“Oh, he was so handsome.” She folded her hands on the tabletop and sent a glance across at B.J. Her eyes were shining. “Very dangerous, oh yes, with those exciting pale eyes of his. I was in love from the first moment I saw him. It took me years to start suspecting that he might actually be the Blake Bravo, the bad seed of the Los Angeles Bravos—a person who had beaten another man to death with his bare hands and was supposed to have died in an apartment fire.”
“How did you find out the truth?”
“I saw a picture of him—of the Blake Bravo—in a magazine article about the L.A. branch of the family. I couldn’t believe it. The Blake in the picture was my Blake.”
“So you confronted him about it?”
“Confronted? Well, I wouldn’t use such a strong word. I never confronted Blake about anything. He didn’t come to me that often and I was always so thrilled just to see his handsome face, to look in those dangerous eyes…” Chastity shook her head. “Go ahead. Say it.”
“You said it for me a few minutes ago. The man took you for a ride.”
“Oh, yes he did.”
“You did talk with him about it, though, about the picture in the magazine?”
“I did. Even I, blinded by love as I was, couldn’t help but be more than a little suspicious. The next time he came to me, I gently asked him about who he really was. I showed him the article. I said how much the Blake Bravo in the photograph looked like him, how he never had told me who his people were, or where he came from.”
“And?”
“He was so…tender. So sweet and understanding. He pointed out how the picture wasn’t all that clear. He said no, of course not. He wasn’t that terrible man in the article. Didn’t the article say that the man in the picture had been dead for years? I couldn’t meet those pale eyes of his. I remember I nodded. He said, ‘Look at me, Chas’—that was what he always called me, Chas—he said, ‘Chas, I’m not dead. I’m very, very much alive.’ He kissed me and…oh, whenever he kissed me, I was a goner. As long as he kissed me, he could say anything and I would believe it.”
“Incredible.”
“Isn’t it, though? I’ve heard from Marsh, Blake’s son in Oklahoma, that Blake could be violent. He never was violent with me. Far from it. With me, he was always a gentleman, though he had that lovely air of risk and danger. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to doubt him. Every time he came back to me, it was like falling in love all over again, so tender, so romantic, so absolutely beautiful.”
B.J. didn’t really get it. She’d never have fallen for a psycho like Blake. But Chastity had been sheltered and innocent, a perfect target for an unscrupulous lover. “So. Though the evidence to the contrary was right there in front of you, he still managed to convince you he wasn’t that Blake…”
“Yes. That’s what he did.”
“And then?”
“He left. And I never saw him again.”
She remembered what Buck had told her. “He left you pregnant with Bowie….”
“He did.”
“What a bastard.”
“Yes. He was. And yet…” Chastity’s voice trailed off on a sigh.
B.J. got the picture. It wasn’t pretty. “EEEuu. You still love him.”
Chastity shrugged. “I suppose I do, though I know it’s not who he really was that I love. God help me, I could never love a man like that. But…my idea of him, the way he was with me. That haunts me still.”
They sat quietly for a moment. B.J. pondered the things Chastity had told her. The kettle whistled. Chastity rose to pour the boiling water into her flowered china pot.
When she sat again, B.J. decided she’d waited long enough to get back to the subject of Chastity’s current love life. “So…you mentioned a romantic problem.”
Chastity slid the quilted cozy over the steeping pot. “Mr. Pano—er, Alyosha…he asked me to dinner at the Nugget Saturday night. And then to the Harvest Ball afterward.”
Of course. The handyman. B.J. should have guessed. “You’re crying because a nice man asked you out?”
“That never happens to me.”
“Nice men don’t ask you out?”
“Men don’t ask me out, period.”
“Seriously? None? Ever?”
“Blake was the only guy for me, the only man I’ve ever known in an…intimate way—and is that so strange? Even in New York City, there have to be some women who find their man early and stay true to him their whole lives through.”
“Well, I’m sure that there are.” Though B.J., personally, had never met one.
But then, how would she have? Though her father had supposedly been true to her mother—or so he claimed—he’d been with countless women since, sometimes several at once. B.J. had spent her childhood getting to know L.T.’s girlfriends. As soon as she got used to one, the next one came along.
And in her extensive network of acquaintances, B.J. couldn’t think of a single woman who’d met and married the love of her life right up front. In her circle, women wanted to test the waters for a while before getting in up to their necks. B.J. thought they were smart, to want a little life experience before making a huge decision like whom to marry.
Buck’s image floated through her mind—Buck by starlight, sleeping so peacefully up there in his room.
She smiled, feeling sappy and silly and utterly dewy-eyed. Buck had been her first. After a childhood surrounded by her father’s seductive, willing women, she’d been careful on the sexual front. Careful verging on wary. She’d waited for someone special—and she’d known instantly that Buck was the one.
And if it had worked out between them, he would have been the only one…
So, well, okay. Maybe it wasn’t so totally unbelievable, now she gave it a little serious thought, to imagine a woman having only one man for her entire life.
“B.J.?”
