Razzmatazz-DDL (10 page)

Those big green eyes raised to his, their heavy fringe of lashes framing her direct gaze. No artful fluttering for this woman.

“What was Chris talking about last night?” Two catsup-coated fries disappeared into her mouth, and her gaze never wavered from his.

“Nothing. Forget about it,” he replied, toying with his soda glass.

“Your aunt. The one that died.” She drained her glass with a slurp and a frown.

He raised his hand to signal for another cola. “Oh. That.”

“You don’t sound very concerned.”

“Kennie, she’s been dead for seventeen years. I didn’t even know her.”

“Now I’m really confused.”

“It’s very simple. She was my father’s aunt, and she was a spinster, so in her will she requested that her estate be split equally among the Carruthers nephews, of which I was one.”

The waitress set another drink beside Kennie. “So what was Chris so excited about?” Kennie asked.

“I really didn’t want to get into all this.” He took a deep breath, then decided to come clean. “To collect his portion of the inheritance, each heir must be married.”

She stopped with the glass halfway to her mouth, then lowered it slowly to the table. “You’ve never been married.”

“Never,” he admitted.

“And all this money has been just sitting around waiting for you?” she drawled in flat, deliberate tones.

“Earning interest.”

“For seventeen years?” She tapped the knife in her hand against the edge of her plate, her knuckles white.

“Give or take a month.”

“So Alex Carruthers had a very good reason for getting married, didn’t he?” She dropped the knife with a clatter.

He should have known she’d jump to the wrong conclusion. Maybe he had known. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t intended to tell her.

“A great reason for lurking around airport lobbies, looking for some rube from the country stupid enough to be sweet-talked into—”

“For God’s sake, Kennie, shut up.” He wadded his napkin and tossed it onto the plate.

“Oh, everything is crystal clear now, isn’t it?”

He clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth and counted to ten, which wasn’t good enough. He started over and made it to twenty. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she sputtered, following him.

“No, Kennie. You should,” he grated, digging into his pocket for a tip.

“What?” she demanded. “What did I do?”

Alex whirled on her then, grabbed her elbow and deposited her back down in the booth. He edged in beside her, trapping her in the corner. “What did you do? The same thing I did. You let a simple case of high spirits and too much alcohol sway what I can only assume is usually a very level mind, as did I. You landed in a difficult situation, as did I. The difference is, I never accused you of trying to take advantage of the situation.”

“Me, take advantage?” she yelled. “How the heck am I supposed to take advantage?” But no sooner were the words out of her mouth than her face paled, then flushed. “Maybe some women would try to get money out of you or something, but I—I never would dream of such a thing,” she protested weakly.

“I never said you would, did I?” he asked, his voice carefully level.

“No, you didn’t.” She swallowed and smoothed a tendril of her hair out of her face. “I think I’m beginning to see.”

Watching her struggle with her guilt, he felt a tug of guilt himself. All she wanted was to go back to where she came from, and now he’d made her feel guilty for what was a very understandable determination to protect herself.

She tapped a nervous rhythm on the table with a fingernail, avoiding his eyes. “I’ve only been thinking about me, Kennie Sue Ledbetter. I’ve been so busy fretting over how awkward my situation is, I’ve never once thought about you. I mean, you had places to go. You and Chris were on your way somewhere that very first night, and now it’s almost three days later and y’all have been stuck here, and—”

“The point is, Kennie, we’re in this predicament together, and we need to work together to get out of it, right?”

She shrugged nervously. “I don’t know. I feel very self-centered right now. I’ve been so selfish.”

She was definitely not the one who should be feeling selfish, he thought. Hell, if the state code of Nevada hadn’t provided such a convenient knot of legal excuses to keep Kennie Sue Ledbetter at his side, he wouldn’t have hesitated a minute to dream up excuses of his own.

This rush of adrenaline, this certainty that something big was going to happen, this icy-hot emotion that he’d never been able to label as anything but luck, ran rampant through his system. It simply wasn’t in his nature to turn his back on that feeling.

