Wanna Get Lucky? (30 page)

You could cut the humidity with a knife.

Leave it to The Big Boss to create the only tropical climate zone in the desert.

Water cascaded from ledges and rocks, burbled up through rock features then rushed into the three pools, all connected by a lazy river dotted with caves. Each pool was a distinct area, with its own rules. One pool for families, one for adults only, and one for VIP adults, where tops were optional.

Even in my state of diminished IQ, I knew exactly where Miranda would hold court.

Protected from prying eyes by the tall palms surrounding the VIP section, Miranda had arranged herself in all her glory on a chaise in the sun. Her body slick with oil, she wore only a tiny black thong and a look of disdain.

I dragged a chair into a spot of shade near her. “You wanted to see me.”

She put a hand to her eyes and squinted against the sun. “Yes, I need to go over the table for the awards ceremony.”

No “Thank you.” No “Good to see you.” No “Sorry for summoning you like staff.” And she knew how much I hated discussing business with near-naked people.

Her subtle put-down was a carefully designed maneuver in a game we’d been playing for as long as I could remember. Clawing and scratching, we both had fought like hell to escape the lives we were born to.

We both had mothers who whored. After a long battle with life-altering substances, Miranda’s mom succumbed to her demons when Miranda was sixteen. In a way, I’d been lucky—Mona was a scrapper. If I’d learned anything from her it was how to fight—and how to fight dirty when necessary.

Miranda had made her escape from Vegas—and I hadn’t, or so she thought. The ironic thing was, although Miranda lived in L.A. she hadn’t really escaped at all—the porn business was just a slightly different take on the prostitution trade. But that was a nuance apparently lost on her. Or maybe not—and that’s what this was all about.

I shrugged out of my jacket then hung it over the arm of my chair. Settling back, my smile fixed, I began to rattle off the arrangements for her table. As I did so, I noticed a small mechanical device motoring our way.

Small as a mouse, it crept along on a base of tiny rubber wheels. A glass eye continually scanned, rotating from side to side. When it turned in Miranda’s direction, all movement stopped.

Oblivious, Miranda stretched like a cat after a long nap.

As I finished my spiel, I looked around. Somebody had to be controlling the thing. On my second pass, I caught movement behind a palm tree to my right.

Paxton Dane. He had a little box in his hand with a joystick jutting from the top and a shit-eating grin on his face. Payback time. I knew somehow he’d get even with Miranda for taking a bite out of his ass.

Leaning back, I crossed my arms, kept my expression neutral, and watched as the show began.

Miranda sat up. Facing me, she held a breast in each hand and proffered them for my inspection. “So, what do you think? I just got them redone. I think they look really nice.”

Nice for prized watermelons at the state fair
. “Lovely.” I kept my expression bland.

“And the wax jobs they’re doing these days! They make it possible to wear a thong like this and not be tacky.”

Clearly we had a different definition of tacky.

She spread her legs and eyed the tiny triangle of cloth. “I have to have it done every three weeks.”

“Sounds painful.”

“Tell me about it.” Miranda rolled over, exposing both her cheeks. “And try keeping an aging ass dimple-free. They have this new machine. It sucks really hard on your skin. It’s supposed to give it tone while eliminating the toxins trapped in the fat.”

While bringing one to tears
.

She wiggled her dimple-free booty around. “It works. You ought to try it.”

“I have a low threshold for pain.” And at least a shred of dignity left. I couldn’t imagine lying there while some technician sucked on my butt.

“Too bad.” On her stomach, propped up on her elbows, Miranda eyed me over her sunglasses. “Pain is a part of life.”

I couldn’t tell whether she meant to be profound, or she had missed her own point. “When I get desperate, I’ll let you know.”

She pushed her glasses back into place and flopped over on her back, her plastic boobs pointing toward the sky.

“Are we done?” I asked.

“Oh yeah.” She waved dismissively. “The arrangements sound fine.”

I knew they would. “Oh, Miranda? You’ve just given those guys a great show—for free.”

“What?” She sprang to a sitting position, one leg on either side of the chaise—her crotch pointed directly at the little peeping-tom device. “What guys? And I never give a show for free.”

I pointed to the little mouse. “There’s always a first time.”

The little device turned and sped away, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough. I grabbed my jacket, and bolted after the thing. Two strides and I had it.

I waved the device at her. “Two can play your game, sweetheart.”

She glared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Okay, you win this round. Did you set the whole thing up?”

“Of course not. We don’t do that to our guests here—I merely took advantage of the opportunity.”

“Brilliant.” She reached for the device. “Let me see that. Maybe we could use this in our next production—sort of a Peeping Tom perspective. Wouldn’t that be a turn-on?”

“You’re the expert,” I told her.

“You’re coming to the opening gala tonight?” she asked.

I’d forgotten. Even when the cat-pee lady mentioned a party, it hadn’t rung a bell. The trade show opened tonight to those in the business. “I’ll be late. I have dinner plans.”

“Come when you can.”

I left her talking into the little eye.

MY
phone rang as I pushed through the heavy doors to the lobby. I smiled at the number. “Hey.”

“Where are you?” Teddie asked. “It’s lunchtime. Are you hungry?”

Butterflies took flight at the sound of his voice. “Getting there.”

“They let me into my theatre. Me and the boys are working through a new number. We ordered pizza. Want some?”

