Luck Be A Lady (Destiny Bay Romances-The Ranchers Book 5) (2 page)

“I wasn’t carrying this for protection.” She shifted the wooden stick from one hand to the other. “It’s for
my daughter. I... just picked it up at the sports shop
in the Landings Hotel. They were having a special....”

Cody glanced at her ring finger and found it bare.
Just plain old curiosity
, he told himself when he
caught himself at it. Whether or not the woman was
married could hardly matter less.

They stepped into the busy street. Cars crawled by in the heavy traffic. Despite the bright daylight, neon
lights flashed a come-on, and the sound of coins
dropping into slot machines drowned out the noise of
the automobile engines. It seemed hard to believe
this had been so close all along.

The two of them stopped, facing one another. Foot
traffic flowed around them, a constant stream of tourists and casino employees.

The woman’s cool gaze flickered over Cody, assessing the damage for herself. “Those men play rough all
right,” she agreed, frowning slightly. “You’re a mess.”

He stood very still, watching her from under lowered lashes as she took a tissue from her purse and
dabbed at a spot of blood on his jawline. Her face was intent on her task, and something inside Cody stirred, surprising him. He wasn’t sure what it was, but the
gesture, her reaching out to tidy him, struck a chord
that hadn’t been sounded for a good long time—some half-
forgotten memory, some echo of childhood—and he felt touched in a way he hadn’t known he was still capable
of.

“There,” she said briskly when she was finished. “Let’s get you to the emergency center.”

“What’s your name?” he asked her softly, still
watching as though she were a being from some spe
cies he’d never studied before.

She met his gaze and hers suddenly became guarded. “Kelly Carrington, uh...I mean, Kelly Stanton,” she said, flushing as she realized she’d led off with her maiden name. What on earth made her do that? “What’s yours?”

“Cody Marin.” He said it proudly, his shoulders
squaring unconsciously as he did so. There were people who knew that name in this town and respected it.

But it wasn’t respect he caught in the flash of Kelly’s eyes. “Let me guess,” she said crisply. “You’re a
gambler.”

His half grin was crooked. “And you’re not,” he
guessed without a doubt as to his accuracy.

She gave a snort, as though the very concept were beyond the pale. “Okay, Mr. Gambler,” she said in a tone that told him all he needed to know about what
she thought of games of chance and those who played
them. “Let’s get you some medical attention.”

She turned as though to lead him straight to a clinic,
but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “My car,”
he said, motioning toward a red Porsche parked half
a block away. “Why don’t we take it?”

He watched her green eyes clearly mirror the
thought processes as she quickly mulled over the possibilities. She was brave, but not totally foolhardy. He
wanted to grin at her, but he stopped it, frowning slightly instead. He had to acknowledge that he was
attracted to her, and—used to following up attraction
into its logical consequences with hardly a second
thought—he felt a pull in that direction. But he also
realized, without fully admitting it even to himself,
that she was from a world quite separate from his. A world so shunned by him all these years as to be vir
tually untouchable.

But what the hell! He was a gambler, wasn’t he
?

That wasn't all he was. He'd been working hard to add to that image, working on his own property out of town, setting up a world class horse ranch. But he wasn't about to hand that to her as an excuse. No. Let her think he was nothing but a gambler. A woman like this would be happier with that explanation. Otherwise, she would have to deal with ambiguities.

“I’m harmless,” he assured her softly. “And you’re
the one with the lethal weapon.”

This time she almost smiled, and her gaze clung to his for just a moment. Long enough to send a warm
shaft of tantalizing promise down him, but not long
enough to make him sure.

“You can’t drive,” she protested. “You’re injured.”

He shook his head. “I’m bruised and battered a
bit,” he said dryly, “but able to function as a normal
man. Believe me.” His raised eyebrow invested his statement with some suggestion. “Where’s your car?”

“It’s in the body shop, getting some dents ironed out. I was going to call a friend to give me a ride home.” She looked at him worriedly. “You’ve got
about as many dents as my car,” she muttered. “Let’s
go,” she added, coming to a brisk decision. “I’d bet
ter drive you to the doctor.”

They walked side by side, but she didn’t meet his
eyes again, and he wondered what made her so shy of
the man-woman feelings that were obviously spark
ing between them. She’d probably been hurt. But who
hadn’t?

“I’ll drive,” he insisted when they reached his car. “It’s like getting back on the horse that threw you. I’d
better do it fast.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No. I usually don’t.” He gave her his best devil-may-care smirk, masking the pain that still throbbed along the wall of his chest. “I’m fine. Believe me. And
if I pass out, you’ll be here to take over the controls, won’t you?”
 

He swung into the driver’s seat, glanc
ing over at her. She was definitely pretty, he decided.
Not a beauty, like most of the show girls he knew these
days, but attractive. Like a high school homecoming queen, all grown up now, with responsibilities dim
ming her innocence a shade. There shouldn’t be any
thing threatening in that. Should there? He gazed into her eyes. She met his stare with a clear, honest look
that didn’t try to hide anything. And he felt threat
ened in a way he hadn’t for a long, long time.

Sardonic humor had always been his best defense. “Listen, getting beat up is a way of life around here,
just like racquetball is in other neighborhoods. It
wakes you up, gets the blood flowing.”

She didn’t think that was very funny. He watched the way she perched on the edge of her seat, looking as though she might jump out at any minute.

“Relax,” he offered quietly. “I’m the victim, re
member? I don’t ever do the beating part.”

She made an effort to settle back into the seat,
watching him sideways as he started the engine and
maneuvered the car into traffic.

