Lucky (9 page)

“I wanted to be the one to tell you about Mosconi,” he said, and tried not to care when she stepped out of his arms.

“Oh.” And then she remembered the way that she’d thrown herself into his arms and wanted to die of embarrassment. She moved quickly to turn on a light. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

The light revealed more of Lucky Houston than he’d been prepared to see. In that moment, with the jut of her breasts an impudent match to the thrust of her chin, and more long bare legs than he’d ever seen in his life, he wanted. He needed. He could almost say desired, but this feeling she evoked in him was too new. Too scary. Too final to consider.

“Do what?” he asked, and then cleared his throat. He’d never been this ill at ease around a female in his life and resented her for making him feel that way.

“Go all weepy and helpless. I’m not normally like that. I always take care of myself.”

“So you’ve told me before,” he said, and smiled to soften the rebuke.

But he remembered the way she’d flown into his arms, and knew by that action alone that she had been badly shaken by the news of Mosconi’s death. After the constant rejections he’d suffered from this woman, he suspected she had to have been terrified to have let him this close.

Nick waited for her to make the next move. He found himself lost in the aura of the woman before him.

Good lord
, Lucky thought, as she suddenly remembered her skimpy attire too late for concealment, and almost crossed her arms across her chest in a futile effort to hide what he was already seeing.

The urge to lock herself into another room was overwhelming. While her T-shirt went almost to her knees, she wore little else and saw that he knew it. Bikini panties seemed a flimsy barrier between this dark prince and the desire that he chose not to hide.

“I think you’d better leave,” she said.

He wasn’t prepared for the rudeness of her request.

“It would be my pleasure,” he growled. “And don’t bother to see me to the door. I can find my own way out.”

Lucky sighed. “I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said. “It’s just that…I don’t need any complications in my life.”

Nick frowned. “Lady…you don’t know the meaning of the word.” And when she glared at him, he got mad.
The whole day had been a bust, and when he’d tried to do a good deed, it had only served to make things worse. “For two cents I’d show you—”

“Don’t you dare,” Lucky warned, and doubled her fists.

He grinned. She looked less like a fighter than anyone he’d ever seen. “Never dare a gambler,” he whispered, and pulled her into his arms.

He hadn’t meant to do anything but shake her. Just a little. And just once. But her head fell back, and her lips were too close to ignore. The contact came unexpectedly, and it would have been difficult to say who was the most shocked. Nick for having crossed a line she’d asked him not to cross, or Lucky for letting him cross it.

What started out as exploration ended in a breathless gasp and shaking hands.

Nick was the first to stop. Lucky was the first to pull back. His feet refused to move, but hers couldn’t take her far away fast enough. When she was on the other side of the room, crossing her arms around her waist to keep herself from coming apart at the seams, he found his voice.

“Don’t make me apologize,” he warned, eyeing the defensive look she was wearing once more. An apology for what just happened would be a lie. He wasn’t one bit sorry. “Will you be all right, Lucky?”

She didn’t know whether he was referring to the news about Woody the Wire, or the kiss that they’d shared. But either way, the answer still fit.

“No. I doubt if I’ll ever be all right again. Get out, Nick. Thank you for coming. Thank you for caring. Now get the hell out.”

Nick grinned. “This thing between us scares the hell out
of me too,” he said, and left before she could refute the inference he’d made about the change in their relationship.

When she heard his car start up, she bolted for the door and turned every lock with a firm twist. But it was too late to lock out the damage that had already been done.

His kiss had been like the prince’s kiss that had awakened Sleeping Beauty, and Lucky was aching in places she’d never known existed. But this was no fairy tale. It was a nightmare. She couldn’t fall for a man like Nick Chenault. He was no prince. He was a gambler, just like Johnny.

One gambler had almost ruined the beginning of her life. She couldn’t let another ruin what was left.

L
ucky fought the covers of her bed while struggling with a nightmare. The bad dream she was having was an old, ugly memory from her past that kept her hanging in the twilight between fantasy and reality while she cried along with the pain.

