The Winning Hand Read Free Page B

sat where he was, let her sob it out.
    An odd little package, he thought. When she’d slid unconscious into his arms she’d been limp as water and had weighed no more than a child. Now she’d told him she’d hiked over a mile in the stunning late spring heat, then risked what little money she’d had on a yank of a slot.
    That required either steel or insanity.
    Whichever it was, she’d beaten the odds. And now she was rich—and, for a while at least, his responsibility.
    “I’m sorry.” She wiped at her somehow charmingly dirty face with her hands. “I’m not like this. Really. I can’t take it in.” She accepted the handkerchief he offered and blew her nose. “I don’t know what to do.”
    “Let’s start with the basics. When’s the last time you ate?”
    “Last night—well, I bought a candy bar this morning, but it melted before I could finish it. So itdoesn’t really count.”
    “I’ll order you some food.” He rose, looking down at her. “I’ll have them set it up down in the parlor. Why don’t you take a hot bath, try to relax, get your bearings.”
    She gnawed her lip. “I don’t have any clothes. I left my suitcase in my car. Oh! My bag. I had my bag.”
    “I have it.” Because she’d gone pale again, he reached down beside the bed and lifted the plain brown tote. “This one?”
    “Yes. Yes, thank you.” Relief had her closing her eyes and struggling to calm herself again. “I thought I’d lost it. It’s not clothes,” she added, letting out a long sigh. “It’s my work.”
    “It’s safe, and there’s a robe in the closet.”
    She cleared her throat. However kind he was being, she was still alone with him, a perfect stranger, in a very opulent and sensual bedroom. “I appreciate it. But I should get a room. If I could have a small advance on the money, I can find a hotel.”
    “Something wrong with this one?”
    “This what?”
    “This hotel,” he said with what he considered admirable patience. “This room.”
    “No, nothing. It’s beautiful.”
    “Then make yourself comfortable. Your room’s comped for the duration of your stay—”
    “What? Excuse me?” She sat up a little straighter. “I can have this room? I can just … stay here?”
    “It’s the usual procedure for high rollers.” He smiled again, making her heart bump. “You qualify.”
    “I do?”
    “The management hopes you’ll put some of those winnings back into the pot. At the tables, the shops. Your room and meals, your bar bills, are on us.”
    She eased off the bed. “I get all this for free, because I won money from you?”
    This time his grin was quick, and just a little wolfish. “I want the chance to win some of it back.”
    Lord, he was beautiful. Like the hero in a novel. That thought rolled around in her jumbled brain. “That seems only fair. Thank you so much, Mr. McBlade.”
    “Not McBlade,” he corrected, taking the hand she offered. “Mac. Mac Blade.”
    “Oh. I’m afraid I haven’t been very coherent.”
    “You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten, gotten some rest.”
    “I’m sure you’re right.”
    “Why don’t we talk in the morning, say ten o’clock. My office.”
    “Yes, in the morning.”
    “Welcome to Las Vegas, Ms. Wallace,” he said, and turned toward a sweep of open stairs that led to the living area.
    “Thank you.” She ordered her shaky legs to carry her to the rail, then lost her breath when she looked down at the sprawling space done in sapphires and emeralds, accented with ebony wood and lush arrangements of tropical flowers. She watched him cross an ocean of Oriental carpet. “Mr. Blade?”
    “Yes?” He turned, glanced up, and thought she looked about twelve years old and as lost as a lamb.
    “What will I do with all that money?”
    He flashed that grin again. “You’ll think of something. I’d make book on it.” Then, pressing a button, he stepped through the brass doors that slid open, and into what surely was a private