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Chapter One
“Bet’s to you, boy.”
William Woodrow Winchester—“Scout” to anyone who didn’t want to be laid out flat on his back—studied the cards in his hand. Not exactly a winning combination, but then again, his entire existence had been predicated on “not exactly a winning combination.”
More so these days.
He fingered a stack of heavy poker chips. Then flicked a few off with his thumb. Meeting the current ante of a hundred. Upping it to three.
His gaze drifted around the table as he gauged the other men’s reaction to his bold move.
One snorted. Met the raise.
One snickered. Folded his hand.
One raised an eyebrow. Hedged. Drew out the suspense with a head shake. A head nod. Another shake. Then he dropped his cards on the table with a disgruntled sigh.
Scout would have given a cocky grin, but there was a final player to consider.
Vaux Forsythe.
That old weasel went and upped the pot another two hundred bucks.
Scout chuckled. He wasn’t exactly surprised.
His gaze dipped to the five cards he held.
This was no-draw poker. Nothing wild. Nothing squirrely or girly, as his Grandpa Win would say.
A game of no guts—no glory, as Vaux would tell anyone who dared to accept a coveted invitation to plop his butt in a chair at this particular table. Where men were definitely…men.
The hand you were dealt was the hand you played. That was how they rolled in Plymouth Rock, Colorado.
Scout had learned at an early age how to read his opponents—one of the cornucopia of invaluable lessons his grandfather, the late, great Jefferson Tate Winchester, had taught him. Along with how to assess risk factors and leverage your strengths. How to bluff to high heaven and never, ever give away any signs of weakness. During a poker game, a hockey game…or in the game of life, in general.
Scout collapsed his fanned-out cards and set them face down on the green felt-covered table. Sifted a few more chips through his fingers. Gave a half-assed grin. Then casually mused, “What the fuck?”
He pushed his remaining pile of twelve-hundred and fifty into the center of the table.
Four pairs of eyes popped.
Scout said, “I’m all-in. Who wants to set sail for wild adventures on the Mayflower? And who wants to stay safe and sound in merry old England?” It was a few days before Thanksgiving, after all. His festive side was coming out.
Max Littleton—the town’s butcher—who’d been holding, instantly folded. “Long live the queen,” he grumbled.
Yeah, Scout had heard that one before.
And that left just one to stand with the cheese.
“You crazy son of a bitch,” Vaux said to Scout with a glint of admiration in his eyes.
Forsythe was an interesting codger, to be sure. One of the wealthiest men in Colorado—not a detail you could miss because he wore flashy diamond rings on all eight fingers and one thumb, since the other was missing at the knuckle. The result of what Vaux himself called a “minor disagreement” over a lady friend years ago who’d actually (mistakenly) been someone else’s lady friend.
Vaux was an easy-going sort who’d spread his thin lips wide to reveal a shiny gold crown on either side of his two front teeth. He had a shock of white hair on his head, alert ice-blue eyes, and a ticker that just kept on…ticking. He drove around the poststamp-sized town of Plymouth Rock in a restored 1930s Rolls Royce. Eccentric all the way. The very reason Scout wouldn’t mind or feel guilty about taking in a haul from him this evening.
If the cards and his mad-bluffing skills worked in his favor…
Vaux had been a good friend of Scout’s grandpa and a strong paternal presence in Scout’s life, but that never factored into the competition when he and Vaux were head-to-head at poker.
“I’ll see your bet,” the elder man announced as he matched the pot—with another stack of chips to spare, h
e’d been doing that well all night. “And I call.”
The drinkers and the dancers at Waylon’s Watering Hole stopped what they were doing, taking interest in the current showdown. And the fact that it was Scout in the hot seat. It’d been a few years since he’d returned to his hometown, and this was the first stop he’d made.
He’d had a different one in mind, initially. Tilda St. James. But she’d since passed. Her large Colonial still stood on the outskirts of town, though. A house that did not belong in this elegantly rustic, mountain community. But she’d been a Boston descendant and had brought her preferred architectural housing to the tree-lined edges of Plymouth Rock. Along with a small collection of other Bostonians who’d latched onto the namesake and had established the Pilgrim Society in homage. Six ladies who now crested seventy-years old and maintained their annual tradition of reenacting the landing in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 and the first-ever Thanksgiving feast.
Which made Scout think of Ciara St. James.
Tilda’s granddaughter and an honorary member of the society.
Not that he needed any excuse such as Thanksgiving to think of Ciara. No, thoughts of that woman paraded through his brain on a regular basis. It’d just been three years since he’d last seen her, so maybe he was even more inclined to let wicked little fantasies of the feisty woman infiltrate his otherwise good senses.
Nostalgia always did get the best of him when he came to town.
“You playing or praying?” Vaux chided, interrupting Scout’s wayward thoughts. “I’d like to collect my bounty and buy some of these lovely ladies a drink.” That was Vaux. Ever the flirt. Even after his past altercation.
Scout’s gaze drifted around the spellbound crowd gathered this Saturday night. Waylon’s had a curious appeal. Sure, this being Colorado, there were big-game heads mounted on the walls trimmed with river rock up to waist height. The dance floor was scuffed. The “stage” was only large enough to accommodate the three-person band that performed there several times a week. But the actual bar was one amazingly master-crafted work of polished wooden art that Waylon Canton, Jr. himself had built—or, rather, sculpted—when he’d taken over ownership two decades ago, after his father had passed. It was a long, wide bar with intricately scrolled detail, panels at the base and a shiny copper top. The wall behind was lined with mirrors, glass shelves and rich mahogany that matched the bar.
This might be a “watering hole,” but Waylon preferred a touch of class and top-notch whisky. Perhaps because his ancestors hailed from the glitzier ski town of Aspen.
Scout liked the feel of the place. A little bit old-school, similar to some of the taverns in Durango before the surge of tourism had commercialized its Main Avenue. An older crowd hung here. The poker players and the bullshitters who loved to spin yarns about the “good ole days in the wild, wild west”—and every colorful character in between. It’d been one of his grandfather’s favorite haunts, and to Scout, it’d always felt like a comfortable place where he belonged. Even before Waylon had poured him his first “official” beer when Scout had turned of legal age eight years ago.
He felt a peculiar puff of air on his nape and grinned. Perhaps Grandpa Win was with Scout in spirit this evening.
He sure as hell hoped so. Because he held jack in his hand.
Literally.
He flipped the first one over, a smoothie.
Eyed Vaux, who neither flinched, nor gave away a goddamn thing. Scout’s pulse hitched a notch. The very reason he played—for the sheer exhilaration.
He tossed over his second jack, a grower.
One corner of his mouth lifted as his gaze remained locked with his opponent’s.
