A Cold Creek Secret by Raeanne Thayne

Author:Raeanne Thayne [Thayne, Raeanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Contemporary, Romance
ISBN: 9781426848117
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2010-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

"Oh!" Mimi exclaimed four hours later. "You are nothing but a dirty, rotten cheater!"

The louse in question raised an eyebrow. "Hey, I won that hand fair and square. Is it my fault you're a lousy poker player?"

"Oh!" Mimi grabbed a kernel of popcorn from the bowl beside her and tossed it at him. To her regret, it hit his chest and bounced off again. "Who ever would have guessed that the upright, honorable Major Brant Western cheats at cards?"

"I did not cheat." He gave her a long look, that sexy mouth of his tilted slightly at one corner. "I could have, about a dozen times when you weren't paying attention, but I opted to claim higher ground."

She sniffed at this with a dismissive gesture at the pile of toothpicks in front of him. Compared to her very tiny winnings, his stash of toothpicks looked like a beaver dam.

"When you asked me if I wanted to play five-card stud, it might have been fair for you to mention you're as relentless as an Atlantic City card shark."

"You mean I forgot to mention the three years I spent on the pro poker circuit?"

"I believe it. I'm curious, though. How did you fit the poker circuit in between deployments."

"It wasn't easy but I managed."

She shook her head at his teasing, though she had to admit she loved this lighthearted side of him. Except for those few dark moments after they returned from the clinic when he tried to shoulder the blame for her threatened miscarriage, he had seemed like a different man throughout the evening.

Every now and again she had seen a certain brooding look in his eyes but he took pains to keep everything between them light and easy.

"I'm just about down to my last toothpick so I guess that means you've cleaned me out," she said.

"I might be persuaded to stake you a little more if you want to keep going," he said.

"And end up having my kneecaps broken by your little toothpick loan sharks? I don't think so, Major."

He laughed a low, rich laugh she was quickly coming to adore.

He was doing his best to keep her mind off her lingering worry by distraction. So far it had been a remarkably effective strategy. Not perfect, but nearly so.

"Who taught you to play poker so well?" she asked him. "Did you learn from your Army buddies?"

He shook his head with a grin. "That would be Cisco. He never met a game of chance he didn't like. Craps, dice, whatever. Our favorite game was called Bull, er, shoot. Have you played it?"

"Is that where you hold a card faceup on your forehead and no one can see his own card but you can see what everyone else has?"

He smiled. "Nope. That one is called Guts. The game I'm talking about is also called Cheat."

"Oh, that's appropriate. I can see why you liked it."

He gave her a mock glare. "I didn't cheat! Tonight, anyway. But the whole object of Cheat is to lie your way through.

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