McKettrick's Luck (19 page)

King of clubs. Ace of diamonds. Ace of spades.

“Bets?” Nurleen asked when nobody moved or spoke.

Cheyenne separated three red chips from a stack and pushed them forward.

“You're betting without even looking at your cards?” Janice asked dubiously.

“She wants to see the turn,” Nurleen said.

“Fourth card,” Elaine clarified.

“I'm not betting, then,” Janice said.

“That's called folding,” said Sierra. She glanced in Cheyenne's direction, then tossed in three chips of her own.

Elaine took another look at her cards. “Fold.”

That left Sierra and Cheyenne still in play. Cheyenne met Sierra's bet and raised.

Sierra shook her head, mystified. Then she matched and raised.

The fourth card came down. Ace of clubs.

Cheyenne felt a slight movement behind her and knew, without looking, that Jesse had left the other table to watch the women's game. Pretending he wasn't there, she turned back the corners of her cards.

Sierra stayed in the game.

So did Cheyenne.

The fifth card, the river, was the king of diamonds.

More bets were made.

Jesse exuded heat.

Sierra, flushed with excitement, went all in, pushing all her chips to the center of the table.

Cheyenne called.

“Three of a kind!” Sierra crowed, laying down the king of spades, to go with the pair of kings on the table and a six of hearts.

Jesse whispered a mild expletive.

Cheyenne turned over an ace of hearts and the fourth king. “Full house,” she said.

“Does that beat what I have?” Sierra asked.

Jesse groaned, dragged up a chair between Sierra and Cheyenne.

“Ladies,” he said, “you need help.”

L
ADIES, YOU NEED HELP
.
Having spoken in haste, Jesse now realized he would be repenting at leisure.

Three pairs of female eyes narrowed on him, glittering with indignation.

Definitely not the smartest thing you've ever said, McKettrick.

On top of keeping his mouth shut, he should have kept his distance, too.

Cheyenne's hair was down, tumbling to the middle of her back in fresh-scented splendor. She wore a tight little pink T-shirt and jeans that clung snugly to her sleek figure, and just being in close proximity made Jesse want her with a kind of primitive ferocity he'd never experienced before.

He rubbed his beard-stubbled chin with one hand. What he ought to have done was go home at a decent hour, sleep like a dead man, then get up and lather his face, scrape off a layer of ugly with a razor.
After
a long, hot shower, with the sprayer set on Sandblast.

Then, remembering that Sierra and her friends had a poker game planned for today, right here at Lucky's, he could have shown up as if by accident. Ambled in and acted surprised.

Too late for all that now.

The truth was, he'd forgotten about Sierra's game, not to mention her lame-ass plan—for one of the group to get all the way to the final table in Vegas,
and
carry off the big pot—until the moment she'd walked through the doorway with Elaine and Janice, with Cheyenne bringing up the rear. She'd paused on the threshold when her gaze had met and locked with his, with an almost audible impact.

Now, he was sinking fast. It was Sierra who threw him a lifeline.

“Well, Jesse,” she drawled, with a little smile, “fancy meeting
you
here.”

Cheyenne wasn't looking at him, but she shifted in her chair, as though to move it an inch or two away. But she
didn't
move, and Jesse was more relieved than he liked to admit.

“Of all people,” Elaine added wryly. Her eyes moved from him to Cheyenne and back again, adding up the numbers. He'd gone to school with both Elaine and Janice; knew them better than his own sisters, since they were closer to his own age. Unfortunately, they knew him just as well. The mild indignation they'd greeted him with at first had given way to speculative amusement.

“Just imagine,” Janice said, heaping it on. “Jesse McKettrick in an all-night poker game. Will wonders never cease?”

At last, Cheyenne spared him a glance.

We don't need your help,
it said.

Jesse supposed that was preferable to
Get lost, you loser.
Nothing to do but brazen it out. Make the best of an awkward situation.

“On second thought,” he said with an ease he didn't feel, “Cheyenne can probably show you everything you need to know.”

She frowned.

“About poker,” he clarified.

Still room for the other boot,
he thought.
Just open your mouth a little wider, hotshot. You can jam it right in there, alongside the first one.

“Looks as if you've been winning,” Sierra remarked, glancing toward the pile of chips he'd left on the other table. Without looking that way himself, he knew Utah Slim and the others were glaring at him. He was holding up the game; they wanted a chance to win their money back.