He took her hand. He felt her nervous energy, and another chill of anticipation went through him. “We really shouldn’t quarrel. We’re both a bit off balance right now,” he soothed her. “This situation is damned inconvenient, and I think the best thing for both of us is to get back to the hotel and see if there are any messages.”

A shuddering sigh of relief escaped her soft, full lips. “Yes. That’s exactly what we should do.”

As they headed for the door, he wasn’t satisfied to merely cup her elbow in his hand. This time his arm circled her shoulder.

“Alex,” she said as they stepped into the afternoon sunshine.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking.... The hotel, the attorney. This whole situation is costing you a lot of money, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer at first. What the hell was she getting at? he wondered. Finally he decided on the noncommittal. “That, of course, depends on one’s concept of ‘a lot.’ ”

“To me, it’s a lot. And it’s more than I could ever repay you.”

“But I never intended for you to,” he said.

“I know that. But that’s not my way. This is as much my fault as it is yours, even if I don’t remember it. And any inconveniences are ours to share, the same as we share the blame, right?”

“And so much sweeter for the sharing.”

Her relief at his reply was so painfully evident, he felt a floodgate of reaction wash over him. Remarkable...and in front of another casino, of all places.

“Then I think I know how I can repay you.”

He started to speak, but she rushed on.

“This inheritance you’ve got waiting—is there any reason you can’t go ahead and collect now? I mean, you are married.”

“It’s not a large sum, Kennie. It wasn’t worth getting married for, and it certainly isn’t worth staying married for.”

“That’s not important. Exactly how long does it take to collect? It might not be any longer than it takes to get our annulment. Just think of it, perfect timing. I mean, at least something good could come out of all this.” She paused and raised her face to his. “Couldn’t it?”

He shrugged thoughtfully, his mind racing. “I guess I could check into it.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! I feel better already.”

“Then I’ll definitely check into it” He contemplated hailing a cab, then dismissed the idea and pulled her a little more snugly against him, unable to restrain a grin.

His luck was still holding.

~o0o~

“What the devil,” Alex grumbled from the threshold to their suite.

Standing on her tiptoes, Kennie could peek over his wide shoulder and see the source of his irritation: Christopher Quincy Abbott, asleep in the middle of the bed.

“He still hasn’t gotten a place of his—our own.”

Alex strode toward the bed, but she caught his shoulder and stopped him. “Let him sleep,” she whispered. “He’s not causing any trouble.”

Alex’s sharp glance shot from her to Chris to her again. “That’s a matter of opinion.”

But as he stared down at her, she saw his expression soften. He placed a hand on her back and pushed her gently to the sofa.

“I need to make a telephone call,” she said.

The small red light on the telephone on the cocktail table was glowing.

Alex reached for it before she could. “We’d better check with the desk and see who’s trying to reach us.” He dialed the operator and copied a local telephone number down on the scratch pad. He replaced the receiver and ripped the page off the pad. “The attorney called. Do you want to make your call first?”

“No, by all means, call the attorney first,” she replied with a shudder.

He punched the number in with purposeful jabs, then sank back into the corner of the sofa and crossed his long legs. Kennie eased herself down beside him.

“This is Alex Carruthers returning Ms. Gramm’s call.... No, that will be fine. What do you have?” Kennie watched carefully as his brows raised a fraction, his eyes widening in surprise. “I’m astounded,” he said as he straightened and squared his shoulders. “No, that’s out of the question. There’s no way we can accept that date.” He glanced at her, then away. “Yes, I’ll hold.”

He covered the receiver with a hand and shrugged apologetically. “Can you believe it? The clerk can’t squeeze us onto the calendar until November.”

“November!” Kennie slapped the sofa cushion, narrowly missing Alex’s knee. “That’s—that’s six months!”

“Their backup is evidently quite heavy. Just a minute—” He removed his hand from the receiver and angled his body away from her. “Four weeks? That’s much better. Tell her I appreciate it.” He dropped the telephone into its cradle.”

“Four weeks?” Kennie moaned. “I can’t stay here four weeks. They’re expecting me back in Tahoka Springs Friday.”

