Colorado 03 Lady Luck (11 page)

He also didn’t like smarmy men with gold
chains staring at my breasts and since I didn’t like that either, I
thought it was very cool that he barked at the gross guy who was
checking me out making that gross guy stop checking me out.

And he had a way with a compliment.

And last, he was a really, fucking good
kisser.

The last part was the part where I
wouldn’t go. Not yet. I knew I wanted to sleep with him. I knew
that the minute I laid eyes on him. Hell,
every
woman who laid eyes on him knew that. I also knew
I was a thirty-four year old woman who’d had one boyfriend and thus
one lover in her life and he wasn’t very good at being the former
and (not to speak ill of the dead), although I had no experience of
another, he was hit and miss at the latter. I had since had a four
year dry spell and my life decisions had led me into a fake
marriage with an ex-con who contended he was wrongly imprisoned but
wouldn’t elaborate. Furthermore, just the day before I’d decided to
give up on men and it probably wasn’t the brightest move to go back
on that decision after knowing the man for just over two days. I
was thinking maybe I should play this smart and not jump into the
sack and give him my “pussy”.

“You sort your shit today?” he asked and my
eyes moved from the bouquet to him.

He was looking at me, my face, not the
dress. This was disappointing because I really wanted to know if
I’d done what he needed me to do but I wondered if it was like
yesterday where he wasn’t going to give it away until he was
ready.

About half an hour ago, I’d heard him come
back while I was in the bathroom. He’d been gone all day but called
twice. Once to say have lunch without him. The other to say have
dinner without him. He did not tell me where he was or what he was
doing. I also did not ask.

“Ella’s all over it,” I answered.

Ella, Ronnie’s mother was also kind of like
my mother since she was really the only one I ever knew. She took
me under her wing when I was thirteen and her daughter Bessie and I
became best friends. Then she kept me there even after I hooked up
with Ronnie and treasured me being there because Ronnie had slipped
over the edge but she knew I was the only thing that kept him from
freefall. That was, until he went into freefall.

When I explained things to her earlier that
day, I skipped the ex-con slash picking him up from a correctional
institute slash fake marriage bit and just told her I’d lied about
going on vacation and was instead hooking up with a friend who was
helping me move to Colorado. I’d explained the lie by saying I
didn’t want anything to get back to Shift and, since Honey, Ella’s
other daughter, was sweet as her name but not the brightest bulb in
the box and had a connection with Shift that had more to do with
history and missing her brother than brains, I didn’t want to take
any chances.

Ella, birthing Honey and still living with
her even though thirty years had passed since the blessed event,
understood. She’d also been beside herself with glee. She had a key
to my place and she was what I told Ty. All over it.

Then I’d called Margot at work. I’d given
her the same story with the same omissions. She knew about Shift.
She knew my dilemma. We’d often had conversations about how I could
get out, move on, start a new life. She’d been worried about me for
more than the four years I didn’t have Ronnie as a buffer,
stretching that out to the eight I’d known her, in other words,
when she started at Lowenstein’s. She wasn’t a big fan of Ronnie
though she was a good enough friend not to mention it (too much) or
give me her disapproving look (that often) or, when I’d bitch about
him, she did not say “I told you so” with anything but her eyes
and, last, she did not lose her mind and point out how stupid I was
when I gave him another shot. Like me, she’d worked her way up from
clerk and she wasn’t the head honcho of HR at Lowenstein’s but she
was the assistant head honcho. She promised she was going to smooth
the way.

And, incidentally, she was beside herself
with glee too.

The truth was, all of this seemed pretty
easy. So much so, I was feeling like a major idiot that I hadn’t
tried it before.

Then again, I didn’t have a condo to move
into, a huge, scary man to have my back and a nest egg of fifty K
to fall back on before.

“Ella Ronnie’s Mom?” Ty asked and my
attention focused on him again.

I nodded. “She’s already been to my place,
started sorting and has called three moving companies to get
quotes.”

He nodded once. Then he went to his suit
jacket that was lying on the bed.

