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"Why don’t you boys go play? You can grill Uncle Dalton later"

Tucker raced off, Wyatt and Jackson right behind him

Dalton stood and looked at Brandt and Jessie "How many questions do you answer a day?"

"See room"

Jessie sliced up coffee cake and poured coffee No one was talking so he looked around the roo up? How many times had he tiptoed past Casper’s captain’s chair at the head of the table, hoping not to be noticed?

"Dalton?"

He glanced up at Jessie "The place looks good This house finally has a happy vibe"

"We need to talk about Dad," Tell said, "but I wanna hear what you’ve been up to and why the fuck we haven’t seen you for over three years"

Georgia whapped his biceps "That is not a good way to start a conversation, Tell, and you know it"

Tell was giving Dalton the steely-eyed stare that reia, but I’m with Tell on this" Brandt pointed with his fork "You’re here, so start talkin’"

"I don’t knohere to start"

"The last timeyou in person was a week after you pulled your runaway groom routine," Tell reminded him

"But the last time we actually saw your face was on TV a few months later when you were in the celebrity poker match with Chase," Brandt added

Dalton sipped his coffee "So you, along with the rest of the country, watched me lose the million dollar pot?"

"Madewith that rand, right?" Tell asked

"Yep Winner-takes-all tournament Half the buy-in waseveryone in the McKay family believed Chase lent me the money and I lost it?"

His brothers and their wives looked at each other

Just another reason he’d gotten a cool reception from his uncles yesterday "Due to confidentiality contracts, Chase couldn’t confir order expired two years after the event So now I can tell you that I was paid to lose"

"What? That was all faked?"

Dalton shook his head "No, they’re real poker ga business, lots of fans, turning players into celebrities The operators specialize in holding tourna dollars pay for ular Joe can see how the pros do it"

"How’d you get roped in?" Tell asked

"Chase had been asked to play a trio of celebrity couple tourna Ava, but she had to back out because she was scoutingout with Chase at the poker tables in Vegas after the PBR World Finals He’d seen me play and knew I had the cash for buy-in, kneas traveling around, so he asked ht it’d be hilarious if I showed up in drag--blond wig, evening dress, the whole nine yards--trying to look like Ava, but Ava nixed that idea"

Georgia and Jessie laughed

"Chase got knocked out early on I kept playing the angle that I was his rube cousin fro The crowds ate it up Hell, I even had folks askin’ for raph, which eird An hour before the final round started, the TV producers and sponsors called a a the comeback wave and it’d make for better drama if he won"

"Did you tell them to stick it?" Tell demanded

"Nope Luckily Chase ith o all in if I got my seed money back and if they put ot to play in a ht h"

"You disappeared"

Dalton nodded "I’d had my fifteen minutes of fame and that was fourteen rew the beard? So you weren’t recognizable?" Tell asked innocently

"Fuck Off"

Tell laughed

Brandt said, "What did you do after that?"

"Yeah, the I’e from some weird place overseas really doesn’t tell us what you’d been doin’"

"After I had extra cash I o and I went there"

"By yourself?"