“Don’t worry about a thing.” He snapped his fingers. “In four weeks I’ll fly you back out here for the hearing, and then it’ll be over. No problem.”

She shook her head slowly, tendrils of loose hair tickling the back of her neck. “This is getting so complicated.” “You have a call to make?”

She gulped down her apprehension. “My mother.”

“Try the phone in the bathroom if you want some privacy.”

She was about to protest, but followed the line of his gaze to the mound of Christopher on the bed. “Whatever you do, don’t let him come in there while I’m talking to my mother,” she warned Alex.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he responded with a wicked grin.

She ducked reluctantly into the bathroom, which was now sparkling and smelled faintly of disinfectant. She reached for the telephone on the wall beside the dressing table, then dropped onto the low stool. As she placed the collect call, she worried. How was she ever going to get out of this mess without the folks back home finding out what a fool she’d been? And how was she ever going to make up her share of the expenses, unless Alex collected his inheritance? “Mama?”

“Kennie Sue! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you at the MGM Grand, and they’d never heard of you!”

“I know, Mama. It’s a long story.”

“Then don’t give it to me at long-distance rates. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Mama. Wonderful.” Wonderful? Where had that come from?

“You haven’t been gambling, have you?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Well, at least you finally thought to call and let me know you’re still alive. You’ll be home Friday?”

There was no reason to stay that long, Kennie thought. She ought to start packing immediately and catch her plane first thing in the morning. But she didn’t want to.

Heaven help her, what was going on with her mind? She ought to hightail it back home while she was still capable. But if she cut her “vacation” short by two days, her mother would demand more of an explanation than she was prepared to give....

“Kennie Sue! Are you still there?”

“Yes, Mama. I think we’ve got a bad connection. I can hardly hear you.”

“I said, will you be home Friday?”

She took a deep breath. “Yes. Friday. Just like I planned.”

Suddenly Alex’s voice came through the doorway. “When you get through talking to your mother, call for maid service. I want clean linens.”

“What was that? Was that a man’s voice I heard?”

“Room service,” Kennie said through gritted teeth.

“Room service! How can you afford room service?”

“He has the wrong room,” Kennie said, raising her voice for Alex’s benefit.

“Are you sure you’re all right, honey? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“It’s the connection, Mama. I’ve got to hang up, before we run up a whoppin’ bill.”

“I love you, honey. Now, you have yourself a good time, you hear? You deserve this trip more than anybody I know.”

“Thanks. I love you, too.” She hung up, feeling alternately guilty over misleading her mother and angry at Alex for deliberately interfering with her call. Anger, being the more easy to deal with, won out. She paced to the door and jerked it open.

“Did you call maid service yet?” Alex asked from where he was leaning beside the door, close enough to hear every word she said. Behind him, the bed was empty.

Her anger diverted, she asked, “Where’s Chris?”

“I sent him packing. This time I think he’ll manage to find a room of his own.”

“His own?”

“Excuse me,” Alex said elaborately. “Of course, I meant our own.”

“Hum.” She crossed to the rumpled bed. Messy sheets or not, it looked wonderfully inviting. What she really needed was a good nap.

But suddenly Alex was close behind her, his breath caressing the back of her neck. “So you’ve decided to stay.”

“You were eavesdropping,” she accused him.

“No, I was simply listening.”

“There’s a difference?”

“To me there is.” He was so close she could feel his nearness in the prickling that ran up and down her spine, yet he made no move to touch her. “Why did you decide to stay?” he asked.

“I didn’t. I just didn’t want to answer a lot of questions.”

“So, you might not stay.”

“That’s right.”

“I can understand that,” he said.

She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “You can?”

“Most assuredly. What reason is there to stay now? We can’t do a thing about our annulment for almost a month.” She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, lest the disappointment show in her voice. Besides, she tried to tell herself, their hotel bill was only getting higher.

“And you have obligations at home,” he went on.

“Well....” She tried to think of her Lady Ambrosia customers as obligations, but it didn’t quite work. “I do have that job interview.”