Raising the Stakes

by Sandra Marton

  “No. Certainly not. Again, what you did yesterday was—”

  “I know. I was a real Boy Scout. Now, I’m Jack the Ripper.”

  No smile, not even a false one. “I don’t date guests.”

  “House rule?”

  “My rule,” she said firmly. “Is that all, Mr. Baron?”

  “No, it isn’t.” Gray leaned forward and examined the white placard. “Special Services Desk,” he said, slowly and distinctly. “Special Services for Special Guests. If You Need Our Assistance, Please Dial—”

  “Seven seven seven,” Dawn snapped. God, the man was impossible, standing there with his hands on the desk, a smug look on his face and a tone in his voice that made her want to tell him what she really thought of him. Didn’t he get the message? “I know what it says. And I assure you, the Desert Song prides itself on courtesy to all its guests, Mr. Baron—Gray,” she said quickly, correcting herself before he could, “ but—”

  “But I have halitosis. Dandruff. A social affliction you can see even though nobody else can?” He smiled, pleased with how light he was keeping it, telling himself the knot in his gut had everything to do with wanting to get under that cool, brittle exterior only so he could do his job and go home.

  “But,” Dawn said frigidly, “this desk serves as an adjunct to the Special Services office. It is not a dating service. And if you want tickets for a show, the concierge at Reception will be happy to help you.”

  “I’m happy being helped right here.”

  “I just explained that this is the Special Services office.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Obviously not.” Dawn took a deep breath, let it out while she reminded herself that part of her job was knowing how to deal with pests. “It’s a VIP office.”

  “A VIP…” Gray’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that’s fine. What do I need? A platinum credit card? An airline mileage account? Do I have to check myself out of my room and onto another floor?”

  “You don’t have to do anything. The hotel makes the determination as to which guests are deserving of VIP treatment. Those are the guests with whom I work.”

  It took Gray less than a second to figure out what she was telling him. This was Vegas. Any other place, VIPs would be guests who were willing to pay for a room on a special floor where you got a little pampering for the extra bucks. Here, a VIP would be somebody willing to dump a small fortune at the tables. Things were different at the Song—and different for this woman, who dealt with wealthy men.

  “Ah,” he said softly, “I get it.” His eyes met hers. “You offer your services to the highest bidders.”

  Her face whitened. He almost said he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant that to sound the way it had…but maybe it was the truth. Harman said his wife catted around. Gray had envisioned a bored woman sleeping her way through a town filled with shifty-eyed Harman-clones. Now that he’d seen Dawn, he knew she was beautiful enough to pick and choose the men she slept with, and he’d have bet his last dollar that not a one of them would resemble her redneck husband.

  Something flashed in her eyes. Anger? Rage? Pain. Jesus, it was pain.

  “You—you have no right,” she said in a shaky whisper. “I’ve never—I would never…” She took a breath so deep he saw her breasts rise and fall; her eyes cleared and the mask fell over her face again. “Goodbye, Mr. Baron. I don’t think we have anything more to say to each—”

  “Wait!” He reached out, clasped her elbow. That was all he needed, that she’d bolt because he’d said something incredibly stupid. She stiffened under the pressure of his hand and he let go. “Dawn,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Miss Carter. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. “

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No. I just meant…I guess it’s different here, that the hotel determines if a guest is a VIP based on how much he spends. Am I right?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “Only part?”

  She nodded stiffly. “We give VIP treatment to celebrities. People who are famous.”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to write me off.” He cocked his head. “For all you know, I’m a famous celebrity in disguise. Or maybe I dropped ten thousand bucks at blackjack last night.”

  “You aren’t, and you didn’t. I’d know, in either case.”

  “Yeah, but if I were…?”

  She sighed and folded her arms. “I’d arrange for some complimentary upgrades, by way of expressing the hotel’s gratitude.”

  “But you wouldn’t go out with me.”

  “No.”

  Gray smiled. “Well then, it’s a good thing I’m just me, Graham Baron, because, in that case, it’s okay for you to say yes, you will.”

  She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Will what?”

  “Will have coffee with me. Notice, I said `coffee.’ You offer VIPs upgrades. Well, I’m not a VIP so I’m willing to settle for a downgrade. Forget going to a show. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

  She rolled her eyes, bit her lip the same as she had yesterday and, just like yesterday, his hormones went on full alert. “Honestly, Mr. Baron—”

  “Honestly, Miss Carter, I’m only trying to fulfill my obligation here.”

  He had her going now. He could see it, the confusion in her eyes, and that was a lot better than the cool disinterest that had been there only a little while ago.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I guess you never heard that old Chinese proverb, huh?”

  “What old Chinese proverb?” she said cautiously.

  “The one that says, if you save a person’s life, that person becomes your responsibility.”

  “Me, you mean? But you didn’t save my life.”

  “Come on, Miss Carter. You were stranded in the middle of a Nevada desert, one hundred and fifty horses dead at your feet, their bones bleached by the sun.”

  “What?”

  “Your car. It was dead as a doornail on the sand.”

  “It was asphalt,” she said, her expression one of bewilderment, “on Las Vegas Boulevard, and I don’t think that car of mine ever had that much horsepower, not even when it was new.”

