The only item of value she owned was a pair of earrings left her by her great-grandmother Harmony, and she’d rather die than pawn them. Besides, they weren’t worth anywhere near that much.
The small party streamed inside and she fell back. “How lovely to see you again. I should tell you, Mr. Sandusky, that I’m having the tiniest bit of trouble coming up with—”
He held up his hand to silence her. “Today I had my people investigate your financial position. It is true, you have little in the bank, no stock or bond investments and only a used sedan in the hotel garage.”
Her lips tightened. All that stuff was supposed to be confidential. Anyway, now she could be relieved that he knew. Even Sandusky couldn’t squeeze water from a rock. “There you have it.”
“However, I’ve been informed that you do hold title to an interestingly large parcel of land in the mountains of California. Isn’t that so, Miss Collins? In fact, on paper, you are quite wealthy.”
Arabella felt the blood drain from her face. Even though she hadn’t the courage to go home again, she had never once thought of Heartbreak Ranch as something she’d use as collateral, something she’d gamble with. The property had been in her family for generations.
“Mr. Sandusky,” she began, determined to dissuade him, “there is no way I could—”
“I beg your pardon?” He lifted one slim eyebrow in the most threatening manner she’d ever seen. His dogs growled. She could swear one bared sharp incisors.
She quailed. Despite this, she was obliged to press on. “It’s impossible. I simply won’t play in the game. I’ll withdraw. You can get another gambler to represent you.”
“I think not,” he informed her warningly. His voice began to rise in volume. “You’ve already been named and entered and the competition is closed. There can be no substitutions. I wish to make a showing in this game, and you will appear. Evan Hennessy will not be allowed to win by default!” His voice had risen to a near shout. It was amazing, considering that he always spoke softly.
Two of the guards advanced toward her. She shrank back until Sandusky impatiently waved them off. They glared at her, unblinking and wolfish.
“Look,” she tried in desperation, “ask me anything else. I’ll play for you for a reduced percentage, or for nothing, whatever you want. But don’t ask me to put up Heartbreak Ranch. I can’t. I just...can’t.”
He glanced at her with disdain. “I have already informed Hennessy we shall be using this property deed in the game. You will have it with you when you sit at the table tomorrow evening. My sources tell me you’ve kept it here in the hotel safe deposit.”
His sources? She moaned. As a last defense, she had been going to say the deed was back at the ranch, too far away to get by tomorrow night. But somehow he’d found out she kept the deed here. She’d forgotten that Sandusky, with his murky underworld ties, could find out anything.
Sandusky went on. “I do not wish to discuss the unpleasant personal ramifications to you if you do not appear at the game.” With a flick of his hand, he summoned his pack and exited her apartment.
Her knees weak, she put a hand to her forehead and felt faint. Sandusky’s warning was clear.
If she didn’t show up with the deed, God knew what they’d do to her.
CHAPTER THREE
AT THE LOWEST EBB of her life, Arabella sat late into the night, thinking morosely that she’d had a good life, but not a great one. A great life wouldn’t feel so hollow at its end. And it would be the end if she didn’t produce the deed to Heartbreak Ranch tomorrow at the game.
A great life would have seen her in a loving relationship with a fine man.
She grimaced. It was what her parents had always wanted for her—to marry, settle down on the ranch and raise more blond, violet-eyed daughters to carry on the tradition. Well, if her parents had lived, wouldn’t they be surprised?
Then again, if they had lived, their precious little Arabella would not have spent most of her adult life in smoky gambling joints manipulating cards and bluffing her way through mediocre hands.
Arabella glanced up at the painting of Bella over the fireplace. At least her namesake would have approved of her chosen profession. The old gal would probably be proud.
In the kitchen her clock struck 2:00 a.m. Four hours. She’d been sitting there four useless hours. She hadn’t eaten all day and she felt light-headed, but she couldn’t summon the energy to get up and fix something or even turn on a light. It was dark in the apartment. The only illumination in the room was a single fat candle that sat on the glass-and-chrome coffee table in front of the sofa. The candle sent unearthly shadows onto the walls, cast the corners of the room into eerie darkness.
