Tall Tales and Wedding Veils (3 page)

Heather passed on the spa excursion with the other women, then met them for dinner that night. One and Five were still talking about their exploits from the night before, and as Heather sipped an after-dinner martini, she found herself wondering if there might be a decent pay-per-view movie she could watch in her room that night.

“Heather,” Regina said. “You don’t seem to be having a good time.”

Heather looked up, a little startled. “I’m having a wonderful time.”

“You haven’t said ten words all weekend.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“I know what your problem is.”

“My problem?”

Regina fanned the bridesmaids with call-to-arms expression. “Girls, we need to find Heather a man.”

Heather almost choked on her martini. “What did you say?”

“Yes!” Four said. “I
love
matchmaking.”

“Me, too,” Five said. “This hotel is full of single men. We’ll have you hooked up in no time.”

Heather was flabbergasted. Were these women out of their minds? “No. Really. I think I’m just going up to my room to watch a movie or something.”

“Oh, come on, Heather!” Regina said. “Do you have to be such a stick-in-the-mud? Let us help you find a man.”

“No, thanks,” Heather said. “One-night stands aren’t my thing.”

“You know what they say,” Two said, wiggling her eyebrows. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

Heather doubted that. The STD she was likely to acquire would probably follow her all the way back to Texas.

“Come on,” Three said. “Don’t you want to hook up?”

“Thanks for the offer,” Heather said, “but I think I’ll just go back to my room.” She downed the rest of her martini, then rose from her chair, wobbling a little as the alcohol rushed to her head.

“You know, Heather,” Regina said, “it’s pretty clear why you can’t find a man.” Heather froze. “It’s because you don’t even try.”

Well,
hell.
What was Heather supposed to say to that? If she said she
did
try, she looked like a pitiful woman who couldn’t get a man’s attention. But if she agreed that she didn’t try, she looked like a pitiful woman who’d
given up
on getting a man’s attention.

“I told you I’d rather just go back to my room,” Heather said.

“Well, if that’s the way you want it,” Regina said. “Don’t say we didn’t try to help.”

Rationally, Heather knew Regina acted the way she did because she dealt with her own insecurities by putting other people down.
Ir
rationally, Heather wished she could wrap her hands around her cousin’s neck and squeeze until her eyeballs popped out.

“And I appreciate that,” Heather said, with sweetness edging into sarcasm, “but like I told you, I’m calling it a night.”

As she turned and left the restaurant, she could feel Regina’s smirk following her all the way out the door.

Actually, Regina was wrong. Heather
did
try to meet men. She did everything the women’s magazines said single women were supposed to do. Get out in the community. Do volunteer work. Take up a hobby. Join a church group. Meet men at work. Hang out in the produce section of the grocery store. She’d done it all, with no results. Now, not only was she stuck being in Regina’s wedding, but she probably wouldn’t even have a date to bring to it.

Heather turned the corner into the elevator lobby, where a man stood with his back to her. The
UP
button had already been pushed, but he reached over impatiently and jabbed it again. She came up beside him.

“The elevators are really slow here, aren’t they?” she said.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I could walk the stairs faster than this.”

“I’m on the twenty-second floor,” she said with a smile. “I think I’ll wait.”

As she spoke, she turned to look up at him, and for a moment she thought she must be seeing things.

Tony McCaffrey?

She turned away quickly. No. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t possibly be standing next to her in this elevator lobby a thousand miles from home. Identical twin, maybe?

She peered at him out of the corner of her eye. Nope. It was Tony. Even an identical twin couldn’t be
that
identical. He was dressed the way she’d always seen him— casual and comfortable, this time in a faded blue polo shirt, well-worn jeans, and Nikes.

Her heart rate picked up a little, as it always did whenever she saw him. But what woman’s wouldn’t? Some men were so handsome that any woman between puberty and the grave would stop to stare, and Tony McCaffrey was one of them.

