My Stubborn Heart (6 page)

“Excuse me for a second.” Gran dried her hands on her apron and hurried out the kitchen door. Gran could persuade flowers to bloom in January, so Kate had high hopes.

Sure enough, a minute later Matt appeared in the doorway with Gran. Everyone in the kitchen broke off their conversations and regarded him with fascination.

Matt stood with the kind of stillness that held suppressed motion, as if he were on the verge of turning and heading back to his truck. He'd made his face carefully expressionless. For all his physical beauty and strength, he looked vulnerable to her, standing there.

Her heart squeezed.
Shoot!
He was miserable around strangers. She knew this, and she should have warned him about tonight.

“Everyone,” Gran said, wrapping her hand affectionately around his forearm, “this is Matt Jarreau. Of course you know he's our marvelous contractor.”

He had on a fitted navy sweater and flat-front khakis. She'd bet that he was one of those guys who hardly gave a thought to his clothing. He probably just wore whatever was clean. Yet his casual, sometimes ever-so-slightly-rumpled appearance never failed to make him look like a J.Crew model.

“Matt,” Gran continued, “this is William, Morty, Peg, and Velma. Friends of mine.”

Matt lowered his chin a fraction. “Nice to meet you.”

Velma walked up to him, still holding, with two frayed potholders, the dish of glazed carrots she'd been taking to the dining room when he'd arrived. “Good gracious, you're taller than I realized. How tall are you?”

“Six two.”

“Hmm.” She scrutinized him from behind her enormous glasses, as if trying to decide whether she'd deign to let him stay.

Kate felt ridiculously protective of Matt, a sentiment he wouldn't thank her for. Still. If Velma started needling him, she was going to have to intercede.

“You're tall
and
you're good-lookin',” Velma announced. “Nice to have a hottie over for dinner, isn't it, girls?”

Disaster.
Kate expected Matt to break for the door. But he stayed where he was, apparently speechless.

Peg blushed and nodded faintly.

“Indeed!” Gran smiled up at Matt, her blue eyes twinkling. “Always nice to have hotties over.”

Velma's attention swooped to Kate like a hawk catching sight of a canary. “It sure is, isn't it, Kate?”

“Yes,” Kate said lamely. “It is.”

And that's how Matt Jarreau was ushered into the kitchen, swept along to the dining room table, and firmly caught in the center of poker night.

After dinner, Morty—who took his poker very seriously—hauled out an enormous case of gambling chips and a small sign stating the worth of each color of chip. While Morty was setting up at the dining room table, Velma made her way to the bathroom. Kate followed her surreptitiously and waited in the hallway outside the bathroom for Velma to come out.

When Velma exited, she caught sight of Kate and halted. “Wouldn't go in there for a few minutes if I were you,” she warned. “Stinks.”

“Ahh . . .” All Kate's preplanned sentences evaporated, and she had to scramble after them. “It's okay. I wanted to ask you something anyway.”

One penciled eyebrow rose. Velma was wearing a black cowboy-cut shirt and tapered jeans tucked into flat ankle boots with fringe on the side. It appeared she'd fallen for an infomercial and shelled out $19.99 in exchange for a machine that punched silver studs into fabric, because she'd punctured her shirt with dozens of them. Her shirt positively gleamed. Brighter than the tin man.

Kate had a vision of Velma attempting to pass through airport security in that thing—metal detectors up and down the terminal shrieking and wailing.

“Morty likes you,” Kate said. “And I wondered if you'd reconsider going out with him.”

Velma rolled her pink lips into a sour expression. “No. Morty and I get along fine as it is. I'm not interested in anything romantic.”

“Why not? I mean, he seems like a good person.”

Velma regarded her skeptically.

“He's a nice-looking man,” Kate said.
If you like really old Elvises.

“Nice-looking?” Velma grunted. “In what way?”

“Ah . . .” Kate put her hands in her pockets and thought ferociously. “He's a masculine sort of guy, large, but not too large. And he has an interesting face. Strong. And,” with a surge of triumph, “he has lots of hair.”

“The hair is a problem for me.”

“How so?”

“That black color. It reminds me of a greased-up car tire. You know what I'm talking about? What your tires look like right after you pay extra to get them cleaned?”

“I do know.” And Kate had to admit, Morty's hair
was
bad. “What if he did something about his hair? Would you reconsider?”

Velma's mascara-clad eyes studied her without blinking. “Have you appointed yourself his pimp?”

“No! I'm just trying to help him out, I guess.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons. Now, about the hair. If he fixed it, would you go on a date with him?”

“Probably not.”

“But maybe?” Kate pressed. “All that admiration has to be flattering, doesn't it, Velma?”

Velma pushed her glasses up her nose, blew out an impatient breath, and turned to saunter down the hall. The rhinestones stuck to her banana clip glittered in the dull light. “I'll think about it.”

“Raise,” Matt said, and idly thumbed the edges of his two cards before tossing a few chips forward.

William folded. When it came to Kate she again consulted the little piece of paper Morty had given her. It listed the pictures and names of all the different poker hands from best to worst.

