GAMBLING ON LOVE (Travis Series) (19 page)

He arched
an
indignant brow
.
“I don’t feel right doing it.”
 

Beth gave up
.
She didn’t know why she wasted her breath because nothing she’d ever said
persuaded
him to open them if they were marked personal
.
Even when she was on assignment overseas
,
Vic
had
them airmailed express to her
.

Because
she didn’t dare take them back to wherever she was staying, she always had to read them at the post office, write a note instructing him how to respond and airmail them back
.
It was the only issue she and Vic never saw eye to eye on so she resigned herself to dealing with it when it happened.
 

Beth took
the
mail to her office to
wrap up
anything that couldn’t wait for a few days
.
Judging by the lack of files and paperwork, Vic had come in early and
taken care of everything that didn’t require her personal attention
.
 

“I love you, Vic,” she hollered out the open doorway.

“Of course you do, doll face
. Everybody
does.”

She shook her head with a smile
and
then started on the mail
.
With only a few hours to spare before her investigators showed up, she wanted to have everything else out of the way
.
T
he first letter
was
from a company called Seever Electronics
:
a
nother case of
technical development information being passed on to a competitor
.
She set it aside
for
Vic so he could negotiate the fee and assign an investigator
.

She knew what the second envelope contained without even opening it
:
pre-payment for a job one of her investigators had just been assigned to
.
She pulled the sizeable
check from the envelope and set it with the letter from Seever Electronics
.
Beth eyed the third letter curiously
. N
o return address
.
She slit the envelope, pulled out the paper and read the one
line message. The paper slipped from her trembling fingers
and fluttered to
the
desk top
where the words
star
ed
accusingly
at
her
.
 

I lost my home because of you
.

It didn’t necessarily have to have come from Roger Stockton, she told herself, and it wasn’t necessarily a threat
.
Still, a
n icy
chill
shimmied up her spine
.
There really wasn’t much she could do about it, Beth reasoned
.
It’s not
as if
she could call the police because it didn’t threaten her in any way
. A
nd if she told Vic or Sam,
their over-protective male hormones would kick
in
and she’d end up with round the clock body guards
or something equally ridiculous
!

She glanced at the paper again
,
folded it neatly in half and stuck it in her top drawer
.
She
would
deal with it later, after the assignment at the Laguna Beach Country Club
.
With nothing else to do but
prepare
for her assignment, Beth went out to her car and pulled out the clothes she’d be wearing when she checked in
to
the hotel.

She went back to her office
,
closed the door
and
then changed her clothes in the washroom
.
She’d chosen a youthful spaghetti strap sundress that fell mid-thigh
and
a pair of plain but
obnoxiously
expensive sandals
.
The dress was a powder blue number splashed with huge daisies
.
Beth pulled her hair up in an untidy ponytail, which seemed to be all the rage with younger women these days
.
Because her hair was naturally curly, it actually didn’t look half bad
.

Eying herself in the mirror, she decided on a hint of lipstick and chose a pale rose that was just a few shades darker than her lips
.
Now all she had to do was put on the haughty air of a spoiled
daddy’s
girl and she
was
set
.
At
ten o’clock Beth ventured out to see
whether
her investigators had arrived
.
Mark Ramos was just coming through the front door and flashed a bright smile when he saw her
.

Mark was thirty-four and stood about six foot one
.
He had the sandy blond
e
hair of a surfer with magnificent blue eyes and an extremely disarming smile
.
He was well built, though not nearly as muscular as Sam
.
Mark Ramos drew attention from women everywhere he went
, although
Beth felt it was more his cocky strut than his looks.

“Beth,” he gave her a big hug, “thanks for the work.”

“I appreciate you bailing me out on such short notice.”

“You look wonderful,” he said sincerely.

“Not too much
?”
She did a pirouette.

“I think I’m falling in love,” he teased.

“Too late,
Marky
,” Vic piped in, “our Beth is already spoken for.”
 

Mark raised a brow
.
“Really?”

“Don’t act so surprised,” Beth laughed
.
“
Miracles
do
happen sometimes.
”

“Hey, boys and girls
.”
Justin Oliver bounded into the room.

