What the Gambler Risks

by Kristina Knight

  “I don’t think—” Sabrina began, but Jase held up his hand, stopping her.

  “I think you could use a drink, Melinda. The bartender over there makes the best Bloody Marys in Vegas.” He put a bill into Melinda’s hands. “What if you get that drink and try to take your mind off your troubles, and let your”—he paused—“sister?” Melinda grinned and stood a little straighter. Jase continued with the line, “Let your sister play your hand.”

  Chapter Nine

  “What are you doing here? I thought you had to work?” Sabrina couldn’t stop the anger in her voice from coming through, and it made her even more annoyed. This was the second time Jase had ridden to her mother’s rescue, and she wasn’t having it. The last thing Melinda needed was a knight in shining armor, especially not when the knight was the man Sabrina had been sleeping with for more than a week.

  “I, uh, finished early and didn’t want to bother you,” he said. The line of Jase’s mouth was tight, and that meant he was lying, which only pushed her annoyance closer to anger level. Sabrina watched her mother at the bar for a second while she counted to ten, a habit she’d started with Melinda as a child. She’d never thought she would use this cool-down method on Jase Reeves.

  Melinda leaned on the bar while the bartender flashed a smile. A moment later, she started back toward them with the Bloody Mary in her hands. “We haven’t properly met,” she said when she reached them once more. “I’m Melinda Smith. This is Sabrina. You are?”

  “Jase,” he said, and Sabrina noted that he left off his last name. Probably the smartest thing he’d done so far. “I was just looking for a partner for the tournament.”

  She couldn’t let him play poker with her mother. It didn’t matter that Jase was a bazillionaire and he wouldn’t miss the money Melinda would make him lose. This breakup with Lorenzo was going worse than any Sabrina had experienced in a long time. Melinda seemed hell-bent on not only acting like a twenty-year-old instead of the over-fifty-year-old she was, but in looking like a twenty-something, too. Sabrina needed to get her mother out of his casino and back to the condo before she went completely over the edge.

  “We were just leaving, though. Big day tomorrow. Job interviews.” She had to keep talking, just say anything until she could get Melinda away from Jase. “You can sign up over there or—”

  “Reeves, I thought you were still in Atlantic City.” An older gentleman, wearing an old-fashioned bolo tie, a white shirt with pearl buttons, and pressed Wrangler jeans, smacked Jase on the shoulder. “You playing tonight?”

  “If I can find a partner,” Jase said, keeping his attention on Sabrina. “I thought I might’ve found one, but now I’m not so sure.” There was some emotion in his voice that Sabrina couldn’t quite read. Something like annoyance, but she wasn’t sure what he could be annoyed at her about. She wasn’t the one who’d canceled dinner and then showed up at a casino.

  Melinda laid a hand on Jase’s arm. “I’m in the market for a partner,” she said, ignoring Sabrina’s tug on her arm. “I already paid the entry fee and signed up.”

  Maybe she should just let Melinda go. Let her gamble away the pain of her breakup. Maybe if her mother finally crashed and burned she would grow up.

  “I’m Victor Cassio. My sons, Lukas and Gerald, are playing tonight.” The older gentleman nodded to two men in their early thirties waiting in line at the check-in stand. Victor looked Melinda up and down, seeming to like what he saw.

  Sabrina stepped between the older man and her mother and turned to Jase. “I’m a better player than my mother,” she said, shocked to hear the words coming out of her mouth. “We should partner for the tournament; you said yourself she seemed a little emotional to be playing tonight.”

  Melinda gaped at Sabrina, but then Victor laid a hand on her arm. “You want to get a drink while they figure out the draw for the tournament?”

  “I would love it,” Melinda said. Victor led her to the VIP zone. Sabrina started to follow, but Jase held her back.

  “She’s perfectly safe with Vic. He’s a happily married grass salesman from Utah.”

  “Then what is he doing picking up my mother in a casino?”

