you’ll need a bucket,” the soft voice said, speaking from his right this time. A plastic bucket was plunked down on the narrow ledge between the slots.
“Thanks,” he said, but she was already gone.
A number was flashing on the slot display. His brain seemed swathed in cotton as he tried to divide four into six hundred and come up with the amount of his winnings.
“Boy, howdy, 150 smackers,” the man on his left said jovially, giving him the answer. “Not bad for a couple of hours’ work, huh?”
Actually it was a nice bonus, considering he’d had the unpleasant job of returning an escaped prisoner, captured in Idaho, to Vegas. The deputies had drawn lots on Monday to see who had to do the task and he’d won. Or lost, according to how one looked at it.
Speaking of winning, he realized he owed the waitress a big tip. As he rose, four couples, boisterous and merry, jostled their way down the aisle. One of them hit his arm. Six hundred quarters hit the floor.
“Oops, sorry,” one of the happy group said, not the least bit remorseful. “Hey, great win.”
Five minutes of chaos reigned while they scrambled to pick up the coins and toss them back into his bucket. Since there was no room for him to join them, he stood still and watched. The men and women, bobbing up and down as they worked, reminded him of the chickens his uncle Nick insisted on raising back at the Seven Devils Ranch.
He patiently waited until the noisy couples finished and left, apologizing loudly for the trouble they’d caused. When the aisle cleared, a shapely derriere was directly in front of him. The waitress was on her knees, retrieving coins from under the adjacent row of slots.
Zack’s eyes widened, then narrowed as he stared at her left thigh just below the skimpy, high-cut costume. He took three steps, then bent down as if he, too, was looking for quarters. From the vantage of a foot away, he could see her upper thigh where it joined the delectable curve of her hip.
Yep, a scar was discernible under the fishnet. He inched closer. The scar was jagged and three-pointed. His lungs stopped working while his heart went into overdrive.
“My gosh,” he muttered, blinking in amazement. Talk about luck; he couldn’t believe this. Lifting one finger, he traced the outline—
“Aaaiii,” the waitress squealed, straightening abruptly.
“Back up, buddy,” a security cop ordered, appearing out of nowhere and grabbing him by the collar. Zack was strong-armed to a standing position. The cop’s partner stood close by, alert for trouble.
“It’s okay,” he assured the cop. “She’s my cousin.”
The security men looked at the woman.
“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” she declared in shocked tones, the painted eyebrows rising indignantly as she moved away from him, the delectable lips compressed in a narrow line.
“That’s true, but I know you,” Zack explained, speaking in reasonable tones and tamping the excitement down. “That scar on your butt, uh, buttock, uh, thigh is a dead giveaway.”
“We’ll take care of him,” the cop told the woman.
She disappeared into the crowd while Zack was held and questioned by the patrol. “You staying here?” the older one asked.
“Yeah.”
“You need help getting to your room?”
“I’m not leaving,” he told them firmly. “Now that I’ve found Uncle Nick’s daughter, I’ve got to take her home. To the ranch,” he added in case they misunderstood where he meant. “Seven Devils Mountains. Idaho.”
“Detank,” one of the security patrol said.
“Right. You want me to report it?” the other man asked. “It’s Friday. You’re supposed to leave early tonight.”
The first man sighed. “I’ll do it when I sign out.”
Zack realized the futility of protesting as they led him to a private room down a narrow corridor off the elevator area. He was vaguely amused as he thought of possible headlines: Visiting cop busted in a casino for looking at a woman’s—
The rest of the thought was lost as the door slammed behind him and locked. He realized two things. One, “detank” was a place for inebriated clients to sleep it off. Two, they thought he fit that description.
Apparently he hadn’t explained himself well enough. He was now trapped in the proverbial padded cell. A leather sofa and chair were the only furnishings. He sat down to wait for some form of rescue, his bucket of quarters still clenched in one hand.
One thing he noticed right away: it was quiet in here. No traffic. No sirens. No bursts of laughter or strange voices outside his bedroom door. Just blissful silence.
He yawned. In the four days he’d been on this trip, he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep due to all the racket.
Hannah “Honey” Carrington finished her shift at two in the morning. She turned in her cash, then went to the locker room. After tucking the money apron onto a shelf, she changed shoes and pulled a shirt and long skirt over her working outfit. Grabbing her purse, she headed out, glad to be going home.
“Hey, Bert,” she said to the security guard who was also going off duty.
“Hey, Honey,” the guard said.
“Say, what happened to the guy who was in the casino?” she asked. “The one who said he was my cousin,” she added with a sardonic smile. She’d heard a few lines in her time, but that had been a new one.
Bert frowned. “I don’t know. Bill took care of it.” Alarm spread over his face. “Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“Bill. He got a call just after we left you. His wife is having a baby. That’s why he was supposed to leave early. I sure hope—” He broke off and headed toward the elevators at a near run.
Although instinct said she should go home and not get involved, Honey trailed after him. The tall lanky stranger had been polite in his dealings with her. He was handsome, and she’d found him interesting. There had been an amused gentleness about him—as if he laughed at life’s vagaries.
Then he’d made the peculiar crack about being cousins. That had put her on guard and reminded her that, for her own good, she should be more cynical about people.
When Bert unlocked the door to the holding room, she followed him inside. A soft snore greeted them.
The stranger was sound asleep on the sofa, his bucket of change balanced on his stomach, rising and falling with each breath.
“At least he isn’t climbing the walls,” Bert muttered under his breath, then called to the detained customer. “Sir? Sir? It’s time to go. Rise and shine.”
The stranger awoke at once, grabbed the bucket before it toppled and rose to a sitting position. “What’s up?”
“You can go,” Bert told him. “Do you remember where you’re staying?”
“Sure. Here. Room 2008.” He pulled the card key from his pocket as if to prove it.
“Good. The elevator is this way.”
The stranger spotted her hovering behind the security guard. His smile was quick and delighted. Dazzling. His eyes were a deep, true blue, his hair dark, a little long and enticingly tousled as it swept over his forehead in a deep wave. An odd tension filled her when he looked her way.
“Hi, cousin,” he said.
“Sorry, I’m not your cousin.”
Had she not learned to be skeptical of people’s motives, she might have believed he thought she really was his cousin. There was an engaging openness and confidence about the stranger,