Gambling On a Heart (3 page)

His icy, penetrating eyes locked on hers when Logan sang the chorus. Had this cold man given her a compliment earlier? Was he the same man who lovingly cut up his little girl’s barbecued beef and buttered her roll?

Desperate to break the tension between them, she said, “Logan’s doing well these days, it seems.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched again as if he had to unclench his teeth to respond. “I guess.”

That was the extent of their dance floor conversation. The moment the music ended, Zack dropped his hands and stepped out of her grasp. He didn’t say a word, only turned and walked away.

She watched him make his way toward her parents, his back straight as a branding iron. He was so damned handsome he made her heart flutter.

Dylan took Tracy into his arms and kissed her cheek. With her heels, she was two inches taller than her brother. “Hey, sis, it’s my turn with the third most beautiful woman in the world.”

She playfully glared into his gray eyes and forced her trouble with Zack Cartwright to the back of her mind. “Third?”

Dylan shrugged. “My bride is the most beautiful woman in the world. I know better than not to call my mother the second. So, that leaves third place for my busybody little sister.”

She laughed and hugged him close. “I love you, you jerk.”

“Hey, have you and my bride been swapping endearments for me?” He swung her into a two-step to a countrified love song that Zack and Logan’s mother had originally made a hit when she was a rock singer in the ’70s.

“That and a few stories.” She let him spin her around.

When she faced him again, he cleared his throat. “I guess I owe you.”

She leaned back. “Why’s that?”

Dylan chuckled, but it was like a hawk’s call over the grassland, deep and echoing. “I know you and Cartwright have been working together to get me straightened out. Without you, I wouldn’t have ever found Charli.”

She followed his stare to the woman dancing with their father. Charli laughed at something he said. Zack swung their mother into view. He smiled with an ease making him a stranger to the man Tracy had danced with.

“I don’t know where I’d be without her.” When Dylan’s voice grew soft, she focused on her brother again.

“Have you two figured out a name for the baby yet?” she asked, turning the conversation away from the emotional cliff before she fell into the blubbering abyss below.

“Yep.”

“You know the sex?”

He grinned and swung her into the last strains of the song. “I never could keep a secret from you. But all I’ll admit to is we’ll need both.”

“You’re having twins?”

“Shhh.” Dylan glanced around. “We’d like to keep that off the Colton Grapevine. According to the ultrasound, we’re having a boy and a girl.”

Her eyes burned. She blinked, but a tear slipped by anyway. “Oh, Dylan. So, what are their names?”

He shook his head and wiped the drop of water off her cheek. “Not telling you. That’s a surprise for the family.”

As the music ended, Dylan drew her close and spoke huskily near her ear. “Tracy, I want you to be careful, but don’t over-think things where Zack’s concerned. Follow your heart. You may be surprised where it leads you. I know I was.”

He kissed her on the cheek and left her standing in the middle of the dance floor. When the hell had her big, hard-assed brother started sounding like a Hallmark card? No, actually, he sounded more like a fortune cookie.

She hated fortune cookies for a reason. In her experience, they never boded well.

Chapter 2

God, Tracy was happy to see the evening end. She’d waited for the last of the catering help and Logan’s band to pack up their equipment. The guests had left a half-hour ago after the groom whisked the bride and their soon-to-be-adopted teenage daughter, Annie Larson, off in his new pickup truck, a wedding gift from his bride.

Tracy parked in the five-car garage beside her parents’ rented car. She and Bobby got out of the old Taurus. Now that she could afford a new car, she should consider buying a replacement. Then again, she was waiting for someone to tell her the millions of dollars she’d inherited from her grandfather was all a joke. She still couldn’t believe the man she’d considered an uncle would have been so devious as to forge her grandfather’s will to cheat her mother, brother, and herself out of their inheritance.

She and Bobby entered the massive Antebellum-styled house she’d moved into almost a month ago. As she kicked off her shoes by the coat closet in the mudroom, she ruffled Bobby’s hair and kissed his cheek. He usually squirmed and made a face when she cuddled him. Tonight, he let her smooch him without so much as an
Eww, Mom.
He had to be tired.

She ruffled his dark brown hair. “You should have left with Grandpa and Grandma. You’d be in bed by now. Go on up and get ready.”

“Do I have to shower?”

“Yes. You and Mandy were playing in the lake, which we’ll have to talk about tomorrow,” she said with a firm tone. “You’re filthy. And brush your teeth.” When he didn’t argue, she hugged him close one last time, her heart so swollen her chest hurt.

What happened to the days when she’d played with him in his bathwater and helped him brush and floss his teeth? Jake had never let a single time go by without accusing her of coddling the boy, but she’d ignored him.

With a deep breath, she let her arms relax. “Good night, sweetheart. I love you.”

“’Night, Mom. Love you, too,” he said, stifling a yawn.

Bobby trudged through the kitchen, stopping long enough to accept a kiss from his grandma, then went through the swinging door leading to the front hall of the mansion to the stairs. He didn’t allow her to tuck him in anymore–another thing his father made him believe was babyish–but how she ached to follow him up the stairs.

Her mother sat at the kitchen table with a cup of herbal tea. Tracy made herself a cup and joined her. “Where’s Dad?”

With her graying blond hair cut to a chin-length wedge, and dressed in a cream-colored linen pantsuit, Eileen Ferguson Quinn cut a stylish figure. At six feet tall and with her runway model body, her mother didn’t look her sixty-three years–or much like a world-class chef.

Her mother smiled. “He just took the pooches out.”

