Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [30]
She smiled at him. There was another man there, as well, looking at her in shock, and behind the veil of smoke sat Dillon, a cigarette in his mouth, a glass of dark amber liquid by his side, a pile of poker chips in front of him.
“I was hungry,” she said, drifting toward the pizza.
“Help yourself,” said Mouser. “The one on the left’s got pepperoni and mushrooms, the one on the right’s got sausage and green peppers.”
As if fate hadn’t been cruel enough, she thought. “I don’t suppose you have any plain cheese?” she asked, trying not to sound plaintive.
“Picky, aren’t you?” Dillon commented, not bothering to look at her.
“I’m a vegetarian.”
That got his full attention. He looked at her, a smile curving his mouth, and for a brief moment she remembered that mouth. “Of course you are,” he said. “I bet you don’t smoke or drink or gamble, either.”
“I drink. Occasionally. Responsibly. And I play poker very well,” she said, defiant.
“Get the woman a beer, Henry. And a chair. Looks like we don’t have to make do with the three of us, after all.” He stubbed out his cigarette and rose, moving in her direction.
She scuttled quickly out of his way. The man named Henry dragged another heavy oak kitchen chair up to the round table, opened a bottle of Corona and set it in front of her place. “What are we playing, Killer?” It was the first time she heard him speak, but his slow, deep voice matched his looks.
“Lady’s choice,” Dillon said. “Sit down, Jamie.”
“I don’t want—”
“Sit down.”
Jamie sat. A moment later a paper plate appeared in front of her, pizza with the sausage removed. She could have protested, but it would have been a waste of time. And, besides, she was too hungry. “I can’t gamble with you,” she said. “I have no money.”
“I’ll stake you,” Mouser said, shoving a pile of chips in her direction. He was drinking Diet Coke—a strange choice for a night of poker.
“Yeah, who knows, maybe you’ll make enough to get your butt out of here,” Dillon said, resuming his and taking a long pull from his tall glass. Whiskey, Jamie thought, the color dark enough to mean he hadn’t diluted it. He was going to be very drunk by the time the night was over, and she would be smart to get the hell out of his way. He’d always been a nasty drunk.
“Maybe I should just take the pizza and go back to bed.”
“Maybe you should shut up and deal.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Dillon,” Mouser said. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“It’s my nature.”
“We all know that. Try to overcome it. Isn’t that what we’re put on earth to do?”
“Some succeed better than others,” he said in a dulcet voice, looking directly at her from across the table.
“Fuck off,” she said sweetly, and took a long drink of beer. Doing her best to act as if she used that particular phrase in her daily conversation, when to her knowledge she’d never said it to anyone. No matter how tempted.
“Deal,” he growled.
She dealt, picking the wussiest, most complicated game of poker she could think of. It had been a favorite of her college roommates, and its rules were so complex that the game usually came to a screeching halt, but it was her best chance to beat the three card sharks looking at her, and she needed that money.
Things started well enough, after their initial grumbling, and the pile of chips in front of her began to grow. She ate the pizza, ignoring the fact that the taste of sausage still lingered and and tasted wonderful. She finished one beer and started on a second, all the while trying to ignore Dillon, who watched her through the haze of smoke like a python fixated on a mouse.
It put a dent in her poker abilities. You needed to be able to read the subtle body language of an opponent to tell whether they were bluffing or not, but she simply made do with focusing her attention on Mouser and Henry. Dillon was going through the tall glass at a leisurely pace, and at some point he refilled it when she wasn’t looking, but he didn’t seem