"Here Comes Trouble" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kauffman Donna)

Chapter 10

Brett stirred the simmering sauce, but his mind wasn’t on whether or not he needed more basil or oregano. His mind was on the woman presently on the phone in her office. He hadn’t been thinking, when he’d invited Kirby to go to the store with him, about her small town, the folks in it, and what they might have to say to her stepping out with her only guest. Not that hitting the grocery store together was like a candlelit dinner for two, but why would she be shopping for the ingredients for one with a paying guest if that wasn’t her intention?

No, all he’d been thinking about was spending more time with her before she latched on to whatever grip she was clearly looking for and stopped spending time with him. He was her source of income at the moment, and he hadn’t discounted that she might be willing to play tagalong for that reason alone. But what had happened right over there next to the fridge, and in her shower, made him think otherwise.

Plus, she was too straightforward for that kind of subterfuge. She was such a refreshing change from the life he’d led, one that demanded straight faces and a lot of bluffing. He didn’t think Kirby was capable of pulling a bluff. Everything she was thinking was out there to see. Good and bad. And, in the store, he could tell that she’d felt a bit put on the spot, having to figure out how to play off their joint venture. He wished he’d planned things a bit better…but his thoughts had been on getting her on the back of his bike-and wrapped around him. He didn’t want to put her in a bad spot…but he didn’t want her finding excuses for walking away just yet, either.

But where the bike had been a great idea…the store, and the folks in it, not as much. On the bike ride back she’d kept things more chaste. And before he could set her up next to him with a cutting board and a good chopping knife, the phone had started going off and she’d had to go take what was presumably a business call. She’d disappeared into her office shortly after answering the phone. Which was where she’d been ever since.

Hiding? Or taking a particularly difficult call?

He turned the pan down to simmer and thought maybe he’d go find out, when his own cell phone hummed on the clip on his belt.

There was only one person who’d be calling him. He checked the read-out anyway and smiled before answering it. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“That’s what I was calling to find out,” Dan said. “You on radio silence? Something up?”

“Not in the way you mean,” he said, thinking he’d been more up in the past twenty-four hours than he’d been in the past twenty-four years. “I was going to call you later this evening. How is everything out there?”

“Fine, good. You all done with the Brett Hennessey USA tour? Coming home anytime soon?”

“I-I’m not sure. That’s what I stopped here to figure out.”

“And here is exactly where?”

“Pennydash, Vermont.”

Dan chuckled. “Right. Because you suddenly had a craving for snow and wanted to learn to ski, desert boy?”

“I hope not,” he said with a chuckle. “There’s no snow here. It’s a warm winter in New England.”

“Ah.” Dan paused, then said, “So, what’s her name, then?”

That caught Brett off guard and he took a moment too long to respond. Not that he knew what he’d have said. And not that he wouldn’t tell Dan about her, just…he hadn’t figured out what he was thinking about her just yet.

Dan hooted. “Wow. And the best bluffer in the world can’t even pull off a simple denial. She must be something.”

Brett fought a brief internal battle, then said, “She definitely is that.”

There was another moment of silence, then Dan said, “You’re not kidding, are you?”

“I haven’t kidded about anything now in quite some time. If you didn’t really want to know, you shouldn’t have-”

“Whoa. No, I want to know. Everything, actually.” There was a short whistle, followed by another laugh, only this one sounded kind of stunned.

“Is it so impossible to believe?” Brett asked, both amused and a little surprised.

“That a woman would go for you? No. Assuming she’s breathing, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. That you noticed? Yeah, that surprises me.”

Now Brett smiled. “It was hard not to notice.”

“That hot, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“How did you meet her?”

“She…kind of fell right into my lap.”

“They have those kinda places in Pennydash, do they?”

“Very funny.”

When he didn’t add anything else, Dan sighed. “I want details and you’re not going to give them to me, are you? My closest buddy finally trips over his own heart…or some body part anyway, and I get nada.”

“When I figure things out, you’ll be the first to know. So, listen, how are things otherwise? Your dad good? Vanetta okay? Did you get the buy-in numbers for me on the Omaha series?”

“I’ll let you change the subject, but be forewarned, we’ll be circling back.”

Brett smiled briefly. He and Dan had always shared everything with each other. Dan was both best friend and brother. His father was the closest thing Brett had ever had to the real deal, with Vanetta there to keep him walking the straight and narrow. “Fine,” he said, “just give me the latest.”

