She blinked at the question he’d tossed in, grateful that it kept her from blushing over his “gal for the night” remark. “No, I was told my eyes were baby blue when I was born. But violets were in bloom and my father brought a bouquet of them to my mother, and the name just occurred to her when she saw them. My eyes didn’t turn violet until I was about six months old, according to my father, and my parents laughed when it happened. Then again, my mother also had violet eyes, so she might have been expecting mine to change color. I don’t know. She died before I was old enough to ask her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. But her absence was why I took on the mantle of being a mother to my brothers.”
“When?”
“When I was five.”
He laughed. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did, and they humored me, though it probably would have been in their best interests if they hadn’t, because I got better at it.”
“Being a mother?”
“Keeping them in line. They were so rambunctious at that age. Now, about this poker game?”
He explained the rules. He even laid out hands to show her the different ways she could win, from a mere highest card to a royal flush and everything in between. Then he shuffled the deck and dealt five cards to each of them.
“What about the bluffing you mentioned?”
“Say you’ve got three aces. Odds are that’s going to be the winning hand. But you don’t want anyone to know that, so instead of betting three aces, you pass on the bet and hope someone else will think you’ll drop out if they bet. So when they do bet, you can be nice and just call, or go for blood and raise. Now they have to put in more money to see your winning hand, or they’ll fold and you get the pot.”
“I’ve got three aces.”
“No, you don’t, and saying so isn’t bluffing. You bluff with the way you bet, high or low, not by saying what you have or with the expression on your face. And it isn’t mandatory to bluff, it just makes the game more interesting.”
Which was apparently what he was hoping for, so she smiled sweetly and asked, “But is it against the rules to say what’s in your hand?”
“No, it’s just not a smart way to play the game, and it isn’t considered a bluff.”
“Why not? You still need to decide whether I’m telling the truth, which by your poker definition would be am I bluffing or not. Besides, I really do have three aces, and you need to pay to see them, right?”
He raised his brow at her and called her bet, but raised her two more nuggets. She called him and upped that three more, but asked, “Could I have raised with all my nuggets?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, but this is a practice game, and you running out of nuggets on the first hand would end it. Besides, I’m calling without raising further, so that ends it.”
She smugly laid down her cards. He burst out laughing, seeing her three aces along with a pair of nines. She was delighted, not about winning but because she’d managed to amuse him.
They played for another hour, with Violet losing all of her nuggets. It seemed to leave him in a good mood, but it was late now and, he’d yawned a few times, so she decided that tomorrow, come what may, she would ask him for the loan and present her partnership proposal.
Chapter Twenty-Three
FILLED WITH DETERMINATION, VIOLETstarted walking south right after breakfast the next morning, vowing to find the money. She would insist that Morgan immediately send it to her brothers. Two days ago she’d searched in this direction, but she’d covered only the slopes that were easy to navigate. Today, feeling more comfortable in the wilderness, she would venture into the rougher terrain where high, rocky ledges abounded.
She got excited when she found some disturbed dirt. She pushed the dirt away with a sharp stone. Bo’s whining should have been a clue, but she was terribly disappointed when all she uncovered was one of the bones he’d buried. He quickly swiped it up and trotted off. She sighed and sat in the grass for a few minutes, looking around. The ledge she’d come across, which was only about five feet high, started a few hundred feet back, and up ahead she could see a black hole at the base of it. Thrilled to have found a potential hiding spot, she leapt to her feet and ran to it, then stared wide-eyed at what was crawling out of it.
“Oh, aren’t you just too adorable!” she gushed as she picked up the puppy and cuddled it in her arms. It had a cream-colored belly, but its coat was mostly brown hair tipped with black. The lower part of its face was white. “We’re going to be best friends, you and I, and Lord Elliott will love you after I marry him, I will insist.”
Delighted to finally have a dog of her own that she could raise and train herself, she didn’t give the hole another glance, turning to rush back to camp to show Morgan what she’d found. She shouted for him to come out of his mine. He came tearing out, gun in hand, and with a big grin on her face, she held the puppy up for him to see. But he barely glanced at it; he was looking behind her instead.
“You shouldn’t have brought that here.”
Her chin rose a notch. “I’m keeping it.”
“If you want to stay here and live with it till it dies, fine, I’ll kill its mother for you when she shows up, and she will. But you can’t take it wherever you’re going from here. Most folks have a strong aversion to wolves, even small ones.”
“Awolf?”
