“It would sell as well as the others after the debut. I know. You have house and car payments, after all.”
“Big ones.” Suzanne toasted back.
She’d maintained that Cherry wasn’t any kind of star, and she’d lobbied for a Grace Kelly book. But Rochelle was more interested in Cherry’s nitty-gritty, in the slightly mysterious woman who ruled over the Rough & Tumble in that painting.
Rochelle sipped the strawberry-with-a-kick drink, and Suzanne threw hers back like a sailor on shore leave. A sailor who’d probably have some major brain freeze in a second.
Right on schedule, Suzanne shivered and shook her head. Then she poured herself another.
“Good to see you’re feeling better,” Rochelle said.
“Wish I could say the same for you.” Suzanne took a seat and put down her glass. “I’ve never seen you so tired or so . . . something.”
Oh, oh. Suzanne had been with her for a few years now, and they knew each other too well for Rochelle to fool her. Still, she tried to worm her way out of any confessions about her dad or how Gideon had kept her up last night.
“I just can’t stop thinking about the creeper,” she said instead. “I’ve been amped up all day, on alert for Superfan to show up.”
“That’s why we have protection.” Suzanne took another drink then said, “I’d like to think that whoever it is either got out their frustrations on that poster yesterday or they saw our tall, scowling sentinels on duty at the signings and decided it wasn’t worth their effort to make any more of a fuss. Perhaps they also got enough satisfaction out of seeing mention of the poster incident online, even though we did our best to keep it out of the media.”
A couple of publishing and reader sites had gotten wind of the Cherry-is-an-angel-you-bitch incident, maybe because some bookstore or mall employees had seen Superfan’s message first.
“I hope you’re right about losing the creeper,” Rochelle said, nursing her cocktail. She had no game anyway when it came to drinking. One sip and she was already buzzing.
Suzanne tapped her finger against her head. “Don’t you know yet that I’m right about many things? And that includes . . .” She leaned toward Rochelle and lowered her voice. “The reason you’re in a funk, my dear.”
Great. Suzanne hadn’t bought the creeper excuse, and she’d only turned down the volume on her voice because she didn’t want Harry to overhear their girl talk. Well, Suzanne wasn’t a moron. Who wouldn’t have noticed the thick-as-fog attraction between Rochelle and Gideon or even the post Dad-didn’t-call-again blues? Wasn’t she too old to sing those?
She focused on Gideon, telling herself that he was only a latent breath of memory, a could-have-been-so-much-better curiosity. She still couldn’t resist him, and she’d spent all of last night deep in fantasy, imagining him slipping under her sheets, bare, his skin sliding over hers as she sucked in a breath and whispered, “You’re not supposed to be here.” Then him shutting her up with a crushing kiss as he recklessly lifted her nightgown and spread her legs with his hand, opening her to him . . .
Phew.
With her clit beating, she straightened in her seat at the flood of rousing images. She was already damp.
Then again, that’s how she’d felt that night, before everything had gone wrong.
Suzanne was watching her, lifting a plucked eyebrow. Behind her, Rochelle could see Harry scanning the landscape, looking as if he wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation.
Even so, she gave Suzanne a slashing ix-nay on the atter-chay gesture as the other woman sighed and leaned back in her chair. The lilt of the flowing pool water and the hum of the still desert night air took over while Rochelle enjoyed the view of the valley and the Vegas Strip in the distance, which was lighting up at the coming darkness.
It wasn’t long afterward that she heard a slamming sound—a door in the mansion—and Harry stirred.
“Ah,” Rochelle said. “Trouble has arrived.” It had to be her cousins. They’d been at her final signing of the day but were supposed to come by here afterward, moving in to the mansion for the rest of the week, working during the day, kicking back here at night to enjoy the pool and the good life.
