Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance)

by Colleen Collins - Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance)

He loved his sister-in-law, but sometimes he wished she’d keep some thoughts to herself.

  “Can’t I just stroll down the catwalk in tight jeans, no shirt and a smile on my face? Do I really have to do dance moves, too?”

  “I agree,” Richmond said, nodding sagely. “Half-dressed should be sufficient.”

  Everyone else grew quiet, preoccupied with eating their food. But they didn’t fool Braxton for a moment. They’d latched on to that John Travolta idea, and God only knew what it’d evolve into.

  He pulled out his phone and texted a message.

  Dance lessons-COME OVER NOW

  He started to put his phone away when a ping sounded.

  MY BROTHER, I AM THERE

  He made a mental note to later tell Li’l Bit they didn’t need to text in big letters from here on out.

  “Hey,” Drake said, “what’s the latest with your mystery blonde?”

  “She’s still a blonde,” Braxton muttered, putting away the phone.

  It’d been nice being distracted with the family dinner, talking about the baby, even the damned dance moves. But Frances? It hurt just to think about her.

  He wasn’t ready to talk about what happened earlier at Bally’s because he still didn’t understand it. Oh, he knew how he’d reacted—what Frances would probably call expressive—but he didn’t comprehend why she’d agreed to spend time with him, then conspired to run away.

  When he’d lived the vida loca life, women had been like a revolving door, and he’d been the same for them. Somebody took off? There was always another number to call, another party to go to.

  But he was different now—tried to live with dignity, tried to be honest with himself and others. Which made it feel all the worse to be on the receiving end of someone else’s deceit.

  “I think Lauren Bacall and Sam Spade had a spat,” Drake said. He took a pull on his beer.

  “I think you should keep your thoughts to yourself,” Dorothy muttered.

  “I agree,” Braxton said, shooting a mind-your-own-business look back at Drake.

  “Well, I’m too old to keep my thoughts to myself,” Grams said. “Anyway, what’s so wrong with our asking about the blonde? She’s hardly a secret, plus she sounds lovely. Li’l Bit said her name’s Frances, has hair like a lion and loves The Big Lebowski.”

  “Braxton,” his mom said, handing him the martini shaker, “would you mind making up another batch?”

  “Happy to,” he said, silently thanking her for an excuse to leave the room. He needed a moment alone to settle his thoughts, calm his heart. Yeah, his big ol’ former-bad-boy heart. Who woulda thought it would crack?

  “The Big Lebowski?” Drake snorted a laugh. “Lauren Bacall loves that stoner flick?”

  “She’s a fan of the Coen brothers’ movies,” Braxton corrected, heading to the kitchen, “not stoner flicks.”

  “Defending your lady’s taste, Braxy Boy?” Drake laughed, followed by “Ouch!” He looked at Val, who demurely took a bite of her creamed corn.

  Braxton didn’t respond as he left the room, but in his mind that word defending released a torrent of thoughts.

  Even as a kid, he had wanted to be a defender, a protector, like James Bond or Batman. Maybe that stemmed from his dad, who said he chose to be a cop and work in security because he wanted to “be the guy who ran toward danger, not away from it.” Or his mom, who volunteered to be a human-rights advocate for his dad’s casino union because she wanted to “help the employees articulate their needs for better working conditions.”

  Funny how she’d always disapproved of his dad’s, brother’s and his investigative and security careers, all defenders in a certain sense, when she had the same instinct, too.

  Braxton filled the shaker with ice, gin and a splash of vermouth. After securing the lid, he shook the canister, looking out the far kitchen window at the moon hanging in the dark sky, so bright and alone.

  Made him think of Frances.

  It dawned on him that the part-time bodyguard gig was a far better job offer than a Security Director position because he got the role he really wanted. To be her defender, the man she turned to first, the guy who never let her down.

  Despite everything, he still wanted to play that role in Frances’s life.

  But was it too late?

