Lucky (2 page)

Moments later he realized she couldn’t have been wearing anything under those jeans but herself. Not if she had skin showing in the places it had been. He groaned and then grinned. Hell of a woman. And he didn’t even know her name.

“Hey, Nick! I’m surprised to see you here! Where’s Charlie? I expected him to pick me up.”

Nick sighed with relief as his father’s valet thumped him on the shoulder. “Thank God. I didn’t think you’d
ever come. Get in, Cubby. I’ll tell you about it on the way home.”

The big man with the lumbering stride and gentle smile slid uncomfortably into the small front seat and tried to make himself as compact as possible, thankful that the ride to the Chenault estate was not going to be as long as his bus ride from Ohio.

“It’s good to be home, Nick,” Cubby said.

Nick’s right eyebrow arched wickedly. “I wish to hell you would get over that damned fear of flying. You have no idea what I’ve been through waiting for you to arrive in this place.”

Cubby’s laugh rang loud and long as they drove away. And because he was looking the other way, Nick missed seeing the long-legged beauty climbing into a cab near the curb.

“Where to, miss?” the cabdriver asked, as Lucky slid into the backseat, relieved to have escaped that handsome pimp’s unwanted attentions.

Lucky felt her adrenaline go flat. Where to? She had no idea. But from the way the sun was dropping toward the western horizon, dark was inevitable. And the last thing she wanted was to be on the streets at night in a strange city without a room.

“A motel, I guess. One that’s cheap…but safe,” she added.

The cabdriver rolled his eyes. Another newcomer thinking to make it big.

“Just get into town?” he asked.

Lucky sighed, rejecting the urge to rail at the man for stating the obvious. He was only doing his job. Driving a
cab had to be monotonous. Small talk was a part of the game.

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded. They drove for a bit and then he asked another question that was equally impossible to answer.

“Planning to stay?”

Lucky considered her answer before she spoke. And what she didn’t say was more telling than what she did.

“I have no other place to go.”

The cabby looked up in his rearview mirror and resisted the notion of telling her to go back home. He wondered if he would recognize her six months from now or if she’d even still be alive. Las Vegas, for all its splendor, was a fast-paced, dangerous town in which to live alone.

“Here we are,” he said, and pulled into the parking lot of an Econo-Lodge motel. “Not too pricey, not too dicey.”

Lucky handed him her fare and got herself and her bag out of the cab. She didn’t even notice when he drove away. She was too busy absorbing her surroundings. There were still mountains visible, just like back home. But she’d gone from the rich, green mountains of Tennessee to harsh, unforgiving mountains surrounded by near-desert. It made everything seem that much more lonely, that much more frightening.

Less than half an hour later, Lucky took off her last item of clothing and walked into a hot, steamy shower, letting the water take away what was left of her blues. There was no time for sadness or last-minute regrets. Tomorrow was time enough for the places she had to go and the things she needed to see.

Sunrise in the valley came without warning. What had been a faint but colorful glow on the eastern horizon was suddenly a burst of white, cloudless light and a gradual warming that would, as the day progressed, turn into a blast furnace. And yet the locals claimed, because of the lack of humidity, one wouldn’t really feel the heat.

Later, as she walked the streets, Lucky grimaced while sweat beaded across her upper lip. She not only felt the heat, she could see it. Dancing above the pavement, waving seductively down the ribbon of highway, blowing about in the basin that was Las Vegas’s home. And as she looked around in total confusion, she wondered if she’d traded one sort of hell for another. One Whitelaw’s Bar for a thousand casinos.

For Lucky, the previous night had been a sort of reckoning. She’d had to restrain herself from dashing out into the streets and gawking at all of the garish displays of lights she could see in the distance. Caution had made her wait. She had the rest of her life to explore this city. Losing her chance and her life on the first day here didn’t make sense. First she had to know the rules. Then she could play the game.

Lucky might be a gambler’s daughter, but she took no chances herself. Life had made a careful, thinking woman of Johnny Houston’s baby girl.

Just when Lucky thought she was going to have to stop and ask directions again, the address she’d been looking for was suddenly right before her eyes. With little regard for traffic or lights, Lucky bolted through a break in the line of cars and sprinted across the street toward the realtor she’d read about in the paper.

Within the hour, she was seated and buckled in a company car, on her way to view apartments. The pad of temporary checks she carried in her bag was visible proof of her newly opened checking account. Several hours later, Lucky was still riding, her jaw set, her eyes glacial. The initial friendliness of the realtor, Tammy, had faded to blatant discontent.

