Wild Card (Wild At Heart Series Book 3)

by Christine Hartmann

  Celine scuttled to regain a standing position. “Keep that thing shut until we’re decent.” She winked at Bree.

  A grinning, tan face perched on a wide neck and shoulders poked through the opening. “If you’re too busy, I can come back later.”

  Bree lunged toward the door. She laughed and grabbed the hand he offered her. “Be careful. I’m not as thin as Celine.”

  “Celine’s heavier than she looks. Take it from me.” The man heaved with two hands while Bree’s feet scrabbled for traction. She rose slowly over the threshold and lay for an instant like a beached whale on the cool floor of an elevator lobby. “Sweet freedom.” She rolled onto her back and two EMT personnel helped her to her feet.

  In the elevator, Celine got up from her knees and turned to the man who held his arms wide, with a smile so large that his eyes almost disappeared. “What was that you said about my weight, K-Rao?”

  K-Rao jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Wasn’t me. That was this guy.”

  “Bree.” The name from the hallway behind her sounded like a reprimand. Bree’s eyes moved from the embracing couple. Faye stood with hands on her hips next to Mal, who lifted his eyebrows as if to ask whether she was all right.

  Bree skipped toward them. “That was an adventure.” She embraced Mal.

  He fingered the mole on his chin. “Grandma’s lying down in my parents’ room. Since you had her key, we couldn’t get her into hers.” He gave her a half grin.

  “Do they know what caused the elevator to malfunction?” Faye asked Bree while staring at the EMTs.

  Bree shrugged. “No matter what, it’s going to be a while before I trust those things again.”

  Faye tapped her foot and gave Bree an exasperated look. “I certainly hope you won’t use this as an excuse to start another phobia.”

  Suddenly, every muscle from Bree’s toes to her forehead stiffened. She pressed her side teeth into her lower lip and breathed in carefully, afraid that if she did it too quickly, something in her would break. Although she could feel the blood rushing to her face, she willed her voice to maintain its equilibrium. If she had learned anything about fighting from the Patels, she’d learned that the only thing worse than being attacked without warning was showing that a thrust hit its mark.

  “Let me say goodbye to my new friend.” She extracted her hand from Mal’s grasp, smiled with lips pressed tightly together, and turned her back on the mother and son.

  A smile lit Celine’s face as she approached. “Ready to hit the tables? After bad luck like that, I figure for the rest of the day we should be golden.”

  K-Rao clamped his hands over his pocket. “Vegas isn’t getting one cent of my money. I work too hard to waste it.”

  Celine grinned. “That island in the Bahamas could be waiting for us.”

  K-Rao pulled her close to him. “I live in Hawaii. What do I want with the Bahamas?”

  Bree rubbed her cheeks, hoping her face had lost some of its aggrieved expression.

  Celine tilted her head. She glanced at Mal and his mother, who still stood nearby. “Maybe your fiancé should take you to go lie down.” She rolled her eyes suggestively.

  Bree smiled weakly. “Was the invitation when we were talking earlier for real?”

  K-Rao looked up at the ceiling. “You obviously don’t know her yet. Everything this girl says is for real.”

  Celine gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. “He means that as a compliment. The wedding reception tomorrow is open to all. Stop by. It’s a chance to see Vegas’s flip side.”

  “You left that in there.” K-Rao handed Bree her purse. “You don’t want to give up a chance to see crazy hikers getting married in the desert, yeah?”

  Bree slung the bag over her shoulder.

  Celine gave her a hug. “I’m a poor substitute for the girlfriends you left behind in San Francisco, but I’ll give it my best shot.”

  K-Rao held up two fingers, then a third. “She’s worth at least two, maybe three.”

  Bree told Mal and Faye she wanted a few minutes of fresh air and refused Mal’s offer to accompany her, saying he should check on his grandmother instead. Outside, the hot Vegas air seared her lungs. The bright sunshine made her blink and shade her eyes. She shivered despite the heat and let the crowd push her along the sidewalk. As she passed the hotel garage, she turned in. Maybe a drive into the desert was what she needed? She hopped onto a low wall near the entrance. Anything seemed better than returning to her room.

