Authors: Kay Keppler
“Boy, that’s the truth,” Faith asked.
Tanner prodded Kenji. The chef rolled his eyes, grabbing the phone away.
“We—Tanner and I—thought Amber would enjoy it if I gave her a cooking lesson on Tuesday when the restaurant’s closed. She and I could make something together, and then you and Hope and your mom could come for a lunch party. Tanner says you have a bunch of uncles in town right now? They could come, too.”
“Are you
kidding?
” Faith asked. She lowered her voice.
“A cooking lesson? You’d
do
that?”
Kenji smiled into the phone. “Actually, I sometimes teach cooking classes at the Ginger Palace. If you can believe it, the resort thinks that’s a selling point. That’s how I met Tanner, in fact. He came to one of my classes. He had his little girl, and he wanted to learn to cook a few things.”
“You don’t think a cooking lesson from you would be too hard for Amber?” Faith was still whispering.
“Nah, I’ve got this teaching gig down cold. I’ve given lessons to kids, too.”
Tanner poked Kenji again.
“I think she’d enjoy it,” Kenji said again. “She shows a real interest. It would be fun. What do you say?”
“Kenji, it seems so—generous.”
“Not when you see how much hero worship I get from it. It’s not generous at all.”
Tanner nodded encouragingly.
Faith laughed, keeping her voice low. “Well—Amber would
love
it. You’re awfully nice to do it. I think you’re my hero now, too.”
Kenji reddened. “Really, it’s nothing. She’s a nice kid. We’ll both have fun. If you can get her here at nine, we can go to the market first. And then you can all come for lunch at twelve.”
“I’ll let everyone know, or Hope will,” Faith said. “She’s at the Desert Dunes with Marty. She’s meeting him at the coffee shop for supper. I can call her and she can spread the word.”
“I’ll see you on Tuesday, then,” Kenji said.
“Thank you for the cooking lesson. This will be her best present ever.”
They said goodbye and Kenji hung up the phone. He turned to Tanner, waiting impatiently.
“My friend, you’re in luck,” he said as he put the phone back on the shelf. “The party’s on,
and
you can run into Hope at the casino tonight, if you want to.”
“If I
want
to,” Tanner said. “Just tell me when and where.”
After their daily midafternoon shopping expedition, Baby invited Hope up to the suite.
“You gotta put on one of your new outfits,” Baby said. “Bring this—” she grabbed a bag, “—and this. And maybe this, just in case. And these shoes.”
She’d taken a half-dozen bags and handed them to Hope.
“What if everybody stares?” Hope asked. “What if nothing looks good now?”
“I don’t get what your problem is,” Baby said, exasperated. “Come on.”
My problem is that I’m not used to trying to look good,
Hope thought. And to be honest, she didn’t feel secure showing herself off, either. She followed Baby into the elevator and up to the sixteenth floor, feeling like a doomed woman. Drake met them at the door.
“The meeting of Shoppers Anonymous is downstairs tonight,” he said, swinging the door open.
“The only thing we bought is grain futures,” Hope said, brushing past him with her bags. “Buy low, sell high.”
“They sell grain futures in the Kate Spade outlet?” Drake said, walking back to wherever he spent his time.
Baby walked down the hallway and flung open a door. “Here, use the bedroom to change. I’ll get scissors for the tags. Drake, where’s the scissors?”
“I can’t do everything around here,” Drake said from the next room. “I get a day off, you know.”
Baby’s face turned mutinous. Hope said, “Maybe there’s a pair in the end table.”
She pulled open the top drawer of the small table by the bed. The only thing in there was a large, pink dildo.
Hope had never seen a dildo up close and personal, much less such a large and pink one, but that’s what it had to be. The shape was unmistakable. It was
huge.
Way too big for—whatever you wanted to do with it. It looked like it was made out of leather. She reached out and touched it experimentally with one finger. It
was
leather. Soft, but firm, too. Just like—. It looked like it could do a lot of—well, a lot. She slammed the drawer shut, breathing quickly.
“Anything there?” Baby called from the den, where she’d gone to deposit her bags.
Just a giant dildo.
“Not so far,” Hope croaked. She opened the next drawer, which, to her relief, was full of sewing supplies, including scissors.
“Here we go,” she said, trying to sound normal.
“Oh, good. Can you help me with this?”
For the next half-hour, she and Baby cut off tags and examined their purchases, and when Hope was finally dressed in her new clothes with her old cargo shorts and tank top tucked into the shopping bag, she looked at herself in the mirror.
“I look totally different,” she said, pivoting slowly in front of the mirror.
“That’s the
point
,” Baby said, rolling her eyes.
Hope stared at herself. The clothes really showed off her body. She still looked more conservative than Baby—a lot more. But that was like saying she looked more conservative than Bjork. She looked—well, not
wow
. But she had definitely upgraded to
huh.
The change was scary. But Baby had insisted, and Baby knew what she was talking about when it came to fashion. And Hope had to admit, she sort of liked the new look. She wondered if anybody would notice. After she said goodbye to Baby, she went down to the casino coffee shop to meet Marty, gazing in wonderment at herself in the elevator mirror as she rode down to the lobby.
Before Tanner left for the casino, he called Troy, who was babysitting that night for the neighbors. When she picked up the phone, he could hear the squalling of an angry two-year-old in the background.
“So how’s it going?” he asked. He was glad that she’d had this regular gig for the last two years. Maybe it would make her think twice about the consequences of unprotected sex.
“Anthony doesn’t like strained pears,” Troy said, sounding as if she were at the end of her rope. “Or cereal. Or banana. Or sweet potato. Or
anything.
