Authors: Patricia Burroughs
He grimaced. “The least you can do is blow a little luck on the dice for me.”
After a moment’s consideration she pouted her lips and blew.
“Double sixes,” the croupier called. The small crowd responded with a pleased “aaah.”
“Do it again, do it again,” Chris urged her.
Kennie blew, and again, double sixes were thrown. The “aaaah was a little louder, a little more excited.
“Come on, lady luck. One more time....”
An obliging barmaid pressed another drink into Chris’s hands, Kennie blew another puff of luck, and—
Double sixes.
“Hot damn!” Chris shouted amid the cries of the crowd, and gathered in his chips. “You know what this means, don’t you?” He turned an exuberant face to Alex. “Her lips and my money, and I’ll break the bank.”
“What’s he talking about?” Kennie asked as she and Alex waited for Chris to convert his chips into change at the cashier.
Alex ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “The slots—what else?”
Chris turned away from the cashier with two buckets of change and didn’t make it ten feet before he started feeding quarters into a slot machine, his movements smooth and practiced. Kennie shook her head in disapproval. “I do believe that Christopher Quincy Abbott developed his grip on something other than a tennis racket.”
Alex sighed. “I’d hoped that this time I’d get him out of Nevada without a binge on the bandits.”
“Oh, dear. He has...a problem?”
“Not exactly. Just a weakness. Chris could pour money into the machines for a month and his bank account wouldn’t know the difference.” He shrugged, digging his hands deep into his pockets. “It’s the principle of the thing that bothers me.”
“I take it you don’t gamble.”
“I didn’t say that. Life’s a gamble, darlin’, but nowhere are the odds more against you than in a casino.”
Kennie watched Chris playing the machines. His brow smooth and unbothered, he whistled a lilting tune under his breath. She remarked, “If it weren’t for me, you’d have been gone hours ago.”
“Don’t blame yourself. It’s his money. And we don’t end up in Nevada very often, thank God.”
“I still feel responsible. Maybe we should go back to the airport,” Kennie offered, her attention lingering longingly on the bright lights and raucous noises of the casino.
Alex curled a strong finger, placed it under her chin and raised her face to his. “And cut your vacation short by four hours? Never.”
“What about the slot machines?” Kennie queried breathlessly.
“I’m afraid,” Alex murmured, “that if I don’t allow him to use your lips for luck, I’m going to find a use for them myself.”
A bone-melting lethargy oozed through her body. “And I’m afraid I might let you.”
Alex lowered his hand from her face. “Don’t tempt me, Kennie Sue.”
“Of course not. We mustn’t take any chances on ruining the most beautiful night of my life with—”
“Ruining?” His lips curled in a sly smile that told her he knew very well what direction her thoughts were wandering in. “I told you once, don’t try to con me. You’re destined to failure if you do. So, what’s next, pretty lady?”
“I believe I left that entirely up to you.”
“Well,” he sighed, pulling her under his protective wing, “I do believe we owe Chris a turn at the one-armed bandits.”
“Owe?”
“If it hadn’t been for his insatiable desire and devious mind, we never would have left the airport.”
“I see your point. And besides, my lips haven’t anything better to do....”
“Look, lady, don’t tempt me....” Alex growled, and Kennie broke away and strode toward Chris.
“Let’s go win a fortune,” she giggled, hefting a bucket of coins from the floor beside him. But strangely, she felt as if she’d left part of her breathlessly behind—that fluttering part that she couldn’t keep from responding to Alex Carruthers’s devilish charm.
“Happy to oblige.” Chris led her toward the shining banks of slot machines. After bypassing several rows, he headed straight for the monster machine in the middle of the room.
She watched Chris absentmindedly take a cola from a barmaid, his attention riveted on the mesmerizing gold bars and cherries and bells.
Chris set the buckets at his feet, rubbed his hands together, then plucked a silver dollar from the top. “Your move, lady.” He held it out, and Kennie obliged him with a strong puff of air.
Fascinated, she watched him deposit it, then yank the massive arm down. The windows revealed spinning images that gradually slowed to a stop. A row of dollar signs and cherries caused a slow kerplunking of coins to land in the tray. Chris beamed his satisfaction. “I told you we’d be great together.” He reached for another coin.
