by Anne Martin
The Broke Billionaire’s
Cowgirl Bride
or
Jessie’s Jeopardy
Las Vegas Brides of Convenience
Book 4
Anne Martin
Copyright 2019 by Anne Martin
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold, or given away. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Thanks so much for reading! Please consider leaving a review.
Chapter 1
The golden, flocked wallpaper was steeped in a century’s worth of cigar smoke in spite of it now being a non-smoking poker den. I nodded at the bartender, Hank. He mixed my drink, eying me up and down like only a cowboy could. His wink went with the flirty smile.
“Evening, Jezabel. Is Nix going to make retirement stick this year? Are you taking over the team?”
I flashed him a large smile as I took the drink named after me—ginger, lemon, grapefruit and sparkling water. “I’m too old to whip a bunch of fresh recruits into shape. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
He leaned his elbows on the bar, showing the flex of his forearms as he rested his large, strong hands close to mine. “And the Band of Demons? Are you going to join Horse?”
I sipped the drink Hank had perfected. I shook my head and put it back down with a solid thud. “I’m cashing out, heading back home.”
He raised his dark eyebrows. “You think Texas is big enough for you?”
I laughed. “I’m buying a ranch. A thousand acres of grazing land south of Abilene. No more sequined push-up bras for me.”
He whistled low and glanced at my sequined push-up bra. “No one wears one as well as you, Jez. That’s saying something, Vegas being the land of sequined bras. So, you’re going back to your roots, blonde and everything?”
I ran a hand through my dark hair. “No more hours spent at the hair salon.” I smiled at him, a real smile he’d never seen before. I cupped my eye and fished out one contact and then the other. I pulled their case out of my purse then shrugged and tossed them all into the trash behind the counter.
I blinked a few times and then leaned closer to Hank. “With only blue sky above me and horse flesh between my knees.”
He swallowed and washed down the counter, not looking at me, like I’d broken an unspoken rule. I had, of course. You couldn’t go from sequins to flannel without shaking up expectations, also, sincerity wasn’t in Jezabel Whiskey’s repertoire.
“Anything good going on in back?” I sipped my drink and spun around on the stool to check out the rest of the room. There were a few tables occupied by tourists and hardened locals.
“There’s a fellow Texan. Maybe you can give him a ride home when he’s lost his last nickel. He actually brought a deed to a house.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “A paper deed? I didn’t know they had those anymore. Is the game open?”
“If you’re leaving town, you should play. One last game.”
I snorted. “You want me to leave at a run?”
“We don’t mind you winning, Jez. You look so good doing it, you make losing a pleasure. Maybe you’d like a private strip poker game after I get off work.”
“As tempting as that is, I don’t need cards to get a man naked.” I grabbed my purse and headed towards the stairs over the black carpet. The den was black and gold with elaborate gilt railings.
Once I’d reached the landing, the enormous gilt mirror showed a woman with big eyes, luscious lips, tiny waist, made smaller compared to the breasts I’d paid top dollar for. I had an appointment in a few weeks to get rid of them. It was the biggest sacrifice I’d made, literally and figuratively.
I sighed and watched my breasts rise and fall. Would I miss them? They’d been messing up my balance for years. No. I wouldn’t miss them or men’s reaction to them. Once I left here I’d be myself. Whoever that was.
The back room was open to the bottom floor so you could stand at the railing and see the hair of the handsome men wearing too much gel. I headed right over to the table that had drawn a crowd.
I recognized a few hardened players. Tera Fields was dealing, her long red nails matching her lips as she smiled at the Texan. I couldn’t see his face beneath his cowboy hat, but I could see the line of empty glasses along the edge of the table. Gambling was foolish enough, doing it drunk?
“What’s the score?” I asked, slipping next to Gary, the owner of the place and the best player in town, dark hair streaked with silver at his temples. He looked like a rake of a gambler. That’s why I was so comfortable around him.
He flashed a smile at me and nodded at Cowboy Hat. “He’s in deep. It’s like he wants to throw away the last of his fortune.”
“He actually has a deed? Did he lose it yet?”
Gary studied me, searching for a tell. “Don’t go all soft-hearted, my beautiful Jezabel.”
I patted his lapel. “I’d have to have a heart first.” I pushed to the edge of the table. “Anyone want a replacement?”
The four players looked up at me. Scratch that, because Cowboy Hat was staring at his cards like he’d never seen them before. Maybe his hat shaded them too much to be able to get a read on them.
“You’re playing?” Tara asked, raising an eyebrow and looking me up and down. “Didn’t think you liked putting real money on the line.”
I picked up a red chip and rubbed it in my fingers before tossing it back onto the table with a clatter. “It’s not real money. Anyone out?”
“The buy-in is ten grand,” Gary said, at my elbow. “Pull up a chair.”
There was a rustling as I nodded the waiter over. I pulled a card out of my purse and put it on the tray in his hands. “And have Hank make me another Jezabel.” I winked at him and made him feel like he was the only man in the world for a good two seconds before I sat in the chair someone had brought. I sat between Tera and a man I’d never met. He had shifty eyes and a snarling mouth. He was there to win and probably had a card or two up his sleeve. That was my favorite kind of opponent.
