The Winning Hand (4 page)

Behind a glossy black wet bar she found a small refrigerator, then giggled like a girl when she saw it contained two bottles of champagne. With the music blaring, she waltzed into the bath off the living area and grinned at the bidet, the phone, the wall-mounted TV and all the pretty toiletries arranged in a china basket.

Humming to herself, she climbed the curving chrome steps back to the bedroom. The master bath was a symphony of pure sensory indulgence from the lake-sized motorized tub in sensuous black to the acre of counter under a wall-sized lighted mirror. The room was bigger than her entire apartment back home.

Tuck in a bed, she thought, and she could live happily right here. Lush green plants lined the tiled shelf beside the tub. A separate rippled glass shower stall offered crisscrossing sprays. Lovely clear jars
were arranged on glass shelves and held bath salts, oils, creams with scents so lush she moaned in pleasure at every sniff.

The adjoining dressing room boasted a walk-in closet that contained a robe and a pair of brushed cotton slippers with The Comanche logo, a triple-glass, full-length mirror, two elegant chairs and a table where fragrant flowers spilled out of a crystal vase.

It was the kind of indulgence she’d only read about or seen in movies. Plush, sleek, shimmering with wealth. Now that her initial rush of adrenaline was leveling, she began to wonder if there hadn’t been some mistake.

How could this have happened? The time and circumstances after she’d begun her long hike into town were all blurry around the edges in her mind now. Snatches of it came clear, the whirling lights on the machine, her own thumping heart, Mac Blade’s impossibly handsome face.

“Don’t question it,” she whispered. “Don’t ruin it. Even if it all goes away in an hour, you have it now.”

Biting her lip, she picked up the phone and punched in the button for room service.

“Room service. Good morning, Ms. Wallace.”

“Oh.” She blinked, looking guiltily over her shoulder as if someone had sneaked up behind her. “I was wondering if I could order some coffee.”

“Of course. And breakfast?”

“Well.” She didn’t want to take advantage. “Perhaps a muffin.”

“Will that be all?”

“Yes, that would be fine.”

“We’ll have that up to you within fifteen minutes. Thank you, Ms. Wallace.”

“You’re welcome, um, thank you.”

After she hung up, Darcy hurried into the bedroom to turn off the stereo, switch the TV on and check the news to see if there were any reports of mass hallucinations.

*   *   *

In his office above the carnival world of the casino, Mac flicked his gaze over the security screens where people played the slots, bet on red or waited for their dealer to bust. There were more than a few diehards who’d started the night before and were still going at it. Slinky evening dresses sat hip to hip with jeans.

Ten o’clock at night, ten in the morning, it made no difference. There was no real time in Vegas, no dress code, and for some, no reality beyond the next spin of the wheel. Mac ignored the whine of an incoming fax, sipped his coffee and paced the room as he spoke to his father on the phone.

He imagined his father was doing virtually the same thing in the office in Reno.

“I’m going to talk to her in a few minutes,” Mac continued. “I wanted to let her smooth out a little.”

“Tell me about her,” Justin requested, knowing his son’s instincts for people would give him a clear picture.

“I don’t know a lot yet. She’s young.” He kept moving as he talked, watching the screens, checking on the placement of his security people, the attitude of the dealers. “Skittish,” he added. “Looked like a woman on the move to me. Trouble somewhere. She’s out of her element here.”

He cast his mind back, bringing the image of Darcy into focus, letting himself hear her voice again. “Small-town, Midwest, I’d say. Makes me think of a kindergarten teacher—the kind the kids would love and take merciless advantage of. She was broke and running on fumes when she hit.”

“Sounds like it was her lucky day. If someone’s going to hit, it might as well be a broke, small-town kindergarten teacher.”

Mac grinned. “She apologizes all over herself. Nervous as a mouse at a feline convention. She’s cute,” he said finally, thinking of those big, dark gold eyes. “And I’d have to guess naive. The wolves
are going to tear off pieces of her in short order if she doesn’t have some protection.”

There was a short pause. “You planning on standing between her and the wolves, Mac?”

“Just steering her in the right direction,” Mac muttered, rolling his shoulders. His reputation in the family for siding with the underdog was inescapable. “The press is already hammering at the door. The kid needs a lawyer, and some straight talk, because the vultures circle right after the wolves.”

