Then he lost himself in her taste and touch. Bells began to ring. Sirens went off. The crowd began to ooh and aah. The dogs whined and pressed closer.
“Hey man, look at the zeros!”
“You’ve done it, dudes. For a year that machine has gobbled up every dollar it was fed and never even let out a burp!”
Gradually, the sounds sifted through his awareness. Gavin lifted his head and surveyed the astonished crowd who’d gathered and were staring at them.
“Princess. Princess, I think you’d better see this.” He released Stacy and turned her toward the machine.
Dimly Stacy swam back to the present and tried to focus on whatever was more important to Gavin that kissing her. Then she saw it, the numbers on the machine. She couldn’t even count that high.
“Did we win something?” she asked, impatient to recapture Gavin’s attention.
“Did you win?” a casino employee said in astonishment. “If I read those figures right, you won the biggest payoff in the history of Las Vegas. Can you believe it?”
“Of course,” she said with a knowing smile. “I knew that in the elevator. The money is just a little something extra, a wedding present from a man who knew that one day I’d need it.”
“Little something? Stacy, darling, we’re rich.”
“We certainly are.” Stacy glanced at her watch. “I think you’d better get us to the airport. It’s close enough to the bewitching hour, my mate, and tonight there’s a full moon.”
Epilogue
“Jane has become an absolute scandal,” Alice Magadan was saying to Stacy as she adjusted her bridal veil.
“Oh, how’s that?”
“She and Lonnie. They’re practically living together.”
“I know,” Stacy said dreamily, arranging her wedding gown. “I guess that Jane will wear this dress after all.”
“I suppose. It’s that other one I don’t know what to do about.” There was a little catch in Alice’s voice, a tinge of worry that Stacy noticed at once.
“What other one, Alice? Nick?”
“Not Nick, he seems to be the only man who’s not operating on his hormones. I’m talking about Jim. He thinks he’s twenty-one and that I’m … available.”
Jim, the farmer with the barns full of car parts, the fifth partner in Magadan Classics? Stacy thought. She’d been so in love that she hadn’t even noticed their attraction. Yet in retrospect, it was inevitable. The aura of love that surrounded her and Gavin had spilled over everyone. Lonnie and Jane weren’t dancing through the corridors and dashing into the bushes, but they weren’t making any secret of their passion. Now Alice and Jim had caught the love fever.
“Well, aren’t you?” Stacy said quietly to the blushing woman who would be her mother-in-law in less than an hour. “Available, I mean?”
“Stacy, I’m a senior citizen. But the old fool just keeps kissing me.”
“I think that’s wonderful, Alice. Gavin will be so pleased to know that you will experience even a little of what we have. Besides, your grandchild will need a steadying influence in this family. And Jim is about the only levelheaded one among us.”
“Grandchild?” Alice turned to face Stacy, her expression beaming with joy.
“Yes, but don’t tell Gatsby yet. It’s my wedding gift to him, and he can’t open my present until after the ceremony.”
Alice giggled. “Stacy darling, I think you’re a little late with that thought.”
The wedding was held by the lake, at twilight, on a Saturday in October. The guests never understood the reason for the abbreviated ceremony, but Gavin did. They’d live together the rest of their lives, but the Braves might never again play in the World Series.
The punch was poured and the cake was quickly cut and served. Gavin hustled their guests out, stationed the boys beside the door, and started up the steps to the loft. He dropped his jacket on the banister, his shirt and bow tie fell on Stacy’s wedding dress on the first step, his trousers landed on her white silk stockings midway up, and his underwear joined hers at the top of the staircase.
His bride—no, his wife—was already waiting in the bed, gloriously nude, sprawled across the pillows like a princess ready to be adored. She’d brought a pitcher of punch, servings of wedding cake, peanuts, popcorn, and the TV.
“Five will get you ten that you’re gonna overdose on dessert this afternoon, Gatsby.”
“No more betting, Princess. This wager is a sure thing.”
He fell across her, entering her, feeling the explosion of heat accelerate to the danger level. “Five will get you ten that your days of grease under the fingernails are numbered.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because I intend to keep you all to myself, barefoot and pregnant.”
“Oh, that,” she said airily, wrapping her legs around his. “You’re really a little slow sometimes, my darling. Haven’t you noticed? I gave up crawling under trucks a month ago.” She lifted herself against him, filling his body with her passion and his mind with her words.
Like the slot machine in Vegas, bells clanged, oceans roared, fireworks detonated, the world whirled past, catapulting them into some hazy place that cushioned them in the soft afterglow of their loving.
It seemed like hours later that Gavin heard the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Appropriate,” he murmured. It wasn’t even twilight, and he’d seen the rocket’s red glare and heard a few bursting bombs too. But that was nothing new. He struggled to focus on something important, something … “You did? Stacy, you’re pregnant? How?”
He rolled off her, catching her cheek with his fingertips and searching her face in alarm.
“I’m very pregnant, Gavin Magadan. The doctor said it probably happened that first night. Are you sorry?”
“Sorry? I’ve hit the jackpot. I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said, reverently laying his hand on her stomach. “A child of royalty, a lucky child. I’ll bet it’s a girl.”
“That’s one bet you’ll lose, Gavin,” Stacy said, snuggling into his arms. “Jane’s tarot cards have already predicted that it’s a boy.”
“You don’t really believe she can read those things, do you?”
“Nobody believed the Braves would make the World Series, did they? You just never know who fate will smile on.”
But Stacy knew. She turned her face for a kiss. And she knew that someday there’d be another lucky woman who’d gamble on being loved by a lean mean loving machine.
This one’s for you, Karen, because you’re special.
THE EDITOR’S CORNER
Welcome to Loveswept!
Love is in the air this month – and no, I’m not talking about that holiday. I’m talking about all of our fantastic Loveswept releases coming up, and I’m so excited to share them all with you.
Tina Wainscott’s red-hot WILD ON YOU introduces the Justiss Alliance, an elite team of heroes out to do right. This is one book that will be hard to put down, as one untamable SEAL meets a woman who handles the wildest sort of animals—until she herself becomes the hunted. Another book that I keep raving about it Sally Eggert’s electrifying romantic suspense, IN THE DARK, where passion raises the stakes when a woman is drawn into a dangerous game, with a man who may not be what he seems. Intrigued? I was! If you’re a fan of historical romance with tons of sensuality, adventure and intrigue, look no further than Sharon Cullen’s PLEASING THE PIRATE, where a ruthless pirate and a Scottish lass are wrenched between love and duty. And if you were sucked into Stacey Kennedy’s CLAIMED like I was, you’ll be happy to hear that the oh-so-sexy Club Sin returns in BARED – a wicked and wild tale of submission, seduction, and love.
And of course, we can’t forget about those classic romances that made us fall in love time and again. This month we have two fantastic books from two beloved authors: Sandra Chastain’s irresistible reads: JOKER’S WILD and LEAN MEAN LOVING MACHINE, and Ruth Owen’s wonderful historicals: MIDNIGHT MISTRESS and
GAMBLER’S DAUGHTER. Then there’s Karen Leabo’s tale of hot pursuit and hotter passions, HOT PROPERTY, and Linda Cajio’s EARTH ANGEL, where a boardroom hotshot discovers heavenly pleasure with an unlikely angel. And a sensuous historical tale from #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen, WILD SILVER: THE DELANEY’S – who doesn’t love a story with a wicked prince and a beautiful, willful captive?
Be swept away with Loveswept!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Love stories you’ll never forget
by authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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