She was hungry and tired and a new headache was coming on, when she noticed that the room suddenly felt cool. The damn air conditioner—it never had worked properly. Pulling her knees up to her chest and tucking her bare feet under her, she shivered. It really was cold in here.
Above her head, near the painting, a thin spiraling cone of gray mist swirled and Arabella gasped. Was the hotel on fire?
About to jump up, she realized that no smoke alarms had gone off, nor had her ceiling sprinkler system kicked on, either. And she smelled no smoke. Instead, a faint odor of lemon verbena wafted to her.
Something turned her attention to the life-size nude on the wall opposite where she sat. All around the gilt frame was a thin, ribbonlike stream of smoky vapor.
The smoky vapor began to take shape.
Heart thudding, Arabella put her hands to her eyes and rubbed. She really should have eaten something. When she removed her hands, she saw her ancestor’s long, shapely legs slide off the red velvet settee and step right out of the painting. Reaching behind her, the vaporish woman gathered her satin robe from the back of the chaise and put it on. The vision’s hair was blond, her curls upswept, her hands beringed. The woman was beautiful.
She hovered before the fireplace.
Arabella swallowed thickly and dragged a throw pillow into her lap. She hugged it to her chest and did not blink. Was she dreaming? That was it. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa and was dreaming that her painting had come alive. She pinched her leg. Hard. It hurt like hell but she did not wake.
Okay, so she wasn’t dreaming. She was hallucinating. That explained things. Perhaps the tremendous stress she was under was playing tricks on her mind. She’d heard of such things happening. It came on people when they were sleep-deprived, or using drugs, or under the stress of death threats. Just last week she’d seen a television show depicting a bunch of sorry losers who claimed to see rivers flowing in their living rooms, tarantulas on the walls and monsters and.....ghosts.
“Ma chère,” the vision said, “I will have your attention now?”
Arabella gaped. Her hallucination was talking.
“S’il vous plaît, I know you are not stupid. You are my namesake, it is impossible. Now, listen, I have come to help guide you through your current difficulties.”
The smoky vision wavered before Arabella. “I am imagining this,” she whispered. “I am definitely not awake. You—you can’t be real.”
“I assure you, I am as real as you. Now, we are wasting time. You must return to the ranch, of course. This life you lead—” she waved her hand and her rings sparkled “—fandango palaces and gaming halls—they are fine for a few years. But then a woman must make a home for herself. You, Arabella, have reversed this order. First you had the home, then you went to gaming. This I do not understand.”
Arabella stared at the woman. “Bella?” she asked. “Are you really Bella Duprey?”
If ghosts could preen, this one did.
“Naturally, I’m Bella Duprey. The most famous madam on the Barbary Coast, Queen of the Courtesans.”
“I can’t believe it!” Arabella exclaimed, deciding she might as well stop fighting this and go with it. “I don’t care if I am dreaming. I’ve always wished I could meet you, talk with you. Wow, what a woman you w
ere.”
“Oui, I was an incredible woman,” the vision agreed. “There were none who could match me. But we digress. You must return to the ranch and find my trunk. In the trunk, you will discover my journal. It will help you.”
“Say, could you give me a few pointers? You were said to be a great gambler—my mom told me stories about you, probably most of them not true, but from you I could learn a lot—”
“Arabella,” the ghost said sternly, “pay attention.” She turned her head, as if glancing about the apartment. “Where is the dog? I can hardly work or think unless there is a dog present. They make such perfect companions, you know.”
“Dog?” Arabella shrugged. “The closest thing to a canine around here would be Sandusky’s curs.” She shuddered. “Those guys would just as soon tear me limb from limb as look at me. And they will, too, if I don’t produce Heartbreak Ranch’s deed at tomorrow night’s game.”
