran gave her a stern look and Mona sank back into her seat.

  Lee and Tonya, who hadn’t grown up with Gran and Mona and had only met them when they’d all moved to Glen View, didn’t say much. Everyone went on with the rest of the round as if nothing had happened.

  But it was funny to see Talia’s Gran being so strict with her friend. It was something she’d never done when her father had been alive. Talia couldn’t remember a single time her grandmother had tried to stop her dad’s gambling.

  “Mona, Gran told me you have a beautiful singing voice,” Talia said, trying to get the conversation going again.

  “Did she? Must have been when she wasn’t in a mood,” Mona griped.

  “Stop being a brat,” Gran said. “Mona was a backup singer for Tony Orlando and Dawn.”

  “One of the homes I lived in had one of his albums,” Casey said.

  “Homes?” Lee asked.

  “I was in a foster home when I was a kid, and then later, a group home,” Casey admitted. “One of the couples who kept us was a musician. He played the trumpet in one of the big shows in Vegas. I used to catch a ride with him into town sometimes.”

  “Ah, well I was never on the albums,” Mona said. “Sometimes, if one of the girls got sick, I’d sub for them. It was fun.”

  “I bet,” Lee said. Then the women were all talking about their pasts and the most exciting thing that had happened to them. For Lee, it was the time she’d thought she was waiting for a celebrity outside of an embassy in London. Unfortunately, it had turned out to be a protest and she’d been arrested.

  They all laughed at that.

  “How did you not know?” Gran asked.

  “To be honest, everyone had a camera, so we figured they were all waiting for someone famous. My daughter and I were standing there, cameras at the ready, when the cops arrived. We sorted it out quickly, but not before we’d all been taken to the station. It was very exciting.”

  Talia didn’t think it had been nearly as thrilling as Lee’s adventure when she’d had to bail her father out of jail after he’d been busted for trying to sell stolen goods.

  “Well the most exciting thing to happen to me was when I was picked to be on The Price Is Right. You know not everyone gets to. It was so much fun,” Tonya said.

  “Did you win?” Casey asked.

  “Just some kitchen appliances but it was something,” Tonya said. “My husband recorded it and we used to show everyone when they came over to our house.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Talia said. “Nothing that exciting has ever happened to me.”

  “That’s because you’re young,” Gran said. “We’ve got at least forty years on you, lovey. Give it time.”

  She smiled at her grandmother and then looked at Casey. “What about you? Surely playing in a high-stakes game has to rank up there.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, it is exciting. But like you, I’m not sure I’ve experienced my big adventure yet,” Casey said.

  Again, she couldn’t help but notice how relaxed Casey looked, sitting at the card table. He was at ease here. He shuffled easily and in a nonchalant way that made it seem as if winning or losing didn’t matter to him. But his gaze was eagle-eyed and sharp. He watched everything and she knew that he could win if he wanted to.

  There was something in his eyes that made her want to believe that he was trying to say she might be his most exciting adventure. But she doubted it. She knew that no woman could compete with the allure of the next hand.

  Or at least that was what experience had taught her. She wanted to think she was wise enough not to fall into the same trap she’d been in her entire life, but Casey tempted her.

  “Looks like Talia and Casey won,” Mona said, doing the tally on her notepad. “Want some help cleaning up, Nina?”

  “I got it,” Talia said, getting up to start clearing away the snacks. As she worked, she heard Casey talking to Mona and offering to see her home, which was sweet, and very considerate. No one wanted Mona behind the wheel of her golf cart when she was tipsy.

  The other ladies then chimed in that they, too, needed an escort and Talia moved to the living room window to watch Casey driving Mona’s golf cart away, accompanied by three ladies.

  “I like him,” Gran said, coming up next to her. “He’s got a sweetness underneath all that flash.”

  Maybe.

  “He’s never had a real family,” Talia said.

  “Maybe that’s why he is so good at cards. He had nothing else to distract him,” Gran said.

  “Or maybe it’s just that cards are his family,” Talia said.

  “Not everyone who plays the game is like your father,” Gran said, a warning in her voice.

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” Gran asked. “That young man isn’t like Dan. Don’t make him pay for your father’s mistakes.”

  She tried not to let her grandmother’s words have too much weight. But they did. Was she looking for a reason to walk away from Casey before she fell any harder for him?

