Merline Lovelace - Military Heroes Bundle - A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover

Another crack of thunder rent the afternoon, loud, as if it was right overhead. Moments later a voice called from the doorway, “Mommy, I’m scared.”

Before Connie could even sit up, Sophie had catapulted herself into the bed beside her. Connie at once turned her back to Ethan and hugged her daughter. “It’s loud, all right.”

“It’s a bad storm.” Sophie snuggled in, seeming not at all fazed that Ethan was there. Seconds ticked by like heartbeats, and thunder cracked again, this time almost at exactly the same moment that lightning bleached the room.

Not long after that, Ethan wrapped his arms around both of them and pulled them close.

Throughout the storm, he sheltered them.

Chapter 17

The storm continued to rage throughout the afternoon. Around three, Connie, Ethan and Sophie went downstairs to start dinner.

“I think we should have something special tonight,” Connie said.

“Yay!” Sophie clapped her hands.

“It has to be something I already have,” Connie cautioned her. “I’m not going out in this storm.”

Sophie immediately ran to check the refrigerator. Apparently she had something in mind, because in no time at all she’d pulled out a quart of her mother’s frozen spaghetti sauce, grated parmesan and a large container of ricotta cheese, then ran to get a box of lasagna noodles from the cupboard.

“Well, that’s pretty clear,” Connie said, watching with a smile. “Make sure I have mozzarella.”

A ball of same emerged from the cheese drawer in the fridge and joined the other ingredients on the table.

“We seem to have everything essential,” Connie said.

Sophie clapped her hands again.

Connie looked at Ethan. “I hope you like lasagna.”

“I love it.”

Connie nodded and looked at Sophie. “So what do we do first?”

“Thaw the sauce.”

“Right. You know how.”

Sophie retrieved a saucepan from a lower cupboard, filled it half full with water and put in on the stove over a low flame. Then she placed the container of spaghetti sauce in it to thaw.

“Good job,” Connie said. “Let’s mix the filling, then put it in the fridge until we’re ready to use it.”

Ethan volunteered to grate the parmesan and mozarella, saving Connie’s and Sophie’s knuckles. Connie and Sophie mixed the ricotta with seasonings and the mozzarella, and soon the bowl was in the fridge, covered by a plate. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the sauce to thaw.

Sophie saw the cards and chips stacked neatly on the table. “Were you going to play a game?”

Connie hesitated. “Well, it was a grown-up game.”

“Oh.” Sophie didn’t appear at all deterred. “What kind of grown-up game?”

Connie nearly sighed. Sophie could be insistent about getting answers. “Poker,” she said. “Not for kids.”

“Why not, if you don’t play for real money?” Sophie asked, depriving her of speech.

Connie looked at Ethan and realized he was trying not to bust a gut laughing. His face, carved as always, nevertheless seemed to be battling to remain impassive.

Julia chose that moment to roll into the room. “The girl’s right,” she said. “What’s wrong with it, if you’re just playing for worthless chips?”

“It’s gambling,” Connie said.

“Most things in life are,” Julia retorted. “The chips are just a method of counting.”

Connie didn’t have an answer for that, although she tried to think up a good one. Then it struck her. “In most games you don’t risk your points. You keep them.”

“True,” Julia agreed. “But poker has lessons of its own. Like not risking things you don’t want to lose. Like making decisions and living with the outcome. Like reading other people.”

Connie stared at her mother. She’d never seen this side of her before, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“And,” Julia wound up, “there’s not a thing to be lost at this table except some worthless plastic chips. In real life, when you make decisions, you have a lot more on the line.”

Sophie spoke. “Don’t get mad at Mommy, Grandma.”

“I’m not mad at her, child.” Julia smiled. “Not in the least. I just think her reaction to this game is more instinctive than valid.”

Sophie’s brow creased as she tried to figure that one out.

Julia looked at her daughter. “And it’s the very risk that makes some things look so attractive.”

Connie felt it then. An emotional blow. A comment on her marriage to Leo, maybe even on her choice of jobs. Was she drawn to risk? Had that been the factor that had gotten her into so much trouble?

Bad boy Leo. Admit it, she told herself. Admit it for once and for all. He hadn’t seemed like an angel. Far from it. She’d been drawn to the bad boy and had paid dearly for the attraction. The thrill of running a risk. The stupid, stupid idea that her love would change him.

She looked down at the table without seeing it. Seeing instead her past from this new angle. And knowing, in her heart of hearts, that Julia was right. She’d been drawn to the thrill and the risk, drawn to the very challenge of possessing Leo. Then, before she really knew what was happening, she’d been ground under the heel of his boot.

All love was a gamble, of course, but some kinds of risk-taking were foolhardy. And maybe it wouldn’t hurt Sophie to learn that in a game where the only risk was a few plastic chips.

She lifted her head and looked at her mother. “In that case, I think Ethan is going to teach us Texas hold ’em.”

Julia smiled. “Time to learn how to gauge worthwhile risks.”

Ethan proved to be a patient teacher, especially with Sophie, but by the time they’d played for an hour, Sophie not only understood the relative values of the cards, but she also grasped that she needed to be careful or lose her chips.

Ethan probably folded to Sophie more than he needed to, but not so much that it was obvious. Besides, as Julia had pointed out, this game was about learning when to take risks and how much of a risk you were willing to take. Even the bluffing became a lesson, as Sophie learned she could be lied to by having large sums of chips dangled in front of her as a temptation.

By the time they stopped to make the lasagna, Sophie was beginning to understand the nuances. Connie hoped her mother was right, that Sophie could learn something about life from playing this game, even the most unsettling fact of all: that even when you did everything right, you could still lose sometimes.

Sophie enjoyed herself, regardless, and Connie found herself looking at her own life and decisions in a very different way than she had in the past. It was one thing to acknowledge that she’d chosen poorly with Leo. It was another to face up to the temptation that had sucked her in. The challenge. The risk. The notion, idiotic though it seemed to her now, that there would be a great payoff eventually.

She also noted something else, something she pondered quietly as she and Sophie layered the lasagna together: that just because you went bust on one risk, that didn’t mean you couldn’t take another and win. In fact, if you were ever going to win, you had to take another. The necessary element was balancing risk against the likelihood of winning.

It was something she’d never really thought about before in quite that way.

Lessons, it seemed, could sometimes be found in the unlikeliest of places.

* * *

After dinner and washing up, a general vote was held to watch Shrek. Sophie loved the movie, and for the first time ever, Connie watched it without feeling cynical. The ogre remained the ogre throughout, never changing. It was the princess who learned where true beauty lay.

No kissing of frogs to turn them into princes. Quite the contrary. A very different fairy tale. One that seemed strikingly apropos, all of a sudden.