  “Vic doesn’t think about picking up women. He thinks about talking to people to figure out their tells or just to pass the time before he hits the poker tables. Trust me, your mother is in safe hands.”

  Sabrina looked from Jase to her mother, laughing with Victor in the VIP area. “He isn’t going to run off to Mexico with her and break her heart?”

  “No. He’s probably going to bore her to death talking about fertilizers and lawn care.” Jase motioned to the sign-up area. “You can’t get her money back; once the money is in, it’s in. So either you’re playing, or she is, or the cash is forfeit.”

  “I don’t want to play in a poker tournament,” Sabrina said. She especially didn’t want to play with her mother flirting with an aging grass salesman while wearing one of Sabrina’s dresses, her shoes, and with her hair highlighted with purple streaks.

  “Seems to me if you don’t play, she will,” Jase said.

  “I don’t want that more.”

  Jase nudged her shoulder with his own. “I know that feeling. For what it’s worth, even after I’d given up trying to keep my mother from gambling, a part of me still wanted to save her.”

  “She’s not the gambling addict your mother was. She’s just upset and angry and trying to be someone she isn’t.”

  “Sounds like every addict I’ve ever known.”

  “Just how many have you known?” she asked, curious about the man she’d spent most of the past eight days with, but with whom she rarely had deep conversations.

  “Gambling addicts? Just the one. But along with gambling comes drinking and sometimes drugs. Then there are the people addicted to the people who gamble. The ones who try to save them.” He clenched his jaw, and his voice took on a darker quality than it usually held, and she wondered if it was his father who’d chased after his mother … or someone else entirely. She couldn’t ask. They didn’t ask those kinds of questions.

  This relationship, if she could call it that, wasn’t deep and dark. It was light and fun. Destined not to last, which was why she shouldn’t have been in it at all. From her mother’s experience, she knew light and fun relationships left one party feeling dark and lonely and depressed. Like she had been when Jase texted her to cancel their dinner plans. She’d called her mother for a distraction, just as Melinda always turned to Sabrina when her heart got broken.

  “Why did you cancel tonight?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving town on Monday?”

  He knew about the tour? “How did you know about that?”

  “Rewind about ten minutes. I was right behind you when Melinda brought it up.”

  Sabrina scowled. “You were eavesdropping.”

  “You were having a private conversation in a public place. That makes me an innocent bystander who happened to hear something you would have preferred he not hear.”

  That much was true. She should have just gone along with Melinda’s crazy plan for the night, not tried to talk her out of it at every turn. She’d never been able to talk her mother out of anything, anyway.

  “It’s the second leg of my book tour, and I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you so much as I was avoiding thinking about it altogether.” She could go light and keep things easy between them, or she could take a chance. “I didn’t want to think about leaving, because that would mean spending time away from you. And I like spending time with you.”

  She saw the flash of surprise cross his face.

  “I know we aren’t talking about future stuff, and the book tour was future stuff. I wanted to keep things in the moment.”

  “I canceled dinner tonight because I’m having a hard time keeping things in the moment.”

  Sabrina’s breath caught in her throat.

  “I’m having trouble not thinking about the future. With you.”r />
  The tournament host called the players to the pit area. Jase scowled at him, but the host didn’t notice.

  “I’m having that same trouble.”

  “Seems like something we should talk about,” he said, and his voice took on that growly quality that sent shivers up Sabrina’s spine.

  She nodded. “We should. But, maybe not in the middle of a casino.” She pointed toward her mother, who still chatted with Victor in the VIP area. “She seems preoccupied with your friend.”

  “He’ll be playing in the next round, and she’ll get lonely again.” His hand brushed against hers. “After the tournament, I want to talk about it.”

  Sabrina nodded and squeezed his hand. “What’s the deal with partner play?”

  “Teams of two. Ideally, one will be the aggressor, and the other will be the conservative. Only one of us plays at a time, and the goal is to keep our pot growing until we either win”—he glanced over his shoulder—“or your mother gets bored and decides to go home.”

