Seducing Zeb (Tarnished Saints Series) (5 page)

“Hey there, you lucky cowboy, how about coming on over to my blackjack table for a spell?” she said.

Zeb looked up, not able to believe his eyes or ears. There was Cat – his damned wife smiling and flirting and turning on the sex appeal and trying to charm James into falling under her spell.

“Forget it, Cat, James in on to your game,” said Zeb. “He’s not going anywhere near your table.”

“Let me help you carry all those heavy chips,” she said, bending over the table to scoop them up, giving everyone a good look down her bodice at those remarkable boobs and also up her skirt at those incredible, sexy, long legs. Zeb was getting hard just looking at her.

“Cat, what the hell are you doing?” Zeb grumbled, putting his hand on her arm.

She looked down at his hand and then slowly up to his eyes. If looks could kill, he’d be dead.

“I’m doing my job. Now get your hands off of me or I’ll call security.”

“Ebony, is this man bothering you?” asked the poker dealer, and Zeb could see his hand moving toward the hidden button under the table, getting ready to signal for help.

“I’m not bothering her,” snapped Zeb. “She’s my wife.” He held up his hand and showed the man the ring.

“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” Cat lied, putting the chips in a basket, not making eye contact with him. That’s when Zeb realized she was no longer wearing the wedding ring.

“Come on, James, let’s go have a beer before my plane leaves. I’ve
still got a few hours.” Zeb tried to coerce his brother, though he knew James was obviously still sore at him.

“No, Zeb, you go ah
ead. I’m going to go play blackjack instead.” James headed over to the blackjack table with Cat leading the way, carrying half his chips. Half Zeb’s money, that is.

Zeb watched her sway her hips and turn on the charm and realized the woman was very good at getting whatever she wanted from men by just using her looks.

“Zeb, what’s all the commotion?” Cappy walked up next to Zeb with a little bucket filled with tokens for the quarter slot machine.

“Oh, it’s nothing,
Aunt Cappy. I just gave James ten grand and he won at least another ten, and now he’s about to lose it all because of my conniving new wife.”

“Are you talking about Cat?” she asked. “Because you don’t sound as if you like her much. She’s a nice girl. I don’t know why you two don’t get along. You should try harder, Zeb, after all she is your wife.”

“Not for long, she’s isn’t. Besides, in a few hours I’ll be on a plane back to Michigan and will never have to look at her again.”

“What do you mean? You’re not taking her with you?”

“Why should I?” asked Zeb. “The annulment can all be done quickly and we probably won’t even have to go to court. It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks tops. Then I’ll be a free bachelor again and believe me, I’m looking forward to it.”

“You’re leaving Vegas in a few hours?” asked Cappy. “So am I. I decided to come back to
Sweet Water to be near all my nephews.”

“That’s nice,” said Zeb, not really listening to his aunt. He made his way towa
rd the blackjack table with Cappy right behind him.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To play blackjack,” he answered with a smile. There was no way in hell he was going to let James lose all his money to a woman who was obviously about to hustle him. And the only way to stop this from happening was to catch the little feline in the act.

Chapter 4

It didn’t take long before Cat was able to start winning back the money from James by dealing him bad hands. Everyone was crowded around watching, and the only two players playing against the house were James and Zeb. She wished to hell Zeb hadn’t come to her table because it only made her twice as nervous.

He was a lawyer and used to dealing with people who were lying and cheati
ng. He probably topped the list of shady dealings with the things he’d done. But he was observant. More observant than most people, and though she was good with the slight of hand, she wasn’t sure how easy it was going to be to fool him.

She took it slow at first, letting each of them win a few rounds to make them feel as i
f they had a chance. But with Denny screaming obscenities in her ear every two seconds telling her to hurry it up, it became very distracting. So she pretended to be fixing her hair and she pulled out the hidden earpiece and quickly dropped it down her cleavage. Thank goodness it was a remote device and she had no wires or boxes attached, or it would be harder to hide.

“What did you just drop do
wn your dress?” asked Zeb, and she tried to keep any emotion off her face. She blinked and pursed her lips a little.

“Please sir, I know you’ve been starin
g at my cleavage all evening, but try to keep your mind on the game.”

“Zeb, stop staring at her cleavage,” said James. “You’re disgusting.”

“No, I swear I saw her drop something down her dress,” he protested.

Zeb watched Cat shuffle the cards quickly, knowing she was cheating somehow, because the house was winning way too often. He was sure she was going to win back all James’s jackpot somehow or another, though his fool brother couldn’t see it coming.

Two
cards were dealt to each of them with only one of Cat’s cards face up – a ten. Zeb looked at his hand, having a sixteen and knew it was going to virtually be impossible to beat the house.

“I surrender,”
he said, giving up half his bet rather than going bust with another card.

“I want to double-down,” said James, and Zeb wasn’t even looking at his brother’s cards because he
noticed something about Cat. There were times during the game where she blinked a lot. Twice as much as she normally did in her usual flirting.

Cat won another round and Zeb purposely surrendered the next three rounds in order to have more time to study Cat’s actions.

Then James won two rounds in a row.

“Yes,” he heard his brother say. “I finally started winning.”

“Interesting,” said Zeb, since he’d noticed Cat blinking a lot each time she gave James the winning card.

“James, I thought you were more of an adventurous type of man,” said Cat with a smile.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Do something crazy like your wild, stripper of a brothe
r would do,” she suggested. “Bid everything you’ve got on this next hand.”

