Lucky the Hard Way Read online

  As the ambulance skidded to a stop in front, its strobing lights painting the walls red, her eyelids fluttered, then closed.

  “Minnie!”

  She didn’t answer. A thready pulse beat under the two fingers I pressed to the hollow of her neck, and I breathed a sigh.

  An EMT brushed me aside with a muttered thank-you, his hands replacing mine as his co-worker took Miss Minnie’s vitals. “What happened?”

  “Drive-by shooting. One gunshot.”

  His eyes flicked to mine. They were blue. Recognition flared. We’d met before. That time it had been a bomb. “Lucky.”

  The way he said my name, well, it sounded a bit ironic. I knew what he meant. When my mother named me Lucky, she’d unknowingly invited the Fates to prove her wrong.

  Apparently they’d accepted her invitation.

  “Hey.” I couldn’t remember his name, if I’d ever known it. I felt sure I had, but my brain had reached capacity years ago, and, so far, I hadn’t found anything worth forgetting so I could remember him. He was cute, but cute only got you a second look, not a permanent place in the gray matter.

  He turned back to his work. “When are you going out to dinner with me?” He was pressing; blood was oozing. Miss Minnie still hadn’t opened her eyes.

  “Seriously? A woman is dying, and you’re thinking about a dinner date?” I looked at him, bug-eyed. Men were scary. Mona had told me that, how many times? She’d phrased it a bit more delicately—something along the lines of men were different—but this was the first time I understood she had been underselling her theory.

  “She’s not dying,” he said.

  “I’m engaged.”

  “You’re not married.”

  “She’s crashing,” the other EMT said, his voice calm, his demeanor not so much. The banter fell away.

  Giving them room to work, I crossed my arms and stepped out of the way. A few of the girls eased closer, angling for a look. My glare sent them scurrying back to their rooms.

  Who would want to kill Minnie? The list was probably long, but standing there, with her blood on my hands, killing became all too real in its horror and I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to do that…including me.

  Even when it came to Irv Gittings.

  I talked a big game, sure. But all in all, I‘d rather someone else be responsible for the rope, the hood, and pulling the lever to drop the trap door.

  I worried a button on my sweater that already hung by a thread. It popped off in my hand, and I hurled it through the broken window.

  At a loss as to who to call, what to do, I lapsed into my normal state—pissed off.

  If I could only get my hands around Irv Gittings’ neck. I wouldn’t kill him—that I’d leave to the pros. But I wasn’t above making him wish he was dead.

  Someone had shot Minnie! The thought that had angered me before now took my breath. While I didn’t like her, I respected her, which was more important. A woman hacking and slashing her way through a man’s world—and teaching them how the game was played—she was a force. A lot like my mother. Of course, I would never tell Mona I respected her—she’d punish me forever.

  The night air sent shivers through me. Or maybe it was the breath of Death, cold and close. As I pulled my sweater tight around me, I noticed frayed threads. A closer look. The threads bracketed a tear.

  I looked at the window, remembering where I’d stood. Then a glance at Minnie.

  The bullet had grazed my shoulder.

  That close.

  I guess I had been a good girl after all, or at least had enough karma points to trade for a little more time.

  But Minnie? Why Minnie? She ran a semi-respectable business, which was far above the norm in Vegas. As far as I knew—and as a well-connected, native Vegas casino brat, that was a lot—Minnie kept her nose clean, steered clear of trouble and paid off the right folks.

  So why would someone want her dead?

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHRISTMAS.

  Okay, technically it now was the day after Christmas, but I hadn’t had a Christmas yet, and I was enough of a kid to hold that against the Fates.

  I’d asked Santa for a sexy Frenchman in his skivvies—my kind of package.

  But, instead of getting what I asked for, I’d gotten an attempted murder in a whorehouse masquerading as a massage parlor and a night talking to the cops.

  Clearly, when it had come to the naughty-or-nice thing, I’d fallen on the wrong side of that line. I planned on holding that against the Fates as well.

  But I was alive, so there was that.