You can’t make me cry. You’ll never make me cry.

Long black braids had whipped across Lucky’s baby cheeks, stinging her lips and sending tears to her eyes as she bent down and angrily hurled a handful of rocks at the boys who had followed her home from school.

As a first-grader, trying to adjust to her second school in a single year had taught her much. Being a gambler’s daughter in a poverty-stricken town like Cradle Creek was something of which to be ashamed. Every day was a fight for survival.

Your daddy is a joker. Your daddy is a joker.

The old, childhood taunt unconsciously puddled real
tears beneath her eyelids as she slept. Crying was a thing her conscious self would never have allowed. But the boys’ foolish rhymes had coincided with her shame and her father’s passion—a deck of cards and a wager yet to be made. At seven years of age, Lucky had been no match for their wit.

Restlessly, she tossed upon the bed, trying to escape the memories in the dream, just as she’d tried to escape the boys all those years ago. The sheet covering her body tightened another hitch around her legs, holding her firmer in its clutch, and drawing her deeper and deeper into the nightmare that had taken her back to her youth, to the time in Cradle Creek when every day was a test of endurance.

As the dream continued to play out, Lucky jerked, an unconscious reaction to the pain of a rock peppering the back of her leg that one of the boys had thrown. And just as if it were happening all over again, she felt the pain of her bare toe as it caught on the tip of a rock in the road and sent her sprawling in the dust, only feet from her front door.

Lucky’s arms flew outward, but it was too late now, as it had been that day, to catch herself from falling. Moments later, blood began oozing from her bruised toe and scraped knees as the boys taunts continued to fall.

If you was so lucky then how come you hurt yourself?

Lucky moaned and rolled over on her stomach, burying her face beneath the pillow, much in the same way that she’d hidden her face in her hands that day long ago.

Lucky Houston ain’t got no luck at all. All’s you got is a no-count daddy who cheats at cards.

My daddy doesn’t cheat! My daddy doesn’t cheat!

But her shrieks of rage went unheeded as the boys continued their vicious chant.

And then out of nowhere, like a setting hen after the fox who’d gotten into her nest, came a long-legged girl with her red hair flying. It was her older sister, Queen, a twelve-year-old child who already had the fearless heart of a woman twice her age.

Git! Git! Go home where you belong, you little cowards. Look at the lot of you! Picking on one little girl like a pack of dogs. You ought to be ashamed!

Lucky thrashed atop the bed as she watched in her dream while the boys ran away. She could almost feel Queenie’s breath on her cheeks…see the look of concern on her face as she wiped at the blood on her baby sister’s knees. It was so vivid…much too vivid to be borne.

Lucky kicked restlessly, and the sheet slid to the end of the bed. She sighed and almost smiled, waiting for the weightless feeling that would come from being carried in her big sister’s arms. The dream was so real that she imagined that she actually felt Queenie’s hands sliding beneath her knees and around her shoulders. While she lay waiting for the gentle whispers of remorse, her dream went black, like a television screen that just lost its power.

Queenie!

Lucky sat up in bed as tears continued to streak her cheeks. She looked around the room in sleepy confusion for Queenie, but the sister who’d come to her rescue was gone, along with the nightmare.

“Good grief. Where did that come from?” Lucky groaned and rolled out of bed.

Her bare feet made no noise as the aging Persian carpet in her bedroom muffled her steps. Her T-shirt was damp and sticking to her body with rude persistence. Without thinking, she yanked if off and dropped it on the back of a chair as she entered the kitchen.

Now, wearing nothing but bikini panties and a waist-length cloak of hair that she wadded into a loose rope and pulled over her shoulder, she took a can of soda from the refrigerator and popped the top. The spritz of carbonation that fizzed out the opening tickled her nose when she lifted the can to drink. As the cold, sweet liquid was sliding down her throat, Lucky absently ran the frosty aluminum against her heated body, letting it glide over her forehead, her cheeks, and then down to the valley between her breasts.

