License to Thrill (3 page)

He dialed Daphne’s number. The minute she spoke, he started talking and it took a second for him to realize he’d gotten her voice mail.

“Daphne,” he said after the beep. “It’s Mason. I just arrived in Vegas. I’m thinking of you.”

Even to his own ears the words sounded unconvincing. He left her his number at the hotel and then hung up, feeling worse than he had before he’d called. He wished Daphne were here so he could remember exactly what she looked like. He hated that he couldn’t fill his mind with her instead of Charlee.

“Concentrate on locating Gramps.”

All right. He could keep his mind on the task at hand. Think.

Maybelline probably lived right here in Vegas. And maybe Charlee had lied through those luscious lips of hers.

What if, instead of holing up in some fishing retreat as her granddaughter claimed, Maybelline was actually cozied up in a love nest with Gramps? Why hadn’t he considered that before?

Rummaging around in the nightstand, Mason located the phone book and flipped to the S’s. Ten seconds later he copied down Maybelline’s home address. Ten minutes after that, dressed in chinos, a starched white shirt, and loafers, he took the elevator to the lobby.

Maybelline Sikes took a deep breath, smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from her navy blue slacks, and double-checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror. She patted her short, stylish hair she kept dyed the same flame red color it had been in childhood and climbed out of her ebony Toyota Tundra pickup truck.

Her heart gave an erratic little skip as she made her way up the sidewalk to Kelly’s tavern. If she hadn’t just undergone a complete physical and been pronounced as healthy as a woman half her age, Maybelline might have been worried. But turning sixty-three had nothing to do with her irregular pulse.

Outside the bar, Maybelline hesitated, her courage gone. She was nervous. Damned nervous. Not just about seeing Nolan Gentry again, but also because of the bad news she had to deliver. The past had caught up with them both.

“Go on,” she urged herself. “Do it. You’ve got no choice.”

Straightening her shoulders, she shoved open the door and stepped inside. She blinked against the contrast of bright desert sunlight and dim, smoky bar. The door creaked shut behind her. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the place was deserted.

Kelly, all muscles and tight black T-shirt, stood behind the bar buffing the counter. Barfly Bob, a perpetual regular with heavy red jowls and a bleary-eyed grin, sat on a bar stool nursing an Old Milwaukee.

But it was the man at the corner table who drew Maybelline’s immediate interest.

“Hey, Maybelline,” Kelly and Barfly Bob greeted her simultaneously.

Seven years ago, she’d worked for Kelly, before she and Charlee had started the detective agency. Maybelline waved a hand, but her gaze riveted on the man she hadn’t seen for forty-seven years.

The man who had once saved her life.

She approached cautiously. He rose to his feet. The rolled-up sleeves of his blue dress shirt revealed still nicely muscled forearms for a man in his mid-sixties. He looked every inch the blueblood ex-actor with his perfect posture, commanding aura, and smart fashion sense.

Looking at him now, no one would suspect that over four decades ago Nolan had worked as a wildcatter on an oil derrick side by side with Maybelline’s father. Only honed muscles and tanned skin gave even the faintest hint to his working-class past.

Immediately, Maybelline regretted asking him to meet her at Kelly’s. From Nolan’s point of view, the place was beyond seedy. But she had needed somewhere neutral for the meeting and Kelly’s was safe.

Their gazes met and Maybelline’s heart did the same swoony waltz it had done more than four decades ago when she’d walked out into the oil field with the brown paper bag lunch her daddy had forgotten and she’d made eye contact with the boss’s handsome son.

She’d been thirteen. Nolan seventeen. He’d said “hi” to her and she’d been smitten, even though she’d known he was so far out of her league even a fairy godmother with a magic wand couldn’t grant her most fervent wish.

Two years later, when he’d spotted her in town at the soda fountain and came over to buy her a Coke float, she’d just about died. Giggling, her friends had scattered, leaving them alone in the red vinyl booth.

Searching for something to say to the rich handsome man seated across from her, Maybelline told him Lana Turner had been discovered in a soda fountain. Once she got started, her passion for the movies took over and she’d gone on to tell him her greatest dream was to become a Hollywood makeup artist. Nolan had confessed he wanted to be an actor.

