Walk on the Wild Side

by Christine Warren

  "Of course not," she assured, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. "I'm sure you're right. Even if I did go back, the chances of them catching the guy are probably nil. I wouldn't want to waste your time. Especially since you went out of your way to come meet me." She faked a curious look. "How long did you say you've worked for my father?"

  That brought a faint smile to his lips. "I didn't. Officially, its been about twelve years. But really it's even longer than that, now. Martin took me in when I was just a teenager. I started out earning an allowance by running errands for him, then when I was eighteen he gave me a job doing pretty much the same thing in his office, but with that job I started earning a real paycheck. I've been with him ever since."

  "Wow." She laughed, shaking off the last of her uneasiness and feeling it replaced by an odd twinge of hurt. "You must know him pretty well."

  "He's been like a father to me."

  "Well, that makes one of us."

  Max said nothing, but she felt his gaze on her and flushed. Wow, it looked like she was harboring a bit more bitterness than she'd wanted to admit, and that wasn't like her. Her grandmother would have been ashamed.

  "Sorry," Kitty said, her mouth twisting. "I guess I'm even more tired than I thought. I shouldn't have said that."

  She heard his jacket rustle as he shrugged. She wasn't quite ready to look at him again.

  "I suppose it's the truth," he said, his tone very even.

  Kitty shook her head. "Not really. At least, not all of it." She stole a glance and saw him gazing steadily out the windshield wearing that same neutral expression. "I'm not sure how much you know. About my father and me."

  "Not a lot." He checked his rearview mirror, flipped the turn signal, and smoothly changed lanes. "I know this is the first time you'll be meeting him, and I know you grew up back east. I know you didn't shift for the first time until just before you contacted him."

  "I didn't even know it was possible." She laughed, a dry, tired sound. "I didn't know he was Other. I thought I was human through and through."

  She was silent for a long minute.

  "That must have been a bit of a shock."

  "You could say that."

  "You seem to be doing pretty well with it." He looked at her again with a question on his face.

  This time, she really laughed. "Good to know I've got you fooled. I'm holding my sanity together with duct tape and prayer." Leaning back against her seat, she took a second to enjoy the heated leather beneath her. Little, tangible things like that helped almost as much as the duct tape. "Anyway, suffice it to say, I didn't know about him, and he thought he was doing what was best for me, so I'd appreciate it if you'd forget what I said."

  "I don't think you were out of line, but if that's what you want."

  She nodded decisively. More for herself than for him. "It is."

  "I think you each have a lot to learn about the other."

  Kitty continued on, anxious to lighten the mood. And change the subject. "If it's not exhaustion making me snarky, it must be that airplane food," she joked, urging him to laugh along with her. "I always heard it was no good for you."

  "Not unless you're the size of a flea with the taste buds of a dung beetle." He smiled. "But I can tell you for certain that the Savannah has an excellent room service menu."

  Finally, safer ground. "You've stayed there before?"

  "Many, many times."

  "Oh, great. You can give me a firsthand opinion, then. Is it as nice as all the guidebooks say?"

  The light trickling into the car became a flood, and Kitty looked around to see that Max had turned the car into a covered area in the front of the hotel. All around them she could see other cars, taxis, limousines, and people. There were people everywhere—young women in sparkling party clothes, older women in shorts and T-shirts, men in tuxedos or faded jeans, and dozens of hotel employees in tailored khaki uniforms.

  All the lights and colors and movement distracted her until Max pulled the car to a stop right in front of the hotel doors and turned in his seat to face her straight on.

  "I'm afraid my opinion could be considered biased," he said when she finally looked back at him.

  "Why? Just because you like it? It's fine if it's your favorite hotel. That just means you'll have lots of tips and advice for me."

  He shook his head, his copper eyes bright and intense.

  "It's not my favorite," he said slowly. "It's mine. I'm the president and executive manager. I run the Savannah."

  Kitty shook her head. "But I thought you said you worked for my father."