He imagined the barrage of requests and demands that would come, begging for contributions, offering investments. A smattering of them would be genuine, and the rest would be playing one of the oldest games: Get the money and run.

“Keep me up to date.”

“I will. How’s Mom?”

“She’s good. Hosting some big charity fashion show here today. And she’s making noises about dropping in on you before we head back East. A quick visit,” Justin added. “She misses the baby.”

“Uh-huh.” Mac had to grin. He knew very well his father would crawl over broken glass for a chance to visit his grandchild in Boston. “So how is little Anna?”

“Great. Just great. She’s teething. Gwen and Bran aren’t getting a lot of sleep right now.”

“The price you pay for parenthood.”

“I had plenty of all-nighters with you, pal.”

“Like I said …” Mac’s grin widened. “You pay your money, you make your choice.” He glanced up at the quiet knock on his door. “That must be the nervous fairy now.”

“Who?”

“Our newest millionaire. Come in,” he called out, then curled a finger when Darcy hesitated on the threshold. “I’ll keep you posted. Tell Mom I said hi.”

“I’ve got a feeling you can tell her face-to-face in a few days.”

“Good. Talk to you later.”

The minute he hung up, Darcy launched into an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were on
the phone. Your assistant, secretary, whatever, came to bring me up, and she said I should just come in. But I can come back. If you’re busy … I can come back.”

Patient, Mac waited until she’d run down. It gave him the opportunity to see what a meal and a good night’s sleep had done for her. She looked a little less fragile, incredibly … tidy, he decided, in the simple blouse and slacks he’d had the boutique send to her suite. And no less nervous than the evening before.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

“All right.” She linked her fingers together, twisted them, then stepped to a high-backed deep-cushioned chair in hunter green leather. “I was wondering—thinking … has there been a mistake?”

The chair dwarfed her, and made him think of fairies again, perched on colorful toadstools. “Hmm? About what?”

“About me, the money. I realized this morning, when I could think a bit more clearly, that things like this just don’t happen.”

“They do here.” Hoping to put her at ease, he leaned a hip on the corner of his desk. “You are twenty-one, aren’t you?”

“Twenty-three. I’ll be twenty-four in September. Oh, I forgot to thank you for the clothes.” She ordered herself not to think about the underwear, not to so much as consider that
he
was thinking of it. But color rose into her cheeks. “It was very kind of you.”

“Everything fit all right?”

“Yes.” Her color deepened. The bra was a lovely champagne color with edgings of lace, and was precisely her size. She didn’t want to speculate how he could have been quite so accurate. “Perfectly.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“Like someone put me under a spell.” She smiled a little now. “I suppose I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I’m not used to traveling.”

There was a dusting of freckles over her pert little nose, he noted, a paler gold than her
extraordinary eyes. She smelled lightly of vanilla. “Where are you from?”

“A little town, Trader’s Corners, in Kansas.”

Midwest, Mac thought. Hit number one.

“What do you do in Trader’s Corners, Kansas?”

“I’m—I was a librarian.”

Close enough for hit number two, he decided. “Really? Why’d you leave?”

“I ran away.” She blurted it out before thinking. He had such a beautiful smile, and he’d been looking at her as if he were really interested. Somehow he had lulled her into the admission.

He pushed away from the desk, then sat on the arm of the chair beside hers so that their faces were closer, their eyes more level. He spoke gently, as he might to a cornered puppy. “What kind of trouble are you in, Darcy?”

“I’m not … I would have been if I’d stayed, but …” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, I didn’t do anything. I mean I’m not running away from the police.”

Because she was so obviously distressed, he smothered the laugh and didn’t tell her he couldn’t imagine her getting so much as a parking ticket. “I didn’t think that, but people generally have a reason for running away from home. Does your family know where you are?”

“I don’t have any family. I lost my parents about a year ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was an accident. A house fire. At night.” She lifted her hands, dropped them into her lap again. “They didn’t wake up.”

“That’s a lot to deal with.”

“There was nothing anyone could do. They were gone, the house was gone. Everything. I wasn’t home. I’d just moved into my own apartment a few weeks before. Just a few weeks. I …” She pushed absently at her fringe of bangs. “Well.”