Then all at once, Heather realized something wasn’t right. Instead of the electric smile he wore most of the time, his mouth was turned down in a frown, and his face was tight and drawn. He stabbed the
UP
button again, then turned and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh, a beer bottle dangling from his fingertips.

“Bad night?” she asked.

He opened his eyes. They were heavy with gloom. “They don’t get much worse.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I needed to win tonight. I really,
really
needed to win.”

Uh-oh. She’d seen him hustle plenty of games of pool, but she’d never taken him for a gambling addict.

“Loan shark?” she asked.

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Then what?”

He took a sip of his beer, still looking morose, and for a moment Heather thought he wasn’t going to answer.

“Have you ever had something you wanted really badly?” he finally said. “So badly you’d do anything to get it?”

Heather shrugged. “Well, yeah. I guess.”

“No. I mean, something that was
really
important to you.”

“Like what?”

He let out a breath of resignation. “I was going to buy a bar.”

“A bar? What kind of bar?”

“A little place called McMillan’s. It’s a neighborhood bar in Plano, Texas.”

Heather blinked in surprise. He was going to
buy
McMillan’s?

Then she remembered hearing that the bar was going up for sale. Tony spent a lot of time at McMillan’s—drinking, playing pool, and hitting on women—but she’d never imagined him actually owning the place.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” Heather asked.

“Uh . . . should I?”

“I’m from Plano. My friend and I go to McMillan’s sometimes. I’ve seen you there.”

When he stared at her blankly, it confirmed exactly what Heather had always thought. The moment she walked through the door of a bar, she slipped right into a cloak of invisibility.

“Yeah,” he said finally, “I think I remember seeing you there,” even though she knew he didn’t.

“So what happened?” she asked. “Did the deal fall through?”

“A friend was going to loan me the last twenty thousand I needed. He backed out. If I don’t have the money to close the deal by Monday morning, it’s dead in the water. I came to Vegas thinking maybe . . .” He exhaled. “Oh, hell. It was a stupid idea.”

“You thought you could win the money?”

“Even long shots pay off every once in a while.” He drained his beer and tossed the bottle into a nearby trash can. “This wasn’t one of those times.”

Heather couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anyone looking quite as miserable as Tony did right then, and suddenly she knew that buying McMillan’s wasn’t just a whim of his. He was desperate to have it.

Desperate enough to risk everything on a trip to Vegas.

“Why don’t you try again?” she asked.

“Nope. I’m completely tapped out. I shouldn’t be spending one more dime tonight.”

Heather heard the
ping
of the elevator, and the doors finally opened. Tony started to get on.

“Wait,” Heather said.

“What?”

“Just wait.”

He held the elevator as she dug through her purse and came up with the ten-dollar chip she’d found in the hallway outside her room. She held it up. “Here. Play this.”

“No. I can’t take your money.”

“Play the chip. If you lose, you owe me ten bucks. If you win, I’ll take back my ten and you can keep on betting with the winnings.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Thanks, sweetheart. But I need a bigger stake than ten bucks if I expect to turn it into twenty thousand.”

He got onto the elevator. Heather followed, still holding the chip. The doors closed. She punched 22. He punched 24.

The elevator ascended. Silence, except for the mechanical noise of the elevator and the
ping, ping, ping
as it passed one floor after another.

“You’re making a mistake,” Heather said.

“I doubt that.”

“I think this is a lucky chip.”

“Yeah? What makes you say that?”

“I found it in the hall near my room. Maybe there’s a reason I found it, you know? Fate, or something.”

He turned away again. “Sorry. I don’t believe in fate.”

Stubborn,
stubborn
man.

This was making Heather crazy. She could think of very few situations where gambling was a logical thing to do, but this was one of them. When a person had only one shot left at something that was important to him, no matter how small, wouldn’t he be smart to take it?

When the elevator doors opened on her floor and he still hadn’t given in, she casually let the chip fall out of her hand. It clicked against the marble tile floor, then came to rest near Tony’s foot.

“Oops,” she said. “Look at that. I dropped it.” Then she smiled sweetly. “Good night.”