  His beautiful lips quirked as a valet and a doorman approached the car from either side and reached for the doors to allow them to exit.

  "I do."

  Abruptly, the buzzing came back.

  It was the same sound she'd heard just before Misty's truck had run off the road, the same sound that had filled her head when Papaw sat her down and told her a story about her mother and a man who'd passed through town and left something important behind.

  Kitty had come to think of it as the sound of the world rushing by at warp speed while she stood stock-still and dug in her heels. The trouble was, sooner or later the vacuum created by the changing world around her would generate enough power to suck her along in its wake.

  Imagine that. Kitty Sugarman becoming a cosmic-scale sucker.

  "What?" she whispered.

  Max glanced over her shoulder and shook his head. Kitty sensed movement behind her and guessed he'd signaled to the hovering doorman to give them a minute before opening her door. If Max really ran this place, it was no wonder she failed to hear a click, she thought with just a delicate touch of hysteria.

  When he looked back at her, she could see the muscle in his jaw clench and thought he looked about as pleased to deliver this news as she was confused to hear it.

  "I don't know why your father didn't mention his business to you," Max said, his voice low and tense. "That's between the two of you, though I'm guessing that once you learned his name, he assumed you'd realize for yourself."

  She looked at Max in disbelief. "Why on earth would I realize? Do I look like I follow the gambling industry to you? I've never even bought a lottery ticket!"

  "Have you bought a newspaper? Your father is one of the most successful self-made businessmen in the country, Kitty. His name is in the news all the time. Are you telling me you never heard Martin's name before you found out he was your father?"

  "Yes, that's what I'm telling you," she insisted, her heart racing and her mind numb. What on earth was happening to her simple, peaceful, sensible life? "I'm an assistant librarian at a public university—"

  "Then you're surrounded by media. You should have seen his name in the headlines at least a few—"

  "I work in Special Collections. Our average text was printed in the late eighteenth century. Do you think he was heavily featured during the Revolutionary War?"

  Max ran a hand through his hair, an absent, impatient gesture that left him looking like he'd just rolled out of bed, but Kitty was too shaken up to be charmed by it. She just folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. She knew he wasn't really the one she was upset with, but he was there.

  "All right," he growled. "Point taken. You really had no idea who your father was. I'm sorry he didn't tell you himself. But you shouldn't let it bother you. He may be rich, but he wasn't born that way, and I can tell you for certain that in the end, he's really just a normal man."

  Kitty raised an eyebrow and lowered her chin and wondered if he'd lost his mind.

  A grin flashed, white and unexpectedly charming. "All right, I suppose he might not seem that way to you, since you grew up human. But for a Leo, I can assure you, he's about as normal as it gets."

  Blowing out a sigh, Kitty let her eyes drift closed and shook her head. "You know, in the past month my life has been turned upside down and shaken just a few too many times, I think. And I can't say the sensation is getting any
more appealing." Opening her eyes again, she glanced over at Max and managed a small smile. "Do me a favor?"

  "What?"

  "If you've got any more bombshells planned for me any time soon, do you think we could just go on and get them out of the way? I'm not sure my heart can handle the repeated shocks."

  She saw something pass across his face, an expression she couldn't define that did nothing to calm her nerves. Not even when he nodded, slowly and deliberately.

  "I can do that," he said, "but first let's get you checked in and order you some dinner. I think you're going to need to keep up your strength for this."

  "Great," Kitty muttered to herself as he exited the car and crossed around to her side, waving the hovering doorman away. "That was exactly what I needed to hear."

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  KITTY SUGARMAN KNEW HERSELF TO BE A TENNESSEE girl, born and raised on a farm in rural Bradley County, she knew how to drive a tractor, bake a biscuit, and collect chicken eggs without getting pecked, and she could sing all three verses of "Rocky Top" in her sleep. Since leaving for college six years ago, she'd traveled a little, been to New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and once, memorably, even Bermuda. She was a country girl, but she wasn't a hick.