I walked across the room to my shoes while
talking. “Work seems kosher too. My friend Margot, who works there,
is going to explain things to the HR Director.” I sat down and slid
my foot into a strappy, stiletto-heeled, silver sandal. Then,
again, right out of my mouth popped more honest sharing. “Actually,
this is all so easy, I’m kinda feeling like a moron that I didn’t
do it before.”

“Shift hadn’t fucked you this bad, you
didn’t have anyone that scared his black ass shitless and you
didn’t have fifty large to fall back on before.”

I tilted my head back and grinned at him.
“Those are all the reasons I talked myself out of feeling like
a
total
moron and
into only feeling
kinda
like
one.”

He stared at me for long moments. Then,
without comment, he went to two money rolls he’d obviously at some
point pulled out of the safe. One was a fifty roll. The other was a
twenty.

My attention went back to my shoes. I was
done around the time I heard the door open on the closet. I watched
him drop the now less fat rolls back in the safe; he closed the
door to it and the closet and turned to me.

“Ready?”

I stood and put my hands to my hips.

“I don’t know, am I?”

I meant I didn’t know what we were doing,
where we were going and why I needed an outfit that would get
attention and, not knowing any of that, I couldn’t know if I was
ready.

But at my question his eyes travelled down
the length of me to my toes and back again. They did this slow,
taking their time, missing nothing and I felt their path like a
touch on my skin. As they moved, I saw my dress in my head. Navy,
clingy, silk jersey, pleated down the side seem creating diagonal
gathers across the dress, one shoulder was bare, the other arm
sleeveless. It hit me four inches above my knee, showed no cleavage
but still tons of skin and it was so form-fitting it left very
little to the imagination.

When his eyes locked on mine, he spoke and
his voice was a very deep, low rumble, “Yeah. You are definitely
ready.”

And as he spoke, I noticed his eyes were
different. Not void, not shuttered. The first emotion he’d shown me
in two and half days.

And that emotion was carnal.

I felt my body go electric.

I fought against the surge and whispered,
“Thank you, Ty. But I meant I don’t know what I’m all gussied up to
do tonight so I can’t know if I’m ready.”

He answered immediately. “High stakes
poker.”

I stared at him not getting a good feeling
about this. I’d never gambled before, not in my life. I didn’t do
this because I didn’t work hard for my money to throw it away.
Ronnie gambled. He bet on basketball games all the time. Convinced,
since he had played them, he had the inside track. He didn’t lose
all the time but he also didn’t win all the time. It seemed
ridiculous to me and scary because Lady Luck didn’t swing Ronnie a
break very often and I was always waiting for her to pull the rug
out from under him and stop with the balancing act as pertained to
his gambling. Luckily (heartbreaking pun intended), he died before
she could do that.

“High stakes poker,” I repeated.

“One hundred K buy in.”

I blinked. Then I asked hesitantly, “Um… are
you good at poker?”

“Very.”

“Really?”

“Woman, you’re wearin’ over thirty thousand
dollars proves that true.”

I blinked again. Then I breathed,
“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I mean, really, I’m wearing over thirty
thousand dollars?”

“And the answer is still yeah. Your
engagement ring alone is nearly half that.”

“
Oh my God,” I whispered, suddenly feeling
my engagement ring burning a circle around my finger. I mean, it
wasn’t like I didn’t know all he gave me was expensive, including
the wad of cash he dropped on the bed to buy my outfits which were
not couture but I didn’t buy them at Target either. I just didn’t
know it was
that
expensive.

“What?” he asked when I didn’t move.

“What?” I asked back.

“Yeah, Lexie, what?”

“What as in… what, you give all your women
this kind of bling?”

This gave new definition to “very” good at
poker.

“
No. None of my other women signed a
marriage certificate, took my name and gave up their whole life for
me and by the time they earned bling, I’d known ‘em more than a day
and they
still
hadn’t
done anything that important to me.”

I stopped breathing and apparently I did
this visibly because I got my second reaction from Ty Walker (if
you didn’t count the lip curve last night). His eyes narrowed.

“Jesus, woman, you gonna pass out?”

