CHAPTER 34

RIO and Eddie couldn’t resist the casino’s mini-tournament. They rode the elevator down to the lobby of the Rio Grande Towers in silence, Rio leaning against one wall and Eddie against the opposite side of the lift. The only thing between them were their overnight cases and garment bags attached to the elevator’s railing.

Rio wanted to ask him when he was leaving, but worried about how it would come across. For her own sanity, it was best if he went back where he came from. But the thought of Eddie walking out of her life left her feeling empty and alone.

“I thought you would’ve relaxed a little by now,” Eddie said with a touch of hesitance.

“And why is that?” The ice on Rio’s tone chilled even her.

“Well, since Switzer can’t hurt you anymore.”

“Maybe I’ll relax completely once you’re gone.”

Eddie propped a booted foot against the wall behind him and folded his arms across his chest and snorted. “Maybe I’ll just stick around...since you’re so hot to get rid of me.”

She cut him with a harsh glare. “You would do that, wouldn’t you?” She shook her head and laughed. “Just to piss me off!”

The elevator doors parted. Rio cleared her throat and reached for her bags.

Eddie laid his hand over hers. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “I’m not the heel you make me out to be. And I’d never allow a lady to carry her bags.”

“Suit yourself.” Rio squared her shoulders and stepped into the lobby. She passed by Larry with a quick greeting and headed for the parking garage.

Eddie was taken aback by the sight of the limo and Martin standing near the driver’s door. When Martin saw them, he moved toward Eddie. “Let me get that for you, Mr. LaCall,” he said, and tried peeling the luggage away from Eddie.

“My name is Eddie. Mr. LaCall was my father.” Eddie tightened his grip on the bags. “I can carry the bags. But, you could help by opening the trunk.” He nodded toward the car.

“Of course, Mr. Eddie.” Martin backed away and moved swiftly toward the car and opened the trunk. He was left to stand by and do nothing more than watch Eddie deposit the bags inside the car.

Eddie moved around to the open car door and ducked inside. “Tell me again,” he said as he climbed inside. “Why are we making use of this limo today? You have a perfectly good car that we could be driving around in,” he teased her, fully aware that her car hadn’t been cleared by the Department yet.

“Okay, pay attention this time,” she said. “I told you we have that thing to go to for my dad tonight.”

“We?”

“The way I see it, LaCall...” She doused him with an evil eye. “You owe me.”

“Point taken,” he said. “But that still doesn’t explain the limo.”

“Well...since the poker tournament—at least for me—will take all day…I’ve booked us a room at the hotel so we can change into our evening wear and head over to the party.”

“At the risk of repeating myself...”

“We need the limo because we’ll be drinking at the party,” she said with a touch of formality.

“Oh, drinking…” his voice trailed off in amusement. “And we have to go to some stuffed shirt party to do this?”

“Well, it’s not like we’re buddies or anything.” She scolded him. He may think he was back in her good graces but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She wanted him at that party but it had nothing to do with them.

He studied her for a moment, like he was weighing his options. “What do you say we forget about the poker tournament and the thing tonight?” he asked. “Let’s run away instead...to Mexico!”

Mexico?

He was teasing.

She decided to play along. “As enticing as that sounds,” she said, “I have plans to whip your tail at poker today.”

“Do you, now?” Eddie laughed, a hint of skepticism gleaming in his eyes.

“I do.”

“Would you care to make a little wager on that?”

“What do you have in mind, LaCall?”

“Just a friendly little wager.” He paused, considering what the spoils should be. Numerous possibilities crossed his mind—none of which he stood a chance in hell of attaining.

“How about,” Rio said, “the winner…me—” She pointed to herself. “—gets to have the loser...that would be you...do whatever the winner says?”

“And what exactly defines the winner?”

“Whoever walks away with the most money.”

“That seems a little vague,” he said. “I say we set a time limit to compare our winnings.”

“Fine. Three o’clock.” She seemed insulted. That wasn’t Eddie’s intention. He’d have to do some damage control.