Dan sighed. “No news is good news, right? Dad’s good, his golf game still sucks, and Vanetta is riding herd on a bunch of college students who have shacked up in her place looking to make their college tuition at the casinos this summer.”

Brett laughed. “Well, they picked the right place to stay then. If they win anything, she’ll be the one to see that it actually goes for classes and books.” Vanetta was pretty much single-handedly responsible for keeping him focused on the prize. Which was not a shiny diamond-studded bracelet. No, he owed a good chunk of his degrees to her riding herd on him to keep his studying up to par and learn to say no every once in a while to the promoters and marketers. Born and raised in Vegas, she’d seen it all in her seventy some years. Her boarders were all her babies, regardless of age, background, length of stay, or reason for coming to the gambling capital. If those students staying there now thought they’d come to Sin City for something other than college tuition, they didn’t stand a chance with Vanetta holding court. Might be the best education of their lives. “And the Omaha buy-in?” There was another silence and Brett snorted. “That good, huh? Dammit.”

“It was down over thirty percent from last year when you competed.”

“Who are they marketing? Who’s the new poster boy?”

“You mean whose soul are they sucking from?”

Brett didn’t rise to the bait. By not bailing out sooner, he’d essentially allowed them to do the sucking, while he quietly or not so quietly really, went about making a shit ton of money. So, he could hardly complain about that now, could he? “What about that Irish kid, Iain Summerfield?”

“You mean the kid with only two measly championships wrapped around his wrist? He’s like, what, twelve?”

“He’s twenty-five.”

“And you had, what, like nine of them by then? Now you could cover both arms with them, Brett. It’s going to take a very long time, if ever, before they stumble across anyone who is the dream machine you were. And are.” He paused. “No…urges?”

“Other than to mess up your prettier-than-average face right about now? No.”

“Good.”

“You that worried about me?”

“It was a surprise when you walked away like you did, you know that.”

“You’d been telling me to for years.”

“And you’d been ignoring me. And I sure as hell didn’t expect you to walk all the way to freaking Vermont. So sue me if I’m making sure you’re okay now that you’ve had some time away. What are your plans?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Me. Dad. Vanetta. Folks who care. There are a few that exist who want you back for reasons other than making dime off your pretty face and freakish ability to get good cards. Don’t forget that.”

“Trust me, I haven’t. It’s why I stopped. I needed to think.”

“If you’re waiting for them to latch on to somebody else who can do what you do, then you might as well set up camp in Vermont. I doubt they’ll come hounding you there.” He paused, then said, “But if you’re thinking you might want to come back to the place that is also your home, you know they’ll hound you for a while. Given what you’ve done for them, they’d be stupid not to try. But it’ll settle down; at some point, it has to.”

“Or they’ll burn your house down.”

“Goddammit, Brett, we told you, me, Dad, even Vanetta. We’re not buying that bullshit. Shit happens, sometimes bad shit. Believe in bad karma after so many years of good, whatever. But even the most desperate manager, promoter, or casino owner wouldn’t reach to that extreme.”

“Your naïveté is both touching and amusing, but also dangerous. Wait,” he said, before Dan could launch into a refrain of the argument they’d had far too many times, never with a new result. “I know that world; you don’t. You think I’m living in a fifties’ movie and I know it’s still very real. It’s all beside the point. It’s more about what I want, what I’m willing to risk, and how much shit I’m willing to put up with if what I want is to still live in Vegas.”

There was a much longer silence this time, then, “You think you really might not want that?”

“I don’t honestly know,” Brett said, never more utterly truthful.

“You have some other place in mind where you think you should be?”

“Again-”

“Like Vermont, where the mountains apparently aren’t snowy and a guy can get laid regularly?”

“Because you’re pissed off and worried about me, I’m not going to beat your face in when I see you, but…tread carefully there, my friend.”

“So…it is like that.”

“It’s like…I don’t know. But I know enough to realize that it’s like something I’ve never encountered before.”

“Okay,” Dan said, this time sounding more sincere…and considering.

“And don’t even think about putting Vanetta on my ass. She knows I worry and you know I worry and I don’t need her worrying about me.”