A glance at the clock told her that dawn was little more than a thought away. But after that nightmare, returning to bed was unthinkable. She plopped into a chair beside the living room window, set the can of soft drink on the windowsill, and then rested her chin in her hands as she pulled the curtains aside and stared moodily out into the burgeoning light of daybreak.

“Damn you, Johnny. You sure did a number on us.”

Then she grimaced. Blaming her father was futile. He was dead and buried. He’d blamed his lifetime of bad fortune on losing the “Houston Luck,” when all it had really amounted to was a gambling addiction.

She’d heard his story all of her life. How, as a young
man, he’d lost a family heirloom—his grandfather’s gold pocket watch—in a crooked poker game. He’d blamed everyone, including his best friend, for the loss.

Lucky sighed and took another drink of her soda, then made a face when she realized it was getting warm. Unable to shake the dream, her mind returned to the past as quickly as the soft drink went down her throat. The memory was so fresh that she could almost hear herself, as a child, making promises impossible to keep.

I’ll find our “luck,” Johnny. One day when I’m all grown up, I’ll find that watch and bring it home. Then we won’t have to be hungry anymore.

Tears burned the back of her throat and nose. She could almost hear her father’s laughter.

“Dammit!” Lucky bolted from the chair. She didn’t have time to sit there and feel sorry for herself about things that couldn’t be changed. She had enough to worry about without stewing on old problems that would never be resolved. Someone was trying to murder her boss. And while he was dodging hit men and bullets, she was finding herself forced to dodge his attentions.

She stomped into the kitchen with the lukewarm soda still in her hand. “If we’re not careful, neither of us will survive,” she mumbled to herself.

Refusing to consider that what she’d just said was an admission of growing feelings for a man she didn’t trust, she dumped her half-empty can of soda in the sink, picked up her T-shirt as she walked past, and headed for the bath. Figuratively speaking, if she couldn’t forget the past, she could at least wash it away.

Reluctant to turn on a light and let reality into the room, Lucky readied for her bath in the dark. She wound the length of her hair upon her head, fastening it with a handful of pins while her bathwater ran. When the tub was full, she stepped out of her panties and into the water, letting it touch her in a way that no man had ever done.

She lowered herself slowly, careful not to slosh over the sides. And when she was completely submerged, with only her head above the water, she let go of the anger and the pain and was finally able to relax. Minutes later, she was in a state of complete and silent satisfaction.

Then, with her guard down, the memory of Nick Chenault’s embrace came calling. She groaned and pressed her legs tightly together in reflex to the surge of desire that feathered through her belly. But desire didn’t stop her from remembering how his broad chest and strong arms had felt against her breasts. Or how his manhood had thrust against her, pressing her T-shirt to her panties, refusing to be ignored. And how devastating and frightening the kiss that they’d shared had been compared to the gentleness of his hands upon her body.

A different kind of warmth began to assert itself into Lucky’s senses. She was a woman, with a woman’s needs. But using Nick Chenault to assuage them seemed, to Lucky, the epitome of danger.

Disgusted with herself, she rose from the tub, letting the water drain out as she stepped on the mat to dry. But her inner heat couldn’t drain away as easily as her bath. And every swipe of the towel’s nubby texture across her sensitive skin made it worse, not better.

“What’s wrong with me?” she groaned, and dropped the towel where she stood. “I don’t even like that man. Am I so frustrated that I let a near-stranger get that close?”

She turned to stare at herself in the mirror above the sink. A shadowy face reflected back in the steamy glass. Even though the surface had fogged and there was little left to see, she knew that she had changed. Somewhere between Nick’s kiss and her nightmare, she’d become aware of him as a man. A man who, she suspected, wanted her in a way she couldn’t allow.

It would be difficult to face him again, but impossible to go back to where they’d been before the kiss. And if Lucky were honest with herself, she wasn’t certain whether she wanted to go back. She was just afraid to go forward.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Chenault, but that’s all we know about Dieter Marx. He was last seen in Venezuela, South America, around 1950. Rumors of his death came back from several different sources, but no body was ever found.”

