Lucky Break
Page 31
With a thousand-candlepower smile, I followed the trio, then took my place to the right of the officiant. I still had no idea what was going to happen and I didn’t care. I just wanted the look on Miss P’s face to stay there forever.
“Who gives this bride in matrimony?” The archaic words grated but seemed appropriate in this instance.
“I do,” said Dr. Cody Ellis. He bent and kissed her cheek, then stepped aside.
THE END … sort of ...
Thank you for coming along on Lucky’s wild ride through Vegas. For more fun reads, please visit www.deborahcoonts.com or drop me a line at debcoonts@aol.com and let me know what you think. And, please leave a review at the outlet of your choice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIKE the shifting sands of the Mojave, the publishing business is changing by the hour. So too the experience of bringing a story to market. Yet, amid all of this confusion, the act of infusing life into a story remains one of the heart, unchanged, constant.
And the people who populate my world, who love me in spite of myself, who support, encourage, commiserate, inspire, who critique, brainstorm and applaud and who buy wine … they remain the bedrock upon which I find the courage and the fortitude to keep writing these stories. The mention they receive here can’t possibly compensate for all they do, all they give, but perhaps it’s a start.
A heartfelt thank you to:
My kids: TYLER and LISA COONTS. They remind me everyday that no matter how the stories do, or don’t do, life is perfect. Being a mom—there is nothing better. Being their mom is heaven on earth.
My writer friends: BARB NICKLESS, MARIA FAULCONER, NANCY MARTIN, ALLISON BRENNAN, DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON, and PIERRE O’ROURKE. You make me laugh, you hold my hand, you kick my ass, and because of each of you, I am a better writer and a better person.
JOSIE BROWN: For being the best bud EVER; for showing me the ropes of self-publishing, for encouraging ever step of the way; and for brightening my life every moment.
AUSTIN BROWN and CheapEbookFormatting.com for the wonderful work you do formatting and adding those touches that make the presentation of each manuscript professional and perfect.
ANDY BROWN: and Click Twice Design for the perfect covers for all the Lucky books. The covers are first-impressions with readers—they must convey and entice. And you hit it out of the park with each one.
And, finally, and very importantly, to BOB GARDERE, you are the missing piece that fills the hole in my heart.
NOVELS IN
THE LUCKY O’TOOLE SERIES
Wanna Get Lucky?
"Paints a dead-on portrait of Las Vegas that is somehow dark, outrageous, and hilarious at the same time. Lucky O’Toole is wise, witty, and brimming with cheery cynicism. Wanna Get Lucky? goes down faster than an ice-cold Bombay martini—very dry, of course, and with a twist." --Douglas Preston, New York Times bestselling author of Blasphemy
Lucky Stiff
Amid the chaos of fight weekend, the hiring of an eccentric new French chef, and her madam mother's intentions to auction off a young woman’s virginity, Lucky is drawn into a deadly game where no one is what they seem, a game that will end only when she discovers who made fish-food out of Numbers Neidermeyer.
Lucky O’Toole and Fabulous Las Vegas—life doesn’t get any better.
So Damn Lucky
"Lucky’s latest lark brims with the over-the-top ridiculousness that I love about Vegas. Fans of the series will fall in love all over again, and new readers will look forward to her next escapade."
--Publishers Weekly on So Damn Lucky
Lucky Bastard
Lucky O’Toole, the newly promoted vice president of Customer Relations for the Babylon, Las Vegas's primo Strip property, has never met a problem she couldn't handle. But when a young woman is found dead, sprawled across the hood of a new, bright red Ferrari California in the Babylon's on-site dealership, a Jimmy Choo stiletto stuck in her carotid, Lucky's skills are maxed out.
Lucky Catch
When a prized truffle is stolen from the walk-in in her lover, Jean-Charles’, gourmet burger joint at the Babylon and a young chef apparently killed with a smoking gun is found in Jean-Charles’ food truck on the back lot, trouble takes a sinister turn for Lucky O’Toole, the VP of Customer Relations for Las Vegas’ primo Strip casino/hotel, the Babylon. And Jean-Charles isn’t answering his phone. Desperate to put a lid on the body count and more than frantic over her AWOL lover, Lucky uses her Vegas contacts to search in places and in ways the police wouldn’t or couldn’t. Teddie insists on riding shotgun. Lucky hasn’t the time nor the resolve to say no. She’s never been able to resist Teddie … not really. With danger dogging their heels, Lucky finds herself falling once again under his spell as they traverse Vegas, being drawn deeper and deeper into the highly competitive world of high-end eateries and the battle for the very rare, most highly prized gourmet foodstuffs.
