Freshly sprung from the Marines, Griffin Powell is looking for some fun. Las Vegas offers the perfect playground to blow off some steam before getting to the serious work of deciding what to do with his life. He never expects that fun to include the high school crush who tutored him years ago.
Samantha Ferguson arrives in Vegas for a friend's wedding only to get dumped by text. Desperate not to be the only single in a sea of couples, she makes an impulsive offer to the former bad boy she used to tutor in high school: Be her fake boyfriend for the weekend.
Griff knows he's not the guy for Sam, but he can't resist saying yes for the chance to get to know this grown-up version of the girl who once starred in all his dreams. Turns out, there's not a lot of faking it involved. Between the single bed and the endless couples activities, new feelings flare from the old, until they both fall under the spell of Sin City.
Will what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas? Or will one impulsive weekend be the start of a brand new forever?
“Business or pleasure?”
Griffin Powell cracked an eye to peer at the petite woman in the seat beside him. With silvery blonde hair that meant she could be anywhere from fifty to seventy, she looked up at him with sharp blue eyes as her fingers deftly worked a set of knitting needles. Her carryon seemed to have vomited out half a—was that a sweater?—since they’d taken off.
“Ma’am?”
“Are you going to Vegas for business or pleasure?” Her rhinestone-studded velour track suit told him her answer straight off the bat.
“Pleasure.” Sin City had seemed like the perfect first stop after being granted true freedom.
“Good place for it.” She flashed him a cheeky grin that suggested she had plenty of experience with all the fun Vegas had to offer. “Ever been before?”
“No, ma’am.” He hadn’t been hardly anywhere that the United States Marine Corps hadn’t sent him, and none of those places had been vacation destinations.
“My girlfriends and I go every few years. This will be trip number four for us.”
Another older woman leaned across the aisle. “You’re forgetting about that trip before the kids were born.”
Did that mean their kids? Or their kids’ kids?
Griff’s pint-sized seatmate considered, then shrugged. “If I was sober more than ten percent of that trip, I’d be surprised.”
He gave her a little side eye. It wouldn’t take much to send her over the edge. She couldn’t weigh more than a buck fifteen soaking wet. “That sounds… eventful.”
She trilled a laugh. “Oh, Vegas is the place for that. If you don’t come home with stories that can’t be shared in mixed company, you didn’t do it right. What are you looking for? The shows?”
“The gambling?” her companion asked.
“The women?” offered a third.
Heat suffused his cheeks, making him wish he’d given in to the temptation to let his beard grow in to hide the cursed blush of his Irish heritage. He had a feeling, with these Golden Girls wannabes, he could use it.
“Oh hush, Delia. You’re embarrassing the boy,” his seatmate told her. “I’m Miss Betty. The shameless one is Miss Delia, and that’s Miss Maudie Bell.”
Resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to have peace and quiet for the last leg of the flight, he dragged out the manners that had been instilled in him by his foster mother, Joan, before he’d had them further beaten in by the Marine Corps. “Griff. Nice to meet you ladies.”
“So which is it you’re here for?” Miss Maudie Bell demanded. She’d evidently decided he was far more interesting than the paperback in her lap. He was pretty sure he saw a shirtless dude on the cover.
Oh boy. “Um, actually the food. I’m just out of the Marines, and I’ve been dreaming about those all-you-can-eat buffets.”
Not a lie. Maybe it was sad that his first act of total freedom was related to food, but he didn’t have a lot of practice making choices for himself these past four years. The ones he’d made before that had been of the variety that had landed him in a courtroom facing jail or rehabilitation by way of the military. He’d grown the hell up, and now it was time to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He understood that he had the opportunity for one because of a judge who’d been willing to take a chance on a punk-ass kid, and he didn’t intend to waste it.
“Oh, a military man.” Miss Delia’s gaze skimmed over him, lingering on the ink peeking out from his sleeve.
“We do love a man in uniform,” Miss Maudie Bell cooed.
Miss Betty patted his thigh. “Thank you for your service, young man.”
Griff offered a noncommittal grunt. He never knew what to say to that sentiment. It made it sound like serving had been some kind of honorable choice. A calling. He’d known men like that and respected the hell out of them. But that wasn’t him. He was no hero. He was a reformed hoodlum, who’d learned valuable lessons about responsibility and duty. That didn’t make him a good man.
Time for a change of subject.
“Where are you ladies from? I hear some southern in your voices.”
“Wishful, Mississippi,” Miss Betty announced.
“Born and raised!” Miss Delia added.
“Wishful sounds like something out of a Hallmark movie.”
Miss Maudie Bell laughed. “We like to think so. We have a fountain that grants wishes.”
He gave the old woman some side eye. “Wishes, huh?” A likely story.
“Hand to God. It’s fed from Hope Springs,” Miss Betty assured him.
“You’re totally making that up.”
“No really. It’s a thing,” Miss Delia insisted. “You have something important you want to wish for, you come throw a coin in that fountain, and it’ll come true.”
