Luck Be A Lady (Destiny Bay Romances-The Ranchers Book 5) (21 page)

Slowly, silently, she straightened her clothing. He
wouldn’t look her in the face, and she began to feel
dead inside.

She didn’t say anything to him on the way down. Once they’d entered the banquet room again, she left
his side almost immediately. She chattered to everyone she met, throwing herself back into the gaiety of
the party, tossing dice and playing cards, having a
wonderful, if slightly hysterical time.

Cody stood aside watching her, drinking too much
and growing increasingly morose. It wasn’t right. It
wasn’t working. And now he thought he knew why.

He didn’t want her to be in this world. He wanted
to have her for himself, somewhere else, away from here, and he was angry, dog-in-the-manger style, that anyone else should have any part of her.

But it was more than that. Much more. Damn it to
hell. He was in love.

He pushed his glass away with a sense of disgust. Drinking didn’t help at all. There was only one way he knew to make himself feel better. Sighing, he turned
toward the poker table.

Kelly felt as though she were constantly trembling. She was smiling and laughing, but inside she felt sick.

It had all begun so beautifully. She’d felt so right here. People had responded to her, laughed at what
she said, paid attention, admired her. She’d felt like a
totally different person—a star.

But Cody had acted weird from the first. The scene
in his room had been like a knife in her heart. He’d rejected her, and she didn’t know why. She was run
ning on empty now, keeping up appearances, but hol
low inside. Her only goal was to stay sane until she
could get out.

A burst of gold lame and feathers, and Sugar was coming toward her. She couldn’t help but smile.
Something about Sugar was irresistibly appealing.

“Hello, darling!” Sugar gave her an extravagant
hug and laughed. “I can’t believe it. You’ve still got
him.”

“Who?” Kelly retorted, pretending not to know what she was talking about.

Sugar winked and lowered her voice dramatically. “You know who, you little devil. Good old Cody. He’s
never gone with one woman for this long before.”

Kelly shrugged, avoiding her direct and probing gaze. “It’s only been a couple of weeks.” And it may
be over, she added silently.

“A couple of weeks. You see? That’s just what I
mean. And practically daily, too. That’s something
our boy just doesn’t do.” Sugar shrugged, gesturing
grandly. “I think you should marry him.”

“Marry him?” Kelly almost shrieked out the words, she was so surprised. Quickly she covered her mouth
with her hand and muttered, “What on earth are you
talking about?”

Sugar suddenly became serious, moving in closer and talking low. “I really do. Marry him. Get him out
of here. You’re the first woman I’ve seen yet who
could do it.” She patted Kelly’s shoulder. “Marry him
and take him away from all this.” She grinned, but
then Jasper appeared beside them and her grin evap
orated like smoke on a windy day and she started to back away. “I’ll talk to you later, Kelly,” she said, waving as she retreated to another part of the room.

Kelly nodded, sure that Sugar’s quick departure had to do with Jasper’s arrival. She could understand that. She felt like leaving, too. Instead of greeting the man,
she turned toward the dice table. So did he. Feeling
trapped, she turned to face him.

“Hello,” she said shortly, appraising him. What a
slimy character he was.

“Hello, beautiful.” He smiled as though he knew
her secret, whatever that might be. “I’ve been watch
ing you.”

“Have you?”

He nodded. “I think you and I should get together.
I think we could make some beautiful music to
gether.” He said the stale lines with no sense of irony
at all.

Kelly wanted to slap his face. Instead, she stared at
him, hard. “I can’t say that I agree,” she said evenly.
“I don’t know anything about you.”

He laughed, leaning against the wall behind her so
that he was swaying offensively close to her. “What do
you want to know, darling?”

She looked around and found they had a small knot
of interested spectators. That gave her an idea. She turned back to Jasper. “Everyone’s been telling me
about how the casino runs. Just exactly what is it you
do here?”

His chest went out three more inches. It was the first
time she’d ever seen a man swagger while standing
still. “I’m head of security for the casino.” He said it
clearly, obviously proud.

“Oh, I see.” Kelly nodded wisely. “That’s why you
have the goon squad.”

The room grew very still. Jasper stared at her. His swagger seemed to fade. “The what?” he said.

“The goon squad.” She enunciated each word carefully. “You know. Those guys that you hire to
beat people up when you want to make a point.”

An excited buzz began to stir in the room. Jasper’s face was suddenly a bright shade of purple. “I don’t
know what you’re talking about,” he said through clenched teeth.

Kelly smiled brightly. “Don’t you? Well, maybe I
can help remind you—“

Suddenly Sugar was back at her side, pulling her
away. “Come on, honey,” she said with phony cheer.
“Let’s you and me go freshen up a little. In the la
dies’ room.” She gave her a shove in the right direction. “Where no men can enter, even the head of
security,” she added under her breath.

Kelly let her engineer the escape, but she was still
boiling. “That lousy bastard,” she fumed. “To think
he can just sashay his way into polite company as
though he weren’t a gangster—“

Sugar almost shook her. “You’ve got to watch it,
honey. He’s not a guy to cross.”

“Oh? Well somebody ought to cross him. How can
you people just sit back and let a man like that get
away with beating people up?”

Sugar started to say something, then shook her
head. “Hush now,” she warned urgently. “Someone will hear you. You just stop now. And you ask Cody
about Jasper. He’ll give you the lowdown. From now
on, stay away from him.”

Kelly decided Sugar might be right. What good was
it going to do to confront Jasper here? Everyone al
ready seemed to know what kind of man he was. She
left the ladies’ room and looked about for Cody.

