Up by Five (25 page)

“I’m leaving now. Unless there’s anything else I need to know?” she asked Josh.

“Nothing I’m aware of,” he said, sounding very put out.

Right. Because he didn’t think she needed to know even as much as she did.

She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it, shook her head and turned away. “Good night.”

Conner was pacing right outside.

“You okay?” he asked the moment he saw her.

She looked at him and felt even sicker that Josh had stolen from him. The one bright side was that Conner didn’t know about it and she could replace the money. But it made her want to smack her little brother. Conner was a good guy. Hell, Conner might have
given
Josh the money if he’d known Josh needed it. Without question he would have given
her
the money.

But Josh had taken it. While she’d been right there.
Because
she’d been right there.

“I will be,” she finally answered Conner honestly. “We’re taking care of the problem.”

“What can I do?”

And he meant it.

Well, at least when she finally really fell in love it was with a great guy. It was good to know she had good taste.

“Honestly?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“I could go for some ice cream.”

He looked surprised, then smiled. “I can definitely get you ice cream.”

“How about ice cream sandwiches?” she asked, remembering something she’d overheard Conner’s sisters talking about at Trudy’s.

“Uh…sure,” he said.

She smiled. He clearly didn’t know about the magic of ice cream sandwiches. That was probably for the best.

And she could tell he wasn’t going to push to know what had happened with her brothers, he was going to let it go. He was going to concentrate on her and what she needed right now that he could give her.

She felt some of the tension of the twenty minutes with her brothers melt away. Conner made her feel better. It was new and surprising, but she really liked it. The least she could do was keep it light and easy for him.

“Then more sex. After the ice cream,” she said. And if it happened to make her feel
a lot
better in the process, that was a bonus.

There was instant heat in his eyes as he moved in close to run his hand up and down her arm. “Hell, G, I can do them both at the same time.”

Yes, that was exactly what she needed. “Well, your sheets are already a mess…”

He grabbed her hand and started for the car. “Right. Might as well make that wash cycle worthwhile.”

Chapter Ten

“So I was wondering if Nate would know anyone who could get me an invitation to the game?” Gabby asked Ryan.

Sierra was keeping Conner busy restocking supplies in the rig—supplies that Sierra and Gabby had emptied a few minutes before Conner got to work—while Gabby cornered Ryan and told him about the poker game.

Nate Sullivan came from money. He was a talented trauma surgeon but his family had money beyond that and with it came connections.

Ryan shrugged. “Sure. It’s possible. I’ll ask.” He pulled his phone out. “What’s the guy’s name?”

“Donovan. He’ll know who that is.”

Gabby chewed on her right thumbnail as she watched Ryan hit Nate’s speed-dial number and wait for it to ring. She hadn’t chewed her nails in years. “Oh, and you have to schedule a team get-together for Friday and Saturday.”

Ryan glanced at her. “What?”

“You have to keep Conner busy so he doesn’t wonder where I am.”

“Or you could tell him the truth,” Ryan said. Just then, Nate answered and Ryan focused on filling his friend in on the favor they needed.

The door to the break room bumped open and Gabby jumped. She looked over her shoulder guiltily. But it was just Mac and Dooley.

“Hey, Gabby,” Mac greeted, grabbing water from the fridge.

“You guys aren’t out of here?” she asked.

“Waiting around for Ben to get off so we can go grab some breakfast,” Dooley said.

Ben Torres, one of their close friends, was a surgeon at St. A’s. He worked side by side with Nate, in fact.

“Nate says he’ll try. He doesn’t know Donovan personally, but he’s sure he knows people who do.”

Gabby sighed. That was the best she could do, she supposed. “Okay, thanks for trying.”

“Hey, Nate might come through. He’ll work on it. He’s heading into surgery in a few minutes but later on he’ll—”

Gabby shook her head. “It might be too late by then. Josh is supposed to pull out this morning. They’ll fill the spot by the time Nate’s done.”

Dammit. She felt the frustration rising and her throat felt tight. There were other tournaments. She could win the money back. But few around here had such big pots. She’d have to play in a series of games to get that kind of money back quickly. She didn’t have the time for that.