“Hold on,” said Zeb. “James, don’t do it. She’s obviously cheating.”

“What do you mean?” asked James. “I won the last two hands.”

“That’s right,” said Cat. “And three times is a charm. So make a big bet and win big this time, James. I feel like you’re getting lucky.”

“Don’t do it, James, or you’re a fool,” Zeb warned him aloud. “She’s not going to let you win. Let’s just go get a beer now and forget about all this.”

“Are you going
to let him tell you what to do?” Cat asked James. “Aren’t you man enough to make your own decisions, cowboy?”

“For God’s sake,
Cat, stop it,” Zeb told her. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, or why, but it’s got to stop right now.”

Zeb got up angrily from the table, watching
the devious little chit as she collected the cards from the last round. He thought it was odd that she played with a single deck instead of using the continuous card shuffling machine used by the bigger casinos. Then he noticed her hand covering the Ace of hearts that won his brother the last round and her eyes started blinking a lot at the same time. Now, from the angle he was standing, he caught a glimpse of her pinky-finger in the center of the deck, right where she put the ace, and then she pretended to shuffle, and he swore she did some kind of hand maneuver with the deck, though he couldn’t prove it.

“I’ll bid it all this time,” he heard his fool brother say, pushing the entire pile of chips forward. Cat smiled and dealt him two cards as well as two to
herself.

He walked closer to see that James had a seven and a five and she had a queen turned upward and one card that
was still hidden.

“Hit me,” said James
, and Zeb felt like hitting his brother at this moment to knock some sense into him. Cat dealt James a card and it was an eight.

“I’ll stay,” James
said with a satisfied smile on his face, having a total of twenty. So now the only combination that Cat could win with was a blackjack, which meant if she didn’t take a hit, she probably had an ace as her hidden card.

She didn’t
take a hit as Zeb expected, and he quickly moved in closer as she reached to turn over her face-down card.

He slammed
his hand down atop hers in order to keep her from flipping it over.

Her head snapped around and she glared at him. “Let go,” she warned him.

“Zeb, what are you doing?” asked James.

“I saw her cheat,” he said
.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she told
him, sounding a bit panicked if he wasn’t mistaken.

“I know exactly what I’m doing. And so do you. I’m busting you for cheating.”

“What’s going on here?” came a voice from behind him, and he let go of Cat’s hand and turned to see a dark-haired man a little shorter than himself walk up with two bouncers.

“This woman is cheating,” Zeb told them. “And who would you be?”

“I’m Denny Gianopoulos, the owner of this casino, and I assure you that my blackjack dealer is not cheating.”

“Really. Then have
her turn over that last card. I assure you it’s an ace of hearts.”

Cat and De
nny just stared at each other, and the crowd waited in anticipation.

“Go ahead,” De
nny told her. “Turn over the card.”

“De
nny?” She seemed hesitant and didn’t want to do it.

“Do it!” he shouted, and she turned it over. And just like Zeb knew it would be – it was the Ace of hearts.

“House wins,” she said with an unemotional face, staring at Denny the entire time.

Zeb looked over to his brother and saw the despair cross his face, and also the realization t
hat he now believed him that Cat was hustling him all along.

“How could you do that to my brother?” Zeb growled.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said innocently, batting her eyelashes, using those big, full lips in a seductive pout.

“You cheated,” he spat.

“Just because she pulled an ace, doesn’t mean anything other than she was lucky,” said Denny. “Now clean up the cards, Ebony.”

Cat reached out quickly for the cards
, but Zeb trapped her hand under his and stopped her again.

“What are you doing, Zeb?” she asked.

“Proving that you’re a cheater,” he said. “I watched you, and every time you were cheating, you blinked your eyes like crazy. And I saw you scoop up that ace and put it exactly where you wanted it in the deck, using the classic pass slight-of-hand.”

“I saw it too,” came a voice from the crowd that sounded a lot like Aunt Cappy’s. Then another man called out that he saw it and before Zeb knew it, t
he crowd started talking and getting restless and he saw a shadow darken Denny’s face.

“Do you believe me now that my wife here, is nothing but a cheater?” asked Zeb.

“What do you mean she’s your wife?” Denny spat.

“Di
dn’t she tell you? We were married last night.”

“Cat, is this true?” asked De
nny, now dropping the act and calling her by her real name.

“It is,” she admitted raising her chin.

There was dead silence for a moment, and then Denny looked out to the crowd. “I apologize for all this as I had no idea my blackjack dealer was cheating, but now I see that you all weren’t the only ones being cheated on.”

“Denny, what are you saying?” asked Cat.

“I’m saying you went behind my back and got married. How could you, after all I’ve done for you? We were supposed to be married, and you know it.” Then he looked out to the crowd. “I assure you I’ll take measures to deal with this situation. And she no longer works here, because she’s fired!”

The crowd went wild and commotion started, and Zeb heard people asking for their money to be returned. He looked over to his brother who was not watching any of them. He scooped up his chips and was dumping them into the basket his aunt held out in front
of him.

De
nny took off through the crowd and the bouncers tried to control the upset people.

“De
nny, wait!” Cat took a step forward to go after him, but Zeb stopped her.

“Give it up, sweetheart. Your number is over.”

She reached out and slapped him hard across the face, and he heard his aunt gasp in surprise from behind him.

“How could you
do this to me?” Cat asked him with a tremble to her voice.