I took a deep breath as Tera passed the deck over to me. I raised my eyebrows. “Is it my deal?”
She smiled all sharp and amused. She could lose a hundred grand without blinking. “I haven’t seen you shuffle for years. It’s a real treat. Make it a good show, won’t you, honey?”
A surge of humiliated anger rose into my throat and I wanted to slash her wrists with those cards. Luckily for me, humiliated anger had been my best friend for years. “I’ll shuffle real pretty, honey, for the price of my buy-in. I’m not an amateur who shows off her talents for free, now, am I?”
“I’ll pay for your buy-in for pretty card tricks,” Cowboy Hat said, lifting his head to meet my eyes for the first time.
The world spun around as those blood-shot brown eyes smiled at me. He didn’t look at my breasts, just stared into my eyes like he was staring into my soul, as though I still had a soul after so many years in Vegas.
I didn’t even realize I was shuffling until someone whistled and I glanced down to see what my fingers were doing. Pretty card tricks. Of course they were. Pretty brown eyes asked for tricks, and I’d perform without a second thought. Or a first thought.
What was Jackson Dewitt doing in Las Vegas, clearly drunk and burning through his cash like he didn’t want it? What deed did he have? Was it his grandma’s place? He wouldn’t ever lay that on a filthy poker table.
I glanced up at him, taking in his leer and cruel eyes. I let the cards fall and stood to face him. “Are you soliciting my attentions?”
He raised his eyebrows and glanced right and left before he shrugged. “Prostitution is legal in Vegas.”
I inhaled deeply and stepped forward to hurt the man very, very badly, but he was yanked away from me, Gary holding one arm, a waiter holding the other.
Gary shot me a stern look. “Jezabel, no roughhousing.”
I crossed my arms. “He offered me money for my body.”
“I realize that. He doesn’t know you like we do. Calm down. Take a seat or get out.”
It took a few breaths to be able to regain my mask of cheerful vacuity. Vacuity was a good word, a big word. I learned a big word every week. Once a day was too much for my small brain. Jackson knew all about my small brain. He didn’t know about my breasts. What would he think about them? He’d probably assume that it meant I was for sale. Of course I was. Why would I have such goods on display if I wasn’t trying to attract customers. It was a logical assumption.
I should have walked away from that table. No, I should have run. The first rule: Never gamble what you can’t afford to lose. Right now with most of my savings sunk into the ranch in Texas, I didn’t have a lot of breathing room, not for these kinds of stakes. Rule number two: Never let personal feelings get involved. If I could somehow not have personal feelings about Jackson Dewitt, I’d be a completely different person.
I took a deep breath and sat back down. Jezabel Whiskey was a completely different person, and I’d played that girl for so long, even if my dad hadn’t taught me how to lie with my whole body, I could do this.
I smiled as sultry as I knew how at Jackson. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. “What brings you to Vegas?”
He smiled, as sweet as sin. “Vice. Isn’t that what brings everyone here? Not you. I’ve seen your show. Your horse is beautiful.”
I exhaled long and deep. He didn’t sound very drunk, only slightly slurred around the edges, but that was hard to distinguish from his everyday drawl. “Do you have an eye for horseflesh?”
He shrugged as I gathered up the cards and shuffled, neat and simple. “The finer points escape me. I can ride a horse, at least I think I can until I see someone like you. You’re a horse dancer.”
“Trick rider is the term,” I said with another smile, but my voice was hard. I needed to walk away. Two sentences in and he was already doing it, making me feel real and respectable. He didn’t respect me, or he wouldn’t have offered me money for my love the last time I’d seen him.
“It seems more than that,” he said with his own easy smile, but his voice wasn’t as smooth as I expected. He grabbed a shot glass and downed two fingers of whiskey. Was that straight? He was going to be under the table in no time. Maybe that was for the best. You couldn’t lose money in Gary’s den when you were unconscious. Some places weren’t so particular.
“Are you dealing, or are you out?” Tera’s voice was harsh, reminding me not to stare at Jackson like he was my long lost dog.
Was I dealing? Once I put out the cards, I couldn’t walk away without losing the ten grand. It was a small price to pay to put Jackson Dewitt behind me. I put the first card down with a resounding slap.
I looked up at Jackson, those eyes brimming with emotion no gambler should show. “Oh, I’m in. There’s nothing better than making a cowboy cry.”
He grinned and tipped his hat. “I’m happy to oblige you, ma’am.”
Chapter 2
Jessie Strait, otherwise known as Jezabel Whiskey—an ironic moniker since by all reports she never drank—sat across from me, a glass of whatever custom elixir this place had named in her honor at her fingertips. She held her cards with a mysterious smile on that mouth.
I could still remember how she tasted, how those lips felt on mine. I knew she was in Vegas, even that this was her favorite place of chance, but I’d never thought that she’d actually be there, sitting across from me, smiling with wattage so bright, her sequined top couldn’t compare.
