Raising the Stakes

“Why? Are you afraid of competition? What’s your problem, O’Connell? Are you afraid that if a woman looks at another man, she’ll discover you aren’t much?”

Keir made a grab for Gray. Gray sidestepped quickly and blocked the move with his forearm.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

The men glowered at each other. Then, slowly, each took a step back.

“If I were you,” Keir said quietly, “I’d cut my vacation short and go back where I came from.”

“Isn’t it a good thing you aren’t me, then?” Gray said, with a tight smile.

He could feel the adrenaline pumping as he brushed past O’Connell, wrenched open the door and headed across the lobby and out the front door. O’Connell didn’t follow him, which he’d half expected. It was just as well. He didn’t need the hassle a street brawl would produce, especially if he was still going to make an attempt at talking to Dawn.

The valet brought his car around. Gray dropped a bill in the kid’s hand, tried not to growl at the bright smile and “Have a nice day” crap. He headed north for no better reason than that traffic seemed lighter in that direction. Still, it was stop-and-go all the way out of the city. Eventually the road opened up and he stepped hard on the gas. The car shot ahead, as if it were as glad to be free of the constraints of neon and concrete as he was.

Gray drove aimlessly for more than an hour, his eyes fixed on the distant mountains bulking up over the straight-as-an-arrow road. There were cars heading into town but only a few heading out and he passed them quickly. After a while, they were just dots in the mirror.

Except for a couple of tractor trailers going in the other direction, he was alone on the road.

It made him feel better. Less constrained, less angry. Funny, he thought as he eased back i

n the seat and flexed his hands lightly on the wheel. He was a creature of the city, at home and content in New York’s concrete and glass canyons, but Vegas made him uncomfortable. Too many lights, too many structures that looked as if they belonged in an amusement park. Too many people, hell-bent on having fun, or pretending to.

Dawn seemed out of place in that setting. It was easier to imagine her on that Arizona mountaintop, the wind in her hair, the sun on her face. There would be no Harman in the picture but there would be a child, a shadowy little boy huddled just behind her…

Gray cursed and goosed the car up to ninety. There was a turnoff ahead and a gas station looking lonely on the intersection of Nowhere and Noplace. He slowed, took the turnoff and found himself on a two-lane dirt road with no traffic and no signs of life. Perfect, he thought.

After a while, he relaxed again.

Somebody had once told him the Nevada desert was depressing as hell. An alien landscape, the guy had called it, but Gray decided he kind of liked it, the open space in all directions, the occasional cluster of cacti huddled together as if for companionship, and the massive piles of boulders that looked as if they’d been dropped from the sky with no plan in mind.

The land was forbidding and barren but it had a hard, powerful quality he admired. For the first time in days, he began to relax.

He’d come here to solve a problem. Instead he’d created a mess.

Gray frowned and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. What would he tell Jonas? How would he explain his lack of information? He’d scared Dawn off and learned nothing he hadn’t known before he got to Vegas.

Who was he kidding? He’d learned more about Dawn than he’d wanted to learn, and none of it would help his uncle reach any kind of decision about whether or not to include her in his will. He knew that she had a softness to her smile and to her soul, that she was more beautiful than any woman had a right to be, that he was having a hard time remembering he was here on Jonas’s behalf.

And that she had abandoned her own flesh and blood.

How could he be attracted to someone who had done that? He’d always chosen women with care. He knew men who would bed a woman strictly because of how she looked. He prided himself on asking for more than that. A woman he slept with had to be bright. She had to be kind and giving. Hadn’t he broken up with a model he’d been dating because she told him she’d abandoned her cat when she moved into a new apartment that didn’t permit pets?

Oh, yeah. He’d dumped a woman who had abandoned her cat and now he was hot for a babe who had abandoned her kid. It made no sense. He wanted Dawn. Hell, yes, he wanted her. Wanted to taste that soft mouth and gently nip that lush bottom lip, to touch that soft skin that looked as if it would have the texture of silk. He wanted to cup her face in his hands, raise it to his, watch her eyes turn to midnight-blue as he lowered his mouth to hers. He wanted to tunnel his hands into that spill of red-gold hair, feel it fall over his hands as he kissed her, to slip his tongue into her mouth until she whispered his name, clung to him, begged for his possession…

Gray shifted in his seat. He was hard as a teenage kid with a copy of Playboy. Next thing he knew, he’d be…

What was that?

A car was coming toward him. It was a Ford, an old model, one you didn’t see much anymore. It was the same model as the car he’d almost creamed on Las Vegas Boulevard. The same color, too.

He felt an uneasy sense of d;aaej;aga-vu. How many times in just a few days could a man see a car like that? Gray let up on the gas. The car drew closer and the sense of unease grew stronger. It sure as hell looked like Dawn’s car.

Was it a mirage? Another few seconds, he’d be able to see the driver…

It was a woman. Gray stiffened. No. It couldn’t be. But it was. He saw the mane of read hair, the pale face…

“Dawn,” he whispered, and he put his car into a hard, quick U-turn and hit the horn.