Chapter 28
Rowe
“Deuces wild, boys!” A small girl with a ball of curly, red hair throws up her arms. “Who’s in?”
Beside me, Pane sighs in dismay. “I may or may not have taught my sister how to play poker.”
Natalie Maddox has taken up residence at a corner table in Sparkle Bar, and is surrounded by Isaac, Ron, and McCauley.
In front of her sits a pile of cash.
This issonot legal. A minor in a bar is even more illegal than trespassing.
At least, I think it is.
I slowly turn my head toward Pane. His expression is a mixture of disbelief and disgust. It’s like his usual scowl can’t figure out what it wants to be.
“This is your sister?”
“That’s Natalie,” he answers grimly.
Natalie looks like she arrived straight from school, as she’s wearing a navy skirt and a blazer with a crest sewn over the right breast. She’s got her legs tucked underneath her, and is leaning over the table, eyeing her cardsandthe other players like she’s trying to find the weakest link.
She seems to have zeroed in on Ron.
Isaac glances over from his spot at the table, sees Pane, and does a double take. “Be right back,” he says, scooting out his chair and striding quickly over to us.
“She showed up about an hour ago,” he explains to the hotel heir, who storms toward his sister. I can practically see the anger wafting off him in thick waves. Isaac must sense it, too. “Go easy on her.”
He shoots the bartender a hard look before his feet come to a screeching halt at the table.
Natalie looks up and sees Pane, and a grin breaks out across her face. She unfolds from her seat and runs over, throwing her arms around him.
“What took you so long?”
And just as quickly as his anger flared, it melts. Pane hugs Natalie, curling so that his chin touches the top of her head. He squeezes his eyes shut, and for the first time in the last hour, relief washes over his face.
My heart does this little throbby-achy thing as I watch his worry, fear, and angst dissolve.
Natalie pulls away and grins up at her big brother. “I told the boys that if they mess with the bull, they get the horns!”
“She’s killing us,” Ron says.
“This kid’s a shark,” McCauley grumbles in a friendly voice.
“Apparently,” Isaac explains, “the three of us left the party about the same time. Couldn’t find y’all when we did, but we headed over here to play our Wednesday game. About five minutes after we arrived, she showed up.”
Pane’s eyes flare with fear. “How did you get here?”
“I took an Uber from the airport.”
His voice hits the ceiling. “The airport?”
“Yeah. How else was I going to get here? I can’t Uber from New York.”
Pane closes his eyes. It looks like he’s mentally counting to one thousand. When he opens them, the sage green is dark, inky, angry.
“How did you get to Mystic Meadows?” he asks in a restrained voice.