  One is the aggressor, the other the conservative. Sounded like every adult relationship she’d ever been in. Sabrina liked being the conservative. Considering the options, moving things slowly, never putting herself outside the comfort zone of surface emotions. So why was she considering messing all that up by taking things out of that surface zone with Jase?

  “I’ll be the conservative,” she said.

  “You should be the aggressor.”

  “You’re more experienced,” she objected.

  “And I read people better. It’s much easier to hold the line, to keep things going your way, when you know what your opponent is carrying.”

  “Which also means it’s easier to go big, because you can estimate the cards in the opponents’ hands.”

  “You didn’t have a problem being the aggressor last night.”

  “And you didn’t the night before that, or the night before that.”

  Somehow, she didn’t think they were just talking about poker any longer, and slow heat spread through her body. Sabrina shook herself. This was not the place to get lost in Jase; this was keeping her mother from losing her rent money—technically, Sabrina’s rent money—on a few hands of cards.

  “Fine, I’ll be the aggressor.”

  “You’re definitely dressed for it,” he said, eyeing the blue dress. It looped over one shoulder, leaving the other bare, and a slit on the side allowed her to show some leg. The dress made her feel powerful, and the look in Jase’s eyes as he surveyed it sent a shiver up her spine. “The men playing at your table will be too busy taking in the dress to be overly concerned with the draw. Watch them, watch their hands, watch their eyes. You’ll know when to push the line.”

  “You won’t be there?”

  “Only one of us at the table at a time. Don’t worry, you’ve got that lucky thing going for you, remember?”

  Sabrina wiped her sweaty palms on her dress. “Mr. String Tie isn’t going to pretend to sweep my mother off her feet and then abandon her in Mexico, is he?”

  “I told you, Victor’s been happily married for going on forty years. She’s safe with him.”

  Sabrina drew her lower lip between her teeth. “Will you stay in their general vicinity, just in case?” Jase might be certain about his friend, but Melinda had a way with men. Maybe she should be warning Victor about her mother instead of worrying about his effect on her.

  “Sure. There’s a rhythm to gambling. You know the rules, you know the stakes, and you know how and when to stop. These rules are simple Texas hold ’em. You play, then me. The stake is the $1,000 buy-in, with the chance of winning”—he surveyed the crowd around them—“roughly a hundred thousand.”

  Sabrina choked a little at the easy way he said the number. “A … hundred … thousand?”

  “I’m counting about three hundred players, each with the thousand buy-in. That’s three hundred grand, and the winner will take 30 percent. Of course, there could be multiple winners, depending, then the pot would go down.”

  Sabrina cleared her throat. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Sure you can. You want the best possible hand based on your two cards and the river on the table. Seven cards total.”

  “But it’s a $100,000,” she said, emphasizing the words. “You’re the bazillionaire. I’m the midlist writer just starting to see good income.”

  “You take it one hand at a time. You’re not betting the hundred grand. You’re betting the cards in your hand; the rest is just flash. Think of it as the label on a dress. Every designer gets material from the same place. One charges $30, one charges $300, but even the $300 dress only has about $30 worth of material. Each hand is your $30 in material, so you keep it simple.”

  It wasn’t sounding simple to Sabrina. All she could think about were the piles of money changing hands as the last of the players signed in at the desk. All that money was going to go to someone at the end of the night. She didn’t want to be the one who lost it.

  Jase tapped his hands on her shoulders, and she refocused her attention on him. “Simplicity gets it most of the time, so go for straights or multiples. Watch the jittery fingers or darting gazes of your opponents. Fold when you aren’t sure, but if you’re confident, take the bid up.” He took her hand in his. “It’s just a game of cards. Like we played that night in Atlantic City and on the plane coming back.”

  His calm voice gave her confidence, and the caress of his thumb on the back of her hand helped to calm the nerves that the $100,000 pot set off in her belly a few minutes before.

