Deal Me In. Cynthia Thomason

it was the other way around. Or at least it was mutual. Why do you think everyone called us the Wild Bunch?”

      Marshall put his hands up in a gesture of defeat. “Hey, I’m willing to give Jake a chance. I’m just warning you that your mother hasn’t forgiven or forgotten his antics in high school.”

      Brady turned to Dobbs. “What about you? Want to play?”

      “I’ll be bushed after riding in the truck with you guys for four hours,” Dobbs said.

      “Suit yourselves.” When he returned home from Vegas, Brady realized how much he’d missed his friends from River Bluff, men in their thirties now with adult problems and ambitions. Some of them had strayed, as Brady had, to different parts of the world, but now they were back and playing a weekly Texas Hold ’Em poker game. And for Brady, at this time in his life, the friendly wagering and camaraderie were just what he needed.

      Dobbs popped the last of his burger into his mouth and followed it with a ketchup-soaked fry. “Still, if you ask me, it’s a damn shame.”

      Brady gave him a quizzical look. “What is?”

      “You’re the best poker player I know. You’ve got good instincts and all those college smarts. I just think if you’d stuck with poker up there in Vegas, you would have won a big tournament and been set for life.”

      Brady held up his hand hoping to erase the scowl on his father’s face. “I left when I should have—I was losing more than just money.”

      Dobbs pushed his plate away and brushed a shock of graying red hair off his forehead. “You coulda’ won though, couldn’t you?” he coaxed. “It’s just the three of us now, Brady. You can level with us. You were good enough for the big tournaments. You coulda’ won some big pots.”

      Brady rubbed his hand down his face. He smiled at Dobbs. “Yeah, I could have won. But before you start thinking I’m some sort of poker god, let me tell you something. Anybody can win at the big tournaments—and anybody can lose. With intensive study of poker odds, some training in reading opponents and money management and the proper alignment of the planets, almost anybody can be coached to win.”

      Dobbs leaned forward. “You really think so?”

      “Sure. Poker’s more skill than luck.”

      “So if you wanted to, you could take some cowpoke off the street and teach him the game?”

      Brady considered his answer for a moment. “Cowpoke, politician, garbage collector. Anybody with an average level of intelligence can be taught. And yes, I could teach him.”

      Marshall chuckled. “I see you haven’t lost that old Carrick confidence, son.”

      His dad was wrong. A career-ending knee injury, a failed marriage and a foolish run at the most player-unfriendly games in Vegas had destroyed his confidence. Not to mention the life-altering tragedy that forced Brady to pack up and leave on the next plane for San Antonio. But he was trying to get his self-respect back. He was finding some of it at the weekly poker game where he generally won more than his share of pots.

      “I’d be happy to prove it to you,” he said. “You pick the person, Dad, and I’ll teach him to play. The quarter finals of the U.S. Poker Play-offs is coming up in just a little more than five weeks. I’ll bet you I can coach that guy into a seat at the final table.”

      Marshall covered his shock with a belly laugh. “Interesting bet. Just exactly what are we wagering on, Brady?”

      This conversation had suddenly taken a serious turn. For a second Brady wondered if he was getting in over his head. But he quickly banished that thought. He was a damn good poker player. “Tell you what, Dad. If I have your pick at the final table in the USP, you give me training rights to Amber Mac.”

      Marshall sobered. “Big talk, Brady.”

      “You think I can’t do it?”

      “That’s right,” he said. “I think you can’t do it.”

      Brady wasn’t about to back down. He knew his dad well enough to know that the gambler in him was intrigued. “Then what have you got to lose? Try me.”

      Marshall looked at Dobbs. “What do you think? Should we give this upstart a chance to eat his words?”

      “I don’t know.” Dobbs considered. “What do we get out of it if the kid loses the bet?”

      Brady smiled. “I’ll pay your entry fees at the local game for one year.”

      Both men eyed each other over the table. Hundreds of dollars were now at stake, making this a serious bet. “And we get to pick the person for the wager?” Marshall asked.

      “You pick. But be reasonable. The guy has to be of age and have moderate intelligence.”

      At that moment, Molly cleared her throat and tapped on her order pad. “Sorry to interrupt such momentous wagering, boys, but I thought you might want to bet on who gets the check.”

      Dobbs chuckled before sitting back and leveling a serious look at her. “What about Molly?” he said to Marshall. “She’s clever.”

      Brady glanced at Dobbs. He couldn’t be serious.

      “Now, hold on, gentlemen,” she said. “My name has just been mentioned in the same conversation with the word wager. That’s enough to make anybody nervous.”

      “Don’t be,” Dobbs said. “I’m presenting you with the chance of a lifetime. How would you like to be a student of Brady’s for a five-week course?”

      She frowned. Not exactly a reaction designed to boost a guy’s ego, Brady thought, even if they were just kidding around.

      “I don’t know anything about racehorses,” she said.

      Dobbs grinned. “We’re not talking about horses. We’re talking about poker.”

      “I know even less about that.”

      Dobbs looked at the other two. “See? She’s perfect.”

      Molly took a step back. “Perfect for what?”

      Dobbs gave her a grin that was part confident Texan and part cocky Irishman. “What do you say, sweetheart? You want to come to River Bluff and learn to play poker from a master?”

      CHAPTER TWO

      POKER? Molly couldn’t suppress an unladylike bark of laughter. Her father would heat under the collar of his clerical robe if he knew she was about to even participate in a conversation about gambling. There wasn’t even a deck of cards in the modest house she shared with Luther Whelan.

      She stared at Marshall Carrick, the man who carried the weight of Cross Fox Ranch on his broad shoulders, and waited for him to say something to make sense of this. When he didn’t, she picked up one of the empty glasses on the table and made a show of sniffing it. “I’m thinking you boys have been sipping something a whole lot stronger than lemonade.”

      Brady smiled, an easy full-bodied grin that had her believing he could talk people into almost anything, just as she knew he had. The younger Carrick resembled his father in stature and size. But Brady’s bronzed complexion was less weathered. His light brown hair was sun-streaked and just long enough to fall over his forehead. The collar of his blue oxford-cloth shirt had a distinctive lack of Western ornamentation. Unusual for a horseman in the heart of Texas.

      “It’s okay, Molly,” Brady said, his voice a smooth, cultured version of typical ranch-hand drawl. “We were just playing a game of ‘what if’ over lunch.”

      Dobbs leaned forward. “‘What if?’ So now you’re backing out?”

      “No. But there isn’t any reason to get Molly mixed up in this.”

      “Of course there is,” Dobbs insisted. “We picked her.”