Page 11 of Her Intense Protector

Toni looked around her glass office as if someone were lurking. “It is. It really is,” her friend assured her. “My brother has fallen off the wagon hard. His wife has kicked him out, and he’s sleeping on his friend Greg’s sofa.”

“Okay,” Sam said slowly. It sounded sad, not bad. “I don’t remember Phil being like that in Boise when we were growing up. Heck, even in high school he didn’t drink at parties.”

“It started after he lost his job a few years ago, then he lost his confidence, and he started drinking. He got re-employed, but he still uses alcohol as a crutch. Right now, he’s using it like a freaking wheelchair.”

“So, what’s so bad?”

“The problem is that his good friend Greg is a gambler, and he’s been taking Phil to the casinos with him. Phil gets blind drunk and he’s bleeding himself dry.”

“Does his wife know?”

“I told her yesterday. She just put a hold on all of their accounts, but it was too late, he’d already taken out a second mortgage on their house.”

“Shit.” Sam clapped her hand over her mouth, hating it when she actually swore.

“What’s worse is she’s pregnant with their second kid, and it’s a rough pregnancy. The way Sharon and I figure it, that’s what sent him off the rails again.”

Samantha might have a kind heart, but she didn’t have much sympathy for Phil. He needed to be there for his wife, not spiraling back into drinking and then taking up gambling.

“I need your help,” Toni said.

Sam considered what she had in her savings account. It wasn’t great, but if she combined that with some of her retirement account…

“No, you dufus, I’m not asking for your money. I make good coin here, I’m Sharon’s safety net when he does this. God, Sam, you’re all heart. No, I have a plan to confront Phil and shake him out of it.”

“You’re going to confront him at Greg’s house?”

“No, I haven’t been able to find him there,” Toni sighed. “But I did find out that Phil and Greg have both entered a high-stakes poker game the weekend after next. It requires a twenty-thousand-dollar entry fee. Cash.”

“My God, he’s going to squander his money like that?” Sam gasped. “Is he out of his mind? Wait, how do you know he’s going to do this?”

“Phil’s blocked my number. I went to Greg’s house every day for the last four days, but nobody was there. Yesterday I finally went through their trash. The game was circled in one of the casino brochures, then I called up to see who had entered.”

“Why not just have David confront him? Your husband should be able to put the fear of God in him, couldn’t he? He spent eight years in the Marines, I would think Phil would wet his pants if David came down hard on him.”

“If I had David confront him at the game, he’d hammer Phil and get arrested. I need to extricate him from this situation on my own, make sure he doesn’t lose the money, then get him into some kind of rehab program.”

Sam looked up as one of the architects from their firm walked by Toni’s office. She waited until he was out of hearing range.

“How can I help?”

“You play a mean game of poker. I remember all that time you spent with your grandfather and his buddies. With your looks at the table, you should be able to distract Phil away.”

“Huh?” Sam was at a loss as to what Toni was talking about. “Toni, what in the heck are you talking about?” she whispered. Sam looked around to make sure nobody else in the office was looking into Toni’s glassed-in office. “Even if I had the money to front to get into a high-stakes game—”

“It’s a twenty-thousand buy-in. I’m paying. My last bonus covers it.”

“Why don’t you just give your bonus to your sister-in-law?”

“Because giving her money doesn’t work. I’ve done it before, believe me, and it just lets my brother off the hook. He needs to see what he’s missing and be convinced that he needs to do the responsible thing and go back to his family.”

She had a point. “Fine. So I buy in. Then what?”

“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” Toni admitted as she bit at her thumbnail. “But I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to.”

Sam twirled the end of her braid.

“Sam, talk to me. Will you do this?”