Set Up (20 page)

“You should be.” His countenance lightened as he sighed. “Oh, what the hell. I thought you were a hard woman, Scarlet, but you're putty in the right pair of hands. I'm beginning to believe you can be talked into anything.” His voice turned meditative. A questing forefinger touched her forearm, skimmed to her shoulder. “What kind of man can turn you all soft and yielding?”

Her heart jumped before she could draw away. “Someone a lot nicer than you. Someone kind and considerate and caring.”

“Not selfish and manipulative like Noelle?”

Her neck grew hot. “It isn’t that she’s selfish. She just doesn’t think. It’s a disability. Noelle tries, really she does.”

“Sure she does.”

When their fortune cookies were set down, she broke one in half.

Across the table, he watched. “What does it say?”

“‘You will take a long journey and find your heart's desire at the end.’ Pretty standard. What about yours?”

He broke it open, glanced at the strip of paper and tore it in half. “Beware of redheaded women.”

She flushed.

Then, as lately he seemed prone to do, he did an about-face that threw her off balance. “Let's not talk about them anymore. Your sister, my diamonds, Sonny. We're stuck here till tomorrow in Sin City, a perfect place to kill a few hours. Let's forget everything but having fun.”

True to his word, he kept to innocuous topics as they meandered into the huge casino. He pointed out a well-known TV star at one table, in full stage makeup. That brought up the review the actor was starring in and led to the pop singer headlining for another hotel. “Too bad we don't have time to see her.”

With all the sights around them, his words barely penetrated. People streamed toward tables set with dice or cards, or roulette wheels. Other gamblers fed machines quarters, half dollars, and dollars. Circulating waitresses dispensed drinks.

Though most were enthusiastic, many players seemed grim, like they were unwillingly caught up in the game.

And the noise. Besides the chatter, the mélange of screams and falling coins when someone won at the slots made it difficult to hear.

A redheaded blackjack dealer caught Cal's eye, and Amanda couldn't resist a barbed comment as he steered her in that direction. “Remember what your fortune said.”

“My what?”

“Your fortune. Beware of redheaded women.”

“Oh.” Blankness gave way to amusement. “You don't believe those things, do you? Besides, that's not what mine said.”

“Oh? What did it say?”

He chuckled. “Go on.” When he nudged her toward the redhead’s table, his hand rested on her back so that they could have been a normal couple.

Amanda, staggered at the amount of the wagers, stood around for a while as he played.

What she could do with some of that money.

During a small flurry of excitement after Cal turned up three blackjacks in a row, she took advantage of his diversion to slip away and find the boutique which had sent up their clothes.

The saleswoman’s cordiality turned cool when Amanda explained what she wanted. “If the garments were put on the room account, I can't do a thing. I’m sorry.”

Amanda smiled brightly. “Either they get transferred to my credit card, or I'll return them all. And I’ll start right here, right now. Dress, sandals, petticoat, panties, everything.”

She had to pull her dress over her head before the woman caved. Then papers were filled out, accounts were switched, and the clothes were charged to Amanda.

At least she had one thing off her conscience, even if her next Visa bill would be out of sight.

Back inside the casino, she stopped at the quarter poker machines and watched the action. Maybe she wasn’t much of a gambler, but poker was a familiar game. After she got ten dollars’ worth of quarters and sat down, two or three tries practically made her a pro. A pair of jacks or better would get her quarter back, and breaking even was as thrilling as winning.

Her roll of coins would last a long time at this rate.

* * * *

The winnings from hitting blackjack three times were lost before Cal remembered Amanda.

Gone, dammit. Where was she?

He abandoned the blackjack table.

While he’d been so distracted with his big win, she’d run away. Damn, when would he learn? She could be halfway to the airport…

No, Amanda was too intelligent to run. She wouldn’t take the risk of her sister going to jail.

Still, the knot in his gut didn’t unravel till he found her perched on a stool at the machines.

Excitement animated her, drawing in a man sitting beside her. He spoke to her. With a smile, she shook her head. He argued, pointing toward the slots. A gurgle accompanied another negative head shake, making the man linger. When she got four of a kind and squealed, he said something else that made her laugh.

Why the hell is she letting a stranger flirt with her?

Cal started through the crowd as her admirer headed off toward more productive machines, but by that time, an irrational emotion had taken hold of Callaway.

He wasn’t jealous. Hell no.

But Amanda Jane possessed something special, that was for sure. No vamp tonight, no stiff-necked dressmaker, no worried older sister. She was an alluring woman, sending out vibes that made everyone around her feel good.

Making strangers want to pick her up.

He went over to the vacated stool. “Having any luck?”

She didn't hide her pleasure. “I am. I started with ten dollars in quarters and now look.”

He wanted to flirt with her, make her laugh, but he had to remember she was a liar and a thief, for whatever reasons. “Oh, you must have twelve or thirteen bucks in there,” he drawled, looking into her plastic container. “Wow.”

“At least I won. How'd you do?”

“Ouch. Won some. Lost more. Ready to go up?”

“When I'm winning? Why should I have to leave if your luck's soured?”

“We've got to catch an early plane.”

Her glow faded. Without further protest, she scooped up her plastic cup and followed him out.

Damn it, he was no bully who enjoyed ending her fun, but she didn't deserve pity or any other concession. Not after playing him for a sucker and turning Claire's life upside down.

