Chapter Three

David let Laura lead him to a boutique off of the hotel lobby. She was such a confusing mixture of practicality and passion. He couldn’t fault her reasoning for staying, even if he didn’t understand her willingness to cast her lot with him. Wouldn’t a sensible woman run the other direction from mob thugs with guns?

Maybe he should have done more to ensure her safety. He could have bought her a plane ticket and insisted on getting her out of town right away. Now it looked like they would be stuck together a while longer, even though the last thing he needed in his life was a woman slowing him down.

He purchased trunks and a Hawaiian shirt, then they headed to the pool on the roof of the hotel. As they stepped onto the pool deck, he spotted Charlie. In an effort to look less conspicuous, the enforcer had removed his suit jacket and tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves, but he still presented an obvious, hulking presence at one end of the pool.

“I see your thug got here ahead of us,” Laura said as she led the way to a pair of lounge chairs as far from Charlie as possible.

“He probably saw us buying the swimwear and put two-and-two together. And he’s not my thug. He’s Zacolli’s thug.”

“Let’s go for a swim. We can talk in the water without worrying about him overhearing us.” She slipped out of her cover-up and for a moment he forgot about Charlie and Zacolli and Tommy and pretty much anything that didn’t have to do with her creamy skin and lush curves. Sun glinted off her rich brown hair, which fell straight to her shoulders, and she walked with a distracting sway of her hips. She looked soft and warm and too inviting for a man who’d stayed alive as long as he had by refusing to get attached to anything or anyone.

She moved past him to the pool ladder and lowered herself into the water. He left his towel and the bag with his clothing—gun hidden away inside—at the end of a lounge chair and followed her into the pool. It was either that or stand there with an obvious pole tenting his swim trunks.

Once in the water, he glanced toward Charlie. The man was leaning forward, staring at them. Or was he ogling Laura? David pulled her close.

She let out a nervous giggle. “What are you doing?”

“Charlie is watching, so I’m acting like a newlywed.” He spoke softly, whispering in her ear, breathing in her soft scent. “We really need to find a way to get you safely out of here.” Despite the obvious advantages of keeping this stunning creature with him, experience told him he had to get her out of Vegas before one of the goons decided to get to him through her. That was the way these people worked; they zeroed in on weaknesses. One more reason he’d spent years separating himself from others—people made you vulnerable.

“I don’t have to be back to work until Monday,” she said. She shifted her weight, brushing against him in a way that made it difficult to think.

Focus, he reminded himself. “What kind of work do you do?”

“I teach the toddler class at a preschool.”

A preschool teacher. Could he possibly have picked a woman more unsuited for the lying, hiding, and violence his job required? He wasn’t some desk jockey in a suit who dealt with blue collar crime and bureaucracy. He’d made his reputation hunting killers. Better she not know the grisly details, though. Keep everything light. “So you like kids?”

“I do.” Her expression grew a little wistful, and his sinking feeling intensified. Of course she liked children. She was clearly a nurturing person.

“I probably should have asked this before,” he said. “But are you married? I mean, to someone else? Or—attached?”

She laughed, a sound that made him harder. “You definitely should have asked that before, but the answer is no. No marriage and no boyfriend—or anything even resembling a relationship.”

“I’m surprised,” he said.

“Right.” She rolled her eyes.

“No, seriously. You’re pretty and sweet and funny and you like kids—those seem like good qualities for a wife.” Qualities he’d have wanted, if he’d been crazy enough to consider marriage.

“Guess I haven’t found the right guy yet.” Her tone was light, but he read the sadness in her eyes. Someone had hurt Laura. He wanted to find the guy and pound him.

“What about you?” she asked. “You’re not married, are you?”

“Only to you.” He’d meant the words as a joke, but they came out more gruff-sounding than he’d intended. “Mine isn’t the kind of lifestyle that lends itself to long-term relationships.” He’d tried to make things work with a couple of different women, but they couldn’t deal with the way the job consumed him. Even when he was home, his head was in the case, picking at the puzzle and trying to figure his next move. He didn’t blame them for moving on—he didn’t have anything to give.

“I guess not.”

“I’ve got an idea,” he said, anxious to shift the conversation away from such a depressing topic. “We’ll invent an emergency—a reason you need to fly back to Chicago right away. A death in the family or something.”

“If we were really married and that happened, you’d come with me. I mean, what kind of husband stays behind in Vegas while his grieving wife attends a funeral?” She shook her head.

“Then maybe I can pretend to leave with you and stay. Hide where they can’t find me.”