After sipping her tea, Tracy sat the cup on the table and grinned. “Ah.”

Her mother’s two Yorkshire terriers had joined the family when she had left her grown children in Texas to follow her husband on his first assignment after returning from Bosnia. The big bad general claimed the dogs were only her mother’s, but Tracy knew he loved the yappy rats-with-fur as much as her mom.

Her mother sipped her tea. “You and Zachery Cartwright seem to be getting along.”

The last person Tracy wanted to talk about, after spending all day with him, was Zack. She sighed. “It was a wedding. Of course we’d be on our best behavior.”

Mom shrugged and studied her with summer blue eyes. “You two made such a lovely couple on the dance floor.”

Tracy groaned. The dance they’d shared was still excruciating. The awkwardness of the slow dance had been worse than anything she’d ever experienced as a gangly teenager.

Her mother pushed her hair behind her ears. “Winnie and Jackie told me Zack doesn’t have much of a social life.”

“I doubt Zack has time for one. He’s the county sheriff and raising his little girl all by himself. Besides taking over his share of the CW.” Crap, she’d said too much. Was it too much to hope her mother wouldn’t pick up on how much she knew about Zack Cartwright? “So, Dad is really retiring and moving to Texas?”

Mom raised a brow and smiled. “As soon as a replacement is found for his position. We decided we want to be near our grandkids. Thank you again for letting us move in here with you.”

Tracy didn’t mind having her parents around–
really
. “The house would have been yours if Dylan hadn’t inherited the ranch. I’m glad you’re here. This is a big house for just Bobby and me.”

“You’ve been avoiding us.” Her mother took a deep breath. “I know you think your daddy and I are still disappointed in you. Honey, we love you very much and are proud of you.”

“I know you love me, Mom.” Whether or not they were proud of her was a different opinion altogether. There were plenty of times Tracy wasn’t so proud of herself. “I guess it’s admitting to Daddy that he was right about everything that’s the real problem. I should never have stayed with Jake after the miscarriage.” She picked up her teacup and stared down into the dark liquid. “Hell, I shouldn’t’ve gotten involved with him again after we broke up the first time. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t’ve gotten pregnant in the first place. Then I should’ve joined the Army and got my training to be a doctor away from here like Daddy wanted me to.”

“Then you wouldn’t have Bobby.” Her mother reached over the table and laid her hand on Tracy’s. “I can’t imagine life without my grandson, and neither can Bob. Besides, you never wanted to join the military any more than Dylan had. Doing so would have been just as disastrous for you as it was for him.”

“Bobby’s my life.” Tracy sipped her tea. She actually couldn’t imagine being a doctor now at this time in her life, either. But there were times she felt like she’d settled.

“What are you going to do with his attitude problem?”

Tracy straightened her spine and clenched her teeth. “Can I wring Jake’s neck? He’s the reason there was a problem today. He’s known about the wedding for two weeks, and that jerk had Bobby believing he wanted to take him to a Texas Rangers game. I’d bet my paycheck, he had no intention of taking Bobby anywhere. Jake was playing him because he knew Bobby would give me a hard time.”

“Which he did. If Zack hadn’t intervened while Dylan and Charli exchanged vows, he wouldn’t have stopped fidgeting. I think he was doing it only for attention, too.” Her mother sipped her tea. “But he wasn’t expecting Zack to bring him into check.”

Tracy’s stomach flip-flopped when Bobby started tapping his foot in clear impatience and obstinacy during the ceremony. Then her heart had done an answering back flip when Zack snuck his hand over and laid it on Bobby’s shoulder. He’d looked up into Zack’s stern face, immediately stopped his agitation, and spent the rest of the service behaving himself. Later in the ceremony, Zack winked at Bobby and patted him on the shoulder. With that caring move, Tracy saw what kind of man Zack had turned into–loving, supportive, and understanding.

She ached with the knowledge Jake couldn’t be anything but manipulative, demanding, and demeaning.

“What are you doing about Jake?” Her mother drew Tracy out of her thoughts.

Tracy shrugged and hugged the mug between her hands. “I have no idea. I’ve tried talking to him, but he won’t listen to me. And now, he’s threatened me with another custody battle. We go to court in three weeks.”

Her mother took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What does your lawyer say?”

Tracy snorted and set her mug on the table. “I’m looking for a new one.”

“So soon before the court date?” Tracy nodded in answer, and her mother’s lips compressed into to a thin line. “You should sue
him
for full custody.”

“I can’t take Bobby away from his father.”

Mom leaned back in her chair. “In this case, no father would be better than a bad one.”

Jake wasn’t anybody’s saint, and compared to Zack, he was severely lacking, but he wasn’t necessarily a
bad
father. He wasn’t a deadbeat dad. He never hit their son, nor had he lacked interest in Bobby. Sure, Jake lost his temper and said things that hurt him, but in Jake’s mind, he was better than his old man. Jake’s father had been physically abusive and cruel.

Her mother shook her head and lifted her cup to her lips. “Jake Parker has been bad news ever since you let him into your life. What in God’s name did you see in him to make you do what you did? Zack has turned into such a wonderful young man. He’s such a doting father too.”

Tracy tightened her grip on the mug until her knuckles whitened. Her mother knew the story, every disgusting detail. She didn’t need to be a mind reader to know her mother wished Zack was her grandson’s father.

Tracy set her cup down with a thump, angry at her own stupid foolishness as much as her mother for bringing up the past. “I don’t know, Mom. I thought Jake loved me.”

“But you never loved him. Just like you probably didn’t love the man you left Jake for.”