  She thought back over the past year with Mal and realized that until today she hadn’t understood why he and his sisters cowered from their mother’s wrath. To her it was a game. She could jostle Faye away from a target, calm her down, and, when necessary, step in front of someone else to take the bullet. She was good at it. Mal appreciated it. It gave her a valuable role, a way to fit in. Even Faye seemed to like having a competent adversary, someone to outmaneuver, to respect. And someone to see her good side.

  But Bree couldn’t laugh about flying. She sighed. That wasn’t a phobia, she told herself. It was fact. If you flew, you could die.

  She got up and traipsed past the rows of cars in the garage. Out of the sun, the air felt heavier, more musty and polluted. The vast space seemed to stretch for miles in front of her, car after car, of every shape and size, with license plates from every state. Gradually, she became aware that the only sounds she could hear was her heels on the concrete. She looked over her shoulder. Where was everyone?

  She pulled her purse closer to her body and walked faster, head erect, as though she knew exactly where she was going. Three rows in, she thought she heard footsteps behind her. Four rows in, she turned to glance over her shoulder. She took the car keys from her bag and pushed the remote’s unlock button, listening for the distinctive beep. When she heard nothing, she pushed lock and turned around. She could still hear the footsteps. She pulled out her phone and put it to her ear, talking to the black screen.

  “That’s right. Meet me halfway. I’m in the garage. Near the street. You can’t miss me.”

  A car rolled through the entrance. Bree increased her pace, heading for it. By the time it passed her, she was nearly at the exit. When she stepped into the sunshine, she let out the breath she had been holding. When the phone in her hand rang, she almost dropped it in surprise.

  “Catch you at a bad time?” Ryder’s voice made it sound as though he was eating.

  She came to a halt and pedestrians flowed around her in two streams. “What do you think?” Her voice snapped with strain. “I’m here for my engagement party.”

  “That’s why I’m calling.”

  Bree waited, phone an inch from her ear.

  “My sisters surprised me this morning with a visit.” She heard him take another bite of whatever was he was eating. “Turns out they know me pretty well. Knew I’d have a suite and that they could use it as home base for doing all the things I won’t have time to do.”

  She had a faint memory of two middle school girls rushing up to Ryder at graduation. “And this is relevant to me because?”

  He took another bite. “We’re hitting a club tonight. You and Mal could stop by.”

  A hundred images flashed through Bree’s mind, mostly from the prom. But among them were scenes of a dress shopping spree, of dancing with Mal, and of Faye standing at a door with her hands on hips, shaking head, clasped hands, and eyes lifted to the ceiling. She headed back to the hotel. “Text me the details.”

  Chapter 10

  As Celine and K-Rao drove farther away from Las Vegas, the suburban developments on either side of the highway changed in character. Closer to the city, houses proclaimed their individuality. Even when they were constructed using the same architectural template as their neighbors, they endeavored to stand out. Vegetation, window trim, and maintenance levels all differed. Some homes had brand-new roofs and siding, others languished with peeling paint and cracked driveways. Each exhibited its owner’s foibles.

  Farther fro
m the center of the circle of small towns around Las Vegas, individual character belonged not to houses but to the development within which a house was located. The developer of each small area struggled to create a unique identity, hoping for a leg up in the housing market, scrambling for a reason a potential buyer should choose to live there and not across the street in a house with the same square footage, the same granite countertops, and the same basement man-cave equipped with Dolby speaker system. In some developments homes had brick fronts and bay windows, in others each dwelling boasted a front porch, and still others prided themselves on their eco-friendly landscaping. The impressions flashed past Celine as K-Rao sped in the fast lane toward the desert. She imagined what it might be like to live in that house with the pool, or that house with the gate.