  …

  Walking back through the Glen View Senior Community, Casey tried to tell himself that everything between him and Talia was settled, but he knew it wasn’t. And he wasn’t sure what he could do about it.

  Darien had been in a bad way ever since Poppy Holland had walked out on him. Nicholas and Casey had been by their friend’s side and did their best to help him move on. There had been a lot of drinking, a lot of fighting—Darien got mean when he drank too much—and a fair amount of booty calls. Then, six months later, Casey won his first big poker match, Nicholas had broken away from the guy who’d been his mentor, and Darien’s mom had handed over control of the stunt show to him.

  They were three twenty-five-year-olds with a chance to do something and they’d thrown in their lot together, forming the
Jokers Wild LLC and starting to build their legacies. Casey had never thought about a legacy until Darien had brought it up. He’d wanted to become so successful that Poppy would come crawling back…something that wasn’t going to happen since she’d gone on to become famous in her own right, with her all-woman stunt spectacular.

  Hell.

  He stopped walking and tossed his head back, looking up at the sky. His friends were his family. He didn’t want to lose Darien over Talia. But when he was with Talia, he could finally feel some untamed part of himself calm down. He felt secure with her, and wanted to believe that she could be his future.

  But what if Darien saw something that Casey was missing? Did Talia remind him of Poppy?

  He couldn’t see any similarities. Talia wasn’t going to move on and start her own casino. She’d been very open about her career—she wanted the experience this job could give her, nothing more. And he knew what she thought about casinos.

  So what was he going to do?

  He felt like he had to choose between one of his best friends and his woman.

  Really, was there a choice?

  Darien was great, but he wasn’t Talia.

  He got back to her Gran’s place and saw the two of them sitting together on the couch in the living room. He stayed outside, on the sidewalk, looking in.

  Ah hell.

  This is what it felt like when he’d been a kid—on the outside, looking in. Regardless of her past, at least Talia had a family—the kind he’d never had. She had Mona, Lee, and Tonya. She had her Gran and her best friend Sami.

  And he had…the guys. Those jokers, who were the closest thing he had to brothers. And one of them wasn’t sure about her.

  For the first time in his life, he was caught in a family drama. A part of him was amazed that he had two people he cared for that deeply, but another part had longed for this for so long.

  He wanted what he saw looking through that window. He wanted to be like Tonya, showing people a video of something that Talia did fifteen or twenty years from now.

  But what did he know about building a future?

  He knew how to pick and choose the right pieces to make a winning hand, but how long would his luck hold? He’d decided to back out of the tournament. Although he’d originally wanted payback from some of the people who’d ruined his mother’s life, he realized it was time to look to the future, not the past. He had to prove to both him and Talia that he could have a normal life. But he had no idea how to create one.

  Talia turned around and noticed him standing out on the sidewalk. She gave him a funny look and stood up.

  He continued up the walk to the front door, and was on the porch when she opened the door.

  “What were you doing?”

  He didn’t want to tell her. Didn’t want her to see the chinks in his already tattered armor. She knew some of his secrets but there were some that went too deep, too personal.

  “Just making sure you had some quality time with your Gran. I know that you two are really close,” he said.

  She reached out and took his hand. “Thank you. It has been different, not seeing her every day. But I think she likes it. She’s pretty feisty. Besides, she never asked to have to raise me.”

  “Something tells me she didn’t mind,” Casey said.

  “I think you’re right,” Talia said. “I know I said I wanted to stay here, but if I changed my mind…”

  “I’d be very happy to have you come back to our place tonight.”

  “Our place?”

  “I think of it that way now,” he said, but it felt forced. Nothing was resolved between her and Darien. And he knew that there was more to Talia’s retreat than a simple comment from his friend.

  She had to be harboring some doubts, the way he was. Both of them were trying to figure out how to make a life out of a one-night stand, and that was harder than he would have believed possible.

  “Let me grab my keys. Do you want to come inside and say goodnight to Gran?”

  He nodded and followed her into the house, talking to her grandmother while Talia got her stuff. And then he followed her as she drove sedately back toward Vegas.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Talia had the feeling that no matter what Casey said, they were on borrowed time. Her heart was involved now, and though she wanted to savor her time with him, it was a double-edged sword.

