Deal Me In

Amber Mac’s accommodations were the best of the best. His stall opened onto a private paddock so he could come and go at will, allowing him the exercise needed to trim to an acceptable weight.

Brady crossed his arms and watched as Mac, finished with his meal, trotted into the paddock and stood with his head over the fence. “He’s got it pretty good.”

Dobbs started to comment but the sound of a car’s laboring engine interrupted him. “You expecting company?”

“Not me.” Brady peered down the half-mile drive. A rolling speck of white approached in a cloud of dust. “Who do we know who drives a tiny foreign thing like that?” he asked Dobbs.

“Nobody I can think of.”

But suddenly Brady knew. Strands of dark brown hair whipped from the driver’s window. George Strait blared from the radio. “Uh, Dobbs?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember seeing that car in Cliff’s parking lot?”

The car stopped two-thirds of the way around the circular drive, just past the entrance to the house. “Damn, Brady,” he said. “That sure looks like our Molly.”

“Shit, no, it can’t be.” Brady pushed his hat back from his forehead. “Sweet mercy, Dobbs, it’s her. And she’s got somebody else in the car.”

Molly shut off the engine. Dust settled over the car, turning the faded exterior a gritty beige. She raked her fingers through her mussed hair, gathered it into a bunch and deftly wound some sort of band around it. She stepped out of the car and leaned an elbow on the top. “You told me not to wait too long,” she said. “I guess this should be quick enough for you.”

He tried to think of something to say, but his head was filled with the chug of her car as it came up the drive and the snorts of amusement coming from Dobbs. Not to mention the appearance of a woman who looked entirely different from the demure waitress in a red dress. This Molly filled out a pair of jeans about as well as anyone could. Her long-sleeved blouse opened at her neck revealing a turquoise charm dipping from a silver chain all the way down between… He looked up like a kid caught with his eyes on a centerfold.

She stepped away from the car and smoothed her hands down the sides of her jeans. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

“You could have called first,” he said, and resisted the urge to slap his hand against his forehead before something else equally inane came from his mouth.

“I didn’t think it was necessary. We pretty well sealed the deal yesterday.”

Had they? Well, yeah, he supposed she was right. But he hadn’t expected her to actually show up. Yet here she was, standing in his driveway, her car loaded to the tops of its windows with stuff. And something else. He pointed. “Who’s in the car?”

She leaned into the driver’s window. “You can get out, Sammy. It’s okay. This is the place I told you about.”

The passenger door opened and a kid emerged, his sneakers crunching on the fine white gravel of the Carricks’ drive. He stood there, the brim of a Dallas Mavericks ball cap shadowing his eyes and nose. A worn cotton horse, its hind legs squeezed in the kid’s fist, dangled beside him. In the other hand, he gripped a plastic Slurpee cup. A T-shirt emblazoned with Prairie Bend Elementary School hung to the knees of a pair of husky-sized jeans.

Molly hurried around the car and put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Say hi to Mr. Carrick and Mr. Dobbs.”

The horse jerked upward, its front legs wiggling. “Hi.”

“This is my son,” she explained, as if it made perfect sense for her to descend on Cross Fox Ranch with family in tow. “His name is Sam.”

Dobbs stepped forward and grinned at the kid. “Hello, Sam.”

Brady acknowledged him with a nod. A silence which might have become uncomfortable was broken by Dodger. The dog darted around Dobbs and ran at the kid, barking excitedly and wagging his stub of a tail.

Molly yanked the boy behind her. “Keep the dog back, will you?”

Brady released a snort of laughter. “That dog’s not going to bite.”

“I don’t know that.”

Dobbs called Dodger back and did his magic hand thing again to quiet the animal.

Brady stared at Molly. “I thought you said you didn’t have any family.”

“I believe I said I wasn’t leaving behind anyone that matters. That’s true. I brought Sam with me.”

“A kid isn’t part of the deal.”

She settled her hand on Sam’s ball cap. “No, he isn’t.”

“But how…?”

“You let me worry about that. It’s not your problem.”

“Like hell—” She scowled at him, and he clamped his mouth shut.

“If you’d like to discuss this later, I’d be happy to,” she said. “Now’s not the time.”

If ever a man felt like he was being rail-roaded, this was it. When Brady got up that morning, he never thought he’d be trying to figure out what to make of Molly. He never believed he’d actually end up teaching her the ins and outs of poker. And he never figured that if she did show, she’d bring a carload of baggage that included a lot more than a few suitcases of clothes.

Brady reached in his back pocket and took out his wallet. “What’d it cost you to get here, Molly? I wouldn’t want you to make the drive back today so here’s enough for a motel room and dinner tonight. There’s a nice place in town…”

She took a couple of steps toward him. “I don’t want traveling expenses. I want the lessons. That’s what you told me I’d get.”

He frowned. “That was yesterday. And you brought a lot more to the table than you ever told me about, so why don’t you take the money, head on back to Prairie Bend and we’ll call the whole thing off.”

She breathed deeply and spoke so low he had to lean in to hear her. That damn silver chain glinted in the sunlight and he had to remind himself to keep his eyes off it. “Okay,” she said, “maybe I should have told you about Sam.”

“You think?”

“But if I had, you wouldn’t have offered me the deal.”

“Damn straight.”

She rolled her eyes to Sam. “Language.”

Somehow he reined in his temper. “Why don’t you take Molly’s son for a walk?” he said to Dobbs.

“Sure. I can do that.”

It was a great plan in theory, only the kid wouldn’t budge. “Sit in the car, honey,” she said to him. He got inside and sucked on the Slurpee.

Molly turned back to Brady. “Look, I’m sorry about blindsiding you, but Sam’s going to start school soon. And when he’s not in school, he won’t be any trouble. He’s a well-behaved boy. I will need to spend time with him, of course, but I’m sure you and I will find all the opportunities we need to study.” Sensing he wasn’t convinced, she added, “And I’m a fast learner. Really, I am. And I want to do this. I’m prepared to study hard and listen to everything you tell me.”

He slanted a suspicious look at her. “Just exactly why do you want to learn poker, Molly? What do you want the money for?”

She parroted the line he’d given her the day before. “It’s personal.”