* * *

As luck would have it, or maybe it was fate that brought Eddie and Rio together at one of the tournament’s last remaining poker tables in the afternoon.

The bet they’d made was sitting on Rio’s shoulder like a big chip. She did a quick mental comparison of her holdings and Eddie’s. Their piles looked pretty even but he might be a little ahead of her. No matter, it was getting late. This had to be the last hand, and she needed the flop and the river to complement her hole cards in the next hand if she hoped to stand a chance at coming out the winner.

Rio glanced at her watch. “It’s a quarter till.” She looked at Eddie, in the seat next to her, and added, “Last hand?”

He browsed his chips, scanned Rio’s and then let his gaze travel up to meet hers. “Sure.”

“Deal ‘em!” She tried to match his countenance.

The dealer went to work and Rio watched Eddie as he barely tipped up the edges of his hole cards. Her gaze traveled up to his trademark “poker face”; it gave away nothing. She shoved aside the dissatisfaction of not being able to read him and went for her own cards, picking them up completely off the table—something she would not normally do—and guarded them as best she could. If the move threw Eddie off, she’d chance it.

Two aces.

She looked up at Eddie with no smile, no frown, no nothing.

But he’d seen the fleeting glimpse of excitement twinkle across her eyes. She’d curbed it quickly and he doubted anyone else noticed.

The player with the dealer button sat on the opposite side of the table and the bet came around to Eddie first. “I’m gonna raise you two hundred,” he said, looking at Rio.

“Okay.” She threw a chip in and grabbed for more. “I’ll raise you another hundred.”

Eddie laughed inside and tossed another hundred into the pot.

With a pair of threes in the hole he didn’t expect to get far, but he supposed he could give Rio the hand and quite possibly their wager if he could lure her into a bidding war with him. No one else at the table had the guts to join in if that happened.

Eddie hadn’t expected the other pair of threes to land in the flop. That changed everything. If he won—and the chances of that were very good now—he was going to have a lot of fun watching Rio stress out as he contemplated what his reward would entail.

The river card fell. An ace.

Rio straightened in her seat.

That last card gave her a full house. The only thing that could spoil it for her was someone holding a pair of threes in the hole. The odds of that were extremely rare.

Her first thought was to go all in. But what if Eddie followed her? She didn’t want to leave Eddie penniless. He had to walk away from the tournament with something. He’d promised, on blind faith, to pledge his winnings to her unidentified charity. And once he found out what that charity was, she didn’t want him showing up empty-handed.

He smiled at her.

She gave him a wink and smiled back. She looked down at his hole cards and then back up at him again.

“Would it help if I checked my hole cards again so you could try to sneak a peek?” He’d seen her reaction to the river card. The ace.

Rio had two aces in the hole. He’d put money on it. That gave her a full house. And she thinks she’s going to win. For a second, he felt sorry for her. No one’s hand could compete once his family of threes were reunited.

“Are you going to bet or what?” she asked, stone-faced. For the first time, Eddie couldn’t tell what was on her mind.

He threw in a thousand to chase everyone else away. The winner of this pot had to be him or Rio.

He was right. Everyone but Rio folded.

“I’ll see that bet.” She fiddled with her chips. “And I’ll raise you a grand.”

Eddie slid his wager toward the pot but, at the midway point, he retracted it. “I fold.”

“What?” Her spirited eyes widened in astonishment.

“I was bluffing.”

She studied him with a skeptical gleam in her eyes. “You’re so full of shit. What you got in the hole?”

The dealer pushed the pot toward Rio. “I’m cashing out.”

“Me, too,” Eddie said and started to push his hole cards, still face down, toward the dealer.

Rio slammed her hand over his. “Not so fast, LaCall.”

“It’s over, Laraquette,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “You won.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “And as I recall, you’re obligated to do one thing I say.”

Eddie’s heart dropped into his gut. She wanted to see his hole cards.