“So you decided to get away?”

She started to agree, to make it simple. But it wasn’t the truth, and she was such a poor and guilty liar. “No. Not exactly. I suppose that’s part of it. I lost my job a few weeks ago.” It still stung, the humiliation of it. “I was going to lose my apartment. Money was a problem. My parents didn’t have much insurance, and the house had a mortgage. And the bills.” She moved her shoulders. “In any case, without a paycheck, I wasn’t going to be able to pay the rent. I didn’t have that much saved myself, after college. And sometimes I … I’m not very good with budgets, I suppose.”

“Money’s not going to be a problem now,” he reminded her, wanting to make her smile again.

“I don’t see how you can just give me almost two million dollars.”

“You
won
almost two million dollars. Look.” He took her hand, nudging her around until she could see the screens. “People step up to the tables, every hour, every day. Some win, some lose. Some of them play for entertainment, for fun. Others play hoping to make the big score. Just once. Some play the odds, some play a hunch.”

She watched, fascinated. Everything moved in silence. Cards were dealt, chips were stacked, raked in or slipped away. “What do you do?”

“Oh, I play the odds. And the occasional hunch.”

“It looks like theater,” she murmured.

“That’s what it is. With no intermission. Do you have a lawyer?”

“A lawyer?” The amused interest that had come into her eyes vanished. “Do I need a lawyer?”

“I’d recommend it. You’re about to come into a large amount of money. The government’s going to want their share. And after that, you’re going to discover you have friends you’ve never heard of, and people who want to offer you a terrific opportunity to invest. The minute your story hits the press, they’ll crawl out of the woodwork.”

“Press? Newspapers, television? No, I can’t have that. I can’t have that,” she repeated, springing up. “I’m not going to talk to reporters.”

He bit back a sigh. Yes indeed, he thought, this one would need a hand to hold on the walk through
the forest. “Young, orphaned, financially strapped librarian from Kansas walks into Comanche Vegas and drops her last dollar—”

“It wasn’t my last,” she insisted.

“Close enough. Her last dollar in the slot and wins a million-eight. Darling, the press is going to do handsprings with a lead like that.”

He was right, of course. She could see it herself. It was a wonderful story, just the kind she wanted to write herself. “I don’t want it to get out. They have televisions and newspapers in Trader’s Corners.”

“Hometown girl makes good,” he agreed, watching her. Suddenly he realized something else was putting panic into her eyes. “They’ll probably name a street after you,” he said casually.

“I don’t want this to get back there. I didn’t tell you everything.” Because she had no choice but to hope he could help, she sat again. “I didn’t tell you the main reason I left the way I did. There’s a man. Gerald Peterson. His family’s very prominent in Kansas. They own quite a bit of land and many businesses. Gerald, for some reason, he wanted me to marry him. He insisted.”

“Women are still free to say ‘no, thank you’ in Kansas, aren’t they?”

“Yes, of course.” It seemed so simple when he said it, she mused. He would think she was an idiot. “But Gerald’s very determined. He always finds a way to get what he wants.”

“And he wants you,” Mac prompted.

“Well, yes. At least he seems to think he does. My parents were very pleased that he was interested in me. I mean, who would think I’d catch the eye of a man like him?”

“Are you joking?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Never mind.” He waved it away. “So Gerald wanted to marry you, and I take it you didn’t want to marry him. What then?”

“A few months ago, I said I would. It seemed like the only reasonable thing to do. And he just assumed I would, anyway.” Ashamed, she stared down at her linked fingers. “Gerald assumes very
firmly. He doesn’t hear the word no. It’s like a genetic thing.” She sighed. “Agreeing to marry him was weak, and stupid, and I regretted it immediately. I knew I couldn’t go through with it, but he wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell him. There was the whole ring thing, too,” she added with a frown.

Fascinated and entertained, Mac cocked his head. “Ring thing.”

“Well, it was silly, really. I didn’t want a diamond engagement ring. I wanted something different, just … different. But he didn’t hear that, either. I got a two-carat diamond, which was properly appraised and insured. He explained all about the investment value.” She shut her eyes. “I didn’t want to hear about the investment value.”