Feeling a sizzling sensation on the back of her neck, Kennie glanced behind her. Alex was watching her from a few feet away, leaning against a deserted bank of lower-denomination slot machines. His hair was tousled, his jacket unbuttoned to reveal a flat stomach beneath his wide satin cummerbund. He quirked an eyebrow. She felt a pang of longing. No, she thought,
we’d
be great together.
And she wasn’t thinking about gambling, either. Or maybe she was. Somehow, anything associated with Alex Carruthers seemed to be a gamble. A shiny coin appeared in front of her nose, and she blew automatically, reluctantly turning back to Chris and his obsession.
From his vantage point, Alex felt a familiar restlessness as he studied Kennie. Familiar, yet confusing. His palms itched and his stomach tightened with the strong sensation that accompanied his most powerful hunches, but he’d never experienced such feelings in a casino before. He despised casinos. Maybe it was the whiskey sour he’d had at the bar, or the punch or the champagne, and he was merely imagining his reactions, but he doubted it. Alcohol had never sent his senses wobbling like an out-of-kilter top before.
Chris and his buckets of money were attracting a small crowd. Alex glanced at his watch and frowned. This spectacle could go on for hours. They didn’t have hours if he was going to get Kennie to the airport on time. He watched Chris signal for another drink, and inspiration struck.
As the barmaid passed, Alex pulled a large bill from his pocket and waved it.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“My friend over there seems to be having a pretty good time,” Alex said easily, toying with the bill in his hand. “What’s he drinking?”
“Rum and cola.”
“Could you get the bartender to hit the rum a little heavier, ease up on the cola?”
“I think I could manage it,” she said, eyeing the bill that slipped from Alex’s fingers onto her tray.
“Thanks.”
Alex leaned back against the wall with a satisfied smirk. It shouldn’t be long before Chris was out of commission.
A few minutes later Chris grabbed the fresh drink and handed it to Kennie to hold for him. But instead of holding it, she raised it to her lips and swallowed. After the first sip she frowned, then shrugged and drank more. Alex winced. That was the last thing he’d wanted, he thought, grimacing. Better not to even think about what he did want, though it had everything to do with the luscious little lady fresh out of the Texas panhandle.
And that’s when it hit him. Hard, like a belly punch. That restless, singeing feeling was confusing, because he had never experienced it with a woman before.
Stunned, he plucked a Bloody Mary from the barmaid’s tray and drained it as if it were straight tomato juice.
These last two hours with Kennie Sue Ledbetter were going to be pure hell.
~o0o~
Kennie stirred uneasily in her sleep, wincing as a shaft of light hit her eyes. Wild, wild dreams...crazy dreams. Strange dreams...clanging bells, raining money, champagne. Laughter...wonderful, wonderful laughter. A fuchsia and yellow sunrise...a pink building. Too vivid to be a dream, too bizarre for reality. And the way her head felt, it was no wonder. Her temples throbbed; a bitter taste coated her mouth; her body felt as if it were weighted down with bricks.
Confused, she fought to peel her heavy eyelids open.
She squinted up at a splash of brilliant yellow wedged between two slashes of startling black. She blinked into the mirrored ceiling and the image came into focus: a bed and three people sprawled on it—
With sudden clarity she met her own disbelieving gaze, then whipped her head from side to side, and despite its rolling, roiling rebellion at the sudden movement, her mind identified the two rumpled, tuxedo-clad men on either side of her.
“Oh, my God!” Her voice cracked, and she scrambled across the bed, her feet kicking as they tangled in the sheets. Gasping, she tumbled over the foot of the bed and landed in a heap on the carpeted floor.
“What on earth have I done?” She barely recognized the raspy voice as her own. Panting, she strained to remember something—anything—that would explain how she had gotten into this room. She raised her left hand to massage her pounding temples, and a flash of gold caught her eye. Holding her hand at arm’s length, she recognized Chris’s signet ring on her fourth finger.
She sat up and peered cautiously over the edge of the bed. The sight of the two heads at the other end, one golden and one ebony, did little to console her.
Struggling to her feet, Kennie tried to reassure herself. She fought to stay calm, to remember what had happened. They were all dressed. Nothing catastrophic could have happened.
Her gaze traveled from the immense bed to the seating area on the opposite side of the luxurious hotel room. She didn’t know where she was. But she certainly knew where she was going—to the airport, where she should have stayed in the first place.