“I'll . . . reraise?” She looked to Morty and lifted a brow for confirmation that she'd used the right term.

Morty nodded.

Kate pushed a stack of chips to the center of the table.

Matt frowned. He had two pair, but he didn't know if they would hold up against her beginner's luck. Kate knew nothing about poker, but impossibly had maintained the chip lead almost from the time they'd started.

Matt was no serious poker player. But like all self-respecting men, he knew enough about the game to get by. And like all competitive athletes, he didn't like to lose. Especially against a total rookie who kept consulting her cheat sheet and throwing down her cards and saying, “Nothing there!” each time she had a weak hand. It made him pretty darn sure that she had a good hand whenever she started raising like this.

He suspected his hand was better, though. This time. He pushed enough chips forward to equal hers.

The remaining players folded. Morty turned over the fifth card.

Matt checked. Kate peeked at her hand and smiled with transparent excitement. She shoved another tower of chips forward. “Raise.”

She must have a royal flush. If he lost this hand, he'd be all but dead. He looked down at the table, scratched the side of his forehead. He should probably fold. At least he could safeguard the chips he had left. And yet . . . stubborn confidence in his cards tugged at him.

What the heck. He met her bet and then some.

She raised again.

To meet her this time would take all he had, and only empty her down to half her chips. He'd be out of the game and forced to go hang out in the kitchen with the other early losers—Beverly and Velma.

What was he, a pansy?

He slid his remaining chips to the center. “I call.”

Kate's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

“Let's see what you've got.”

She wrinkled her nose and revealed her hand. He, too, turned over his cards.

She had . . . She had nothing. He furrowed his brow, trying to understand what she'd been thinking.

Morty leaned toward her. “Now, Kate, you shouldn't have bet on this hand. You don't have anything here. Not even a pair, see?” As Morty's voice continued on with exaggerated patience, Kate's gaze flicked to Matt. One corner of her lips lifted knowingly and she winked.

Shock hit Matt square in the chest.

Just as quickly, Kate looked back to her cards, nodding seriously over Morty's instruction.

She knew exactly what she was doing, Matt realized, stunned. She knew good and well that she'd had nothing. She'd been bluffing. Matt thought of previous hands when he'd folded, when they'd all folded, and she'd raked in their chips with her delicate little hands without ever having to reveal her cards.

The antique lover knew how to play poker?
The antique lover? It seemed impossible. He'd never seen anyone who looked less like a poker player. She'd parted her long red hair on the side tonight, and tucked it behind her ears. Classy black turtleneck. Classy gray skirt. The odd black ballet shoes.

Slowly, feeling sluggish, he pulled all the chips toward himself.

Kate was an expert at Texas Hold 'Em. The whole beginner thing was an act. The confused expression, the questions, the reliance on the cheat sheet—phony. He felt like a dunce for falling for it. But one glance around the table told him that all of the other players were
still
falling for it. She was going to take them to the cleaners.

He watched her, grudging admiration sifting through him. He had to hand it to her. The clever little thing knew she only had so long before they realized her charade, so she was running with her chance.

It was William's turn to deal. He shuffled and began sliding cards to each player. As Kate accepted her first card, she looked up at Matt and their gazes locked. She lifted one eyebrow, her hazel eyes glinting with amusement.
So?
she seemed to ask him.

I'm on to you.
He mouthed the words silently.

She nodded at him, smiled. Didn't appear the slightest bit worried.

Now that he was wise to her, boy, he was bringing his A game. It was on like Donkey Kong. She was destined to lose.

But, as it turned out, she didn't lose. She won. By custom, they stopped for the night when only three players remained, then divvied up the prize money to each of those people based on their chip count. Kate had twice as many chips as anyone else, then came Morty and then Peg, which was downright embarrassing. Even Peg had beaten him. Matt had made it to the final four, then lost fair and square.

If he did nothing else this week, he was going to study up on poker. His name wasn't engraved on the Stanley Cup for nothing.

After suffering through some mandatory small talk, Matt said his good-byes and let himself out the kitchen door.

Kate slipped out beside him, sliding gracefully into her coat. “I'll walk you out.”

They made their way through the dark side by side, hands in their pockets, shoes crunching.

“You had me going in there,” he said.

“Did I?”

“You know you did.”

She laughed—a soft, easy sound. “Yeah. I know I did. That was terrible of me. Terrible! I shouldn't have done it, but Morty just assumed right from the start that I didn't know anything about poker, and you kept giving me those impatient and pitying looks—”

“Hey,” he protested.

“They were
definitely
pitying.” She glanced teasingly at him. “I couldn't resist.”

He snorted. “Where'd you learn to play?”

“From my dad. He loves the game.” She bent her head a little against the fierce wind. “Most families played Scrabble or Pictionary or Uno on family vacations. We played poker.”

“I'm going to work on my game before next week.”

“Is that right?”

“Well, yeah. I've got to redeem myself.” They reached his truck and stood facing each other.

“I'm glad you'll be back,” she said. “I'll be happy to take more of your money. There's this Coach purse I've been wanting. . . .” The edges of her mouth lifted until she was grinning in outright challenge.

“Better plan on paying for the purse with your own money.”