Griff didn’t have the first clue what to do with that. What would he even wish for? Not that it mattered. He was hardly going to make a trip all the way to Mississippi on the off-chance this lunacy had a kernel of truth.
“Where are you from, Griff?” Miss Betty asked.
“Tennessee. Little place in the mountains called Eden’s Ridge.” Not that he’d been home once since he’d shipped out for basic training. Maybe he’d make a trip after Vegas just to check in with Joan. She’d want to see with her own two eyes that he was well and good and in one piece. She’d said so often enough in her letters.
“That up near Gatlinburg?” Miss Maudie Bell asked.
“Further north. Closer to Johnson City. We aren’t too far from the North Carolina border.”
We. As if it was still home.
Did he want it to be? Griff wasn’t sure. Eden’s Ridge was part of that past he wasn’t quite ready to face yet.
The intercom buzzed. “Passengers, this is your Captain. We’re about half an hour out from sunny Las Vegas. At this time, we ask that you store your carryons, return your seats to their upright positions, and fasten your seatbelts for our descent.”
Griff helped Miss Betty tuck her knitting bag away and listened with amusement as the three women debated which buffet he should tackle first. By the time they’d landed, he had a list that would get him through his entire stay, along with their recommendations for must-see attractions.
Of course, he helped all three ladies get their carryons out of the overhead bins. It was the polite thing to do. He pretended not to notice Miss Delia ogling his ass or Miss Maudie Bell staring at his abs. The extra sixty pounds of muscle the Marines had added to a frame already well honed by his three years playing wide receiver on his high school football team meant that he got noticed. He was young enough and vain enough to appreciate it, so he flexed a little just to see if any of his admirers would blush.
They did not, but they did ask him for a selfie once they got to the gate. How could he say no to that?
“Vegas on three.” Griff held the phone out as they clustered around him, none of them topping his shoulders. “One. Two. Three.”
“Vegas!”
He snapped the picture and handed Miss Betty back her phone. “Y’all have a good trip now.”
“You, too, sugar!”
“We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” Miss Maudie Bell told him. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”
Griff grinned. They’d be damned hard to miss. “Maybe so. Bye, ladies.”
Still chuckling to himself, he shouldered his bag and went in search of baggage claim.
“Welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada. Current local time is 3:39 PM, and the temperature is eighty-eight degrees. As soon as we’ve docked with the landing bridge, you may retrieve your baggage from the overhead bins. Be advised that items may have shifted during the flight.”
Eager to escape the confines of the plane, Samantha Ferguson unlatched the seatbelt and dragged her backpack out from the seat in front of her as the plane rolled to a stop. All around her, passengers leapt from their seats and popped open the overhead compartments.
The girl with the purple braids who’d been her seatmate for the flight from Raleigh simply stretched and crossed her black-booted feet. “We might as well stay put. It’ll take a while before the front of the plane finishes disembarking.”
“Fair point. The rest of the wedding party should have landed by now, and I need to check on Eric’s flight status.” She switched on her phone, waiting impatiently for it to boot up and find a signal.
“You think this trip will be the kick in the pants your relationship needs?” Dahlia asked.
In the way of strangers on a long flight, Sam had confessed her concern about the waning interest on both sides of her year-long relationship. “If it’s not, at least I won’t be the lone single gal amid all the couples. That would be the worst.”
An avalanche of texts hit her phone. She skipped over the multitude of texts from the bride and other bridesmaids, jumping instead to the string from her boyfriend. The preview of the first one had her fumbling to get the text app open.
Eric: I’m not coming.
“Not coming? What the hell does he mean he’s not coming?”
“Did he miss his flight?” Dahlia asked.
“I don’t know. I hope not. This trip has been planned for months.” Sam thumbed back a fast reply. What happened? What’s wrong?
The three dots appeared, indicating he was typing a response. They disappeared and reappeared several more times.
“Come on,” she muttered.
The rows ahead of her began to move. She started to rise from her seat, only to sink back down as his reply finally came back.
Eric: I think we should break up.
Break up. Break up?
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“What did he say?” Her seatmate leaned over, peering at the phone. “Oh no he didn’t.”
“He can’t do this to me. Not now. And sure as hell not like this.”
“Damn straight he can’t,” Dahlia agreed. “Call him.”
Riding on temper, Sam dialed his number, unsurprised when the chicken shit didn’t actually answer. When his voicemail clicked on, she snarled, “I cannot believe you waited until I was on a plane to Vegas for a couples wedding weekend to bring this up and that you broke up with me with via text. You are dead to me, Eric. And you’d better pray that I don’t send my Navy SEAL brother after you.” She hung up with enough violence, she was surprised the screen didn’t crack. “Asshat!”
“Your brother’s a SEAL?”
“Yep. Currently overseas, but Eric doesn’t need to know that.” Let him sweat a little over the idea that one of the nation’s most elite soldiers had it in for him.
“Seems a paltry punishment for breakup by text.”
“You’re absolutely right. He deserves much worse. And you know what, I don’t even care about the breakup beyond the fact that now I have to tell the bride that we’re one short. And on top of that, I get to endure all the looks of pity from the rest of the wedding party, who will assume I’m heartbroken in addition to pissed off.”
