8. Know how to play poker?
Chapter 8
Know how to play poker?
Skye
I was relieved to hear the familiar horn. I’d wrapped myself around Phin while he slept, and then stared while he stretched and his sweater pulled up. I wasn’t sure anyone with a pulse could have blamed me. I’d like to say it was the firelight that had made me think he was that attractive, but now that it was daylight he had creases on his cheeks and his hair was flat on one side. And he was still hot.
Ogling him wasn’t fair. He stuck with me, after I’d been a bitch to him. He was nice enough to put the bitchy stuff aside but it wasn’t like anything was going to happen between us. He might even be interested in me—there’d been something in his gaze. But. He was only here for a few days and who knew if we’d see him again? I didn’t need someone for a couple of days. I wanted a lifetime.
I pulled on Oscar’s jacket and my snow boots. Phin put on his coat and shoes and gloves. They weren’t going to be enough to keep him warm for long. Falling temperatures came with the clear skies following a storm.
Once we opened the door, I saw my brothers in the distance on the other side of our smaller truck, Phin’s car still attached. They must have driven up the road until they spotted it. I was surprised they hadn’t come right up to the house and pounded on the door.
Shit. I’d forgotten about the downed power lines. I needed to warn the guys where they were. I didn’t want them to risk getting shocked by getting too close. I plowed through the snow, up to my knees where it had drifted, hearing Phin slipping behind me.
“Stay there!” I yelled. I came to a clumsy stop by the end of Phin’s Honda.
Oscar crossed his arms. “What the hell happened, Skye?”
“Nice to see you too, asshole.”
Oscar grinned at me, then abruptly dropped his smile. His jaw tightened.
What the— Right. Phin.
“Oscar. Riley.” Phin spoke from behind me.
“This is who you had to tow last night?”
“Obviously.”
“And you spent the night with him?” Riley’s voice lifted in disbelief.
“Oh shut up. We huddled around the gas fire in the cottage to stay alive. The power’s down, since the lines are under the snow between us. But to be clear, I’m not a Victorian virgin. And if anything did happen, that’s up to me.” Older brothers were overprotective.
“I need to apologize to you guys.”
Shit. I knew what Phin meant, but his timing made it sound like something had gone on last night.
Oscar started forward, but Riley held him back. “Power lines.”
Right . The reason why I couldn’t just cross over and get a lift home with them. “Can you two settle down and listen for a minute? Phin isn’t apologizing for anything from last night.” I glanced back and he was shaking his head.
“No, too cold to do anything. I mean, not that Skye would. Or maybe she would but we didn’t. Just talked.”
“Sounding a little guilty there, Collins.”
Phin had his arms wrapped around himself, his coat not sufficient for the cold. This needed to move along.
“We can deal with apologies about the past later. The important thing is that I ditched the truck but you can’t tow us out till they do something about the power lines. Meantime, we have water, some food, and heat from a gas fireplace. When can someone from the power company get here?”
Oscar was glaring at Phin. Riley rubbed his chin. “A bunch of lines went down around town last night. I called, but they can’t commit to be here till late today or tomorrow morning.”
“But tomorrow is Christmas!”
“For them too.”
The silhouette of the fallen pole was visible under a blanket of snow but I couldn’t see the lines, pulled down from the surrounding poles.
“We’re supposed to stay thirty-five feet away,” Riley commented.
Phin and I scrambled back. I was pretty sure the tow truck and Honda were both closer than that. I projected thirty-five feet on either side, to see if we could walk around them, but that hit the fence Lina had put up.
“Do you know where they are?” Oscar was scanning the snow like he could see through to the source of the problem.
“No, I didn’t map them out last night. It was dark, and you know, a snowstorm.”
“Will you be okay till they clear these up?” I could hear real worry in his voice.
Phin spoke up. “There’s enough food, and water. We can stay warm as long as the gas works on the fireplace.”
Riley frowned. “We’ll come again later, make sure you’re doing okay. We’ll bring some water, canned goods, or something. Throw them to you. And I’ll pressure the utility guys all I can.”
Brothers were the best as well as the worst. “It’ll be good. You know where I am, even if cell coverage is shitty, and we have heat and a place to shelter. If we get desperate, I’ll use the radio in the truck.” Even though it was too close to where the lines were. “We can make it a little longer.”
Riley grinned. “You’ll have to tell us how you ditched the truck. While towing someone.”
Yeah, I’d never live that down.
“That was my fault,” Phin said. “I distracted her.”
Nice of him to want to defend me, but I didn’t need it. And Oscar was starting to glare at him again.
“Just conversation, O. Keep your mind out of the gutter.”
Riley punched him. “Come on, dummy. We’ve got work to do.”
The garage would be busy. “Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“You can make up for it later,” Oscar promised.
“Not that sorry!” I yelled back.
Oscar climbed into the truck and shut the door without answering.