Lucky’s refusal to sign a lease, as well as her lack of furniture, had done nothing to aid their search for an apartment Lucky could afford.

“Look, honey,” Tammy said. “In this town, if you want to get ahead, you need to live and work in the right places.”

“I don’t see why,” Lucky said. “How can you save a penny if you’re spending everything you make just trying to show off?”

Tammy sighed. In essence, this odd, but beautiful country girl made sense. But she just didn’t get it. Appearances were everything. And then she remembered.

“Ooh, honey. I just had an idea. Since you’re not too picky on the part of town you live in, I know of a place that might have a vacancy. It’s on our listing, but I haven’t taken anyone out there in months.”

Lucky leaned back in the seat and said a silent prayer.
Please let this be the place
.

And it was.

Once the pink Victorian house had been magnificent. Now the white gingerbread decoration was peeling from every imaginable gable and corner. Three stories tall, it drooped along with the curtains Lucky saw hanging at the windows on the ground floor. Sometime during the last
few years, a steep, angled staircase had been added to the south side of the outer wall, leading up to a single landing on the third floor. It figured.

“It isn’t much,” Tammy said, as she turned the lock and used her shoulder and hip to push the door inward. “The door sticks a little too, I see. But it’s furnished, as you requested, and the price is well within your range.”

Lucky stepped past the woman and walked inside. The simple relief of getting out of the wind and heat and away from the sun was enough to sell her on the spot. And as for style, it put her home in Cradle Creek to shame. Lucky grinned, thinking that Tammy should have seen Whitelaw’s Bar and their house next door. In Lucky’s mind,
that
was not much.

She made a quick but thorough inspection of the three rooms. The ceilings were high and the rooms felt drafty, but in this heat, who could care? The living room furnishings were straight out of the thirties, as was the old, four-poster bed and the claw-foot bathtub in the tiled bathroom. The only things faintly modern were the kitchen appliances. The stove was electric. The refrigerator made ice. The air-conditioning, window-unit style, worked. In Lucky’s world, those were luxuries.

“I’ll take it,” she said.

“The rent is due by the first of each month. First and last month’s rent payable now. If you want to come back to the office with me, we’ll fill out the paperwork and you can pick up your key.”

Lucky nodded. As they walked outside, she paused on the landing and stared off into the distance, absorbing the
immensity of the city. She suddenly realized how far she would be from downtown Las Vegas and the places that she wanted to work.

Before she could voice her concern, Tammy spoke, removing the last trace of Lucky’s doubt.

“You mentioned you don’t have a car,” she said, pointing toward the end of the street where a small convenience store set catercorner across the lot. “That’s a bus stop. The local transit authority isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing.”

Lucky nodded as they proceeded down the stairs, making a mental note to pick up a bus schedule.

“I’m going job hunting tomorrow,” Lucky said. “It’s good to know that.”

Tammy paused and turned, looking back up the stairs toward Lucky, as if gauging for the first time exactly what sort of work someone like her might do. She pursed her lips and decided it was none of her business, and then heard herself asking anyway.

“What sort of work are you looking for?” Tammy asked.

Lucky’s answer was so swift that Tammy could tell it had been long thought out.

“I’m going to work in one of the casinos. It’s all I know how to do.”

Tammy shrugged. “You’re certainly pretty enough,” she said, eyeing Lucky’s long legs, shapely body, and striking face. “You should make a bundle in tips hustling drinks.”

“I’m not a waitress. I deal.”

Out here, the word deal had two connotations: cards or
drugs. Tammy hoped the woman had meant the former and not the latter.

“Deal?” Tammy asked, as she took the rest of the steps down two at a time.

“Cards. You might say it’s my…legacy.”

Relief that she was not renting to a drug dealer made Tammy miss the sardonic smile that slipped across Lucky’s face. Even if she had seen it, she wouldn’t have understood. She would have had to be raised a gambler’s daughter to appreciate the irony of it all.

Here Lucky was, in a city that fostered and took pride in everything that had been the ruination of Johnny Houston. But the fire and desperation that had driven Johnny Houston to play one more game and make one more bet did not burn in his youngest child. He’d given her the skill and the knowledge, but not the passion.

Lucky would play the game…but from the other side of a deck of cards. She’d play for the house, or not at all.

