CHAPTER ONE
Autumn
Brightly lit slots surrounded me, and the smell of old cigarette smoke was suffocating at times. The Silver Hotel and Casino was a sophisticated hot spot in Las Vegas, but a casino was a casino. My eyes watered, and I wanted to curl up in my hotel room and catch some Hallmark movies beforeThe Golden Girlscame on.
Being a single lady in my golden years was looking more and more like a reality. I used to reassure myself that I’d have my sisters with me, but two were enjoying wedded bliss and the third was reported with a new beau every six months.
I could always take my boss up on his offer. We’d been out a few times, and he’d given me a sweet kiss. The sex would be perfectly adequate. I could live with adequate. Sex wasn’t the glue of a relationship.
Right?
My coworkers and I were parked at the nickel slots.We all worked at the elementary school and they were friends too, but I usually didn’t hang out with them after work. Yet when my coworkers had asked me if I wanted to go on a trip to Las Vegas, I’d jumped at the chance. It didn’t matter that they joked I was the mom of the group or that I was yawning by nine and that was when they were ready to begin. I needed to get out. Nothing like a weekend with younger women to help me figure out the Mark situation.
Brittany, a kindergarten teacher, leaned toward me. “Autumn, do you think he’s here?”
Awareness tingled over my skin every time thehein question was mentioned.
Brittany was not talking about Mark.
Gideon James. The local boy who’d grown up into a dark-haired god in a suit. He was the CEO of the hotel casino we were staying in. There was absolutely no reason for us to cross paths, but that didn’t stop any of us from peering around corners to catch a glimpse.
After the sale of his family’s land had been announced, Gideon had come to town to face off with my brothers, who were buying it. Now, he was the talk of the town, and the ladies had insisted on making his casino the destination for our trip.
I hadn’t fought them. I was the only one of the group to have glimpsed him in real life. I’d heard how deep his voice was. I’d seen him storm out of my family’s distillery. Looking him up wasn’t necessary. His image was emblazoned in my memory.
“Maybe we’ll see him,” I answered. “If he’s working late. Do CEOs work on the premises? Live here?”
“Could you imagine?” she gushed. “Like one of thoseplaces you see on TV where the elevator opens into the apartment.”
“Isn’t that a penthouse?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I exist on a teacher’s wage. I don’t know a thing about penthouses.”
“We could ask him if we see him.”
She giggled. “I can’t believe you don’t remember him.”
Oh, I remembered him and those wide shoulders. “He’s a little older than Tate, and Tate’s seven years older than me.”
“I do love an older man.” She punched a button on her slot. I’d quit playing several minutes ago when I’d started daydreaming about my hotel room. “Does he really look like his pictures?Gideon James.” She purred his name.
No headshot could do that man justice.
A shiver ran down my spine when I thought of how he’d stalked across the parking lot to his car. His black suit had to have been stitched onto his body, and his dark hair hadn’t dared to move in the wind. And when he’d turned his head? I’d caught a glimpse of stormy eyes.
I hadn’t seen the color from across the distillery. Blue? Green? What was the color for Melt My Underwear?
I, apparently, liked a brooding man.
That brooding man would not like me, a Bailey. He’d argued with my brothers about buying his family’s land, and while my last name was Kerrigan because my sisters and I had been adopted, I was still a Bailey.
“Jackpot!” Kaitlyn, the school’s admin, yelled from the other side of Brittany.
Destiny laughed, the phys ed teacher, leaning in from farther down the row of slots. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
Kaitlyn grinned. “Fifty bucks is fifty bucks. Next round is on me.”
Brittany scooted off the plush stool attached to the slot machine. “Should we go to the club?”