Dahlia offered her a sympathetic wince as they edged into the aisle. “That does suck. But, hey, it’s Vegas. I’m sure you could pick up a plus one somewhere.”
“Because asking a perfect stranger to be my date for a weekend of wedding festivities is a normal thing to do?”
She laughed. “I mean, nobody comes to Vegas for the normal. That’s part of the point. To get out of your comfort zone and go a little crazy.”
Right. Because crazy was exactly what anybody would expect of straight-laced, straight-A, by-the-book Samantha Ferguson. If she even tried, her friends and family would probably check her in to the nearest facility for a psych eval.
“I’ll keep it in mind. It was nice to meet you, Dahlia.”
“You, too. And good luck with the wedding.”
Sam waved farewell and went to find the nearest bathroom to freshen up a bit.
Maybe Chloe’s flight would be late. Or maybe it had gotten here early, and she and the rest of her crew had already headed for the hotel. Sam could cross her fingers and toes that the Universe would somehow buy her some time to figure this out. And maybe somewhere between here and baggage claim she’d be struck by inspiration.
Inspiration did not strike by the time she spotted her mammoth suitcase circling on the carousel. She’d been so busy mentally reviewing the itinerary, she’d missed it on the first pass. Weaving around other travelers, she leaned in to grab the handle and tried to yank. It simply laid over, dragging her a few stumbling steps until she bumped into other waiting passengers.
“Sorry! Sorry!”
A big, muscled arm reached out, snagging the bag off the belt as if it weighed nothing.
Sam relinquished her hold and blew out a relieved breath as she turned to face the Good Samaritan. “Thank you. I—” The words dried up as she took in broad shoulders and muscled arms with tattoos peeking out from the sleeves of his T-shirt. Her gaze traveled up to find a familiar and wholly unexpected smirk.
“Samantha Ferguson.” The sound of her name in that gruff baritone had her whole body flushing hot and her brain stuttering to a halt.
Oh my God.
He’d always flustered her. She’d struggled with that burden the entire time she’d tutored him in high school, accepting that she was genetically programmed for his mere presence to make her synapses short circuit. But this… holy wow. The Marines had honed the bad boy athlete she’d crushed on into something truly spectacular. Add that wicked grin and the glint in those piercing blue eyes that had always spelled fun… and trouble… and Sam’s mouth began to water.
One ginger brow arched, and she realized she’d been staring. “Griffin Powell.” His name was the only thing she could manage. Thank God she didn’t squeak or wheeze it.
“So you do remember me.”
As if she could forget the guy who’d starred in the majority of her teenage fantasies? “It would be hard not to.”
Crap. Did that really just come out of her mouth?
His grin cranked up a few notches.
Yep, she’d totally said that out loud. Awesome. Four years, two bachelors degrees, and a position in one of the top PhD programs in the country, and he still reduced her brain to hormonal mush.
“It’s good to see you.” Griff opened those burly arms and leaned in.
They were hugging friends? When had they become hugging friends? Sam’s inner teen girl hyperventilated as she leaned in to wrap her arms around him. Holy hell he felt good. Big and broad and solid. Her head nestled perfectly against his shoulder as he squeezed her close.
Was it her imagination or did he hold on a little bit longer than necessary? Maybe he’d been in need of a familiar face. Torn between wanting to put space between them to find some even footing and burrowing in to get a better whiff of that soap and healthy man smell, Sam stayed right where she was. In her world, you didn’t ever let go of a hug first. The other person might really need the contact.
With a last squeeze, he stepped back, looking for a moment a little uncertain. “You’re the first face from home I’ve seen in a long, long time.”
Sam had the sense there was something a little tender there. She smiled, relieved to see a hint of the vulnerability she’d recognized back in high school. It was the thing that had humanized him enough she could still talk to him. “Well, I’m glad it was a friendly one.”
He spun her suitcase around and released the handle, tipping it into her hand. “This thing weighs a ton. Did you bring a body to Vegas?”
“I could certainly fit one in here, but no. More changes of clothes and shoes than I can possibly need. I have to be prepared for anything surrounding the wedding.”
Griff went brows up, some of that grin fading. “You’re getting married?”
Was he disappointed at the idea of that? Dismissing the thought as the most absurd thing to ever cross her mind, she snorted. “Hardly. But my college roommate is. What about you? Why are you in Vegas?”
“Pleasure.” Something about the way the word rolled off his tongue had a shiver skating down Sam’s spine. “Just finished my four years in the Marines. Came out to have a little fun.”
Before she could give in to the urge to ask what kind of fun, she blurted, “Congrats. What’s next?”
“An all-I-can-eat buffet is pretty high on the list. After that, the sky’s the limit.”
“Are you here with friends?” He probably had buddies to go meet.
But Griff shook his head.
This glorious specimen of not-a-total-stranger was here on his own?
Before her brain could jump down that rabbit hole of crazy, someone shouted her name from across the room.
“Sam! Girl! We’re here!”
Grab your copy of Until We Meet Again today!