  Yes, I had lost my Christmas cheer, which wasn’t unusual. Cheery was not an adjective anyone would include in my epitaph. Living down to expectations, it’s what I do.

  The Metropolitan Police Department, Metro to those of us who held it in low esteem—and deservedly so—had kept us for hours. Thankfully, Detective Romeo had ridden to my rescue and busted me out early. Miss Minnie was still hanging on, but when I’d checked an hour or so ago, the doctor had said it would be touch and go once she came out of surgery.

  Nothing to do but go home.

  Home. A lantern in the storm.

  The streets of Summerlin were quiet, everyone sleeping off Christmas. One neighbor already had put his tree to the curb, decorations and all. I didn’t even want to think about what had precipitated that. I’d had enough sad for the night.

  My borrowed red Ferrari easily recognizable, the guard waved me through the gate.

  The garage light clicked on as the door rose. I still couldn’t reconcile my life with a house in the suburbs, a fiancé, a future stepchild, and a garage door clicker with the me I used to be. Funny that. Life choices. The suburbs or the Strip? Jean-Charles or Teddie? And why did choosing one always mean losing the other?

  Tiptoeing through the mudroom into the kitchen, I tried to be quiet as I set down my keys and purse. The lingering aromas of dinner—something Italian maybe—curled around me. Toys littered the floor. A game of Operation had been shoved to the side of the large country table. Four place settings. Mine still had a knife and fork atop a clean napkin folded, waiting.

  I felt the guilty prick of unmet expectations.

  The strains of Moonlight Sonata led me to the bar off the kitchen. Jean-Charles had waited up for me.

  He stood in front of the fire, attired as I’d asked for, his hands clasped behind his back, worry pinching the skin between his eyebrows into a slight frown. His eyes closed, he swayed to the music, lost in it. A few inches taller than my six feet, my fiancé…yes, my fiancé…had waited and worried, making me feel lucky indeed. The Fates be damned.

  To be honest, I still couldn’t get used to the idea of getting married. And to such a man! Tall enough, as I said, trim in all the right places, with full lips, chiseled features, wavy brown hair he wore just a trifle long, and a smile that lit his robin’s egg-blue eyes, he was a feast for sure. And he could cook! An added benefit, since I’d never been known to pass up a meal. But it was the way he looked at me, the way he listened, and the way he made me feel that had won my heart.

  My heart.

  The one I’d taken back from Teddie.

  Sensing me standing there, he opened his eyes. His smile warmed me to the core, banishing my murderous evening. Holding his arms wide, he welcomed me into an embrace.

  Tucking my face into the crook of his neck, I let him hold me. And I knew I could get through anything if this…if he…was waiting for me at the end of it all.

  “You are okay?” he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek.

  I tried not to think about Miss Minnie, the look in her eyes—imploring, scared. Even though I’d washed off her blood, I could still feel the warmth, the vitality…her essence…as it leaked out of her. I could feel her fear, her fight. I shivered.

  “What’s the matter?” Jean-Charles sensed my discomfort.

  I pulled him over to the couch then curled under his arm, tucking my feet up under me after I’d shuck
ed my shoes.

  And I told him.

  The song started over twice before I had finished. Jean-Charles hadn’t said a word—he’d simply held me tight and let me talk. When I’d finished, he kissed my forehead. “You are going to Macau.”

  It wasn’t a question—he knew I had no choice. Well, I guess we all have a choice, but letting Irv Gittings get away was not one of them. But we both knew that wasn’t exactly why I was going.

  Teddie.

  I’m not sure I could find the words to describe all that Teddie had been and continued to be to me. Best friends, my first love, my biggest disappointment, and now, back to best friends, even though it still rankled that he looked better in my clothes than I did. Teddie had been Vegas’s foremost female impersonator. I’d even let him wear my vintage Chanel and my Manolos, even though he stretched them out. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is…was. The break in my heart still hurt when I thought of him.

  Unfortunately, our relationship had been a bit one-sided. Teddie had fallen more in love with himself than with me. In the race of love, a distant second wasn’t what I was hoping for, wasn’t what I needed.