They’d talked for hours, until Nolan’s father had come into the diner, found them sitting together, and caused an ugly scene. He’d called her trailer trash and forbade Nolan from ever speaking to her again.

“Maybelline,” Nolan said, bringing her back to the present, his voice husky.

“Nolan,” she murmured.

He smiled and his brown eyes crinkled with such joy, she caught her breath.

“You’re prettier than ever.”

In one precious minute Maybelline had the ridiculous whim everything was going to turn out all right. There she went again, dreaming of a fairy godmother.

“And you’re full of horseshit.”

Nolan’s grin widened. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still the same fiery, outspoken woman I remember.”

With a flourish, he pulled out a chair for her and Maybelline sat. He hadn’t ordered a drink, she noticed and wondered how long he’d been there.

He eased down across from her and she studied his face. The years had been kind to him and it occurred to her he’d probably had a few nips and tucks. Hey, if you could afford plastic surgery, more power to you.

Nolan wore glasses now, but then again so did she. He wasn’t paunchy like many men his age and while he’d had some balding at the temples he still possessed a fine shock of silver hair. She remembered when his hair grew thick as underbrush and black as midnight. A strange aching tugged her stomach at the memory.

All those years gone like fallen leaves.

His gaze imprinted her face, sizing her up too. Self-consciously, she raised a hand to her cheek.

Why hadn’t she worn a dress and jewelry and perfume? She hadn’t worried about her looks for almost two decades. She had believed she was long past the point of wanting to appear desirable for a man.

There’s no fool like an old fool.

“Thank you,” she said. “For coming to Vegas to see me. I couldn’t handle this over the phone or through the mail.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

Kelly appeared at the table. Maybelline was so wrapped up in staring at Nolan she didn’t notice the bartender approach and she jumped when he touched her shoulder. “What’ll you have, Maybell?”

She looked at Nolan, and arched an eyebrow.

“Pretty early in the day for me.” He raised a palm.

“You might want something to help the bad news slide down easier.”

Nolan grimaced. “Is it that gruesome?”

Grimly, she nodded.

“Bourbon,” Nolan said. “Two glasses.”

After Kelly walked away, Nolan laid his hand, warm and rough and comforting, over hers. Something in her chest caught and hung.

“It’s going to be okay, kiddo.” He winked. “We’ve survived worse.”

Maybelline took a deep breath. “Better hold your judgment until after you’ve seen what’s in here.”

She reached into her purse, took out a manila envelope, and handed her old friend a copy of the damning document that possessed the potential to destroy his entire family.

Dimples.

Charlee hadn’t bargained on dimples. A man that long-legged, that brown-eyed, that darned handsome simply had no business possessing dimples as deep as Lake Mead and in both cheeks too! The good looks fairy had been far too generous with Mason Gentry.

Her knees were still weak. Damn him.

She couldn’t stop dwelling on what had happened. How dare the arrogant, egotistic, rich, dimpled son of a bitch try to bribe her into ratting out the site of her grandmother’s cabin?

The cheek. The gall. The sheer audacity!

Jerk. Pinhead. Dillhole.

She fumed around the office, working up a good head of steam.

And then she started to worry.

What if Mason was right? What if Maybelline and his grandfather had run off together? How ludicrous. Then again Maybelline
had
been acting rather odd lately herself. Plus, she’d taken off on her retreat almost a month earlier than usual.

Charlee massaged her temple, which had been throbbing ever since she’d worn Maybelline’s glasses. She would love to pin all the blame on the bifocals, but Mason and his missing grandfather were as much the cause of her headache as the glasses.

Ah, crud. She couldn’t calm down until she drove up to the cabin and made sure Maybelline was all right.

She locked up the office, stopped at the Swiftie Mart around the corner for a fistful of Ibuprofen and a cherry coke. With the evening sun shining in her eyes, worsening her headache, she flipped down the visor and headed over to Maybelline’s place. She wanted to make sure her grandmother hadn’t slipped back into town without telling her before she made the trek up to the fishing cabin at Lake Mead.

