Raising the Stakes

”Salud.”

They touched glasses, sipped the cool, dry wine. Dawn said it was very nice. Gray said he was glad she liked it. Then they fell silent. She looked at her wine, then at him. His eyes were on her face, his gaze penetrating. He wants something from me, she thought suddenly, and she remembered what she’d told Cassie, that he wasn’t dangerous, that he couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Harman…

“It’s a good wine, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s very nice.” She hesitated. “I should warn you, Gray—”

“That’s the first time you said my name without making it sound as if I dragged it out of you.”

“Look, I know it must have seemed, well, strange. The way I acted about having dinner, I mean, but I really don’t date guests.”

He nodded.

“And, actually, I can’t stay very long.”

“Got a pumpkin carriage waiting for you at the stroke of midnight?”

“Pumpkin…? Oh. Oh, no.” She smiled again, put down the glass and ran the tip of her index finger carefully around the rim. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little slow on the uptake.”

He thought how nice it was, that she was slow on the uptake, that she wasn’t quite what he’d figured her to be… Except, she was. He had to stop letting that fact slip away from him. She was a beautiful woman with a soft smile, but there was more to it than that. The truth about her was still shrouded in fog that stretched all the way from the lights of Vegas to an Arizona mountaintop, where a little boy wept for his mother.

The thought soured him. He put down his glass, folded his hands on the table and wished, for the first time in years, that he still smoked. He was here for information, nothing else, and so far he hadn’t gotten any.

“Well.” He cleared his throat. “How long have you lived in Las Vegas?”

“Four years. And you? How long have you lived in New York?”

“Long enough to qualify as a native, despite the fact that you seem to think I have a Texas accent.” He smiled. She smiled back. “Where did you live before this?”

He’d asked her the same thing yesterday. Why did he want to know? “Oh, lots of places,” she said, though she suspected she wasn’t going to put him off so easily this time, not without a car door to fling open.

“For instance?”

“Why are you so curious?”

“Am I?” He gave a lazy shrug. “Must be the New Yorker in me. Nobody in New York is actually from New York. You sort of get in the habit of trying to figure out where people are from.”

“Ah. Well, I’m originally from Arizona. Phoenix.” It was close enough, and what she’d put on her job application at the hotel. The best background lies were always grounded in as much truth as possible. That was another thing she’d learned at the women’s shelter.

“Did you move around a lot?”

“That depends on what you mean by `a lot.’“ Her gaze held his. “I tried some different places before I settled on Las Vegas.”

“Funny place to settle down, Las Vegas.”

“Not really. The Strip is just a small part of the city. There are real people living here, the same as anywhere else. You don’t notice them until you get away from the lights and the casinos. Then you see the real stuff. Houses with mortgages, drugstores, supermarkets—”

“Schools and parks and kids?”

Was there an edge to his voice? No. He was still smiling pleasantly over the rim of his half-empty glass.

“Of course. Lots of kids, in fact. There’s a school near where I live. Sometimes, when I leave for work in the morning, I see them running around in the playground…”

Her voice faded; her expression changed and became, what? Wistful? Yes, he thought, that was the right word. She looked wistful. Was she remembering her own son? Gray almost asked her, then jerked himself back to reality. He wasn’t supposed to know anything about her but, dammit, he had to know the truth, how she had been able to walk away from her child and never look back.

“You like kids?” he said, hoping he sounded casual, but he knew, as soon as he’d spoken, he’d touched a nerve. She became pale. Her fingers tightened around the stem of her wineglass and he half expected it to crack under the pressure.

“That’s a funny thing to ask.”