”
Tanner laughed. Maybe she’d put off kids until she was at least thirty. She could finish her education, work, maybe travel, before she even thought about starting a family.
“It’s not funny.” Her voice changed, moving into a wheedle. “Can you come over, Dad? You’d know what to do.”
“It sounds like you’re doing great,” Tanner said, trying to keep the smile out of his voice. “Here’s my advice: don’t give him anything. He won’t starve. Why force it? Anyway, I can’t come over. I have an appointment at the casino.”
“On a Sunday? You never go to the casino on Sundays. And I need your help. Anthony, here, want your duck? Take your duck, Anthony.”
“I’m not sure when I’ll get home, but it won’t be too late.”
Unless I find Hope McNaughton, and she wants to play naughty games with me.
“Is this about that woman you’re interested in?” Troy asked, making Tanner blink, certain that Troy had read his mind. “The one you were looking up in the phone book? Have you asked her out yet?”
“It’s not about a date,” Tanner said, glad she couldn’t see his face. “I just have something to do.”
Troy exhaled. “Dad. I wouldn’t mind. At least, I don’t think so. If that’s what you’re worried about. Not if you went out with someone nice. If I could, you know. Like her.”
Tanner wasn’t sure he could call Hope “nice.” Interesting, yes. Tense, for sure. Maybe even edgy. She might be nice, too, once she got past whatever it was that made her want to play cards like a dervish. But he was touched by his daughter’s openness, all the same.
“It’s just you and me, kid,” he said.
“But if you want to—I don’t know—get married. It’ll be okay. I don’t want you to grow old alone.”
Old?
Now he was
old?
He was
thirty-eight.
Marty talked to him like he was a randy teenager, and his daughter talked to him like he had one foot in the grave. Between the Mafia and a teenager, a guy couldn’t win.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll shuffle along somehow. But what about you? Anthony seems awfully quiet all of a sudden.”
“Oh, no!” Troy said. “
Anthony!
Stop
that! Dad, I gotta go.”
Tanner glanced at his watch as he looked around. Hope wasn’t in the casino coffee shop. Neither was Marty the Sneak. So where were they? Faith hadn’t said when Hope would be there, but surely it wouldn’t be late. If she was trying to earn a big stake, she’d need to play early and often.
Then he turned, and there she was. Hurrying toward him.
Tanner’s heart started to pound. Hope was striding down the hallway, as other people made way for her, following her with their eyes.
And she was coming to him.
His mouth went dry as he watched her approach. She looked fantastic. She glowed brightly in the casino, like she had an aura. Her blonde hair, hanging loose around her shoulders, bounced as she walked. She was wearing some kind of blue sleeveless top and long, white shorts—and what he wouldn’t do to slide his finger under that hemline to find that sweet spot behind her knee.
She looked a lot different than she had yesterday when she’d sat at the bar, shellshocked, in that silly navy suit. Tonight she looked hot, and cool. Confident, but approachable. Infinitely desirable. Utterly beautiful. Radiant.
He let her come right up to him, waiting for her at the door of the coffee shop.
“Hope,” he said.
She glanced sideways, both ways, startled, before her eyes settled on him. Then her eyes turned wary.
She hadn’t been coming to him. She hadn’t even noticed him.
His disappointment was so acute it felt like kick to the gut.
“Hi,” he said, trying to get breath back in his lungs. “You look—great.”
She stopped. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
She
so
hadn’t been coming to him.
“Marty called me,” he said. “He said I was out of line yesterday. About what I said to you.”
“
I
told you that you were out of line,” she said, looking like she was already getting mad. He
really
didn’t want that to happen again.
“Yes, but I needed confirmation from an impartial outside observer,” he said. “Not that Marty is exactly impartial.”
“What did he say?” Hope asked, suspicious.
Tanner felt inspired. “He said I should help you,” he said. “So here I am. Ready to help.”
“I don’t need your help,” Hope said.
“You said that last night at the bar,” Tanner said, nodding to the hostess who had approached them, holding menus. “I hate to say it, but you do need help if you’re losing at the thirty-dollar tables.”
“I won today,” Hope said.
“That’s great, but one afternoon’s success at the thirty-dollar table—”
“Twenty-dollar table,” Hope admitted.
Tanner raised his eyebrows. “Right. One afternoon’s success at the twenty-dollar table does not put you in the ranks of the pros.”
“I
know
that,” Hope said. “That’s why the uncles—”
“Said you should take all the help you can get,” Tanner said. “That’s what Marty said. Here he comes now. Ask him.”
Hope looked up to see Marty approaching. “We’re having something to eat before we play,” she said, obviously trying to give Tanner the brush-off.
“That’s great, because I’m hungry,” said Tanner. “Hey, Marty. I’m here to help, like you said.”
Marty looked at him and sighed before turning to Hope. “He
does
know how to play cards.”
Hope didn’t look thrilled at the prospect of having Tanner in her corner, but she didn’t say no. “Okay,” she said grudgingly, nodding to Tanner.
So okay, he was the only happy camper out of the three of them.
Not terrible odds.
Tanner turned to the hostess. “Table for three,” he said. “Nonsmoking.”
He followed Hope into the coffee shop, watching her hips under the white shorts, feeling like a liar.
Smoking
was the only way to describe the air
he
breathed.
“Okay,” Hope said, when they’d finished eating and the waitress had cleared their plates. She’d rather not be sitting here with Tanner. She didn’t know him, he was a card player, he knew how to cheat, all the signs pointed to
get him out of here.
But Marty vouched for him, so she’d accept his help. She might not want Tanner around, but more than that, she wanted to play better. She
had
to play better. She had less than a week to win her stake so she could win the ranch back from Big Julie.