They were the only occupants of the elevator taking them to the eighth floor. The rattle of her container of quarters beat time to the piped-in music.

He raised a brow. “You're easily entertained.”

“I don't get to play electronic poker very much.”

“You don't have a computer?”

“Sure, but that's for business.” She might have been an indulgent parent speaking to an immature child. “I don't have time for games. It's too hard running the shop. And now...”

Her features clouded.

He guessed she was worrying about how her absence would affect business. “Claire has friends. She'll help you if you lose too many customers.”

“That's kind of you, but she may not want to.” Constraint lay behind the polite words.

Because she was afraid of him. Why wouldn't she be, with his threats of jail and the way he'd manhandled her?

“Claire isn't vindictive. She'll help.”

Her business meant a lot to her. She probably worked long hours if it was as successful as Johanna had implied. Her days were productive while his were empty.

So what? He'd learned to live with being useless. No reason to regret what he couldn't change.

Robert frequently needled him, and so had his mother when she was alive, about his carelessness and incompetence.

Amanda hadn't uttered one critical word, yet her silence turned him more defensive than any of their reproofs.

Work hard and reap the rewards
.

That’s what his fortune tonight had said, much the same advice Claire had always given. Maybe she was right. Maybe he ought to talk to Robert about doing something meaningful for a change.

Except Robert, arrogant ass, was already paranoid about plots to oust him as head of the company. Cal would have to find something else to give him purpose. A new hobby, maybe.

They came into the room and there stood the lone bed.

When she looked at it and quickly away, he read her mind. “We can make it if we're careful, sugar. But if during the night you grab something hard, don't blame me for what happens.”

She rolled her eyes before laying claim to the bathroom. While the shower ran, he imagined her in a sexy see-through gown but wasn’t surprised when she finally emerged in prim pajamas chosen from the boutique's offerings.

When she went to bed without comment, he felt sorry for her and angry with himself for feeling sorry for her. And because of that, he goaded her. If she snapped at him, he might forget his pity. “Why don't you sleep in your skin like last night? All soft and sweet and bare.”

“Stop badgering me. If you'd been peeking last night, you'd know I was too petrified to take off my underwear.”

He smothered a laugh as he entered the bathroom. She did have backbone, Amanda Jane.

When he came out, the room was dark. He left the light burning behind the closed bathroom door, so that its faint illumination joined that of neons creeping in from behind the shades. In bed, two of the three pillows stretched lengthwise down the middle. Under Amanda’s head rested a sofa cushion.

He grinned. Despite her bravura, she was anxious. Despite his resolve, compassion welled. “What's the matter? Think you might feel the urge to reach out and touch someone?”

“Nope. Making sure you don't misunderstand the situation. Good night.”

“Good night, sugar.”

She lay on the other side of the pillows, smelling of soap and making every nerve in him aware of her tiniest movement. He stretched out and tried not to remember how she’d felt on top of him, how her curves fit against him.

He usually had no trouble dropping off to sleep, but he did this night.

* * * *

Amanda always fell asleep the moment she closed her eyes, but Callaway was on the other side of her flimsy barrier. He made no effort to bridge it, despite his tall form taking up all his half of the bed. She breathed in his male scent that cigarette smoke and faded cologne couldn't hide, and tried to calm her racing heart.

Think of something else.

It was eleven out here. That means it would be two in the morning at home. Tired as she was, she ought to be sound asleep.

When he turned onto his side, she felt the mattress quiver. His breathing became even.

He
wasn't having any trouble getting to sleep.

He didn't care that he had disrupted her life, dragged her off to the other end of the country, put her in a strange bed where she couldn't get to sleep because he lay on the other side.

Ah, Noelle, what did you get me to do?

Nothing she hadn't agreed to do of her own free will. Noelle was her sister and all the family she had left. Despite everything, she loved Noelle.

But Callaway had a sister, too. Although he’d confided nothing, the missing diary must have something to do with Claire. He might be as worried about Claire as she was about Noelle.

There seemed to be no easy way out.

What could his fortune cookie have said?

* * * *

As Amanda had learned the first time she met him, Callaway could be charming. On the flight back to Atlanta, he exhibited his best behavior. Absent was the previous animosity. Instead, he showed a careless consideration that both perplexed and gratified her. By the time the plane touched down in Atlanta, she was almost at charity with him.

Maybe, somehow, things would work out. At least he knew the reason for what she'd done and that she regretted it.

She'd helped him every way she could. He no longer seemed angry so maybe he’d stop talking about sending her and Noelle to jail.

As they came off the unloading ramp, she gripped her shopping bag with her dirty clothes and took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, Callaway, I really am. I should never have done it.”

He was preoccupied. “Hmm.”

He took off for the train. She hurried to keep up with him. “And I appreciate you not telling Edward about what we did. If there's any chance for them to reconcile, learning about Noelle's part in this would have killed it.”

“No use dragging him into it.”

They boarded the train going to the main terminal and clung to a pole facing each other. “It's an imposition, but do you think you could have someone drive my minivan back to Atlanta from Fair Meadows?” Not yet four o’clock. If she hurried, she could get to the shop in time to close up. Her employees needed to be reassured that they hadn't been deserted.

Sleepy eyes were inscrutable. “Sure, if you want me to.”

“Thank you.”

Unhindered by luggage, they swept through the lobby to find outside skies overcast and drizzling. Callaway looked around.