Chapter Nine
Josh wasn’t sure when he’d stopped listening to the clatter of tonight’s dinner dishes and started watching the way Katie laughed with Jackie.
By the time it was decided that Monopoly was out and cards were in, he wished that he could just sit and watch her a little longer. Okay, maybe a lot longer.
Folks moved around the massive dining room table. Preston and Sara Sue excused themselves from the evening’s entertainment, as did Rachel and her husband, but the rest of the clan looked a tad too eager for Josh’s liking.
“Josh,” Alice pointed to a chair at the opposite end of the table, “you sit over there. Katie to your left, Carson to your right.”
People continued to shuffle around the table, making themselves at home. Jillian muttered something about thank heaven it wasn’t Monopoly before taking a seat next to Katie.
“Continental Rummy,” Alice announced. “Only jokers are wild.” She looked to Josh and Katie.
“It’s an easy game. Like Rummy, you have to make runs and multiples of a kind, we’ll start with two three of a kind.
Six cards are dealt. If you want to draw a card when it’s not your turn, you toss a coin into the jar and pick up your card as well as a spare card for penalty.
Once you have the required cards, you can go down, but you can’t place any cards elsewhere until the next round. ”
Josh glanced around the table. Carson whistled as he organized his chips by color.
Garret’s expression couldn’t have been more serious if he’d been preparing his tax return.
Smiling at Alice, Cassie shuffled the decks.
With this many people more than one deck of cards was required.
With the ease of her former profession, Cassie shuffled the cards in sections before shuffling them all at once.
Setting the cards to her right, Kade cut the deck and set the remainder in the center of the table.
Reaching for the first dealt card, Josh tilted his head slightly, leaning into Katie. “Ever played?”
Sitting stiffly, she seemed to nervously nibble at her bottom lip as she barely shook her head—another endearing habit he tried to ignore. “Not this version.”
“Me neither. Looks like we’re both in trouble.”
Josh picked up his cards, immediately spotting he had absolutely nothing worth keeping. Across from him, Carson already looked pleased with his hand. Meanwhile, Garret reorganized his cards for the third time with the concentration of a bomb defusal expert.
“First round is two sets of three of a kind,” Alice reminded them. “Simple enough.”
Simple. Right. Josh glanced at Katie’s profile as she studied her cards, bottom lip caught between her teeth again. That little habit was becoming dangerously distracting.
Garret drew from the deck and discarded. Play moved around the table. When it reached Garret again, he plucked a card from the discard pile without hesitation, rearranged something in his hand, and set down his cards with quiet confidence. “Down.”
“Already?” Jillian groaned.
“Math teacher,” Garret shrugged, not even trying to hide his smug smile.
Three rounds in, Josh had burned through half his chips buying cards out of turn. Katie wasn’t faring much better. Every time she reached for the pile, she’d mutter something under her breath that made him want to lean closer to hear.
Who was he kidding, even if she were silent, he’d still have to fight the urge to lean in closer. “Having trouble there?”
She drew yet another penalty card. “That one,” she nodded toward Garret, “is a card shark.”
“You heard him, math teacher,” Josh grinned. “Comes with the territory.”
“And I’m down, and out.” Cassie splayed her cards on the table, and leaning back, grinned like the Cheshire cat.
Not a single penalty card. How had she… and then he remembered.
His buddy’s new wife used to be a Vegas card dealer, but more than that, the woman had a memory for cards and numbers that could make them all very rich if she’d ever sit at the other side of a Vegas card game.
“Okay,” Katie shook her head, and setting down one card at a time, counted her points. “Maybe we should have played Monopoly.” Calling out her points, she heaved a sigh and leaned back in her seat.
He couldn’t tell if her teasing was in earnest or playful fun, but either way, Monopoly or cards, the only thing Josh was sure of, was that he was no longer frustrated by why he was here, he was just very glad here was with Katie. And wasn’t that an interesting revelation?
Katie had played cards before. Rummy, even. But never quite like this.
The Sweet family treated Continental Rummy like a contact sport.
Alice presided from her end of the table with the benevolent authority of a referee who wasn’t afraid to call fouls.
Cassie shuffled with the kind of casual expertise that should have been Katie’s first warning.
And Garret—Garret approached the game with an intensity that suggested national security depended on his next card.
Katie glanced at her cards, then glanced up, speaking to anyone at the table. “What are we doing now?”
“Two runs of four.” Alice smiled at her guest.
