much…everything in his life.
It was true, he had a knack for cards. He’d grown up in Vegas casinos, literally, so of course he knew how to play poker. And yeah, when the Texas Hold’em craze had swept the nation, he’d swiftly become an attention getter, whether he’d wanted to be or not. He’d been a little-okay, a lot-younger than most back then, but he could hardly help that. It had been fun, in the beginning, sort of like a hobby. He’d been a kid, a minor, so there wasn’t much he could really do with his innate skills other than show them off.
It hadn’t been until later on that he’d started to think of it as a way to earn money. Even then he hadn’t pictured it as a career. At best, it was a way to pay for college a little faster than just banging nails and hauling lumber on the renovation jobs he worked on for his best friend’s dad. He definitely hadn’t counted on winning often enough to make it pay long term.
He’d been around the game his whole life, so he knew better than most that when it came to cards, the odds would always balance things out. Often. And usually not in your favor. The trick was respecting that, not getting greedy, and being willing to walk away with a little and never banking on winning a lot. That was one fundamental rule he’d never broken.
Or wouldn’t have, had it been necessary to heed it. Because when Brett Hennessey played, he tended to win. A lot. In fact, he won so often even he had begun to wonder what the hell was going on. Skill only accounted for so much, and nobody was that lucky. His life up to that point hadn’t exactly been blessed. Which, granted, had partly been what had endeared him to the poker crowd in the first place. Young kid, tough childhood, a bit of a rebel. At least that’s the way the sponsors played it. He didn’t see himself as a rebel so much as a survivor.
The day he’d hit twenty-one he’d been hot bait for every cable show producer and online gambling site on the planet. It had been a lot after a long time of not much. He’d had a hard time-an impossible time as it turned out- saying no to being given a chance. Any chance. But no matter how much he tried to keep things sane, he didn’t seem to have much say on where the white hot glare of the celebrity spotlight shined. And, for quite some time now, it had been shining on him.
He’d played his way through college, then grad school, and then figured that would be it. He’d call it even and walk away, having provided whatever the hell draw it was that he’d become in exchange for the chance to earn enough to better himself, better his life, give himself a chance to get up and finally out, once and for all. Win-win for both sides.
But it hadn’t exactly turned out like that. College was long in the past, his degrees were gathering dust, while what had originally been a way to pay off school loans had, nine years later, somehow become a way of life. A life he’d long since grown weary of, but had continued to participate in because it never seemed the right time to walk away. He was always left feeling like he was leaving someone in the lurch. Someone who had helped him out when he’d needed it. But he’d finally burned out, wised up…and walked away.
Which was when things had gotten really interesting.
That good luck charm that had been his constant companion for the past decade had abandoned him, and rather swiftly at that. He hadn’t really thought much about it at the time, not initially anyway, beyond being pissed off at the string of little incidences that had been more a nuisance than anything. He’d replaced the missing supplies on his current job site. Over the years, he’d never stopped banging nails, although his contributions to the renovation company his buddy, Dan, now owned, having taken it over from his father several years ago, hadn’t always been consistent during the craziest of times. But Dan had convinced him to take over one of his easier contracts while trying to sort out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and Brett had been happy for the distraction.
The missing materials had been irritating, but he’d resolved that, only to have his work truck broken into. It was a pain in the ass to fix the jammed door lock, and he’d wondered what the hell anyone thought they were going to steal out of the old rust bucket, but it had never occurred to him to tie those minor annoyances to the barrage of requests that continued to pour in for him to come back to the tables and play.
The bad luck streak had continued, though, with the stakes escalating each time. Dan’s brand-new work truck had been stolen and found in a drainage ditch, half bashed in, tires gone, one door missing, and another job site had flooded due to a water pipe break that hadn’t been anywhere near where Brett’s crew had been working at the time. Brett had begun to wonder what in the hell was going on, but the cops hadn’t turned up any evidence on who might have been responsible for the stolen truck much less tied it to the job site problem he’d been sure was vandalism, so he’d done a little digging on his own, but got no answers. Then another one of his job sites half burned down, his landlady started having a string of trouble at the boarding house she owned and he lived in…and the demands for his return to the tables had taken on a decidedly…concerned tone.
And he’d finally put two and two together.
So he did the only thing he could do. He got out of Vegas, putting as much distance between the folks he cared about and himself as possible. He’d let it be known that he was leaving town, leaving Dan’s employ, his leased rooms at Vanetta’s place…all of it, behind him. If somebody wanted him that badly, they were going to have to come after him, and no one else.
And here he was, four, almost five weeks later, in Vermont, of all places, exhausted, confused, and no longer sure he’d done the right thing in leaving. Nothing else had happened since he’d left, which initially he’d taken as proof that he’d been the target all along. Only, as the weeks continued to pass, no one was tracking him down as far as he could tell, and no one was trying to contact him, either, much less pressure him to return. Apparently his blunt declaration of permanent retirement and the added step of leaving his hometown completely had been taken seriously.
He’d talked to Dan throughout his cross-country sabbatical, who’d been monitoring everyone Brett was worried about, and…nothing. Not a single incident. He’d begun to think Dan was right, that it was just a string of incredibly bad luck. That, maybe, after all his amazing good fortune, the odds had simply finally caught up with him. But there was still that niggle, that suspicion, that wouldn’t entirely go away.
If he was right, and returned, as Dan was encouraging him to do…he was afraid it would stir things up again. And, to be honest, he didn’t know if he wanted to return or what, exactly, he’d be returning to. Dan’s renovation business was something Brett had done while figuring out his next step, but working for or with Dan wasn’t the actual step he wanted to take. Not in the big picture, anyway. He wanted to finally put all his education to use, do something that energized him, that he could be passionate about. He just didn’t know exactly how to go about doing that, or what form, exactly, that passion would take.
But it was time he figured his shit out. So he’d stopped running, stopped trying to second guess, just… stopped. He’d checked into Kirby’s bed-and-breakfast because it was as good a place as any to stop his flight…and because the unique architecture of the old place called to him.
His thoughts turned to his hostess. Kirby Farrell. It was true that he’d been a little self-involved of late-okay, more than a little-but not so much so that he wasn’t aware of the way she’d been watching him. And that, more surprisingly, he’d wanted to watch her right back. She hadn’t recognized him, which he’d have never presumed she should, at least not outside Vegas. But on his trek around the country, he’d been amazed at the number of people whose paths he’d crossed who apparently had nothing better to do than watch a bunch of strangers bet ridiculously large sums of money on a card game on late-night cable.
He’d been relieved that Kirby wasn’t one of them. Which was only part of why he’d been drawn to her. On the surface, she was a contradiction. Her frame was long, lean, and willowy; her hair a soft brown, her eyes an even softer gray. He’d seen his share of dancers and she had that long, lean dancer’s body. Only she was all ballet and
She was all grace and refinement and he would have guessed her to be the quiet and reserved type. Very proper. Classy. Elegant.
But there had been nothing reserved about the way those soft gray eyes had cataloged every inch of him. She came across as educated, smart, her expression one of polite kindness when she smiled…and yet as he trudged up the stairs to his room just now, he’d have bet against the house that she was staring openly at his ass.
So, instead of thinking about the bed that awaited him, and the sweet oblivion of sleep, he found himself wondering how a real honest-to-God smile would transform that oh-so-serious face of hers, and what her laughter would sound like. And if she was as direct in all areas of her life as she’d been standing in her own driveway, giving him quite the once-over.
He dropped his bag by the door, yanked his clothes off, and let them drop where they fell. Then he debated for all of two seconds on the merits of taking a shower first, before giving in to the siren call of the huge sleigh bed