“Looks like the gang’s all here
.
Are we ready to play
I Spy
?”

“Where’s your bellhop uniform
?”
Mark grinned
.
“We were all looking forward to seeing you in it.”

“Laugh it up, Ramos, but I intend to be the take-down man on this one.”

“Such a dreamer,” Mark drawled
.
He looped his arm around Beth’s waist
.
“Ready to go, cousin?”

“Let me grab my purse
and
we’ll be on our way
.
When does your shift start, Justin?”

“In an hour
.
I’m going to grab a burger on the way
and
then report to the
concierge
.”

“Great
.”
Beth clasped her hands together
.
“I’ll get my purse and we’ll get this bird off the ground.
”
She walked swiftly to her office, swapped the contents of her purse into the blue one that went with her outfit
and
swept back out again
.
“I’ll see you in a few days,” she called to Vic as they left.

Because
Sam was going to be
spending his nights
at the hotel
with her
, Beth
had Mark follow her home to drop
her car
off and rode to the hotel with him
.
He had a great sense of humor and passed the time by regaling her with stories of his last assignment
.
By the time they arrived, her sides hurt from laughing so much.

Mark checked them in while Beth made a display of looking extremely put out for having to wait
.
Before he even had time to take the card keys from the clerk at the front desk, she was snapping her fingers for assistance.
 

“You, bellboy
.”
She
pointed to one of the hotel employees
.
“Take our bags and show us to our rooms
.
Honestly,” she rolled her eyes, “I just want to go relax by the pool.
”
The bellboy was already picking up the bags and loading them on a cart when Beth turned to Mark
.
“What about our jewelry cases
?
Shall we leave them at the front desk?”

He snorted impatiently
.
“Do you want to get to the pool or not
?
Just take them with us
;
the
re’s a
safe in the room.”

Having set the bait for the bellhops, they continued to their rooms to change so they could set the stage for the instructors and
masseuses
.
Mark decided he’d go check out
the masseuses while Beth put on a bathing suit
and
then slipped
on
her
tennis
skirt
in case an impromptu lesson was in order
.

Beth put on a pair of diamond studded hoop earrings and a flashy diamond tennis bracelet
.
She considered putting on a necklace, but
decided
it would be too much
.
Instead, she chose the glittering ankle bracelet that matched the one on her wrist
.
The white tennis skirt barely covered her bottom but she knew her legs were one of her best assets
and wore it with confidence
.

The
pale blue
spaghetti strap she pulled
over her
bikini top was another story.
H
er breasts seem even more prominent
, which made for an embarrassing amount of male eyes migrating from her face to her chest, where they tended to stick like glue.
She
envisioned Sam’s
response
to her outfit and smiled to herself
.
He’d be dragging her back to the room within five minutes of seeing her.
 

Beth waltzed out to the deck above the pool as if the club had been
built
exclusively for her
.
Through trial and error she’d learned that playing spoiled and rich meant talk
ing
down to the hired help and
being
quick to anger
if
her
demands weren’t met immediately
.
It seemed the more arrogant and rude she
was,
the bigger crowd of groupies she collected
.
Today she and Mark would work the crowd, pick up as many followers as possible and then tomorrow they’d take turns having those friends keep the instructors busy
.

While she consumed the time of all the tennis instructors, Mark would watch the swimming and golf instructors
.
Then he and his friends would converge on the pool and Beth would keep an eye on the tennis instructors and masseuses
.
By keeping each group busy, it would be harder for the guilty party to slip away unnoticed
.
She was certain the
simple plan would work quite nicely.

Beth studied the crowd, chose a few targets and went to work
.
She’d spotted a group of
men
and
women
that looked about college age and strolled leisurely in that direction
.
She’d watched the
women,
mostly to figure out which one seemed to be leading the pack
.
If she didn’t click immediately with the alpha female, there was no reason to even attempt a friendship with the others.

Beth slowed down when she got close to
ensure
the young woman saw the curious look she was giving her
.
She acted hesitant, opened her mouth to speak
and
then shut it again as if she wanted to ask a question but wasn’t sure if she should.

“Can I help you
?”
the
woman asked with a delicately arched brow.