Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (24 page)

I placed his plate on the counter behind me.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

He was prickly as all get out, but Jimmy Mancino was one shrewd Italian.

“The guy you used for Big Ten information when you were making odds?”

“Yeah?”

“He still living?”

“Yeah.”

“How about the guy from the Big East?”

“Nope, he’s been dead ten years now.”

I nodded, JoJo’s decision made. “You still in touch with the Big Ten guy?”

He shrugged. “Enough.”

“Enough to give me his number? And he wouldn’t hang up on me if I used your name?”

“He wouldn’t tell you nothing. Even if you used my name.”

I let out a sigh of defeat.
 

“What do you need to know? I’ll call him,” Jimmy said.

I almost hugged him, but I knew that might kill the deal. “This is just between us, right?”

“Please,” he said, like he was offended I’d ask.
 

“Thanks, Jimmy, I owe you one,” I said.
 

“Have Lorelei make me a pan of this ziti once and a while and we’re even,” he said as he pulled the pan from the oven and I started to tell him the information I’d need from his “guy”.
 

“W
hat do you feel when you place a bet?” Jack asked as he ran a finger down my naked spine, inching the sheet down with him.

I turned my head to the side, to see him.

He was studying my back, but when I turned to him, his gaze came to my face. He tapped his finger at the base of my spine. “Really. I want to know.”

I looked forward, to the headboard, rested my hands on my chin. “When you place a bet, you know you’re going to win—that’s why you do it. And yet…”

He tapped a finger again, higher up, near my shoulder blades this time. His touch had been so light I hadn’t realized it had moved. “And yet?” he prompted.

“And yet, a part of you knows there’s no sure thing. You’ve lost enough to know that. So there’s these two parts waging war inside of you. It’s such an odd feeling.

“When I place a bet, at that moment of jump-ball, or face-off, or kick-off, I feel this tremendous rush.” I turned my head to him once more and realized he’d been watching my face, not my body. “It’s the most alive I’ve ever felt.” He nodded, seeming to get it. “That’s why I do it.”

He looked beyond me, toward the wall, but I suspected to some place else altogether.

I knew we’d decided not to poke at each other’s demons, but he’d started it, so I asked, “Why do you drink?”

He had to know it was coming; he was already nodding. He looked back at me, his brown eyes boring deep into mine. “When I drink, I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He rolled on to his back, folded his arms underneath his head, and stared at the ceiling. “That’s why I do it.”

“I
need to go to the station for a few hours,” Jack said around nine two nights later. He stood in the entranceway of the foyer to the living room, his jacket on, keys in hand. I was sitting on the couch in the living room reading the latest
Sports Illustrated
. It probably looked like a relaxing evening at home to him, but it was business to me. “You okay here alone?”

“Hardly alone,” I pointed out. “But, yeah, I’m fine.” He nodded, but seemed reluctant to leave. “Really, Jack. Go, do what you have to do. In fact, with that patrol car outside, don’t even feel you have to come back. I’ll make sure none of the boys go outside. They’re about to pack it in anyways. Gus is already asleep.”

Jack leaving for a while helped me out a lot. Having him not come back at all tonight—or perhaps for forty-eight hours—would put me totally in the clear with the plan I had in mind.

Just finding an hour yesterday to meet with Vince and tell him the game I’d picked (no way would he take information like that over the phone, even cell phones) had been a major juggling act. I’d also needed a favor from Paulie—or from someone Paulie knew of, and had managed to squeeze that in and get back with a few groceries that I let on took me much longer to get than it had.
 

Plus, Jack hadn’t had a drink since Pittsburgh. At least not that I knew of, and he’d been here most of the time that he wasn’t at the station working on the case. I’d offered him one several times while we’d been playing cards in the evenings, but apparently he still considered himself on duty even then. He had to be dying for one.

I knew I was dying to place a bet.

“You trying to get rid of me?” He said, raising a brow at me.

That’s exactly what I was trying to do, but he didn’t need to know that. I tried to raise a brow back of course failed and he chuckled at me. “Of course not. But I figured this all had to be a whole lot of togetherness for a guy who lives by himself. That you might need some alone time.” A thought struck me. “You do live alone don’t you?”
 
I guess it was a little late to be asking if he was married or involved with anybody, but it hadn’t occurred to me. I inherently knew Jack was the kind of person who wouldn’t start something with me if he had any lines still dangling.

He snorted. “Fine time to be fishing for whether I’m attached or not.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Do you really think I’d be with you if I was with anyone else?”

“No,” I said. “No, not for a minute would I think that. That’s why it never occurred to me before this to ask.”

He moved out of the entranceway, came and sat down on the couch beside me. He took the magazine out of my hand and tossed it on the table. “Okay. Here’s the abridged version of Jack Schiller. Married wife number one when I was eighteen—”

I put my hand on his chest to stop him. “There’s more than one wife in this story?”

He sighed and nodded. “You want me to go on? Because it’s not really stuff that affects you and me. It’s all ancient history.”

He wasn’t just asking if I wanted him to go on. The unasked question here was where were we going? What were we going to be?
 

If this was all it was going to be—poker with the boys, sliding into each other’s beds in the wee hours—there was really no need to bring our pasts into it. Our current issues—his drinking, my gambling, someone wanting to kill my best friends—were more than enough to deal with for something casual. If we brought our pasts into it, we were saying to each other that this was going to be something more.
 