“Where are you going to work?” Tammy asked, as they started back to the office on the other side of the city.

Lucky shrugged. “Somewhere…anywhere.”

“I guess you’ve already got all your cards then.”

Lucky grew still. She had a suspicion that the realtor didn’t mean a deck of playing cards.

“Cards?”

“You know,” Tammy added, “sheriff’s cards. Health cards. There are all kinds. I hear it’s sort of like being bonded. It’s proof that you don’t have any warrants against you, or that you’ve never been arrested. If you handle food, it’s proof that you’re disease free. Stuff like that.”

Lucky shook her head. Where she came from, if you wanted to work, you sat down at a table and dealt the cards. You didn’t have to pass any tests save that of skill to get a job. She sighed. She should have known it wouldn’t be easy.

“Where do I get these cards?” Lucky asked.

“Beats me,” Tammy said. “Call City Hall. They can probably tell you.”

Lucky made her second mental note to herself. Call City Hall. She just hoped it didn’t take a long time to get approved. This wasn’t something she’d planned on. Living on her nest egg without adding to it would be scary. She didn’t want to consider it, but taking a temporary job in another direction might be something she’d have to face.

T
he spring in Lucky’s step was not accidental. Among other things, she now had a brand-new sheriff’s card in her bag and money in the bank. Just thinking about the serious-faced man who’d taken her application and then run a wants and warrants on her name and driver’s license made her smile. She could have saved them time if they’d just believed what she told them.

She had no arrest record—not even a ticket for speeding—because her father had never owned a car long enough for her to get in trouble with it. She’d barely learned to drive Johnny’s last pickup truck before he’d lost it in a poker game across the border in Kentucky. But that part of her life was behind her. Lucky patted the bag she held tight beneath her arm, knowing that it held the key to her future.

A young man with a slick smile and too-bright eyes stood beside her at the traffic light, carefully gauging her
threadbare jeans, faded shirt, and boots with the worn-down heels. He fidgeted with his collar, then slid his hands into his pockets to hide a nervous twitch as he sidled up to her, whispering beneath his breath.

“Hey, baby…you new in town?”

Lucky rolled her eyes. This must be the standard come-on in Las Vegas. It was the third time she’d heard it, and every time a man had been the one to ask.

“Get lost,” Lucky said.

“Come on now, you look like you need a job…maybe a place to stay. And I know a place where you can make more money in one night than most people make in a month.”

Lucky’s lips firmed and one eyebrow arched as she turned and gave the man the once-over, then snorted softly before showing him a second view of her backside. He persisted with the grace of a Mack truck.

“Come on, honey. Ever hear of the Chicken Ranch? You’d be a natural for the lifestyle. It’s the chance of a lifetime. God gave you a beautiful face…and a beautiful body. You oughta show it off while you’ve still got it. Besides, I know men who’d give a thousand dollars for an hour with you.”

Lucky’s mouth dropped. This man didn’t waste time beating around the bush about his intentions, that was for sure. And as far as knowing what went on at the Chicken Ranch, she hadn’t lived across the street from Cradle Creek’s only prostitute for nothing. She might not have approved of the lifestyle, but she’d certainly had an eyeful of it, ever since the day Johnny Houston had moved himself and his three little girls into the run-down shack next
to Whitelaw’s Bar. She’d seen more men make fools of themselves for a jolt of fleeting pleasure than she could count.

“If that place and the people who work there are so special, why would they need someone like you doing their recruiting for them?” Lucky asked, unable to resist a dig.

“Now…I didn’t actually say I worked for them. What I said was…you’d be a natural for that line of work. Not that you’d work there in that line. You’d actually be in partnership…with me. Know what I mean?”

“Get lost, pimp,” Lucky muttered.

His slow smile made her sick to her stomach. She turned away again. Without taking her eyes from the light waiting to change, Lucky hitched the shoulder bag closer across her stomach and tried to ignore him. Then the traffic signal finally flashed walk and relief sent her flying across the street.

But the man obviously wasn’t giving up this easily. Not on a woman who had what he considered “potential.” He bolted across the street right behind Lucky, appreciatively eyeing the way her slender hips swayed in those soft, faded jeans. Just as she gained the curb on the other side, he put his hand on her shoulder. His intent was to turn her around.

Before he knew what had happened, he was flat on his back, with the silhouette of an angry woman blatantly visible between him and the bright sky above.

“You been in this line of work long?” Lucky asked, firmly ignoring the stares and smirks of the passersby.