  * * *

  BRAXTON WALKED BACK into the dining room with the martini shaker and stopped.

  His mother must have said there were to be no more questions about Frances because they all stared back at him with “we’re not talking about her” looks in their eyes.

  Well, he was going to change that because now he was ready.

  “I want to apologize for being uptight about your questions. Of course you’re curious about Frances. So am I, to tell the truth. But I don’t need to get...”

  “Meaner than a chicken,” Val offered.

  Another chicken comment. Was that a pregnancy thing or did he inspire that image for some reason? He hoped the former because his ego couldn’t withstand the latter, especially now that he hoped for a do-over with Frances.

  “And I want to apologize,” Drake said, his voice low and somber, “for being a shithead.”

  “Which time?” Braxton asked.

  “My brother, the comic,” Drake muttered. “For making that ‘defending your lady’s taste in movies’ crack. Sorry.”

  “Apology accepted. On the condition you watch a Coen brothers movie sometime.”

  “Bro, don’t do this to me.”

  “Didn’t say it has to be The Big Lebowski.”

  After a beat, Drake nodded grudgingly.

  His grandmother raised her hand, waving a little to get his attention. Like a schoolkid wanting desperately to be called on.

  Whatever his mom had said to them made a big impression. This get-together had morphed from a family dinner to study hall, and he was the teacher in charge.

  “Grams? You wish to say something?”

  She lowered her hand and smiled sweetly. “While you’re standing up there giving a speech, would you mind if my handsome fiancé took that shaker out of your hands?”

  “Of course,” said the magnanimous study-hall teacher in charge.

  Richmond wasn’t a very expressive guy—expressive now being a word in the top ten of Braxton’s vocabulary—but the honor he felt at being her prince, his willingness to be at her beck and call, showed on his face.

  Braxton felt a stab of envy.

  Richmond the Lionhearted retrieved the martini chalice, carrying it with great pomp and circumstance to his Lady Grams and pouring it like a sommelier into her glass.

  “My Lord,” Val said, sniffing, “I do believe those two are like Romeo and Juliet in their eighties.”

  “He’s only seventy-nine,” Grams said, smiling like a fox as she lifted her now-full martini glass. “Still my boy toy.”

  Braxton clapped along with everyone else, wondering if he should start wearing bow ties.

  After taking a sip, Grams turned serious. “Braxton, my dear grandson, may I make a few observations about Frances?”

  He noticed his mother’s posture stiffened, but she didn’t say anything.

  “’Kay,” he said, “and while you’re talking, mind if I sit down and help myself to some of that ’tini?”

  Lady Grams nodded her acquiescence.

  Braxton took his seat, poured a splash of martini. His mom and Frances had spent a chunk of time at the sports book earlier tonight. Considering how chummy they apparently got, he wondered if they’d talked about getting together for happy hour again sometime. Or maybe his mom had invited Frances to join her at that poker tournament. If so, they would have exchanged contact information, which would be handy, as he’d had no luck finding a number for Frances on his own.
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  If his mom didn’t know her number, he’d show up at the warehouse doors again tomorrow, a remorseful prince ready to escort Frances safely to her Benz.

  Of course, she might feel differently about him by then, after having hours to reflect on his bruised-heart response at Bally’s. Maybe she wouldn’t want him to escort her anywhere, ever again.

  Didn’t matter.

  He’d wait for her at those doors every single day, even if he walked silently behind her all the way to her car, because at the crux of all this was his need to ensure her safety.

  Even Batman probably wanted a night off sometimes, but he still put on the cape.

  “Braxton,” his grandmother said, her jade-green eyes glistening with sincerity, “we’re eager—all right, obnoxious—to learn more about Frances because you’ve been living like a hermit for months, darling, and now we see you coming out of your shell, being happy, head over heels for this girl. Seeing how strongly she’s affected you, we want to know more about her because...we love you so much, and...”