“
I
always
win,”
he might have answered, if he hadn't caught himself in time. Still one boot on the floor, anyway. The other one was halfway down his throat and fixing to choke him to death.

Jesse pushed back his chair, stood. “I guess I'd better finish what I started,” he said.

“Guess so,” Sierra agreed.

He looked down at Cheyenne, risked laying one hand on her shoulder for a moment, then turned and walked away.

Utah Slim's hound-dog eyes were smoke-reddened and bleary. “For a minute there, McKettrick,” he said, low and gruff, “I thought you were about to duck out on us. Play another game. And I'm not talking about poker.”

Jesse's temper surged, but he kept it under wraps. Mostly. “You a sore loser, Utah?” he asked easily. He'd almost said
Milton
instead of
Utah,
but the old man probably would have overturned the table in a rage if he had. Then there'd have been a fight, and he didn't want Cheyenne and Sierra and the others in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out brawl.

Utah checked his watch—a thin Rolex at odds with his baggy trousers, stained polo shirt and ancient Diamondbacks jacket—and winced visibly. “I gotta get out of here, soon. Who's dealing?” He threw an irritated glance in Nurleen's direction. She was still busy at the estrogen table, but she caught the look and threw it right back. Overhand.

“I'll do it,” sighed Fred Gibbons, the only other local in the game besides Jesse himself. Five men remained, counting Jesse and Utah. The other two were Utah's buddies; Jesse was acquainted with them, since they played on the same circuit, but he didn't figure them for insurance salesmen like Milton “Utah Slim” Jackson. They were hard-bitten, experienced players with cold, watchful eyes. The kind of men who never offered their names.

Jesse stacked his chips, waiting out the deal. He didn't look at his cards until the flop was down and, as usual, the poker gods were with him.

“Fold,” he said, when it was his turn to bet.

“You gonna stonewall us?” Utah asked.

“I wanna see them cards,” added one of his friends.

“I don't have to show them,” Jesse said, “and you know it.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the table, heavy and charged.

Jesse waited.

“He's right, Utah,” Fred, the dealer, put in, but only after a swallow that made his Adam's apple travel up and down his neck a couple of times, like an elevator with a button stuck.

Utah stared at Jesse.

Jesse stared back.

Happy chatter wreathed the women's table.

“Next time,” Utah said with resignation, tossing in his cards.

Reluctantly, his friends did the same. They didn't look resigned, though; they looked pissed off.

Nurleen, who had a finely honed sense of when things might go south in a hurry, left the ladies to trundle over.

“You want to cash in those chips, Jesse, or shall I put them in the safe?” she asked.

“Put them in the safe,” Jesse answered, as he always did.

Utah and the buddies pushed back their chairs, got up. Jesse figured the bulge under the one man's denim jacket for a piece, but guns weren't uncommon in Arizona, especially in card rooms like Lucky's. Half the people in the state were packing.

If Cheyenne and Sierra and the other women hadn't been around, he wouldn't have been worried. As it was, he calculated how long his reach would have to be to get hold of the snub-nosed .45 Nurleen kept in an old holster nailed sideways to the underside of the tabletop.

Nurleen shunted Fred aside and sat down in her regular chair. No doubt, she was picking up the same vibes as Jesse. “Any trouble starts here,” she said, addressing Utah and his posse, “and I'll be the one to finish it.”

“We'll go,” Utah said quickly, all bluster. He probably had insurance up the yingy, and didn't want his wife collecting. “Don't want to wear out our welcome.”

“See that you don't,” Nurleen said.

Jesse slid a glance toward the women's table. Wished they'd all get up and leave. Utah might be concerned about wearing out his welcome, and there was his alter ego, Insurance Man, who had a lot of good customers in Indian Rock, to consider, but the buddies clearly didn't give a rat's ass if they made a bad impression. There were other games, in other towns. They knew Jesse'd thrown the last hand, quit while he was ahead, and they weren't happy about it.

“We been losin' all night,” complained the one with the bulge, while Utah and the friend gathered chips.

“That's why they call it gambling,” Jesse observed. Once again, he looked toward Cheyenne, and this time, their gazes connected.