  Teddie left.

  I’d let him go.

  Then he came back—a ruse created by my parents, but I couldn’t exactly prove it. That’s where things had gone from bad to abysmal.

  Teddie had fled house arrest for a murder he didn’t commit. Somewhere in that pea-sized brain of his, he thought it would be a good idea to go off half-cocked to Macau to bring Irv Gittings to justice and, according to Mona, me back to his bed.

  So not happening.

  But, regardless, somehow it was my fault, in a roundabout sort of way—I hadn’t handled Teddie’s return very well. My friends and family argued with my assessment. But, my fault or not, I felt responsible. And the only way to live with it was to make it go away.

  And somehow, some way, I needed to put my feelings for Teddie to bed. Okay, a bad analogy, but I needed to get him out of my head and my heart. Time to move on. But I couldn’t let him die for me.

  A martyred love—just what I needed. Of course, it wasn’t all about me, but right now I was feeling a bit put-upon.

  A fly the spider had singled out for dinner.

  So, yes, for a myriad of reasons, I had to go to Macau.

  Teddie was ill equipped to deal with Irv Gittings and the Chos, and the God-knew-who-elses of the Chinese underworld. Unlike Teddie, I had a lifetime of dealing with lowlifes. So, the job fell to me.

  There was that irony again.

  While Jean-Charles wasn’t pleased, to put a nice spin on it, he was trying to be supportive.

  “And Cielo?” he asked, still holding me, still loving me, but a slight mock in his voice, as if choosing Teddie over a hotel was an incomprehensible choice. To be honest, I agreed with him.

  Cielo. My very own hotel. The Grand Opening loomed—New Year’s Eve.

  My birthday.

  And I had to go to Macau. I couldn’t even begin to process how stupid an idea that was, so I didn’t.

  Maybe, just maybe, the police would do their job and I wouldn’t have to go.

  Right. And maybe Irv Gittings would turn himself in, the Chinese would stop trying to game the system, and Teddie would be alive.

  Teddie. Are first loves ever forgotten?

  I pulled Jean-Charles’s other arm around me. “Everything is in place. I’ll have my phone. And maybe you will help me stay on top of things?”

  “Of course. However it is not ideal.”

  “But it is inevitable.”

  He kissed my forehead. “I do love that about you, always riding to the rescue.”

  Tilting at windmills that had developed a habit of shooting back—that’s my gig. I lifted my face to his for a long, sweet kiss.

  “Macau will be dangerous,” Jean-Charles said after I released him, his accent making the whole thing sound somehow wonderfully delicious and exciting.

  “No more than here.” In the last couple of days, I’d been shot at more times than I could count. Frankly, it was getting old. Maybe a change of scenery would change my luck. Yeah, even I didn’t believe that.

  “I cannot argue with that.” He toyed with the large diamond on my left ring finger. “You owe it to me to come back.”

  “I know.” Desperate to change the subject before we ruined Christmas, I placed my hand on his stomach, skin to skin. I gasped at the sizzle, the electric connection that arced through me. It happened each time we touched, but still surprised me.

  Jean-Charles pulled in a deep breath through his nose. He felt it, too.

  I let my hand wander. “I haven’t had my Christmas yet.”

  He chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. “And what did you ask for?”

  “A handsome Frenchman wearing very little.”

  “Then you must’ve been a good girl.” He pulled my shirt free and worked a hand under it. Cupping my breast, his thumb teased the nipple to a peak through the thin fabric of my bra.

  “I am always good,” I said in my most suggestive voice. Somehow I didn’t laugh. “But I’m feeling naughty.” I worked my hand down to test just how…engaged my Frenchman was—an embarrassing lack of control, even for me. Could I plead unfulfilled homicidal tendencies, all that unused adrenaline? That and the fact that I was head over heels, all contributed to my taking what I needed.

  My Frenchman had already risen to the occasion.

  He stood, then pulled me to my feet. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I captured his mouth as I pressed myself against him.