She left the elevator and walked in the direction of her room, listening intently for the doors to close behind her. They didn’t.

“Wait,” Tony said.

She turned around to see him holding up the chip. “Do you have any idea what the odds are of turning this into twenty thousand bucks?”

“Zero if you don’t play.”

“It’s one chance in a million.”

“Beats no chance at all.”

“The way my luck has been, it’s not worth the trip downstairs.”

She walked back to the elevator and got on. “Then I’ll play it for you. I once won a hundred dollars at the El Dorado in Shreveport.”

“That’s a far cry from twenty grand.”

“I wasn’t shooting for twenty grand.”

“What’s your game?”

“Craps. I don’t like blackjack, and it’s got the next lowest house advantage.”

Tony nodded. “That’s my game, too. Hope you have more luck with it than I’ve had tonight.”

Heather was a realist. No doubt about that. But as she stood in that elevator giving this tiny bit of hope to a man who five minutes ago had had none at all, she felt an amazing surge of optimism. Or maybe it was a surge of gin to her brain.

Either way, it felt
wonderful.

As the elevator descended, Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly, all the while tapping his fingertips nervously against his thigh. He’d told her this was a chance in a million, but by the look on his face, she knew just how much he was counting on it.

Chapter 3

T
ony knew there was no way under the sun they could turn ten dollars into twenty thousand. So why was he standing at a craps table next to a woman he didn’t even know, waiting for her to play a ten-dollar chip so he could go home an even bigger loser?

“How are you playing it?” he asked her.

“You leave that to me.”

As the shooter prepared to roll, she placed the chip on the pass line. When the come-out roll was a seven, Tony’s heart skipped. An automatic winner. But it didn’t mean a thing. Anybody could win one roll of the dice.

She tucked one of the chips back inside her purse and held up the other one. “Now you have money to play with.”

“It’s a far cry from twenty grand.”

“Gotta start somewhere.”

“Fine,” he said. “Play it again.”

“It’s your turn now.”

“Nope. I told you how my luck’s been running.”

“As long as you avoid the sucker bets, you have as good a chance of winning big as I do.”

But right now, Tony wasn’t so sure about that. He’d told her he didn’t believe in fate, but he had to admit it was more than a little strange that he’d met this woman in the elevator who was from his home town, who hung out in the bar he wanted to buy, who had found a chip outside her room that she insisted on giving him when he was all tapped out himself.

Very
strange.

When Tony first saw her, he’d immediately dismissed her. Average features. Plainly dressed. Nice-girl type, which meant she wasn’t his type. But he wasn’t looking for a date for the evening. He was looking for a miracle, and right now, she was the only one who might be able to give him one.

“Listen to me . . . uh . . . What was your name again?”

“Heather.”

“Heather. Like I told you, my luck has left the building. I want you to play for me.”

“And if I lose?”

“I’d already lost. I’d be no worse off than I was ten minutes ago.”

With a shrug, she placed the chip on the pass line again. When the shooter rolled a six as a come-out and his next roll was another six, which doubled Tony’s ten to twenty, he felt a little tremor of excitement.

“What now?” Tony asked her.

“Hmm,” she said, surveying the table. “A come bet.”

“Why?”

“Just a hunch.”

She placed a bet, this time against the shooter. When the man crapped out, Tony turned to Heather with disbelief.

“You won,” he said.

“It’s nothing but luck.”

“But some people’s luck is better than others’. Do it again.”

The dealer passed the dice to Heather. She placed a bet, and on the come-out roll, she threw an eleven. Another winner. And because she’d played the odds, she’d more than doubled his money.

Unbelievable.

Then, on the next roll, she lost, and Tony felt a tremor of apprehension. But still she smiled up at him.

“No big deal,” she said. “As long as we win more than we lose, we’ll be fine.”

Over the next forty-five minutes, she didn’t win every roll, but her piles of chips grew bigger. The strangest little tremor slid across the back of Tony’s neck. He did a quick count, and to his astonishment, he was up nearly fifteen hundred dollars.