She blinked and realized she’d been staring all dreamy-eyed into the middle distance, half an Oreo in her hand. “Oh. Sorry.” She popped the cookie in her mouth, drank the rest of her milk and plunked the empty glass back down. “Now. Where was I? Ah. I remember. The point is, whatever the notorious Blake Bravo was really like, he’s not anymore. He’s been dead for, what?”
“Four years.”
“And you haven’t seen him in…?”
Chastity fiddled with the cozy, tugging it down more firmly over her pot of tea. “It’s been twenty-six years since he left me that final time.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh, yes I am.”
“Well, alrighty.”
“What does that mean?”
“Alrighty? That’s what you say when you can’t think of anything else to say.”
“Ah.”
“Let’s come at this from another angle. Tell me. What advice did Caitlin have for you?”
“She said I should go out with Alyosha.”
“And to that I would have to say, listen to Caitlin. Please.”
Chastity leaned across the table. “There’s more.”
“What else?”
“Caitlin said—” Buck’s mother lowered her voice to a whisper “—that maybe I’d get lucky and get laid.”
B.J. faked a gasp. “No.”
“Oh, yeah.” Chastity wiggled her eyebrows.
Which struck B.J. as just hilariously funny. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud—and that struck Chastity as funny.
They burst, simultaneously, into twin fits of giggling—fits that, for some insane reason, they both found impossible to control. Chastity hit the table several times in succession with the palm of her hand, as if that could make the giggles stop, while B.J. grabbed her milk glass and held on for dear life, as if an empty glass could help her quit laughing so hard.
They were finally getting control of themselves when the kitchen door swung open.
But it was only Glory, in fluffy pink slippers and a long, zip-up micro-fleece robe. “What’s going on in here?”
B.J. and Chastity looked at each other and started giggling all over again.
Glory shut the door and waited, looking irritated. “Oreos?” she asked hopefully, when they finally settled down a little. B.J. pushed the plate toward her. Glory got herself a glass of milk and joined them at the table. “So. If something’s funny, I should be told. You know I don’t get nearly enough laughs in my life these days.”
So Chastity poured herself some tea and told Glory about Alyosha asking her out on a date for Saturday night.
“What’s funny about that?” Glory demanded, and added, “You should go,” before Chastity could answer.
“You think so?” Chastity’s cheeks had flushed a delicate pink. Her dark eyes shone. She looked younger, suddenly—a decade younger, at least.
Glory nodded. “Oh, yeah. It could be great. And you never know.” She leaned across the table, dimples flashing and mischief in her eyes. “You might even get laid.”
It was well after two when B.J. said goodnight to Glory and Chastity and climbed the stairs again.
She hesitated at the door to Buck’s room, a warm yearning moving through her—to tiptoe on in there, shuck off her clothes and get back in bed with him, to cuddle in close to him for the rest of the night.
She reminded herself that if she weakened now and went to him, he’d be bound to catch her being sick in the morning.
And she just wasn’t up for explaining about that. Not yet.
With a reluctant sigh, she moved on—to her bathroom first, where she had a quick shower and brushed her teeth. In her own room, she threw yesterday’s clothes on a chair, took off her robe and put on a satin sleep shirt. She crawled under the cold covers of her bed and lay there shivering, wishing she could be with Buck.
Gradually, her body heat warmed the chilly sheets. She closed her eyes and snuggled down.
She woke to morning light—and to Buck, nibbling her earlobe. “I missed you,” he whispered. “You never came back to my bed…” He was under the covers with her, all warm and hairy-legged, cradling her spoon-fashion, his big body curled around her back.
Or maybe she was only dreaming….
She made a sleepy sound and eased her hand behind her. Yep. No doubt about it. Buck. In the flesh.
He chuckled in her ear.
And terror shot through her. Her stomach rolled, lurched and—wait.
She lay perfectly still.
Was it possible?
She swallowed. With great care, she drew in a slow breath through her nose…
Yes. Definitely.
The rolling feeling had faded.
A real, true bona-fide miracle had just occurred.
For the first time in weeks, it was morning and B.J. didn’t have to throw up. She caught Buck’s hand and tucked it under her chin and dozed off again with a happy sigh.
They got an early-afternoon flight to Las Vegas, where Buck led her on a tour of the two casinos owned and run by his uncle and his half-brothers.
He showed her High Sierra first. They took the famous whitewater rafting ride that wound its way through the casino. And they visited the Gold Exchange, a series of exclusive shops in a central court between the casino and the three-thousand-room High Sierra Hotel.
Next, they crossed the glittering glass skyway that connected High Sierra to her newer sister casino/resort, Impresario.
Impresario had a Moulin Rouge theme. Lots of red velvet and gold leaf, very lush and excitingly decadent. At Impresario’s elegant casino, B.J. lost a lot at spin poker and won—though not a lot—at blackjack.
They had dinner at High Sierra’s most exclusive restaurant, the Placer Room, with Aaron and Fletcher Bravo and Aaron’s very pregnant wife, Celia.