“What’s going on?” Mac asked, taking in Gabby’s expression.

She wasn’t surprised that he’d noticed. She was typically even-keeled, calm and cool. She rarely looked frustrated or angry or desperate, and if she did, they were at a scene and things weren’t going well.

“Just…nothing,” she said, the situation weighing on her, making her tired.

“She’s wanting into a big poker game,” Ryan said. “Richard Donovan is hosting.”

“Hey.” She frowned at Ryan, then turned to Mac. “That’s kind of a secret. I don’t want it getting out.”

Mac nodded. “Okay. But…you play poker?”

She shrugged. “I kick ass at poker.”

Mac grinned. “Why can’t you get in the game?”

“Because about a million other people want in the game too, I don’t have a big name on the poker circuit and I don’t know Richard Donovan personally.”

“I do.”

They all swung to look at Dooley. He was on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table, reading a
People
magazine.

“You know Richard Donovan?” Gabby asked.

“Well, Morgan does,” Dooley said of his wife. “She hosted a few parties for him when she worked for Britton. I’ve met him. He’s kind of a dick.”

Morgan had run the posh Britton Hotel, the best in the city, prior to opening her B&B. It was very easy to believe she’d rubbed elbows with Donovan and multiple other high rollers.

“So she knows him? Like, well enough to call him?” Gabby asked.

She was so not used to asking people for favors. But she had to get Josh and his problems cleaned up before they got in Conner’s way.

“I’m sure she does. Morgan has a way of making an impression.” Dooley gave Gabby a wink. “So what’s the deal?” Dooley fished his phone out of his pocket.

“He’s hosting a private game,” Gabby said. “I
really
want in that game.”

“Got it.” Dooley lifted his phone to his ear. “Are you naked?” he asked a moment later when, presumably, his wife answered. He paused and a big grin stretched his face. “Why can’t you dust naked?”

He laughed at whatever her response was and Gabby felt herself smile in spite of everything.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to
imagine
you dusting naked then. And I think those low shelves need some extra attention—”

Mac cleared his throat and Dooley glanced up.

“Oh yeah, right. Hey, Morg, do you think you could call Richard Donovan? Or maybe Jonathan could call him.”

“It’s not Richard Donovan hosting the game,” Nate said as he came into the break room.

“I thought you were in surgery,” Gabby said.

“I got a call just before I was gowning up. And it’s not like they can start without me, right?”

“So this is why physicians never run on time?” Ryan asked.

“Hey, my patient is out cold. He’s not feeling anything. And even physicians sometimes need to take care of their friends.”

Gabby blinked at Nate and let those words roll around in her head. She was his friend? And he was taking care of her? She wasn’t sure what to do with either of those things.

“Wait, what do you mean Richard Donovan isn’t the one hosting the game?” she asked,
those
words finally catching up as well.

“Richard Donovan, the president of Omaha National, the millionaire, is not hosting a poker game. His son Ricky is.”

Gabby frowned. “His son?”

Nate nodded. “My friend said that Ricky, Richard Donovan’s twenty-three-year-old son, is the one who puts these big games together. So, I called Michael to see if he knew anything.”

Michael was Nate’s eighteen-year-old son. Michael was a down-to-earth-in-spite-of-his-dad-being-rich kid but he likely knew of someone like the younger Donovan.

“Michael knows some kids who have hung out with Ricky so he did some quick computer searching and messaging,” Nate went on. “Apparently Ricky brings a bunch of his friends together for a weekend poker game and party every few months. Sometimes he holds them at his dad’s place in Vegas. Sometimes in Cabo. Sometimes on a yacht. And sometimes he holds it here when he feels like slumming it in his hometown. His dad’s out of town and he’s using the family home. The twelve-bedroom house on ten acres where he grew up.”

“Holy shit,” Mac muttered.

“It’s just him and his friends?” Ryan asked.

Nate nodded. “Along with a few people who kiss his ass to get an invitation. He especially likes to invite top local players so that he and his friends can feel superior—they like to beat anyone who’s cocky enough to play with them and they like to rub their wealth in people’s faces. The parties are over the top, I guess—the best food and booze and music and accommodations. If you get invited, everything’s paid for the weekend.”