This was starting to get serious. He had a decent stake now, one that could actually get him where he needed to go.

As long as their lucky streak held.

Heather was trying to play it cool, but she’d underestimated how nervous it would make her to see this much money on the line. She was into conservative investments that grew over time, not large chunks of money that could appear or disappear with the random roll of a pair of dice.

She became aware of other women hovering around the table, watching the action, but mostly they were watching Tony. There was nothing like a handsome man on a winning streak to catch the attention of a horde of women. Heather might have been the one playing, but he was the one they were watching. To her surprise, she felt the funniest little twinge of possessiveness.

Back off,
she wanted to say.
He’s with me.

No matter what she’d told Alison about not being attracted to Tony, she just couldn’t help herself. She liked the feeling of having the attention of the most handsome man in the room. Still, she knew the truth. She had his attention only because he was winning.

So make sure he keeps winning.

The cocktail waitress came by, and because Heather’s usual good judgment was seriously slipping, she asked for another martini. Anything to settle her jangled nerves. Tony, on the other hand, didn’t seemed jangled at all. With every addition to their pile of chips, he seemed more relaxed, more animated, more hopeful.

When the waitress brought their drinks, Tony took a few sips of his beer. Heather downed half of her martini in one gulp. Okay. Now she felt better. Not quite so shaky. A little more optimistic. Only slightly more woozy. She told herself that people showed up in Vegas all the time with pocket change and left millionaires. She and Tony didn’t need a million dollars. They needed only twenty thousand.

When she thought about it that way, it didn’t seem so insurmountable. In fact, it seemed downright probable. That made her feel even luckier than before, so she played a bit of a long shot. Tony’s smile slipped a little as he realized what she was doing, which made her nervous, but she held her breath and rolled the dice.

And won.

Tony let out a little whoop. Then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a big, smacking kiss on the cheek. “My good luck charm,” he said, and flashed that broad, beautiful smile. “Thank God I ran into you.”

Heather’s heart went wild, her cheek on fire from that single touch of his lips. Tony was handsome and exciting and fun, and being with him made her feel as if she were glowing from the inside out. Suddenly it was as if another woman had taken over her body, a dice-throwing, risk-taking alter ego who was going to get that twenty grand for him no matter what.

Over the next few hours, she lost some, but she won more, and their winnings grew. The loud voices in the casino and the steady
pinging
and
shuffling
of the slot machines and the effect of the three martinis she’d had lulled her mind, and soon the nervousness she’d felt earlier had transformed into an edge of excitement that blasted away any thoughts of losing. Rationally, she knew that that was how all Vegas losers felt before the bottom fell out, but then Tony smiled at her again, and that thought floated right out of her mind.

When they were approaching the eight-thousand mark, Tony leaned over and whispered, “We’d better watch our step. This kind of luck can’t hold forever.”

“Nope. We’re on a roll. It’s time to ramp things up.”

“Ramp things up?”

“Bigger bets.”

Tony looked at her in surprise. Then his eyes brightened, and his lips edged into a smile. “I like your style.”

Heather felt as if she were hovering a few inches above the ground, buoyed by the exhilaration he made her feel. She could do this. She could get to that twenty grand. After all, they’d won eight thousand dollars in a matter of a few hours. What was a few thousand more?

Pretty soon, eight thousand became ten.

“Sweetheart, you are
hot,
” Tony said, resting his hand on her shoulder. Then he leaned closer and murmured in her ear, “Can you bring it home for me?”

Heather felt a delightful little shiver run from her neck all the way to her toes. He was right. She was hot. She couldn’t lose. Sometimes everything in the universe lined up behind a person and pushed them in the right direction, and that was exactly what was happening tonight.

“Yeah,” she said. “I can do it.” She took a deep breath. “As a matter of fact, it’s time to go for broke.”

Tony froze. “What?”

“All of it on the next roll,” Heather said. “The whole pot.”

“Are you sure?”

