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“We’re not gambling,” Margot replied. “There are no stakes. She wanted to learn, Savannah. She’s been doing those card tricks for years and she’s so bright. She’s really very good.” Savannah’s eyes flared and Margot shut up, looking as contrite as a woman could, drinking a glass of scotch and smoking a cigar.
“It’s only bad if you let it be,” I said.
“What do you know about it?” Savannah snapped.
“I know that my dad used to leave me in the car so he could play blackjack. I know that after my mom died we had to move four times in the middle of the night because he’d lost the rent money. I know that when the cards went his way I got to eat steak and shrimp and drink Cherry Coke out of fancy glasses, and when they didn’t, I ate macaroni and cheese.”
Savannah licked her lips, leaving them damp and pink and I tried hard not to be distracted.
“But he always fed me. There was always a warm place to sleep. He helped me with my homework and was there for me. And I know he tried, Savannah. He really tried. And it took a long time, but I forgave him for those nights out in the car and the macaroni and cheese.”
“What’s wrong with macaroni and cheese?” Katie asked and I smiled at her. Really, she was such a cool kid.
“Nothing, but when you eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for, like, three weeks in a row it gets pretty gross.”
Katie nodded in sage agreement and I looked back at Savannah.
“I spent a long time trying to rise above my roots,” I said, remembering what Margot and Katie had said about Savannah the first time we’d played cards. “But it got easier to just live with them.”
Savannah’s eyes flashed to Margot who shrugged, delicately. “The man is right. You’re an O’Neill, and so is your daughter. No use pretending otherwise.”
“Stay,” I said, my eyes on Savannah. Katie beside me lit up like a skyrocket.
“Yeah, Mom, stay.”
“Stay and have some fun.”
“Fun?” Savannah asked, as if she were considering eating poison.
I pulled up a chair from the corner, pushing a shopping bag off its seat.
“Stay,” I said.
Oh, those scales inside of her head, the intricate systems she used to balance what she was against what she thought she and her whole family should be, were so obvious. I saw it all and I waited, hoping she could stop torturing herself with the idea of being someone else, and simply be happy with who she was.
She jerked the tie on her robe tighter and stepped to the table, all business.
“What are we playing?” she asked and we all cheered.
And I fell totally in love.
Two hours later Katie was curled up on Margot’s bed and I was getting schooled.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, watching as Savannah laid down her flush, killing my two of a kind. For about the third time in a row.
“She always was the best card player,” Margot said, watching her granddaughter with pride. “Even better than Tyler.”
Savannah’s smile was like a kitten with its paw in the cream, and it went right into my bloodstream. The robe’s tie was giving up the fight and shadows lingered between her breasts, the plush white curves of which looked like velvet against the dark satin robe.
That I knew what was beneath that robe was the sweetest tease. That I knew what she was like in the shadows of the sleeping porch – well, that was making me crazy.
She was all contradiction right now. Light and dark. Serious and coy. Flirtatious and crushing all in the same glance. Those breasts, her diamond-bright eyes, her long fingers, the swell and dip of her lips as she tried not to smile.
Her hair, all that magnificent blond hair, like some kind of veil.
And she was a shark. An absolute card-playing shark.
I was in love. No doubt about it. After she’d spanked me in the second hand I looked up into her laughing blue eyes and knew—this was it.
There will never be another woman for me.
“You’re not too bad yourself,” Savannah said, watching me from the corner of her eye, a smile on her lips. I wondered if she was thinking of the other night. And if she wanted more. Endless more, like I did.
Christ, my erection pounded. Absolutely all my blood was in my lap. I could barely see straight.
“I should go,” I said, after counting to a hundred and thinking of trees and sod and seedlings and anything but how I felt about Savannah.
“Me, too,” Savannah said, pushing the cards to the center of the table. She looked into the shadows where Katie was sound asleep on Margot’s king-size bed.
“Leave her,” Margot said. “No point in waking her now.”
Savannah nodded and stood. Realizing how loose her robe was, she tightened it, a blush on her creamy cheeks.