Cheyenne's eyes widened, and he saw a knowing there that could only have come from sitting through a thousand games, waiting for her dad to lose the rent money.

Jesse gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

Cheyenne was quick; he'd give her that. She sprang to her feet, hesitated a fraction of a second and then blurted out, “I think I'm going to be sick!”

With that, she slapped a hand over her mouth and dashed from the room.

Sierra, Elaine and Janice, being women, rushed after her.

Jesse gave a silent sigh that seemed to rise from the soles of his feet.

The man with the gun slipped a hand inside his jacket.

But he wasn't fast enough on the draw. Nurleen had the snub-nose out before the outsider could clear denim.

“You get out of here,” she said, cocking the pistol with an ease that would have given Doc Holliday pause, “and don't
ever
come back.”

“Put that thing away, Nurleen,” Utah grumbled. “We're leaving. We can cash in our chips some other time.”

Without looking away from the buddy, Nurleen answered, “You ought to run with a better crowd of people, Milton. These yahoos are going to get you into serious trouble one day.”

The buddy flushed a muddy-red at the insult, but there wasn't much he could do, unless he wanted to get himself shot, and nothing he could say. He flung a bowie knife of a glare at Jesse, turned on his heel and headed for the back door, slamming it behind him. Utah and buddy number two followed.

Nurleen lowered the .45 and let out a long breath when they were gone. “I'm getting too old for this shit,” she said.

Jesse got out of his chair, leaned down to plant a kiss on top of her graying head. “Thanks, Deadeye.”

“You'd better not go out the back way,” Nurleen said. “Milton's probably past the city limits by now, but I'll bet that pair of snakes he brought in here with him will be watching the door, just waiting to jump you.”

Jesse took the gun out of Nurleen's hand, crouched and slid the weapon back into place under the table. Looking up into her face, he grinned. “I'll be all right,” he told her.

“All you McKettricks think you're invincible,” Nurleen said huffily. “Whole damn outfit's cocky, if you ask me.” She smiled, but tears gleamed in her eyes. She took his hand and squeezed it, hard. “You be
careful,
Jesse.”

“I will,” he said, straightening.

“You're a damn liar,” Nurleen retorted.

“Don't spread it around.”

Nurleen got up from her chair, looking a little shaky, and crossed the room to lock the back door.

“Quick thinking on Cheyenne's part,” she said, throwing the bolt. “There's a lot of Cash Bridges in her. You see the way she played that first hand?”

“I saw,” Jesse confirmed thoughtfully, and headed for the inner door.

The restaurant was stone empty—even the fry cook was gone.

Through the front windows, Jesse could see Cheyenne and Sierra and the other members of the ladies' poker club huddled in the parking lot. Delores was out there, too, along with a straggle of customers. They were all staring at the place as though they expected flames to shoot through the roof.

To complete the scene, Deputy Terp's cruiser zipped in, lights whirling.

With a grin, Jesse made for the front door.

“Wyatt,” he said, with a nod, as Myrna's eldest son got out of the car and took a few steps toward him.

Wyatt's plain-featured face tightened. “You know you're supposed to call me John,” he said, frowning.

Jesse tugged at the brim of his baseball cap. “Yes, sir, Wyatt,” he replied. “I know that.”

Wyatt's jaw tightened. “What's going on here, anyway? Why's everybody out here in the parking lot?”

Jesse hooked eyeballs with Cheyenne again before answering. “Just a little disagreement in the card room,” he said, addressing the whole assembly, as well as Wyatt Terp. “It's safe to go back inside.”

Just then, an old red pickup shot out of the alley that ran behind Lucky's, bald tires flinging up gravel.

Nurleen had been right, then. Utah was long gone, but the buddies had hung around, out by Jesse's truck, hoping to take a few strips out of his hide.

“Damnation,” Wyatt sputtered, dashing for the cruiser to give chase. “This ain't the Indianapolis Speedway!”

Jesse went after him. Caught up to him just as he slid behind the wheel. “One of them's packing, Wyatt,” he warned.

Wyatt nodded, reached for his radio, asked for backup, slammed the door and shot out of the lot with his siren blaring. Jesse would have followed, to even the odds a little, but Terp was an experienced cop. There would be more deputies converging up the road—and, anyway, it was unlikely the buddies would be stupid enough to draw on an officer of the law just to avoid a speeding ticket.