  She cleared her throat, blinked a few times, took a healthy sip of her martini, then soldiered on.

  “Because you deserve to be happy, my darling, more than anyone I know...except for your brother and my lovely granddaughter-in-law, of course.”

  “That’s right, Brax,” Val said.

  “We love you, son.”

  “Got your back, bro.”

  “Man dies of cold,” Richmond said, “not of darkness.”

  Braxton couldn’t talk. His throat had tightened with emotion from all the love he felt. He also had the passing thought that Richmond and Li’l Bit should probably be screened ahead of time before giving toasts and commentary.

  After his throat relaxed, he took a deep breath and said, “Look, here’s the deal. You guys probably know more about her than I do, and that’s the truth. But it probably doesn’t matter because—” he gave a shrug “—I blew it tonight, and I doubt she’ll give me a second chance.”

  “Oh, Braxton,” Val murmured, looking concerned.

  “It’s okay, really,” he said, sounding about as okay as a guy who’d just eaten his last meal and was ready to take that long, lonely walk down the prison hallway to the chamber of no return.

  “Son,” his mom said, “there’s always hope.”

  Slumped back in his chair, he looked across the table at her, thinking how, as a kid, he’d thought she was a very serious person, realizing now that was likely due to her spending every last ounce of her energy managing the house and raising a couple of wild twin boys. Only after he grew up did he see different facets of her emerge. Her wicked sense of humor. How she sometimes sneaked dessert before dinner. The box of platinum-blond hair dye she kept in her bathroom cabinet.

  At this moment he saw something else he’d never noticed before, too. A childlike sweetness in her face, as though he might believe in magic if she wished hard enough.

  “Mom,” he said, “I want to hope. It’s just she’s so...complicated. So many secrets. Like why’d she rent a car last week when Dima’s company leases cars for its employees? And I saw a receipt on the floor of her car—” he’d skip the part about taking a picture of it and blowing it up “—for camouflage makeup, the kind actors use.” He gave his head a confused shake. “What’s that about?”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “Women use many different kinds of makeup, dear, including theatrical makeup. It’s all personal style and taste.”

  “There’s one way to find answers to the other issues,” Drake said, pulling out his smartphone. He started tapping on its keypad.

  Braxton knew what he was doing—running a background check on Frances. He’d wanted to do the same, but he’d decided against it. Call him crazy, but he thought he and Frances would have the chance to talk and clear up his questions.

  But that wasn’t about to happen, so he’d wait to hear what Drake found.

  His brother paused, stared at the screen on his phone for a moment, then looked up. “There’s a couple of Frances Jefferies in Nevada—anybody have another identifier, like her date of birth? Middle initial? Parent’s name?”

  “Her father’s name is Jonathan,” Dorothy said quietly.

  “You didn’t mention meeting her dad,” Braxton said.

  “I walked her to his car,” she said, fussing with her napkin. “He and I talked briefly.”

  “Found her,” Drake said. “She has a criminal record.”

  Val thumped her fist on the table. “I knew it!” She narrowed her eyes. “Just like Chinatown.... One day, out of the nowhere, a mysterious, hot-looking blonde walks into the detective agency with some story, asks the private eye to help her. He does...only her story is a sham, and the private dick, who’s fallen hard for the blonde, gets sucked into her sinister world of lies, guns and death.”

  After a moment of surreal quiet, Grams said, “Darling, I love you, but this isn’t Inner Sanctum Mysteries. We don’t know what she did.”

  “That’s right,” Braxton said, “it could be speeding tickets.”

  Or it could be something worse. His gaze locked with his brother’s, and he knew instantly it was worse. Much worse.

  “Read it,” he said.

  Drake looked down at the screen. “One charge in 2009. Grand larceny of property valued at eighteen thousand dollars.” He paused. “As you know, Brax, these criminal histories only show the charges. No details. I’ll make a call.”