“You have made many mistakes,” Bella agreed sadly. “But it is not too late. Go back to the ranch. Oh, I almost forget myself—watch out for another.”
“Another?”
“Since I have been granted this visit to you, then so may he also be allowed to return. Many years ago, I cheated him out of his ranch when he planned to humiliate me. Now, he may make a reappearance, as well. If so, he will naturally be at cross-purpose with me—and will try to get to me through you.”
“Cross-purposes?” Arabella echoed. “But who? The only one working against me is...Zach.”
The older woman nodded and smiled wisely. “You see? You are not stupid, just slow. The spirit of Sam Heart may very well align himself with this Zach.” The shifting mists that comprised her body began to dissipate. “Go back,” she said, her voice now feathery and hard to hear. “Go back to the ranch.”
“But, wait, don’t leave.” Arabella leaped to her feet and reached out a hand. She touched nothing but airy wisps of fog.
“And get a dog,” a disembodied voice whispered.
Arabella sank back onto the sofa. It was becoming warmer in the apartment, as if the air conditioner had suddenly decided to regulate itself to an even temperature. Could all this really have happened? Could Bella have truly made an appearance in her apartment?
* * *
“OPEN THE DAMN DOOR, Bell!” Zach didn’t care if he woke up everyone in the building as he stood outside Arabella’s apartment again.
At last she opened the door.
He pushed past her, slammed the door behind him and leaned against it as he tried to catch his breath. With the elevators full, it had been a hard dash up the four flights of stairs from his room to hers.
“Well, do come in, Zach. Please, make yourself at home.” Arabella’s sassiness was back full force.
“Bell, I—” He didn’t know quite how to phrase his thoughts. He had to clear his throat and start over. “I’ve got to talk to you about a visitor I had. Could we put aside what happened between us yesterday? Truce?”
Without waiting for an invitation, he threw himself onto the sofa and ran an unsteady hand through his hair.
“You’re as white as a sheet,” she said, watching him closely. All the animosity and distrust between them was set aside for the moment.
“I think I’m losing my mind. I don’t even know where to start—”
“You had a visitor,” she prompted. “A ghost, right?” She sat down beside him eagerly.
He stared at her. How could she know, unless—
“Did you have anything to do with this? I thought I was dreaming, that I was only—”
“Hallucinating? It’s going around.”
“I think I’ve got a bad case of jet lag. Either that or there was something in the midnight all-you-can-eat seafood buffet downstairs that didn’t agree with me.”
“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me, too,” she said absently. “But if all you have is a bad case of indigestion, then what are you doing here?”
He shook his head, unwilling to believe what he thought he’d just seen and heard in his room. Some old codger claiming to have been dead for more than a hundred years actually wanted to hire him professionally. He couldn’t tell Arabella. She would either think he was losing his mind or that he was so desperate to see her that he had made the whole thing up. But after the strange experience, his first impulse had been to come and see Arabella.
She was still watching him, her eyes full of concern. He wondered if she was aware that her hand rested on his knee with unconscious familiarity.
“I didn’t feel like being alone right now.” He glanced over his shoulder, unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched. Damn that extra helping of Cajun shrimp.
“You’re in denial, Zach.”
“Damn it, Bell, I don’t believe in ghosts. How about we just drop it. Forget I mentioned anything.” He wanted to put the disturbing incident out of his mind. Besides, he had other things to think about. He couldn’t believe Arabella had let him stay this long. Willing to press his luck, Zach said, “Maybe I’d better have some of that chocolate liqueur you keep around here, unless you’ve brought in something stronger?”
“Sorry, I’ll get the liqueur.” She crossed the room to collect two shot glasses and the bottle. When she settled beside him again, she broke the seal and poured a measure of the thick, dark brown liquid into the glasses. Handing him one, she raised hers in a salute. He downed it like a shot of whiskey.