  “It’s just cards,” she repeated, but her voice didn’t sound as confident as Jase’s.

  The dealer announced the starting tables, and Sabrina took her seat. She could see Jase sitting near her mother and Victor, sipping a drink with a lime floating in it. This was so not the time for drinking. Cards were distributed around the table, and Sabrina glanced at hers. Two sevens, and the dealer put a king, queen, and another seven on the table. Adrenaline made her sit a little straighter in her chair. Jase’s voice echoed in her ear. Go for the straights and multiples.

  Seven, seven, seven, she chanted silently as the players began to ante. Sabrina matched the ante, and the dealer laid another card on the table. An eight joined the king, queen, and seven already on the table. Three sevens, three of a kind. She didn’t know everything three of a kind beat, but she knew it was in the middle of the winning-hand options. When the other players bet again, she raised.

  She caught Jase leaning forward, elbows on his knees, watching her. She shot him a confident smile. She was the aggressor, damn it, she was going to aggress.

  The dealer dealt the river, another seven. Sabrina’s hand clenched on her cards. She tried to focus on the other players, but all she could think was that she had four of a kind. It was the third-highest hand she could get. There were four other players at the table. None of them could make a royal flush based on the cards on the table, and it was doubtful any could make a straight flush.

  As the ante came around, she watched everyone at the table call. Why were they calling? Why not bow out? Why gamble on a hand that couldn’t win? Unless she was reading the cards wrong, maybe there were options other than her four sevens that could win. The call came to her, and Sabrina considered folding.

  Be the aggressor, damn it.

  She tossed her chip onto the pile and waited her turn to flip over her cards. Two of the players turned over two and three of a kind, but the dealer pointed to her as the winner. Sabrina forgot to breathe for a moment, and then the dealer signaled her to collect the chips on the table. The other players left the table, and their partners approached.

  “Never bid up on the turn, wait until the river,” Jase said, stopping next to her as she collected her chips. “You don’t want to scare the other players off.”

  “I scared them?”

  “Maybe a couple. The others will see that as your tell. You had two sevens when the dealer turned the third, and you raised. Too eager.
”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Professional Poker Player.” Annoyance laced her voice. He’d told her to aggress, and she did. Now he was mad about it. The man didn’t make sense.

  “Do you want to keep winning?”

  Sabrina pressed her lips together. “Yes.”

  “Then ante on the river, not the turn.” He waited a moment. “And nice hand.”

  “Really?” He nodded. Sabrina grinned. “I got lucky.”

  Jase took his spot at the table, and Sabrina joined her mother in the VIP section. Melinda was still talking to Victor, who wasn’t playing. He’d staked his sons, who were in town for the weekend. Sabrina wanted to draw her mother aside to tell her the man was married, but Melinda seemed almost happy for the first time in days. And Victor wasn’t leading her on, he was just talking to her.

  She focused her attention on Jase, trying to figure out how he was playing the conservative. She didn’t catch any tell signs from him. He didn’t touch his cards after looking at them the first time. Didn’t scratch his face or put on sunglasses like the guy in the flannel shirt. He didn’t raise the bet, not even when the dealer showed the river—and why was it called the river anyway? And when he showed his cards, he didn’t seem surprised to find he’d won with a full house.

  The man was icy in his focus. Sabrina wanted to gamble like him.

  No, she corrected herself. She wanted to play cards like him.

  “Nice hand,” she said when they switched.

  “Luck of the draw, remember?” he said.

  Several players had dropped out already, leaving about half of the tournament tables empty. Jase sat at one of the tables, leaving her mother alone with Victor in the VIP area. Sabrina watched the two of them for a moment, but things seemed innocuous.

  Her mother was waving her arms in the air as she spoke, and Victor offered the occasional comment to whatever story she told. Sabrina pushed Melinda’s neediness out of her mind to focus on the cards. Over the course of several more hands, she and Jase traded wins and losses, but they won slightly more, keeping their pot intact.