Something Wild

contents
-
next

Lead me not into temptation;

I can find the way myself.

Rita Mae Brown

Charity Wilde stared at the tumbler
full of amber liquor, giving serious thought to abandoning the oath she’d made long ago, not to drink anything more than a celebratory glass—or maybe two—of champagne. History had proven that one or two sips of anything else would make her tipsy within minutes. Downing a few ounces of the hard stuff in one quick gulp would knock her off her barstool, and would probably kill every worry she’d ever had—for at least ten or twelve hours.

That, of course, was exactly what she wanted— a swift escape from her troubles. She wanted to forget she’d ever come to this after-hours dance club. She wanted to forget everything she’d seen, everything she’d done, but there was no way to forget that Josh Malloy had been shot, that his wife had been handcuffed and hauled off to jail, that the festive crowd had fled this nightspot fearing for their lives, or that she herself had been responsible for every dreadful thing.

“You causing trouble again?”

Charity’s gaze stayed fixed on her glass of whiskey, even as strong fingers plucked it from her hand and shoved it halfway down the bar. Slowly her weary eyes trailed from the glass to the detective towering over her. He looked big, bad and annoyed. Logan Wolfe was playing his cop role to the hilt, when right now she wished he could just be her friend.

“Don’t give me a hard time,
Logan
. It’s been a bad night.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

He turned to the bartender and ordered a cup of coffee, then pulled up a stool and sat beside her. “Mind telling me what happened?”

She’d witnessed a shooting, that’s what happened. The guy she’d been with had nearly been murdered.

Still dazed, she stared at the flecks of dried blood still on her knuckles. How had she missed wiping those away? She grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins and scrubbed at the bloodstains, then sighed when they wouldn’t disappear. How could an innocent evening out have turned into such a mess?

Hours earlier she’d been on stage, and Josh had been in the wings watching her and the cast of Sheer Ecstasy, making sure they didn’t miss a step, that his exacting choreography was followed to a tee. It was the show’s premier night, launching the grand reopening of a legendary Vegas hotel and night spot. They’d all been anxious and on edge, but the extravaganza went without a hitch.

Two hours ago she and Josh had come downtown to celebrate their success, then all hell broke loose.

“Charity?”

Logan
’s voice drew her back to the present. “Hmmm ... ?”

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“I already know that much.”

He’d known no such thing five years ago, when they’d first bumped heads. He’d pegged her as a woman who looked and acted guilty—of something, anything—simply because she didn’t want to talk about the armed robbery she’d witnessed. Logan had been in no mood to put up with a difficult woman, so he carted her off to the station and fired one question after another at her, before he realized she’d merely been an innocent bystander who wanted to mind her own business—for a change.

How they had become friendly after that was anyone’s guess.
Logan
was a nice guy, but definitely not her type, not that her type existed in Vegas. She wasn’t on the prowl for a boyfriend, or any man for that matter. She simply wanted to do her job and have fun occasionally with someone like Josh Malloy, a man she’d worked with off and on, a guy who’d suggested they party after the show. Some party this had turned out to be.

“Is Josh going to live?” she asked, clutching her hands around her black beaded purse, to keep her fingers from trembling.

Logan
chuckled cynically, a pretty typical laugh for the detective. “He took a bullet in the arm and another grazed his temple. He could have walked out of here if he hadn’t passed out.”

“What about his wife?” Charity couldn’t forget the anger in the woman’s eyes, fury mixed with heartache, when she’d pulled the gun and fired. But she also felt an ounce of sympathy for the spurned spouse. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“That’s for the courts to decide.”

The bartender slid a mug of coffee toward
Logan
. He shoveled in four heaps of sugar and clanked the spoon around the insides so violently Charity thought the cheap cup would shatter and he’d cut his hand. Hadn’t she already seen enough blood to last a lifetime?

Logan
pushed the cup in front of Charity. “Drink this. It’ll warm you up.”

She wrapped her hands around the mug, hoping some of the heat would seep into her body. She’d never been so cold. So troubled.

Logan
took a notebook and pen out of his pocket. “All right, tell me what happened.”

She sipped the coffee, concentrating on the scribbles
Logan
was making on the paper instead of looking at the blood on her hands. “I fixed Josh up with a blind date—”

“You always play matchmaker with married men?”

“I didn’t know he was married. The guy’s a choreographer and all he talked about was work. For heaven’s sake,
Logan
, until he asked me to set him up, I thought he was gay.”

Logan
’s impassive expression was hard to miss when he tore his gaze from the paper. She wanted to murder him for being so composed while she was a wreck. “Drink some more coffee,” he said. “It’ll calm you down.”

“It’s too sweet. Besides, I wanted whiskey, and you took it away from me.”

A familiar grin touched his usually serious face. “That was rum, not whiskey. Either one would have killed a teetotaler like you.”

“
Las Vegas
is trying to kill me. We’ve got this love-hate relationship going on, but right now hate’s winning.”

Logan
shrugged, the sign of a burned-out man who didn’t want to listen to the ravings of an on-the-verge-of-being-burned-out woman. He took the coffee from her hands and gulped down the sickly sweet brew himself.

“How do you stand it?” she asked. “Don’t you get tired of seeing stuff like this every day of your life?”

“I tune it out.” He jabbed the point of his pen into the paper. “So what happened after you fixed Malloy up with the blind date?”