She knew it was a crazy thing to do, but conviction filled her mind like a lion’s roar, silencing that whiny little pip-squeak that usually ran her day-to-day activities, the one who wanted her to toe the line, play by the rules, and in general lead a boring, repetitive, mundane life.

Tonight she was listening to the lion.

“All ten thousand,” Heather said. “Trust me. I feel it. We can’t lose.”

She gave Tony a challenging stare, showing him she meant what she said. Then her gaze moved to his lips. Lordy, he had such nice,
nice
lips, particularly when he used them for something besides talking. She wanted to feel them again, anywhere he wanted to put them. If he’d kissed her on the cheek earlier for winning a few hundred bucks, what would he do if she won the whole twenty thousand?

It made her dizzy just to think about the possibilities.

Her gaze drifted back to his eyes, and for a moment she thought he was going to say no. Then a tiny smile played around his mouth, becoming a full-fledged, full-speed-ahead grin.

“Okay, sweetheart. I can’t argue with success. Go for it.”

Yes!

She turned back to the table and shoved the whole pot onto the pass line, which made everyone at the table fall silent and stare at her as if she was the most courageous woman alive. And right at that moment, that was exactly how she felt. She gave Tony a confident smile. She shook the dice. Threw them. Heard them hit the table. A gasp went up from the crowd, signaling that something astonishing had happened.

“Four,” the dealer said.

Heather froze. No. It couldn’t be.

Time seemed to grind to a sluggish crawl, with everything moving in slow motion. She couldn’t have heard him right. It was supposed to be a seven. Or an eleven. Anything but a four. People were supposed to be
cheering.

But there it was. Four black dots staring up at her like tiny demonic eyeballs.

Her head felt as if she were submerged in swamp water, where everything was murky and she couldn’t hear a thing and she couldn’t breathe. Tony just stood there, his jaw slack with surprise, his hands hovering in the air as if he’d expected to sweep an armload of chips toward him, only to watch the dealer sweep them away instead.

No, no, no! This can’t be happening!

People around the table started murmuring among themselves. She couldn’t hear most of their conversation. The words
moron
and
nutcase
came through loud and clear, though, and the truth struck Heather so hard, she was sure she heard the
thwack
. People hadn’t been staring at her before because she was courageous. They’d been staring at her with the same sense of lurid compulsion they generally saved for train wrecks and five-car pileups. They knew something disastrous was only seconds away from happening, and they hadn’t been able to look away.

Heather took a few clunky steps backward, blinking with disbelief. How stupid could she possibly have been? It wasn’t like her to get carried away. It wasn’t like her to even
be
in Vegas, much less betting thousands of dollars. What was the
matter
with her?

She glanced at Tony. His slack jaw had constricted, and he was clutching his beer bottle so tightly she was afraid it was going to shatter. Then he turned around and walked away.

“Tony! Wait!”

She caught up to him, striding along beside him as he headed for the elevator lobby. “I’m sorry. I’m so,
so
sorry. I never should have bet it all. Never.”

“That’s right. You shouldn’t have.”

“I don’t know what got into me.”

“I think gin got into you.”

“I thought I could do it,” she said. “I really thought—”

“Hey, it wasn’t my money to start with. You could do anything with it you wanted to.”

“I
wanted
to win the money for you!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But—”

He stopped short and faced her. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, I’m mad at both of us. I let you do it, so it was just as much my fault as it was yours.”

But she could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t believe that for a moment. He blamed her now, and he would blame her through the rest of eternity. And she had eternity left to feel horrible about it.

“Wait.” She dug through her purse and found the original ten-dollar chip. She held it up, giving him a shaky smile. “We still have this.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. If we did it once, we can do it again. Only this time—”

“Forget it, sweetheart. I’m done.”

And this time, she knew he meant it.

The sick, sinking sensation in Heather’s stomach was more than she could bear. She hated that she’d been the one to steal that smile right off Tony’s face, to dangle his dream in front of him only to yank it away again.

He turned and headed for the elevator lobby, leaving her standing there feeling worse than she ever had in her life. Somewhere in this town tonight, somebody was going home a big winner.