Deal Me In

“You pick. But be reasonable. The guy has to be of age and have moderate intelligence.”

At that moment, Molly cleared her throat and tapped on her order pad. “Sorry to interrupt such momentous wagering, boys, but I thought you might want to bet on who gets the check.”

Dobbs chuckled before sitting back and leveling a serious look at her. “What about Molly?” he said to Marshall. “She’s clever.”

Brady glanced at Dobbs. He couldn’t be serious.

“Now, hold on, gentlemen,” she said. “My name has just been mentioned in the same conversation with the word wager. That’s enough to make anybody nervous.”

“Don’t be,” Dobbs said. “I’m presenting you with the chance of a lifetime. How would you like to be a student of Brady’s for a five-week course?”

She frowned. Not exactly a reaction designed to boost a guy’s ego, Brady thought, even if they were just kidding around.

“I don’t know anything about racehorses,” she said.

Dobbs grinned. “We’re not talking about horses. We’re talking about poker.”

“I know even less about that.”

Dobbs looked at the other two. “See? She’s perfect.”

Molly took a step back. “Perfect for what?”

Dobbs gave her a grin that was part confident Texan and part cocky Irishman. “What do you say, sweetheart? You want to come to River Bluff and learn to play poker from a master?”

CHAPTER TWO

POKER? Molly couldn’t suppress an unladylike bark of laughter. Her father would heat under the collar of his clerical robe if he knew she was about to even participate in a conversation about gambling. There wasn’t even a deck of cards in the modest house she shared with Luther Whelan.

She stared at Marshall Carrick, the man who carried the weight of Cross Fox Ranch on his broad shoulders, and waited for him to say something to make sense of this. When he didn’t, she picked up one of the empty glasses on the table and made a show of sniffing it. “I’m thinking you boys have been sipping something a whole lot stronger than lemonade.”

Brady smiled, an easy full-bodied grin that had her believing he could talk people into almost anything, just as she knew he had. The younger Carrick resembled his father in stature and size. But Brady’s bronzed complexion was less weathered. His light brown hair was sun-streaked and just long enough to fall over his forehead. The collar of his blue oxford-cloth shirt had a distinctive lack of Western ornamentation. Unusual for a horseman in the heart of Texas.

“It’s okay, Molly,” Brady said, his voice a smooth, cultured version of typical ranch-hand drawl. “We were just playing a game of ‘what if’ over lunch.”

Dobbs leaned forward. “‘What if?’ So now you’re backing out?”

“No. But there isn’t any reason to get Molly mixed up in this.”

“Of course there is,” Dobbs insisted. “We picked her.”

“This is getting weird.” Molly waved the check in the air. “Who’s going to pay this bill?”

Dobbs pointed to Brady. “Mr. Big Shot.”

Brady pulled his wallet out of his jeans.

“Here’s the thing, Molly,” Dobbs said. “Brady claims he can take a novice card player and lead him—or her—all the way to a final table at the Texas Hold ’Em quarter finals U.S. Poker Play-offs in Las Vegas in February.”

Molly had some knowledge of Texas Hold ’Em. Her husband, Kevin, had played the game when he was away on the rodeo circuit. “I’ve seen that on TV.”

“Sure you have,” Dobbs said. “The players that get to the last table in just the quarter finals can win, what, Brady? Thousands of dollars?”

He nodded. “This quarterly event draws mostly local players, and even sixth place can be a decent payoff.”

She pointed her pen at him. “And you think you can coach somebody who’s never played before to the final table?”

He shrugged. “Look, we were just shooting off steam.”

Marshall leaned back and smiled. “So you’re saying you can’t do it now?”

Brady scowled. “I can do it. But Molly doesn’t want to be involved. She must be thinking we’re crazy.”

“She’s involved already,” Dobbs said. “I told you—we picked her, didn’t we Marshall?”

“We were sure talking about it.”

“And Brady said it was our choice.”

“Yep, he did.”

Brady folded some bills in his hand. “Don’t let us keep you, Molly. Do I pay you or up at the counter?”

Determined he wasn’t about to put her off, she stared into the deepest green eyes she’d ever seen. “Pay me. And you’re not keeping me. It’s almost time for my break. I’ve known Dobbs for years. If he says they picked me for this wager, then I guess that puts the cards on my table.”

Brady chuckled, but it seemed a self-conscious effort to appear unruffled. He handed her the money.

She tucked it into her pocket. “So you can do it? You can teach me to play poker?”

“Sure, I could, but…”

“What would you get out of this?” she asked. “What’s at stake for you?”

“It’s personal.”

“Tell her,” Marshall said. “She’s got a right to know what we’re betting on.”

Brady stared at his father a good long moment before he said, “Not that I think that’s true, but okay.” He looked up at her. “I win the right to train the horse we just bought.”

“And this is important to you?” Molly said.

He didn’t answer that. He didn’t have to. The fire in his eyes was proof enough. “I see that it is,” she added.

Brady darted a quick uncomfortable glance at his companions before turning back to Molly. “But look, all that doesn’t matter. You have to understand what it would take to get to the final table. Long hours. Personal sacrifice. This is a tough training regimen for a woman.”

“For a woman?” Molly repeated.

Brady looked down. “Don’t take that the wrong way.”