“It doesn’t make sense that I’d leave town without my sister,” she said. “I wouldn’t think it would take these guys very long to figure out the connection.”

The sister. He’d forgotten about her. And Laura was right—as soon as Zacolli’s men started tracking Laura’s movements backwards from last night, they’d find out about the sister. “You’d better call her and let her know you’re okay,” he said. “She’ll be worried.”

“I thought maybe we could swing by my hotel after this,” she said. “I could talk to Rachel and get my things from my room. I could use a change of clothes.”

“Let’s go now.” Charlie still sat like a lump at the end of the pool. David hoped the top of his bald head was burning. “I don’t want your sister calling the police.”

“We haven’t been in the pool long. Don’t you think Charlie will be suspicious?”

“We’re honeymooners. We’ve been overcome by lust and the need to get back up to the room.”

Her eyes flashed with unexpected heat. “Is that so? Then maybe we’d better act a little more convincing.” She wriggled against him, and he went as hard as a rock again.

“Laura.” Her name emerged as a sigh, his voice husky with lust.

“Just being convincing.” She wrapped her leg around him, pulling his arousal tight against her heated center.

“You’re convincing me.”

“I noticed.” She nuzzled his neck, sending fire searing through him. “I never—you make me feel reckless.”

“Yeah.” This was reckless all right. Crazy. He had other, more important things to focus on than getting it on with this woman, no matter how luscious and tempting she was. “What’s Charlie doing?”

She lifted her head to look over his shoulder toward the end of the pool where the thug sat. “He’s watching us, with a very sour look on his face.” She shifted her gaze to him. “I don’t think he’s convinced.”

“Maybe he’s just jealous. After all, he’s sitting over there in the heat, all alone. I’m here in the pool with you.”

“Then we might as well enjoy ourselves.” She tilted her head toward him in silent invitation.

He was a man used to resisting all manner of temptations, but willpower deserted him with that sweet overture. He lowered his mouth to hers, losing himself in the sensation of heated velvet lips yielding to his touch. One hand at her back, he pressed her more firmly against him, reveling in the sensation of soft curves fitting to him. He adjusted the angle of his mouth, deepening the kiss, his tongue teasing. God, she tasted good. He felt like a man drowning although he was standing in four feet of water. He was unable to resist her pulling him under, counter to all his carefully trained instincts. She ground her hips against him, and her breath caught in a sigh of pleasure, a sound of such abandon he came close to losing it right there, like some teenager.

“Hrrrmph!”

Loud throat-clearing just behind him startled him into pulling away. Laura blushed a deep pink and released her hold on him. He turned to see a large woman in an orange skirted swimsuit glaring at him. “There are children present!” she scolded.

“Sorry.” He held up his hands. “We’re newlyweds. I guess we got carried away.”

“There’s a time and a place for behavior like that,” she said.

“Yes ma’am.”

When he turned back to Laura, she stood with her arms wrapped around her, as if she were cold. “I am so embarrassed,” she whispered. “I don’t know what came over me.”

That makes two of us, he thought. He checked the end of the pool. The chair where Charlie had sulked was empty, and there was no sign of the goon. “At least we got rid of our shadow,” he said. He took Laura’s hand and pulled her toward the steps. “Let’s get out of here before he comes back.”

He exited the pool first and offered her a hand up, then wrapped her in one of the hotel beach towels. She gave him a grateful smile before exchanging the towel for a sarong, which she fashioned into a kind of dress over her swimsuit. David ducked into the men’s room and changed back into his khakis and polo. He was grateful for the interval to pull himself together. He had to get this physical attraction for Laura under control if he was going to keep them both safe. He shrugged into his sports jacket and tucked the pistol into the small of his back. The last thing he wanted was a gun battle on the crowded Strip, but he felt safer armed.

They started down the sidewalk toward her hotel. Though it was barely eleven o’clock in the morning, the sun beat down, glaring off the buildings and the pavement. Hordes of tourists with cameras, shopping bags, and drinks flowed down the sidewalks. Groups peeled off to enter the dark cacophony of casinos or the brightly lit chaos of shopping malls. Everything looked so ordinary and American.

So safe. Yet it was anything but.

…

The crowds around them on the Strip could have been aliens or circus clowns, and Laura wouldn’t have noticed. Her every cell was focused on the man walking beside her, on the heat of his hand resting lightly on the small of her back, on the firm, masculine line of his jaw in profile, and on the intense blue eyes that studied their surroundings from behind the dark lenses of aviator sunglasses. She should have been afraid of a man like him—a man who carried a gun, who was trailed by serious criminals who wanted to kill him. Yet she trusted him.

