Raising the Stakes

She got behind the wheel. He got behind the car. Dawn flashed a quick look into the mirror. Sweat was beaded on the man’s forehead; muscles strained in his arms as he got into position. “Ready?” she called.

“Ready. Just steer for the corner.”

The car rolled to the end of the street. Dawn turned the wheel and the car curved to the right and snugged against the curb, safe for a little while, at least. She gave a sigh of relief, opened her door and almost walked into the stranger.

“Whoops,” he said with a little smile. He put his hand on her arm to steady her and she forced herself not to jerk away. She knew he wasn’t trying to hurt her. He wasn’t even angry anymore. He was flirting with her. Four years in the real world had taught her to recognize the signs. The easy smile. The appraising look. The little touches—touches that always set her skin crawling, the way it was doing now, even though she never let on. She was an expert at getting out of the game without any collateral damage. She smiled—another false lift of the lips—and stepped around him.

“Well,” she said briskly, “thank you for your help.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“And really, I’m sorry you had such a scare.”

“Uh-huh.” He grinned. “Me, too. Can I give you a lift?”

“A lift?”

“Yeah. To wherever it is you’re going.” He glanced up at the blue-white sky. “Unless you’d rather broil while you wait for a cab.”

“Oh,” she said, as if the possibility of going with him was completely foreign.

Did such a simple offer require such careful consideration? Gray watched the woman’s face, what he could see of it. Not much, thanks to the oversize black-lensed sunglasses, but what was visible—a pert nose, high cheekbones and a silky-looking mouth—was very nice.

So was the rest of her. Her hair was a soft-looking reddish-blond, swept into some kind of fancy knot at the nape of her neck, and he wondered how she’d look if she let it down. He tried not to be obvious as he scoped her out but it was impossible to keep from noticing the high, rounded thrust of her breasts under a cream-colored blouse and the long, slender legs showing beneath the hem of her skirt.

He felt a pleasant tingle in his groin. Maybe he’d stay the full five days in Vegas. Check into the Desert Song, find Dawn Carter, talk to her and get all of that out of the way, then relax a little. God knew he could use a break. There was nothing to rush back to. He hadn’t begun another case yet and his social life was at loose ends, now that the woman he’d been seeing for the past few months—a reporter with the Times—had been transferred to London.

“I’ll miss you,” he’d said to her, their last night together.

“Me, too,” she’d replied, and they’d both smiled and known that the truth was that nobody would really miss anybody, not after a few days.

So the timing was right. A little vacation in Vegas, an attractive woman…a woman who was taking forever to say yes, she’d appreciate a lift to wherever she was going.

Gray smiled. “Big decision,” he said lightly.

She blushed. “I don’t normally… I mean, you’ve been very kind, but—”

“But, for all you know, I’m a serial killer.”

“No. I mean, I wasn’t—”

She stammered, and her color deepened. He knew the courteous thing would be to bail her out of the hot water she had tumbled into but he liked watching her. He wasn’t enjoying her embarrassment, it was just that he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen a woman blush. What would she do if he plucked those sunglasses from what looked like a very nice little nose so he could get a real look at her?

“I promise,” he said solemnly, “I’m not wanted for anything but littering in any of the forty-eight states.”

That won him a slight smile. “But there are fifty states.”

“You got me.” He grinned. “Truth is, I dropped a lei into the Pacific at Honolulu. And I dropped a candy bar wrapper in Juneau, hightailing it away from a polar bear.”

Her smile broadened. It was a good smile. “I don’t believe you.”

“Would a man lie about something like that?”

“I don’t know. Would he?”

“Okay. It wasn’t a real bear, it was a stuffed one outside a store, but the judge said stupidity was no excuse for littering and sentenced me to a hundred years anyway. I did my time quietly. Now can I give you a lift?”

Dawn laughed at the story. He smiled in return. He’d been nothing but kind. Really, what was there to fear?