Dan snorted. “Right. Like saying that will make it so. You know she worries about you day and night. Until you come home-”

“I might not, Dan,” he said. It was the first time he’d let himself say it, even think it, really. And it wasn’t as scary and weird as he thought it would be. In fact, it was kind of…exhilarating. In a way that nothing in his life had been up to that point, maybe other than the day they’d handed him those diplomas…or in the early days of winning at cards. But there was another really high-stakes game he might want in on…the kind where you risked something other than your bank balance.

“You don’t mean that,” Dan said, sounding far more subdued, maybe even a little hurt. “This is your town, your people, your family.”

“Sometimes people grow up and move away from their families.”

“Brett-”

“Dan…it’s not about you. Or your dad, or Vanetta.”

“I know that. We all do know that. We just…we can’t imagine you anywhere else.”

“I think that’s been my problem all along. It’s why I got stuck for so many years, doing what I never expected to be doing, not for that long. I really couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else.”

“And what, working for my dad, or with me-”

“Was good for my soul, and saved it. Regularly, Dan. You know that. Your dad was the closest thing I ever had to a real male role model. You’re my brother. And, in her own way, I guess Vanetta is like my crazy old grandmother. You are my family, always will be. At least I would hope so. But maybe in order to figure out what I’m supposed to do, or what I really want to do, the thing that will truly satisfy me, fulfill me…I need to not be there. Where routines and patterns and ruts-no offense, you know better-aren’t there to pull me back into that sense of complacency. Because it doesn’t feel complacent any longer. It feels suffocating. Not the people, the work. And I need…I need more than people.”

“I wish it was different,” Dan said quietly. “I don’t like it, and I wish there was more for you here, but…” They both took a break, and a breath. Dan spoke first. “So…it’s Vermont, huh?”

“For now. I need to stop running. I need time. To allow myself to just be, to think, to figure out what works. Or what might work. But, right now, what works isn’t being in Vegas. That much I do know.”

“Okay,” Dan said. He didn’t sound happy about it, but he sounded, well, resigned to it. Which was a start.

“I still need you to keep an eye out, just…don’t let your guard down. Okay?”

“Sure. But I swear to you, nothing’s happening. I really think it was all just a freak bad streak.”

“All the same-”

“Right, got it. I will. Has anyone been in touch? Anyone hounding after you?”

“No.”

“Good. Then maybe, at least, while you’re sitting there contemplating your navel, you can let that part go. We’re all fine here. We miss you, but mostly we just want you to figure out what comes next. Consider what is, not what might be. Okay? Promise me that much.”

“Dan-”

He sighed deeply. “Right. I’ll keep an eye, okay? I have to get back to work. Enjoy your…stay.”

“I already am.” Then he hung up before Dan could piss him off again, or worse stick his nose in, and his unwanted opinions, about Kirby.

Speaking of which, she walked, just then, into the kitchen. He had just clipped his phone back on his belt and was stirring the sauce again, but he stopped when he saw her face. “What’s wrong?” She was pale, well, paler than normal, and she looked…hollow. “Is everything okay?” Which was a stupid question, given everything clearly was not okay, but what else was he supposed to say? He didn’t know enough about her yet, or anything really, to know what to ask about.

It was right then, however, that he realized that he wanted to know. Wanted to be more involved.

He put the sauce spoon down and walked around the center cooking island to the kitchen table where she’d stopped. She was looking at him, but it was obvious her thoughts were somewhere else completely. “Kirby?”

It was like the little bubble they’d created had burst. First with Dan’s reality check and now with this, and suddenly he didn’t know what the boundaries were or what she’d accept from him. But what the hell, he thought, he’d saved her from falling out of a tree. He’d made love to her. He figured that gave him some options. At least ones he wouldn’t have to apologize for making assumptions about later.

So he did what he instinctively wanted to do, which was take her hand and tug her gently forward. She stutter-stepped into him, still looking poleaxed, and he put his arms around her and nudged her face up so she looked at him, but it was more like through him. “What’s wrong?”

Her expression shuttered then and she ducked her chin.

So he lifted a hand to her face, cupped her cheek, and tipped her face up again. “Maybe I can help. Or at least listen. Tell me what happened.”

“It’s…not your problem.” And then her eyes got glassy and he tensed, because that’s what guys did when women cried, or looked like they were going to. Except this wasn’t about him, or even them, like it might have been in the shower…so he stuck with it.

“It doesn’t have to be my problem to listen, does it?”