  Braxton leaned his head back and closed his eyes, letting the air leak out of his lungs. Grand larceny for eighteen thousand was the most severe charge for stealing in Nevada. A class B felony, just one class below murder, which showed how serious Nevada was about grand larceny. In Braxton’s years working in security and investigations, he’d never once seen an innocent person charged with a class B felony—they’d all been found guilty, including his old boss Yuri.

  To think he’d been tight with Yuri and his thugs for years, yet Braxton hadn’t picked up on a single clue that Frances was a crook. Yeah, he’d listen to whatever details his brother dredged up about her charge, but in his gut Braxton already knew the answer. Frances was a convict.

  What a joke. I leave my criminal ways behind me, walk the straight and narrow, have the social life of a gnat, and I fall for a woman with a past more checkered than mine.

  “Braxton,” his mom said, “are you all right?”

  He opened his eyes, slanted her an appraising look. “You know about this?”

  “No.”

  “You still like Frances?”

  She smiled hesitantly, but nodded. “Yes.”

  Another thing he’d never seen in his mom before. Could it be that woman who’d always been too hard on herself was growing soft on the rest of the human race?

  Was this what she called hope?

  “Just got off the phone with Tony Cordova,” Drake said, setting down his phone. “As an arson investigator, he has access to Nevada’s criminal-records database, so I asked him to check that 2009 grand-larceny charge. Frances was convicted of stealing an eighteen-thousand-dollar diamond necklace at a society event. It was her fence, a pawnbroker called Rock Star, who snitched her out.”

  Grams gasped. “A jewel thief!”

  “Whatever you want to call her,” Drake said, his face turning hard, “Braxton’s come too far to get hooked up with a felon.”

  “Whoa,” Braxton said, making a down-boy gesture, “she and I never hooked up—”

  “I agree with Drake,” Grams said. “Braxton doesn’t need to be cavorting with some jewel thief.”

  “We never cavorted—”

  “Statistically,” Richmond interrupted, “jewel thieves have very high IQs. A union between Frances and Braxton could produce highly intelligent offspring.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”
Braxton murmured, wondering if Richmond had tied his bow tie a little too tight.

  “Just what this family needs,” Grams said, the picture of righteous indignation, “a brood of genius criminals.”

  The doorbell rang. A sonorous pong-de-dong-dong that had always gotten on his nerves.

  “Li’l Bit’s here,” he said.

  “Lovely. Bring him in,” Grams said, then continued a monologue about the family needing to keep Braxton from backsliding into darkness, where jewel thieves supposedly lurked, desperate to be impregnated. Drake was cheering her on while heading into the kitchen for another beer, while Val and Dorothy had forged some kind of alliance, the two of them fervently discussing women’s rights, procreation and Braxton’s right to date a convict.

  Richmond held up his smartphone for Braxton to see. “Here’s a picture of the notorious cat burglar Suzette Doyle. IQ of one-seventy. All her heists were completed within sixty seconds.”

  “Great,” Braxton said. “I’ll get the door.”

  Minutes later, he opened it, and his heart stopped.

  Frances stood on the doorstep, bundled in a dark blue coat, the wind tousling her mane of blond hair, those amethyst eyes taking him in.

  She held up his coat. “I wanted to return this.”

  The moonlight seemed to shift, play tricks. Her hair no longer looked blond, but the color of deep-yellow roses. Her amethyst eyes had deepened to a shade like late sunset. Her face, which she always worked to hold so still, so composed, appeared to come alive.

  She’s the night.

  The thought bubbled to the surface of his mind, surprising him, yet it made perfect sense. Nighttime evoked mystery, paradox, secrets.

  That was Frances.

  And also everything he’d walked away from.

  As sparkling and enticing as she might appear, he couldn’t risk being pulled under, irretrievably lost in the churning, dark cold again.

  A chilly wind gusted past, and she shivered, yet managed a smile that tugged at his heart. Made him think of the moon in the sky, alone and bright in the darkness.