“I’ve got to check on some cats, then I’m on my way.”

“Cats?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Busy morning, then?”

“Uh-huh. Finished off by a very informal meeting with Miranda at the VIP pool.”

“I can only imagine. Who won that round?” Teddie laughed that wonderful, warm laugh that sent shivers of delight down my spine.

“Miranda awarded the victory to me, but I think it was a draw.”

“You two have the most interesting friendship.”

“We have history, but I’m not sure it’s a friendship.”

I heard someone in the background call to him.

“I gotta go,” Teddie said. “We just ordered the pizza. It’ll be thirty minutes at least before it gets here.”

“I’ll be there.”

“If you hurry you can catch the run-through of our new number.”

AS
I strode through the lobby, I caught sight of a couple of Security guys crawling through the shrubbery. A few more patrolled the banks of the Euphrates.

I stopped by the river and pushed-to-talk. “Security. What’s the status on the cats?”

“We have two. Still looking for the third.” The low-timbred voice of Paxton Dane.

As I started to answer, a little girl walked by me holding a small cat, its fur bearing distinct leopard spots. “Dane, which cats do you have?”

“One with weird spots and another with long hair and blue eyes.”

“I think I have a line on the third. I’ll get back to you.” I followed the little girl and stopped her before she reached the front desk. “Honey?” I squatted down so we were eye to eye. “That’s a really pretty cat.”

“It was over by the ducks. I wanted to take it home, but my mom said it probably belongs to somebody.” She stroked the cat as she looked at me. “Do you think I can keep it?”

I had half a mind to let her have it—the animal would be much better off with the little girl than with the horror who had packed it in a trunk. “We’ll see.”

I knew better than to promise something I wasn’t sure I should deliver, but I’m a sucker for happy endings. “Where’s your mom?”

“Right over there.” The girl nodded in the direction of a woman standing off to the side, watching us intently.

“You wait here while I talk to your mom, okay?

“Sure.”

The girl’s mother smiled as I approached. “I try to let her handle people when I can—she’s never out of my sight. I don’t want her to be shy.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that. Do you all live here?”

“Yes, in Green Valley,” she said, her eyes on her daughter.
“When it gets too hot outside, I bring her here to see the ducks. We had a treat today with all the babies. And then she found the cat.”

“How do you feel about taking a cat home with you?”

Her eyes darted to me, then swiveled back to her daughter. “I’d love it, but are you sure it doesn’t belong to somebody?”

I cast a discrete glance around the lobby—no cat-pee lady. “Cats wander in here from time to time. We take them to the shelter—we have no other choice.”

“Then we’ll take that one with us.” She shook her head with a smile. “I don’t know whether I could get it away from my daughter anyway. You’ve made her day.”

“You both have done wonders for mine.”

The mother approached her daughter and bent down to whisper in her ear. The grin on the kid’s face put a smile on my heart. I watched as the two of them disappeared out the front door, the sunlight swallowing them.

I turned and ran right into the hard and altogether wonderfully masculine chest of Paxton Dane. I seemed to have a habit of doing that. “Oh, sorry.”

“My pleasure,” he said, a hint of invitation in his voice.

Too bad he was playing for the opposition. Needing distance, I stepped away.

“Was that our third cat?” Dane nodded after the woman and her daughter.

Feeling a bit sheepish at being caught, I nodded. “You can call off the search.”

“I thought the cats belonged to one of our guests?”

“The woman packed the three of them in a trunk for the flight here.”

Dane’s face clouded—his eyes got squinty.

I knew that look.

Then he gave me a lopsided grin—it was a good grin, for a bad guy. “Too bad we couldn’t find that third cat. I guess it ran out the front doors or something.”

“Yeah, too bad.” Hoping I wasn’t too late for the run-through, I turned toward Teddie’s theatre.

Dane fell in step beside me. “We’re still on for dinner?”

“I’ll meet you at Tigris, but could we make it at six thirty instead of seven?”

“I’m okay with that. If I can’t change the reservation, I’ll call you.”

“You did get the guys who designed that little spy-mobile thing, didn’t you? We can’t have those things running around the hotel capturing our guests at indelicate moments.”

“Sure. I took the thing from them, but promised them leniency in exchange for its use.” His glee was impossible to hide. “Pretty good, don’t you think?”

“It was perfect, actually.” Stepping around the No Admittance sign, I grabbed one of the handles of the theatre doors and threw my weight against it.

“You can’t go in there,” he said. “It says ‘Private, rehearsal in session.’ ”

I gave Dane a look and stepped inside the darkened theatre. Starting down the steps toward the stage, I felt Dane’s presence behind me, hanging back in the shadows.

I
n a pair of pink stilettos, jeans, a ripped tee shirt, and with a pink boa around his neck, Teddie commanded the top tier of a mountain of stairs in the center of the stage. A series of staircases cascaded from Teddie’s high point, each level populated by several of Teddie’s boys—his ensemble of the most beautiful young men I’ve ever seen—each handpicked and a potential star in his own right.

But it was Teddie the spotlight loved.

Christo, Teddie’s understudy, stood next to him. Tall, and lean, his blond hair long and wavy, Christo wore loose dance pants cinched at the waist, a body-hugging muscle shirt, his own pair of stilettos and a boa—his was blue.