Correction—she lusted for him. Exhibit A: the way she’d thrown herself at him in the pool. They’d been practically having sex in public, in broad daylight. Maybe she was just horny because David was so gorgeous, and it had been a while since she’d had a boyfriend. Did the reason behind her behavior really matter when the results were so exhilarating and memorable?

Unfortunately, she really couldn’t spend every waking minute with him thinking about sex, tempting as that prospect might be. She’d agreed to help him, and that meant keeping at least some of her wits about her. First step, make sure Rachel was okay. She dug her phone from her purse and punched in Rachel’s number. After four rings, Rachel answered. “Hello?”

“Rachel, it’s Laura.”

“It’s about time you woke up, sleepyhead,” Rachel teased. “And shame on you for bailing on the party last night. I had to make a detour to a Walgreen’s to get glue for my nail, and when we finally decided to call it a night, I had to get the front desk to give me another key.”

Laura had known Rachel wasn’t likely to worry about her, but it still stung a little to have her suspicions proved. She could have been kidnapped or killed and it might have been days before Rachel even noticed. “Where are you now?” she asked.

“The girls and I are playing slots here at the hotel. We have appointments to get our nails done at noon. The glue didn’t do such a good job, so I decided to just have them all redone. I’m sure they could squeeze you in if you want.”

“That’s okay. I’m going to stop by for a minute to see you, though. There’s somebody I want you to meet.” Her original plan had been to have David wait outside while she ran in and reassured her sister, but Rachel’s careless attitude had changed her mind. Time to do a little gloating.

“Everything okay?” he asked after she’d snapped shut her phone.

“Fine. She didn’t even miss me.”

“You said she’s getting married?”

“Next week, back in Davenport. To a lawyer who works in the county attorney’s office. Our parents are over the moon about it.”

“But you, not so much,” he guessed.

She flushed. “Of course I’m happy for her. It just grates sometimes that her life is so perfect—she was a beauty queen in high school, and she’s still a size two. She has her own business staging houses, and now she meets this guy with his own very profitable career. Me, I have a low-paying job that nobody even pretends to think is glamorous, and the only boyfriend I’ve ever had for more than a few months dumped me last year for a woman he met online.”

“Jerk.”

David’s vehemence on her behalf surprised a smile from her. “I’m not bitter—just annoyed sometimes that Rachel gets all the good luck and I get the leftovers. It would be nice to turn the tables on her, even for a little bit.”

“I sense a plan in the making.”

She laughed. “If you’d just come inside with me and meet her…I want to introduce you as my husband and watch her jaw drop.”

“If I’d known this plan of yours, I’d have dressed to impress.”

“Oh no, you look great.” More than great. In the pool she’d had plenty of opportunity to appreciate his broad, muscular chest, dusted with dark hair, not to mention his buff arms, rippling abs and other, um, attributes. The memory of his rock-hard erection pressed so firmly against her left her weak-kneed and breathless. Knowing she so obviously turned him on was enough to make her whisper a silent prayer of thanks to whatever gods oversaw the distribution of luck to patrons on the Strip.

They arrived at the hotel a few minutes later and Laura led him to the casino entrance. “Rachel said she was playing slots,” she said. “I’ll just talk to her a minute, and then we can get my things from my room.”

“Anything special you want me to do? Strike a pose or anything?” He flexed his biceps.

“Just standing there should be enough.”

She spotted a familiar blonde head at the end of a row of slots. “Hi, Rachel.” Laura stopped beside her.

Rachel barely glanced at her, then she did a double take and took in David. “Hello!” she said, all wide-eyed interest.

Laura wrapped her hand around David’s and pulled him closer. “Rachel, I’d like you to meet my husband, David Abruzzo.”

Rachel’s mouth dropped open, then she laughed. “She is such a kidder,” she said to David.

“No, Rachel, I’m not kidding. David and I got married last night. I have the license to prove it. It was a whirlwind romance.” It was a whirlwind, anyway.

“You married my sister?” Rachel slid off the stool and stood, all five-feet-five of her facing David’s six feet. “What kind of a scam are you trying to pull? Do you think she has money? Because she doesn’t. She teaches at a preschool. Did she tell you that? And there isn’t any family money. My parents even had to take out a loan to pay for my wedding.”

“Rachel.” Laura couldn’t decide if she was touched that Rachel suspected a scam or hurt she’d think there couldn’t possibly be another reason a man as good-looking as David would want her.