Gabby’s head was spinning. But it made more sense that Josh would be hanging out with a twenty-three-year-old kid and his rich, bored buddies than with a guy like Richard Donovan, the millionaire mogul.

“I wonder how Josh met him,” Gabby mused. “He can’t afford to play in those games at the casino all the time and they don’t really run in the same circles, I’m guessing.”

“Morgan just called one of the guys she used to work with at the Britton. He confirmed that Ricky’s the one who throws these poker parties,” Dooley said, stretching up from the couch. “This guy knows him because Ricky used to throw parties at the Britton. He and his friends trashed more than one room at the hotel in his time.”

Gabby sighed. “Yep, those sound like the kind of guys Josh would love to hang out with.”

“It gets better,” Dooley said with a grin. “I guess Rick Junior likes to
really
slum it sometimes. He’ll hang out at local bars and taverns incognito and get spontaneous games going. He loves when he finds some random guy who can really challenge him.”

Nate’s phone rang again and he answered, turning away from them as Dooley went on.

“It’s possible that Ricky met Josh at one of the bars downtown,” Dooley said.

“Very possible,” Gabby agreed. Josh would never pass up a chance to play some cocky guy who walked into one of his regular hangouts and dared someone.

“Ricky is very interested in meeting you.”

They all turned to Nate. He was grinning.

“He’s very interested in meeting
me
?” Gabby asked.

“He’s very interested in Josh Evans’s hot sister filling in for him while he’s sick.”

Gabby stared at Nate. “How does he… Why would he… Hot?”

The guys all laughed. Nate nodded. “Michael tweeted him.”

“Michael tweeted Ricky about me?”

“Guess so. He tweeted Ricky to say that Josh was sick, but his hot sister wanted to fill in. Ricky thinks that’s awesome.”

She blinked at him. “Michael called me hot?”

The guys all snorted. She glanced around with a frown, then focused back on Nate.

“Ricky’s going to let me play?”

“He thinks it’s hilarious that Josh, the arrogant asshole—his quote, by the way—can’t play for himself. Then Michael sent him a picture of you and he said you’re totally in. You can just show up at the house Saturday night. He wants you to wear heels though. Said not enough people he plays poker with wear heels.”

Gabby watched Nate for a moment, trying to figure out if he was kidding.

He wasn’t kidding. She was in. She felt the flutter in her stomach, even as the tension in her chest loosened.

“Well, awesome,” Ryan said. But he didn’t sound like he thought it was awesome.

“What’s wrong?” Gabby asked.

Nate’s phone chimed again. He looked down. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Gabby repeated. “What’s oh?”

“Ricky wants you to wear your hair down. And he promises you’ll be at his table. And he’s offering you one of the rooms in the house Saturday night. Even if you lose.”

“What picture did Michael send him?” Mac wanted to know, holding his hand out for Nate’s phone.

Gabby frowned. “Even if I lose? What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not going to—”

“Oh, I see why he’s interested,” Mac said. He turned the phone toward Gabby.

It was a photo Michael had clearly lifted off Facebook. Gabby, Sierra and a couple of the nurses from the ER, at a bar downtown, their arms around each other, smiling for the camera. She was dressed up for a girl’s night out in a fitted dark-green dress, her hair down, makeup done, laughing and having a great time.

She looked a lot different than she usually did.

“That’s the girl that has to show up at the game,” Mac said.

“And
that’s
what’s wrong,” Ryan said.

She glanced at him. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll take someone with you, though,” Ryan said. It wasn’t a question.

“Someone like who?” she asked.

“Conner,” Nate replied evenly.

“No.”

“One of your brothers,” Ryan suggested.

Dooley laughed. “She can’t take a brother. She needs a boyfriend.”

Gabby turned to him. “What?”

“You need a boyfriend,” Dooley repeated. “Someone to be all over you so Ricky doesn’t get any ideas.”

“He’s a twenty-three-year-old kid with too much time and money on his hands. I’m not worried,” she told them.

“If you don’t show up with a boyfriend, you’re going to be fending him off the whole time…and pissing him off,” Ryan said.

“I don’t care if he’s pissed off.”

“He could throw you out before you have a chance to win anything.”