Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance) (15 page)

Braxton kept waiting for an opening to ask Frances if he’d somehow offended her earlier, but none presented itself, or maybe he was too chicken to ask. Or maybe he wanted to show her he was one of the good guys, someone who, like his dad, didn’t hold grudges, wanted to do the right thing, wanted to be there for her.

Wanted her to know that whatever she felt, experienced, needed was more important than anything else in his world.

Didn’t stop him from worrying that he’d done something to make her suddenly walk away.

He kept mentally going over what had happened, beginning with when she’d hurt her toe. Things had started heating up when he’d guided her out of the office, their arms around each other, her hip snuggled against his side, the clean scent of her soap doing a wicked number on his senses. But he’d kept it together.

However, when he’d slowly slipped off her shoe, gradually exposing her pale foot, his fingers touching her skin, it had felt as though he were undressing her.

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked her out to eat after that.

But then, the lighting wasn’t so great in that hallway—a faint bluish-gray light from overhead fluorescents—so maybe she hadn’t noticed that he was aroused.

Although she couldn’t have missed it minutes later as they were feverishly pressed against each other, their body heat fogging the glass...thunder growling...his fingers daring to touch her impossibly soft skin...her rapid, choked breaths....

And in a pop of light, everything ended.

“Brax, dude, you made it!”

Flip-flops slapping against the marble floor, Li’l Bit lumbered toward him—his swaying gait, hairy legs and bushy hair bringing to mind a woolly mammoth. He wore plaid shorts and a tie-dyed T-shirt with the words
You Are Entering a World of Pain.

With a lazy smile, he slapped to a stop in front of Braxton. “Hey, man, how’s it hangin’?”

Braxton slipped his phone into his pocket. “Where’s your workout bag?”

“Don’t have a bag, man. This is how I roll.”

“Well, you can’t roll into the fitness center wearing flip-flops. Fortunately, they sell workout shoes there, so we’ll buy you a pair.”

“
Rules,
man.”

“Yeah, well, that’s how the universe rolls.” He looked into Li’l Bit’s eyes, pinker than a Ruby Red grapefruit. “You’re stoned.”

Li’l Bit reared his head back. “Dude, I get the bad-attitude thing, but who died and made you the ganja police?”

Maybe he was worn down by one long, strange day, but the question hit Braxton’s funny bone. Who cared if Li’l Bit got zonked out of his gourd? This weeklong workout was for a freaking
Manwich
auction, not the Olympics.

“Sorry,” he muttered, “I’ve been under some stress lately.”

Li’l Bit placed a meaty hand on his shoulder. “It’s that blonde, right? Your mom talked to me about her, says you don’t really know anything about her, not even her last name—”

“She’s talking to
you
about Frances?”

What was it with his family? At least when they’d started gossiping about him, they kept it among themselves. Now it was spilling over to outsiders.

“Hey, man, we were just talkin’ a little while playing slots. No big deal—”

“Slots?” Braxton looked around. “Mom’s here?”

“Yeah, she’s signing up for that contest thing....”

“What contest thing?”

“Poker contest.”

“Poker tournament?”

“Tournament, yeah, that’s what they call it.” Li’l Bit scratched his double chin. “Dorothy’s really stoked about doing this, man, been talking about it for weeks, so since I was cruisin’ to Bally’s to meet you, I asked her along, figured she could catch a ride home with you after our workout.”

As a rendition of “Stairway to Heaven” started playing, competing with the symphony of whizzing, chirping slot machines, Braxton thought back to his mom playing poker years ago, mostly at Bally’s while waiting for his dad to get off work. He’d had no idea she still played...or was
stoked
to enter a tournament.

It already rankled him that his family could talk
about
him, but to know they weren’t sharing themselves
with
him? What was the point of returning to the family fold if he stayed outside the crease?

“She could’ve told me about the tournament,” he groused, shooting a quick look toward the restrooms. No Frances.

“Dude, it’s not like anybody’s keeping secrets, man. It’s just—”

“Just what?” Braxton snapped.

Li’l Bit shook his head sorrowfully, his woolly mane quivering a second or two longer.

“I’m saying this from a place of love, Brax, but you gotta shine life on, dude. Like the Eagles said, you gotta start taking it a whole lot easier.”