  His tongue tangled with mine. He groaned when I deepened the kiss. “The bedroom?” he managed.

  “The kids?” I figured he had that well in hand, but it never hurt to ask.

  Jean-Charles had a five-year-old son, Christophe. A head full of blonde curls, a smile to match his father’s, and eyes a deeper blue, the boy, taking a lead from his father, had wormed his way into my heart before I’d known what was happening. Jean-Charles’ niece, Chantal, a culinary student intent on following her uncle into the business, was also bunking at her uncle’s place. Two kids, two of us—we were horribly outnumbered.

  “They are asleep.” Jean Charles sounded less than certain.

  “Here?”

  “Yes.” He broke away for a moment and closed the double doors as I shucked my shoes. “Kids,” he added, tossing the word like water onto a fire. Nothing like children to kill the sexual mojo.

  “Always plotting,” I said, completing his thought in the same way he completed me.

  Sex with kids in the house was a bit different than my usual pick-a-partner-and-a-piece-of-furniture-and-have-at-it. I’d learned this lesson the hard way. Jean-Charles and I had about herniated ourselves in the bathroom, doors locked, the theme song to Thomas the Tank Engine at a decibel level suitable for torture. Mind-blowing sex, but that song now conjured physical reactions I didn’t think the creators intended.

  The bar, with its windows and louvered doors, presented a new challenge.

  As I shucked my clothes, I lowered the blinds and secured the doors. Ever the Frenchman, Jean-Charles lingered over the perfect wine. If he thought we were easing into this over a perfectly chilled Sancerre, he had another thing coming.

  “For later,” he said with a smile, as if he could read my thoughts.

  He probably could, which should have terrified me—my brain is hallowed ground, sacred in its weird rituals—but I guess he truly was the One, because I no longer cared if he saw behind the curtain.

  As I stepped out of my slacks in the middle of the room, Jean-Charles paused, his eyes alight. Then he thrust the bottle into a bucket of ice and moved around the bar.

  He stopped me as I hooked a finger through the fine lace that Mona assured me passed for functional underwear. To me, the stuff gave me a perpetual wedgie, but the effect it had on my Frenchman made me willing to suffer through.

  “My turn,” he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek. Deliberately s
lowing the pace, he reached behind me and undid my bra with a simple flick that always left me in awe. I’d been fastening and unfastening bras far longer than he had, but perhaps not as often as he did, and I couldn’t do it with such skill. I’d love to know his trick, but even I knew some things are best left to lie.

  I let him slow it down—history had taught me that slow was definitely better…especially with Jean-Charles—he delighted in each nuance. I was good with that—as long as he stroked all the right buttons.

  As it turned out, all that slow and sensuous was way out of reach for both of us. Fear prodding us, love entangling us, we tore at each other with an intense need for connection in the face of a long goodbye.

  Goodbye sex is like makeup sex, but with desperation replacing the languid surety of a bit more time.

  The tingle of sex still sizzling through me like a shorted wire brought me slowly to consciousness. Enjoying the memory, savoring the heat from my Frenchman wrapped around me on the couch, I lingered in the half-awake state…until I realized the sizzle, which was really a vibration, came from my phone.

  Irritation dampened the afterglow, and life came back into focus.

  Reality, such a downer…at least parts of it.

  Worn out, a bit defeated, deflated at the thought of heading across the Pacific to face God knew what, and totally unwilling to disturb Jean-Charles, I let the call roll to voice mail. For a moment, peace reigned…then the damned thing vibrated a new.

  “Perhaps it is important?” Jean-Charles’s voice was husky with sleep. Awake, he decided to nibble on my shoulder, which made it damned hard to not call his bluff.

  “Everyone who calls me thinks it’s important. I rarely agree.” I wormed my arm around, my hands searching for the vibration. “Stop that,” I said, pleasure and a giggle infusing each word, which sort of defeated the purpose.

  He switched to my ear, making me shudder deliciously.

  “That’s not what I meant.” Despite my best intentions to be dour, I giggled. “What time is it?” I asked, trying to get a foothold in the day.