  “Technicalities,” he said, with a little shrug. “There’s sand under that asphalt, if you dig down. Your horses were belly-up, your teddy bear was desperate for water and who came along and rescued you? Me.” Gray tapped his thumb against his chest. “I saved your life, and that makes me responsible for you now.”

  He waited, never realizing he was holding his breath until she let out a soft, almost imperceptible laugh.

  “I don’t understand a word you just said. Even if all that were true, how does that make asking me out your—what did you call it? Your obligation?”

  “Damned if I know,” he said, smiling. “But you have to admit, it’s a good line.” He leaned over the desk, which put him almost nose to nose with her, close enough so he could smell the faint scent of vanilla on her skin. Would she taste like vanilla, if he touched his mouth to throat? “Coffee,” he said softly. “Fair enough?”

  She didn’t answer and he thought he’d pushed his luck too far. Then he saw her chin drop just a little. The look in her eyes went from hostile to wary.

  “I’m not going to get rid of you unless I agree, am I?”

  “I’m an attorney, Red. If we’re known for nothing else, it’s tenacity.”

  “What did you call me?”

  “What did I…? Oh. Red. Sorry. It’s how I thought of you all last night. You know. Red.”

  He reached over, tugged gently on the tendril of escaped hair. She pulled away but she smiled. Really smiled. He knew he’d won, and he knew, too, that the elation he felt was out of line with reality.

  “Espresso,” she said softly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The coffee in the Reveille—it’s that little self-service place down past the elevators—the coffee’s awful, but the espresso is fine.”

  �
�You’ve got it,” Gray said, and felt as if he’d just reached the summit of Mount Everest.

  * * *

  She said she had to do some things back in her office and she’d meet him in the little caf;aae in a few minutes.

  He got there first, debated whether to plunk money into the coffee machine and have her espresso ready or wait until she arrived. Wait, he decided, and he chose a table near a big wooden tub of pansies and myrtle, chose a different table beside the window that overlooked the pool, and finally decided he was behaving like a kid on his first date, which was insane.

  He was here for a purpose. He had a mission. There was nothing personal in meeting Dawn for coffee and besides, she wasn’t really the shy woman with the nice smile and the sexy mouth she didn’t seem to know was sexy he’d met yesterday. She was an assignment he’d undertaken because he had no choice. She was also the runaway wife of a man she’d let abuse her and the mother of a little boy she’d abandoned like a stack of old clothes…

  “Hi.”

  Gray stood up. Dawn was standing in the doorway. She looked demure and beautiful, and he knew it was time to admit the truth. She was nothing he’d anticipated and he was drawn to her even though he didn’t want to be. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled. Forget Chinese proverbs. She was a Chinese puzzle, boxes within boxes within boxes, and he hadn’t a clue how he’d figure out what that last box held, or if he wanted to find out.

  “Hi,” he said, and motioned to the small table beside the window. “Is this okay?”

  “Yes, it’s fine.”

  “You said espresso, right?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He held out a chair. She slipped into it. He dug a couple of bills from his wallet, fed them into the machine and it spewed two streams of black liquid into a pair of paper cups.

  “Cream? Sugar?” He smiled again. It seemed as if he’d done a whole lot of smiling in the past hour or so. Had any of it been real? “The pink stuff?”

  “Nothing. Just black, thank you.”

  “Black it is.” He sat down across from her at the little table. “Well. Thanks for agreeing to have coffee with me.”

  “You’re welcome.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry if I seemed, um, if I seemed—”

  “No need to apologize.” He lifted the cup and took a sip. “You probably have guys hitting on you twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Yes. No. I mean…” She took a breath. “What you did was very kind, Mr. Baron. But—”

  “It’s Gray. And I only did what anyone would have done, in the same situation.”

  “Not true. A whole bunch of cars just whizzed past. One man even shook his fist at me.”

  “Well, of course he did. You’re supposed to pick a place to break down, Miss Carter. That’s the polite thing to do.”

  She laughed. “The only place to break down is next to a service station.”

  “Exactly what the guy who shook his fist at you must have thought.”

  “Actually, that happened to me once. I was driving along and suddenly my tru—my car started to make funny noises. I coaxed it along for a couple of blocks but it finally died, right outside a station.”

  “Ah.” Gray smiled over the rim of his coffee container. “A well trained… Did you say truck?”

  “No,” she said quickly, “I said car.”

  He knew she’d started to say “truck.” He thought about Queen City, about the parking lot outside the Victory Diner where he’d met with Harman. It was easy enough to imagine a truck in that place but difficult to imagine the woman opposite him behind the wheel. She looked too urbane, too fragile; she looked like a woman who had never seen a hick town or a pickup cab in her life.

  “And what was wrong with it?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your car. Cars. The one that broke down near a station and the one that died in the middle of the desert yesterday.”

  “Oh.” She sipped her coffee, and he had the feeling she was sorry she’d mentioned the service station incident. “I just ran out of gas, that other time.” Ran out, and had no money to fill the tank. Harman doled out only enough money for groceries, and he was the one who had driven the truck dry but when she’d phoned and said she was out of gas, he’d been furious…

  “Miss Carter?”