Seven years ago, when Charlee had moved into her own apartment, Maybelline sold the motor coach they’d called home ever since Charlee was five and had come to live with her. Her grandmother purchased a small lot in a retirement community, put up a nice prefabricated house on a slab, and settled down for the first time in nearly fifty years.

It was almost six o’clock when Charlee turned onto the friendly little cul-de-sac and had to swerve to avoid a white four-door Chevy Malibu intent on hogging the narrow lane.

The manufactured houses were inexpensive, but well maintained. Flowers flourished in window boxes, wind socks flew from weather vanes, white picket fences delineated property lines, pink flamingoes and kitschy plywood cutouts of ladies bending over to show their bloomers decorated freshly mowed lawns. A quiet, cozy place to enjoy one’s golden years.

She knew something was very wrong the minute she spotted the door to Maybelline’s trailer hanging open a couple of inches. Instantly on alert, Charlee did not pull into the driveway, but instead kept driving and parked a few houses down. She leaped from the car, tugged a small thirty-eight automatic from the leg holster inside her boot, and cautiously approached Maybelline’s house.

With both hands, she raised the thirty-eight over her head and slid her back flat against the outside wall of the trailer until she came to the door. Softly, she toed it open farther.

She paused, listening.

Rummaging noises came from somewhere in the back of the house. Much louder than any four-legged rat.

Someone was definitely in there.

And she seriously doubted it was Maybelline since the Tundra wasn’t in the driveway. Not knowing what she would find, Charlee extended the gun in front of her and bravely stepped over the threshold.

The damage meeting her eyes jolted her. She eased the safety off the gun. Couch cushions were slit open, knick-knacks broken, furniture overturned, pictures knocked askew on the walls.

Swiftly she navigated the mess and moved into the kitchen. Upended flour and sugar canisters dusted the floor, and dishes lay shattered in jagged shards. The refrigerator hung open and condiments had been knocked from the door. Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and grape marmalade splattered out in a colorful Rorschach.

Anxiety settled like a cast-iron submarine deep inside her belly.

Whoever trashed the place was deadly serious. And from the sound of it, they were still in Maybelline’s bedroom.

Tiptoeing through the silt of spilled baking products, Charlee eased down the hallway, careful not to trip over any scattered debris. The door to Maybelline’s bedroom stood wide open and the rummaging noises continued. Inch by inch she crept forward until she could peer into the room.

She spotted a man delving through the closet, his back to her. He was very tall. Broad-shouldered and long-legged. For the first time since entering the house, her knees trembled.

He wore crisply ironed chinos and a pristine white shirt. How in the hell had he managed to wreak such havoc and stay so clean? He was concentrating on Maybelline’s shoe boxes and he hadn’t heard her creep into the room.

Striking cobra-quick, Charlee zipped across the floor and pressed the nose of her gun into his spine.

“Hands on the wall over your head. Now!” She barked out the order, trying her best not to notice how he smelled of sandalwood soap and fancy cologne.

He dropped the shoe box and a shower of old bills cascaded to the closet floor. Tentatively, he raised his arms.

“Palms splayed on the wall.”

Leaning forward, he obeyed.

“Now spread your legs.”

“What?”

She nudged him with the gun. “This isn’t a toy pistol I’ve got leveled at your heart, buster. Spread your legs.”

“Listen…” The intruder started to turn his head.

“Face forward.”

“There’s been a huge mistake.”

“Yeah, like you trashing an old lady’s house.”

She wrapped her free arm around his chest and patted down his lean hard muscles. Her hand traveled to his waistband.

No weapon there.

She skated her shaking fingers down one long leg of his pants to his socks and back up the other leg. Her breathing rasped.

“Charlee?” he said. “Is that you?”

She should have been relieved to discover the fanny she’d just frisked belonged to Mason Gentry and not a hardened criminal. But on the contrary, her knees almost gave way.

“Gentry?” she squeaked.

“Do you mind taking your gun out of my rib cage? It’s rather uncomfortable.”

“Why did you ransack Maybelline’s place?”

“I didn’t.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Look, I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me. I did not vandalize your granny’s house.”

She eyed his tidy clothes again and realized he spoke the truth. Switching the safety back on, she then tucked her gun into her boot and stepped back.