Mia smiled to herself and shifted her gaze back to her library book. Her father always made wonderful promises. But she had learned when she was just a little kid that she couldn’t always count on them.
“How you doing, Princess?”
She looked up from her book into her father’s big blue eyes. She had his eyes, he always told her. And her beautiful mother’s nose and mouth. Every night before bed, her father showed her pictures of the mother she couldn’t remember. The pretty woman had died when Mia was still a baby. It was sad, but she still had her daddy and that was enough.
“I’m fine, Daddy.”
“Hungry?”
“Nope, I’m just reading.”
“Just like your mom,” he said and kissed her forehead. “Always have your pretty nose in a book.” He smiled and smoothed one hand over her hair. “One of these days, sweet girl, we’re gonna hit the jackpot. We’ll buy us a house with a library just like the Beast’s in that cartoon movie you love. You’ll have your own room you can decorate any way you want and you can go to school.”
That was her favorite dream. She couldn’t even imagine going to sleep and waking up in the same room every day. A house to call her own. On a nice street, maybe with trees and a swing in the backyard. And she could have a puppy, too. And the puppy would love her so much it would sleep in her bed with her. And she could go to school and have friends and every day when she came home on the bus her dog and her father would be waiting for her, so happy to be together again.
But it wasn’t going to happen. Her daddy was a professional gambler and she already knew that they had to go where the games were.
So they did.
“Hey, Jack,” someone called out. “You playin’ or what?”
“Right there,” her father answered, then leaned in and kissed the tip of Mia’s nose. Whispering, he said, “Another hour or so, Princess, and we’ll head back to the hotel. Tomorrow morning, we’ll get on the road early and head for Vegas. You good with that?”
“Yes, Daddy.” Her father never left her alone in a motel room. Too afraid of losing her, he always said. But the truth was, Mia wouldn’t have stayed even if she could have. She wanted to be where her father was. They were a team and he was all she had. They might not have a puppy or a house, but that was okay because wherever Jack Hughes was, that was home.
“That’s my little good-luck charm,” he said and kissed her again. “Another hour, tops.”
She would have waited for him forever.
* * *
Dave grabbed the cell phone when it rang and said, “Hello?”
“Dave, did you buy me a new car?”
He smiled at the familiar voice and the note of outrage in it. “Who is this?”
“Very funny,” his mother retorted. “Now explain the new Lexus that was just delivered.”
“What’s to explain?” he asked as he checked for traffic then loped across the street. He was headed for Claire’s to meet Mia for dinner. He hadn’t wanted to bother scouring the parking lot for a space, so he’d parked on the street and walked over. “You needed a new car, now you’ve got one.”
“My old car was fine,” his mother said with a sigh of exasperation.
“Key word there being old,” Dave told her. Then he stopped outside the restaurant, leaned against the edge of the building and let his gaze sweep the small town while his mother talked in his ear. After a long day on the ranch, he was tired and hungry and eager to get his deal with Mia started.
He’d already stopped at McKay’s jewelers for a ring. Which, he knew, thanks to Erma McKay, owner and one of the top links on the Royal gossip food chain, would be all over town before he got to the restaurant. Dave smiled to himself as he remembered Erma’s nose practically twitching as she’d sniffed out his story of a whirlwind romance and a surprise engagement.
He glanced up and down Main Street. It was dusk, so streetlights were blinking to life. Cars were pulled into the parking slots that lined the street in front of the shops. A kid raced down the sidewalk on his skateboard, wheels growling in his wake.
The jeweler’s box in his jacket pocket felt as if it was burning through the fabric. He had never considered getting married. Or if he had, it was in a “someday maybe” sort of context. Now, even knowing the engagement was a farce and all his own idea, he felt a proverbial noose tightening around his neck. Dave hadn’t exactly grown up with the best example of a working marriage, so why in hell would he be interested in tying himself down to risk the same sort of misery?