Gambling On a Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

wrist and plucking the cookie out of her fingers. She narrowed her eyes at him. “But I’ve never held that against you.”
    He held up the cookie and popped it into his mouth around his smile. Her father’s gray eyes twinkled. He loved his wife with his entire being.
    What Tracy wouldn’t do to have a man– have Zack –look at her that way, especially after thirty-eight years of marriage.
    He swallowed the cookie with a sip of coffee. “Well, I’m glad that’s the only thing you haven’t.”
    Tracy groaned and covered her ears with her hands. “Ugh! I’m gonna be scarred for life soon.” She loved her parents and admired their relationship. It hadn’t always been easy for them, not with her father away for months at a time and moving every few years when he was in the Army.
    “Sorry, sweetie, I guess your daddy and I need to learn to behave ourselves.” Her mother bent and ruffled the fur of the two Yorkies sitting by her feet. “I think Ginger, Cinnamon, and I are going to bed.” She stepped in behind Tracy. “Goodnight, sweetheart.” With her eyes full of sorrow and her smile rueful, her mother patted Tracy’s shoulder.
    Tracy smiled her forgiveness. “Goodnight, Momma.”
    Her mother nodded once and headed out of the kitchen with the little dogs padding along on either side of her.
    Several minutes of silence passed until her father asked, “So, what’s going on between you and the good sheriff?”
    What was with her parents? Back when she and Zack actually had a chance at a future together, Mom and Dad hadn’t wanted them together. Now, they were all but planning their wedding. She looked down at the cup between her hands. “Nothing.”
    “Why not?”
    “You know very well why not.” She narrowed her eyes on her father.
    He raised a brow and set his mug on the table. “I don’t think I do. You aren’t married. He’s a widower. And there’s no one who attended that wedding today who doesn’t know Zack Cartwright and you would’ve preferred to have been somewhere else instead of on the dance floor.”
    She leaned back in the chair and laughed. “Well, you’ve got that right. We wanted to be on opposite sides of the state.”
    “I meant somewhere alone–together .”
    “Huh?” Zack had treated her like a leper.
    Her father leaned over his arms with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Do I really have to spell it out?”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what you and Mom think you saw, but I know Zack, and I know now that Dylan is okay, we’ll go back to avoiding each other. He has made it pretty damned clear what his opinion of me is.”
    Shaking his head, her father sat back. “Tracy, I’m going to give you a piece of advice.”
    “Why bother? You know I’m not going to take it.” She stood and carried her cup to the sink.
    “This time I hope you do,” he softly said, and she looked over her shoulder at him. “I know you think there’s no future for you and Zack, but I think differently.”
    She hurried toward the door to the hallway. She’d had enough of her parents thinking they knew something when they didn’t. Neither one of them had seen her since last Christmas when they’d come to Texas for a few days to celebrate the holidays. “Well, good for you, but I know better. Goodnight, Dad.”
    “Tracy,” he said as she reached the door.
    Against her better judgment she stopped. She drew in a breath and turned. Why had she been raised to obey that particular tone in her father’s voice? She crossed her arms.
    He picked up his cup and her mother’s, and headed for the sink. “So, you’ve made mistakes. But if you’re given a second chance, don’t screw it up.”
    “That’s your advice?” She clamped down on the rest of her retort. Nice that you’re such an expert on my life.
    Her brother’s final words, as he left her on the dance floor, eerily echoed her father’s statement.
    Depositing the mugs in the sink, he shrugged, then