I spun around. Phin’s lips were looking a little blue. “Back inside, city boy. Before you turn into a popsicle.”
He rubbed his hands over his arms. “Yeah, probably a good idea.”
We trudged back to the cottage in silence. Once inside, Phin headed straight for the fire.
I dropped onto my couch cushions, feeling a little cool again, even in Oscar’s coat.
Phin looked at me. “I’m sorry I got you stuck in this. It’s Christmas Eve. You must have family stuff going on.”
Now I felt bad for being upset at missing Christmas. “Riley goes to Christine’s family on Christmas Eve. Oscar and I eat some junk food and watch Die Hard . We do most of our celebrating on Christmas Day, and hopefully we’ll be good to go then.”
“That sounds nice.” He sounded envious.
“What do you do?”
“If Lina can get me, we go to a big party downtown on the twenty-fourth. Then recover Christmas Day till her dinner party. If I’ve escaped her, I usually hang with some of my teammates. Ducky had a fun thing last year, but he’s injured now, so…”
I’d rather hang with his teammates than his family too.
Phin
Another reason I’d left Toronto: I wasn’t in a party mood. I didn’t want to be the odd man out with the couples, and Ducky’s injury had hit home for all of us—just how vulnerable our careers were. It made me anxious to figure out what I was doing after hockey.
How did she keep bringing up these serious thoughts? Time to change course. “We’ve got a lot of time to kill. What should we do?”
“You don’t have the clothes for outdoor sports.” She shrugged. “I don’t either. So we’re stuck indoors. We can’t watch movies with no power. Are there any books here while we have light?”
“Unless it was raining, we didn’t stay inside much during the summers, did we?”
“No, we were outside all the time. I prefer that, normally, but that’s when I can dress properly and have a hot shower waiting for me.”
I was not going to think about Skye in the shower. She’d… Nope. Needed to shut those thoughts down. “I don’t think Lina is the outdoorsy type, but I don’t know if there’s anything off-grid to do.”
Skye pushed herself up. “I’m going to take a look. I should have asked my brothers to bring some kind of entertainment.”
I’d have offered to help but I was feeling uncharacteristically lazy. And cold. It was nice for a bit not to have any expectations or requirements, nothing to do but try to stay warm.
A few minutes later she came down the stairs with an air of triumph. “I found a box of old games.”
I squinted at her. “You like games?”
She shrugged. “We’re small-town people. We amuse ourselves.”
“I’m not playing Candyland.”
“I have no desire to play Candyland.” She set down the box. “I think it’s stuff from before. When we were kids.”
When things were good between us.
I couldn’t remember when I last played a board game. I liked cards and was pretty good at poker, but that was as close as I got. Seeing Quin’s writing on the box, I was curious about what might be left from when it was our cottage and the Duvalls were next door and summer was fun.
Skye sneezed as she opened the flaps. “I don’t think anyone has been in this for a while.”
Probably not.
First she dragged out a battered copy of Operation. When she lifted the lid, there was rust on the poor patient’s body and the batteries were dead. Pictionary had paper scraps with strange scribbles on them, but no pens or pencils.
Skye picked up one. “I think I remember this. It was something about a face, so you drew a puck and two hockey sticks.”
“Face-off!” Obviously.
She rolled her eyes. “Why not just draw, you know, a face?”
“I was better at drawing hockey pucks and sticks?”
A grin teased the corner of her mouth. “I’m glad I wasn’t on your team.”
“Well, Pictionary isn’t going to work. What else is in there? Any cards?”
“I see Monopoly, but I’m pretty sure Oscar wrecked that one to make sure we didn’t play it anymore.”
On rainy summer days, when we couldn’t swim or kayak or fish, we played games. I remembered how much Oscar hated Monopoly. “Quin liked playing that one.”
“Apparently he had a thing for money even back then.”
He did. And Skye had known him well. “He didn’t keep in touch with you?”
She raised her brows. “He blocked my number. A couple of years ago when we got a CAA call to change a tire on one of the guest vehicles here, he turned his back and walked away as soon as he saw me. So, no.”
What had happened to my brother? I’d been upset about Dad remarrying, but Quin had loved it when Lina started buying him things. That division between us still existed.
“Oh, here’s a deck of cards. It’s probably missing something.”
I took it from her to check it out. It was short an ace but had a couple of jokers. “We can work with this.”
Skye set the game box aside and shoved the coffee table between us. She crossed her legs as she faced me across the table. “So, what will it be? Go Fish? Gin rummy? War?”
I stopped shuffling. “You do know that War is entirely a game of chance, right? And Go Fish is almost that.”
She shrugged. “It’s a way to pass the time.”
I split the cards in half and flipped them back together, quick and smooth thanks to a lot of practice. “Know how to play poker?’
Her eyes narrowed. “No, but I’m guessing you do.”
“We play when we’re traveling. I can teach you.”
“We’re not playing for money.”
Smart girl.