Page 53 of Provocation (Temptation 3)

Julia

“One four.” Wes placed a card face-down on the patio table, his expression even.

I swept my gaze over him, more than aware of all his tells. But nothing about his demeanor indicated he was lying.

At least I didn’t think it did.

“Two fives,” Imogene said after a beat, adding her own card to the top of the growing pile.

Everyone glanced around the table as we gauged each other very carefully. With every card added to the top, the risk grew.

As did the potential reward.

“Six to you, little man,” Wes said, beaming at his son.

Eli struggled a bit with his cards, his hands not as big as ours, making it difficult for him to hold them all without dropping them. Imogene leaned over and whispered something into his ear, as she always did when we played this game. Smiling up at his older cousin, Eli pulled a card from his hand and added it.

“One six.” Then he looked up at the man sitting on the other side of him.

A man who, over the past few weeks, had become such a huge part of my day-to-day life, even when we weren’t physically together.

While Lachlan and I continued to keep our relationship a secret from the public, I still included him in every aspect of my private life.

My family life.

Since introducing him to Wes, Londyn, and Eli, he’d become a fixture during our family get-togethers, as if he’d always been here. Like he belonged here.

And in my heart, I felt he did.

Which was why I should have just taken the final leap and gone public with our relationship, consequences be damned. A part of me wanted to. But after living all my life in survival mode, it wasn’t so easy for me to flip the switch.

There were times I could tell it frustrated Lachlan. He’d repeatedly asked me to have Wes watch Imogene so I could get away for some of his road games, especially as the season went on and the games became more and more important.

But every time, I turned him down.

He took it in stride, though. Understood my reluctance. Not only because of the attention that could fall on Imogene and me, but also because of all the uncertainty regarding Ethan’s investigation, which had all but ground to a halt over the past several weeks. He was still digging, still hoping to find some tiny piece of evidence that could help figure out who could be behind all of this.

But every promising piece of information turned out to be a dead end.

And October thirteenth was now just two weeks away.

“I guess it’s my turn then.”

Lachlan’s voice pulled me from my thoughts, my skin warming at the sound.

I brought my gaze to his, fighting to hide my smile when his eyes briefly met mine before returning to his cards. I studied him, trying to determine if he were about to bullshit all of us about his cards. Knowing him as intimately as I did, you’d think I’d recognize his tells.

So far, I didn’t.

Neither did anyone else.

He’d officially taken over Naomi’s place of honor as the Queen of Bullshit. Or Queen of Bull, as we tried to call her around the kids, something we constantly struggled with.

Which was probably why Imogene loved playing this game. Her swear jar typically overflowed with dollar bills afterward.

“Sevens to me,” Lachlan mused, gaze skating over his hand. Then he placed his remaining cards face-down on top of the pile. “Three sevens.”

“Bullshit,” I immediately stated.