That’s when my breath came back at the
same time
my
eyes
narrowed. “Excuse me, Ty, I’ve never worn thirty thousand
dollars.”

“Yeah you have. Yesterday. But, sayin’ that,
I’m guessin’ at the cost of your shoes.”

“They were on sale.”

“Well thank Christ for that.”

I stared at him. Then I burst out
laughing.

Ty didn’t find anything funny.

“Babe, we got a game to get to. I spent a
day makin’ the connections to get a chair. But, the doors close,
the deck’s cut, they don’t let anyone in.”

My hand went behind me to the table again to
hold myself up when he called me “babe”. Again, I had no idea why,
it was just that it was casual, it was an endearment and for many
men, it was throwaway. They said it to women they didn’t even
know.

Ty Walker was not that kind of man. He was
not casual. He didn’t do anything throwaway. Every move he made,
every word he said had meaning. I knew this down to my bones.

“Lexie…” He was now growling.

“Um… one thing,” I said quietly.

He sighed audibly.

I kept going. “
I
don’t know how to play poker.”

“That’s good because women don’t sit this
table.”

I was back to staring at him. Then I asked,
“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Get attention.”

“What?”

“Poker isn’t all about the cards. Poker’s
mostly about attention. You got a woman whose legs are like yours,
tits are like yours, hair is like yours and ass is like yours, all
she’s gotta do for me is sit there and half the men at the table
won’t be concentrating on their cards. They’ll be thinking about
your legs, tits, hair and ass, how much they want ‘em and just what
they’d do to get ‘em.”

“I appreciate the compliment, Ty, but I
don’t think I’m all that.”

“You got a dick?”

I felt my mouth twitch.

Then I answered, “No.”

“Trust me.”

I really had no choice; it wasn’t my money
anyway so I decided to do that. Trust him.

But I asked, “So is this always your tactic,
bring in some woman that gets attention?”

“I’ve never had class with a rack and an ass
like yours so, no. We need the money so tonight I’m tryin’
somethin’ new.”

There it was again. Another supremely
effective Ty Walker compliment.

My fingers pressed deeper into the
table.

Then I asked, “Do you lose concentration
when a woman you want is in the room?”

“I hope not or tonight we’re fucked.”

And there it was again. My fingertips slid
out and my palm pressed into the table.

That was when he asked, “We gonna go or you
wanna stare at me some more?”

I sucked in breath. Then I walked to him. He
stood where he was and watched. When I made it to him, I got close,
tipped my head way back and put my hand flat on wall of his
chest.

“All right, hubby, let’s go kick some poker
ass.”

He stared down at me. Then he shook his
head.

Then he muttered, “Christ, you’re a
goof.”

Then he moved to my side, put his hand to my
back and propelled me to the door and since his hand was on me, I
was concentrating on it so I didn’t have a smartass retort to the
goof comment.

I just moved with my husband out the
door.

* * * * *

I learned a few things quickly after the
poker game began. First, if you weren’t playing it (which I never
had so maybe even if you were, I wouldn’t know), poker was
mind-numbingly boring. Second, Ty was not as good as he thought he
was.

This game was like one of those games you
saw in movies. I knew this when we didn’t go down to the gambling
floors, we went up to the top floor. I also knew this because two
men in dark suits were standing outside the double doors at the end
of the hall we walked through to get into the game. Further, I knew
this because when we entered, every character from a movie was
there. The oldish Texan with a Stetson and a big-haired blond in
strapless, clingy, cut up to
there
gold lamé dripping off his arm. Two men in ill-fitting but
nevertheless expensive suits (in other words, it was time to lay
off the carbs and that time was about six months ago) that looked
like they could easily be made men in the Mafia. A slender,
handsome man in an expensive suit that
did
fit him well, very well, and I thought there was a
good chance he was a secret agent. And a swarthy man chomping a
cigar, sporting a beer gut fit for two and probably being on
vacation from his oppressive rule of some small, South American
country. Lastly, I knew this was like those poker games from the
movies because there was a bar, with bartender, and the casino had
provided a black vested, white shirt, black bowtie wearing dealer
and a swish poker table with all its accoutrement.