  But close to the end of civilization, chaos ruled. Before them shimmered the edge of the economic bubble, the remnant of a time when people had thought the towns and developments outside of Vegas would expand indefinitely. Occupied homes with cars in the driveway and tricycles on the grass stood next to empty lots and naked foundations. Sidewalks ended so abruptly that the transition from concrete to dust could catch a wool-gathering pedestrian in midstride. Celine stared from the passenger seat in the convertible and could almost hear the anguished howls of realtors, investors, and speculative buyers who lost their dreams when the housing market crashed. The desolation seemed recent, the wound raw. Only desiccated weeds that grew through piles of bricks, white plastic sewer tubes, and flopping wire fences indicated workers had abandoned these worksites years ago.

  Celine felt like an intruder, a voyeur of the macabre, while driving through the final stretches of the developments. But as abruptly as civilization ended, nature reclaimed its space. A few turns in the road brought them into the true desert, where cacti, sand, and enormous, variegated boulders of cream, orange, and red lined the road. Amid the vast natural enclave, the colors, the hills in the distance, and a blue sky welcomed her. She reached for K-Rao’s hand. “Now I know why they wanted to get married here.”

  His foot eased from the accelerator. “How does a rock get to look like that?” He pointed at a sloping two-story mound where cream, tangerine, and orange stripes flowed sideways through the stone as if created as part of a celestial sand art project.

  Celine’s head shook slowly. “Where’s a geologist when you need one?”

  K-Rao maneuvered the car onto a dirt side road. Dust billowed around them. He slowed it to a five mile an hour crawl as Celine fanned the clouds from her face, coughing.

  He pulled to a stop. “This is where the GPS is telling me to park. You okay with trying to find them?” He gestured to the cacti and rough orange hills in the distance.

  Celine glanced at her phone. “I still have reception.”

  K-Rao raised his eyebrows. They closed the car roof and strapped on hydration packs over their T-shirts. K-Rao examined a trail map app on his phone and pointed to the intersection of three trails. “I think that’s where they might be.”

  Celine kicked the dirt at her feet. “Grace almost died in the desert. I wonder why she wants to get married in one.”

  “Closure?”

  “That’s like me wanting to get married in an elevator.” Dust exploded from beneath her running shoes with each step as she marched down a narrow footpath that paralleled the road. K-Rao kept a few paces behind her until, after a few minutes, the trail widened and he jogged to catch up.

  “Didn’t he find her there?”

  His question snapped Celine from a reverie. “Who?”

  “Lone Star. Didn’t he rescue Grace in the desert at the beginning of her hike?” He took Celine’s hand and swung it as they strode together.

  “He gave her water when she didn’t have any.” She reached for the narrow hose and sipped from her hydration pack, letting the quiet around her sink into her soul, allowing her eyes to acclimate to the desert’s limited color scheme, watching subtle differences emerge. Cream, she noticed, could manifest as ivory and eggshell. Orange ranged from tiger yellow to tangerine, sandstone, and amber. The dirt was brick red, but the hills had bands of mahogany and blood. Plants waved thin viridian stalks, moss-colored tentacles, and olive leaves. Scruffy desert shrubs dotted the earth around them and snagged her hiking skirt when she passed too close. Beaver tail cacti arched their broad pads threateningly across the trail. Yucca plants towered above their flora neighbors.

  K-Rao’s presence lent comfort in the rough environment. His easy-going Hawaiian style didn’t fit in everywhere, but in the wilds, he blended in. It felt like walking with a guard dog at your side. You could kiss it on the muzzle and pat on its stomach secure in the knowledge that, when called on, it would rip off a mugger’s arm. Places inside her always relaxed around K-Rao, places she didn’t even know were tense. But what did that level of comfort mean, she wondered, for their future? Should he abandon his home in Hawaii and move to San Francisco? Should she uproot and follow him to the islands? Would things stay the same if they lived together, or would they fall apart?

  “Does this wedding get you thinking?” K-Rao squeezed her hand.

  Celine released her grip on his hand and stretched her arms overhead. “That I wouldn’t want to get married here.”

  K-Rao slowed his pace. “Why don’t you ask me what I’m thinking?”

  Celine’s stride narrowed to stay shoulder to shoulder with him. “How do you think we’ll keep our clothes clean? Paid a lot for my dress.”