When Lucky’s path crosses the killer’s… will her goose be cooked?
Lucky Break
With Christmas a few days away, Lucky O’Toole, Vice President of Customer Relations for the Babylon, Las Vegas’s premier Strip casino resort, is in a festive mood. The upcoming wedding of her assistant to the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock and her own engagement to her delish French Chef, Jean-Charles Bouclet have Lucky in full holiday cheer.
And even bigger celebrations are afoot. The national media is focused on the grand opening of Jean-Charles’s restaurant atop Lucky’s very own slice-of-heaven hotel. The opening gets a boost when Holt Box, a retired country-western singing legend lends a hand in the kitchen, adding mega-watt celebrity buzz.
Lucky’s life is humming.
The only sour note is her former lover, Teddie.
Teddie claims Lucky’s father, the Big Boss, has put an end to his return to the Las Vegas stage by handing that stage to Holt Box. Box is returning from retirement, a comeback of epic magnitude that will give the Babylon—and Lucky's career—an incredible boost.
Taken by surprise, Lucky takes the high road. Or rather, she does what she always does when life overwhelms… She ignores it.
Until she finds Teddie and her father, bloodied and angry, standing over the lifeless body of Holt Box, a dagger in Teddie’s fist.
The media sharks are circling. A Macau heavy-hitter in town, flying under the radar but making his presence felt. An old nemesis of Lucky’s is out of prison and salivating for revenge. Lucky’s mother is ramping up her political campaign while juggling her new twins, who still don’t have names. And Christmas is racing toward a crescendo.
Time is short as Lucky must discover whether Teddie is a killer.
And why she still cares.
LUCKY O’TOOLE NOVELLAS
Lucky in Love
Lucky O’Toole, the vice president of Customer Relations for the Babylon, one of Las Vegas’s most over-the-top strip properties, is seriously regretting booking a reality television show, The Forever Game, in the hotel’s small theater.
Lucky Bang
Missing dynamite, an old grudge, and whispers from the past, force Lucky to delve into dark secrets best left alone. And when her father disappears, things become personal.
Lucky Now and Then, Parts 1 and 2
Las Vegas, the City of Reinvention.
No one knows this better than Lucky O’Toole, V.P of Customer Relations at the Babylon, Vegas’s newest, most over-the-top Strip property. As the daughter of one of the men responsible for shaping Vegas from its ignominious Mob beginnings to its full current glory, Lucky has witnessed the constant rebirth. So, when the time comes to implode her father’s first hotel, The Lucky Aces, she feels the angst, but moves on.
Until skeletal remains are found in the foundation and her father is implicated in a murder.
Then it is a race to uncover the long-buried past. A past no one wants revealed, least of all the killer, who has tried to kill Lucky once before. Lucky must unravel the twisted knot of lies, Mob hits, Vegas power plays, passions, an
d corruption.
Her father’s life hangs in the balance.
Lucky Flash
Lucky O’Toole, Vice President of Customer Relations at the Babylon Resort, one of the premier properties on the Vegas Strip, is back. This time she wises-up and sends her down-and-dirty best friend, investigative report “Flash” Gordon on the trail of Johnny Pismo. Pismo, a washed-up-never-been singer shows up at the Babylon singing a song about a ring of thieves stealing Vegas’ music memorabilia. They replace each piece of Vegas’s music history with a fake, selling the originals on the black market. Pismo even claims to have the prize piece in Lucky’s father’s collection—a large diamond ring given to the Big Boss by Liberace himself.
Lucky is shocked to learn he’s telling the truth.
Teddie, Lucky’s former lover, offers a few choice pieces of his memorabilia collection as bait. Of course, Lucky must join the chase to protect Teddie’s treasures.
But can she protect her heart from him in the process?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MY mother tells me I was born a very long time ago, but I’m not so sure—my mother can’t be trusted. These things I do know: I was raised in Texas on barbeque, Mexican food and beer. I currently reside in Las Vegas, where my friends assure me I cannot get into too much trouble. Silly people. I am the author of WANNA GET LUCKY? (A NY Times Notable Crime Novel for 2010 and double RITA™ Finalist), LUCKY STIFF, SO DAMN LUCKY (a national bestseller), LUCKY BASTARD, LUCKY CATCH, LUCKY BREAK and five digital novellas, LUCKY IN LOVE, LUCKY BANG, LUCKY NOW AND THEN (Parts One and Two), and LUCKY FLASH. I can usually be found at the bar, but also at www.deborahcoonts.com.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2015 Deborah Coonts
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance of fictional characters to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author and publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
ISBN: 978-0-9965712-6-5
V021816L
Digital formatting by Austin Brown (cheapebookformatting.com)