Colin “Buzz” Burton, the first to enter through the sliding glass door, was dressed in his straw cowboy hat, a long-sleeved plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves, jeans, and shit-kicker boots. The oldest, he was what the girls used to call a “long, tall drink of water.” He had dark hair and laugh lines that rayed out from his blue eyes, making him always look like he was smiling at something or another. He’d genuinely smiled a lot more before Uncle Dennis had died and Buzz had taken over the cutting-horse operation.
He held up two packs of beer to Rochelle. “Here you go—the best the Speedee Mart had to offer.”
Jonsey, the youngest and the only fair-haired cousin in the bunch, came out behind him holding more beer. “I wanted to go to Lee’s Liquor, where the selection kicks this beer’s ass, but no-o-o. Even that’s too high end for Buzz.”
Rochelle said, “I already had plenty here.”
“But I like what I like, Shel,” Buzz said, putting down his drinks on the table.
He kissed her cheek and shook Suzanne’s hand. Jonsey did the same for Rochelle but then swooped over to Suzanne and dashingly grazed her knuckles with his lips. He was dressed like Buzz, and that was no surprise, since Jonsey had stayed on the ranch to train horses. It wasn’t actually a choice, though—a few years ago, he’d been a scrapper, never a boy to resist a good fight. One fight—over a woman—had even landed him in jail. But Buzz had set him straight, keeping him busy on the ranch, making him as respectable as Jonsey would allow.
Cousin number three sauntered outside, distancing himself from the others as usual. Tucker was holding a paper bag, and from what Rochelle could tell, the bottle was open. Had he been drinking from it?
He gave Rochelle a lopsided smile, and she noticed that Bodyguard Harry was silently looking Tucker over in a major way, from his biker boots to his thrashed jeans to the grungy T-shirt and shaggy dark hair. If Rochelle hadn’t known that her cousin had scored on the sale of a smartphone app for tattoo artists last year, she would’ve suspected that he was a Rough & Tumble regular—when he wasn’t biking across the country.
Tucker came over to ruffle Rochelle’s hair, and she actually let him.
“Where’s Gideon?” he asked, glancing at Harry.
Gideon, Gideon, Gideon. Why couldn’t she get away from him even when he wasn’t around?
Rochelle thanked God for the falling darkness that hopefully covered her burning ears. “He’s taking a break. Harry’s relieving him.”
Tucker continued staring at Harry and likewise. “Damn, Buzz, you weren’t kidding about getting her some bodyguards. Mack truck ones, too.”
Unfazed, Harry turned his attention forward. Tucker grinned at the guard’s nonreaction.
Buzz sat in the chair next to Rochelle and gave her a light punch to the shoulder. “So how’s it goin’ with your knights in shining armor?”
“Great.” Basically.
“I knew Gideon would be all over this when he heard about the creeper.”
Yeah, she thought. If only you knew what he’d been all over before now.
Wow, why was she one walking double entendre radar unit lately? More important, why was her body thudding at the very thought of Gideon being all over her again?
While Jonsey wandered over to the cabana to take a look at the beds and amenities inside, Tucker sat at the table opening his beer. Suzanne perked up at all the male company, motioning toward the plethora of booze.
“Either you boys are stocking up for the week,” she said, “or you plan to spend the night passed out on the concrete.”
“Actually,” Buzz said, “I’m gonna make good use of that elevator tonight to get to my room. Imagine that—an
elevator in Shel’s house.”
Jonsey chuckled from over by the cabana. “You’d think we were hillbillies or something, Buzz. Didn’t Uncle Dale ever have an elevator in his SoCal place?”
He looked at Rochelle for confirmation. He was asking about her dad’s house, after all.
“None that I can recall,” she said. “Then again, Dad never overspends or gets more than he needs in a house or cars or whatever.”
Tucker pointed at her. “Except if it’s overspending on you.”
She shrugged. Dad really was good about expressing affection—with his money. But that’d always been better than the missed phone calls she got nowadays, she supposed.
Buzz still wasn’t over it. “An elevator. You know you’ve reached the heights when you’ve got one of those.”