She finally found him. He was sitting at a poker ta
ble, a thin, black cigarillo in his mouth and a beauti
ful woman on either side of him. His eyes met hers and
he looked away, saying something to one of the
women that made her laugh. Kelly had to bite her lip
to keep from crying out.

Cody had the deal. She watched as his long fingers
seemed to skim the cards, shuffling and cutting al
most by magic. She’d thought Nathan and Jasper were good, but Cody was beautiful to watch. His hands had a grace that reminded her of ballet. Dealing, he looked
like a wizard casting spells.

He won the pot. Reaching out, he raked in the
chips, then picked up a handful first for one of his companions, then the other, and as he bestowed the gifts, he gave each a hard kiss on the mouth.

Something rose inside her. She hated this place. She
had to get out of here. Looking up, she found Monty by her side. Despite Sadie’s hard feelings, she’d liked
and trusted him the most out of all the people she’d
met here at the casino.

“I’m not feeling well,” she told him. “I really think
I’d better get home.” She shivered uncontrollably.

He looked genuinely concerned. “Would you like
me to get Cody for you?”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “Don’t bother him. He’s very busy.”

He followed the line of her glance and frowned. “I’ll unbusy him in two seconds,” he said firmly.

“No, please don’t.” She put a restraining hand on his arm. “I’d rather... if you could call me a cab.”

“Nonsense. I’ll take you home myself.”

She hadn’t meant him to do any such thing, but when she thought about it, his taking her home
seemed for the best. It wasn’t until they were in his huge Cadillac and driving down the Strip that Kelly
remembered she wasn’t immediately going home. She
was going to Sadie’s, where she’d left Tammy and her
own car.

She gave Monty the directions. “You know that I
work for Sadie,” she added when he looked at her in
surprise.

“Yes.” He nodded his handsome head of silver hair.
“I remember you there at the nursery.”

Kelly stared at him, inspiration flooding her de
spite the misery she was fighting off. She hesitated,
wondering if she had any right to interfere. But if she
didn’t plunge in, who would? Taking a deep breath, she did a swan dive. “Sadie told me about what happened when you two knew each other.”

Monty didn’t look at her, but he frowned. “She told
you about that?”

“Yes. And I really think you should talk to her.”

His laugh was short and bitter. “I don’t know. She
doesn’t seem to want to talk to me.”

Kelly turned in her seat, getting warm to her sub
ject. “She’s still a bit upset about... well, the incident with the letter.”

They’d stopped at a light. He turned and looked at
her blankly. “I don’t know about any letter. All I
know is, she ran away all those years ago, and now she
won’t talk to me.”

“She didn’t run very far.”

He shrugged. The light turned green and he re
leased the brake. “I didn’t know that. All her friends
told me she’d gone back to Michigan where she came
from, and when I tried to trace her there, I ran into a
dead end.”

Kelly stared at him, marveling. “But you did care
enough to try,” she said softly.

“Of course I did. From the moment I laid eyes on Sadie, there was never another woman for me. She knew that. I was pretty shy in those days, but I was sure we had an understanding. I sure hung around enough. Any fool could have seen how I felt about
her.”

This was better than she could have hoped for. He
still carried a torch after all these years. “What
about—“ Kelly couldn’t remember the name for a
moment “—Delilah?”

“Delilah?”

“Yes. Delilah.”

Monty glanced at her. “I don’t know. Never heard
of her.”

Perhaps he’d just forgotten. It had been a lot of
years. Maybe a memory-jogger would do the trick. “Delilah was the woman who opened up your hotel
room door wearing a dressing gown in the middle of
the afternoon.”

He frowned, then the light broke in his face. “Oh,
wait a minute! There was a Delilah. I remember now. She was our lead dancer, but she wanted to break into the show at the Carnival Plaza. My friend Sam ran the
place in those days. She was always following us
around, trying to audition for Sam. One afternoon she burst in when Sam and I were having a private lunch
in my room. She had on a dressing gown, but she soon
threw that off, and underneath was one of the tiniest bikinis I’d ever seen. She insisted upon flouncing around in it, dancing on the beds and all, trying to
show Sam how good she’d be in his show. We finally
had to throw her out, so we could finish our French
dip sandwiches. She was pretty mad. I think she quit
soon after that.”

Kelly’s head was spinning. It was all too easy. “You
weren’t having an affair with her?”

Monty looked aghast. “Never.”

“And you never got a letter from Sadie that day that
Delilah came around to dance for you and Sam?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about a letter.”

Kelly felt deflated. Delilah had certainly lived up to
her name. She must have taken Sadie’s letter out of
spite. What a tragedy. So many wasted years.

But that was all water under the bridge. The point
now was to get these two would-be lovebirds back to
gether.

“Here for all these years I thought she’d gone back
to Michigan,” Monty was saying, rambling on. “And then one day, about a year ago, I saw her in the supermarket. All these years living in the same town, and it
wasn’t until I went shopping for beer and corn chips that I saw her again. I found out where she lived and
tried to see her, but she wouldn’t have any of it.” He pulled into Sadie’s driveway, switched off the engine and turned in his seat to look at Kelly. “Then I got the
idea about the orchids. I thought I’d try to grow
something like that and have her make house calls. I
thought she’d have to be over practically every day to
take care of the things. But she’s not falling for it, is she?” He shook his head. “Damn silly flowers,” he
muttered. “Now I don’t know what to do.”

Kelly grinned. “I know what to do. You just follow
me.” She bounced out of the car and went over to his
door to make sure he came with her. The two of them
trudged up to the front door.