He blinked, trying not to think of how the two teeth farthest back in his jaw were starting to throb. He’d just
about decided that it must have been reflex that made him bite down too hard when he landed, then wondered how he’d gotten down here to begin with. Surely she hadn’t decked him with one punch. He ran his tongue across the crowns of his teeth, praying that everything was still intact.

“Exactly what line of work are you referring to?” He started to crawl to his feet when she put a dusty boot in the middle of his chest, impeding his progress.

“Not just yet,” she warned, putting a little more of her weight against his rib cage as a reminder that she was still in control.

He quietly complied, hoping against hope that no one he knew saw him in this state of humiliation.

“You bitch,” he said softly, and let his gaze roam over her body.

“I asked you a question. Do you solicit girls for prostitution or are you just hard up and stupid?” Lucky asked.

His eyes narrowed and he refused to answer. The heel of her boot mashed against the soft part of his belly as she waited for some sort of response. He finally shrugged, then winced when the movement of his shoulders against pavement burned the skin on his back.

“Well, I think you do,” Lucky drawled. “And…I suggest you think about how much you like lying on
your
back for money. Because the next time you tempt some stupid little girl by promising her the moon, remember that this is how she’ll earn it. Beneath someone else’s dirt.”

To make her point, she ground the toe of her boot just enough into the front of his white silk shirt to make an
imprint, then pivoted and stalked away, disappearing into the crowd with her head held high.

“Holy shit,” the young man groaned and slowly crawled to his feet. “Someone needs to put a warning sign on her.”

Two passing women giggled and then looked away, while a car in the street next to him honked in jest. He waved them away and then stomped off, ignoring the fact that he’d been bested. She was only one woman. There were thousands more just like her who would be a lot more willing.

Lucky made herself walk when she needed to run. She imagined his hands at her neck, squeezing then snapping it for her insolence. But her reaction had been instinctive. For Lucky Houston, ignoring him would have been impossible. She’d been raised to survive, not submit. And then she had a flashback of the look on his face when he’d landed, and grinned. Queenie would have been proud.

As she passed a store window, a shadowy image of her own reflection stared back. She stopped in the midst of the people on the street and looked in disbelief. She stood a head above most of the women and eyeball-to-eyeball with most of the men.

Her clothes made her look like a beggar. A beggar would not be hired in any of the casinos that she’d seen. They were brilliant and gaudy on the outside, and God only knew what they looked like on the inside. The ragamuffin woman in the window’s reflection would never work there. Not in a city where sequins adorned women’s shoulders twenty-four hours a day.

Lucky pivoted, scanning the crowds, hoping to see at least some people who were as casually dressed. In the same instant, she knew that knowledge wouldn’t help. These people had come to spend money. The casinos didn’t care what the spenders looked like. But they would care about the appearance of their employees.

A surge of impatience overwhelmed her. She’d come all this way to work in the casinos, but looking like this would just get her ignored. She needed style. She needed clothes.

“I need help,” Lucky muttered.

A sudden burst of determination sent her down the street with purpose in her step. When she found a store that suited her purposes, she went in with full intentions of coming out a different woman. One who would blend in and not stand out like a sunflower in a roomful of orchids.

“Welcome to the Downstairs Closet,” the saleswoman said, as the bell over the door signaled Lucky’s arrival.

Lucky smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s the first real welcome I’ve had since I got in this city.”

The woman smiled, instantly liking this tall young thing, in spite of her ragged appearance. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

“Make me over,” Lucky said.

The saleswoman clapped her hands in delight at the request. “With you, honey, it’ll be a breeze.”

Moments later, the two were head-to-head, deep in discussion as they shuffled through racks of well cared for, but secondhand clothing that had been tastefully displayed around the floor.

Nick Chenault had some renovating of his own to do. But it was on the family reputation, not his appearance.

“Sonofabitch!” he swore softly, as he went through the morning paper. All night he’d slept in fits and starts, dreaming about a woman with legs that went all the way to heaven, a mouth that could take a man to hell, and green eyes that had cut him in two without speaking his name. Now this insult had been added. And in the citywide paper, no less.

“Good morning to you too, son,” Paul Chenault said, as Cubby wheeled him to the table and scooted his chair before the place setting bearing his favorite dish of tropical fruits.

Nick flushed and then managed a cocky grin, aware that he’d been caught expressing his opinion of the article regarding their chauffeur’s arrest in a less than proper manner.

