The Baby Gamble. Tara Quinn Taylor

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      The pot was over a hundred dollars.

      “You wanna just fold and get this over with?” Luke smiled as he raised the bidding one more time.

      Blake didn’t bat an eye. He was sitting on a full house ace/deuce. The only way Luke was going to beat that was with a miracle. Looking up, Blake gazed past his opponent to the bare window behind him. In the daylight they’d be able to see the river out there. Tonight there was nothing but darkness.

      And…movement?

      Someone was out there.

      Blake tipped the corners of his cards again. Glanced over beyond the archway leading to a threadbare living room…and saw a woman slip quietly around the corner from the hall.

      He tossed in four one-dollar chips. Noted the jack and king of spades Luke flipped over, tossed in his two aces, still face down, and asked, “What in hell’s she doing here?”

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Tara’s first book was a finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award. Her subsequent work has earned her finalist status for the National Readers’ Choice Award and the Holt Medallion, plus another two RITA® Award nominations. A prolific writer, she has more than forty novels and three novellas published. To reach Tara, write to her at PO Box 133584, Mesa, Arizona 85216, USA or through her website, www.tarataylorquinn.com.

      Dear Reader,

      Welcome to River Bluff, Texas! There are all kinds of great folks here for you to meet. From cowboys to single mums to entrepreneurs, secret babies, planned babies and another man’s baby, you’ll get it all in this small Texas town.

      The five authors in this series have brought you many, many love stories over the years, but the stories here in River Bluff are a little different. Oh, you’ll still have the great characters you won’t want to leave behind, the gripping stories and the wealth of emotion. But in River Bluff you also get something new.

      Think sisterhood – in a male version! This is a group of five guys, most of whom have known each other all their lives, who are bonded together through life’s ups and downs. They get together to play poker every week and they’re friends.

      In the months ahead you’ll meet Cole – he’s a bit jaded because of a broken marriage, but he’s feisty and fun to be around. Then there’s Jake. He’s the motorcycle-riding bad boy we all want to meet in a dark alley. And Brady Carrick. Brady’s been everywhere and done most things, from professional football to professional gambling. Now he wants to come home. Luke, one of my favourites, is just back from military service overseas. He has some hard truths coming his way, but I can’t be with him and not love him.

      And here, you get to meet Blake. Older than the rest of the Wild Bunch, Blake is the one everyone looks up to. But he has a secret, a burden he must bear, and while he thinks it makes him weak, he’s going to find out just how strong he really is.

      My sister writers and I hope you’ll love the town and the people of River Bluff, Texas as much as we do!

       Tara Taylor Quinn

      The Baby Gamble

      TARA TAYLOR QUINN

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Tim. Welcome to my world.

       PROLOGUE

       July 2005

      COW MANURE HAD NEVER smelled so sweet, Blake Smith thought, inhaling deeply. Squinting against the bright July morning sun, he glanced down the thin metal steps to the tarmac, scanning the people waiting at the small airport just outside San Antonio.

      There weren’t many of them.

      Four years was a long time.

      But a three-and-a-half-year-old child should be easy to spot. He looked for a head covered with blond curls.

      Or maybe her hair was brown.

      Or maybe she was a he.

      And yet no matter how many possibilities he considered, no small child appeared.

      His uncle, then? Alan wouldn’t miss this. Not on his life…

      What did it mean that Blake couldn’t pick out the big frame and ruddy face of the man who’d raised him ever since his parents had been killed in a car accident when he was seven?

      Determined to hold on to the sweet anticipation that had sustained him during his eighteen-hour journey from the Middle East back to Texas, Blake renewed his search. Most of all, he sought the face of the woman whose memory had kept him alive these past forty-seven months, two weeks and three days.

      The only person he really needed to see right now, after four grueling years of captivity as the hostage of political terrorists.

      Annie.

      His heart’s rhythm settled—and then immediately sped again as he spotted the beautiful face of his beloved wife. At last. With shaky knees, he hurried to meet her.

      Annie had come for him.

      CHAPTER ONE

       October 2007

      THE COWBOY PUSHED HIS HAT down low.

      Everyone knew that thirty-four-year-old Luke Chisum, of the renowned Circle C Ranch, shifted his hat every time he had a good hand.

      Lifting the corners of his two cards just enough to see the pair of aces, Blake dropped his thirty-three-year-old silver dollar on top of them and threw in two one-dollar chips—the mandatory flop bet. His buddy Cole Lawry, seated to his left, gave him a long look.

      Cole studied the ten and queen of spades and two of diamonds faceup on the table, took one more look at Blake and folded.

      Brady Carrick, ex-Cowboy football player, didn’t look at anyone. His face impassive as always, he pushed his cards toward the middle of the table. Brady’d had a hard time of it after an injury had caused him to take early retirement, and he’d headed off to Las Vegas, only returning to River Bluff fifteen months before—a year after Blake had made it home.

      The younger man had come home blaming himself for the suicide death of a rodeo cowboy in Vegas—something to do with a wager. Having just met him, Blake had stayed out of most of the conversation revolving around the incident, except to say that Brady shouldn’t take the guilt of someone else’s mistakes on his own shoulders.

      Verne Chandler, a sometimes player with the Wild Bunch, lived in the decrepit, now closed Wild Card Saloon. The older man had moved in to stay after his sister died, leaving the place to her young son. It was there, in the back apartment, that the five-member Wild Bunch—a group of unmarried guys, most of whom had been friends on and off since high school—held their weekly Texas Hold’em games. Hunched over now in the wheelchair he’d taken to a few months before, Verne wasn’t looking so good. Though he was only in his early sixties, the wrinkles on his face seemed to be the result of about ninety years of hard living.

      River Bluff’s male version of the town gossip, Harry Knutson, also tossed in his pair of cards. As did Hap Jones, Luke’s foreman and guest for the evening.

      Ron Hayward called Blake’s bet, just as Blake had known he would. Ron was more of an ass than a poker player, a nice enough guy who didn’t know his own weaknesses. Put Ron on a construction site, and he was gifted. Cole, who worked for Ron, could testify to that. But let the owner of Hayward Construction join them at the poker table, and he stood out in a less impressive way. If there was a bet on the table, Ron played—whether he had a worthy hand or not. It made him a waste.

      Luke, the dealer of the hand, dropped his army dog tag on top of his cards, added his two dollars to the pot and raised them