“I promise there’s no scam involved.” David put his arm around her, his firm grip reassuring. “I was attracted to her from the moment I saw her. And I have money of my own, so I’m not concerned about hers or your family’s.”

“What do you do?” Rachel asked.

“I work for the government. I’m a diplomat.”

Some of the starch went out of Rachel. She not so subtly checked David out again. “I can’t believe a guy like you fell for my sister.” She had the grace to blush as soon as the words were out, but she forged ahead. “I mean, she doesn’t seem like your type.”

“Laura is exactly my type.”

Even if the words were a lie, the fact that he stood up for her made her feel as beautiful and confident as she’d always wanted to be. All her life, Rachel had been the pretty sister, the thin sister, the smart sister, the sister who was marrying well. For this one brief moment, Laura got to have the upper hand. She leaned against David and allowed herself a moment of smugness. Rachel’s own husband to be, Josh DuPree, had a weak chin and was already losing his hair. A nice guy, to be sure, but no match for David in the looks department.

Okay, that was a petty thing to think, but all her life she had been on the receiving end of other people’s pettiness. Her family’s assumption that of course she’d make sacrifices for them. The co-workers who shuffled extra work onto her. The boyfriends who “joked” that she could stand to lose a few pounds. She was always so damned nice to everyone. Resisting her inner niceness, if only briefly, felt liberating.

Rachel turned to her. “This is so unlike you,” she said. “You’re never impulsive like this.”

“I decided it was time for a change,” she said lightly. Being a little wild felt better than she’d ever imagined. Guilt and remorse would no doubt set in eventually, but for now she was riding the wave of her own daring.

“Let me see the ring.”

Rachel’s words sent a moment of panic through her, until she realized that she did, indeed, have a ring on the third finger of her left hand. She extended the hand toward Rachel. Rachel leaned toward the gem, squinting. “It looks like something out of a gum machine.”

David coughed. Laura suspected the ring had, in fact, come out of a gum machine or a Cracker Jack box. “It’s an antique,” she said, slipped the hand beneath the folds of her sarong. “It just needs cleaning.”

A familiar pair of bug eyes appeared around the other end of the row of slots, followed by a taller man with a high widow’s peak. Dumb and Dumber were back. They were like a couple of ticks. When the taller man—Charlie—saw that she had recognized him, he glowered, as if he expected one look to send her ducking for cover. The old Laura—the ordinary, real Laura—would have run away in fear. But David needed her to be brave, to show this guy she wasn’t afraid of him. After all, Charlie couldn’t do anything to her here in a crowded casino, could he? She released David’s hand and rushed toward the thug.

“Laura, what are you—?” David called after her.

“Charlie, isn’t it?” She grabbed the goon’s hand and dragged him toward her sister and David. Victor followed at a little distance. “Rachel, these are two business associates of David’s. This is Charlie, and that’s Victor.”

Victor fluttered his fingers in a small wave.

“Rachel couldn’t make the wedding last night because she was indisposed,” Laura told Charlie.

“Indisposed?” Rachel frowned.

“You had a little too much fun at the bachelorette party,” Laura reminded her, hoping Rachel wouldn’t blab about whose upcoming wedding they’d been celebrating.

Rachel grinned. “I guess I did. Those drinks go down like Kool-aid, but they really hit you later. It was a good party.”

“You’re saying you were at a bachelorette party last night?” Charlie asked Rachel.

“Of course,” Laura said. “Before the wedding.”

“Hey, it’s the bachelorettes!”

Right on cue, as if she had planned the whole thing, the two frat boys from the evening before joined them in front of the slot machines. “That was some party last night,” one said, and gave an exaggerated wink.

To her amusement, Rachel blushed bright pink. “Just remember what they say,” she said. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

“Oh, you got it.” The taller boy gave a thumbs-up sign.

Charlie was still scowling. “Isn’t it funny how we keep running into you two,” Laura said. She took hold of David’s arm. “I couldn’t believe you were sitting out by the pool in that hot suit. You’d better go put something on your head. It looks like you got pretty sun-burned.”

Charlie shook his head and walked away. “Nice to meet you,” Victor said, then hurried after his friend.

“For a diplomat, that big guy wasn’t very pleasant,” Rachel said.

“He’s been losing big at the blackjack tables,” David said.

“Oh.” Rachel nodded wisely. “That would put anybody in a bad mood.” She turned to Laura. “I still can’t believe you’re married.”

“We’ll talk later, I promise.” She hugged her sister close. “Have fun.” Then she hurried away, before Rachel—who was not dumb, only sometimes slow to pick up on things—started asking more questions about how she had ended up married to a man she’d just met.