Cody could sense her inspection. It made him feel slightly awkward. What did she see? From the evi
dence he’d gathered over the years, most women
seemed to see a handsome, strong, sexually attractive
man. But for some reason, he didn’t think that was
what Kelly Carrington was seeing. What he couldn’t
figure out was why he gave a damn.

“What were you doing there, anyway?” she asked, curiosity finally getting the better of reticence. “Why
were they attacking you?”

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t be caught dead in a place
like that.” He made a face at his unplanned joke. “But
this afternoon a certain young lady, who I guess isn’t
as good a friend of mine as I thought, called and asked
me to meet her behind the casino.”

“She set you up?”

He nodded, watching traffic. “Looks that way.”

She was silent for a moment, thinking that over. “But why? What do they have against you?”

He glanced at her as he rounded a curve. He knew without being told that she wasn’t part of the scene on
the Strip or downtown either. She lived quietly in some
outlying part of Las Vegas and worked at a job that
might as well have been in Minneapolis or Cleveland. There was a certain freedom in that. He could tell her
things he wouldn’t tell anyone else.

“They’re warning me not to talk. I saw something
I wish I hadn’t. They want to make sure I forget it.”

She turned toward him in the seat, interested.
“What was it? You saw something illegal going on at
the casino?”

He raised an eyebrow, slowed and honked at a double-parker. “Gee, I don’t know. I’m busy forget
ting.”

But she hardly seemed to have heard him. “Well, the police will give you protection, I’m sure, once you’ve told them all about it. Where’s the nearest police station? Maybe we ought to go there first.”

He pulled the car to a stop at a red light and turned
to her, all humor gone from his dark eyes. “You’ve
got this wrong, Kelly,” he said evenly. “I’m not tell
ing anybody anything. That advice they were giving
me back there in that alley was a little rough, but it was
good as gold. If I want to stay alive, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Her face was clouded, puzzled. “You mean you
have information about illegal activities and you won’t
come forward?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Her eyes widened, her face displayed outrage, in
credulity, and a certain distrust for what she ob
viously considered his immoral and cowardly decision.
“Why... That’s awful!”

He wondered with just a flashing moment of an
noyance if she were for real. Maybe she didn’t live
among the serious folks he moved with, but didn’t she watch television or go to the movies? Norman Rockwell could have used her for a model. She was almost
too all-American to be true.

“Listen, honey,” he said, his voice sharper than
he’d meant, using it as a verbal slap to wake her up.
“Life isn’t a Frank Capra movie. The good guys don’t always win. It’s the quiet guys who stay alive.”

“If everyone thought like that, we’d still be the wild frontier,” she said. “I tell you what. You tell me what
it was you saw, and
I’ll
go to the police.”

If you’re such a coward
, her tone implied, and it
hurt, he had to admit it.

“Stay out of this,” he said softly.

He expected an argument. From the first she’d
seemed like the sort who would try to argue him into paying his bills before they were due. But to his sur
prise, she didn’t say another word. Instead, she sank
back into her seat and frowned out the window. Then she realized they’d been driving aimlessly for some
time.

“Where’s the closest emergency clinic around here?” she asked, straightening.

He shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

She looked about as the huge hotels of the Strip flashed by. “Then where are we going?”

“Home.” He tried a smile on her again, but didn’t
get a response. The wariness was even more obvious
in her now. “Where do you live?”

She hesitated, then gave him the address. “But you
should see a doctor.”

“I’ll take care of that on my own. Right now, I’m going to drive you home. I want to make sure those
goons don’t follow you.”

She shrugged, shaking her head of burnished curls.
“You’re the one who was beat up.”

“But you’re the one who stopped it. With a lie.
Those boys don’t take kindly to being suckered in with
a lie. Especially from a lady.” He shook his head in mock reproval. “You’ve got to remember, there are
certain rules in this town. You’ve violated a few im
portant ones. You should know better.”

He actually got a whisper of a smile from her. “Next time I’ll let them tear you apart,” she muttered.

“Good. That will make them happy.” He grinned, then modified it to reduce stress on his injured lip.

Kelly caught him at it and sighed. “I wish you’d get
that looked at.”

“I’m fine. I just want to make sure you get in okay.” He glanced at his own reflection in the rear-
view mirror and grimaced at the wound on his mouth. “Adds a dashing air, don’t you think?” he asked quite
seriously. “Like a pirate’s scar—“

Suddenly she was actually laughing. “You’re crazy.
Do you know that?”

He looked at her, slightly stunned by the wave of excitement that spun through him from the sound of
her laugh. “You’ve got to be crazy to live in this
town,” he murmured, wondering at her. He wanted to
touch the golden mass of her hair.

She didn’t notice. “Not on my side of town you don’t,” she said almost cheerfully. “Things are per
fectly normal here.”

“Vine-covered cottages, huh?”

“Split-level ranch style,” she corrected.

“Right.” He glanced at her. Her profile with its turned-up nose made him smile, for some crazy rea
son. “And I’ll bet you work as someone’s secretary in
a nice clean office building—“

“Wrong.” She met his gaze almost defiantly. “I
work at Sadie’s Nursery, and it’s nice, but not at all
clean.”

“But wholesome,” he grumbled, staring at traffic
to keep from staring at her. “Definitely wholesome.”

Chapter Two

He turned onto her street, a cul-de-sac, and he found the house eas
ily. It was split-level ranch style all right, a simple
stucco in a rather modest neighborhood. But the windows sparkled in the sun, and carefully planted petunias filled the border along the walk to the front door
with riotous color. Cody stared at it for a moment. Flashbacks of his childhood intruded, and for just a fraction of a second he thought he saw his mother’s
face behind one of the squeaky-clean windowpanes.