What time was it? She’d missed her flight! Where was her ticket? She panicked, then saw it jutting out from her pink canvas bag on an end table. She grabbed it and clutched it to her chest, relief pouring over her.
Now, just to get out of here.
So intent was she on reaching the door on the other side of the room, she didn’t see the bouquet of white roses that lay in her path until she stepped on them with her bare left foot. “Aaah!” She gritted her teeth in mid-gasp and grabbed the back of a sofa with one hand while she massaged her tender instep with the other.
Slowed but not waylaid, she scooped her purse up from the floor and kept going, scanning the room for her sandals. She grabbed one shoe from the floor and one from atop a large white book that sat on a cocktail table. She was halfway to the door when the book’s title registered in her dazed mind. She pivoted slowly and stared at the table, at the bulky white vinyl book, at its gilt lettering: A Remembrance of Our Wedding.
At the bouquet of white roses.
At the ring on her finger.
At the two men in bed.
And screamed.
CHAPTER THREE
“WHAT THE HELL?” Alex shot upright and rubbed his unshaven face. He surveyed the messy bed and did a double take when he saw his friend beside him.
Chris rolled over more slowly, more agonizingly, and groaned. “Lord, I must have really tied one on last night—”
“You! You!”
Alex stared past the foot of the bed at Kennie. He blinked a few times, then remembered. Oh, damn. Did he remember.
Chris’s gaze followed his, and he jerked upright, “What’s she doing here?”
“You have to ask?” Kennie gasped. She held her hands clenched stiffly at her side as she began slowly walking toward them, her voice a low, feral growl. “You mean to tell me you don’t even remember?”
“Remember what?” Chris rolled to an upright position.
Alex watched in amazement as she swung her left arm back, then flung her fist forward, catching Chris square on the jaw.
“Good grief!” Chris dived under the covers, his arms shielding his face from further blows. “Stop her! She’s trying to kill me!”
“You’d darn well better believe it,” Kennie spat, grabbing an empty champagne bottle from the nightstand. All the fury of a Texas tempest fueled her rage as she wound up.
Alex snapped out of his daze and scrambled across the bed, catching her from behind, one arm firmly surrounding her squirming body, the other hand closing around the bottle. “Hold on a minute! You’re going to hurt somebody!”
She twisted in his arms, fighting to get free. “Let go of me! That son of a sidewinder took advantage of me!”
“I most assuredly did not!” Chris’s muffled voice emerged from beneath the quivering covers. “Tell her I’m innocent!”
“Innocent, my eye!” Kennie sputtered.
“It—it’s not what you think!” Alex choked on his words, his throat tightening against his laughter. She’d never forgive him for laughing. But when she craned her head to glare at him, he felt his grin widen, and he erupted into deep laughter that filled the room, and immediately regretted it.
She jerked away, freeing herself. This time the champagne bottle had a new target: him. A gentleman never laughed at a lady, especially when she was wielding a lethal weapon and packed a mean left hook.
He dodged, then leaped onto the bed and out of her reach.
“Hey, I’m under here!” Chris cried out as Alex’s knee landed on some part of him, but, green eyes blazing, Kennie crawled over him and elbowed the same part as she followed Alex.
“Grab her!” Alex shouted, and tumbled off the far side of the bed.
Chris rolled in the opposite direction and slid from the bed. “Grab her yourself—she’s your problem, not mine!” He surveyed his own disheveled appearance and frowned, and Alex gritted his teeth. Chris appeared more concerned with fastening an open stud on his shirt than with saving his friend.
Now Kennie crouched like a lioness primed to pounce, her blond hair a wild mane of disarray, the menacing champagne bottle poised over her head.
Taking a deep breath, Alex jerked the edge of the bedspread and watched with satisfaction as she lost her balance and tumbled backward, dropping the bottle. Before she could react, he threw himself over her, trapping her under the bedclothes, then swatted the bottle off the bed.
“You—you—Let me out!” Kennie thrashed wildly under him. One hand squirmed its way from beneath the covers, and suddenly he was facing five fuchsia-glazed talons.
“Calm down,” he ordered, exasperation getting the best of his usual good humor. “Blast it, Kennie, cut it out, or I’ll—I’ll—”