“Sorry, Dad,” Nick said, and then tossed the paper in his father’s lap. “But this article made me so damn mad that I couldn’t help myself. You read it and then tell me I’m wrong.”

Giving his bowl of fruit a regretful glance, Paul righted the paper and quickly scanned the page Nick had indicated until he came to the article in question.

Nick watched the frown lines on his father’s forehead deepen as he read, and the tug of worry lowered the smile on his aging face to one of somber repose. When Paul ran a shaky hand through his thick white hair, agitating the carefully combed style, even Cubby began to fidget.

The last thing either of them wanted was for Paul Chenault to fret unnecessarily. His recovery from the stroke he’d suffered two years ago had been long and painful. And although his mind and the upper half of his body had recovered, he would never walk again. Yet keeping him in the dark about something this public would have been impossible.

“I don’t get it,” Paul said, when he had finished the anticle. “Why hasn’t Charlie Sams been charged? Why are they holding him indefinitely without giving a reason? The way this article reads, it makes it sound like we’re the force behind the drugs he was selling, and that he’s trying to cut a deal in order to implicate us and lessen his charges.”

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Nick said. “I have an appointment with the detective in charge of the case this morning. I’ll get some answers before the day is out or know the reason why.”

Paul slumped back in his wheelchair, absently watching Cubby’s hands. The meaty fists that could smash a man’s head with little effort were delicately parting and then buttering a biscuit to put on the plate next to his fruit.

“I hate this,” Paul said quietly, clinking the tines of his fork absently against the crystal dish, while he stared at his coffee cup.

Nick knew what his father hated. It wasn’t this latest scandal. In their business, there was always the danger of making enemies that wanted retaliation. What Paul Chenault hated was not being able to do anything about
it. He had to sit on the sidelines, crippled in body, but not in mind, and let his son bear the burden of it all.

“You trained me well, Dad,” Nick reminded him. “There’s nothing I can’t handle. But if I get myself up a creek, I’ll come for advice. Deal?”

Paul grinned. He couldn’t ever remember his son asking for help. But they played this game with each other, knowing that it was a small consolation for their inability to voice the depth of their feelings for each other.

Lauria, Paul’s wife, had died nearly thirteen years ago. She’d been the affectionate one in the family, coaxing the hugs, begging the kisses, flirting shamelessly with both of the loves of her life, her husband and her son.

With her death, Paul had never been able to get the words past the pain. And Nick had not known how to close the gap his mother’s death had left in their lives. And so they’d existed, using Club 52 as their emotional link, trying to maintain it in the elegant and honest manner in which it had been founded, though it was nearly impossible these days. And this latest faux pas of their chauffeur didn’t help matters a damned bit.

“Eat your fruit, boss,” Cubby urged. “It’s got all your favorites. Kiwi. Mangoes. Papaya.”

Paul grinned at the big man. “So sit down and eat with me,” Paul said. “Nick looks ready to bolt and I hate to eat alone.”

Cubby ducked his head, sending thin blond hair falling across his forehead and shadowing his pale blue eyes. “It don’t seem right,” he said softly. “I work for you and all.”

“You have to do everything for me, right down to washing my ass, dammit,” Paul said. “I think we’ve gotten past the employer/employee relationship. At least I know I damn well have.”

Cubby sat. Put that way, he had no other choice. And it was true. He held more than high regard for the two Chenaults. They were almost like family.

The maid came in, took one look at Cubby in residence at the table, and went for another place setting as well as a double order of food. At six feet, seven inches and three hundred twenty pounds, it took a lot of food to feed Cubby Torbett.

“I’ll call you from the club,” Nick said, patting his father’s shoulder as his passed. “Don’t let this worry you. We’ll get to the bottom of Charlie Sams, or else.”

Paul grinned. He’d heard Nick use that tone of voice before. And it usually got results.

“In that case,” he said, “Cubby, pass the jam. I feel an appetite coming on.”

Nick left with the two men arguing amiably with each other, like brothers. But he knew that the Chenault family was simply a state of mind, not an actual fact. In fewer years than he cared to count, he would be alone. His father couldn’t live forever. And Nick had no wife. No children. Nothing but Club 52.

He shrugged, masking the empty place in his heart with a casualness he did not feel. In his line of work, people either married and divorced with ritualistic regularity, kept mistresses who were easier to dispose of, or simply faced the fact of the job and lived alone and lonely with a casual liaison for release.