“I-you want a nice dinner. Not to hear about-about-” And then her bottom lip was quivering and he could see where this wasn’t so much about not wanting to tell him as about pride and integrity. And being made to cry in front of him about it, when she clearly wished she was being strong, was just making it worse.

So he did the only thing he could do. He kissed her.

And it took a moment, several actually, before she kissed him back. He shifted her arms up to his shoulders and pulled her more deeply into his arms. He let her guide the kiss at first, then slowly took over, taking it deeper, coaxing her to be more aggressive, until he was pretty damn sure they weren’t thinking about anything except the kiss and what it was doing to them, what it was making them want, making them feel.

When he finally lifted his head, his breathing wasn’t all that steady, and there was color in her cheeks now. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, pushed the hair from her forehead, and searched her eyes. “I get that living here, running this place alone, makes you a very self-reliant person. And someone like that probably has a hard time even sharing a problem they might be having. It’s hard to lean once, because there is a fear that the urge to lean would become stronger, and that would make you weaker, if you gave into it like that.”

Now her gaze sharpened on his, and he thought he’d hit right on it. But then she said, “You say that with utter confidence and more understanding than simply being a compassionate person would imply. So…I take it that you know whereof you speak.”

Ah. He was in such a hurry to help take that stark hollowness away, so used to his ability to see into others, to intuit more than the average person, that he hadn’t taken into consideration that he might leave himself vulnerable. He never showed his hand. That was more than a little unnerving. But trust had to be gained somehow. He supposed it wasn’t too big a risk to take. So he took the bet. “You could say that. Maybe more than a little.”

“You’re right, but you know that. I don’t lean. Not anymore anyway.”

“It’s not always a sign of weakness, you know.”

Now her eyes crinkled at the corners and her lips quirked. “Where did you read that? I have a hard time believing you actually practice what you just preached.”

“You might be surprised about that. I certainly didn’t get to where I did all by myself.”

“Me, either.”

“So, you have a support network? Is there someone you want to go call, to talk with, someone you can trust with whatever it is? Dinner can wait.”

“I heard you talking when I was coming through the foyer. You sounded…animated. Your support system?”

He smiled more fully this time. “You’d make a good promoter.”

She lifted one brow. “But not a player, I take it?”

“You’d have to work on your poker face a little.” He grinned. “Okay, a lot.”

To her credit, she smiled, too. “So, why a good promoter?”

“You are good at keeping the focus where you want it, which is usually not on you but on what you want.”

“And what do I want in this instance?”

“To keep whatever just happened on that phone call to yourself.”

Her expression turned considering. “You’re very…formidable. When it comes to reading people. It shouldn’t be a surprise that people might be uncomfortable confiding in you.”

“Why is that?”

“You already know too much as it is. See too much. It would be hard to know exactly how much you’d be handing over, even with the smallest of revelations.”

“And what is it, exactly, that you think I’m going to do with whatever information I’m able to ferret out? I’m harmless.”

She laughed outright at that. “You’ve been under my roof less than forty-eight hours and you’ve already gotten me naked. Hardly harmless.”

He stroked her cheek again, touched her lips. “I haven’t done harm, have I?”

She shuddered under his touch, and his body sprang more fully to life.

“Maybe just to my peace of mind.”

He appreciated the honesty, but it didn’t keep him from pushing. “So, what else then? You share details, whether tedious or important, and you’re afraid I’ll…what, exactly?”

“Play Good Samaritan again. You’re very good at that.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It can be, to a person who maybe doesn’t want to be rescued every time a problem crops up. Falling out of trees notwithstanding.”

“Rescue is something a person does for someone in a situation beyond their control. Like the tree. Otherwise, it’s just called help. We all need that from time to time. It’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t signify failure. Sometimes it’s even a good thing. You learn who you can count on, who is really there for you.”

“And just how often are you the one on the receiving end?”

“Often enough to know it’s there for me when I need it.”

“So, what, are you like the Yoda of poker?”

“Hardly. Just trying to make you feel better about bending an ear or using a shoulder if you need to.”

“You think it should be easier. Or is easy. Asking for help, I mean. Even if a willing ear is all that is needed.”

“That’s what friends, family, are for. I guess I don’t understand what there is to gain from persevering alone if help is available.”

