LITMIR.BIZ

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and the most chips in his pile. He folded and glanced at Jack. “So, where are you taking Charlie?”

      “She wants to check out the Tahoe area. We’ll do some hiking, some boating.” Jack took the pot and scooped his winnings into his pile. “Maybe go to a couple of shows down in Reno.”

      “Sounds like fun.” Rusty shoved a fresh stick of gum in his mouth and dealt. “I won a couple of hundred at the blackjack tables last time I was there.”

      “After you’d lost four,” Bud reminded him. Bud was all about keeping track of the winnings and playing it safe.

      Dev glanced at his cards. Another lucky hand. He could continue to coast, which suited him fine.

      “Where are you staying?” Rusty fanned his cards, frowned and chewed his gum faster—which told everyone at the table he liked what he saw. “Somewhere near the lake?”

      “A private estate, right on the north shore. Nice dock, tennis court, maid service.” Jack signaled for another card. “The owner’s an old friend of mine.”

      Dev was learning Jack had dozens of “old friends” up and down the state. And he’d managed to make plenty of new friends in Carnelian Cove in the short time he’d been there. The guy had a natural gift for pleasing people. If he ever chose to run for public office, he’d be hard to beat.

      “I took Caroline down to Cancún.” Bud shook his head. “Man, was that a mistake. She couldn’t handle the food or the sun. Spent most of her time in the bathroom, and when she came out she wouldn’t let me touch her.”

      Dev won the pot, as he’d expected.

      “Where does Tess want to go?” Rusty asked.

      “We haven’t discussed it.” Quinn shuffled the deck. “We can’t go anywhere until Tidewaters is finished. And we’ll have to wait until Rosie has a long school holiday.”

      “Kids.” Rusty shook his head as Quinn dealt. “They sure do complicate everything.”

      “You’ve been around, Dev.” Bud gestured with his bottle. “Where would you go?”

      Dev thought of all the places he’d seen that most people probably considered romantic destinations. Fiji. Paris. The Bahamas. The Greek Isles. Rio, Monte Carlo, Marrakesh, Bali. He imagined any place would seem special, as long as he was there with the right woman. “I’d ask my bride where she wanted to go.”

      “Well, duh.” Bud set his bottle down with a clunk and picked up his cards. “It was Caroline who picked out Mexico.”

      “Been to Jamaica?” Rusty asked Dev.

      “Yeah.”

      “I’ve always wanted to go to Jamaica.”

      “Why?”

      “I don’t know. Just do, that’s all.”

      They played in silence for a few minutes. Quinn won a small pot, and Bud swept up the cards to shuffle.

      “Heard Addie Sutton came by here the other day to see about some broken windows.” Bud glanced at Dev as he picked up a chip for the ante. “You still got a thing for her?”

      The action around the table stilled. Tweaked in midtoss, Dev’s chip went wide and landed on Quinn’s plate of half-eaten nachos.

      “You and Addie?” Jack tipped the front of his chair back to the floor. “Since when?”

      “Since high school.” Bud blundered on, dealing the next hand, unaware of the daggers Dev was shooting at him across the table. “Or maybe before.”

      “I didn’t know that.” Rusty’s chewing slowed to a stop. “You never took her out on a date or anything.”

      “Didn’t have to,” Bud said. “They practically lived together.”

      “Her mother was Geneva’s maid,” Rusty explained for Jack’s benefit.

      “Awkward.” Jack studied Dev, a curious expression on his face. “Still awkward, I s’pose.”

      Dev shrugged. He wished he could shrug off the sneaking suspicion that he looked the way he felt: like a teen with a crush. “We’re friends. Sort of.”

      Quinn gave Dev one of his neutral, level stares. “Hard for a single guy to be friends with a woman like that.”

      “Like Addie?”

      “Like a single guy. Who’s a ‘friend.’ Sort of.” Quinn lifted his soda can and stared at Dev over the rim. “Addie’s had some tough breaks. She doesn’t need any more.”

      “I’m not out to make things difficult for her,” Dev said.

      “Didn’t say you were.”

      Dev met Quinn’s stare and raised him one eyebrow. “Nice to know she’s got people here looking out for her.”

      “Yeah.” Quinn nodded, smiling. “One of them is Tess.”

      “And another is Charlie,” Jack pointed out.

      While a round of bets were laid, Dev winced at the thought of two of the toughest women he knew coming after him. One more reason to steer clear of Addie.

      “Although,” Jack added in his most leisurely drawl, “neither of them seemed all that concerned about Addie’s feelings on the matter earlier this evening.”

      Rusty shrugged. “Maybe that’s because Addie’s still got a crush on Dev.”

      This time, Dev’s chip slid across the table and over the edge, landing on the floor beside Bud’s chair. Addie had once had a crush? On him? How could he have missed that? Unless…

      Bud sighed as he leaned down to retrieve the chip. “Are we going to play poker or chat all night like a bunch of girls?”

      “This isn’t girl talk,” Rusty pointed out. “It’s not like we’re gossiping.”

      “Men don’t gossip.” Quinn tossed down his cards. “They discuss.”

      “Damn right.” Rusty neatened his stack of chips.

      Bud raised the bet, tapping his cards on the edge of the table. “So can we discuss something other than Addie and Dev and whether they’re still mooning over each other the way they were in high school?”

      “Mooning?” If Jack’s grin got any wider, it would split his face in half.

      “There was no mooning.” Dev quickly looked to Rusty for confirmation.

      “No mooning,” Rusty agreed with a teasing smile that said otherwise. “Must have been mistaken about Addie, too.”

      Dev scowled at his cards and folded.

      “Calling it quits so soon?” Jack shook his head at Dev as he revealed another bluff and scooped the chips into his pile. “You need to pay more attention. Might want to rethink your strategy, while you’re at it.”

      Dev picked up a few of his chips and let them slide through his fingers. He’d been playing it safe for far too long, relying on his luck to get him through. Now he wondered who’d been bluffing whom all these years.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      DEV HUNCHED OVER his laptop late Saturday morning, scrolling through his notes and inserting random thoughts in parentheses. Eventually the pages would transform into something resembling an outline for a story; right now, they looked as though they’d been partially composed in code, with ellipses and dashes and chunks of text in boldly colored fonts. It was his method of organizing his thoughts and themes in the misty early stages as the piece lurched and stumbled toward coherence.

      He’d intended to write a unique piece of literary fiction—a clever story with bit of homage to film noir, a tale of mystery

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