“
Take it easy,
you mean.”

“Yeah, man, you’re getting the message.” His pink eyes got pinker as they started welling up. “Because I love you like a brother, dude.”

“I’m not your...” The rest of his sentence faded away as he saw Frances heading toward them.

She held herself stiffly as she walked, her shoulders still hunched, but not as much as before, her mass of blond hair looking slightly different, as if she’d rearranged it or something....

She held her hand cupped close to her face, which made him think she was talking into a cell phone, then remembered hers was in her purse, locked in Dima’s office. Then he wondered if she was eating something, but as she came closer he saw that wasn’t the case. Yet her hand hovered near her face.

Twenty or so feet away she paused, her eyes locked on his, her hand, small and white, hovering near her cheek.

“Wow,” Li’l Bit said, “that chick with the Lion King hair is wearing a trench coat
just
like yours.”

“That’s because it
is
my coat,” he muttered.

Reaching them, she stopped, her body angled as though she were ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. The way she was turned, he and Li’l Bit could only see half of her face.

“Sorry I took so long,” she said quietly, “but you wouldn’t believe the lines.” She glanced at Li’l Bit’s T-shirt and smiled. “That’s one of my favorite lines. I’m a big fan of the Coen brothers.”

He stared at her, his face slack with awe, the way the kid in the movie
E.T.
looked after the alien’s glowing finger touched his forehead. Then, as though zapped back to life, he lurched forward and clasped her hand with both of his.

“My name’s Nathan, but everyone calls me Li’l Bit.”

“And I’m Dorothy,” a voice said, “Braxton’s mother.”

His mother stood erect, dressed in gray pants and her yellow bowling league shirt with
Dot
stitched in red over the pocket. Her short-nailed fingers played on the strap of her shoulder bag as her hazel eyes focused on the trench coat, then took in the explosion of blond hair.

“I’m Frances Jefferies.” Maintaining her angled stance, she dipped her head in greeting. “I’m wearing your son’s coat because mine got locked in our boss’s office.”

“
Our
boss,” Dorothy repeated, brightening. “So when do you start, Braxton?”

“It’s a, uh, two-part venture,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Are you a lawyer at this company?” she asked Frances, who looked momentarily confused.

“No.”

“She’s a vice president, Mom.”

“Vice president of...?”

“Marketing,” Frances answered.

“Sales,” Braxton said at the same time.

“Marketing
and
sales,” she quickly corrected, “although Dmitri just calls it sales.”

Braxton thought it was odd for Dima to lop off part of a job title. The guy disagreed with Shakespeare, for God’s sake, for writing “What’s in a name?” Couldn’t simply say his ringtone was just Tchaikovsky—no, it was Tchaikovsky’s concerto for violin in something major.

“Okay,” he said, “time to get this show on the road. Mom, would you mind walking Li’l Bit to the fitness center while I get Frances set up?”

“Set up?” his mom asked.

“He’s treating her to dinner while we work out,” Li’l Bit explained.

“But...she’ll be alone.” Dorothy pressed the air with her hands in a this-is-how-we’ll-do-it gesture. “You and Li’l Bit go to the fitness center while
I
take Frances to the sports book—left my jacket there with Ross, so I have to pick it up anyway—and she can grab a bite to eat there.”

“Ross still bartends at the sports book?” Braxton gave his head a disbelieving shake. “He must be a hundred years old by now.”

Dorothy scoffed, “Mid-seventies isn’t old...well, much. Anyway, he only works a few nights a week and still makes the best Zombie in town.”

“Sorry,” Frances interrupted, starting to unbutton the trench coat, “but I can’t stay. My dad’s on his way here to give me a ride home.”

Stung by the news, Braxton stared at her, or the half of her he could see. “But...when I asked to treat you to dinner...”

“I said yes, I know, but then we got stuck in traffic, and I didn’t realize how late it was getting,” she said, her words tumbling over each other, her hand fluttering up to her face again. “It just seemed, you know, easier to call my father, have him pick me up.”

In the awkward, strung-out moments that followed, Braxton tried to contain his disappointment—and his hurt.

“When did you call your father?” he asked quietly.

“When I visited the ladies’ room.”

“Whose phone?”

“Don’t know her name....”

“A stranger.”