  Dawn blinked. Gray Baron was looking at her and smiling, but there was an intensity in his eyes that made her uncomfortable.

  “Sorry,” she said briskly. “I was just thinking that I don’t seem to have much luck with cars. It’s a good thing you came along yesterday, or I might still be standing on that street.”

  “Desert,” he said solemnly. “Just picture it the way it was not too many years ago. Sand and cactus, buzzards and rattlers…”

  She laughed. “I get the feeling you don’t like the desert. Were you born in one of those green, leafy parts of Texas?”

  He was baffled, but only for a second. Then he recalled how neatly she’d managed to place his accent.

  “Yes, I guess you’d say that. Austin. Well, near Austin. Do you know the area?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, it’s green.” He grinned. “But it’s still Texas, where men are men and cows are cows, and anybody who doesn’t wear boots is pretty much an alien species. What about you?”

  “What about…? Oh. I’m from a lot of places. We moved around a lot when I was growing up.” She took a paper napkin from the plastic container centered on the table and touched it to her lips. “Well, this was really very nice, Mr. Baron.”

  “Gray, please.”

  “Gray. It was a nice break.”

  “For me, too.”

  “And I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I mean, having coffee turned out to be—”

  “Nice.”

  “Yes. It was…” She blushed. “Mr. Baron. Gray. Look, I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for what you did, but—but I’m not very good at this.”

  Gray caught hold of her hand as she began to stand up. “At what?”

  She took a deep breath. “Never mind. The point is, as I already told you, I don’t date guests.”

  “You also said it wasn’t against hotel policy.”

  “That’s right.” Carefully she disengaged her hand from his.

  “But you do date.”

  “Yes,” she said, lying through her teeth, “of course, but—”

  “But, you don’t date guests.” Gray smiled. “No problem. I understand.”

  “Good. I’m glad you do. I wouldn’t want you to think it was anything personal.”

  “Recommend a hotel, then.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I’m going to check out of the Desert Song and into some other place. I figured you’d be able to give me the name of a hotel I’d like.”

  “But why…?” Her cheeks colored. “Don’t be silly!”

  “I’m not. I’m being practical. Until a few minutes ago, I figured the only way I’d get to see more of you would be to drop a bundle at the tables tonight and get myself designated a VIP. That way I’d at least run into you from time to time, but now it turns out I can stay at another hotel and you’ll go out with me for an evening.”

  She sat back and stared at him. “I never said that!”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No. Absolutely not. You’ve twisted things all around.”

  “Yeah, well, I told you, I’m a lawyer. We’re not just tenacious, twisting things around is what we do for a living. Look, I’m not asking for much. Dinner, anywhere you like. Just think of it as a memorial to those horses of yours, their bones bleaching in the dust of Las Vegas Boulevard.”

  He saw her mouth twitch and then she gave a low, throaty laugh. “You really don’t know how to take no for an answer, do you?”

  “No,” he said simply, “not when I see something I want. Say you’ll have dinner with me tonight.”

  He said it so easily, as if things like this happened every day
. And they did happen every day; she knew that. Men asked women out; women said yes and went. It was simple, really, and it didn’t have to lead to anything but a pleasant evening, a couple of hours of laughter and good food, and when was the last time she’d done anything like that?

  Never. Not ever. She’d never dated a man, never sat across a table from one and smiled and joked, just relaxed and enjoyed his company.

  Cassie was right. Gray was handsome. And nice. He’d helped her yesterday and he hadn’t asked anything in return, hadn’t tried anything, hadn’t made an oily bubble of fear rise in her throat the way it sometimes did when a man looked at her or touched her or—

  “Dawn?” She looked up. He was smiling, waiting for her answer. “If not dinner, how about a drink? That’s all, I promise. Just tell me where to pick you up and when.”

  The sounds of the hotel, the ever-present electronic songs of the slot machines, faded to silence. She could feel her heart hammering, wasn’t that ridiculous? Almost as ridiculous as the idea of agreeing to meet him tonight…

  Just do it, she thought, and the words burst from her throat.

  “Seven o’clock. I’ll meet you just outside the front door.”

  She stood up. Gray rose, too, but she shook her head and he stayed where he was, watching her until she disappeared in a river of tourists flowing down the corridor. Then he sat down, picked up the cup that held the last of his espresso and wondered why his hand seemed to be shaking.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DAWN looked at the dress that lay across her bed, at the jeans and T-shirts tossed beside it, and decided she’d lost her mind.

  One of them had, either she or Cassie, who was standing inside the closet and pawing madly through the few things still dangling from the rod—but it wasn’t Cassie who had agreed to meet a stranger for dinner.

  “Stop!” Cassie didn’t so much as turn her head. Dawn scooped up the dress, put it on a hanger and marched to the closet. “There’s no point in playing deaf, Cass. I know you heard me. “

  “I cannot believe this,” Cassie muttered. “Don’t you own anything except work stuff and jeans? Honestly, Dawn—”

  “Honestly, Cassie,” Dawn said as she put the dress away, “you can stop taking my closet apart.”