Runs. That was like a straight, which meant four cards in a row of the same suit. Too bad she seemed to have all pairs. Two sevens, two fours, a pair of kings, a nine of spades, and a three of hearts. Where were the dumb pairs in the last round when she’d needed them?
Beside her, Josh rearranged his cards for the third or fourth, or was it fifth time? Sitting so close, with every shift, his elbow brushed against hers. At first, she’d barely noticed, but now, she had a rising urge to lean into his touch. How crazy was that?
Another round of play and Katie found herself biting down on her back teeth. Between the free draw and the discards anyone would think she should be able to piece together at least one run of four but so far, no such luck.
Josh’s elbow rubbed against hers again, only this time, the pressure remained warm and solid against her as he leaned in and whispered, “You doing okay?”
Not wanting to say something stupid like, dang you smell good, she opted to simply nod, and just for the hell of it, rearranged her cards in no particular order.
Another round and across the table, Garret went down first. Again. Except, she was pretty sure he still held more cards in his hand than the original eight.
“Show-off,” Carson muttered good-naturedly.
“It’s strategy.” Garret flashed a toothy grin.
Pointing her nose in her brother’s direction, Jillian rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure the idea of going down is to have fewer cards in your hands than you were dealt.” Now she shook her head. “I don’t think your strategy got the memo.”
Katie had to bite down hard on her lower lip to stop from laughing. First at Jillian’s jabbing remark and then at Garret’s crestfallen expression. These folks sure knew how to raise the drama on an ordinary card game.
“Ha, ha,” Garret quipped back, carefully watching the cards played in the next two rounds.
When Jillian went down, still holding a couple of cards in her hand, Garret grinned a little wider, practically bouncing in his seat when his turn came around and he placed two cards on Jillian’s hand. “Read ’em and weep.”
Chuckling quietly, Cassie shook her head. “Don’t count your winnings yet.” In two swift moves, she laid down both runs of four and without a single card left in her hands, grinned up at her brother-in-law. “I believe the expression is… read ’em and weep.”
Katie had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop from laughing.
Losing the game or not, she was loving every minute of the evening.
Her entire life, this was what she’d been missing—the teasing, the noise, the way they all poked at each other but never with real malice.
Growing up an only child had been quiet, peaceful, but lonely in too many different ways—until now.
Next round, shaking her head, Katie tossed a chip into the pot, stole a card and mumbled softly, “I feel like I’m subsidizing the family winnings.”
“I know how you feel,” Josh muttered back.
Determined to get the three sets of three of a kind before anyone else went down, she rearranged her cards and made a single mistake of glancing over at Josh, catching a wide smile and eyes focused on her not his cards.
Her breath caught and the noise of the table faded—Alice’s laughter, Garret’s groan as Kade went down, Jillian’s triumphant cheer. It all blurred into background static.
“And I’m out.” Grinning wider than ever, Cassie set her cards down, scooped up the winning pile of chips, and leaned back.
The moment gone, Katie blinked. “How do you keep doing that?”
Kade slung his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “She counts cards.”
“She what?” Katie knew her mouth was hanging open.
“Vegas card dealer,” Carson spoke as though that explained everything.
Shaking her head, Cassie leveled her gaze with Katie. “My former career is not relevant. I’ve always been really good with numbers and learned to count cards as a kid in foster care. I remember every card played and don’t pick up spare cards because the math doesn’t work. Not if I’m patient.”
“Don’t you ever pick up cards?” Katie asked meekly.
“Sure,” Cassie shrugged. “If the math is there.”
“Math,” she chuckled softly. Who knew a degree in mathematics and statistics would be totally useless in a simple family card game.
By the last round of twelve cards, Katie couldn’t believe lady luck had finally found her. Three runs of four and she had a good start to all three.
Josh’s elbow nudged hers, only this time she realized it wasn’t an accident. When she glanced up at him, he was smiling down on her. Leaning in a little closer, he dipped his head and the warmth of this breath on her neck had her swallowing hard. “You have a terrible poker face.”
Blinking twice, she struggled to pry her tongue from the roof of her mouth before finally managing to utter, “Whatever do you mean?”
Chuckling, he didn’t move. “If you don’t have a winning hand, I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
“You shouldn’t speak that way about your family,” she teased, biting back a smile.
Josh burst out laughing, every set of eyes at the table turned on him and Katie felt the heat rising in her cheeks. What was this man doing to her?