“This is our second baby,” Celia said, laying a protective hand over her big stomach. “Our first, Davey, is almost three.” Celia was an attractive woman with the prettiest rose-petal-pink skin and cupid-bow lips. She confided that she’d worked for Aaron as his personal assistant for three years before she fell in love with him. “We were going along just great. All business, no funny stuff, if you know what I mean. And then one morning—it happened to be Valentine’s Day, believe it or not—we were doing just what we did every morning, going over his schedule. I looked up and—bam—I knew. I loved my boss. It was awful.”
B.J. grabbed a dinner roll and set to work slathering it with an entire floret of whipped butter. “But it all turned out perfectly in the end, right?”
“Yes, it did.” Celia beamed her cupid-bow smile at her husband. Aaron winked back. “And there’s more. His brothers, Will and Cade, eventually married my two best friends, Jillian and Jane. We’re hometown girls, all three of us. We grew up in New Venice, were friends all through school. We never guessed that someday we’d each be happily married to one of those wild and crazy Bravo boys….”
“So Aaron’s got Celia,” B.J. said later that night, as she and Buck stood on the balcony of their luxury suite at Impresario with the bright lights of Las Vegas glittering all around them. “And Cade and Will are married to Celia’s best friends. What about Fletcher? A bachelor through and through?” That other Bravo half-brother had been mostly silent through dinner.
Fletcher had inherited his father’s striking pale eyes. He was also big and handsome, like all the Bravo men. B.J.’s sense of him was of a man under strictest control, a man who could be dangerous—but then, on second thought, she had noticed that sense of potential danger in every Bravo man she’d met so far. Even Brett and Brand had a certain edge about them, though they both worked hard to come off as friendly and harmless.
Buck took her hand and pulled her back inside. He slid the glass door shut. “Fletcher was married.”
“He’s divorced?”
“Yeah. And since the divorce, his ex-wife died.” Buck held her loosely, his arms around her waist. Her little black dress had no back to speak of. He ran a teasing finger over the bare skin of her lower spine.
She rested her arms on his shoulders and twined her hands behind his neck. “Sad. About Fletcher’s ex-wife.”
“Yeah. But he does have a daughter, Ashlyn. Ashlyn is four, a big-eyed, serious little thing. Very bright, from what I understand. Fletcher took custody after the mother died.” Buck pulled her closer. “Shall we dance?” They softly swayed together.
She laid her head on his shoulder and let him lead her. “Um. Nice. I wish…”
He brushed a kiss at her temple. “What?”
“That it could always be like this—the two of us, holding each other, dancing…” She sighed. “Dancing without music…”
“I hear music. When I’m with you, there’s always music.”
“Hah,” she said. But much more softly than usual.
They arrived in Reno at noon the next day, picked up the SUV and drove to the Flat. Chastity met them at the front door to tell B.J. she’d had a call from her father early that morning. “He said for you to call back as soon as you got in.”
B.J. felt equal parts concerned—and irritated. Maybe there was some kind of problem. More likely, though, L.T. had decided he couldn’t go another day without B.J. to order around. “Did he say what the call was about?”
“No. Only that he wanted you to call him immediately.”
“He could have called me on my cell,” she grumbled. The phone had been working while they were in Vegas.
Buck slipped his hand in hers and gave a squeeze. “Didn’t you tell him he’d have to use the land line to reach you here?”
“So? That shouldn’t have stopped him. He never takes instructions. You know how he is.”
Buck released her hand and hefted their suitcases. “Come on. Let’s go up. You can give him a call and find out what’s going on.”
She followed him up the stairs—and caught his arm once he’d set her suitcase down at the door to her room. “Repeat after me. ‘B.J., remember our deal. You stay here with me until next Friday, or forget the story.’”
He ran his hand down
her arm, a lovely, reassuring caress. “And I should say this because?”
“Well, if I have to stay here for the sake of the story, that’s that, isn’t it? L.T. will accept that I’m not going anywhere until the week is up—though he may demand to speak to you. He’ll want to see if he can browbeat you into letting me come home.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
She asked hopefully, “You won’t let him browbeat you?”
“There’s no reason he would. I’m not telling him you have to stay here.”
“Why not?”
He suggested, gently, “Well, because…it’s a lie?”
“Only a little one.” She held up her thumb and forefinger, with a tiny space between them.
He wasn’t going for it. “Uh-uh. You don’t have to stay here. You’re here because you want to be—and that’s the only reason.”
She scowled at him. “All of sudden, you’re just dripping with integrity.”
He moved in closer. She tipped her head up to meet his eyes and he kissed her on the tip of her nose. “You’re tough as nails.”
“That’s right. I am, but—”
“You can handle L.T. all on your own.”
“But I don’t want to handle him. I don’t even want to talk to him. He makes me nuts sometimes, he truly does.”
Buck bent his head close again and whispered, so softly, “You’re feeling guilty, aren’t you?”
“I am not.” The denial sounded forced, and she knew it.
He went right on, so softly—so tenderly, “For once in your life, you’re having what is known as a vacation. You’re doing nothing earth-shattering, just hanging with me. You’re here because it’s what you want to do. And you’re enjoying every minute of it.”
“Okay. So?”
“So, you’re afraid your father will try to take this vacation away from you.” She might have argued. If he hadn’t been right. He brushed a kiss into the hollow beneath her temple. “Just remember this…”
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