She nodded.

“Could’ve borrowed my phone at any time. On the ride over. Here....”

“Thought you needed it to call Li’l Bit—”

His gut flipped. “I get the picture,” he murmured. “You borrowed some stranger’s cell phone because you wanted to call your dad. Or a boyfriend—”

“I don’t have a boy—”

“Look,” he interrupted, “if you didn’t want to do dinner, fine. Didn’t want me to drive you home, okay. But you could have told me to my face.”

He looked at Li’l Bit and his mom. “Yeah, I liked her, okay?” He laughed as though all this had just been some kind of joke, no big deal. “But I’ll get over it. Feel free to share this end-of-the-great-love-affair-that-never-happened with Drake, Val, Grams, Richmond, your bowling league, your ganja pals, the
Las Vegas Sun
....” He paused, the reality catching up that he, the guy whose black book had been the envy of his buddies—who used to brag that he understood women better than they understood themselves—had missed the signs that Frances wasn’t all that into him.

His mom reached out to him. “Braxton, darling—”

“I’m okay, Mom,” he said as he strode away, half hearing Li’l Bit calling for him to wait up, but he wasn’t slowing, wasn’t waiting.

He probably should have taken his cue when Frances had slid out of their near-kiss earlier today, but that wouldn’t have stopped him from returning later to escort her to her car, show her he could be a gentleman.

Good thing he had, too, because she’d been stranded in a desolate industrial park, only minutes of sunlight left. No jacket. No keys to her car. No phone to call for help.

Braxton toyed with the idea of calling Dima in the morning, explaining something else had come up, sorry, that he couldn’t fulfill the part-time executive-protection gig. Suggest that Dima hire that best-in-Vegas bodyguard pal of Frances’s instead.

Meanwhile, Braxton would fulfill the Yuri investigation, burn through that retainer. After that, his head and heart should be in better shape about Frances, making it easier to tackle that Security Director position.

“Dude, please...wait up.”

Braxton stopped and turned.

Li’l Bit, trying to jog in his flip-flops, held up his hand as though hailing a cab. Seeing Braxton had stopped for him, he sank heavily against a slot machine, his face the color of a ripe tomato, gasping for air.

“Man, I haven’t...run this much...since fourth grade....” He lifted the hem of his T-shirt and stared at the waistband of his plaid shorts. “Wow...I popped a button....”

The little old lady playing the slot machine stared, horrified, at Li’l Bit’s round, hairy gut.

Braxton headed over before she called security. Tonight was bad enough without his family losing their lifetime discount, too.

“Check the button in the men’s locker room,” he said, taking Li’l Bit by the elbow and steering him away from disaster.

“But—”

“No buts,” he said, “or showing guts. You can quote me on that.”

“Dude, I’m sorry...about Frances.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he murmured.

* * *

F
RANCES
STOOD
NEAR
Dorothy Morgan, slowly unbuttoning the trench coat, unnerved by the woman’s unflinching stare. Michael Jackson’s song “Bad” pulsed over the speakers.

Frances felt badder, if that was even a word.

She understood how it looked, leaving to make a “secret” call, but she hadn’t done it to deceive Braxton. Didn’t mean she wasn’t sorry that he’d felt hurt.

“My son might not be perfect,” Dorothy finally said, keeping her eyes on Frances’s face, “but he’s a good man who’s trying to live an honest life, and he deserves honesty—” her chin trembled “—from
all
of us in return.”

“I didn’t realize he’d take it this way. I’m sorry,” she managed to say around the ache in her throat.

“Me, too.” Dorothy released a heavy sigh. “I feel like a hypocrite. Always said I don’t believe in gossip, told my friends I won’t condone it, and then I go and blab about my son to others.”

“Your intention wasn’t to hurt him,” she said softly, as much to herself as Dorothy.

“But I did.”

A sadness engulfed Frances as she missed her own mother, who wasn’t as tough as Braxton’s mom seemed to be, but had been every bit as caring and loyal.

“Well,” Dorothy said, rolling back her shoulders, “it’s none of my business what you feel for him, but if you didn’t want him to treat you to dinner, he’s right, you should have told him up front, before you made your plans to leave.” The furrow between her eyebrows deepened. “Do you have a boyfriend? Is that who you called?”