McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [88]
Mr. Kahill and another cowboy joined the circle. “Deal us in,” the second man said.
Rafe ambled over, his thumbs hooked under his gun-belt. “Watch out, Lorelei,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t let these rascals relieve you of your money.”
“I reckon she can count on beginner’s luck,” the Captain observed, glancing at Holt.
Lorelei couldn’t resist doing the same. Holt sat with his back to the trunk of a tree, glowering. He tossed aside the apple he’d been eating and got to his feet with a disturbing grace that made Lorelei remember her scandalous dreams and catch fire all over again.
The Captain shuffled and reshuffled the cards and let Lorelei cut them before he dealt.
“No tricks,” Holt said ominously, looming over them. His back was to the west, so he cast an impressive shadow.
The Captain smiled, though he didn’t look up from his business. “What makes you think I’d trick anybody?” he asked.
“Experience,” Holt answered. He moved to stand behind Lorelei, squatted.
She felt the strength and substance of him along the surface of her flesh, and her breathing quickened a little. Please, God, she prayed silently, don’t let him notice.
She watched the other players pick up their cards and did the same with her own, fanning them out in her hand. Holt reached over her shoulder and rearranged two of them, forming a trio of jacks.
“Everybody ante up,” the Captain said. “Dimes to start.”
Lorelei’s money was in her bedroll. She was about to excuse herself, to fetch some change when Holt tossed a dime into the center of the circle.
“Hold,” he said, close to her ear. The heat of his breath made the skin on her nape tingle and, for some reason, she imagined what it would feel like if he kissed her there.
The thought was a mistake. It sent a spike of heat shooting down through Lorelei, clear into the ground. Her three jacks, two of diamonds and four of spades felt slippery in her hand, and her heart galloped like a runaway horse.
Mr. Kahill tossed in his cards. “Fold,” he said.
The Captain and the other cowboy ruminated.
“Hit me,” the cowboy said.
Lorelei braced herself. She hadn’t expected the game to be violent.
“How many?” the Captain asked.
“Two,” the cowboy answered. Discarding a pair of cards, face-down.
Lorelei’s hand tightened.
“Easy,” Holt said. “Raise ’em.”
It was probably good advice. The problem was that Lorelei didn’t know what it meant.
Holt threw four nickels into the little cluster of dimes.
Mr. Kahill had shifted to one side, and he leaned back on his elbows, chewing on a blade of grass and staring at Lorelei’s face.
“Hell,” said the other cowboy, and threw down his cards.
“See it and raise you two,” the Captain said, flipping two shiny dimes into the pile.
Lorelei was mystified.
Holt shifted behind her, but he didn’t prompt her.
She turned her head to look at his face.
He grinned and came up with another forty cents. “See your two, raise you two more,” he said.
Lorelei began to sweat, and not just because the stakes were mounting. Poker had a language all its own, it seemed, and she didn’t speak a word of it.
“Call,” the Captain said.
“Lay down your cards,” Holt told Lorelei, when she just sat there.
With a little flourish, all bravado, Lorelei showed her hand.
“Three of a kind,” Holt said.
The Captain grimaced. “A pair of aces,” he replied.
“Like I said, beginner’s luck.”
“Not to mention a little help from the boss here,” Kahill observed languidly.
“Take the pot, Lorelei,” Holt said evenly. “It’s yours.”
She hesitated, then gathered up the money. “It’s really yours,” she said.
“Damn straight,” Kahill remarked.
“I’d shut up if I were you,” Rafe put in, from the sidelines.
Kahill looked up at him, his expression bland, and then shrugged.
Lorelei started to get up, but Holt put a hand on her shoulder.
“Here,” the Captain said, after gathering up the deck and shuffling it again. “Let me show you how this works, Miss Lorelei.” He demonstrated various groupings of cards—three of