I’d come here to lose the house that felt like a burden, a house with memories that burned like acid every time I walked through those halls. It was my grandmother’s house, the house where they raised funds for National Monuments and other auspicious and noble causes. Bringing a deed to a multi-million dollar estate had certainly turned heads, even the one I thought would never look my way again.
She played carefully, making certain she didn’t show her expertise right away. That was my game as well. Hand after hand passed as the stakes rose slowly but surely until with a scrape of her chair, the last player was out leaving me staring into Jessie’s blue eyes. I’d drunk too much and made mistakes, but that helped put down her guard.
She raised an eyebrow in that smile, the same sensual expression plastered all over Las Vegas. No, she’d never lower her guard with me again. After I was clean, she apparently still had credit. Maybe she had a backer or two, the money behind the skill, but no. Everyone who knew her would tell you that Jezabel Whiskey didn’t play for money. She was making an exception for me. She wanted to see me penniless, crawling after her red cowboy boots on my hands and knees.
My vision was getting blurry, everything except her face, her dark hair too harsh against her fair skin. Where were her freckles, the perfect freckles sprinkled across her nose like cinnamon? She had a pattern of freckles on her left shoulder like a puppy paw print. It made her skin even softer, her shoulders, throat, lips…
I blinked and realized that she was waiting for me with that same smile.
“Call?”
I rubbed my face and smiled at her with a shake of my head. “It’s my grandmother’s house. Has a good barn.”
She snorted, a sound that was somehow still lady-like. “They’re called stables.”
I leaned forward, staring at her instead of my cards. “You can call it whatever you want if you win, but right now, it’s a barn.” I tossed the deed onto the table like some riverboat gambler from a hundred years ago.
She shook her head slightly at the drama and pushed a slip of paper across the table.
“What’s that, other than lovely handwriting.” She’d always had beautiful handwriting. I pulled the paper towards me, greedy to read her words. IOU 1,000 acres and JS Ranch. I looked back up at her, sliding the paper through my fingers. “You have a ranch?”
She finished her drink in one smooth movement, showing the column of her smooth throat. She still didn’t smoke. Behind the glitz and glamour, she was still the girl who lived according to a strict set of rules, or at least tried to.
She glanced to the side, a slight tell that showed how much she didn’t want to lose, but would risk it because of how much she wanted me to suffer. Her face didn’t show her anger, hatred, or any other negative emotion. She’d been as plastic perfect as possible except for that moment the man had propositioned her. She hadn’t changed about that either.
“Call,” I said and laid down my cards in a nice spread. It was a terrible hand, really, probably the worst hand I’d had all night, but I was giving her the house. She could have it along with every other cent of loose change I owned. I’d never have to see her again, and I’d never have to wonder what if. This was the end, the door closing on a long line of memories I never should have made.
She stared at me and shook her head. “That is the worst hand I’ve ever seen. I’m genuinely surprised. Either you don’t mind losing, or you’ve got the best lying face I’ve ever seen. Knowing you, I’ll take it as the second.”
I raised my eyebrows and swallowed my whiskey too fast. “I couldn’t ever compete with the great Jezabel Whiskey when it came to blatant deception. Let’s see your hand. Did you beat my two’s?”
She shook her head tightly and then tossed her cards down. A full house. I blinked at
those cards and shook my head. “And I’m out. Winner takes all.”
“Do you have anything left to take you home?”
“Home? That’s wherever I land.”
Her face tightened and she pushed a handful of bills over at me before she stood and inhaled deeply. I’d have to be dead not to notice the rise of her chest. Why was she walking around in those Daisy Duke’s and cropped top, showing off her body like that? She hated it. She’d always hated it. I never would have found her on my own. I wouldn’t have looked in the spotlight for a woman wearing sequins and performing death-defying stunts or racing through the desert, fighting with a group of some kind of Mad Max wannabe’s. The entire thing was utterly absurd, but somehow she fit in the vicious, cutthroat world. The sweetest, most delicate and lovely creature I’d ever thought I’d known adapted perfectly into the hardened desert star and card player who had defeated me so embarrassingly.
I stood up, slow so I wouldn’t fall over. I bowed, not too low because everything was spinning and I had to get down the steps one at a time. “It’s been a lovely game. Thank you for playing.”
She stood up and leaned her palms on the table. “I wasn’t playing.”
I stared at her. Her eyes were blue. They were supposed to be brown. It was part of her Jezabel Whiskey persona to be a brunette with brown eyes. “Why not? You’re such a consummate player.”
“Never gamble what you can’t afford to lose.”
I almost touched my pocket where I kept the watch. “You play pretty high stakes. What can’t you lose?”
She smiled and cocked her head. “My heart, of course. Be careful going down the stairs.” She tucked the bills into my pocket and turned, walking gracefully away from the table in those short shorts and red cowboy boots. Her waist was narrow enough for me to circumnavigate with my hands. I stayed there until she was out of sight, down the steps I still had to somehow conquer. What did she mean, she didn’t bet her heart? When had her heart ever been in the game? It was my heart she’d ripped to pieces and thrown away, never looking back when she disappeared without a word. Oh no, there had been words. They’d been: “I’ll be right back.”