I swallowed. There was a very good chance that in two days Jack would never want to see me again. But that would be his choice, not mine. “Go on,” I whispered.

He bent his head and placed the softest kiss on my forehead. He leaned away from me. “So, wife number one.”

It wasn’t as bad as I thought. And really, was I anyone to throw stones about anybody’s past? If I hadn’t met Ben at that hospital, I have no doubt I’d either be turning tricks today to pay for my next bet. Or dead.

As it was, I wasn’t exactly living my life by the letter of the law—both legally and ethically.

 
Jack’s parents had had a nasty break up when he was seven. He didn’t see his dad much and his mom seemed to emotionally check out. When he was sixteen he started dating someone with a big, loving family that took Jack under their wing. “I think I really just wanted to be a part of that family,” he said. “Not necessarily a husband to Chas.”

“Chas?”

“Chastity.”

“You’re kidding?”

He shrugged. “It was The Bay. They were left-over hippies.”

“So what happened?

He leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch. “Oh, nothing really. We grew up. We knew the mistake we’d made. I wanted to go to college, she wanted to have babies. It only lasted a couple of years. Thank God we didn’t have any children.”

“So, you don’t have kids?” The thought of a little boy out there with Jack’s—albeit rare—smile and that raised brow made me feel…I don’t know how it made me feel. Jealous of that boy’s mother, I guess.

“Well, that brings us to wife number two.”

The pang that went through my heart surprised me. There was someone out there—maybe more than one someones—that had Jack’s DNA.
 

He met Lisa—thank God the mother of his child (children?) had a normal name—his first month in Portland. It sounded like a normal relationship. Dated for a year. Married. Baby boy a couple of years after that.

“So?” I asked after his pause seemed to last too long. “Why are you here in Vegas and not in Portland with Lisa and your son?”

“The reasons I’m not with Lisa? The job. My drinking. Her cheating. Pick one and the others evolve from it. A classic chicken and the egg situation.”

“And why aren’t you in Portland?”

“Lisa married my partner about three weeks after our divorce was final. I…didn’t handle it well. I had to get out of there. It took me a while to come to terms with it.”

“And your son?”

His sigh was heavy, defeated. “Lisa’s a good mother. I know that. And as much as I hate the fact that they’re together, Brett—my ex-partner—is probably a better father than I could be to Casey. At least right now.”

“But you’re his father, Jack.”
 

He scrubbed his hands across his face. He looked about five years older than he had ten minutes ago. A look of complete despair crossed his face. “I know,” he barely whispered. He cleared his throat and spoke again. “I finally —finally—had a family of my own. A whole, complete, family and totally fucked it up.”

“There’s still time to build a relationship with Casey. He’s young, you’re his dad. You can still make yourself a part of his life.”

He nodded. “I know. We’ve started. I’ve gone to Portland once a month for the past four months. Lisa’s open to me having him here for a week at Easter.”

“That’s good. That’s a start.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving slowly down his strong neck.

“Families come in all packages. The idea you wanted when you were a little boy might not be what you get. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be a part of a family. Hell, look at how you just spent the evening. Playing cards with four octogenarians, a showgirl and a gambler. That’s family, too, Jack.”

He put his warm hand on my knee, I leaned over to him, wrapped my arms around his neck. “We can make it up as we go along,” I said and he nodded agreement.

I prayed he’d still be in agreement two days from now.

Chapter Twenty

I
moved quickly. Minutes after Jack left I knocked on Ben’s door. Saul was in with him and they were playing backgammon at the table in the sitting area of his spacious room.

“Oh good, you’re both together.”

“Do you need something, Hannah, darling?” Ben asked.

I pulled out a chair and joined them at the table. “Sort of.” At the tone of my voice both Ben and Saul put down their dice holders and turned their attention to me. “I need to go away for a couple of days,” I said. I tried to sound decided, forceful, but it came out dripping with the guilt that I felt.

“Now? You’re leaving me now?” Ben said with disbelief which only shoved the knife in deeper.

“You know I wouldn’t leave now if I absolutely didn’t have to.” There was pleading in my voice that I hoped Ben would hear, and understand.

But he didn’t. I didn’t blame him. He’d been shot at. His friend had been killed, another one wounded and it seemed to him like I was abandoning him in his time of need. He stared at me with hurt in his eyes that nearly killed me.

But it was either this hurt or him visiting me in the hospital. And then he’d be having to look after me.

“Ben, please…”

He turned away from me like a pouting child, his arms across his chest and the cut sliced deeper.

Saul placed a hand on mine. “Go, Hannah. We know you wouldn’t even think of leaving now if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. You go take care of what you have to, dear.”

“Ben…” But he still wouldn’t look at me.

“It’s okay, Hannah. We’ll be fine, and Ben will realize what a putz he’s being.”

Ben huffed, but didn’t look at me.
 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said and rose from the chair, deciding to leave Ben to Saul. Nobody handled Ben better than his oldest friend. I headed toward the door.
 

“Will that detective be here, or is he going with you,” Ben said.

I turned around, but Ben wouldn’t look at me. “Jack will be back in a couple of hours. His phone numbers are by the phone in the kitchen if you need him before that. Lorelei is here, too.”

“Does he know you won’t be here when he gets back?” Saul asked knowingly.

“No,” I said.

“So, he might not stay then, like he has been?”

I thought about Jack. How furious and hurt he’d be when he’d learn that I’d left with no notice, no information on where I’d be. And then I thought about Jack the cop.