“We came here after the show. Sheila—the lady who does my hair—said she’d meet us. How was I to know she’d tell her clients she had a hot date with a choreographer, or that one of her clients was Josh’s wife? This is a big town. Things like that just don’t happen.”

“Yeah, well, this is Vegas. Things that shouldn’t happen usually do. You should know that better than anyone.”

She should, but one bit of trouble kept bumping into the next. She should be used to it by now, but she wasn’t.

Logan
scratched a few notes on his pad. “So what happened next?”

“Sheila walked into the club. It was crowded, but you can’t miss Sheila. She’s got spiked orange hair, towers over everyone, and her smile lights up a room. Josh looked smitten the second he saw her waving at us, but he went pale when he saw the platinum blonde who walked in right behind her.”

“His wife?”

Charity nodded.

“Did he say anything to her? Did he walk toward her?”

“I heard him say something like, ‘I’m screwed,’ but he didn’t move, not even when she pulled the gun from her purse. He just stood there. Stunned.”

“Did anyone try to stop her?”

“It happened so fast that I don’t think anyone saw the gun but me and Josh. There was so much noise in here I’m surprised I could hear the shots, but they were loud, one after the other.” Charity took a deep breath, wishing all the horror would go away as she described it to
Logan
.

“All I remember after that is Josh lying on the floor. Sheila was screaming. People were running out the doors, trying to get away. And then I saw the blonde—Josh’s wife—drop the gun and run toward him, saying she was sorry. So sorry.”

“Is that it?”

Charity nodded. “The paramedics were here in minutes. Then the cops came and asked me all sorts of questions until you showed up.”

Logan
closed his notebook and stuck it back in the inside pocket of his coat. At last, the interrogation was over. He slugged down the last dregs of coffee, then tossed a few dollar bills on top of the bar. “You want a ride home?”

“No, thanks. My car’s outside.”

“Come on, then. I’ll walk you to it.”

Logan
slipped off his coat and hung it over her shoulders as they made their way through the emptying club. Passersby gawked at them as they walked under the shimmering neon lights on
Las Vegas Boulevard
. They made quite a pair, her in stilettos, clicking on the concrete, and Logan, a shoulder harness and menacing gun hanging out for all to see.

Thank goodness he’d given her his coat, or her body would have been hanging out for all to see, too. She’d worn black lycra tonight. A tiny, shiny sheath that was too short, too low cut, and far too tight. It had been perfect for her festive mood; now she felt tired and cold and underdressed as they headed for the parking lot.

“Mind if I make a suggestion?”
Logan
said, taking the keys from her hand when they reached her well-used and under-loved Mustang.

“Go right ahead.”

He unlocked and opened the door for her as she shrugged out of his coat and slid onto the chilled leather seat.
Logan
braced his hands on the top of the car and leaned toward her, hitting her with a brotherly half-smile as she put on her seat belt.

“Get out of Vegas. You don’t fit in here, Charity. You never have and you never will.”

She laughed. “The anxiety I’m feeling at the moment’s only temporary, you know that. Besides, I’ve landed the best role of my life ... so far. I’ve got a solo singing number, which is a first for me. And I’m the lead dancer. This is what I’ve dreamed of,
Logan
. This is why I came to Vegas.”

“Yeah, you wanna be a star. You wanna be rich and famous like every other showgirl in this town. But you’ve got no life, and when you do try to have one, this kind of crap happens.”

“Do you have a life?”

“I work and sleep. What more could a man want?”

“A wife? Kids?”

“You know me better than that.”

“How about a vacation?” Charity plucked an engraved invitation to her sister-in-law’s week-long family get-together from the passenger seat. “You like the great outdoors. Want an all-expenses-paid trip to the middle of nowhere?”

Logan
tugged the fancy white stationery from her fingers and scrutinized the winter-wonderland photo of the Remington ranch on the front. He couldn’t seriously be thinking about going, could he? To
Wyoming
? Where there would be nothing to do all day but count cows on the range and stare at endless miles of snow? A place that had no slot machines clanking all night, no traffic, no high-rises, no neon lights?

“If it was an all-expenses-paid fishing trip,”
Logan
said, “I’d jump at the offer. Since family reunions aren’t my thing ... I’ll pass.” He handed back the card. “You plan on going?”

Charity laughed. “You don’t really think I’d ask for time off at the start of a new show, do you?”

“What I think is that you work too hard and that you need a break.”

“In my next life, maybe. Right now I need the money, and this is the best job I’ve ever had. I can’t risk getting canned.”

“Then I suppose you’ll just stay here and become cynical like me.”
Logan
leaned down and planted a friendly kiss on her brow. “Stay out of trouble, okay?”

Staying out of trouble was easier said than done. Still, Charity nodded as
Logan
pressed the automatic lock button and closed her door. It wasn’t until she backed out of the parking spot and started to drive off, that she saw him shove his hands in his pockets and walk toward his car.

Logan
was far too protective—a lot like her brother Max. More than once over the years he’d tried to get her to slow down, to take it easy. Logan meant well, but he didn’t realize that a dedicated showgirl didn’t ask for time off—not for anything—especially when she wanted to be at the top; especially when the dream of a lifetime was close to coming true.

She’d been reaching for the brightest star in the Vegas sky for a very long time, and in spite of a few setbacks, in spite of getting in the middle of trouble far too often, stardom was almost within her grasp.

No, she couldn’t leave
Las Vegas
, not for the Remington’s reunion, not for anything.

Charity’s star plummeted from the sky the very next day.