  But never in her life had she seen anything remotely like the Savannah Hotel and Casino.

  The lobby rose at least three stories above her, a great soaring space with sandstone tiles on the floor and a ceiling above her that had been so skillfully painted, she felt as if she were gazing up into an infinite expanse of clear, cloudless blue sky. The walls looked as if they'd been carved from the same sandstone that covered the floor, their earthy, textured surface broken occasionally by a colorful piece of textile art or by one of the trees that grew from a square of open earth and spread umbrella-like branches with sparse tufts of leaves out into space.

  Exits and halls stretched out in three directions, the open space in the center filled with small groupings of wood and leather furniture arranged around low tables woven of golden and brightly dyed straw. To the right of the entrance, set just to the side of a branching hall, a curved desk of pale wood sat before two comfortable-looking leather club chairs and bore a graceful sign that spelled out "Concierge" in loops and curves of rusted wrought iron. Instead of making the sign look ugly or neglected, the reddish orange surface patina gave it the appearance of tradition and warmth, something old, beloved, and well used.

  Against the back wall, a long, solid expanse of highly polished ebony wood was manned by two men and two women in beautiful, draped garments of colorful, intricately patterned cloth. The clothes looked something like a cross between a sari and a toga, and all four of the people wearing them looked completely comfortable in them, the men as well as the women. Kitty deduced that this was the reception desk, where she would have been checking in if Fate hadn't done such a good job of using the better part of her evening to demonstrate to her that she never should have made this trip.

  Feeling a little numb and incredibly tired, she began to head for the desk, but once again, Max caught her elbow and urged her in another direction.

  Confused, she blinked up at him. "I thought you said I needed to check in."

  "I'll take care of it," Max said, his low voice almost soothing after the noisy bustle outside. "I'm the president of the hotel, remember? You don't need to go through the front desk while you're with me."

  "At the moment, you could prop me up against the wall of a supply closet and I'd sleep standing up if I had to."

  "I think we can do better than that," he murmured, glancing down at her. "Are you sure you're up for more talking, though? Maybe you should sleep first. We can always hash things out in the morning."

  Kitty shook her head. "No, I'll be fine. What I really need is some food. Once I get something in my stomach, I'll get a second wind. And I really will sleep better if I don't lay down still worried about what surprises y'all have in store for me."

  He paused for a minute, searching her face, but whatever he found there made him nod. "Okay. This way, then."

  She followed him through an archway and around a corner to a bank of elevators. Stepping toward the last car, she watched as he drew a plastic card out of his pocket and inserted it into a slot above the call button. The car dinged and the doors slid open. Max put his hand over the gap and gestured her inside.

  He used the card again to access the hotel's top floors, the two rows of buttons separated from the rest by another card slot. She watched him press the button marked "20" and waited as the doors slid soundlessly closed. When they reopened, he ushered her out and into a sumptuously appointed hallway in the rich, warm earth tones she'd seen throughout the hotel. At the end of the hall, the same card he'd used in the elevator unlocked a wood and frosted-glass door to a living room that looked like a photo out of Architectural Digest.

  Kitty wasn't sure what she'd expected, maybe more of the African safari style she'd seen downstairs, and she had to admit there were hints of it all around her. The brightly patterned throw pillows scattered along the back of the chocolate-colored velvet sofa, the tables and shelves of hand-carved exotic woods, the unfamiliar species of plants in huge, intricately decorated clay pots all whispered of Africa. The same soothing palette of sand and earth and tall grass surrounded her, but here was an Africa of elegance and refinement. She could see it in the clean lines of the furnishings, the sleek electronics in the bloodwood armoire, the thick, dense pile of the area rugs spread across the parquet flooring.