Suzanne finished drinking and said, “Why the surprise, boys? Rochelle is a best-selling author with her books going back to print over and over as well as staying in the top of the digital sales lists, and it wouldn’t do for her to rent a shack. Especially with the subjects she writes about.”
Buzz ribbed Rochelle. “So you’re only keeping up impressions, huh?”
“I,” Rochelle said, “and my pocketbook.”
Suzanne continued. “Would you expect Jackie Collins to sleep in a tract house?”
Rochelle laughed. So she was lucky that she’d hit on some subjects that people just happened to want to read. And she had a dad who had set up a trust fund with investments that had drawn ridiculous dividends over the years.
Elevators it was.
Jonsey came back, opened his beer, and then toasted the table with it. “Here’s to Rochelle, whose hospitality is unmatched.”
“And unconditional,” said Tucker. “It’d have to be to put up with this crowd.”
This time Rochelle nudged him, but then they all raised their glasses.
It was only when Buzz made his contribution that she nearly dropped her cocktail.
“And here’s to Gideon, who really came through for us.”
As they all drank to that, Rochelle gulped down her drink, because if the boys knew just how much Gideon had taken care of her once upon a time, there’d be no toasts.
There’d be hell to pay.
***
Gideon had made arrangements to meet Boomer at the Rough & Tumble to touch base about the creeper since the PI had spent the day doing some legwork.
But truth be told, he’d also needed this built-in break from Rochelle more than he’d realized.
Usually, watching over a client was the iciest experience Gideon could think of. Other BGs he knew liked to call themselves Terminators because they were like human machines—always on guard, scanning everything and everyone around them for the slightest hint of something wrong. But Gideon’s Terminator self had been mightily distracted by Rochelle.
The scent of her hair whenever she’d walk past him.
The sound of her laugh as she’d chatted with readers.
The sight of her stretching in the limo on the way to another signing, then closing her eyes for a moment of rest.
Had she slept as badly as he had last night? Or, more to the point, had she slept at all, knowing that they were only footsteps away from each other?
As he entered the Rough & Tumble, some hard Janis Joplin rushed at him from the corner jukebox, and he told himself that soon he’d need to untie these sexual knots that’d been bunching in him. And when he saw a few familiar girls at the bar—waitresses from the Silver Hills Casino near the interstate—his gut gave a tug, like it was already loosening.
Problem solved? Goddammit, like he had the time.
“Quick-draw!” yelled one brunette whose hair was blond at the bottom. She was scanning him with a lascivious grin, probably wondering why he’d come in here without his usual cowboy gear on.
He didn’t have time to explain that he’d shaved and worn an all-black wardrobe today for his job’s sake. He’d wanted to look imposing in case the creeper was at Rochelle’s signings.
“Nice to see you, Nola,” he said over the music.
“How about some body shots?”
Any other night, and he’d be into that. In fact, he’d been into that a few times before.
“Just stopping by,” he said, gesturing toward the back hallway that led to the private poker room.
She flipped him off and returned to her drinks.
Hell, she’d find someone else. Maybe even Jimmy Beetles, who was urging a pack of sweet asses from a local motorcycle club to get up and dance on the bar. First guy to do that every night won a pot of money that everyone contributed to, which is how Gideon made a lot of his pocket change.
Best of luck to Beetles.
When Gideon arrived at the poker room, the door was closed, so he knocked. The door opened, compliments of Kat.
The brass ceiling fan inside the flocked, red-velveteen wall-papered room ruffled her short, blondish hair.
Gideon leaned against the door frame. “What’re you doin’ back here?”
“Taking a second off from work. What—am I the only one who’s never allowed a break?”
He chuffed her under the chin like she was a little sister. “It’s good to see you resting, Kat. Isaiah’s got a good influence on you.”
“Yeah, well.”
She opened the door and he walked in to find Boomer and another R&T regular at the poker table lounging over beer, cards, and guttered cigars in ashtrays. The room carried a brandied aroma barely cut by the motion of that lazy ceiling fan.