  She’d realized at that bridge game that she hardly knew this man she thought she loved. There were other facets to his character that she’d never noticed, likely because she’d been too busy making sure that she didn’t fall for another gambler that she might have ignored traits Casey had that didn’t fit in with the image of the man she wanted him to be.

  When they entered his penthouse, she looked around at the little touches she’d made to the place—the flower arrangement on the big table in the foyer, the pictures she’d placed on the console table of the two of them, one of Gran and one of Casey, Nicholas, and Darien. She’d been making this a home…but she wasn’t sure she could ever let her guard down with a man who’d been so at ease at a card table.

  “I’m so glad you are back home,” Casey said.

  “Sorry about earlier,” she said as she walked past him toward the stairs.

  She heard him follow her up the stairs and she moved into the dressing area near her closet to get undressed and put her jewelry away.

  “Talia?” he asked.

  She turned around and saw him leaning against the frame of her door. He’d undone the buttons of his shirt and untucked the tails, so she caught a glimpse of his tattoo.

  “Yes?”

  “Are we okay?” he asked.

  The words felt heavy in her heart. She wanted to say yes, because the only reasons she had for saying no were ephemeral. There was nothing concrete that she could justify. How was she going to tell him that when she’d seen him with cards in his hand, she’d felt the icy cold sliver of fear?

  That sounded…melodramatic even to her. But it was true.

  “Yeah, of course,” she said.

  “Don’t try to bluff,” he said. “You’re not very good at it and I’m an expert.”

  He walked farther into the room and she closed her eyes. The scent of his cologne, the nearness of him…it would be so easy to just give in to the physical attraction that was always a constant with the two of them. She’d give anything to go back to her first night in this place—when he’d been a stranger and sex was all that either of them wanted.

  That had been enough.

  “I’m…” She opened her eyes and he was standing closer to her. His blue eyes were icy and his stance was that of a man who was readying himself to take a body blow. She knew that Casey wasn’t with her lightly. That, like her, he felt something that he couldn’t explain or control. She wanted to be the one who gave him things that poker couldn’t buy—like family, and a solid life together.

  But her fear wasn’t going to let her.

  “Talk to me,” he said. “Did I force you tonight? Is that it? Do you really not want to be with me because of something Darien said?”

  She put her hand on his chest.

  Damn.

  He was hot and hard.

  She shouldn’t have touched him.

  “It’s not that,” she said. Her fingers spread wider until the back of her hand pushed the fabric of his shirt far enough out of the way that she could see his tattoo. She traced the cards.

  “Do you know that I avoid looking at this?”

  He tipped her head back so that their eyes met. “No. I didn’t. Why?”

  “I have spent the entire time we have been dating trying to convince myself that you’re not a card shark. Not a poker player—”

  “But you know I am. I’ve never hidden that.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. The thing is, I didn’t want to see any trace of my father’s weakness in you. And until tonight…until I saw you with a hand of cards and winning on the line, I didn’t.”


  His hand fell away from her face. “Am I supposed to lose?”

  “No. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about how I realized that there was an entire part of you that I’d never seen before. That man was a stranger to me, yet he’s so much a part of you. I felt stupid for not noticing it before.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What else are you hiding?”

  “Nothing,” he said, turning away and cursing. “Why would I hide that? I don’t even know what you are talking about. Honestly, I play cards to win because winning is the only option I had to survive. The only reason why I’m standing here today is that I learned about odds and what it took to win.”

  She wrapped one arm around her own waist. She had known from the moment they met that there was something between them that she had to ignore. Something that would break the both of them if she let it. And tonight, she realized that it wasn’t her fear of staying in Vegas that had been driving her to keep some distance between her and Casey—it had been this.

  He was exactly the man she didn’t want him to be. He was a rogue and a gambler and charming as hell—exactly the type of man she didn’t want to love. Yet she did love him.

  “Talk to me, Talia,” he said. “Tell me what it is you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

  Those words unconsciously echoed things she’d heard her father say and she knew that, no matter what, she had to end this with Casey. He wasn’t the kind of man to give away everything he had to feed his gambling addiction, but she was too much her father’s daughter. Seeing him play had terrified her. It had made her want to tuck money into her shoe so that he wouldn’t find it if he searched for it. And that was not a normal reaction to seeing someone play an innocent game of bridge.

  She knew that.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “I’m the one who has to figure this out.”