  K-Rao shoved his hands in his pockets. He halted and caught her eyes. “We should get married.”

  Her eyebrows lifted almost to her hairline. She took a step back. K-Rao pulled his hands slowly from his pockets and held them out to her. “Grace and Lone Star are doing it.”

  Celine bent over at the waist, her hands on her knees, laughing. “You’ve thought a lot about it? Ever since the car?”

  He sunk to one knee and looked up at her.

  She smiled. “Something might crawl up your shorts.”

  “Celine, I want to—”

  “This conversation’s over.” Celine sprinted down the trail, her long legs flying easily across the dirt. His shoes spewed small stones in an effort to overtake her. She widened her stride, laughing. Then her legs broke into a run. He laughed too and passed her. She overtook him, her face lit with determination. Through a gully, over a dried stream, up the other side, and on for half a mile they ran, like two children playing leapfrog, passing each other and then slowing down to let the other pass until Celine staggered to a halt, hands on heaving ribs, out of breath.

  “Let’s…” She gasped. “Discuss it…later.”

  K-Rao leaned forward, panting. “Okay.”

  When she caught her breath, she looked around. “Where the heck are Grace and Lone Star?”

  He removed his cell phone and studied the app.

  She peered over his shoulder. “Don’t you do this as a cop?”

  K-Rao bit his lip. “Question isn’t where they are, yeah? It’s where we are.”

  Celine yanked the phone from his hands. Her fingers scrolled over the map. “Where’s the car?”

  “Thought I dropped a pin.” K-Rao leaned closer.

  Celine sucked in her breath, handed the phone back to him, and put her hands on her hips. She searched the ground for a place to sit down.

  He gestured for her not to squat. “Something nasty might crawl up your skirt.” He paced in a circle, holding the phone in front of him like a scanner from Star Trek.

  Celine stuck out her tongue. She alternated standing on one leg and the other, interlacing her hands behind her back, bending forward, arching her back.

  K-Rao grinned. “What are you doing?”

  She ignored him. “Finding inner peace. Lost it right about when you forgot to pin the car.”

  ***

  K-Rao insisted on hunting for the car by moving in a perpendicular line away from the mountains. Celine followed a few yards behind his confident, upright shou
lders. They had been lost together before, including once on Maui, when he took a wrong turn during a night walk. That half hour on the far side of the West Maui mountains was much more frightening than this daytime desert adventure. There, Celine started at every crunch of gravel, every creature in the bush, thinking it was a local pulling out a gun to warn trespassers off his property. K-Rao told her people might be more likely to shoot first and ask questions later. This stroll through a national conservation area was benign by comparison.

  Hands behind her back, Celine hummed as she scanned the horizon, searching for the gleam of sunlight on a car windshield when two points in the distance caught her attention. They look like strangely shaped trees at first. As she approached, Celine recognized them as two hikers. “Hey, MacGyver.” She tapped K-Rao on the shoulder. Her finger motioned to their right.

  He raised his head and turned. “Is that…?”

  Waving her hands, Celine leaped over cacti and skirted prickly bushes as she ran with a big grin toward the approaching woman and man. “This guy’s trying to get me lost.” As she neared the couple, the woman broke into a jog. When they met, they hugged and waited for the men to catch up with them.

  Celine ruffled K-Rao’s hair and linked her arm through her friend’s.

  K-Rao’s eyes were still focused on the app. “Think I know where we are.”

  Lone Star pulled the phone from his hands and swept his arm across the wilderness in front of them. “Amigo, there’s no better map than the land around you.” His blue eyes sparkled under a long mane of red hair that he tucked back behind his ears. “It’s called learning the country.” He stuck out his hand. “Que paso?”

  K-Rao fist bumped him and chuckled. “Guess I should leave desert hiking to the man from Texas.” He took the phone and stuffed it into his back pocket. “But on Maui, I’ll take you spearfishing.”

  Lone Star shuddered. “I’m fixing to live life without coming face-to-face with a shark.”

  Celine pulled them both in the direction of the nearest path. “Either of you hombres know the way back to the road?”