Talking about lazy, Boomer laughed, pushing a hank of dark hair away from his eye and tossing away his cards. “You missed a hell of a game, quick-draw,” he said in his scratchy New Orleans voice, although he never confirmed or denied where he was from. But the way he still made his ths into ds gave Gideon a good hint.
Across the table, Jesse Navarro rubbed at his skull-shorn hair. He had a very basic Aztec sun shaved into one side, and he looked as granite as ever.
“Cowboy,” he said in an officious, rumbling voice that spoke of his time as a fellow soldier.
“Jesse.” Gideon noticed that one spot at the table had another set of cards marking Kat’s place. She was really taking a break tonight, and that was strange, seeing as she was always working her ass off to make sure the saloon didn’t go under. “What’s really the occasion, Kat?”
“No occasion,” she said as they both sat. “It’s just that I haven’t been part of a good game in years, and I told myself why not. Might as well give it a go every once in a while.”
Boomer chuckled. “Kat’s got a hankering for her man, and she’s trying to distract herself. That’s the down-low.”
“Shut up, Boomer,” she said.
But Kat was trying really hard not to smile, and that made them all smile, because she’d fallen for a guy last year, and that was highly unusual, seeing as she was as secretive and private as they came. She had a past—a doozy of one that had resulted in a knife scar near her ribs—and only a few R&T regulars knew about it, including Gideon and Boomer.
What was telling was that her new beau, Isaiah, still didn’t know everything about her. Kat had been working her way around to it for months.
If you asked Gideon, he’d say that didn’t bode well for their future. Neither did the fact that Isaiah was attending graduate school out of state and they were doing the long-distance thing.
“You talk to Isaiah today?” Gideon asked as Boomer gestured toward a beer. Gideon waved it off. He wouldn’t be here for long. “Because you seem in a mood.”
“Yes, I talked to him, and, no, I’m not in a mood.” Kat picked up her cards, even though no one else was playing anymore.
Boomer couldn’t resist teasing her again. “They’re talking about taking the big plunge.”
“We are not,” Kat
said. “Jesus.”
Jesse’s laugh was more like a grunt. But it was a laugh anyway.
“Boomer,” Kat said, sliding him a saucy look, “if you don’t cut it out, I’m gonna ban you from the saloon.”
“No, you wouldn’t, darlin’.”
“Try me. It’s not like you’re here often enough to make my coffers overflow anyway.”
“But when I am here, I bring so much more than riches. My charms are worth a million.”
“Yeah, a million grains of Mojave sand.”
Then the tone changed as Boomer’s light blue eyes lost their glimmer and he gave Gideon a steady look. “Today, Kat and Isaiah talked about investing in silver hunting equipment since he thinks there’s a stash ’round these parts.”
The table went quiet as Kat joined in that look.
Jesse was the only one here who didn’t know how silver had become the bane of her existence when she was younger, even if it could help her out now. He didn’t know how a man had once seduced her, then got her into big trouble when she discovered that he was a silver thief and his partner had taken her out to the desert to make Kat reveal where the cache had been buried. Kat didn’t have a clue as to its whereabouts, and she’d come close to dying because of it.
Just ask that ugly wound near her ribs.
She was always on the lookout for another criminal who might wander into the R&T, dragging her back into that secret past she’d tried so hard to put behind her, and Isaiah had been the first person in recent memory to pass all her tests.
Then again, they all had things to hide, didn’t they? What would Rochelle think if she found out how he’d gotten his own gunpowder burn mark . . .?
Gideon thrust the subject out of the room, just as he always did. “I say let Kat and Isaiah take the big plunge together.”
Boomer leaned back in his chair. “They’ve sure been plunging nice and slow. Kat, has he even plucked your cherry yet?”
Kat actually laughed. “Ain’t no cherry to be plucked, smart ass.”
Jesse finally spoke up. “You haven’t gotten close up and way personal with Isaiah?”
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