“Some night, huh?” she asked, sipping her drink.
“Some life.” He leaned back against the plush sofa cushions and closed his eyes. “Now ghosts. I guess gambling’s finally getting to me. Lately I’ve been wondering how long I can keep it up.”
“You mean, before you run screaming, stark raving mad into the night?”
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
There was a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were gazing into the past. “Believe me, I do.”
The shot glasses held no more than a thimbleful. He poured another.
“How did you get into this life?” she asked softly. “I never asked before.”
“We were too busy,” he said, searching her eyes. They had spent their time together learning everything about each other’s bodies, not their pasts. “I grew up on a farm.”
She drew back in disbelief. “No way.”
“I did. My folks still have the old place in Oklahoma. Cows and pigs and corn, the whole hayseed deal. But I couldn’t wait to get out, see the world. I wanted to do things, be somebody.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But all of this is obviously getting to me. I’m tired—tonight’s little episode back in my room proved that. I’ve been thinking about giving it all up.”
In Monte Carlo he had thought about what it would be like to share a quieter, more settled life with Bell beside him. Now he waited for her reaction, waited to see if she could fathom his desire to get out of gambling. But trained by long hours at the gaming tables, her face was expressionless, unreadable.
“What would you do, if not this?” At least she sounded concerned.
“The truth is, I’m trained to crop-dust. When I was in high school, I helped out a pilot back in Oklahoma one summer and fell in love with flying. It’s so peaceful up there, so quiet. I thought having a pilot’s license was something I could always fall back on, so I keep one current.”
“I would never have guessed you were born on a farm, not in a million years, Zach. You’ve always seemed so polished, so...worldly.”
“How about you? How did you start gambling?”
He saw the shutters start to come down, then she shook her head and smiled at some long-ago remembrance. When she spoke, he barely heard the answer.
“In a bunkhouse.”
“Care to explain?”
“My father ran a ranch with thousands of cattle. Cattle need cowboys and cowboys need bunkhouses. Our hands liked to gamble, mostly poker, gin, hearts, anything. I learned to play them all. Pretty soon, I was real good. By the
time I was sixteen, none of the men could beat me anymore.”
He shook his head, confused. “So, where’s the bridge? You had a fine home, it sounds like. Why’d you leave?”
For a heartbeat, he thought she was going to open up and tell him all of it. Softly, he urged her to go on.
“Bell? What happened?”
He saw her hands begin to shake. It appeared to take all her will to place the little glass on the table without breaking it. When she straightened her shoulders and looked into his eyes, he knew the moment had passed.
“I don’t want to talk about—” Her voice broke.
“Let me guess. You ran away from home, is that it? What happened? Daddy didn’t let you use the pickup?”
“Let it go, Zach, please.” More than her hands were trembling now. She pushed up off the couch and paced over to the wide bank of windows that looked out over the garish and beautiful lights of Las Vegas.
He knew that the key to unlocking her heart lay in the secret of her past.
“You turned tail and ran rather than face your feelings. Just like you ran away from me.”
“You don’t know anything about what happened. It wasn’t like that—”
“Damn it, Bell. You’re wound as tight as a drum right now. Look at you. You’re shaking. Trust me. Explain it to me. Why do you have to keep running? What are you running from? Yourself?”
“Just get out,” she whispered, dry-eyed, fragile.
He stood up and walked up to her. She drew back in a protective gesture that irritated him. He had never hurt her and never would. When he reached for her, she held her hands out in front of her as if to ward him off.
“Don’t—”
Zach dropped his arms to his sides. They felt as empty as his soul. He and Bell might as well have been miles apart instead of mere inches.
“Someday, you’ll have to stop running and face head-on whatever it is that’s chasing you, Bell. And when that day comes, you’ll have to face me, too, because I’ll be there waiting for the truth.”
* * *
Heartbreak Ranch: Amy's StoryJosie's StoryHarmony's StoryArabella's Story Page 24