Carla rooted for Cash unabashedly, frankly enjoying seeing Luke on the losing end of something for a change. Luke took the "card lessons" in good humor, squeezing every bit of mileage from his shrinking pile of small change.

And then slowly, almost imperceptibly, Luke started winning. He rode the unexpected streak of luck aggressively, repeatedly betting everything he had and getting twice as much back from the pot. By the time the last drops from the magnum of champagne had been poured – by Carla into Luke’s glass, in a blatant attempt to fuzz his mind – Cash was down to his last nickel. He tossed it into the pot philosophically, calling Luke’s most recent raise.

Luke fanned out his cards to reveal a pair of sevens, nine high. Cash made a disgusted sound and threw in his hand without showing his cards.

"What?" Carla said in disbelief. She reached for Cash’s abandoned cards, only to have her fingers lightly slapped by her brother.

"Bad dog, drop!" he teased. "You know the rules. It costs good money to see those cards and you’re broke."

Carla withdrew her fingers and muttered, "I still don’t believe that you couldn’t crawl over a lousy pair of sevens."

"You forgot the nine," Luke said.

"It’s easy to forget something that small," Carla shot back. She sighed. "Well, I guess this just wasn’t your night, big brother. All you won was something you would have gotten anyway – a summer’s worth of dinners cooked by yours truly."

"Sounds like a damned good deal to me," Luke said.

There was a moment of silence, followed by another. The silence stretched. Luke arched his dark eyebrows at Cash in silent query. Cash smiled.

"You’ll have to throw in wages," Cash said.