Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover

Connie nodded and looked at Sophie. “So what do we do first?”

“Thaw the sauce.”

“Right. You know how.”

Sophie retrieved a saucepan from a lower cupboard, filled it half full with water and put in on the stove over a low flame. Then she placed the container of spaghetti sauce in it to thaw.

“Good job,” Connie said. “Let’s mix the filling, then put it in the fridge until we’re ready to use it.”

Ethan volunteered to grate the parmesan and mozarella, saving Connie’s and Sophie’s knuckles. Connie and Sophie mixed the ricotta with seasonings and the mozzarella, and soon the bowl was in the fridge, covered by a plate. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the sauce to thaw.

Sophie saw the cards and chips stacked neatly on the table. “Were you going to play a game?”

Connie hesitated. “Well, it was a grown-up game.”

“Oh.” Sophie didn’t appear at all deterred. “What kind of grown-up game?”

Connie nearly sighed. Sophie could be insistent about getting answers. “Poker,” she said. “Not for kids.”

“Why not, if you don’t play for real money?” Sophie asked, depriving her of speech.

Connie looked at Ethan and realized he was trying not to bust a gut laughing. His face, carved as always, nevertheless seemed to be battling to remain impassive.

Julia chose that moment to roll into the room. “The girl’s right,” she said. “What’s wrong with it, if you’re just playing for worthless chips?”

“It’s gambling,” Connie said.

“Most things in life are,” Julia retorted. “The chips are just a method of counting.”

Connie didn’t have an answer for that, although she tried to think up a good one. Then it struck her. “In most games you don’t risk your points. You keep them.”

“True,” Julia agreed. “But poker has lessons of its own. Like not risking things you don’t want to lose. Like making decisions and living with the outcome. Like reading other people.”

Connie stared at her mother. She’d never seen this side of her before, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“And,” Julia wound up, “there’s not a thing to be lost at this table except some worthless plastic chips. In real life, when you make decisions, you have a lot more on the line.”

Sophie spoke. “Don’t get mad at Mommy, Grandma.”

“I’m not mad at her, child.” Julia smiled. “Not in the least. I just think her reaction to this game is more instinctive than valid.”

Sophie’s brow creased as she tried to figure that one out.

Julia looked at her daughter. “And it’s the very risk that makes some things look so attractive.”

Connie felt it then. An emotional blow. A comment on her marriage to Leo, maybe even on her choice of jobs. Was she drawn to risk? Had that been the factor that had gotten her into so much trouble?

Bad boy Leo. Admit it, she told herself. Admit it for once and for all. He hadn’t seemed like an angel. Far from it. She’d been drawn to the bad boy and had paid dearly for the attraction. The thrill of running a risk. The stupid, stupid idea that her love would change him.

She looked down at the table without seeing it. Seeing instead her past from this new angle. And knowing, in her heart of hearts, that Julia was right. She’d been drawn to the thrill and the risk, drawn to the very challenge of possessing Leo. Then, before she really knew what was happening, she’d been ground under the heel of his boot.

All love was a gamble, of course, but some kinds of risk-taking were foolhardy. And maybe it wouldn’t hurt Sophie to learn that in a game where the only risk was a few plastic chips.

She lifted her head and looked at her mother. “In that case, I think Ethan is going to teach us Texas hold ’em.”

Julia smiled. “Time to learn how to gauge worthwhile risks.”

Ethan proved to be a patient teacher, especially with Sophie, but by the time they’d played for an hour, Sophie not only understood the relative values of the cards, but she also grasped that she needed to be careful or lose her chips.

Ethan probably folded to Sophie more than he needed to, but not so much that it was obvious. Besides, as Julia had pointed out, this game was about learning when to take risks and how much of a risk you were willing to take. Even the bluffing became a lesson, as Sophie learned she could be lied to by having large sums of chips dangled in front of her as a temptation.

By the time they stopped to make the lasagna, Sophie was beginning to understand the nuances. Connie hoped her mother was right, that Sophie could learn something about life from playing this game, even the most unsettling fact of all: that even when you did everything right, you could still lose sometimes.

Sophie enjoyed herself, regardless, and Connie found herself looking at her own life and decisions in a very different way than she had in the past. It was one thing to acknowledge that she’d chosen poorly with Leo. It was another to face up to the temptation that had sucked her in. The challenge. The risk. The notion, idiotic though it seemed to her now, that there would be a great payoff eventually.

She also noted something else, something she pondered quietly as she and Sophie layered the lasagna together: that just because you went bust on one risk, that didn’t mean you couldn’t take another and win. In fact, if you were ever going to win, you had to take another. The necessary element was balancing risk against the likelihood of winning.

It was something she’d never really thought about before in quite that way.

Lessons, it seemed, could sometimes be found in the unlikeliest of places.

* * *

After dinner and washing up, a general vote was held to watch Shrek. Sophie loved the movie, and for the first time ever, Connie watched it without feeling cynical. The ogre remained the ogre throughout, never changing. It was the princess who learned where true beauty lay.

No kissing of frogs to turn them into princes. Quite the contrary. A very different fairy tale. One that seemed strikingly apropos, all of a sudden.

Outside, the storm continued to rumble and growl, a beast at bay. She noted that sometimes Ethan would tilt his head and listen to it, as if he could hear things in that grumbling. A little shiver snaked through her as she once again had the feeling that there was something very, very special about Ethan Parish. Something beyond the ordinary.

She tried to tell herself that he was just a man like any other, that she was just being fanciful, but for some reason she couldn’t shake the feeling that the man sitting on the couch on the other side of Sophie was special in some very important way. Like an old soul.

Sophie certainly liked and trusted him. In all honesty, Connie couldn’t remember Sophie ever warming up this quickly to a man. But right now she was leaning against his side, and he had an arm around her shoulders, as if she belonged there.

Connie’s throat tightened, and she had to blink back burning tears. She hoped nobody noticed.

But Julia did notice. Sitting in her wheelchair, inches away from Connie, she reached out and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “It’ll be okay,” she murmured. “I promise you, Connie. It’s going to be okay.”

Looking at her daughter and the stranger who had come into their lives only a week ago, Connie wondered, though.

Thanks to two strangers, their lives had changed dramatically. Maybe things would be okay, but they would certainly never be the same again.

And maybe, just maybe, she wanted something more than “okay” for her life.

She caught herself, appalled by her own greediness. For now, the only thing that mattered was protecting Sophie. Only a fool would ask for more. In that snug little living room, a haven against the storm without, Connie gave thanks for the moment. This moment.

Sophie wanted to stay up late and watch another movie.

“We have church in the morning,” Connie reminded her.