“You gain the peace of mind and security from knowing you can be self-reliant when things get tough. That you can take care of business, no matter what. That’s not a small thing. In fact, it can be everything.”

“So, once you’ve figured that out…is that still the only way it goes?”

“If there are no shoulders to lean on and ears to bend, then sometimes that isn’t a choice.”

He let his hands fall to her shoulders and squeezed gently. “You have that choice at the moment,” he said quietly. “Is that good enough?”

Her lips curved a bit, but her expression remained mostly shuttered. “You sure you’re not an event promoter? You’re pretty good at being focused yourself.”

“It’s a wonder we get anywhere in conversation, I suppose.”

“Actually, I think I’ve had deeper, more thought-provoking conversations with you in the short time I’ve known you than I’ve had with anyone in a long time.”

He tilted his head, searched her face. “But, at least from where you sit, that’s not entirely a good thing, is it?”

“It can be a disconcerting thing. I haven’t quite decided on whether or not it’s good for me.” She straightened and took a step back.

He toyed with the ends of her hair, then reluctantly let her go.

“And, for a guy who didn’t want to talk about himself much, you sure don’t seem to mind nosing in my business.”

“I don’t think I’d mind. Anymore. If it was you asking the questions.’” He was surprised by how easily that truth just popped up. But now that he’d said it, he knew that he meant it. “If you think it would help, or just distract you from whatever it is that’s worrying you-” He spread his arms. “Ask away. Open book.”

She smiled easily then, and it almost reached her eyes. “One night only?”

“We can figure that part out later.”

Her smile faded. “See, that’s the part that trips me up.” She held up her hand when he started to speak. “I hate to renege on dinner; I really do. It smells amazing. But there are some things that require my immediate attention. I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check.”

For once, he didn’t push. Knowing when to fold was just as important when it came to winning the bigger prize. “I’ll put some aside for you. You can heat it up later, if you want.”

She nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate that. And…thanks for the rest, too. It’s not that I don’t want the help, or even the ear. I appreciate the offer of both, I do. No insult intended.”

He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. “None taken.”

“Good. It’s just…it’s complicated.”

“Most trying things are.”

She ducked her chin, then looked back at him, and some of her defenses were clearly wavering. But he still didn’t push. That wouldn’t be fair. To either of them. If and when she wanted his help, or just a sounding board, she’d ask.

“You’re almost too good to be true. Maybe that’s part of it. Things that are too good to be true rarely are. Or rarely last.”

“I’m just sincere. And honest. The offer stands, okay?”

She nodded, and the defenses crumbled a bit further when she folded her arms in front of her chest, tucking her hands tightly under them and against her sides, as if giving herself comfort and support. She stood there a moment longer, and he was just about to go against instinct and reach for her again, when she turned on her heel and walked away. “Don’t worry with cleaning up,” she called back. “I’ll take care of it later.”

“Just like you take care of everything else,” he said under his breath as he heard her bedroom door close on the other side of the front foyer. “Including yourself.”

He turned back to the stove, back to his sauce, which had cooked down further than he’d wanted it to. He stirred, added a bit more water, a bit more tomato sauce, tasted, then pinched a bit more oregano into the mix and kept on stirring. As did his thoughts.

He should just take a giant step back and leave Kirby to her business. After all, she had a point about things not lasting. She didn’t want to allow herself to lean on someone who might not be there a week, or even a day later. Hard to fault that. Then there was the bigger issue at hand, which was that she’d only be concerned about that if she was worried she’d come to care about how long he stayed or when he might leave.

Which meant maybe she already did.

He tasted the sauce, but was too busy deciding his immediate course of action to pay any real attention to flavor. He knew, if he examined his own behavior right now, he’d be forced to admit that maybe, just maybe, this mental back and forth wasn’t purely about his fascination with Kirby…but also a convenient substitution for his own problems. He’d told Dan that he needed to stop, to think, to figure out what came next. But there was no timetable on that. For once, there was no place he had to be. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever, if that was the way he wanted it.

Right that very second, he was exactly where he wanted to be. With no plans whatsoever to go anywhere else. It was a nice change, to be certain of at least one thing. He’d figure out the rest.

He tasted the sauce again, and smiled. Yeah. But in the meantime, he still wanted to know the rest of Kirby Farrell’s story. Find out what was the best way he could help. Which meant, for now, he wasn’t going anywhere.