Page 73 of Peaches

When Wylie flips a fourth card down on the table next to the first three, that earlier hope expands. It’s an eight—and I have one in my hand.

I’ve got two pairs. It’s a decent hand . . . Not nearly enough to win the game, but there’s still one more card left.

Colt tenses next to me, and at first I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. He takes a long look at his cards. At the cards on the table. And then at Mean-Eyed Maverick, who gives him a hateful smile.

And then he folds, kicking the bag of money at his feet toward me.

It’s the permission I need to make a bold move. I set my cards down and reach into the backpack, pulling out enough cash to make anyone at this table without a decent hand squeamish. “Two fifty,” I say, stacking two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on top of what’s already on the table.

The cowboys next to me give nothing away, but I don’t miss the way Maverick’s eyes widen in surprise. Which means . . .fucking hell. Ellis didn’t tell him how big the stakes are tonight.

I look at Ellis and find him watching Maverick with a cold glare. And that’s when I realize—he’s setting him up. Ellis is forcing Maverick into a corner with no choice but to fold, to make him feel inferior in front of everyone else here.

It takes everything in me to keep a mask of indifference on my own face as the weight of this knowledge sinks in. If Maverick and his men have to fold, this game turns into one between Ellis, me, and the cowboys—both of whom, I note, drop enough cash on the table to match my bet.

Maverick’s first sidekick immediately folds, tossing his cards on the table in defeat. Maverick glares at him, and then at me. And then at Ellis. I’m smart enough to know that look means trouble. Colt must sense it too because he shifts in his seat, and I see the way his hand carefully slides into his pocket.

Turning my gaze back to Maverick, I watch him throw an expectant look to his second man who grumbles before sliding his bank of cash toward his boss, folding his own hand regardless of what he might have had. Maverick counts the money alongside everything else he’s brought and what he’s already won, and by the skin of his teeth, he has enough to make the bet. “Two fifty,” he says, dropping the cash on the table, the malice in his tone cold and biting.

Ellis nods. “Two fifty,” he repeats, adding his own cash.

Wylie eyes the money with a palpable hunger, and I don’t blame her—there’s well over a million dollars on the table. But she needs to keep herself in check in a room full of vipers—these boys will bite.

“Wylie,” Ellis chides with a low grunt.

She blinks, looking at her brother before smiling at the rest of us. And then she lays down the river.

It’s another fucking eight.

I have a full house.

Adrenaline prickles along my temples and the back of my neck, but I keep my face unreadable. It’s a good hand—it still might not be strong enough to win the round, but it’s enough to stay in the game. I look around at the others to see how they might be faring: the cowboys give nothing away, but Maverick can’t contain his growing temper. I turn my focus to Ellis and find him already looking at me, a glint in his eye that I know all too well.

I watch as he turns to scan the table, his shoulders relaxed and expression easy in a way I’ve seen from him countless times. Like he already knows he has the whole table beat.

And it dawns on me.

He’s actually rigged this game.

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

OLIVIA

Ican hardly see through the dust that’s kicking up in front of me as I follow a random blue truck down the worn dirt road toward Wild Coyote. It’s a section of town blanketed by heavy darkness, no streetlights or other buildings to indicate a bar would be found back here. You’d have to know where it is to find it, but everyone from Saddlebrook Falls knows where to find it—it’s been here for generations.

Gravel crunches beneath my tires, the sound an echo of what my heart is doing in my chest as I wrestle through all the anxiety rocketing through me. Rhett said he’d be late tonight, and I swear I tried to keep it together and just wait for him at home. But I could hear it in his voice—the fear and uncertainty—and I couldn’t just sit idly by knowing something bad could be happening to him. He might hate me later for meddling in what he clearly wants to keep me away from, but as long as he’s here to hate me, it’ll be worth it.

I can’t explain the feeling in my gut, the instinct that he’s in trouble. I hadn’t even meant to call him so soon—not after last night and all the things we hurled at each other. I’d planned to make him wait a few days before starting a conversation again, just like he’d made me wait after disappearing from the diner. But I’d been a fool to think I could hold out—not when I know how alone he is with all that pressure and pain. Not when my stomach is roiling with the worry of all the desperate ways he could be trying to make quick money for his family.

His voice all but confirmed he’s already in the thick of something dangerous. Whatever it is, I hadn’t expected it to come so soon. I thought I’d have more time to convince him he didn’t have to face it alone.

I hated thinking I might be too late.

The truck in front of me makes a slow right turn into a near-empty lot in front of the quiet, unlit bar. There are no lights in the parking lot and no windows in the building that would allow for inside light to creep out. But there’s a neon sign on the roof—the words WILD COYOTE beneath the outline of the howling animal—that’s also dark.

Something isn’t right.

I spot two old men sitting on the front sidewalk. One of them drinks something wrapped in a brown paper sack while the other watches me through my windshield with curiosity. The truck I’d followed parks in the back, but the driver keeps the engine running, probably also confused by the lack of life here. I don’t see any other vehicles.

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