  She turned to tell Max she'd be more comfortable in something a little smaller—like that supply closet she'd mentioned earlier—but he'd already picked up the phone and was telling the person on the other end of the line that Miss Sugarman would be staying in the Acacia Suite and a bellman should bring up her bag as soon as possible. When Max turned back to her, she thought about telling him anyway, but she never got the chance.

  "What would you like for dinner?"

  Kitty blinked. "I don't know. I haven't looked at the room service menu yet." She looked around the room. "I haven't found the room service menu yet."

  He waved a hand. "Don't worry about that. What are you in the mood for? French? Moroccan? Ethiopian?"

  Ethiopia had its own cuisine? Why had she never thought about that before?

  Shaking off her distracted thoughts, Kitty tried to picture what she wanted to eat. Since he hadn't mentioned fried catfish and collard greens, she figured southern comfort food wasn't an option, so she'd have to pick something the kitchen here would be likely to have. And something that wouldn't take too much energy to chew.

  "A burger?" she hazarded.

  Max nodded and she heard him order two burgers and a full cart, whatever that meant, before he hung up the phone. "I hope you won't mind if I join you, but I haven't had time for dinner myself."

  "No, that's fine." Her nerves jangling, Kitty looked around the room and tried not to feel too much like a hick in a high-end china shop. "This room is… amazing," she said weakly.

  Max smiled and gestured to her. "Come on. I can give you the nickel tour before the food gets here."

  His nickel tour should have cost at least a buck-fifty. The main room may have been amazing, but the rest of the suite took her breath away. The windows at one end of the living room provided a view of the Las Vegas Strip, laid out like a Christmas display beneath them, all twinkling colored lights draped over tiny buildings, with miniature cars and trucks rolling between them. Beyond the lights, she could even see the stark nighttime beauty of the desert rolling forward toward the distant mountains. It took an effort of will to tear herself away.

  When she managed it, Max led her to the other end of the room and pushed back part of what she'd thought had been a wall to reveal a small, ruthlessly modern red-clay-tiled kitchen, with full-sized appliances and golden, recessed lighting. He assured her it was fully equipped if she got tired of restaurant food, and Kitty just nodded. The living room of this place
was larger than her entire apartment in Knoxville. Now that he was adding rooms to it, she felt like Goldilocks; this suite was tooooo big.

  On the other side of the kitchen, he showed her a small, comfortably furnished dining area with a bar built into the wall and a painting almost as breathtaking as the view in the other room. Then he led the way back through the living room to a raised wooden platform that Kitty had taken to be a small sitting area and turned out to be the entrance to the hallway leading to the second half of the suite. Her wide eyes took in a private study full of books and high-tech business accessories, including a fax machine, printer, copier, and scanner. Everything except a computer, which, she learned, could be sent up from the A/V department if she needed one. Again, she just shook her head and tried to keep her mouth from falling open as he showed her both bedrooms, each with a private bath and dressing room and the biggest, plushest-looking beds she'd ever laid eyes on.

  Dear Lord, when the heck was she going to feel the pinch and wake up from all this?

  Max either didn't notice or had decided to ignore her overwhelmed expression. Or maybe he'd just gotten used to it. After all, she'd been wearing it a lot the last hour or so.

  "Dinner should be here any minute," he said, drawing her away from the master bedroom's exquisite view, this one looking away from the Strip to the outlying suburban areas and desert beyond. "By now, your bag is probably out in the living room, too."

  True to his word, the bellman had entered discreetly and left her pitiful, battered overnighter on a side table near the suite's entrance. The entire contents of the bag and the bag itself probably wouldn't have paid for the twelve-inch-square beaded wall hanging that resided just above it.

  Man, was she in the wrong place.

  Only the ringing of the doorbell—an actual doorbell. In a hotel room!—saved her from saying something unutterably stupid. Instead, she just stood awkwardly behind the sofa while Max answered the summons and admitted a khaki-uniformed waiter and the white-linen-covered cart he wheeled into the room. Max murmured to the young man, then let him wheel the cart toward the dining area and turned back to Kitty with a smile.