Nick frowned and hung up the phone before he remembered he hadn’t thanked the police detective for the information. Detective Arnold had been honest with him, and more helpful than he had needed to be. There were plenty of crimes more serious than his that were being committed on a daily basis. He was just thankful that Will Arnold hadn’t told him to hire his own detectives and leave Las Vegas Metro alone, because all of that would delay whatever information he might get.

And the worst of it was, this latest bit of news told him exactly nothing. Granted, Dieter Marx might have hated
his father with a passion. But that still didn’t prove that he was the one trying to ruin them. All the news had done was to leave Nick with nothing but a lapful of problems with no solutions.

Their only option was to be wary. Someone wanted to destroy the Chenaults in any way possible, even if it took murder to do it. The attempted bombing was proof enough that they were willing to go all the way.

“Nick, who was on the phone?” Paul asked, as Cubby wheeled him into the library.

Nick considered lying. At this point, upsetting his father again seemed useless. He’d told all he knew and it had still not garnered them enough information to get a handle on the invader hovering outside their midst. But the trusting expression in his father’s eyes made him change his mind. If the situation were reversed, he would want to know too.

“That was Detective Arnold. He had no firm news about Dieter Marx. The last thing they have on record was that he’d been sighted in Venezuela in 1950 and then later was reported to have died.”

“Then who?” Paul asked, his voice trembling and weak.

Nick shook his head. “At this point, your guess is as good as mine.” He patted his father’s shoulder and then gave Cubby a straight look that the valet could not mistake. “Take good care of Dad while I’m gone. If you need me, I’ll be at the club.”

Cubby’s massive shoulders went taut, and his beefy hands gripped the handles of the wheelchair as his lips thinned in firm resolve.

“You can count on me, Nick.”

Nick nodded and managed a smile. “I already knew that, Cubby. I’ll see you two in the morning.”

Paul watched his son leave and then cursed the infirmities of age that had set him in this chair for the rest of his life, while Cubby pretended not to hear his master’s rage.

But Paul was not the only one suffering from bitter frustration.
El Gato
strode from his hacienda, his pale blue eyes glazed with the fury under which he was suffering. Again, his plans had gone awry. He’d paid dearly for the second man who’d been sent on a mission of revenge, and all it had netted him was a botched job from a hit man who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
El Gato
sneered. Woodrow Mosconi’s mouth was shut now, permanently.

The sun was hot. Dust boiled beneath his shoes as he marched through the marketplace wearing a fierce expression as an accessory to the white linen suit and the wide-brimmed Panama hat that shaded his eyes.

As he passed through the area, the loud chatter of buyers and sellers blended with the intermittent shrieks of children playing in the alleys. At the end of the street, a group of men pushed and shoved to get the best view of a pair of game cocks that were fighting. Bets flew as fast as feathers.

As he drew closer, now and then he could actually see one of the feathers as it would float up above the men’s heads, a sure sign that the cockfight was nearing an end. The rancid smell of men’s sweat accompanied the stirring dust from shuffling feet as well as the sickly sweet smell of blood.

A loud roar went up. It would seem that one fight was already over. A limp, lifeless carcass of one of the cocks was dropped against the wall.

El Gato’s
nostrils flared as the men’s crude ways and unwashed bodies assailed his sensitive senses. When he would have circled the mob rather than mingle, fate stepped in and reestablished his seniority, as well as his menace, in the small mountain village.

“Rojo es muy macho! Rojo es el rey!”

But the red rooster was not destined to be king for long. Just as
El Gato
passed,
Rojo’s
spur unexpectedly struck an early blow on the next cock that had just been set in place. The wounded fowl’s death squawk was accompanied by a set of loud groans. The men began exchanging
pesos
as they stepped back, away from the dying rooster.

In a final flurry of bloody feathers and dirt, the rooster’s last flop was onto the pristine white shoes Dieter Marx was wearing. To add insult to injury, blood from the slashed artery in the game cock’s neck then spurted an arterial spray of crimson up the legs of his white linen pants.