Gambling On a Heart. Sara Walter Ellwood

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      “How was the Rangers game?”

      Jake Parker looked across the console of the semi-truck cab at his brother. Younger by five years, Brent still reminded Jake of a baby with his round face and potbelly. “How the hell am I ’posed to know?”

      Brent beetled his flabby brow as they neared Highway-6. “Didn’t you go to the baseball game?”

      Jake geared down the truck when the intersection came into view. No one was out at this hour in the morning. “I didn’t even have tickets.”

      “But Bobby told me the other day you were going.” Brent chuckled and folded his hands over his gut. “The kid was mad as a hornet he couldn’t go ’cause of Dylan’s weddin’ to that pretty little filly who bought Uncle Jock’s place.”

      Jake snorted, stopped at the stop sign, and turned left to head north on Highway 6. “I only told Bobby I wanted to take him to the game to mess with the bitch. I knew he’d cause Tracy all kinds of hell at the wedding.”

      Brent shook his head. “You’re one hard bastard, bro. I hope I never get on your bad side.”

      “Then don’t ever double-cross me.”

      In the side mirror, Jake watched their cousin Johnny Blackwell head south.

      “Don’t worry. I won’t.” Brent reached for the radio dial and turned it on to a classic country station. Soon the cab was filled with harmonica and guitar music and the voice of Willie singing about blue eyes crying in the rain. “So, are you still determined to try to get full custody of Bobby?”

      “Damn straight. I’m suing Tracy for support, too.” Jake glanced at his younger brother with a smirk. “I know just what to do, too. She’s rich now that she inherited all that money from her grandfather. I deserve to have some of it, don’t I?”

      Brent shrugged and fiddled with the seatbelt over his paunch. “I don’t know how you survived being married into that family. Her brother and father are two arrogant assholes.”

      Jake glanced at his brother. “Fortunately, General Dickhead and GI Prick were off saving the world when me and Tracy were married.”

      They approached the town square and stopped at the red light. He tapped the steering wheel, looking out the side window at the old courthouse and the massive tree in the front of it–the Tree of Justice, it had been dubbed over the years. A shiver slithered down his spine at the sight of the old oak tree where his forbearer Elijah Blackwell, along with his cousins Cole Cartwright and Dylan Ferguson, had hanged anyone who broke the law in their county a century and a half ago.

      “Well, Tracy’s still always been too damned skinny,” Brent said. “I can’t imagine what you saw in her.”

      Jake shifted the truck into gear, thankful the light turned green. The town was too damned spooky in the dark. “Tracy might be skinny, but she’s sexy skinny–all long legs and tiny waist. I’d still fuck her if she’d let me.”

      Brent shook his head. “She has no ass or tits. Huh-uh. Not me. I want some meat on my woman. Hell, she doesn’t even have anything to hold onto. Popeye can have Olive Oyl.”

      Jake laughed and shifted the trunk into a higher gear. He wasn’t about to tell his brother just how wild in the sack normally shy, sedate Tracy Quinn was. At least, she was until she found out he didn’t love her.

      “Speaking of Popeye and Olive Oyl.” Brent fiddled with his seatbelt. “Is it true Tracy is seeing Zack Cartwright again?”

      Jake spared Brent a glace. He’d almost forgotten who gave her that nickname.

      Brent’s blubbery gut jiggled from laughter. “Don’t you get it? Tracy is Olive Oyl and Zack was a Marine–Popeye was a sail–”

      “I get it. I’m hoping she is screwin’ Sheriff Asshole because that’s how I’m gonna get Bobby. I refuse to let that prick anywhere near my son.”

      Brent held out his hands. “Whoa. Bro, you need to get over this anger you have with him.”

      “I’d be playing professional football right now if it wasn’t for high and mighty Zack Cartwright. I’ll never forget what he did to me.”

      “You know that almost sounds like crazy talk, Jake.” Brent sucked in a deep breath, bent over his belly and reached down between his legs to get the plastic grocery sack at his feet. He pushed his hair back from his fat face before he pulled a bag of pork rinds and a bottle of Dr. Pepper from the sack. He held the bag toward Jake, who winced and shook his head. Brent shrugged and stuffed one of the disgusting deep fried pieces of pig skin into his mouth.

      “Speaking of crazy people,” Brent said around the crunching of the fried fat. “You know, I’m still a little freaked by the fact Leon Ferguson was Uncle Jock’s son–and that Leon killed his own father.”

      Jake shrugged and let some of the tension leave his shoulders. They’d cross the county line in another few miles. The closer to Fort Worth they got, the easier it was to get lost within the metropolitan morning traffic. The eastern sky was beginning to purple with predawn light.

      As a van passed them, he said, “I’m not surprised about Leon killing anyone. He was one sneaky, cold-hearted sombitch, but him being a blood relative of mine makes me wonder about our gene pool.” Jake frowned as he glanced at Brent again. He was still shoving more lard into his already fat body. “Then again, look at Johnny, Darryl and Talon. The three of them are the hardest men I know, and not all of that comes from being Jock Blackwell’s bastards. They have Jock’s crazy genes. Mom missed getting those from Granny Blackwell, I guess.”

      “I agree. ’Cause I sure as hell ain’t crazy. But I don’t know ’bout you,” Brent mumbled.

      “Ha, ha. You’re a fuckin’ comedian tonight.” Jake glared at his brother. How the hell could they possibly be related? Jake was stocky and muscular, while Brent was mostly blubber. “If you’d lay off the junk, you might actually find a woman.”

      “Don’t want one.” He crunched on more deep-fried fat. “Nuttin’ but trouble.”

      “Keep tellin’ yourself that, baby brother.”

      Brent settled back into his seat and took a deep breath. “It’s just a shame Mom didn’t inherit Blackwell Ranch when Granddad died. We’d be rich bastards right now with all that oil still under the place. I could buy myself a woman. Maybe one like that stripper that just married Dylan Quinn. She’s one hot number, and rich.”

      Jake met his brother’s eyes and grinned. “Shut the hell up. I’m not listening to you yack the whole way.”

      He turned the radio up and settled into the seat as Hank Williams, Sr., crooned out Hey, Good Lookin’.

      * * * *

      The aroma of bacon and blueberry pancakes wafted up the stairs to meet Tracy as she stumbled down the second floor hall. Her belly growled, and she scowled at the СКАЧАТЬ